Evidence Facebook’s revenue is based on fake likes. Super interesting and a MUST WATCH for digital marketers and advertisers.

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Social media advertising and promotion seems to be ultimately inescapable in this day and age, but how much is your social media activity actually worth in cold hard cash?

With the most recent numbers from social media analytic teams, here is a breakdown of what your likes and tweets mean in revenue.

A single Facebook like (follower) has been valued by ChompOn at an average of $8.00. Each time someone likes your page, all of his/her friends are alerted and exposed to your page as well. Because of this exponential nature of Facebook promotion, the $8.00 value projected for each follower has the potential to skyrocket quickly. Interestingly enough, the estimated cost of a Facebook like is $1.07. A seemingly low cost in comparison to the value, acquiring a Facebook follower incurs only a minor set back due to the whopping $8.00 or more in potential profit.

Knowledge that the National Security Agency and the British Government Communications Headquarters have been working together to gather personal information from the public doesn’t come as much of a surprise as the ability to look in on individuals’ technologic activity has existed for years. What’s new this time is the platform through which the public is being watched and recorded. According to documents provided by Edward Snowden and jointly released by The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica, the NSA and CGHQ are sourcing personal information from “leaky” smartphone apps, gathering information on “networks connected, websites visited, buddy lists, documents downloaded, encryption used and supported, [and] user agents” (1). Such targeted apps include the ever popular game Angry Birds, Google Maps, Facebook, Flikr, Flixter, and Winzip, undoubtedly among others that remain unspecified. The success and increased effort to accumulate user data is evident in the budget increase of $563 million in 2007, the year the NSA documents were created. Although there is no eminent threat imposed on individuals by the NSA, it remains unsettling to know that one’s personal settings and information can be corralled by the government for as simple an action as playing a game on your smartphone.

The leaked documents shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica can be found on Documentcloud along with some BGHQ documents. 

Last night we held the S’more StartupSB: Fireside Chat about music, techs & startups event at our office and had an absolute blast. We were joined by Brad Barrish, formerly from Topspin Media, Eric Shiflett from Santa Barbara Bowl, Tucker Bodine from Playback Recording Studio, and Aaron Foreman from SONOS. Our very own Mike Wald moderated the chat about digital music marketing and technology. An interesting new startup called BeatStream also gave a great presentation about the new social music platform they are developing. We were also stoked to present the debut of our new product and app, Storywall! More information and news coming on that soon.

The event was also catered by one of our local favorites, Rusty’s and of course we finished off the night by making tasty s’mores by the fire. Thank you to StartupSB for asking us to host their great event at our office for the second year in a row. It was a wonderful night filled with interesting people and interesting chat!

Check out some of the Instagram shots from the night below!

From the moment you start up the application, Beats Music wants to know and understand you. It wants to be your perfect human DJ. Listening to favorite genres and discovering new songs has just become a lot more colorful and interactive with the recently launched platform’s bold designs and features. Like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio, Beats Music offers an extensive streaming library with no commercials for a monthly subscription fee of $10. New users can try out the platform for free on their credit card-less seven-day trial.

When you first open Beats Music, it asks you to tell the application about yourself. A “Just for You” section is created and geared towards your favorite genres or away from the ones that you want to avoid. There are three ways to get to a collection that suits your current mood. First is the good old-fashioned search option after you swipe right on the screen. The second way is through the “Find It” section where you can choose among genres, activities, and curators. The last is one of the most interesting features of the platform: “The Sentence”. Beats Music lets you play mad lib to generate a suitable playlist in a quirkier way. Are you on a rooftop? At the gym? Making bad decisions? The application wants to know where you are, what you feel like doing, who you’re with, and what you’re potentially listening to.

With Twitter being the source of chatter surrounding the most popular current events, Facebook has now created a feature that allows their users to view what pages are currently trending. 

The new ‘Trending Pages’ feature is easy to navigate and provides a description of why the page is so popular, which helps you decide whether or not the topic would actually be interesting to you. 

Facebook wants to compete with Twitter for being the source of current news and events, and it seems that this new feature is receiving some heavy criticism for being too similar to Twitter’s features. Comparisons of Facebook and Twitter have now begun to critique which feature is better. This article on TechCrunch describes the pros of each social network.

With all the buzz surrounding Facebook’s new update, every user should check it out themselves to get a feel for the feature and it see if it actually could prove useful.

Santa Barbara Entrepreneurs rally around startups, music, and technology at Oniracom on January 30th at S’more Startups and Music.

SANTA BARBARA, CA – Jan 27, 2014 – StartupSB is kicking off the New Year with a January 30th event featuring music industry professionals, musicians, and startups at one of Santa Barbara’s most creative office locations, Oniracom.  The evening event, titled “S’more Startups and Music”, will feature a fireside chat with Brad Barrish, Head of Operations @ Topspin Media, Aaron Foreman, Head of Digital Marketing @ Sonos, and Eric Shiflett, Program Director @ The Santa Barbara Bowl.  The panel will cover topics surrounding entrepreneurship in the music business and the intersection of music, technology, startups, and opportunity for new ventures.  Beat Stream, winner of Startup Weekend San Luis Obispo, will also present their winning music streaming application, and local singer/ songwriter/musician Jesse Rhodes will play songs around the fire while attendees roast marsh mellows and eat s’mores. 

StartupSB is a Santa Barbara community based organization focused on celebrating local startup companies, fostering entrepreneurship and building a startup community in Santa Barbara and the Central Coast.  The public is encouraged to attend.

“We are excited to be hosting a StartupSB event and this amazing group of music professionals”, said Jacob Tell, Oniracom’s CEO and Creative Lead, “This should be a great night of entrepreneurship, music, startups and networking.”

“This should be a great kickoff to a year of StartupSB events”, Kyle Ashby StartupSB’s executive director stated,  “We are planning to have a lot of fun with the fireside chat theme for this event… think campfire songs, stories, inspiration… and s’mores.”

S’more startups is the first of StartupSB’s 2014 event series.  The series will consists of 10 events hosted at Santa Barbara based startups and the headquarters of Santa Barbara’s most entrepreneurial companies.  Two of these events will be Demo Nights featuring Santa Barbara startup companies showcasing their companies, products and technology. 

The event starts at 6pm and is located at Oniracom’s office at 720 East Haley Street in Santa Barbara. To RSVP for the event please visit http://www.meetup.com/startupsb.  For more information about StartupSB, and to become a StartupSB member, vist: http://www.startupsb.com.

About StartupSB
StartupSB began as a Meetup group and has grown to a membership base of nearly 800 Santa Barbara area entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts.  The group, run by local Entrepreneur and Startup Evangelist, Kyle Ashby, hosts monthly events at local startups and is heavily involved in helping the startup community grow in the Santa   Barbara area. For more information visit: http://www.startupsb.com

About Oniracom
Founded in Santa Barbara in 2001, Oniracom is a proven partner for brands and organizations looking to cultivate and expand their audience.  Jack Johnson, Deckers,  Warner Music, Topspin, Universal, SONOS – these top brands and many more trust us to produce authentic stories that rapidly increase brand growth and awareness.  http://www.oniracom.com

Contact Kyle Ashby at 805.323.6160, or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information.

New year, new resolutions. Naturally, we made a playlist that gets us pumped up, motivated and ready for whatever crazy event the new year may bring. These are songs that get us up and moving physically and mentally.

I am pretty satisfied that Venga Boys made it on the list. Well done Justin.

Justin:
1. “Good Vibrations” - Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch
2. “Space Jam” - Quad City DJ’s
3. “Let Me Clear My Throat - DJ Kool
4. “We Like To Party” - Venga Boys
5. “C’mon N’ Ride It” - Quad City DJ’s

Haaris:
6. “Wu-Tang Clan Aint Nuthing Ta F’ Wit” - Wu Tang Clan
7. “Freedom” - Rage Against the Machine
8. Who Gon Stop Me” - Jay Z & Kanye West
9. “Cosmonaut” - At the Drive-In

Calia:
10. “XO” - Beyoncé
11. “Gun” - CHVRCHES
12. “Livin’ It Up” - Ciara
13. “Can’t Hold Us” - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Tad:
14. “Mr. Blue Sky” - ELO
15. “Soul Meets Body” - Death Cab for Cutie

Jacob:
16. “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” - Michael Jackson
17. “Whats The Difference” - Dr. Dre
18. “Make The Money” - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
19. “A Day At The Races” - Jurassic 5
20. “Bang Bang” - K’NAAN

Tracy:
21. “Lies” - CHVRCHES
22. “Don’t Hold the Wall” - Justin Timberlake

Cheyenne:
23. “Days Are Gone” - HAIM
24. “So Close” - Kidnap Kid

Lucy:
25. “Wild Child” - WEKEED
26. “Changes” - Faul & Wad Ad vs. Pnau

Elvis:
27. “Fatty Boom Boom - Die Antwood

Celebrating its one-year anniversary today, Vine is moving forward as a mature social network. Vine is achieving this goal with their life-long partner Twitter who realized the potential to install the built-in video platform a year ago.

Colin Kroll, Vine’s GM and co-founder, expects more collaborations, cameos, and hardware hack innovations to continue appearing on the feed.

But how is Vine changing after one year of service? Kroll states, “This year, we’re really focused on making it easier to discover videos and find new accounts.”

This app integration has been keeping up the competitive creativity of Vine against its similar social platforms like Instagram Video, Snapchat, and Youtube. However, the six-second videos of Vine continue to breed a unique creativity and production amongst other mobile video players.

Advertisements, film trailers, and actors’ comedic skits have all utilized Vine to achieve publicity, discovery, and monetary gains. Their influence in the past year has impacted other social media platforms to keep up and add additional video options.