Once Yahoo was the hottest property online... All that is gone.

Another Taiwanese-style video production.
 

More than 90% of recruiters and hiring managers use social networks to screen candidates, according to a study from social media monitoring service Reppler. 

And know what? A whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles — and almost equal proportion of recruiters have hired a candidate based on his or her presence on those networks. 


 

The Steve Jobs' biography is getting animated... in a peculiar way. 

The Taiwanese animation studio NMA.TV has featured some of the most talked-about anecdotes of Steve Job's life. 

Google+ will have soon brand pages.

Meanwhile, a handful of brands, like Ford, have test accounts.

Also some agencies like Skinny and Fantasy Interactive are creating fictional brand pages for Mini, the auto brand, Coca-Cola and Starbucks. 

Because of the search benefits and other reasons, some strategists believe that Google+ brand pages will be better than Facebook's.
 

YouTube, with 800 million unique viewers worldwide a month, is making the case to brands that online video is the best way to reach customers and brand building.

It is hoping to be a destination for professionally produced videos and the advertisers they want to appear near them, beyond the music, entertainment and technology companies that have already flocked to the site. Unlike television, YouTube incorporates social elements and the geo location ability.

Right now companies only spend just 1 percent of their advertising budgets on online video ($2.2 billion), while the television ads attract 38 percent ($60.5 billion).

Sparking a grassroots movement online requires some social media expertise.

However, there some easy tips to take an idea and ignite a movement (disclose: I'm working on the creation a high-scale worldwide movement). 

• Tell a story (or many), in order to build an emotional connection with your audience. Combine facts and emotions into powerful narrative stories.
   
• Reward your biggest supporters to increase their participation, create momentum and spread your message.
   
• Create a kind of a "virtual campaign office" where you can communicate to all your volunteers at once. From this campaign hub you will broadcast online actions that your supporters will share on their social networks.
   
• Allow all kind of commitments, from low-commitment activities such as "liking", "+1ing" or sharing to establishing fundraising goals.
   

Yahoo's future is in doubt, but still is a media colossus.

Its portfolio of media sites is the company's jewel and potentially its savior, despite not being a top news brand and having "a voice".
 

• It has more visitors to its news site than CNN, more sports than ESPN and more in finance than Dow Jones.
  
  In August, Yahoo led the general news category with 81.2 million unique visitors in the U.S.; CNN, the second place site, had 75.3 million visitors; The Huffington Post Media Group, 56.8 million.
   
• It has partnered with ABC to showcase articles and videos from ABC News, and to create a co-branded Web site for "Good Morning America".
   
• It has built its huge audience largely by aggregating news from other sources: AP, US Weekly, Poltico, The New York Times are among other partners.
   
• Yahoo Sports' bet on original coverage and online video shows by hiring reporters and writing original articles has resulted on several prominent scoops.
   
• Yahoo now films around 26 shows a month. Around 26 million people watched its original reporting in August, more than watched Hulu.
   
• Yahoo is aiming for original reporting, creating online video programs and covering special events like the Emmys, charity concert that includes performances by Lady Gaga, Usher and Bono.
   
• Two weeks ago, seven new series had their premieres in just one week: one about relationship, two cooking programs, men getting advice about making memorable wedding proposals...
   

However, Yahoo still does not know whether it should be a media or a technology company. The NYT dedicates Yahoo a long article about its indecision.
 

    
I'm not the only one who thinks that Facebook is getting too complicated. 

Facebook engineers have added more and more functions but they forgot to make them simple.

They should adhere to the KISS principle of design (Keep It Simple, Stupid). And here Apple is the best example.
 

YouTube is a great social media vehicle for brands and a powerful direct marketing tool.

Also it represents a great opportunity for marketers to reach consumers who are searching for information about a brand or related products and services.

However, it is naive to start a Sponsored Channel with the expectation that millions of viewers will tune in right away.

Truth is that commercial success on YouTube has been elusive to most brands.

The brands that achieve long-term success on YouTube are the ones that consistently and frequently publish refreshing content that has intrinsic value for audiences online. Video content is continually refined and evolves to the needs and expectations of audiences.

Here are some of them:

• Quiksilver & Roxy: Webisodes, vlogs by the pros, lifestyle profiles of up and coming musicians, mini-documentaries that give consumers inside access to what goes on behind the scenes on the professional surfing, skating and snowboarding tour circuits, and a potpourri of other content..
  
  Quiksilver post a new video about once a week (almost 200 videos in 2 years), while Roxy posts slightly more frequently. It helps them both maintain a consistently fresh presence.
   
• Ford Models: Vlogs of models traveling to exotic locations, tips from stylists, behind the scenes videos of photo shots and fashion news.
  
  Since 2006, Ford Models has uploaded over 554 videos and created a large archive of searchable conent that continues to accumulate views.
   
• University of Phoenix Online: Webisodes, compelling testimonials, mini-documentaries featuring graduates with inspirational stories about their life experience, online classes via video, reviews.
  
  It is not about collecting views and subscribers; it is about that this University has at least one video to connect with each prospective student that searches for an online school or visits their channel.
  

  Using compelling, emotionally charged conent, University of Phoenix Online has turned their YouTube channel into a virtual recruitment machine to convert prospects into enrolled students.

• The Home Depot: How-to and educational and tutorial videos about home repairs and renovation projects; videos promoting products and tools using "product placement".

• Nikefootball. This channel is targeted to the UK. Of all the sponsors on YouTube, Nike probably maintains the greatest number of channels: Nike, Nikefootball, Nikefutebol, NikeBasketball, NikeSoccer, NikeGridiron, NikePlusTV, LeBron, insidenikerunning, NikeWomen, NikeWomenUK, nikecorre, nikecorresp, etc...
   

In the e-book business, with the proliferation of e-readers, traditional publishing houses now face another competitor: news outlets, who are either starting to use brand-new content or repurpose material that they have given away free in the past.

That is in addition to Amazon, authors who publish their own e-books and online start-ups. Tough world for traditional publishers.

The New York Times, The New Yorker, ABC News, The Boston Globe, Politico, Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post are among the most active organizations. 

Some samples:

• The Huff Post last month released its second e-book, "How We Won", a journalistic book about the military's Don't ask, don't tell policy.
   
• The New York Times' "Open Secrets" was one of the e-book non fiction best-seller list in February.
   
• Random House is partnering with Politico to produce on a faster schedule a series of four e-books about the 2012 presidential race. Each book will be in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 words. 
   
• Vanity Fair collected 20 articles on Mr. Murdoch, his family and their businesses and put them in a $3.99 e-book. 
   
• The New Yorker created an e-book about Sept. 11 that sells fro $7.99

Usually, these e-books are shorter, cheaper to buy and more quickly produced than the typical book. Many are a hybrid of a long magazine piece and a serialized book. 

Another appeal is cost. News outlets are not paying their authors advances for their work; they will share profits from the sales. 
 

In my view what made Steve Jobs successful, and made up for any qualities he lacked, was that he kept trying:

"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-succesful ones is pure perseverance", Jobs once said in an interview in 1995.

Read other inspirational quotes, here.

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish".

If Steve Jobs had a motto, it may have been that one.

His commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 ended with this admonition.

It is worth to watch again and again that adress as way to remember our business hero's teachings.

                
Today it is a sad day.

The Thomas Edison of our time died. Steve Jobs passed away after a seven year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Steve, we will miss you.

Rest in Peace.

QR (Quick Response) codes — you know, those squared bartcodes full of symbols that can be scanned with smartphones — are becoming omnipresent as the smartphone market is expanding.

Retailers, publishers, arts institutions, musicians, government organizations and charities are increasingly using QR codes in their advertising to direct consumers to online contest, games, cocktail recipes, book excerpts, performances, how-to videos...

The Times mentioned the case of a company called Skanz.com that sells for $9.99 silicone bracelets (in the picture, above) embellished with QR codes allowing instant access to a Web page with your contact information, social media links, favorite photos and videos, that previously you have configured. "In other words: you've become a human hyperlink." 

It is a way to avoid exchanging business cards. You exchange personal information just scanning people.

Some QR code readers available for free are RedLaser, ScanLife, Barcode Scanner, Shop Savvy ori-Nigma. However, when it's too dark and hands are shaking, QR readers don't work. Also scan codes creaded by Microsoft and AT&T can be reader only with their own apps. 

Brands like Jumpscan enable you to create your own QR code and Web page free. You can store your code in your phone and pull it up whenever you want someone to learn more about you.

The NYT has writen an extensive article with many samples of corporations using QR codes.
 

Is Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, the tech industry's next Steve Jobs?

Watching him during the presentation of the Amazon Kindle Fire you might think so. 

The reality is that Amazon's products are the most formidable competition for Apple in the tablet and media space. 

The Kindle Fire, a $199, 7-inch color touch-screen tablet, is smaller and less powerful than the iPad. But it may be the first blockbuster Android tablet. 

Judge for yourself.