Twitter's got shiny new buttons!

Over the Halloween weekend, while Earth’s population of ghosts, ghouls and Justin Bieber lookalikes skyrocketed before (thankfully) subsiding, the folks at Twitter were busy with a dress-up of their own. But instead of fake blood and mascara, they played around with the new Twitter trademark guidelines, an online document that has seen multiple revisions since Friday, as lawyers and marketers scramble to make sense of it.

WHAT IS IT
The guidelines are a list of do’s and don’ts on how to use various Twitter trademarks, such as the phrase “Follow me/us on Twitter”, the brand name, logos, buttons and icons. If you’re a fan of trivia, for instance, you’ll be delighted to know that the words Twitter and Tweet should be capitalised, even though “google” entered the English dictionary as a verb not too long ago, albeit with some objection.

But it’s not just seemingly trivial stuff. A rule that disallows the word “Tweet” from being used in other application names affects apps like Tweetdeck, a third-party Twitter client. We’ll have to wait to see how this particular story plays out.

WHY THE NEW GUIDELINES?
Simply put, Twitter’s growing up. As this GigaOm article puts it, “[W]hen you have 175 million users and over $150 million in venture financing (and a $1-billion market value), you have to start getting serious.”

A sleeker logo may not increase your market value, but trying to wrangle back control over your scattered–and in some instances, bastardised–brand identity over the interwebs does suggest that Twitter is actively seeking to get its house in order.

Going on the basis of credibility, Twitter says: “It’s important for users to be able to trust Twitter and not be confused about our relationship with the many people and organisations who use our marks.” Um… okay, if you say so, Twitter.

HOW THIS IMPACTS BRANDS
Web designers, agencies and marketers should take some time to go through the new guidelines. Although they don’t explicitly say that anyone will be sued for misuse of Twitter’s trademarks, brands should, as much as possible, respect the new rules–some of which we may have taken for granted previously.

Read › Twitter’s new trademark guidelines

I’ve noticed that the iconic small letter “t” isn’t available in the official button set anymore. I’m not sure if this will change or be updated in time. I’ve seen sites use the small “t” icon interchangeably for sharing and following (which I’ve found confusing), so I personally hope that now, sites will clearly distinguish between both actions by using the correct buttons.

Such as the one below ›

Instead of bright yellow, sunshine, teenage romance/bromance ‘lovin the moment, McDonald’s has been getting quite a lot of attention online with their recent gay TVC. Yes, getting attention. But is this TVC really worth talking about, passionately? Is there a story that really connects to our hearts? Probably not. Is this just an attempt for a big corporation trying to be socially relevant and also an attempt to produce a very safe “controversial ad”? Probably. While I applaud the increasing number of markets accepting the fact that social media is really more than just another channel for communications, or even as a platform for conversations (theoretically yes, but in reality, no one’s going to your website to talk to you unless you are the subservient chicken from Burger King.), however the next step to that is really to create relevant content that speaks to the heart. Seriously, who cares if a guy eating at McDonald’s is gay or not?

So why is it getting attention online? Poor sentiments spread too. Spoken about with alot of passion? Ho-Hum.

OK our latest installment to Sony Football Asia – introducing the KICKATHON. Can you kick your way to South Africa? Well if you can there are some 2010 World Cup tickets in it for you – check it out here.

Want the ultimate football experience in your living room? Check out our latest Sony HD World football centre and get your creative juices flowing.

Wired.com heads to San Francisco’s Exploratorium to see four exhibits that explore the effects of visual illusions and perceptual phenomena.

After weeks of hard work our new campaign for Royal Caribbean is now live, thank you to all involved. Get your creative juices flowing and design your very own “Dreamship” for the chance to win a Royal Caribbean cruise. Of course it’s up to the public so instead of our lame creations taking top honors get building now!

Just launched!

Now some of us fashion misfits at XM did not make the cut (Regina sets a high bar). So if you are cooler then the usual mob and like to showcase your style to the world then hit our new DKNY “Break the rules” competition for your chance to win a cool USD$2000 per week.

Spread the word!

http://www.dknyjeansintl.com/breaktherules/

In my previous article on Facebook’s usage in Asia Pacific, I compared Facebook with Kaixin001 and Xing in China. But it turns out that there are even bigger social networks in the Middle Kingdom. (Which just goes to show that if you aren’t as tuned into a particular market as you should be, you’ll miss important information!)

Thanks to a pointer at Plurk (which has since been deleted for some reason), someone mentioned that I should look at Xiaonei. That was a forehead-slapping moment! I had heard of Xiaonei, but for some reason, it didn’t cross my mind then to take a look at its usage.

That led to another forehead-slapping moment of realisation (and a really painful forehead!). I had forgotten about the other social network giant in China: QQ! QQ, of course, is more than just a social network. It has morphed into this giant portal-social network-instant messaging service, something that one would be hard pressed to find anywhere else (except perhaps in South Korea and Japan).
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Mention “social network” to anyone — especially a marketer — and you’ll probably get this response: “Facebook”. Facebook, the poster child for so-called Web 2.0 sites/services, has become so synonymous with the phrase “social network” that you will be hard pressed to think of another similar web service.

But while that may be true in a large and generally homogenous market like the United States, it does not necessarily apply in a fragmented market like the Asia Pacific. In this growing economic powerhouse, marketers have to consider the many different countries and languages, and the associated individual cultural eccentricities.
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I wrote about Cobra sometime back for monitoring brand and brand-related conversation in the online social media space. So far, Brandtology seem to provide some key differentiations. Not because it has more sophisticated technology stack, but its the use of a group of SMA ( social media analyst) to plough through machine-filtered conversations to better evaluate the sentiment and the quality of each post. As primitive as it may seems, till we can create Terminator-like type of machine, nothing can compare to a human-being “eavesdropping” on a conversation. After all, most of us understand sarcasm.

The following give an overview of Brandtology’s brand monitoring process:

Brandtology process for brand monitoring and analysis