On Twitter and Facebook in the past eight months, there were over 1,700 individuals who came out and admitted their secret: they don’t read any website or web services terms of service prior to signing up.

Why is this you ask?

Well, complaints included the agreement being too long for starters, while others just flat out didn’t care — they just wanted access to a site or service.

But really, should you care about what you’re potentially agreeing to?

In an ideal world, yes. However, the fact of the matter is that if you want to be on Facebook with your friends, you’ll agree to their terms, as there’s no way for you to negotiate your own terms of service.

So what is being done to simplify the Terms of Service agreement?

One company, 500px, decided it was a good idea to pair the legalese with an every day language explanation on the side of each paragraph. A nice touch, but is it enough?

Another idea has been Terms of Service; Didn’t Read (TOS;DR), which launched in June 2012 with the goal to fix the biggest lie on the web: “I have read and agree to the terms.”

TOS;DR is turning into an excellent resource for those curious about what you are actually agreeing to by signing up and using popular websites. The crowd sourced project outlines and ranks (Class A [best] through Class E [worst]), popular websites and web services’ terms of service agreements providing useful information to users.

For example, according to TOS;DR TwitPic has the worst rank (Class E) when it comes to their terms of service agreement. While they have several “infractions,” some of the most notable include the fact that TwitPic takes credit for your user generated content, that they can use your own content for their own gain, and that when you delete an image from your TwitPic account it isn’t really deleted from their servers.

In TwitPic’s case, this type of information could be valuable for people who are concerned with protecting their content, such as photographers. It will be interesting to see how other social sites such as Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. rank in comparison to each other and if the ranks will affect what types of people use each service.

It’s also worth noting that because the project is still relatively new, not every website or web service is accounted for. Additionally, sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google are listed and have certain elements of their terms of service agreements explained, but are not ranked due to not being sufficiently reviewed at this time.

Below you can find the full TOS;DR ranking system and how each rank is classified.

What about you?  Do you read a website’s terms of service agreement prior to signing up?

If you want some additional perspective on the increased interest in the mission, on August 3 the @MarsCuriosity account Tweeted that it was in “good health” and would be landing in three days. That Tweet was ReTweeted 1,689 times and favorited 180 times. While the Tweet from @MarsCuriosity sharing the first picture after landing garnered 30,933 ReTweets and 6,993 favorites.

One of the most popular aspects of the Mars rover landing was the fact it was live streamed on the Internet, with the Ustream channel dedicated to the Curiosity rover racking up almost 7 million views.

A live stream from Mars, you ask? Yes, and there was only a 14 minute delay for data that had to travel 154.2 million miles. Pretty impressive. Of course, this small fact gave way to over 50,000 Tweets from people berating NBC’s Olympic coverage, which had already been a hot topic of conversation.

Tweets such as the ones below called out NBC for delaying coverage of Olympic events for hours in an effort to get more viewers during prime time.

NBC has a 6 hour delay for events 3000 miles away.NASA has a 15 minute delay for an event 150,000,000 miles away.

— Matt Nunogawa (@amattn) August 6, 2012

Mars Curiosity Rover landing will have a 14 minute delay over 154.2 million miles. What’s NBC’s excuse? nasa.gov/multimedia/nas… #NASAwin

— Andrew Turner (@ajturner) August 6, 2012

We also analyzed conversation surrounding the #FundNASA hashtag, after reading about it going viral on TechCrunch. However, despite TechCrunch’s report, there were only 2,769 tweets that included the #FundNASA hashtag on Twitter indicating to us that the hashtag was not nearly as popular as claimed.

Our very own Creative Director was up in the early hours of the morning to watch the Mars landing, here is a photo from his “mission control.”

Did you watch the Mars landing? If so, how did you watch it?

Yesterday everyone found out that Facebook launched its new “Facebook Camera Application” that is available in the App Store for free. Facebook’s new app has 15 different filters and cropping features created by Facebook product manager Dirk Stoop. Sound familiar to a little mobile application called Instagram that they bought 1 billion dollars ago?

To keep everybody in one place, it’s only natural that Mother Facebook adopted Instagram and then ate its own kin. But is mimicking another mobile app going to enhance its owns mobile influence? Investing more time on their mobile strategy and having sub-applications to breed profit might have been a better line of attack.

So what did Twitterverse have to say about Facebook’s new act to its ever-growing circus? It seemed as although while Instagram has nothing to do with the new app, 27% of the 41,940 Tweets mentioning Facebook Camera also mentioned Instagram. The curtain has opened and people are discussing the true purpose of the Instagram acquisition.

So is this the end for Instagram and the beginning of Facebook’s lineage keeping everything on the Internet within the family? Probably not.

If you feel like you’re having a bit of deja-vu, that’s understandable. Facebook built Facebook Places, which they were pretty confident would replace Foursquare. Fail. Facebook built Marketplace to replace Craigslist. Fail. Facebook has a habit of trying to replace other social networks, and it never really seems to pan out.

We’re not worried about you, Instagram. We’re on your side.

Well, now you will.

We analyzed over 90,000 conversations that took place yesterday (April 24th, 2012) on Twitter, Facebook, and forums to find out how many people were planning to switch to Google Drive, remain loyal to their current cloud storage provider (e.g. Dropbox, SkyDrive, etc), use multiple cloud storage providers, or were just unsure about what they were going to do.

What We Found

On the Edge

Interestingly enough, a majority of people (32%) were unsure about whether they would switch to Google Drive. While this can be attributed to it being new and people haven’t had enough time to use it yet, there was definitely some concern regarding the Terms of Service for Google Drive and what that meant for people who upload their data to the service specifically regarding ownership and whether they would be targeted with ads based on their uploaded data.

Switchers

Despite the concerns and the newness, 27% of people were jumping on the Google Drive bandwagon. Users who liked Google’s latest product cited things like affordable pricing, design, and integration with Android as reasons for switching.

Loyalists

Coming in at 22% are the people who plan to stick with their current cloud storage provider due to feature limitations of Google Drive, app integration with other services (e.g. 1Password and Dropbox), and lack of trust for Google. Out of those people, most seem to prefer Dropbox over SkyDrive and other alternatives.

Hoarders

This data surprised us: 19% of people plan to use multiple cloud storage services. We expected this percentage to be higher, simply because all of the major players in the space offer free accounts, so why not take advantage of all that free space? Well, as it turns out, that is exactly what people within this category seem to be doing, with many users citing the aggregate amount of storage they now have on all the different services.

Demographics

Gender

This conversation was primarily male dominated with 73% of conversation being generated by males while females accounted for 27%.

Age

20 and under: 13%
21-35: 46%
36-50: 30%
51 and over: 11%

The age demographic that accounted for most of the conversation was the 21 to 35 year olds (46%) which makes sense because a lot of young people use cloud storage services for school, sharing files, and more recently in work environments.  However, what may be surprising to you is the 11% of conversation that the 51 and over age demographic accounted for.  While we typically do not see that age range account for much technology discussion, the “spike” may be attributed to potential privacy concerns about being targeted with ads based on uploaded data as well as concerns regarding ownership of data uploaded to Google Drive.

What’s It All Mean?

While we cannot predict what service people will end up choosing in the long-run, we can say that at this point in time the cloud storage industry is still very much up for grabs.  Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Box.net, etc all have their work cut out for them and we expect the industry to continue to work on building innovative features and offer more space for less cost.  In the end, all of this works out well for the end-users who get the features they want at the best possible price.

The “holiday” has been officially adopted by foursquare and even offers an official 4sqDay badge if you checkin somewhere on 4/16. The mass adoption of 4sqDay by foursquare itself along with several actual cities around the world, has led to local meetups among foursquare users and restaurants and stores offering exclusive one day deals to foursquare users who check-in.

We decided to check-in to conversation surrounding 4sqDay and take a look at what people were saying. We analyzed over 280,000 pieces of data and here is what we found:

User Breakdown

Foursquare announced it has hit the 20 million user milestone.

There were over 235,000 mentions of people unlocking the special 4sqDay 2012 badge which accounted for most of the conversation.

Top 5 Countries

USA: 116,635 mentions
Brazil: 11,946 mentions
UK: 7,974 mentions
Indonesia: 7,340 mentions
Japan: 3,521 mentions

Top 5 Meetups

Milano: 376 people attended
New York: 138 people attended
Jarkarta: 138 people attended
San Francisco: 129 people attended
Atlanta: 121 people attended

Deals

Conversation on Twitter surrounding 4sqDay deals was small with approximately 1% of the conversation about 4sqDay relating to the deals being offered.

Conversation Breakdown: 2012 vs 2011

This year (2012), conversation about 4sqDay increased 75% from the previous year (2011).

Conclusion

We expect to see the upward trend of 4sqDay participation continue as foursquare growth increases and more real city Mayor’s proclaim 4/16 4sqDay.

1.    #fb

Used to send a tweet to Twitter user’s Facebook page.

16.4 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with #cool, #teamfollowback

2.    #news

Used when tweeting about news stories

16.1 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #tech, #business, #usa

3.    #jobs

Used when discussing job offers

14 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #freelance, #nursing, #hiring

4.     #ff

Used as an abbreviation for “Follow Friday”

13.9 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #autofollow, #f4f, #followme

5.    #socialmedia

Used by social media marketers discussing the field

4.1 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #marketing, #ff, #sm

6.    #ows

Used to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement

3.8 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #nyc, #nypd, #solidarity

7.    #travel

Used by people discussing traveling

3.5 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #tips, #vacation, #photo

8.    #photography

Used to discuss the art of photography

3.2 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #nature, #art, #foto

9.    #in

Used to publish users tweets to their LinkedIn page

2.6 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #hiring #career #socialmedia

10.  #health

Used to discuss the health industry, tips and related stories

2.5 million tweets (all time)

Commonly used with: #weightloss, #diet, #workout

*Numbers only reflect public Twitter accounts.

**All the research used in this post was compiled from: topsy.com, hashtagify.me, and whatthetrend.com

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Consumers have a number of reasons to utilize the internet to engage in online shopping activities such as conducting price comparisons, seeking product information, reviews, advice and more. With increased accessibility to the internet via mobile devices and tablets, these activities and conversations are growing at exponential rates. The internet, thus, has become a fundamental tool for brand marketers and online retailers to communicate clear, concise, sophisticated levels of communication, catering to the expressed needs of online social consumers.

On a daily basis, people are becoming more avid in sharing their purchasing intents and experiences within their social networks. This online trend is creating valuable opportunities for marketers to engage directly with their consumers, allowing them to understand and influence their buying behaviors. Social media and online communities can be a goldmine of intelligence and opportunity for brands given that they are able to effectively understand what their consumers are saying, what it all means, and what they can be doing about it.

In the recent case study we conducted, “Android Showdown: Bionic vs Galaxy S II” we put this theory to work with a goal of understanding how individuals online were expressing intent to purchase a particular phone. In our study from April 1-June 21, 2011, we found 14,838 online conversations expressing explicit intent or seeking advice on whether to purchase either phone. By analyzing this data set, over ten times larger then leading market research firms, we were able to then effectively organize and make sense of the organic, unsolicited conversation across the social web. (Read more about the results of the study here.)

Seeking intelligence around consumer buying behaviors through the use of focus groups and surveys is time consuming and expensive. By utilizing social media listening services, companies are now able to organize thousands of conversations to inform, adjust and shape their online marketing initiatives.

There’s no denying that the social ecosphere is becoming more and more complex as companies strive to develop new ways to engage and interact with their core audience. So with all this information and engagement happening, how does a brand “keep it simple” to get the real message across?

Rule #1: Offer a clear, consistent, voice and value. Before you hit “GO” on your social media campaign, take time to develop the objectives of your online presence. Be sure to identify the value you bring through engaging with your core audience, and create a “content schedule” that will allow you to offer clear, consistent messaging. Use these strategies to marry both your offline and online initiatives, with an end goal of prompting a behavior.

Rule #2: Provide content that your audience cares about. A great starting place for developing your “content schedule” is through understanding what your audience cares about and driving conversation around that. Typically, consumers will choose to engage with you because of the value you have to offer them. Being able to create and share content that lines up with the interests of your audience is key.

Rule #3: Create simple, low friction experiences that consumers want to share. Creating simple, sharable content is key. In other words, don’t make your audience think. Keep it simple and valuable and it’s more likely to be engaged with, thus getting more impressions across the social graph. Always be armed with clear, sticky CTAs.

In today’s new age of communication, incorporating “being social” into the fabric of how you listen and interact with your customers is absolutely necessary. Everyday online there are tens of millions of people expressing what they want, need, how they feel, what they intend to do and how they are going to do it. The way people are communicating is changing and companies that are receptive to that, are embracing those conversations, turning them into valuable opportunities of positive brand interactions.

It all begins with the concept of listening.

By utilizing the right tools, companies have the ability to take a set of unstructured data and extract dozens of things like people, places, geography and events, to find out where conversation is taking place, who is participating, the words being used, and what it all means.  It’s figuring out what you know about your customers to identify what they need and what’s important to them. Taking those insights and implementing meaningful, actionable strategies to respond to those people in real time, makes it worth the effort. It goes beyond listening to understanding and from understanding to insight.

If companies can change the way they listen, understand, and respond, they can change the way they build advocacy around their brand.

“Nearly 60% of impressions about brands are developed before ever making a purchase”-Karen Quintos, Dell CMO

Identifying where conversations are taking place and getting involved to create positive connections will spread positive brand awareness and advocacy across the social web.  It’s no longer a one way monologue, but rather a dialogue that allows you to give the empowered social consumer what they want, when they need it.