So here you are, espousing your thoughts and a few work tips on Twitter when suddenly you receive an unexpected email. Your mother is now following you. Your mother is now reading your notes. Worse yet? She’s providing her advice. On your lunch diet.

As technologies continue to make it easier to connect with friends and family online, families are turning more and more often to the distribution communication platform that Twitter and Facebook Status Updates provide. Combining Twitter with other social applications (like Facebook) serves to strengthen and magnify the communication capabilities of families on the Internet to an even greater degree.

So why connect with your family on social network platforms?. What is driving this increasing trend?

Sharing family successes has long been a part of Twitter – tweeting while at a son’s baseball game or a daughter’s dance recital has provided Twitter users a way to share their family pride with family members and strangers alike. New Twitter tools, like whrrl, enable instant photo sharing. Instead of providing a link to a photo or an album, you can provide the entire multimedia experience in a much easier fashion. This only serves to enhance the wildly popular link-sharing capabilities of Twitter.

Even the military recognizes the power of the online family and now provides significant support for families on Twitter in the form of educational feeds (usually issued by a government group), support groups for overseas personnel and injured veterans, general family support, and just about anything one can think of. In short, individuals and groups are taking the lead on organizing Twitter. In the absence of tools provided by Twitter, families are using Facebook and other social media networks to more easily integrate Twitter updates into their families.

Perhaps the most common and familiar use of Twitter and the family involves the unfortunate aspects of tragedies and disasters. Disasters can take a number of forms ranging from earthquakes and wildfires to highway accidents and home fires. It is fairly clear, just by looking at the news, that Twitter is a now a major factor in keeping families in the loop as to the current state of a given disaster. Whether a family needs general news on a situation or specific feedback from a family member in jeopardy, Twitter maintains the variety of communication channels (Web, IM, SMS, etc.) necessary to significantly increase the chances of messages getting out in a timely manner.

Personal tragedies also continue to shape the evolution of the Twitter communication medium. Most of us seen some sort of cry for help from a family member, a friend, or “friend of a friend” . We have seen this in email, blogs, whole Web sites, and now Twitter. One of the best uses of Twitter we have seen is a hospital using Twitter to inform families on the status and results of an operation.

When communicating with family on Twitter (and other public-facing social sites), privacy concerns should be a strong consideration when discussing personal family issues . Families have a tendency to talk casually with each other online, which too can have negative results such as Criminals have begun to monitor sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to determine when families are on vacation, which is an ideal time to commit robbery. The usual warnings to putting private and family-related information on the Web apply. Just as you wouldn’t put flyers outside your home when you go on vacation, think twice about posting your vacation plans, until after you get home.

The growth in family uses of social media will only continue to grow as more and more tools for information sharing develop. But as this trend continues to soar, so do the dangers. By being careful with what you share online (no personal or financial information, no specific travel dates, no home address), you should be able to enjoy sharing your news online safely.

Flattened by last night's info-overload.

The ubiquity of pink cows: How Facebook and iPhone are changing the way we play.

Just as the Internet has transformed how we watch movies, read books, and listen to music, social media, led by Facebook and iPhone, are changing the way we play games. How has the gaming industry responded to our new recreational habits? To answer this question, SMC-LA invited Girl Gamer co-founder Mike Prasad to chair “Games go social” a panel discussion exploring the impact of social media on the development and marketing of PC and console games.

Some background about the gaming industry

• Market size: estimated between $46 and $65 billion in 2010.
• Demographics are changing, led by strong growth in casual gaming.
• Online and mobile sectors are developing and shaping business strategy.
• Distribution channels are moving away from brick-and-mortar operations to digital downloads.
• 50% of game players are on Facebook.

Building community: Facebook & traditional computer games

Prasad opened the discussion by asking how console and computer game developers are using social media to build and strengthen communities. Aaron Kaufman, community manager for Command and Conquer, said he uses Facebook to connect with loyal, if not hard-core, gamers.

“Message boards are scary,” he said, “and do not represent the actual user population.” In two months, Kaufman created a 20,000-person fan base on Facebook, and is now able to connect with more gamers, more reliably.

Quin Banks said that Tarver Games is using Facebook to help gamers of “Ghost Attack” play with friends and to prolong the experience. Since this game is intended as a television pilot, it also creates excitement and connection to characters.

What makes a game social?

The stereotypical social game is free, small, and everlasting, but, according to all the panelists, bragging rights are also strong motivators. (Think about how proud someone is to inform you that they have 12 pink cows while you are still trying to figure out how to play Farmville.)

Giving users the opportunity to create and share content, a key part of World of Warcraft’s success, also builds community. In addition, Josh Hartwell, CEO of GoSub60 Games, suggested allowing users to customize a game’s presentation thereby creating a personal experience. Again, this provides opportunities to showoff that can increase motivation to play and share.

Games go mainstream

When iPhone made Facebook mobile, games became portable. It set the stage for Farmville and other casual games (like solitaire and word games) to infiltrate the general public. These games replace crossword puzzle books and mad-libs.

“They are filler,” Banks added. “We play them on our phones while waiting in line at the grocery store. The games are secondary.”

Strategy

Hartwell echoed Banks’ statement when he said that gaming is a service. As a service, a game developer must think about the ongoing, long-term dialogue with a growing, and diverse, set of players. Strategically, the gamer and the developer are partners and that relationship needs to be nurtured.

Social media makes building this relationship easier, but requires forethought. Your users are your revenue base, and making money is necessary. Revenue models need to fair, non-exploitive, and successful. When Prasad asked if anyone was doing it right, the panel had a hard time citing any good examples.

Everyone is still climbing that learning curve.

The challenge for gaming companies in the age of social media: Make long-term commitments with gamers by sustaining (developing) interactive and collaborative communities that generate revenue.

* According to Business Week, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted $46.5 billion in 2006 and Reportlinker estimated 8.9% growth annually, totaling $76 billion in 2013.

As a ramp-up for the next week’s SMC-LA meeting on social media and gaming, here are a few recent blog posts on the topic to get attendees ‘in the mood’ for the panel discussion.

The Social Media-Gaming Connection by Mark Walsh

What are the hottest business trends in social media? Gaming and virtual payments are among the fastest-growing segments, according to social media experts gathered at the Advertising 2.0 conference.

Games and Social Media by Dave Taylor

One thing is for sure, it’s clear that both next-gen console developers know that games developers want to add integration between their games and social networks. Microsoft can pretend that it wanted to add the Facebook and Twitter features for users, but it’s developers that have forced them to open up to these services.

Twitter, Facebook added to xBox 360 Dashboard

Could be that TV trays will be coming back in style because you’ll be able to use social media and play games right from your couch. It seems as if everyone is trying to jump aboard the social networking train. Although it is very hip, it could potentially cause an outbreak of couch potatoes like the world has never seen before.

Top Ten Massive Multiplayer Games On Facebook

So why are they called “Massive Multiplayer Online” Games, or MMOs for short? Because the popularity of social media gaming has gone through roof and the numbers of players now engaged have skyrocketed into the millions. While many MMOs can be played on stand-alone systems like Play Station, Nintendo and Xboxgam players, the latest trend is registering for the online versions of these games on the world’s largest social network…Facebook!

Super Bowl XLIII is in the Books
The Cardinals and their loyal fans have licked their wounds and returned home with dignity, and The Steeler Nation prepares to celebrate their sixth Super Bowl championship in franchise history (a “six pack” a true football fan can appreciate), we can all head out to Denny’s eat a free Grand Slam and ponder the involvement of Social Media in and around this massive event.  The game came down to a fourth quarter rally involving a safety and a last minute drive.  Add to that the longest play in Super Bowl history: a 100 yard pick six with :00 left in the half, and you’ve got yourself a sporting gem worthy of the ages.  By contrast, aside from offering up the most expensive ad slots in the history of the game at $3 million per :30 second slot, the advertisements and the public reaction to those advertisements seemed to fall a bit flat. In fact, from a social media perspective, we saw very little “official” brand or broadcast incorporation of all of the tools we have come to embrace as social media fans and enthusiasts.

Brands Don’t Get Social Media…Yet
Calling out the use of Social Media references by major brands is a stretch…since there really weren’t any of any significance doing anything terribly engaging. It was fun watching @superbowl offer up a few tweets throughout the event “via web” and then “via twitterberry” (assuming they headed down to the field), and even more amusing to see the account of @nfl (completely blank), but nothing really materialized into a true 2-way conversation between @superbowl and anyone else. It was even more amusing to see @MCHammer‘s account activity during the game and around the time of his Cash4Gold ad spot. People seemed to really reach out to him specifically because he is so engaging via Social Media. If only a brand could capture that magic… One brand did get a LOT of mileage out of their campaign: Denny’s. It’s two days later and as of the time of this posting, people are still posting about the free Grand Slam breakfast!

Social Media Adds a Layer to the Event
Some took matters into their own hands, providing a fascinating social outlet for reactions. Just let yourself be dazzled by this amusing graphical depiction (New York Times) of some Super Bowl related keywords on Twitter during the game to see what people thought about the game.  In addition to the organic chatter on Twitter (ex: #SuperBowl, #Steelers, #Cardinals), Facebook status updates and MySpace postings, there were multiple view & vote options to share feedback and thoughts about the advertisements. The most visible seemed to be YouTube, Hulu.   Even PR 2.0 maestro Brian Solis (@briansolis) and friends (Jeremiah Owyang – @jowyang, Chris Heuer – @chrisheuer, Louis Gray – @louisgray, Jesse Stay – @jesse, and Guy Kawasaki – @guykawasaki) offered up a “Twitter Bowl” option incorporating hashtag #SuperBowlAds complete with a SocialToo poll. The big takeaway here is that there were plenty of people engaged with the event who were aching to contribute to the experience with their thoughts and ideas. These people are using Social Media to great effect to collectively share a worldwide experience with one another and to add a new and engaging layer to the broadcast experience. Think of it as “viewing in 3-D”, but without the red and blue glasses.

Room for Improvement Across the Board
We understand that not everyone will be as compelled to fire up a laptop or a mobile device in the middle of a crowded Super Bowl party, but it seems clear that there is much more that can and should be done to incorporate Social Media into Nationally broadcast events with extremely high ratings. There was not one @ reference as far as we could see throughout the pregame, in-game, or even post-game official broadcast. Most web URLs flashed by so quickly at the end of an ad, that they were easily missed and didn’t really encourage user participation. Here are just a few ideas for how the broadcasters, the brands, and even the viewing audience can improve upon this year’s toe-dip into the Social Media broadcast experience:

• Use the 30-second spots to draw users into web sites/wap sites where they spend more than :30 seconds interacting with the brand. For example, Anheuser-Busch’s newly launched http://ab-extras.com could have been mentioned, but wasn’t.

• Encourage user participation.  Some of the biggest laughs were had by those reading the constant stream of tweets from those watching the game. Incorporating this level of user-generated content (via filters…for family friendly outcomes: see NYT link for example) and feedback can absolutely enhance the broadcast. Think MTV’s TRL, then go a few steps further.

• What would Obama Do? Borrow a page from the most successful social media engagement of recent note: Obama’s campaign.  Collect people who are interested into email databases, phone databases for opted-in sms updates, deploy a FREE Super Bowl mobile app for extended commerical footage, enhanced statistics, player bios and historical information. The peak of interest in the game seemed to be during the two weeks prior to kickoff when people anticipated the game. This is the key window of opportunity to convert anticipation into participation.

• It’s been done before, but technology enables us to go further now with the cliffhanger ads that require user participation to achieve resolution. Now that mobile devices can handle video clips, brands should take advantage of new companies like Mogreet who offer the ability to deliver up to :15 second clips to opted-in users who want to further their participation in the advertisement.

We look forward to your feedback and views on the Super Bowl as it relates to Social Media. Please feel free to link to this article, borrow ideas, and share back. We’re all in this together! Perhaps next year, we’ll even experience the Super Bowl that much more collectively!

Written by: @geoffabrown

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