Beyond music, the integration of Facebook into the Xperia media gallery will bring photos into closer reach, just one click from the phone’s homescreen, while adding the ability to ‘like’ and comment. The Xperia phonebook will also be more social than ever before with your friends’ interests and photos found under their address book entry on the phone. The phone’s calendar also includes your friends’ birthdays to ensure a birthday is never missed.

Stephan Croix, Head of Marketing Partnerships, Sony Ericsson said, “Social media usage via smartphones is now part of everyday life.  Sony Ericsson has enhanced the integration of Facebook in the Xperia portfolio to give consumers a unique and entertaining experience instantly—one they can only experience via an Xperia Smartphone.  Sony Ericsson is working closely with Facebook to ensure that the integration continually evolves ensuring that users have the ability to interact between their preferred social media channels and their smartphones.”

Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook said, “We think that mobile devices are the ideal environment for a rich social experience.  Sony Ericsson has created a deeply immersive Facebook experience inside Xperia smartphones and we believe that people will love this new, intuitive experience.”

Facebook inside Xperia integrations

* Instant ability to share the songs you ‘like’ with friends
* Complete end to end social media and music process: Like, share, and buy songs
* Easy access to see what friends are listening to and watching
* Facebook albums and photos integrated into the Xperia gallery application
* See your friends picture, interest and link to profile in your Xperia phonebook
* Facebook Events will synch with the Xperia Calendar
* Facebook notification alerts in the lockscreen to ensure users never miss an update

Existing Xperia arc and Xperia PLAY users will soon be able to access the new integrated features simply by updating their software. The new Xperia™ mini and Xperia™ mini pro – announced today – will include Facebook inside Xperia pre-installed on the phones. Building on the success of the original mini series, these innovative handsets come packed full of features, powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ processor, and running the latest version of Google’s Android™ – Gingerbread 2.3.

Facebook inside Xperia will be available in all 2011 Xperia phones from Q2 in selected markets.

The target sites are mentioned as:

123Greetings, Aaj Tak, Web Duniya, Amar Ujala, Andhra Prabha, Bharat Matrimony, Bhaskar, Bollywood Hungama, Dianmani, Divya Bhaskar, Great Andhra, Guruji, Jagran, Kannada Prabha, Manorama Online, Matribhoomi, Mid Day, Rajasthan Patrika, Songs Pk.

This initiative was a wise move by Wynn telecom to make its presence felt. The creative was well showcased with the youth phone Y50 with banner communication” Ab Style Se Karo Social Networking”.

The campaign was specially exposed to the site 123greetings.com keeping in focus the number of visitors on the site for Friendship day.
The campaign response was unbelievable indeed, 15600 clicks out of 11mn with @. 14% CTR and ad was exposed to 2.36mn internet users of the target market.

Naved Chaudhary, Head Marketing, Wynn Telecom commented on the campaign; “Today Internet is the best medium to get connected to the masses.  India adds around 1 crore Internet users every year among which 80% lies in age bracket of 15-35yrs. So majority audience is youth and they are having good knowledge, potential buyer, market influencer, trend setter etc. And we decided to make the best possible use of it. This initiative will help us get closer to the crowd and in turn get us noticed on a larger platform”.

The SuperFans initiative marks the first time that a major sports league has endorsed, promoted and aggregated the social media channels of its athletes, enabling fans to communicate with players on a deeper and more personal level. The Tour’s top social networkers – Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova – have close to 5 million combined followers on the internet.

The SuperFans platform will give fans unprecedented insight into the lives of players, on and off the court, providing a single destination for real-time aggregated and consolidated social media feeds, such as Twitter and Facebook. Fans can either look through all player updates or filter their view by a group or an individual. Any videos and images that the players attach to their social media updates through channels such as YouTube™ and Flickr™ will also appear on the SuperFans site.

Additionally, through SuperFans, players will have the opportunity to interact with each other and tag each other in photos, enriching the dynamic platform. The Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mobile phone will be used by players to create photo, video and text content for SuperFans. Also, SuperFans will provide fans with a live tournament experience at select Tour events, offering tickets to their favorite stars’ most important matches through a series of competitions.

“SuperFans is an innovative way for our players to connect with their fans,” said Stacey Allaster, Chairman and CEO of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.  “Through the multitude of social media web channels, our sport and players have a fantastic opportunity to create exciting customer experiences.”

“We are pleased that Sony Ericsson mobile technology is enabling the creation of spontaneous social content from some of most inspirational athletes on earth,” said Lennard Hoornik, Head of Global Marketing, Sony Ericsson. “For millions of tennis fans around the world, SuperFans is a service that delivers on our brand promise of make.believe, which aims to build a fun, playful and inclusive interaction with consumers. SuperFans will bring audiences closer to tennis, giving them a greater access to unique fan experiences.”

The Tour’s recent advancements in the digital space include the launch of a new mobile WAP site available to fans through their mobile handsets, and the Spanish language version of the Tour’s official website, which joined the Tour’s existing official language websites in English and Chinese. The Russian version of the website will debut later this year.

The Tour worked with AnalogFolk, a leading UK-based digital marketing agency, on development of the SuperFans program. Promotion of the SuperFans program will be supported through a series of viral videos focused on players, filmed during the Sony Ericsson Open and set to be released in late April.

Four Tips for Using Social Media this Holiday Season:

* The season for sharing. Leverage social networking sites and microblogs to create viral brand experiences that make customers excited to spread the word to friends, family and colleagues. This year, consider sharing exciting holiday offers—whether it’s a pre-arrival promotion, a special discount code, or one-day special sale—through Facebook or Twitter.
* Boost your customers’ holiday gift IQ: Forget traditional market research; instead look no further than an online community for your ideal focus group. Today’s online communities provide valuable, real-time insight into the thought-process, preferences and behaviors of customers. Nowadays, you’re able to glean a complete view of your customer’s mindset through custom questionnaires, and as a result refine product offerings and services to meet the needs of your customers.
* Tis better to give than to receive. This holiday season, inspire change and impact the world by asking your customers to make a donation to a charity through a social network. Consider establishing a cause or directing your customers to charities that are aligned with your company’s mission. Social networks such as Facebook’s Causes and MySpace’s Impact are just a few of the communities helping to revolutionize online fundraising.
* Really Simple Shopping. Tap into the magic of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to deliver customized, up-to-the-minute shopping feeds to your subscribers. In doing so, you’ll ensure an easier experience for your subscribers as they fulfill their holiday wish lists during this shopping season.

Participating are Agence France-Presse (AFP), ANP of the Netherlands, The Associated Press, APA of Austria, APcom of Italy, Canadian Press, dpa of Germany, Kyodo of Japan, Lusa of Portugal, Press Association of the United Kingdom and RIA of Russia.

The climate page on Facebook will feature a blog format, providing a behind-the-scenes view of the event and linking out to important coverage of the talks from the agencies and the media outlets they serve. Twitter also will be used to attract followers for the blog and related coverage.

The agencies have come together for the Copenhagen project under the auspices of MINDS International, a global news agency network.

“The climate summit in Copenhagen will affect the lives of billions of people, and it is likely to grip the attention of news consumers all over the world,” said Wolfgang Nedomansky, managing director of MINDS. “The Climate Pool will provide a unique outlet for Internet users to discuss climate change with some of the world’s most experienced journalists covering the conference.”

“AFP is excited to offer our global audience a forum gathering professional journalists from different cultures and backgrounds on one of the most crucial issues facing our generation”, said Philippe Massonnet, AFP Executive Editor. “This experiment is also a way for news agencies from around the world to show they can coordinate their efforts to serve a common mission of professional news gathering of the highest standard.”

The Climate Pool page will be produced in English and will incorporate blogposts and multimedia content from the participating agencies, along with links to coverage from around the world.

The Web site is designed for all members to gather and develop a dialogue around the main question: “What are you going to write today?” All messages can be managed from a central location determined by each user, either Web only or e-mail.

“As with WriteLive.com’s sister company, WriteLife.com, we are well aware that the inspiration for a story can come at any moment. The thought of one author can serve as inspiration to another,” stated Cindy Grady, managing director. “We are constantly inspired by the community of writers on WriteLife.com and have developed a platform for thoughts and feedback to be captured and shared on a global, instantaneous basis.”

Bloggers can partake in the site’s capabilities to create micro-blogs, which can then be made public or managed through privacy settings. Additionally, developers can contribute to the activities by using WriteLive’s application programming interface (API) keys to create applications for the site.

In the short time since its creation, WriteLive.com already boasts groups for freelancers and bloggers, as well as individual members from around the United States and Africa.

“We have a great relationship with MySpace and are excited to have an application launching on their platform to their engaged and creative community – we think the opportunity on MySpace is big,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN. “(fluff)Friends is a dynamic world that appeals to and resonates with the demographic of the MySpace community and creates a safe environment for young people to express their imagination. As a next step toward our vision of platform agnostic social gaming, we are pleased to be working with the MySpace team to make this a reality.”

“We are thrilled that Social Gaming Network has extended (fluff)Friends to the MySpace Open Platform,” said Jason Oberfest, senior vice president of business development and general manager of the MySpace Open Platform. “Working with Shervin’s team to launch the (fluff)Friend world in our community is exciting and we look forward to having them bring even more games to our users.”

(fluff)Friends for MySpace creates an environment and a marketplace to virtually purchase new items through in game currency called “munny” as well as make purchases with premium currency called “Gold.” At the Golden (fluff)Shop, subscription members can purchase limited edition real world (fluff)Friend toys as well as other collectible items with a PayPal account. (fluff)Friends on Facebook currently produces $50 per subscription user each month, which is evidence of the success of in-game currency and subscription-based game models that SGN has been utilizing since the company’s inception and will continue to operate through MySpace. Users can check out the game on the MySpace Editor’s Pick page.

Apart from being able to view the latest news updates, the elections site will let users share their opinions and updates on various leaders and constituencies during elections, thus help in making an informed choice. In order to cater to a large section of youth, several of whom could be voting for the first time, the special elections site also focuses on educating them on the importance of casting their votes.

Updates on election schedules, expert analysis, online polls, discussion forums, opinions and photos would be some of the other key features on the site. As the site evolves, Yahoo! India will also include interesting features like Manifesto Comparisons (a user can compare manifestos of various political parties) as well as comic strips on various news and updates during the tenure of the elections.

Gopal Krishna, VP – Emerging Markets & Acting Country Head for Yahoo! India said, “The Internet has emerged as a pervasive medium and is playing a significant role in shaping the way people collaborate and interact on topics that matter such as general elections. Yahoo! India, through its special elections microsite, is providing users with a platform to participate in shaping the future of the world’s largest democracy.”

According to Pearl Uppal, Director – Sales, Yahoo! India, “Political parties and advertisers have come of age and are now actively looking at the digital medium to reach the youth audience, a key demographic for them. We have been approached by leading political parties and their agencies that have shown keen interest in advertising on Yahoo! to communicate with a highly engaged audience on the Yahoo! network. This is indeed an encouraging trend in the new age media”

With most advertisements keeping elections as a base for showcasing their products offlate, Yahoo! India offers advertisers a highly interactive medium to engage consumers through this special elections site.

PrismStream is unique because it distinguishes itself from traditional social networks that are focused on profile pages and basic communication tools by enabling users to further interact with live audio/video conferencing on its web conferencing platform. The conference module has a whiteboard functionality with rich annotation tools that users can use to draw, mark, highlight, or simply brainstorm on a blank canvas. Users can copy/ paste and import images to the whiteboard as well as co-browse with each other by sharing a URL. There is also a private and public chat feature inside the visual workspace.

Users can invite their friends from within the PrismStream network to join a conference and can conduct multiple conferences at any given time, without a maximum number of participants in a meeting/conference. Simply a webcam and microphone are the only external tools needed to initiate a conference after which VoIP begins instantly without any toll charges being incurred by the users irrespective of where they are located globally. Best of all is there is no software download required, it runs on all browsers across all platforms, it’s completely free of charge and real time web collaboration has never been so easy and fun.

PrismStream is “ideal for students who want to hold an online study session, teachers who want to hold an online class, or even individuals and businesses for hosting remote online meetings or presentations. We hope to help small businesses and individuals increase productivity while reducing travel and toll charges,” according to Chuks Osuagwu CEO/Founder. Users can even record a conference and email the session to their friends. There is also a classifieds section where users can market their goods and services to their in-network friends for a minimum fee.

PrismStream is a seamless solution that will enable individuals, co-workers, and businesses to find and add friends for the purpose of meeting, socializing, networking, learning, interacting and collaborating with each other.

Not4Dating.com was co-founded by two sisters out of necessity. Aimee Kryda has lived in five different states in the past ten years and found her latest home, New York City, the hardest place to create connections that would become great friends. Nicole Kryda has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 10 years, but found most people in the area to be transient due to work obligations, marriage, travel or school. They both found local in-person meetups and activity clubs not personal enough or intimidating, while other social networking websites were strictly for dating or reconnecting with already-established friends, family, classmates and work colleagues.

“It is hard to laugh over dinner and a bottle of wine by yourself, and not nearly as much fun as having a great friend to share it with,” said Aimee Kryda, Co-Founder of Not4Dating.com. “We created this website for people like us looking for real friends – whether it’s a drinking buddy, hiking partner, yoga partner, dining or movie companion, or a pal just to catch the game with – we help people find their new best friend for free.”