As the dust settles over the debate about whether social media is indeed worth all the hype, the medical fraternity has been slowly pointing the needle (pun intended) towards a yes.
The lure of social media notwithstanding, the medical community has been apprehensive about using it. Lack of clear knowledge of usage and value, skeptical response and industry regulations have combined to turn social media into a Pandora’s Box in the minds of many who have taken the Hippocratic Oath.
Times have [...]

Walking into the Time Warner Center for Adweek’s Social Media Strategies Conference recently (the conference was held Oct. 13-14) was a lot like entering a professional sporting event. I put my bag through a metal detector, got my ticket and then entered a room with several large projection screens—though instead of jumbotrons displaying fans in the stadium, we were seeing live streams of tweets.
And, really, it was fitting, considering that this was the Olympics of social media, with key [...]

There always used to be a difference between the way us “Brits” travel and communicate. In many cases as we travelled the world, it wouldn’t have been unsurprising to hear us being described as reserved and somewhat closed in our approach to new people and cultures.
In fact, I can remember one such event in recent times, when I went on a training course in California and was asked to sit in a circle with a group of people I’d known [...]

Time for more social media and Internet news! This time, we’ve got a mixture of links from Baptiste Limb and me.

Privacy setting, regulations, do’s and don’ts—they’re all things you normally don’t like to think about when talking about social media, because social media needs to be quick and efficient. But these topics are becoming more and more important to Internet [...]

You Make It, They Buy It
More companies are encouraging consumers to actively engage with brands by letting them help create products

The rise of social media has put a little zip in our virtual step—and clever companies are making good use of consumers’ more proactive stance. Take Threadless, which asks users to submit T-shirt designs, then lets its community vote; favorite designs get produced. It knows users will be more engaged with the brand if they are allowed to directly [...]

“Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.” – Denis Diderot (French philosopher, 1713-1784)
Among all social media platforms, Facebook is clearly the one that currently leads the game. Despite privacy concerns, the popularity of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation is constantly growing, with a movie about him and the beginnings of Facebook coming up next October. Let’s first take [...]

Social media isn’t just a way for friends to stay in touch—smart PR professionals and marketers know that SoMe can be the answer to their prayers. Though beauty is the rare—and lucky—industry that may have bucked the trend of dwindling budgets (because women want to look good no matter how much the economy is suffering!), it still benefits resourceful pros to understand how employing social media in their strategies can have a great impact with a small budget.
We at Euro [...]

“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man … His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” – Niccolo Machiavelli (Italian philosopher and writer, 1469-1527)
No matter times or places, “influence” has always been the Holy Grail. The social media revolution raised this notion to a new level: Almost everything [...]

Getting “iced”…It sounds illicit, slightly illegal and definitely uncomfortable. Actually, it is the most recent viral interactive phenomenon sweeping the nation’s post-grads.
Icing is the alcoholic equivalent to putting a whoopee cushion on somebody’s chair. I have heard tales of both friends and strangers getting iced. It runs so rampant among my circle that I can expect at least one person to get iced per gathering. The inspiration for this blog post came as I [...]

“The path of social advancement is, and must be, strewn with broken friendships.” —H.G. Wells
Lots of people have serious concerns about their privacy on the Internet in light of Facebook’s new policy. I think it’s important to review the points of view of both the protesters and the defenders to have a good understanding of the situation: 

“Is There Life After Facebook?” on the New York Times’ Bits blog
 
“In Defense of Facebook” on Mashable

At least for now, I believe the protesters [...]