The results of a new survey by TNS research found that employees use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, cost UK businesses £1.4 billion each year.
They surveyed 1,460 office workers and found that 57% admitted to spending an average of 40 minutes of working time per week on these sites, for personal use. [...]

What big brands do the best job with social media? A new study by analyst Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint ranks the top 100 brands by social media engagement. You can find the report embedded below or on ENGAGEMENTdb, which was presumably created with Wetpaint’s site-creation software.

The study scores [...]

Business Ears show #039 was released last week and features an interview with Rob Brown, author of ‘Public Relations and The Social Web: How to use social media and web 2.0 in communications’.
In the interview, Rob describes what impact the social web is having on business communications, he advises on how to use the key [...]

This video by Gideon Shalwick (Become a Blogger) offers a pretty in-depth look at 7 ways to optimize your YouTube videos.

7 Great Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

Create outstanding content
Optimize your YouTube Channel
Use keywords cleverly and in the right places
Add URL’s in the right places
Link to your videos from where ever you can
Provide [...]

The long-awaited Digital Britain report, which lays out the UK government’s strategy for broadband and digital content was published today.
One of the biggest surprises in the report was the promise to introduce a levy on fixed telephone lines in order to pay for fast broadband rollout to those areas of the country - estimated to [...]

According to this article from the BBC, a TV series based on Twitter is being developed.
The show will use the social networking site as the basis for interactive competitions, involving celebrities and Twitter users.
The unscripted series is currently being developed by two production companies in the US.
“It captures what’s best about Twitter,” Reveille [...]

According to a BBC News article Facebook has revamped it’s site in an effort to take on social media sensation Twitter.
Starting from next week, there will be a new homepage on Facebook that lets users receive continuous updates from their friends instead of every 10 or 15 minutes. Making the application oh so similar [...]

Following on the President Obama theme from my last post - I read with interest this article by Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC News’s technology blog dot.life entitled ‘Inauguration - were you old or new media?’ The article outlines Rory’s attempts to experience the inauguration in as many ways as possible using both new and [...]

So tomorrow all eyes will be on Washington D.C. and the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of The United States of America.

Since that epic day in early November 2008, when the Senator from Illinois won his momentous victory - thanks in no small part to his campaign team’s effective and innovative social [...]

This week heralded the launch of Barack Obama’s new regular video address - he plans to publish weekly on YouTube throughout his Presidency.

The President-Elect used new media tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to devastating effect during his campaign…you can only wonder how he might employ social media to engage with not only US citizens, but also the wider World over the next four [...]