After being only available to those select people for about a year, Hangouts On Air is now available to all Google+ users worldwide. Now you can broadcast video live to your friends and your followers around the world. Just think of the possibilities: host an improv comedy collab show that invites fans to participate over the Web, broadcast a live concert to your fans, or host a live gaming session to show off the new features coming to a tabletop game.

While the launch of Hangouts On Air to everyone is already a big win for Google, the company is launching it with some extra features that make it even better.

Broadcast publicly. By checking “Enable Hangouts On Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout—from the Google+ stream, your YouTube channel or your website—to the entire world.

See how many viewers you’ve got. During your broadcast, you can look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live.

Record and re-share. Once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a public recording to your YouTube channel, and to your original Google+ post. This way it’s easy to share and discuss your broadcast after it’s over.

As Google points out, launching Hangouts On Air to every Google+ user is going to take some time. So the company will be rolling it out gradually over the next few weeks to make sure everything is in tip top shape. Some big names are already taking advantage of Hangouts On Air over the next week including CBS This Morning, Conan O’Brien and The Nerdist.

If you’re one of the lucky folks who has access now, start sharing your original content with the world. Google Hangouts On Air is collaborative livestreaming at its finest. Hit up the Hangouts page on Google+ to see what people are broadcasting now. There’s bound to be something interesting going on.

For help in setting up a Hangouts On Air, Google created a short video that shows you how to set one up. It’s an easy, yet powerful way to stay connected with your fans and followers. It will be really interesting to see how brands use it in the coming months.

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To benefit from the feature, users have to activate their phone number on the Google+ settings page. It will soon be a year (in June) since the launch of Google+. The 41 countries now free to use Google+ SMS are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo (DRC), Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.

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I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.

This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.

We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.

Recently Instagram released an Android version of their popular app, much to the chagrin of iPhone owners. Just a few days ago, Mike Fossum reported on the $500 million dollar evaluation of Instagram. In that article, he mentioned that “Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom hasn’t commented on the fundraising. The company had 13 employees in its San Francisco office at last count.” No wonder he wasn’t talking.

They’re all pretty happy right about now, I suppose.

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So, I thought I’d take this chance to approach said attorney to answer some of the questions I have about Pinterest and brand usage (as I’m sure many others do at this point) and open up the discussion a bit. We’ve heard a lot about what the legal issues mean for the users–but what do they mean for brands? Insert Kelcee Patrick-Ferree, an attorney focused on internet and social media law. Let’s hear what she has to say about this issue that’s seemingly on many minds right now.

Note: When reading this post, keep the following disclaimer in mind: These answers are offered for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice. If you need legal advice on this topic, please consult with an attorney regarding your own situation.

Over the last few weeks, significant legal concerns have emerged around Pinterest. What’s the real risk for brands thinking about using Pinterest at this stage?

I must, unfortunately, give the classic lawyer answer: it depends!

If a retailer wants to promote its own products through Pinterest without ever re-pinning anyone else’s content, there is very little risk. The usual rules will apply, of course, in the same way that they do on Facebook or Twitter: disclose significant relationships, don’t use others’ content without permission, and so on. The legal issue du jour is copyright, and several retailers already have social media policies prohibiting posting other companies’ content to their own social media pages/profiles/etc.–as long as brands apply those rules consistently, they should be fine. On the flip side, all companies should consider whether they mind granting a license to Pinterest as defined in its Terms of Use. For brands like retailers that care about promoting products, as opposed to protecting the intellectual property associated with photos of those products, the analysis will likely favor using Pinterest.

Pinterest may, however, give businesses whose products are images pause. Photography studios in particular may not like the Terms of Use; on the other hand, most other social media sites’ terms are very similar to Pinterest’s when it comes to granting rights to the website and to other users. In the end, it is basically free advertising, just like Facebook and Twitter, so it is a matter of deciding what non-monetary compensation a brand is willing to give for free advertising.

Posting content belonging to others always has risks, but there is more to the matter than “post only what you own.” The Terms don’t say you have to own it; they say you have to own it or have the right to post it (which is also true on any social media site–this merely affirms what the law already says). There are many ways to have that right. Some websites’ own Terms of Use do give that kind of permission, usually in the form of a policy regarding links to the site. Some photos are subject to Creative Commons copyright, which allows for sharing for non-commercial purposes. Some photos are not copyrighted at all, either because they belong to the U.S. government (which cannot own a U.S. copyright) or because they have fallen into the public domain. Brands could also have that right by pinning in a way that doesn’t infringe copyright, such as engaging in fair use (more on that later).

For many brands, those legal concerns will be enough to scare them away from even considering Pinterest as a tool. If you were counseling a Fortune 500 brand–or even a midsized or small business–what would your advice be for those organizations considering Pinterest?

If the company wants to be very cautious, it should join but pin only its own content that it does not mind granting a license to. There are several companies, including Fortune 500s, that have already done so, including Target and Home Depot. Target is using Pinterest to promote its own products from its own website only, and it fits the bill I described above: it cares more about promoting its products than protecting the intellectual property associated with photos of those products. Home Depot has been more adventurous and is pinning outside content, mainly ideas for room decor. This surprised me a little; I followed a couple of Home Depot’s repins back to blogging sites that did not clearly own the photos they were posting, or give permission for users to repost their content. Home Depot’s social media folks may know something about those sites that I do not, though (e.g., it’s possible that the content is coming from the personal blog of a Home Depot employee who gave permission, or the social media folks have offline, written permission to use the content–I have no way of knowing).

Smaller businesses and businesses focused on services rather than products may wish to be more adventurous and interactive, pinning products from other companies and repinning content from other users. In those cases, they will want to have permission to use the photos that they pin (either directly or via the other company’s Terms of Use). If there is a doubt, it’s better not to pin. In the case of repinning, the site is merely framing already-uploaded content (i.e., displaying the content in a slightly different context, but not making a new “copy”), so despite the fact that the Terms of Use do not grant users a sublicense to repin content, there is unlikely to be liability arising out of the act of repinning itself. But this may not be sufficient to ensure users are not on the hook for repinning infringing content. Again, the rule of thumb will be: make sure you own the content, have permission to use it, or have permission from someone who had the right to grant you that permission.

What about those brands that have already been pinning for months? What are the risks for those companies? Especially if they’ve pinned content that they don’t own?

The risks are the same as they would be for any company that posts content that it does not own to a social media site. They could be sued for infringement, if the way they posted was infringing–but keep in mind, there are a lot of ways in which the content could be non-infringing, ranging from the posted policies of the other company’s website to the way in which it was posted to an existing business relationship between two entities. They could also be required to indemnify Pinterest if the owner sues Pinterest for the infringement. If a company has been pinning for months, now may be a good time to re-evaluate whether its pins are likely to cause it trouble.

Apparently there’s been a discussion on Quora about the legalities and people are saying Pinterest should be safe citing a Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals decision in the Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. Do you know about this case? Does it have precedence in the matter concerning Pinterest?

Kelly v. Arriba Soft did not deal with a situation exactly like that of Pinterest; although the website in question in the Arriba Soft case did work similarly to Pinterest, displaying a thumbnail which could be clicked on to then display a larger version of an image,  it was a search engine that used algorithms, not a user-based site, and the court decided only the question of whether the thumbnail was allowable (it was in that instance). Pinterest is more likely relying on a combination of its Terms of Use, which place the onus on users to make sure that they have the right to add the content that they pin, and Section 512 of the Copyright Act, which provides a safe harbor for internet service providers who have infringing content on their sites due to user posting, so long as they provide a mechanism for copyright owners to have the infringing content removed–think YouTube, which hasn’t gone out of business yet.

On the user side, it seems like users are taking all the risk with Pinterest (and Pinterest, smartly, is covering its quarter-hinders). First, is that true? And second, if it is, is this just a case of the law not catching up to technology, or is there real risk for Pinterest users RIGHT NOW?

That is true to the extent that it can be true, as it is for any website you ever visit that has Terms of Use. Pinterest’s terms are not very different from any other social media company’s terms. The attorney who drafted them for Pinterest was advocating for Pinterest, not for the users of Pinterest’s services.

That said, the risk is likely not high unless the users are doing something that they shouldn’t beyond merely posting photo links on Pinterest. Fundamentally, most businesses are pleased when someone posts a link to their site as part of a “beautiful home decor” collection. Why would anyone try to discourage that behavior? The Wall Street Journal published an article the other day comparing Pinterest to Napster, and I could not disagree more. Napster was a method of sharing things so that you did not have to buy them. Pinterest is a method of sharing things with a handy link to where you can buy them from the people who make them. How is this a problem? And who would sue his customers for giving him free exposure and better SEO?

Problems are more likely to arise where users are pinning or repinning content that derives its economic value from its own existence, as opposed to from what it depicts. I would be very cautious about posting photographers’ work or photos of works of art.

In a recent Forbes article, a suggestion is made that Pinterest change the wording from “Describe” to “Comment” when asking users to add their two cents after pinning a photo. The claim: this would help with fair use defense. Do you think that’s true? Would that be something Pinterest should consider? And would it really resolve the bigger legal issues here?

Yes, it likely would help users with a fair use defense, assuming they are actually commenting rather than describing. Fair use is defined in Section 107 of the Copyright Act as including uses for purposes like “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.” Even if a use meets the purpose criteria, though, it still must meet the four-part test laid out in the statute. Most important to this question is the fourth factor: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” Posting photographs of products to Pinterest will likely meet all four criteria, including the fourth (it is difficult to imagine how posting a photograph of a mixing stand from a commercial website could hurt the market for the photograph); but posting photographs where the photograph itself is the product would present more interesting issues.

I am not certain that changing the wording to “comment” would make a big difference to Pinterest itself, which likely relies on Section 512 of the Copyright Act, as noted above. As to the broader legal issues, I do not believe they are significantly different from those already presented by other social networking sites that allow users to post photographs. As a general rule, businesses and individuals alike should not be posting content on the internet that they do not either own or have the right to use.

Finally, how do you see this issue playing out in the months ahead? Pinterest is obviously aware of these issues. And brands are going to be reticent now (and so are users, actually), given the legal talk. Is there an end-game here that will make brands (and users) feel more at ease?

I think that the entire matter has been blown out of proportion, but Pinterest needs to reassure its users, and Pinterest-friendly sites also need to reassure their users. I suspect that a new Terms of Use will be coming out soon, addressing some of the issues that have been raised over the past few weeks. Pinterest’s ideal situation will be that it becomes so widely adopted that no one needs to “lift” content from websites to pin it, because the website owner will pin it. Pinterest may allow users to block repinning as well, to alleviate some of the concerns of photographers and others who may not want to allow repinning but may want to make content available on the site.

Copyright is something of a dinosaur, but I don’t see the laws changing radically any time soon. The laws protect the unsophisticated as well as the sophisticated, and that isn’t a bad thing. Businesses that want to take advantage of the essentially free advertising that comes from sites like Pinterest will need to make sure that they have taken steps to allow for such uses, by utilizing a Creative Commons copyright, putting terms allowing for sharing into their site Terms of Use, and/or putting “Pin It!” buttons on their sites.

Kelcey Patrick-Ferree is a business attorney focused on internet and social media law. She is active on several social media sites, including Pinterest. You can learn more about her and her practice at www.businesslawmn.com.

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Now, this move by Google has had two reactions. One the one hand people are excited that they will now be able to move smoothly from the PC to the mobile. While on the other hand, people see this feature as an effort by Google to entice users to give up their privacy and better enable Google to target them across platforms.

What do you think? Will users benefit from the convenient access? Or will Google be able to capture as much user data as possible and link that data from PC to mobile, as an attempt to understand user behavior.

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With a Timeline for your brand, everything on your page will be displayed chronologically. However, to make pages more relevant to each user, Facebook has given the ability to pin a post to the top of a page and a friend activity box. There is no ‘landing page’ now but additional changes include- new admin panel, activity log and direct message feature. All these have been designed to help you manage your communities better.

The New Cover Photo

Now that there is no landing tab, you can use cover photos to push your brand’s message. You can have a cover photo of 851×315 pixels while the profile picture needs to be from 180 x 180 pixels to 32 x 32 pixels. Your cover photo can look like a banner, but you cannot ask people to ‘LIKE’ your page (or any other calls to action). Also remember that the images cannot include price or purchase information and contact info.

Brands used the welcome tab to stand apart and even promote special offers of drive people to ‘LIKE’ their pages. But this is now no longer possible. Facebook is of the view that if businesses will put up advertisements in the form of cover photos, users will think of them to be actual ads.

The Brand Pages’ Timeline

If you are designing your page for the timeline, do no forget to add milestones. You can also project featured/promoted posts by making them larger. Hide posts instead of deleting them and keep the chronology maintained.

Another feature worth mentioning is that page admins can highlight an important post right on the top of the page. This is a great feature is used well as you will promote the one update you wanted to, and it will not go down the news stream with your other updates. Such pinned posts can stay for up to seven days, so can serve as excellent promotional means for special campaigns.

The New Admin Panel

With the Timeline, you can manage your page better and maneuver your marketing strategy according to the insights. There is a new management tool that provides the Page admins with snapshot of insights, recent LIKES, fan activity notifications and a message inbox. This is the best part- your followers can now send you direct messages.

So no more complaints on the ‘Wall’ as a sensible user may direct message you and you can get back to them. However, as a Page, you cannot initiate direct messages with fans. You can also “Request a name change for your page,” from the admin panel.

You can also use the activity log for finding and editing old posts. You can go thru the items by year or type of story.

The activity log is visible to admins of the page and you can use it to trim silly nothings off from your page.

The New Tabs/Applications

The tabs are available right on top as in the case of regular Timeline profiles. The larger thumbnails are attractive but fewer tabs can be highlighted above a “See more” option.

Again, you cannot have a default landing tab now. To guide users to that tab, you must pin a post that links to a particular tab.

The Timeline Takeaway:

Looks like Facebook is ready to bid goodbye to tab applications. Facebook is aiming at mobile apps and not page frame apps. So if you invested in getting a Facebook page app very recently, well then its plain bad luck you can use it till 31.03.2012 only!

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The Pinnacle of a Success Story

Pinterest was launched in May 2011 and in January 2012 hit 11.7 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. This meant that it was the fastest independent American site to cross the 10 million mark.  The figures of December 2011 were 7.5 million and rose up to 11.7 million in a month itself.

It’s Women Power Fueling the Growth

Web analysts all across the US agree that Pinterest’s growth has been driven by women taking on to the site like never seen before. Women ages 18 to 34 from middle America form the biggest user base of Pinterest. States including the likes of Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, and Mississippi located in the Central Southeast and the Midwest, are homes to the majority of Pinterest users.

So, what is Pinterest Actually?

This is how the website defines itself: “Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”

In short, Pinterest is nothing but a virtual collage of things people like. It is a social platform allowing you to share whatever moves you. You put up images of your interests like- shopping, cooking, home décor, gadgets, book basically anything and everything. It is like a bulletin board wher you can “pin” your interest (images).

How Can Businesses Benefit From Pinterest?

As a business owner/webmaster you can get a lot of traffic to your site from the social platform. This is because your Pinterest board with images leading to your site, are visible to the 11.7 million (and growing) users. This will lead to increased traffic to your website and generate greater brand awareness, and ultimately lead to more sales!

Understanding the Pinterest Lingo

Pin: An image is called as a pin. You can add an image from your computer or can link to it from a site. With a pin (or image) you are required to write a description of the same, in other words you have to caption the image.

Board: A board is a virtual bulletin board that you create. This is where you ‘pin’ your interests or link your images. You can have as many boards as you like for different interests like- clothing, recipes or books.

Following: This is like Following you do in Twitter. So when you are “Following All” it means you’ll have all of a user’s pins on all their boards showing up on your home page. Otherwise you can follow those with similar interests.

Repin: Repin is like ReTweet. If while browsing other boards, you like something, you can ‘Repin’ it on your board. Sounds like the way to make a link go viral? Well that’s what it is!

How To Use Pinterest?

1.) Getting Started, Baby Steps:

To get on to the site, you’ll need an invitation. So find someone already using Pinterest and ask them to invite you. After being invited, you must set up an account with your name, email, and website. The other option to get in is via your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This is faster as you will be able to connect with your Facebook and Twitter friends using Pinterest easily. So, if you are a brand, you can easily follow your connections on Pinterest too.

2.) Setting up your own boards:

The next step is to create your own virtual bulletin board to collect pins. You can have them in various categories right from “my life” to “products.” Choose the theme of the board, and start pinning your interests. You can add to, or delete, a board at any time.

3.) Creating Pins:

You communicate, share and draw interest with these ‘pins’ or images. So people willyou’re your board if you pin an interesting image of your new product or service. You can also have a board with pins of your employees there. Nothing works better on social than being genuinely social. People liking your pins will respond either by “repinning” them to their own boards, or “liking” them. This is what you want as the embedded links back to your site will take the users straight to your site and act as a valuable tool in building site traffic. You have to drag the ‘Pin It’ button into your Bookmarks toolbar to pin the link. After this is done, you can take an image from your site and save it as a “pin” to share on your boards. You can do the same for your other interest boards too. See how the Whole Foods Market uses its boards to pin its products and interests.

4.) Gathering followers:

It makes better sense to connect via Facebook or Twitter as this way you are already connected with those users. To be on a safer side, you can also post your Pinterest account link on their Facebook/Twitter accounts as well as share on your profile. Follow people of your industry as well as prospective target audience. Like their pins to have them notice you and like you back or follow you.

Like Facebook, and ‘@’ sign before any user’s name will add their name in a pin description. Do not promote yourself blatantly, infact take the more emotional/social/sharing approach for people to respond to you. However, do keep your board and pins up to date with your business news/products and other features. The platform has huge potential to generate sharing that leads to increased awareness, and potentially, sales.  See the huge numbers of followers Etsy has gathered on Pinterest.

5.) Integrating your website with Pinterest:

You must add your website to your Pinterest profile. Additionally, you must link your site to Pinterest too. There is a Pinterest-provided code that you can paste on to your website to create a “follow me on Pinterest” button leading straight to your Pinterest profile and your boards. There is also a code offered by Pinterest where you can add a little ‘Pin It’ button next to all your product images, making it easier for people to share them. The more mentions you get, the more traffic to your site.

6.) Use boards for social-media marketing:

On Pinterest you can easily judge how people are responding to your pins. If there are ‘LIKES’ and ‘REPINS’ and comments, then you are doing good. This is what your motto has to be- To increase user engagement on your boards. Engage users with product usage/information/benefits/how to images.

Do not forget to link the Gifts pins directly to your site to close the sale. The gifts section allows users to search for items by dollar amount, so it is an important feature to milk.

Pinterest is a social platform that allows for easy sharing and contacting perspective customers. Get on to the platform and make the most of it now!

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In the first study of 2007, the smaller INC 500 companies outpaced the Fortune 500 in blog use (19% vs. 8%) and this trend continued as both group increased their blogging over the years. Now for the first blogging has declined in the Inc. 500 as other social media tools have emerged. In 2010 50% of the Inc. 500 had a corporate blog, up from 45% in 2009 and 39% in 2008.  Now in 2011, the use of blogging dropped to 37%. In contrast, they found, in a related study that blogs continued at the same 23% level in Fortune 500 companies.

There are other shifts as the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, texting, downloadable mobile apps and Foursquare are increasing while there are reductions in the use of blogs, message boards, video blogs, podcasts and MySpace. Specifically, in 2011 74% of the Inc. 500 used Facebook and 73% used LinkedIn.  Twenty-five and 24% respectively find that Facebook or LinkedIn is the single most effective social networking platform. In addition, texting, downloadable mobile applications, and Foursquare are used by 13%-15% of the 2011 Inc. 500.

Social media is seen as an effective tool in a variety of ways with 90% of responding executives indicate that social media tools are important for brand awareness and company reputation.  In addition, 88% find social media as important for generating web traffic, 81% find it important for lead generation, and 73% find social media tools important for customer support programs.  At the same time I was surprised to see a drop in monitoring social media as the 2011 study found that 68% of companies do monitor, down from 70% in 2010, which was the highest percent of the past 5 years. Although is a small drop and we will have to see if this trend continues.

Investment in social media will continue to increase for most as 71% plan to increase their investment, 25% said they would keep their social media budget the same, and only 1 company (4%) plans to decrease its investment. Only 24% of the Inc. 500 now have a written social media policy for their employees who use these tools on behalf of the company. This number clearly needs to increase.  Measurement will also likely increase as current metrics include: numbers of fans, followers and supporters (26%), web traffic (25%), lead generation (16%), reduced cost of customer support (10%), the value of sales generated through social media programs (7%).

Most firms are filling resource requirements internally as 66% report retraining or repositioning existing employees to handle their social media efforts, 10% use external consultants or agencies, and 7% have made new hires specifically for their social media needs.  In summary, 91% of the Inc. 500 are now using social media to market their brands with a shift from blogs as the main tool to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This matches my intuitive and informal observation but it is really useful to have this useful research to validate these trends.

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