Media Beat

A recent article in The Globe and Mail reports that Canadians are about to find out whether or not 140 characters can make or break a political campaign. Globe columnist Bill Curry writes that by mid afternoon on Sunday, “more than 14,000 tweets had been sent out during the first day-and-a-half of the campaign.” Canadians will vote on May 2nd to elect their new government representatives. “If there was ever a question before, it’s clear now” Curry writes, “Canada’s first social media election is under way.”

Will we see more social networks in the future? Garrett Camp, founder of the discovery engine StumbleUpon, doesn’t think so.

“I think it’s going to be, you’re not on a social network, but you’re using social functionality within existing products,” Camp predicted in our Media Beat interview. “I don’t think there’s going to be as many new social networks pop up as leveraging existing networks like Facebook or StumbleUpon to enhance the experience.”

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The discovery engine StumbleUpon helps millions of readers explore the Internet, generating some impressive traffic in the process. Now, they’re offering an alternative to traditional banner ads on the Internet. In this week’s Media Beat interview, CEO Garrett Camp outlined the company’s new ad program.

“Paid Discovery is a way for anyone with interesting branded content to distribute it to StumbleUpon members. We have a community of 15 million people, they’re stumbling, they’re looking to find interesting stuff. Every time they click the ‘Stumble’ button, they say ‘I want to see something cool matched to my interests,’” Camp explained.

“If you have something that you think may be of interest to our community, you can actually become one of those stumbles. The way our system works is that one in 20 stumbles will be a paid placement matched to your interests … Unlike a banner ad network, there is no click. It totally skips the click — it becomes the page you view in your stumble-stream.”

– JASON BOOG

Part 1: StumbleUpon CEO: ‘We Refer Almost As Much Traffic As Facebook’

You can also watch this video on Mediabistro’s YouTube channel.

You wouldn’t expect a book from a music, fashion and entertainment mogul to cover meditation and “succeeding through stillness.” But, in his sophomore title Super Rich, Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons attributes his success to focusing on hard work itself, not the financial rewards it might bring. And even struggling writers, he says, can benefit from that principle.

“If you’re a writer, you write. If you’re a ball player, you shoot the ball, don’t you?” Simmons explained in our @MediaBeat interview.

“The idea of giving is the same idea that I embraced when I put my first record out, ‘Christmas Rappin,’ in 1979… We gave it away until people demanded it and then they decided to buy it. And I think that that’s what a good writer has to do as well. I hope that people know that that’s the process. You give, you know, unconditionally if you can, but if not you trade. But you try to just give.”

@UncleRush also detailed how he launched Global Grind and what aspiring entrepreneurs should know before approaching him with an idea. “It’s very difficult to pitch me, because I almost always have my own ideas most times,” he said.

Part 2: Russell Simmons: ‘It’s Unbelievable That the News Gets Away with Sensationalizing’

Part 3: Russell Simmons on Producing (and Starring in) Reality Television

With the explosion of the Internet, today’s media job seekers have more choices available than ever before. But how do you know if an emerging company is poised to be the next Twitter or just another dot-com bust?

For Google’s VP of consumer products Marissa Mayer, making the decision to become the company’s 20th employee was so difficult that she ended up in tears.

“My friend Andre said to me, ‘You know, Marissa, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to pick the right choice, and I’ve gotta be honest: That’s not what I see here. I see a bunch of good choices, and there’s the one that you pick and make great,’” Mayer recalled. “I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten.”

In the end, she said she accepted Google’s offer for one reason: “I would learn more there failing than I would other places succeeding, and that’s what really drew me to the role.”

Part 1: Marissa Mayer on Google’s Failed Groupon Bid

Part 2: Marissa Mayer: ‘Google Hasn’t Gotten Social Right Yet’

Register for Digital Privacy Forum on January 20 in New York to learn about the business of online privacy and the future of information management.

When your local dry cleaner is asking you to follow them on Twitter, you know social media is big. Yet, in our latest @MediaBeat interview, Google consumer products VP Marissa Mayer admitted that her own company has lagged a bit behind in the space.

“One of the things that we’ve learned is that Google hasn’t gotten social right yet. That said, social is really important; it’s something that we’re working very hard on. I think that we will get it right,” Mayer said. “I think that if you look at some of the main platforms of the Web, it’s search, video, mobile and social. We’ve done really well in three out of those four, and we’re working very hard on the fourth.”

And, although Google is expanding at a rapid rate, Mayer said protecting user privacy is “the core” of its business. “We really think about privacy in all of our products. We focus on transparency, choice and control, making sure that users understand how data is used, giving them a choice as to whether or not to use the service,” she explained.

Watch the full video to find out why Google banned Facebook from grabbing Gmail data and for Mayer’s answer to @knowledgenotebk‘s question about education technology.

Part 1: Marissa Mayer on Google’s Failed Groupon Bid

Part 3: Google VP Marissa Mayer: Learn By Failing

Register for Digital Privacy Forum on January 20 in New York to learn about the business of online privacy and the future of information management.

After incessant buzz that Google was looking to buy Groupon, word finally came that the fast-growing “deal of the day” company had turned the tech giant down. So, does that mean Google might launch its own coupon-type service instead?

“When you look at our overall suite of services, especially around our advertising, we already have some things that are like [Groupon],” said Marissa Mayer, Google VP of consumer products, in our Media Beat interview. “We have things like coupons and offer-extension ads that allow merchants to basically make offers to our users. And, so we’re looking at how can we take that technology and put it to use especially in the location space.”

Mayer also rebutted claims that being acquired by Google might water down a start-up company’s cachet. “I think that we have both a good structure for companies that get integrated into Google… and we also have a new construct called an autonomous unit where we basically will buy a company and leave it very independent.”

Part 2: Marissa Mayer: ‘Google Hasn’t Gotten Social Right Yet’

Part 3: Google VP Marissa Mayer: Learn By Failing

Register for Digital Privacy Forum on January 20 in New York to learn about the business of online privacy and the future of information management.

We talked with Marissa Mayer Google’s VP of consumer products for our Media Beat series. The full interview will run next week (Jan. 3-5) on WebNewser, but we wanted to share this clip with you about Google jobs. Mayer tells our Donya Blaze what Google is looking for in an employee.

Writing about new media startup companies is like waving a bubble wand in the air and watching the bubbles either land on the ground, latch onto larger bubbles, or burst in mid-air, and it’s hard to tell where they’ll go. Here’s a look at some of our most interesting stories in 2010:

Social Media is Going Mainstream… Sort of

• A slew of browser-based software applications for chatting and sharing data (like enterprise software company HipChat) make the “cloud” metaphor ubiquitous enough for network television ads.
• The phrase “social network” is ubiquitous enough for Hollywood.
• ‘New Twitter’ underwhelms public, finds niche in retail with fashion startup Moxsie.
• Facebook reaches 500 million active users. But don’t get too cocky, social media: Pew Research Center reports that only eight percent of American Internet users are on Twitter.

The Internet is Getting Personal

• Web analytics software can read entire sentences.
• Just when you had LinkedIn and Yelp all figured out, here come new social media sites Bizzy and Hashable to make finding a sandwich more like using Netflix and finding a job more like using Twitter.

Sharecropping is the New Content Farming

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The following is a post from PRNewser’s Tonya Garcia.

Thrillist was started by two guys – recent college grads – who felt there wasn’t a resource for cool gadgets, restaurants, and other lifestyle topics that resonated with them.

“We were reading a bunch of city guides that weren’t speaking our language,” Ben Lerer, co-founder of Thrillist told us in part one of our Media Beat interview.

Now this daily newsletter for men has celebrated its fifth anniversary, has 18 editions spanning the U.S. and London, and just launched a redesigned website.

Thrillist also offers social media, video, and apps, all with the goal of giving its male audience what it wants. And what is that? “All the things you assume guys would like, but hope they won’t,” Lerer says.

Part 2: We talk with Ben Lerer about Jack Threads, Thrillist’s events, and what they mean to the brand.

Part 3: Ben Lerer describes what it’s like to lead a start up and talks about the company he launched with his dad, Lerer Ventures.