Curtesy of BuySellAds.com is this new infographic comparing users of Twitter to users of Facebook. Want to find out which users are more likely to connect with your brand or purchase your products? View the infographic below for all the juicy details.

The New York Daily News reported this week that the New York Police Department is setting up a Social Media Unit to investigate offline crimes through evidence on social networks. If this sounds like Facebook stalking to solve crime, then you’re right along with Gawker in this assessment. Officiers will specifically be monitoring social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for criminals who mention (or brag about) their crimes.

The Boston Police Department has been tweeting and solving crimes through Twitter for several years now. Perhaps other police departments will follow Boston and New York’s lead.

Chris Skinner of BAI Banking Strategies believes that Facebook Credits could be the new PayPal. Skinner highlights the fact that Zynga, one of the companies behind the most popular games on Facebook, has become the largest PayPal merchant and that online game currencies have taken off in QQ and Second Life before:

“From 2009 to 2010, Zynga’s revenue increased 392%. In 2010, Zynga made $27.9 million profit on revenue of $597.5 million. In the first quarter of 2011, the company had revenue of $235.4 million, a 133% increase from the previous year, putting it on track for well over $1 billion in sales this year.” – paidcontent.org

This new layer of currency will be further driven by Facebook’s own desire to become the payments service of the future:

Just like PayPal did for Web 1.0, Facebook or Google will try to become the de facto payment service for Web 2.0. It may be in partnership with PayPal (Facebook) or a bank (Google), but all the user will see is their Internet-hosted world. The way Facebook could get into this space is by offering credits as bonuses to retailers who transact through their service…The credits can then be used by retailers to advertise on Facebook and so on and so forth. In other words, it becomes a virtuous virtual circle.

However, it might not be Facebook that rises to the top of this payment structure. Google looks to be entering the market for games with its new social network, Google Plus. Its service may challenge Facebook’s game monopoly.

Read “Facebook Credits as the Bank of the Future” at BAI Banking Strategies.

Here are three more examples focusing on LinkedIn that highlight companies that are doing well in social media using blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.

Philips

• Philips created 2 groups: Innovations in Health and Innovations in Light.
• The groups grew to active 30,000+ member communities.
• With over 4,400 discussions, Innovations in Health is the largest LinkedIn group dedicated to healthcare innovation.
• 60% of group members are manager level and above.

HP

• HP launched a company page in November 2010 with recommendations growing organically.
• HP then launched an ad campaign in Dec. 2010 to drive further growth in recommendations on the company page.
• HP received over 2,000 product recommendations in two weeks, 20,000 new followers on HP company page, and 500,000 viral updates about HP products and services.

US Cellular

• US Cellular purchased 5 LinkedIn Recruiter seats in early 2009.
• Recruiters received an estimated 70% response rate from prospective employees who they contacted through LinkedIn’s InMail.
• LinkedIn Recruiter enabled faster turnaround in hiring employees.
• Saved U.S. Cellular over $1 million and allowed recruitment to reduce its budget.

To continue our series on the best of corporate social media with examples for blogging and Facebook, here are five Twitter cases to look at.

Dell

• Dell segmented Twitter users demographically by setting up different Twitter accounts, using multiple accounts to cater to different audiences.
• The company used accounts to promote localized product offerings: “Think Global, Act Local.”
• Dell has built a following of more than 600,000 users and generated more than $3 million in revenue across accounts.

Comcast

• Comcast utilizes Twitter as a direct line of communication for its customers to its help desks and currently has over 52,000 followers.
• The Twitter account changed the tune of many people who had been disgruntled by previous poor customer service.
• Comcast also created a face for the company through their actual Senior Director of National Customer Service.
• Many companies reference this case when dealing with company and customer relationship.

H&R Block

• H&R Block reaches out to Twitter members complaining about taxes.
• The Twitter account also runs ask-and-answer sessions with its existing customers.
• This activity passively raises awareness about H&R Block’s online tax programs.
• The helpful attitude has been well received by consumers, fellow H&R Block associates, and the media and marketing industry at large.

Avaya

• Avaya has 10 global Twitter accounts
• A 50 virtual team members volunteer monitor 1,000– 2,500 mentions of Avaya online every week, enabling Avaya to listen to its followers.
• As a result, Avaya closed a $250K sale within 13 days by responding to a tweet asking, “shoretel or avaya? Time for a new phone system very soon.”

Zappos

• CEO Tony Hsieh uses Twitter to engage with employees and customers in a friendly manner rather than using a company branded approach.
• Over 450 Zappos employees are now engaged on Twitter.
• Hsieh has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter.

To add to our earlier best examples of corporate blogging, here are four more examples about Facebook.

Intel

• A B2B company with enormous brand recognition and loyalty, Intel makes great use of their Facebook landing page, including a popular viral app, “The Museum of Me.”
• Intel makes vivid use of landing page.
• Its custom app that integrates with each user’s Facebook data.

American Express OPEN

• American Express OPEN is a set of resources and information for small businesses. Its centerpiece is a blog and related videos, and both are served up on Facebook.
• AmEx’s Facebook page demonstrates thought leadership by giving away knowledge.
• AmEx also used Facebook to host a recent sweepstakes: they’ll be giving $20K grants to five small businesses, all of whom applied on Facebook.

Cree

• Cree uses social media to make LED lighting seem exciting.
• Cree doesn’t just manufacture LED lights; they’re “lighting the LED revolution.”
• Cree solicits users to join its crusade and submit photos of bad lighting.
• Fun takes on recent news events: “World’s Ugliest Dog.”

Scania Group

• A B2B company that sells trucks and truck parts to vendors and distributers, Scania uses its Facebook page to stoke people’s love of trucks and driving even though these aren’t their customers!
• The brand solicits stories from users who love the products that B2B makes possible to recast the brand as personal and exciting.

Recently, we’ve been going through examples of corporation’s forays into social media. Here are some of the best examples when it comes to corporate blogging:

General Electric

• Blog is sometimes described as “The Discovery Channel on steroids.”
• They let their Geek flag fly with great content.
• Notice the use of the thumbnails and images to suggest more of a content channel approach.
• This is paralleled in YouTube channel.
• Blog mixes up science with the pop then and now.
• Aren’t afraid to have fun: embraced the Facebook “25 Random Things About Me.”

Nokia

• Nokia has more than 1,000 bloggers.
• Policy was developed to actually enable blogging at work.
• Nokia developed blog hub for employees to visit, comment, and search all Nokia blogs.
• This has also become a hub for people to assume protected identities and say whatever they want about Nokia
• Private social network also generates product ideas.
• Freedom of speech in Nokia DNA: Nokia credits its growth to a history of encouraging employees to say whatever’s on their minds with faith that smarter ideas will result.

Boeing

• Randy Tinseth, the VP of Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, hosts “Randy’s Journal,” a blog which tracks some of his Boeing adventures and experiences.
• By creating this blog, Boeing was able to create a face for the brand, fostering a connection with the visitors in a unique way.
• At first glance, his blog may seem like a personal blog. It carefully promotes the brand in a positive light without turning the visitors away by making it look like a completely branded marketing ploy.

Intel

• Multiple categories reflect the breadth of activities and thinking coming out of Intel.
• The blog hub includes Intel Software Network Blogs (200 plus), Jobs@Intel (Just for Students, Recruiter insights, Your Future), BrasilDigital@Intel (Brazil office, in Portugese), and Trade Policy (identifies similar blogs that are in other industries for its blogroll).
• Visible and accessible sharing buttons are present.

I knew when I read Mashable’s blog post about the future of transportation that it seemed very familiar to me. In the post’s opening paragraphs, writer Aliza Sherman reports,

Applications are being developed so your car will get information about the location and intentions of vehicles in your vicinity, contributing to the process of autonomous driving. Vehicle-to-infrastructure projects are less safety-related and more focused on traffic operations, including the possibility of your car receiving information from traffic signals regarding data like when an upcoming stoplight will turn green. With this data, you can adjust your speed and slow down without having to stop at the signal, thus reducing stop-and-go traffic movement.

Two years ago when I was writing a paper on the future of the information society for my Internet and public policy class, I wrote this scenario:

Jason is driving to work and traffic is running smoothly on the highway. Suddenly, his dashboard beeps and a message appears on screen,”Traffic accident up ahead. 1″ One vehicle has reported an accident up ahead. Jason continues to monitor the message until another report comes in with an image of a car wreckage. Now that he has verified the accident has occurred, Jason reroutes the car, but unfortunately he is not fast enough. About half a minute later the cars in front of him begin to slow down, Jason then prompts his own dashboard to send out a similar message, “Traffic slowing down.” He does not need to include a location because his vehicle calculates his position via GPS and then anonymously transmits the message to all the cars within five miles that are traveling in the same direction.

They are different: one relies on computer generated information, the other manual crowdsourcing. In the first scenario the car responds, and in the second, the person does the responding. But one thing is true, the distant future of my college days in 2009 is rapidly becoming the present.

In addition to autonomous driving, Sherman’s post mentions

• mobility on demand by way of car-sharing services
• visualizations of multiple sources of city data
• traffic predicting systems

These technologies are being explored as part of Future Urban Mobility, a joint project between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Research Foundation of Singapore.

Ahron Weiner, a friend of SnapDragon Consultants, will have his work at Klompching Gallery in its first annual open photography exhibit, entitled, “FRESH.”

“In each of these series, the artists make us look in a fresh way, to consider scenes that might not seem that extraordinary until their mediation … Curiously these selections demonstrate photography’s unique appreciation and appropriation of reality.”
—W.M. Hunt, Fraction Magazine

Ahron’s work, which we featured previously, is titled, “Bible Adinfinitum,” and is described as “colorful, bold and graphic, drawing upon the language of advertising and alluding to a mind’s eye vision of the Old Testament.”

The show opens Thursday, July 21st, and runs until August 13th. Be sure to check it out.

This spring SnapDragon worked with Sotheby’s Institute of Art (SIA) to develop a blog and content strategy and also outreach to online audience about SIA’s online art courses.

Using SIA’s new website design as guidance, we developed a custom WordPress blog: theme, sharing buttons and automated posting to SIA’s Facebook page and Twitter account. Once the blog was built, we trained SIA faculty and staff in an in depth workshop on how to use these tools.

For outreach around SIA’s online courses, we leveraged Meetup’s new Perks offering, a formal sponsorhip program that allows brands to extend discount offers to Meetup group members. Through the Perks program, SIA reached 131 groups with more than 32,000 members about its online courses and offered them at 10% discount.