Predicting World Events With Social Media

Last century, people would say, "It's the power of the press," with press being newspapers. From Watergate to Love Canal, the newspaper reporter would track the story down or provide a safe haven for a whistle blower.

In the recent uprising in Eqypt and other Middle East countries, it was the power of social media that played a key role in letting others in Eqypt and the world know what was happening. The Eqypt page on Facebook was a place many people visited. With one window open to a translating program, we followed the progress of the revolution. If we looked, would we have predicted the uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen and Libya? Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee think so.

MediaPost Publications U.S. Intel Chiefs Used Social Media to Track Middle East Revolts 02/18/2011

Social media's utility as a monitoring and surveillance tool was confirmed this week -- with some acrimony -- during hearings held by the Senate Intelligence Committee to address perceived shortcomings in U.S. intelligence gathering in the Middle East. Led by Chairwoman Diane Feinstein, committee members specifically grilled national intelligence director James Clapper and CIA director Leon Panetta (among others) about their use of social media for monitoring the situation in Egypt and elsewhere.

Clapper and Panetta defended their inactions by citing the volume of the social media accounts, which currently includes 600 million Facebook accounts, 190 million Twitter accounts, and many thousands of hours of video on YouTube.

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Maybe the government needs to hire some social media marketers to show them how to use social media effectively. Better still, hire some interns to tracks trends on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Give some poor college graduates employment so they can pay off their financial aid loans.

All kidding aside, I think NSA knows what to do, they just did not do it. Over two years ago, the NSA successfully monitored all the private communications of Americans abroad, including humanitarian workers and U.S. service-members. The NSA even intentionally directed its surveillance powers at well-established humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross. For more information, read this post from October, 2008 on Endangered Spaces blog.

Tags: social media, world events, cia, nsa, facebook, twitter, youtube, power of the press, power of social media

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Tips and Tactics of Paid Search Webinar

Free Search Marketing Now Webinar
Beat the Rising Cost of Paid Search: Tips and Tactics
Thursday, February 17
1 PM EST

Speakers: David Szetela, Clix Marketing and Rob Cooley, OptiMine

Explore the recent upward trends in the cost of PPC advertising. Discover solutions to make PPC campaigns more efficient.

PPC expert David Szetela will cover what to look for in your PPC campaign to improve profitability, and what steps to take as a result. Following David’s presentation we’ll hear from Rob Cooley of Optimine, who will share his company’s experience with improving results in paid search campaigns.

Free, but register now at Search Marketing Now.

Tags: search marketing now, webinar, paid search, clix marketing, optimine

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ClickBooth : The Next Generation of PPC Advertising

This post brought to you by ClickBooth. All opinions are 100% mine.

Are you a blogger or website owner who wishes to make money with your content? Have you tried PPC (pay per click) advertising? Perhaps you are an advertiser or marketer who wants to makes sales without spending a fortune per lead or sale?  ClickBooth is one of the major networks out there that provides additional service to publishers  and advertisers.  This level of service is going to raise the bar for other networks, Google AdWords, Meet Your Competition: Clickbooth

ClickBooth is riding the leading wave of technological innovation, with built in future scalability, up time guaranteed by Internet connectivity via eight tier-1 Internet providers, clustered systems that provide mega-computing power and engineers that are available 24/7. Clickbooth network partners have access to high bandwidth network servers currently serving billions of impressions daily.

Both advertisers and publishers may choose from a CPA or a CPC model. CPA stands for Cost Per Action. CPA occurs when a certain action, such as joining a mailing list, taking a survey or downloading a ringtone happens on a site as a direct result of advertising, CPC stands for Cost Per Click. The publisher is paid for each valid click from their site to the advertiser's website.  There are benefits and drawbacks to each method.

Advertisers

Cost Per Action

If an advertiser opts for CPA, they have access to a bevy of email and online publishers and the number one ranked affiliate network. Their advertising is handled by an  industry leader's compliance and brand control team, so they only pay per sale or pay per lead.

Cost Per Click

Advertisers choosing CPC will reach a new market with lower click costs. Their campaign will be designed by experts to return maximum clicks. The ad will have access to billions of impressions, targeted by keyword, category or state/city. Also available are Phototext ads, an image displayed with a headline of text and a description.

Publishers

Cost Per Action

Publishers who choose CPA will find exclusive direct offers, high payouts, 24/7 support from affiliate leaders and affiliate tools.

Cost Per Click

Publishers going with the CPC model will simply add code to their website or blog. They may want to try Phototext ads, a higher converting ad, where an image is displayed with a headline of text and a description. Publishers are  guaranteed that 100 percent of their ad inventory will be used. Post exclusives offers from Clickbooth and watch the  Clickbooth CPC sharply increase.

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