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Flickr photo courtesy of brlnpics123The Friday Wrap is a review of news, posts, reports, and other items appearing in the last week that will help you stay on top of the forces shaping communication in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment. These are stories that may have been lost in the flood of headline news stories. I collect the items from which I choose the Wrap stories in my link blog, which you’re welcome to follow.

News

Press releases are back in Google’s News mix—In 2013, Google’s top spam cop, Matt Cutts, announced that press releases have no value for SEO rankings. Quietly, though, since September, a policy change has seen press releases return to Google, this time in the “In The News” section of its search results. A Google spokesperson told Reuters, “The goal of search is to get users the right answer at any one time as quickly as possible—that may mean returning an article from an established publisher or from a smaller niche publisher or indeed it might be a press release.” Read more

New social network launches that will pay you—It’s often said that you are the product of free social networks that generate revenue via advertising. On the new social network 8, where you can include ads on your profile and earn 80% of any revenue the network produces from your updates, photos, and videos. I’m skeptical it’ll go anywhere since any social network depends on a critical mass of people you know and people you wouldn’t mind knowing being there, but it doesn’t cost anything to take it out for a test drive, though you will have to request an invitation to its closed beta. Read more

Twitter acquires live video stream app—Even though it’s still in private beta, Periscope was appealing enough to Twitter to scoop up for $100 million. The app for live video streaming—a competitor of another app getting a lot of attention called Meerkat—is consistent with Twitter’s prime mission of live, real-time communications. Read more

You have until April 21 to make your website mobile-friendly—If you don’t, Google says, you will suffer a drop in Google search results. Google announced in late February that it will expand its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. That change will affect mobile searches in all languages and have an impact in standard search results, as well. Read more

Facebook lets you turn images into ads—Predictive Consumer Generated Facebook Ads allow brands—even small businesses—to collect user-generated images from Instagram, Twitter, and Vine, and turn them into Facebook ads. You’ll have to get permission from the owner of the image first. Read more

Facebook to provide marketers with topic data—Facebook plans to provide marketers with data about who is talking about specific topics on the social network, and what they’re saying. Partnering with social data company DataSift, Facebook will offer demographics of those engaged in a topic, what they’re talking about when discussing that topic (including brand names and products), and the sentiment of their posts. Read more

The return of the Pepsi Challenge, retooled for the digital age—Forty years after its debut, the Pepsi Challenge is back. No longer will they consist of filmed Coke-vs-Pepsi man-on-the-street taste tests. For the digital era, the challenge will be grounded in social media and online content, led by six celebrity brand ambassadors, including musician Usher and tennis star Serena Williams. Read more

Trends

Has the whole viral thing run its course?—The economics of getting content to go viral are getting complicated, with Google, Yahoo, and Facebook among those tweaking their algorithms to push down “junky” traffic in search results and news feeds. Meanwhile, Gawker is turning away from the bonus system that propelled its ascent, while Vox, BuzzFeed, and Forbes are “eschewing traffic-based bonuses or looking at engagement metrics that measure posts by the time and attention readers give them over mere clicks.” It’s leading to the decline of focus on pageviews, which could dampen the engine that drives the virality of some content. Read more

Brandjacking is so common Apple took steps to prevent it—Brands have gotten in the habit of riding the coattails of cultural events and breaking news. (Remember how many brands jumped on “the dress” meme?) Knowing there would likely be a lot of brandjacking attached to its announcement of the Apple Watch, the company bought the prime advertising positions on Twitter that day. Ewan Spence writes, “If Apple had not made the purchase, its rivals would have swung in with some disruptive counter-advertising and taken full concentration of the spotlight away from the new Macbook and Apple Watch. in essence, Apple looked at Twitter and thought ‘buy the spots or somebody else will.’” Read more

Shazam will recognize objects in addition to music—Some brands have partnered with Shazam so consumers can get more information on their phones when a commercial is playing on TV. Next up: object identification. Functioning sort of like Google Goggles, the app will let users identify products and learn more about them; for example, pointing the app at a cereal box could deliver nutritional information, or a DVD case could lead to a purchase of the movie’s soundtrack. If your company sells a commercial product, you might want to look at this new functionality and the potential to drive more engagement or sell ancillary products. Read more

Smartphones force companies to reinvent themselves—Old-guard companies need to offer mobile functionality their customers and other stakeholders expect before start-ups and established tech companies (like Facebook and Google) grab business away from them. Consider the taxi business, which is losing business to Uber, which created the mobile ability to request a ridee and pay for it all within one smartphone tool. One example of a company taking the right steps: Under Armour has partnered with phone manufacturer HTC to introduce a watch to track workouts and connect to social networks; the company has also bought the companies behind two fitness-tracking apps. Read more

Brands create their own emoticons—The humble smiley has gone Madison Avenue. With nearly 2 billion smartphone users around the world, it’s no surprise that brands are creating emoticons and introducing them onto keyboards users can install on their phones. Among the companies deploying branded emoticons: Coca-Cola, Ikea, general Electric, Comedy Central, and Mentos, which has added 10 emoticons through the keyboard in the Ultratext messaging app. A spokesperson says the branded smileys let the company “participate in a space that can be difficult for brands to penetrate.” Ikea has launched 100 emoticons. Read more

Netflix releases another example of native advertising at its best—When Netflix paid for a native ad in The New York Times—a high-quality journalistic look at U.S. women’s prisons timed to coincide with the second-season premiere of its original series Orange is the New Black—it earned high praise. Now Netflix is back with a brilliant journalistic multimedia feature in The Atlantic about high-power White House couples, intended to promote the series House of Cards. It cost Netflix six figures to have Atlantic’s in-house shop develop the interactive article that measures up to its previous effort. Read more

Amazon showcases Kickstarter products—If you like the idea of buying products that were funded by the crowd rather than a corporation, Amazon has made them easier to find. The online retailer’s Exclusives store lists just products that succeeded on Kickstarter. A visit to the store reveals products like LED turn signal gloves, telephoto lenses for iPhones, and a vareity of external battery chargers, not to mention an inflatable kayak. Not surprisingly, they’re all very highly rated by reviewers. Read more

Internet of Things gets a place in Adobe’s Marketing Cloud—New extensions to Adobe’s Marketing Cloud include tools designed to help brands extend interactive content to physical locations, including retail stores, hotels, and devices like vending machines. The Marketing Cloud is a suite of tools for integrating online content marketing and web analytics; it will not include an Internet-of-Things software development kit. A spokesperson said, “Brands need to extend marketing to physical spaces and connect directly with customers across an ever-increasing number of touch points.” Read more

Could Slack be the great email killer?—The New York Times thinks so, noting that email is being supplanted by social software that enables collaboration, forcing companies to embrace “the sort of radical information transparency that many in the tech industry, at least, believe is essential.” The best example, writes Farhad Manjoo, is Slack, which offers some work-centric features, such as archiving interactions, a solid search engine, and the interoperability across multiple devices. After a year on the market, Slack is serving about a half million workers daily. Read more

Corporate-sponsored artists gain traction—Big companies have been establishing artist-in-residence programs, with brands like Amtrak, Facebook, Threadless, and others bringing artists of various kinds into their organizations for limited-time engagements. Amtrak’s writers-in-residency program allows authors to choose where they travel as they write about the romance of writing on trains. Autodesk lets artists spend up to six months working onsite, taking advantage of funds for their materials. Facebook pays artists to create artwork for the walls of its facilities. Hotels have jumped on the bandwagon, as well. Read more

YouTube plans to offer 360-degree video—360-degree videos use special cameras to capture every angle of a scene. Audiences will be able to swivel their viewpoints to see the various surroundings of a video. YouTube has posted a playlist of some of the videos already posted; they’ll only play on the latest Chrome browser and YouTube’s Android app. Brands and YouTube producers alike can use the format to experiment, such as allowing viewers to “veer away from their intended shot and explore the storyline their own way.” Early adopters could add a number of new viewers to their channels. Read more

Research

CEO external engagement is now a mandate—Eighty-one percent of global executives say external CEO engagement is a requirement for building his or her company’s reputation, with the CEO’s reputation contributing to about half of the company’s reputation and its market value. The CEO reputation premium will rise in value over the next few years, according to a survey of more than 1,700 executives worldwide by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research. The study, The CEO Reputation Premium: Gaining Advantage in the Engagement Era, also shares Weber’s findings about best practices to “help organizations rep the reputational benefits that come with effectively engaging stakeholders.” Read more

Influence of social media grows, TV’s declines—Asked what influences what they buy, where they eat, and what they watch, U.S. survey respondents for the first time said TV’s influence has shrunk significantly while comments seen on social media have risen. TV is still on top, but the gap between TV and social media is closing, with ads seen online still linger toward the bottom of the list. Read more

Brand loyalty’s shelf life is about six seconds long—With mobile emerging as the new battleground for customer loyalty, CA Technologies released a study that found nearly70% of consumers left a brand because of slow load times. Only six seconds or less was an acceptable amount of time to wait. Consumers also turn their backs on brands when performing tasks is too hard, and easy-to-use apps with easy-to-use features rated as a top driver of the decision to use or buy an app for 80% of those surveyed. “Consumers no longer view applications as nice-to-have novelties,” a CA Technologies spokesperson said. Read more