A presentation to our staff about the top digital news from the last 30 days delivered in 30 minutes or less.

1. November 2013

2. A quick glimpse of cool digital campaigns, news
and announcements that are worth knowing.
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Pay attention. This is going to go by quickly.
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3. Online Payments: Bitcoins
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It does not physically exist. Each bitcoin is just a string of numbers.
Instead of a bank, a decentralized network of computers ensures the
authenticity of bitcoin and issues new ones by doing complex
calculations.
This allows bitcoin to be traded peer to peer, bypassing credit card
companies and payment processors.
It’s digital cash, offering the same relative anonymity and freedom as a
paper sack of bills.
You can’t use bitcoin for much today besides gambling in online
casinos and reserving seats on Virgin Galactic spaceflights, and a vast
majority of it is held by speculators.
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4. Online Payments: Bitcoins
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5. Online Payments: Bitcoins
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6. Facebook: No More Thumbs
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All of the Like buttons you see around the web will soon be refreshed
with a bolder, bluer design six months in the making that, somewhat
shockingly, trades the iconic thumbs up for the Facebook logo.
These buttons are viewed over 22 billion times daily across millions of
websites.
The team tried grey buttons, black buttons, and blue buttons. Blue was
an overall favorite, and in Facebook’s testing, they found that the color
actually drove more people to click Like and Share (proving again the
power of color for a brand's design).
The way the Facebook logo appears on the blue button is nearly
identical to the way it appears on the top of Facebook’s page, bringing
a level of brand consistency to the social network that’s been lacking
across its digital tendrils.
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7. Facebook: No More Thumbs
Old
New
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8. Facebook: Algorithm Changes
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Facebook wants to make its mobile News Feed surface better, smarter
content.
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With an updated algorithm that it says will be rolling out soon, the
mobile News Feed will begin to do a better job of surfacing "highquality" articles that readers are likely to click on.
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At the same time, Facebook is also hoping to demote "meme photos"
and ostensibly other over-shared links that aren't as informative.
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While the changes should make for a pleasant improvement to
readers, it'll also be important as Facebook continues to battle Twitter
to become those readers' go-to source for finding news.
@stoneward

9. SnapChat Rejects Facebook
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SnapChat turned down an all cash offer of $3 billion from Facebook.
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Snapchat specializes in ephemeral mobile messages, including text or
photographs, that disappear after a few seconds. The service has not
generated any revenue, but is especially popular among teenagers and
young adults, who use the app to send messages to friends.
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Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, will not
consider an acquisition or an investment at least until early next year.
Spiegel is hoping Snapchat’s numbers – of users and messages – will
grow enough by then to justify an even larger valuation.
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10. SnapChat Rejects Facebook
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Facebook is interested in Snapchat because more of its users are
tapping the service via smartphones. Facebook has rapidly increased
the share of its revenue coming from mobile advertising, but said last
month that fewer young teens were using the service on a daily basis.
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Snapchat now shares 400 million snaps each day, which surpasses the
photo-sharing activity on both Instagram and Facebook.
@stoneward

11. LinkedIn Working To Up Its Profile
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L’Oreal and Conan O’Brien each had LinkedIn campaigns during
November.
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As a platform, LinkedIn has become increasingly visual by introducing
opportunities to embed videos, presentations, or create a portfolio on
your user profile. Scroll through your homepage feed and you’ll see
that most status updates also now allow a thumbnail image as part of a
link or article to be shared. For companies with a presence on
LinkedIn, it makes sense to embrace the colorful visuals that autopopulate, plus share inspirational images and videos.
@stoneward

12. LinkedIn & L’Oreal
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In celebration of reaching 300,000 followers on LinkedIn, L’Oréal is
activating its community with a new, “Are You IN?” campaign.
With the goal of positioning L’Oréal as a top place to work, the
company has created visual way for its community to share an “IN
word and “IN moment” that best describes themselves and share it
across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The ten best IN moments will also be shared on the L’Oréal company
page at the end of the campaign.
The campaign lives on a dedicated microsite, where users are asked to
synch their LinkedIn profile to participate. Twelve pre-populated IN
word examples are listed, from “inspiring,” to “international,” and the
more bold, “intense.”
Once an IN word is selected, the user is prompted to share why. From
there, a visual is pre-populated with the user’s LinkedIn profile photo
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and reason why with the option to share.

13. LinkedIn & L’Oreal
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14. LinkedIn & L’Oreal
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15. LinkedIn & L’Oreal
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16. LinkedIn & Conan O’Brien
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In September, the comedian realized that one only puzzle piece missing
from his social media empire was the networking platform LinkedIn.
He set about rectifying that issue by creating a troll-tastic profile —
complete with job descriptions as a "lighting designer" at Applebees
and listing "Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting
Role" under his honors and awards.
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He now has over 100,000 followers and is listed as a LinkedIn Top
Influencer.
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17. LinkedIn & Conan O’Brien

18. LinkedIn & Conan O’Brien

19. Dodge + Ron = Success
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Since the ads first began playing, Durango sales have increased by 59%,
and web traffic has jumped 80%.
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Dodge has made 70 ads featuring the heavily mustached local-news
anchor.
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The ad campaign coincides with the release of Anchorman 2: The
Legend Continues, which will hit theaters on Dec. 20.
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20. Dodge + Ron = Success

21. Questions?
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22. Thank you.
presented by: Emily Reeves, Director of Digital Innovation & Insight Planning at Stone Ward
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@stoneward