August round up - Facebook, QR codes and more

Here are a few great little articles that we’ve seen recently that you might find interesting.

A guide to the Facebook Edgerank algorithm

The Edgerank algorithm is used by Facebook to decide which content to display in your news feed and when you search for content. It, for instance, shows me Diet Coke rather than Coke when I search for Coke on Facebook, because more of my friends are fans of Diet Coke than Coke.

This guide is the best explanation of Edgerank I’ve seen.

How connected are you?

We’re proud of this app we produced for Western Union, that shows you how globally connected you are compared to your friends. I’m currently ranked 138,084^th out of 225,000 app users.

What does mobile mean for marketing?

Rory Sutherland’s talk at Google’s Think Mobile conference is characteristically entertaining and insightful on how mobile’s ability to provide contextual relevance can be influential for marketers

Misuse of QR codes by Crowne Plaza

Crowne Plaza’s recent advertising campaign that uses QR codes is nicely analysed here, explaining why a much simpler mechanic would probably have been successful.

When online PR goes wrong

This write up of a PR paid blogger trip to Magaluf is a great example of how badly executed blogger relations can go horribly wrong. [Warning – not for the faint hearted].

Google Plus round up

A lot has been written about Google Plus. While I’m a fan of its functionality, I’m not convinced that it’s taking off in the UK. With a relatively digital set of friends and colleagues I’ve only seen one update in my G+ stream in the last few days.

Here are two views that are worth reading:

• ‘What Google Plus is really about’ – a view that it’s mainly about moving paid services to the cloud
• ‘Is social in Google’s DNA’ – a comparison of Google’s algorithmic approach to Facebook’s more behavioural approach to relevance by Tom Anderson, the founder of MySpace

Data use by Tesco, Capital One and dating websites

McKinsey’s recent report on ten major trends includes a number of trends driven by data, including product testing and data mining by corporates such as Tesco, Capital One and Ford, and crime mapping to identify problem areas.

On a similar note, Marketing Week’s feature on the use of data by online dating companies has a variety of useful insights. Lovestruck.com’s use of behavioural data with people’s stated preferences is interesting in that it’s a the centre of their business model, not just in their marketing:

Lovestruck has two types of algorithm. When users first join the site, they will be matched with potential partners using Lovestruck’s in-house algorithm based on interests, what they are looking for, age, location and so on.

But when they start to use the site, that data is overridden by an IntroAnalytics matching algorithm which learns from the user’s behaviour.