Oh dear.

Been testing out the Beeb’s iPlayer BETA for a few weeks now and finally decided to hook up my Facebook and Twitter accounts to enable the BBC’s new ‘recommend’ feature.

I then receive the following email:

and the offending avatar…?

“If you choose to add a Public Profile picture, it will appear on your Public Profile page, and in other places around the BBC website, for example in places where you’ve made a recommendation or a comment that is attributed to you. We moderate all Public Profile pictures before they are published for other people to see, so please keep to these rules:

• do upload a picture of yourself, not someone else
• don’t upload pictures of anyone under 16 years old or anyone other than yourself without their permission
• don’t upload pictures that show nudity, or are offensive
• don’t upload pictures that are defamatory, unlawful, or breach copyright
• don’t upload pictures that contain text, URLs, personal information, or contact details
• don’t upload pictures that promote a commercial product, service, or charity (i.e. no logos)
• do abide by the Terms of Use

If you connect your BBC iD to Facebook or Twitter, you can use your picture from that site as your BBC Public Profile picture. If you decide you want to use your Facebook or Twitter picture on the BBC, we will take a copy of your current Facebook or Twitter picture, and pass it to the BBC’s moderators for approval. Your original image from Facebook or Twitter is not affected by this. As we have to moderate your picture, we will not automatically update your BBC profile picture when you change your picture on Facebook and Twitter.

Remember, any picture you select for use at the BBC (by uploading one, or by choosing to use your Facebook or Twitter picture) will be moderated before other BBC users can see it. You will be notified by email if your Profile picture has not been approved by the moderators.”

The official “policy” can be read in full here: https://id.bbc.co.uk/users/help/profile#profile.addprofilepic

As I said… Oh dear.

(via Geeks Are Sexy)

This afternoon I visited the offices of Tempero - Europe’s largest supplier of social media moderation and management services.

The team I met with do a great job in providing 24/7 specialist moderation for message boards, blogs, commenting, social networking sites and user generated content (UGC) projects.

One of the things I like about Tempero is that they stay ahead of the game in knowing what the legal requirements are when it comes to engaging with your audiences online. The whole area is a potential legal minefield – often with serious repercussions – particularly when dealing with minors.

Tempero is a member of the Home office Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet and every member of their team is police checked and fully trained to be up to speed with new legal guidelines and best practices.

Here is a report that they have made available for anybody looking to clarify where they stand legally when engaging with user generated content as part of a campaign or ongoing communications strategy. It#s actually really insightful and provides a good primer for practitioners within the industry.

User-generated content and the law

Dominic Sparkes, MD of Tempero thinks that more brands need to be aware of their responsibilities when going online:

“For some brands it’s a case of cutting corners, but most are simply struggling to understand their responsibilities and requirements under confusing and outdated laws.  This guide aims to break down some barriers and distil the wealth of available information into one easy to comprehend suite of usefulness!”

I had a really interesting meeting this morning with a fairly senior figure from the UK PR industry. Our conversation steered towards cool consumer campaigns and how much social media can enhance and shape brand reputation. The train of thought evolved naturally to the B2B sectors and the consensus was that there is still a lot of relatively untapped potential in social media that B2B brands could dip into and use to their advantage.

But far too often, the comms industry tends to reserve new platforms to showcase consumer campaigns leaving B2B to fester in the realms of trade events and specialist press.

So imagine my delight when this little bugger crept its way into my RSS reader today:

Food for thought, indeed.  Kudos to the Earnest Agency for putting this together. To find out more about Earnest please visit www.earnest-agency.com

[Merci beaucoup Emilie Ogez]

These are my links for July 14th from 09:22 to 21:04:

• The Register’s scathing article on the Treasury’s crowdsource site – The Treasury's Spending Challenge site was supposed to be a way for the great British public to create a wonder-Wiki of savings ideas for the coalition government. There's no denying it is popular – it is still struggling under the load and visitors might see a Service Unavailable (503) message.
• Google puts $1m into academic research projects for digitised books – A Google-backed research project is to map out the relationship between location and literature, visualising works related to a specific era or place using Google Earth
• Social Media and the Art of the Soft Sell (great advice from the Sysomos Blog) – One of the key lessons that many companies are learning, however, is that social media is not a place for the hard sell. Unlike other mediums, companies that try to blatantly pitch their goods and services are penalized rather than rewarded.
• The Hybrid Theory Manifesto: The Future of Marketing, Advertising, and Communications Part Two –
• Over half of opened emails deleted within two seconds – You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. And when it comes to email, you only have a couple of seconds to make a good impression.
• Social Media is the Servant of Strategy Not the Master – Guest post by Mike Cassidy, a non-profit Senior Executive Director specializing in membership development, engagement and retention. His ramblings can be found at www.membershipjedi.com
• BBC changes News FAQ after it accidentally threatens to kill thousands of old links around the web – In the past the site was marketed as bbc.co.uk/news but actually redirected to news.bbc.co.uk. From today, news.bbc.co.uk is no more and all URLs are in the format www.bbc.co.uk/news
• China’s “Twitters” reduce service – Chinese social networking websites that provide Twitter-like services have suddenly reverted to testing mode and access has been spotty amid reports of a government clampdown.
• BBC News – Search engine Bing gains market share – Microsoft's search engine Bing has shown impressive growth in its first year say industry experts.
• Britain’s Foreign Policy in a Networked World – The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, gave the following speech outlining the Government's vision for UK foreign policy on 1 July 2010.
• Facebook’s OpenGraph is Coming to the Mobile Web – Facebook's new head of mobile products, Eric Tseng, spoke today at MobileBeat 2010, introducing a new approach to the company's OpenGraph.
• Reports of blogging’s death have been greatly exaggerated (great article from Guardian) – Blogging is not on the way out – it's just that other social media have taken over many of its functions
• Chatroulette security breached by researchers – Techworld.com – Anonymous chatting may not be as private as you thought
• More than half of travellers share vacation info on social media sites – Online travel company Travelocity’s most recent poll shows more than half of all travellers share vacation information through social media sites.
• Coventry to trial ‘socially conscious Twitter’ – Voice Your View will let people provide feedback about their neighbourhood, including how safe they feel.
• Ben & Jerry’s drops email in favour of social media – Ben & Jerry’s will become one of the first big brands to abandon regular email marketing. It will instead focus on social media.
• Old Spice targets Twitter generation – The Cannes Film Grand Prix-winning Old Spice campaign has evolved into targeting Twitter users, including Starbucks and GQ, with 117 publicly available video messages.
• BBC launches redesigned news website – The BBC launched its revamped news website today. The redesign is the first since March 2008 and "the biggest rethink of the design of the site since 2003," according to editor Steve Herrmann.

These are my links for July 13th from 13:06 to 21:24:

• Tessa Jowell: now a feature on Google Maps. Reason: sort-of known – Can anyone explain why Labour's deputy leader / shadow Cabinet Office/Olympics minister now appears on Google Maps?
• BT uses social media to decide ending for TV ad campaign – BT is calling on the public to decide and vote online for their own ending for the storyline of its long-running Adam and Jane TV ad campaign, which airs on 17 July. The ad will premier to Facebook fans before being aired on 17 July, enabling them to vote on the ending. 
• Will video become intimate? – There’s something surprisingly tragic about Apple’s latest touching, brilliant commercials for the iPhone 4’s FaceTime.
• How to Use Delicious for Content Ideas – As you develop your blog's and micromedia content calendar, it may be helpful to use Delicious as a tool to bookmark content you find interesting, instructive, and helpful. Pick a series of tags that reflect your focus, and select articles and posts about the topics you'd want to write about.
• Outlook gets Facebook integration – Microsoft has integrated Facebook into its Outlook e-mail system in its latest move towards the social web.

These are my links for July 12th through July 13th:

• Modern Apprenticeship’s to be promoted through social networking sites – Dedicated Facebook page with Twitter updates will help promote Modern Apprenticeships programme
• How Facebook Increased General Election Voter Registration : Online Social Media – A report on Brad Insight, sourced from the Press Gazette, tells of a recent study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ). The study says that 97% of 18-24 year olds not only used Facebook during the general election, but also the main source of their political information was online.
• Facebook facing lawsuit as New Yorker claims 84% of firm | Technology | guardian.co.uk – Facebook is in court to defend yet another claim to ownership, this time from a web designer cum wood pellet distributor who says a previous contract entitles him to 84% of the company.
• Final countdown to the Live Every Litre online premiere | blog till you drop! –
• Wired City: Get Ready To Broadcast Your Life On The Internet, 24/7 – Artist and serial entrepreneur Josh Harris, who ventured into Internet TV when it was still in its nascent stage, is back with a new video chat TV project called Wired City, which will have video chat rooms organized into different categories, with a director controlling what is seen in each chat room.
• Tom Sutcliffe: Some people can live without the internet – Thomas Sutcliffe, Columnists – The Independent –

These are my links for July 12th from 15:37 to 22:55:

• Foursquare passes the two million user mark – Telegraph – Foursquare, the location-based social network, has crossed the two million user mark over the weekend.
• Internet Retailing » Domino’s Pizza delivers rise in online orders – Almost third of Domino’s Pizza orders are now made online, the company’s six-month results showed today.
• Russian internet group buys ICQ – Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian internet company, said on Monday it had completed its $187.5m acquisition of ICQ, one of the world’s largest instant messaging service, from AOL.
• What Is A Follower Worth? A Retweet? Surely Not This Much… – Over on CenterNetworks today, Allen Stern detailed a new advertising offering from TwitVid called ‘SocialAds.’ While the name is not very creative, what they are offering just might be.
• Tweetdeck turns 2 years old, hints at a ‘multi-stream’ future – What started out as a quirky Adobe Air-based app that allowed you to easily see an overview of the Twitterverse has turned into an truly versatile, cross-platform social media tool and made a mini-celebrity (at least in tech circles) of UK-based founder Iain Dodsworth.
• Social Media Statistics | Jonathan MacDonald –
• Big Milestone – world now has 5 Billion active mobile phone subscriptions – Remember the 5 Billon subscriptions are not 'unique users' and all are not actual mobile phones. About a third of those 'real people' who have an active mobile phone account and at least 1 phone – actually have 2 (or more) mobile phone accounts. And of the unique users, about one in seven has two actual mobile phones (like an executive who has a Blackberry from work, who also has a private iPhone).
• Six Digital Trends To Watch – A recent presentation by Edelman Digital’s Steve Rubel and David Armano offers a compilation of digital trends that brands should have a perspective on – and planned approach to.
• PR’s own goal: Or why blogger pitching has been worse than the French national team this World Cup by @GaryAndrews –

These are my links for July 12th from 11:18 to 14:57:

• ReputationOnline: Event-based mobile apps yet to reach their true potential – This summer has seen brands take unprecedented steps to employ mobile as part of their event-based marketing in a trend that will leave advocates of the channel justifiably smug.
• More on the blog wars – the statistical evidence – UKOM/Nielsen data for unique visitors shows that WordPress, Blogger and Typepad have seen little audience growth in the past two years while Tumblr, Posterous et al have grown exponentially.
• How ‘Real’ Media Misses the Point In Social Media – The recent firings of two people skilled at their craft should be a wake up sign that mainstream media still has a long way to go. Big media won’t be ready for on-the-edge blogging until they get over their God complex, support dissent and get comfortable showing who they are.
• The Force that Powers Persuasive Content (And 3 Ways to Intensify It) – If you want to engage and influence, connect emotionally and then justify logically.
• Google Coupons Continue Their Rise From the Dead – Since their inception, Google Coupons have been invisible to most searchers and offered little value to the SMB.
• GlowDart Turns Your Monitor into a 10-Foot Display News Ticker – If you're looking for a way to set your monitor or computer-connected television to roll through current headlines from major news outlets—or your personal Facebook/Twitter feed—GlowDart is an easy to read full-screen news ticker.
• Mobile technologies and location-aware social networking – International strategy consultancy PTOLEMUS Consulting Group has published its first European Location Study 2010 to highlight the grounds for the industry's phenomenal growth.
• The Hybrid Theory Manifesto: The Future of Marketing, Advertising, and Communications Part One – The fusion of creative and communications, combining earned and paid media to enliven ideas, unite communities, amplify stories and spark desired outcomes.
• Why social gaming offers new opportunities for consumer engagement – Marketing News | OMD International | UTalkMarketing – The combination of iPhone and people seeking cheap, escapist gaming fixes during the downturn has seen social gaming reach hundreds of millions of consumers globally. No surprise then that social gaming was named by Brandweek as one of the Top 10 digital trends to watch in 2010.
• Alun Michael MP: ‘The internet is not just for geeks and bright people – it’s a resource for all’ – Keith Phillip Jones speaks to Alun Michael MP about the internet, journalism and being back in parliament
• Facebook Says Doll With Nipples Is OK – FACEBOOK has said sorry to a Sydney jeweller for censoring her images of a nude porcelain doll posing with her works.

These are my links for July 11th through July 12th:

• How Immersive Journalism, Games Can Increase Engagement – The average reader spends 25 minutes a day reading the newspaper, while the average online user spends 70 seconds a day on a news site, according to data from Hal Varian, Google's chief economist.
• Facebook to launch child safety ‘panic button’ – Facebook has announced it is to launch a "panic button" application on its social networking site.
• BBC News – Martha Lane Fox want all citizens of working age online – UK digital champion, Martha Lane Fox, wants to get everyone of working age online by 2012
• Facebook’s OpenGraph, Three Months Later – It's been about 90 days since the f8 Facebook Conference and the debut of OpenGraph, a platform consisting of publisher plugins, semantic markup and a developer API. Every new vehicle needs time for a shakedown drive, to bang out the kinks and to see if users can make something of it.
• Extractiv Launches "Semantics as a Service" Platform – Extractiv has quietly launched a service that crawls the Web for text on a specific topic, then transforms it into "structured semantic data." It's a direct competitor to Thomson Reuters' Calais product, which has been doing this for a couple of years now. This type of service is potentially valuable to media companies, search services and monitoring applications – because it turns messy, unorganized HTML content into data that is organized into categories and given other semantic 'meaning.'
• People worry about over-sharing location from mobiles, study finds – Experiments like 'Please Rob Me' indicate that what people reveal via location-sharing apps could potentially be harmful to them – and survey finds concerns among users
• How the internet really affected the election –
• Mobile TV achieves World Cup goals –