The online project Cowbird is a place where storytellers can keep audio-visual diaries, write stories and collaborate with others in documenting “sagas” taking place in the world, like the Occupy movement. Artist and programmer Jonathan Harris’s labor of love, Cowbird aims to grow as a community and focus on long-lasting and personal storytelling.

via Community of Storytellers Build Online Library of Human Experience.

Facebook’s changes to privacy settings have resulted in a 93 percent drop in the number of status updates shared publicly — in the English language, that is.

The social network announced its move of the privacy settings to inline locations on August 23, but these changes took a while for people to get their heads around. Some of the controls didn’t show up for all users until the second week of September, which is represented in the chart by the green bar, the rate of status update sharing immediately declined as Facebook addicts opted-in to the update.

The major changes announced during the week of the F8 conference September 22 (represented the dashed red line) halted the slide, and sharing briefly increased. But changes gradually rolled out over the span of a month, and the continued slide in volume indicates that users confronted with the new options tended to adopt more stringent privacy settings.

via Public Status Updates Plunged 93% Since Facebook Moved Privacy Controls Inline.

Social media ambassador campaigns can fit a wide range of industries and products. They succeed by targeting popular bloggers and “super users” of networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. This type of partnership can be a successful strategy for all parties.

via How to Launch a Social Ambassador Campaign.

Now, we don’t like to be negative, but social media inevitably lends itself to some epic fails. Whether it’s insensitive tweets or indecent pictures, people too often post without thinking. That’s the nature of today’s social network-obsessed world.

via Top 15 Most Shocking Social Media Disasters of 2011.

For even those who understand the importance of rich content, though, it can be costly to get a content strategy up and running.

Michael Durwin, director of user experience at Boston Technologies, has nailed down a simple step-by-step process for creating buzzworthy content on a shoestring budget.

via 7 Easy Steps for Creating Buzzworthy Content.

Worldwide social media revenue is on track to reach $10.3 billion in 2011, a 41.4 percent increase from 2010 revenue of $7.3 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide social media revenue is forecast for consistent growth with 2012 revenue totaling $14.9 billion, and the market is projected to reach $29.1 billion in 2015.

Advertising revenue is, and will remain, the largest contributor to overall social media revenue. Social media advertising revenue is forecast to total $5.5 billion in 2011, and grow to $8.2 billion in 2012. Advertising revenue includes display advertising and digital video commercials on any device including PCs, mobile and media tablets.

“Marketers will begin to transition from ‘onetime placement and click of ads’ toward ‘ongoing engagement’ with the Internet user and will therefore allocate a higher percentage of their advertising budget to social networking sites,” said Neha Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner. “This is mainly because social networking sites, with the help of social analytics firms, are able to unlock the interconnected data structures of users — mapping lists of friends, their comments and messages, photos and all their social connections, contact information and associated media.”

via Gartner Says Worldwide Social Media Revenue Is on Pace to Total $10.3 Billion in 2011 and Grow to $14.9 Billion in 2012.

In a new article from eMarketer and Lab42, information was released around brands and Promoted Tweets. Surprisingly, 89.4% of users polled stated that they follow a brand’s Twitter account. Most users (30.6%) follow 1-5 accounts and 8.2% follow over 50 accounts:

Additional information from the report showed promising results about Twitter’s Promoted Tweets product. Overall user sentiment towards Promoted Tweets is very positive. Only 10.9% of users thought that Promoted Tweets were annoying, while the other 89.1% liked ( or were indifferent to) Promoted Tweets. More users, 14% of respondents, actually retweeted a Promoted Tweet.

via Nearly 90% Of Twitter Users Follow Brands & Just 10.9% Of Users Find Promoted Tweets To Be Annoying.

Addicted to Angry Birds? Here’s Help [INFOGRAPHIC].

Why oh why the success of Angry Birds ? Some insights about gamification …