Since its inception in 2006, Twitter has moved from a glorified status update service (such as Facebook offers) to an impactful and important source of news information and public advocacy. Twitter’s momentum grew significantly from 2006 to 2011 as celebrities and politicians began to use it as an announcement and communication platform and the number of active monthly users reached over 100 million.

Many companies have found huge success in twitter marketing campaigns, boosting both products and services, as well as support for non-profit initiatives. More powerfully, the last few years have led twitter into the realm of political and social action and reporting. Egypt’s 2011 protests saw twitter used to broadcast information and plans for organizing public protests to government action in the Egyptian Revolution. Twitter statistics are also frequently used as news in and of themselves, often serving as a basis for election and event predictions and turnouts. As of 2013, Twitter’s active monthly user base had grown to over 200 million.

The recent abduction of 276 young Nigerian school girls by terrorist organization Boko Haram has prompted a twitter response that exemplifies the power that the social media giant can hold. As the Nigerian government works to bring its girls to safety, the twitter hashtag #bringourgirlshome has circulated the globe, uniting supporters everywhere. In upholding a unified social media tag like this, supporters worldwide have gained the collective power to influence the agenda of political authorities to focus on helping retrieve the stolen girls from their captors. Numerous celebrities have endorsed #bringbackourgirls with their support and have raised immense awareness from their extensive and passionate followings.

The Earth Day celebration at Alameda park this past weekend was a huge success. Boasting an extensive array of exhibitors and vendors, some highlights include the eco-marketplace, green car show, local food vendors, and a morning yoga session, among many others. Focused on celebrating Santa Barbara’s “local roots,” this year’s Earth Day Festival hosted a farm-to-table dinner in the park Saturday evening, and emphasized the way in which our local efforts can “make a global impact.” Over 300 volunteers came out to make this weekend’s festivities possible for the 37,000+ attendees who enjoyed the celebration in the park. We partnered with Earth Day official host, Community Environmental Council, to build the live Earth Day site, and develop the 2014 festival’s five initiatives: Ditch Plastic (#ditchplastic), Go Solar (#gosolar), Eat Local (#eatlocal), Drive Less (#driveless), and Choose Electric (#chooseelectirc). Oniracom’s Storywall platform, which displayed and auto-updated live stats on community member pledges to festival initiatives and photo feeds from attendees, was a huge success on all the screens across the Social Media Lounge. The Lounge, which was shared by LoaTree, also featured a photo booth and information on pledging to do our part to make the earth a cleaner, healthier place.

Check out the photos from the event below and be sure to look out for our Storywall platform at the SB Bowl soon!

All photos taken by Tad Wagner

On Tuesday, March 25, Facebook announced that it will be acquiring the virtual reality technology company Oculus VR for $2 billion. Oculus VR’s much anticipated development is the virtual reality gaming headset, Oculus Rift, which allows the gamer to feel completely immersed in the game itself. Oculus Rift was initially funded via Kickstarter, receiving over 2 million in donations from the original goal of $250,000. Although VR technology is not a new technology in and of itself, the current developments are highly priced and generally unattainable- used primarily by the military and scientific community. Oculus Rift’s promise to be the first “truly immersive virtual reality headset for video games” at an affordable price for the general public is a huge and exciting deal for the gaming community and future realms VR may be incorporated into. Facebook’s announcement to acquire Oculus VR, however, has sparked both outrage and excitement in speculation about the future of Oculus.

Many of the backers of the original Oculus Rift Kickstarter have voiced their disapproval to Oculus VR calling them sellouts and even demanding refunds of their Kickstarter donations, emphasizing that they didn’t sign up to back the social-media-giant that is Facebook. While Oculus delivered on its promise of perks and dev kits to backers, the Kickstarter community remains upset because the start-u[p project they supported has turned to corporate money and resources. Many opponents of the sale to Facebook are weary that the future of Oculus Rift will shrivel and die as many small companies that get enveloped by larger ones do (think Flikr’s fall after it was bought by Yahoo) or that the focus of VR technology will stray from its focus in gaming into other VR realms. Such agitated and dampened opinions are being voiced everywhere from genuine discussion posts to cynical memes and comments across the internet. A top comment on Oculus VR’s own blog post laments “This is an epic betrayal.” Numerous contributors to the discussion thread also emphasize their disappointment in Oculus’ settling to be run by a company that might not have its best interests as a gaming company at heart.

Reassuring disheartened Oculus fans is Oculus founder Palmer Luckey who spent many hours after the acquisition announcement responding to dubious supporters via Reddit. One major hesitancy that is being strongly voiced is Facebook’s direct involvement in the Oculus Rift experience. Luckey has been responding in accordance with the press announcements - that joining forces will make production faster, better, cheaper, that Oculus will still operate independently with a primary focus on gaming and a wide future for VR, etc. - but he is also consoling and reassuring in his statements that emphasize the future of virtual reality as a platform and promising that “You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.”

As for Facebook’s stance, Mark Zuckerberg, who posted the acquisition announcement yesterday afternoon, claims that Oculus’ plans for gaming development with the Oculus Rift “won’t be changing” and that “Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.” The post goes on to point out other areas in which Zuckerberg hopes to “make Oculus a platform for many other experiences” including sporting events, classroom and medical interactions, as well as adventures and hangout time with friends, the ultimate goal being to make “this kind of immersive, augmented reality…a part of daily life.” For those optimistic about Facebook’s newest acquisition, the reality of a sci-fi inspired virtual world seems closer than ever. And while there is undoubtedly skepticism in the air, there is also a voice of excitement sweeping the internet with inspired proposals for VR apps and indications of how the technology might be used in the future. Oculus’ new relationship with Facebook will afford it more resources and expansive opportunities that it may not have had independently. If Oculus really does continue to work independently then Facebook’s perks may be all the more helpful. Only time will tell as we sit in agonizing anticipation of how the future of VR will unfold itself to the world.

South by Southwest, the Film, Music and Interactive festival of Austin, Texas, has grown every year since its inception in 1987. True to tradition this year’s festival, which took place March 7-16, was a huge success, featuring exceptional keynote speakers, films, performances, apps, games, and so much more. This year was also unfortunately host to more drama and destruction than in years past. Below you’ll find an overview of the festival’s most compelling moments.

The SXSW film festival spanned the course of nine days and premiered everything from the anticipated feature Veronica Mars, to world premiere and winner of the Documentary Feature Competition The Great Invisible. Below is a short list of some of the films that made a big splash in Austin this year.

Six full days of musical performances showcased over 2,200 “regional, national and international acts.” For a comprehensive list of performers click here. Here are some picks of the many notable artists featured at this year’s SXSW Music festival.

In January of this year Beats Electronics launched Beats Music, an online music streaming service designed to curate music for listeners through a variety of sources including algorithm, professional and user input. As of March 4, 2014, Beats Music has announced its acquisition of Topspin Media. Topspin, launched in June of 2007, is an online application that provides direct-to-consumer merchandising and marketing for musicians and other creative professionals. In yesterday’s blog post, Beats Music blog post, Beats Music announced its deal to acquire Topspin and its plans for the future to combine “music discovery and direct relationships between artists and fans in a revolutionary way.” Topspin noted in its blog announcement that customers will experience no immediate changes, and that a Beats Music team is now working in Topspin’s ArtistLink to “lead the industry in empowering artists in their service.” This deal was spearheaded by previous Topspin CEO and current CEO of Beats Music, Ian C. Rogers. A veteran in the digital marketing world, Rogers noted his excitement in integrating Topspin with Beats Music to create his “unique vision” that is the future of music streaming and artist/fan interaction.

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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. 

I was surprised when I found out that WWE holds the largest television audience in sports, second only to the NFL. I was even more shocked to find out that WWE intends to use their audience size and revenue to take the first step in revolutionizing the way that television programming is organized and purchased. On January 8, 2014, World Wrestling Entertainment announced the February 24th launch of the WWE Network- the “first ever 24/7 streaming network” (WWE).

In the past, WWE has been hugely successful with their monthly Pay-Per-View events costing approximately $50 each month, rounding out a year at $600. The new WWE Network will charge $9.99/month with an initial contract of 6 months. Not only is this substantially cheaper for consumers than the PPV option, but it will also be available on a plethora of devices including Roku, Apple, Sony PlayStation, and Xbox devices ranging from smart TVs to tablets to smartphones. Along with it’s monthly PPV events that will continue to be broadcast on cable, the network has announced that it will offer new, original programming, archival content, and programming highlights to fans all via online streaming. New original content will include WWE Superstars, The Monday Night War, and WWE Legends House among others- all of which will be available on demand after their first air date.

The WWE Network will be the first to offer full television quality and style content through the internet instead of the cable box. Whether other television companies will follow suite and switch to streaming only time will tell, but I think it’s safe to say that WWE is taking a step in a new, and likely revolutionary direction.