Digital trends and inspiration for September

Here's our digital trends and inspiration email for September. If you'd like to sign up just click here: http://bit.ly/bAO7pn

Who is influential online?
HP labs, who operate at academic levels of rigour rather than the back-of-an-envelope level that’s common online, have come up with some interesting research on who is influential online. Find out more here:http://bit.ly/9XilyZ

Getting holiday recommendations from friends
If you sign in to Tripadvisor using Facebook, it tells you which of your friends have been to your possible holiday destination. So when I look up Los Angeles, I’m told that my friends Jonathan and Simon are currently living there, LA is hometown to Jerome and 34 others have visited on work and holidays.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/TripFriends

Facebook places
Facebook places allows you to tell your friends (and brands) where you are, and launches in the UK soon. For instance, you can go to your local pub and find out which friends are nearby and arrange to meet them. We’re convinced that this will be one of the most important technological innovations of this decade. Have a look at the launch video: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150257497405484
(Disclaimer – we work for Facebook)

A couple of good Twitter feeds for you from Blue Rubicon (if we say so ourselves)
http://twitter.com/robblackie_bob
http://twitter.com/rwja

Googling foreign policy
The US State Department have had an innovative approach to using the internet in foreign policy. Jared Cohen, who has headed this effort is now moving to Google’s ‘think/do tank’.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/07/jared_cohen?page=0,0

Obama’s internal communications
We continue to think that the internal communications of the Obama campaign were underappreciated. Here is Obama campaign manager David Plouffe explaining why Obama supporters should make phone calls, and give money, for this November’s American election. The video is low key and unglamorous but we expect that the impact on the 23,000 people who watched was significant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnxfvimuUsY