Activ8Social

Welcome back to this week’s Social Mashup! We’re here to kick off the short work week with the launch of Google’s music store, Facebook’s recommended people list and Foursquare’s badge updates.

Late Monday afternoon, the New York Red Bulls (RBNY) launched a Foursquare check in sweepstakes on their official team Facebook Page. The promotion is in an effort to highlight a season long grassroots program conducted in partnership with the NYC Parks & Rec called New York’s Got Wings.

Facebook’s f8 Conference last Thursday showed the largest social network has some major changes in store for your profile. With that said, this week’s Mashup is going to catch you up to speed on what you will be seeing in the near feature with Facebook’s new profile layout, Timeline. We’ve also covered Facebook’s new partnerships with Spotify, Netflix and Hulu. In other news, Google+ is open to the public and has a bunch of new features and Foursquare hit 1 billion checkins.

Calling all golf aficionados and Foursquare badgers! The PGA Tour has recently partnered with the world’s check-in leader to offer an exclusive FedEx shipping discount on golf equipment, merchandise, and apparel as well as a limited edition Foursquare Partner badge.

We’re now less than 365 days away from the London 2012 Summer Olympics (and have been for some time now), but in case you were wondering about Sochi 2014, Rio de Janiero 2016, and PyeongChang 2018, we’ve got you covered with this cool countdown timer. This week’s edition of the Social Mashup features ESPN exclusive partnership with Foursquare, Skype’s acquisition of GroupMe, StumbleUpon’s continued rapid growth, and Google+ verification badges.

10 million? 10,000,000? 7 zeroes? We’re impressed. Social media has always had strength in numbers, and 10 million users or consumers of any product or service is a big deal as far as we’re concerned. Foursquare recently announced they have officially reached 10 million users, and when you step back to think about this feat, it becomes even more impressive when you consider the obstacles the NY start-up has faced to date.

Today’s Mashup reviews three top stories from the past week in the world of sports, entertainment, and social media marketing. Headlines include Monster.com’s new Facebook job network application, the IOC’s decision to allow 2012 Olympic athletes to post social media content during the games, and the brand new partnership between American Express and Foursquare. The Activ8Social team would also like you to check out the world’s newest viral videographer, this seagull.

“I never thought about breaking a record, but since there is one, they’re meant to be broken!” – Jimmy Rollins

This Monday, June 27^th, from 11:45 AM -1:00 PM, Red Bull athlete Jimmy “J-Roll” Rollins will attempt to break the world record for “Longest Batted Ball” at a remarkable event called Red Bull Ball Park Cranks in Philadelphia.  Benjamin Franklin Parkway will be closed down in Philadelphia for the record-breaking event and Jimmy is going to hit baseballs as far as he can down it.  As you may already know, Red Bull and Jimmy tried to do this last year but were thwarted by injury.  Rollins certainly looks to be good to go this year as he and the Phillies have been red hot over the last month with the Phils owning the best record in Major League Baseball.

Despite the fact 2010 was arguably the year of the location-based check-in (although others like The Next Web contend 2011 is really the year), there are certain pundits who proclaim that the phenomenon was nothing more than a short lived fad yet many others envision the check-in will evolve beyond simply telecasting one’s whereabouts.

One thing is for sure … Foursquare definitely begs to differ with the doomsday prognosticators and if the newest version of the geo-location platform is any indication of future usage trends, the check-in will eventually grow more sophisticated. In late March 2011, Foursquare launched version 3.0 and with it came a litany of new features most notably more specials for merchants.  The 2 year old startup now boasts more than 250k small and large businesses alike that have taken advantage of specials.

In the social media world, the key to financial stability is buy-in from the world’s Fortune 500 companies. Facebook definitely reigns king in this department as nearly every major brand across the globe has an established presence on the Facebook platform. One of the keys to Facebook’s success is the ease with which a user can quickly find a company’s Facebook Page (although we will say that we applaud Twitter for attempting their “Verified” system as their are fairly sizable community run brand pages on Facebook) and the fact that the Palo Alto technology company jumped to head start in 2007 when Pages launched.