News Byte

Facebook Tweaks News Feed Algorithm to Show More Relevant Ads

Facebook on Friday announced a slight change to its News Feed algorithm that aims to give greater weight to user feedback on undesirable ads. From now on, Facebook will try to show more relevant advertisements to users inside the News Feed, which may mean fewer ads delivered. Facebook’s goal for marketers, the company said, is to deliver the right ads to the people who want to see them the most, even if it means fewer ads delivered overall.

Twitter’s Head of Music Departs for Nielsen VP Gig

The music partnerships lead has left the building.
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News Byte

Social Analytics Startup Awe.sm Targets CMOs With Latest Release

Awe.sm, a startup that aims to help brands determine ROI for their social media marketing efforts, released a simplified dashboard on Tuesday, aimed specifically at CMOs and non-engineering crowds. The tool helps marketers attribute tweets, Facebook posts and other social marketing efforts directly to conversions and purchases, without the need to assign company engineering resources to work with Awe.sm’s API.

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Illusions of Expertise: Why Marketers Should Start Listening to Data

Armed with mountains of data, most experts put in charge of predicting outcomes still can’t come up with accurate answers.

Here Come the Tweets: Gnip Offers Access to Full Twitter Archive (For a Price)

Studying the science of Twitter data just got a whole lot more interesting.

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Online Video Turns Up Heat

Though television may be losing viewers to online video, it has been holding on to advertisers. But with online-video outlets this week making their most organized push yet for ad dollars, that may be starting to change.

News Byte

Facebook Buddies Up to Marketers at New York Event

Want to know more about Facebook’s ad plans in advance of its IPO? You may get a bit of insight at the end of the month. The social network is planning a half-day program geared toward marketers, which it will host at New York’s Museum of Natural History. Facebook says COO Sheryl Sandberg will kick off the program, which will include “inspirational breakout sessions” and a chat with an unnamed “esteemed guest.”

Analyze This: You Wrote How Many Emails This Year?

Forget analyzing your Facebook status updates and Foursquare check-ins. The really interesting data lies in your email exchanges from the past year.

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Pulling Out Weeds Online

Seeking to milk the huge growth in online advertising, a rush of technology firms have emerged in recent years pitching an array of techniques for buying, targeting and measuring digital ads. But the raft of newcomers has created a complex landscape that has left marketers confused.

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The M-Commerce Tipping Point Is Now

With the age of the PC declared officially over–smartphones outsold PCs for the first time in 4Q 2010–American retailers are all asking the same question: When will the m-commerce tipping point arrive? The answer is, it’s happening now.

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