New Twitter pages for events

Twitter launched its first TV commercial about a new hashtag-related page. Here it is.

In Mashable’s words: “Twitter explained in an email that the hashtag event page, launched for Sunday’s 2012 Pocono 400 NASCAR race, was aimed at detailing the race experience and not the NASCAR brand“.

By the way, Nascar had no editorial control over what was displayed on the #NASCAR hashtag page. This may confirm that these pages are not for brands.

The hashtag page collected content from fans, but also drivers, their families, commentators, pit crews, celebs and media. Twitter said they plan to continue using the page for future races. I guess more examples of these pages will show up as long as this first experiment proved to be successful.

Facebook Apps that read your data

When you share information with your friends on Facebook, every app that your friends use can access and use that information. Read this post for further information.

Of course it’s better to think of all your data on Facebook as public, but still it’s hard to accept to share data with apps you can’t control.

There’s a way to stop this flow, though. Go to your Privacy Settings and follow this path:

Privacy settings
Apps and websites : Edit settings
How people bring your info to apps they use : Edit settings

Here you can customize the information you share with other people’s apps. Other than that, you can just turn off all the apps:

If you don’t want apps and websites to access other categories of information (like your friend list, gender or info you’ve made public), you can turn off all Platform apps. But remember, you will not be able to use any games or apps yourself.

Scavenger hunt on Social Media by Red Bull

The Red Bull Timeline Timewarp is a tricky scavenger hunt game on Facebook. It started with the Facebook Timeline switch on March 2012.

Red Bull asked its fans to join the contest through their Timeline. There’s also an app for Terms & Conditions.

How did it work? Users were supposed to go through these tasks:

• Find dates on pictures
• Search the Timeline
• Find a date on a Spotify playlist
• Find a date in a barcode image
• Find the timecodes of given pics in a video
• Rearrange the letters in a sentence to find a date
• Pick some letters from a sentence to create a URL

Many started, just a few made it to the end. Great job though! Further analysis here and here.

Svpply: good marketing opportunity?

Svpply is a retail bookmarking and recommendation service.

“Svpply helps you find the products you love, from the people and stores you find interesting.”

It looks a little like a marketing-oriented Pinterest. Somebody already made investments in it. Let’s see whether brands will notice the opportunity.

Facebook ADs are getting expensive

Facebook is making significantly more money per ad now, charging 23% more per 1000 impressions than at the start of 2011.

Still, ads pointing inside Facebook cost 29% less, and ads that specifically ask users to become a fan of a Page cost 45% less than those linking anywhere else. Why is Facebook offering this incentive? Because internally pointed ads keep users on the site where they can continue to be exposed to ads.

Moreover, Sponsored stories are getting a 46% higher CTR, which is a win-win situation both for investors and Facebook itself.

Where is all this going? If prices keep rising, we’ll see which new advertising markets investors will invade. Twitter, for instance.