If your life wasn’t crowded enough with Facebook and Twitter, Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants you to start using his new social network, Ping. I think it might cause the death of MySpace and even Spotify, but there will be questions over who owns the right to the Ping name.

Described as a “bit like Twitter or Facebook” Ping allows users to create custom charts based on people you “follow” on iTunes, a service already with 160 million users.

As with the launch of the iPad and the iPhone there are other services called Ping which will no doubt lead to trademark issues and negotiations. Ping.fm is a service that allows users to update all their social networks at once owned by Twitter software company Seesmic. A company called Karsten Manufacturing Corporation own a the US trademark for the word Ping for a whole variety of uses including for social networks.

In an obvious dig at Facebook’s problems with piracy, Mr Jobs said the “the privacy is super simple to setup.” Users can choose to allow anyone to see their playlists, just their friends or no-one. He’s also ditched the CD from iTunes well known logo, as “iTunes is about to overtake CD sales in the US, we thought it’s time to ditch the CD from the logo.”

The launch of Ping, comes after Apple purchased and then closed down the music streaming website Lala and was widely expected. Apple now effectively go head to head with Spotify which has recently allowed users to see the tracks and playlists of their friends via Facebook Connect. 160 million users to the 7 million Spotify has doesn’t seem like a very fair fight,

According to a study presented at a Pivot Conference (in partnership with Extra Mile Research) entitled "Marketers' Current and Future Use of Social Media," 63% of marketers are already investing in social media marketing, and of the 37% that are not currently investing in social media marketing, 62% are planning to invest, including 46% who plan to do so within one year.

Other key findings include:

• 57% welcome social media users involvement and participation with their brands
•  Of those already investing in social media marketing, 87% plan to increase their expenditures in the next 12 months, including 56% who plan significant increases in spending.
• Only 30% of marketers who conduct social media marketing have measurement and analysis strategy fully implemented.
• 43% of marketers who conduct social media marketing have not begun implementing any measurement or analysis programs
• Of those who have measurement and analysis programs in place, 62% are only "somewhat satisfied" with their programs
•  Despite all of the focus and investment in social media marketing, only 30% consider their social media marketing efforts "very successful." 59% rate their efforts as "somewhat successful."
• 75% of marketers consider the "always-on" 18-34 year old consumers as a primary or secondary target.
• Marketers feel that the "always-on" 18-34 year old consumers have unique characteristics:
• 70% of marketers consider them to have a shorter attention span
• 67% consider them to have different motivations than previous generations
• 59% consider them to be less accepting and more questioning of marketing messages in general

There should not be such a thing as a standalone "social media strategy." What your brand should have is an overarching strategy that may or may not include social media tactics depending on whether they make sense for your customers or not.

Similarly, there shouldn't be laser-focused "social media strategists." Instead, brand marketers need to rely on strategists and planners who deeply understand their audiences, including -- but not limited to -- demographics, attitudes and beliefs, cultural realities affecting their lives, and technology adoption, of which the role of the Internet (and subsequently online social media) is a subset.

The proliferation of online social media represents a fundamental shift in the way people obtain information. Instead of relying on companies or institutions, people can now get the information they need from each other -- from those who have "been in my shoes." The number one reason people access social media sites for health used to be "for emotional support." Now, it's for information. Naturally, brands want to remain relevant to their customers, and this means being more transparent and accessible (an unexpectedly painful process for many companies).

In its quest to build the most powerful gaming platform on the web, Google has made another purchase today: game developer SocialDeck. Inside Social Games first reported the story. According to The Canadian Press, Google has confirmed the purchase.

With the massive number of gaming developers and publishers in the market, why did Google choose SocialDeck? It could be because of the startup’s mobile offerings. SocialDeck was founded in 2008 with the vision of enabling “anywhere, anytime, anyone” gaming. The company has launched several titles for the iPhone, Facebook, and BlackBerry using its social gaming platform technology, which enables simultaneous game play across multiple mobile devices and social networks.

Google Canada spokeswoman Wendy Rozeluk told the Canadian Press: “SocialDeck’s team and technology is a perfect addition to our current team of engineers in Waterloo, (Ont.), to continue to innovate in the social and mobile web.”

Nancy Ehrlich was nearing 50 and frustrated, teaching at her small Pennsylvania town's elementary school with colleagues who didn't share her love of technology.

Then, last summer, she found Twitter.

Now, Ehrlich -- who turns 51 in a few weeks -- barely qualifies for the fastest-growing club on the Web. The number of internet users over 50 who use social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have nearly doubled in the past year, according to a study released Friday.

"It definitely has changed my whole life -- that's how significant Twitter is to me," said Ehrlich, who now regularly chats with educators around the world and helps host a weekly forum for them on the micro-blogging site. "At first, I didn't really get it. But I just kept watching it and, before you knew it, I was hooked."

Between April 2009 and May, the percentage of internet users 50 and up who said they use social-networking sites has risen from 22 percent to 42 percent, according to the survey by the Pew Research Center.

Respondents 65 and older reported a 100 percent increase, while those between 50 and 64 jumped 88 percent.

By comparison, the number of users from 18-29 who said they use networking sites rose a much more meager 13 percent.

CMO Matrix: How Social Technology Must Integrate with Traditional Marketing, a Horizontal Approach

Marketing Tactic	Why It’s Important	Opportunities of Social Technology
Market Research	You can’t effectively reach consumers till you know about them, and market research is a key function for any corporation. For some time, market research was limited to focus groups, consumer testing, and survey based methodology. This includes both traditional marketing research groups as well as competitive intelligence groups.	Now, with the advent of social technologies, at least three forms of opportunity have emerged:  1) Using brand monitoring technology to harvest what consumers are already saying in social channels, 2) Harnessing the crowd to find out their real time reactions, see how Communispace and Passenger have done this.  3) Using innovation tools like Salesforce Ideas, UserVoice, GetSatisfaction to build products in real time with consumers.
Corporate Website	The corporate website is a source of product factual information, and pro-brand materials.  This is the master repository of a brand, it’s products, and services.	Social technologies are being integrated in three phases: 1) Standalone tools like communities are built, but not integrated, 2) Social login systems like FB connect and Open ID are increasing conversion rates 3) Social context is being developed so content is served up on the fly from social data. See my keynote at Gilbane’s CMS conference on social and corporate website integration.
Intranet	Marketing must influence internal stakeholders, including sales, field marketing, and product teams.  The intranet is a key internal repository of information, this would also include any associated email communications.	Social technologies are being deployed internally like PBWorks, Socialcast, Basecamp, and Yammer without the consent of IT.  The opportunity to use these tools to allow teams to find experts, information regardless of region or time are ripe.
Email Marketing	Email, one of the primary forms of digital communication is often a highly trusted source when customers have opt-in.  When you look closely, email is a social network, see how Google wants to do it. In fact, the root information requirement for Twitter and Facebook is a verified email.	Email marketing companies are starting to offer ’sharing’ features so recipients are encouraged to quickly share the information with their peers, as well as offering brands SMMS systems to manage this information.  Expect the Facebook inbox and email marketing to quickly merge in coming years,
Search Marketing	A mature practice that attracts buyers and prospects during their core information seeking phase, SEM is critical to reaching the information starved through well placed sponsored information and advertisements	We’re also seeing an influx of social advertisements appear as the social graph is infused in search results. Example: We’re starting to see the content our friends recommend in search engine results, and Facebook’s foray with social ads.
Search Engine Optimization	Fine tuning websites so they are the first choice in organic search results is both a science and art by experienced practitioners.	Social media tools, esp blogs and ratings and review sites like Yelp score high in organic search due to many incoming links and freshly updated content.
Advertising	Often the bulk of most marketing budgets, advertising is key in many phases of the customer journey, in particular driving awareness and consideration.	Like SEM listed above, advertising can become more efficient in the future by tapping into social profile data (who is this person) and their social graph (who do they trust) to serve up relevant content.  As Facebook spreads their features all over the web (analysis), expect a new form of advertising to appear based on social data.  Twitter’s “Sponsored Links” bodes similar experimentation
Sponsorship	Marketers drive associative branding and qualified leads through sponsorship opportunities.	Social helps in two specific ways:  New influencers have emerged such as ‘Mom and Dad bloggers” creating more niched inventory with deeper engagement to sponsor.  Furthermore, all traditional sponsorship activities can use social marketing for further engagement.
eCommerce	While over a decade old, online shopping has continued to be primary low cost driver for the brick and mortar company.	The mainstay integration has been consumer ratings and reviews from the aggregation of the crowd, often powered by vendors like Bazzarvoice.  Yet expect new forms of eCommerce to evolve as an individuals social graph is connected to eCommerce tools. See how Levi’s has done it, and attend our conference, the Rise of Social Commerce.
Mobile Marketing	While in it’s infancy, marketers may use these tools to connect with consumers as they are on a specific location, during a certain part of the day, with greater context.	Now, as consumers indicate their location and time while on the go, marketers may reach them using a variety of contextual information, advertisements, and harnessing what their friends have done before them in the same locations.  See how Starbucks sponsored mayorship in Foursquare to increase both loyalty and WOM.
TV/Radio	The pioneering mediums in the electronic communication realm, these mediums provide content in a one way format.	Programs (radio hosts, newscasters, and stations) are using social technologies to infuse a two way relationship with listeners by finding new content in social channels (Watching Twitter) as well as integrating the voices of the audience, and empowering communities to build around them.  Perhaps more importantly, this creates new forms of inventory for these mediums to enable brands to sponsor or get involved with.
Print	From newspapers, magazines, to flyers, nothing creates an experience like holding physical paper in front of you.	Nearly all of these publications have associated social media properties, from Facebook fan pages, to supplementary blogs.  In fact, if paper adoption continues to decrease, these social tools provide a low-cost method of publishing and interacting with their audiences.  Magazines like Dwell have launched thriving online communities and nearly all national and many global newspapers have adopted social media in their online resources.
Field, Persona, Channel, and Regional Marketing	Marketing teams are often segmented by regions, or to sit with sales units in the field, or even to target specific consumer types, like moms. This segmented marketing approach is key for deeper context in approaching unique markets.	Like in other forms, don’t expect a one-size-fits all approach, each audience type will have a different penchant for social media technologies, which we call socialgraphics. Expect a tailored approach using social technologies to emerge for each of these groups as you reach different audiences.

Experience in social media tactics - For simplicity's sake, lets look at what most marketers go through (including this one). Here are three stages of adoption:

• Social Media Experiments - usually the first year or two of unconnected social media programs involving bloggers, video content distribution, cgm/ugc contests and other tactics.
• Adoption and Integration - in the following years, the value or success of social media is felt within and there is a push to do more and integrate it with more people and disciplines.
• Go 'Big' - after some experience and success following integration, brands can't help but want to "go big" either with a substantial facebook campaign or a more impactful integration (e.g. committing to 20 people in social customer care via Twitter and Live chat). usually these brands have sketched out a measurement model that reassures them the effort is smart business.

Social media business mindset - Is using social media an obligation due to outside pressures (your CEO, board, competitors all told you to do it in one way or another)? Or do you see a way - perhaps murky now - but a way that all of the implied qualities of social media may actually change your business? I see plenty of CMOs and CCOs who fit into both camps. So, the choice is between social media as obligation or social media as quest.

Google's social networking shopping spree continued with the purchase of two-man startup Angstro August 26, the company confirmed.

Angstro makes technology that helps "unlock the power of your social graph," which is industry parlance for adding social content such as Facebook photos, LinkedIn profiles, Twitter tweets and other social services to other Web services.

Angstro was founded and run by Rohit Kohare and Salim Ismail. Kohare announced his move to Google along with Ismail in a brief blog post.

Google declined to discuss what roles Kohare and Ismail will assume at the company or whether or not their products will live on.

However, Kohare in his blog post alluded to the looming fight between Google, which is racking up social networking components and leading social network Facebook.

"While our work here may be done, the struggle for open, interoperable social networks is still only just beginning, and I'm looking forward to working on that in my new role at Google," Kohare wrote. 

Struggle is the operative word. Facebook has more than 500 million users and is proven as much a utility as a social tool for connecting people with family, friends, colleagues and brands as Google has proven to be a utility for search.

However, where Facebook is largely protective of what content leaves its network, Kohare and Ismail are dedicated to making social content accessible anywhere. Kohare penned a blog post about this very issue for TechCrunch in May.

Angstro's Knxt.to pairs social network profile content with voice calls on Ribbit for Mobile, enriching the VOIP app's caller ID technology. Knxt.to provides a similar service for MySpace, aggregating profile info from other Websites.

Another Angstro service called Noteworthy News crawls the Web pipes news about a user's friends from Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to their computer.

That Google has purchased an open integrator of social services -- and hired open advocates such as Joseph Smarr and Chris Messina -- underscores its strategy.

This week, Google announced its latest innovation: a Gmail feature that allows you to place a phone call through your computer. The service is free in the United States and Canada for at least the rest of the year and costs as little as 2 cents a minute to dial countries such as Germany and Japan.

But perhaps the most radical idea of the summer was this: Google is planning to jump into social gaming in a big way. Even though Google's given us a bright moment or two of time-sucking frivolity (think: its whirl with Pac-Man), Facebook is the most important platform for this kind of online game.

Google has taken steps to make its services more competitive on Facebook's turf. Google announced this month that it was buying Slide, a start-up that makes apps for social networking, for $228 million. And according to news reports, Google recently took a financial stake in Zynga, the company behind the popular game FarmVille.

"They're pretty much going after everyone," said Heath Terry, director of Internet research at FBR Capital Markets. "Anyone that has had success in gaming." He said it's a way for Google to make sure it has the content to compete in mobile, and also to get people to stay on its sites longer.

Google declined to comment on the matter.

Google engineering director David Glazer blogged about his company acquiring Slide, provider of the online community SuperPoke! Pets, in which users care for virtual pets, decorate their habitats and send gifts to friends. Glazer said his company is working to develop "open," "interesting" and "fun" ways to let people take advantage of technology, which can bring them closer to one another and provide information "just for them."