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"How can brands do a better job of fostering these relationships so that they're at the forefront of consumer's minds? 1. Develop a great product. Not to resuscitate the Mac vs. PC argument, but there's a reason many people aren't hesitant to recommend their MacBook or iPhone to a friend. 2. Facilitate social sharing. Brands need to be engaged with consumers via social media, and brands need product sites and marketing programs that facilitate seamless social sharing. 3. Create sampling programs to reach digital consumers. Many influential digital consumers are eager to discuss their love of specific products and brands. Marketers need to reach and engage them in innovative ways, such as via sampling programs, contests, coupons. 4. Get game. Brand can introduce game element through badges, achievements, and prizes to turn their consumers to brand ambassadors and engage them in a fun way."

"A new report confirms the significant and growing influence of the Internet and social media in the shopping decisions of U.S. moms. In preparing to go shopping, mothers are 43% more likely to go online to gather coupons and 38% more likely to look at store Web sites than food shoppers as a whole, according to Packaged Facts' "Moms as Food Shoppers: Grocery Store and Supercenter Patterns and Trends" report.  Further, moms are nearly twice as likely as food shoppers overall to have used social media to plan their most recent grocery shopping trip (20% versus 11%). And in addition to consulting blogs prior to shopping, they are increasingly using mobile apps to ensure that they're getting the best deals while shopping. "

"While at least Life-magazine-killer TV has served as a platform for the creation of some great artworks (HBO's "The Wire," created by newspaperman-turned-TV-auteur David Simon, comes to mind) and inspired the creation of new art forms (see the upcoming Smithsonian retrospective of the work of "father of video art" Nam June Paik), it's hard to imagine what of lasting value hot web-native media brands like Gawker and BuzzFeed are contributing to visual culture and art history. Which brings me to an email I got last Wednesday from Gawker promoting its "top story" of Dec. 5., titled "The 13 Most Powerful Images of Naked Celebrities of 2012," which quickly racked up more than a million page views. It was a sequel to a Gawker post from the previous day titled "The 19 Most Powerful Images of 2012," which was mostly a shameless, edited-down rip-off of a BuzzFeed post titled "The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2012," consisting of intense wire-service photojournalism from Reuters, the AP, Getty and others, which derive most of their support from old-school print-centric publications around the world. Gawker's excuse for its act of, uh, curation: "Who has time to scroll through 45 pictures?""

"With the analytics platform, Wayfair.com was able to determine a 21 percent growth in the amount of pins related to the company over the course of the three-week campaign, said Trisha Mack Antonsen, senior manager of social media at Wayfair.com. Additionally, there was also a 27 percent increase in web referral traffic from Pinterest during the contest period, as compared to the three weeks prior. Overall Wayfair.com found a 255 percent increase in the number of participants in the campaign compared to previous campaigns, which the company had run via email newsletter. However, she explained, earlier the company had no way to actually determine how many people took part."

"Walmart began recruiting top Silicon Valley talent and acquiring start-ups last year. For instance, Walmart acquired Kosmix, a company that specializes in making web design more seamless, for $300 million. That team has been working for over a year to fix Walmart's systems and improve its website.  Walmart is investing in the "social gifting" market. A year ago, Walmart launched "Shopycat," which makes gift recommendations based on friends' Facebook profiles. The site is now called "Walmart Gifts" and allows customers to log in and get personalized recommendations based on Facebook and Twitter profiles.  The retailer got a better search engine. A dozen top engineers took 10 months to build it, and while the company won't discuss sales figures, they said the new system is more user-friendly. "If you search for cotton socks now, you'll actually find them," Manjoo writes.  Walmart is trying to lead the charge in same-day shipping. Its at an advantage considering that 96 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of a Walmart.  Walmart is investing like crazy in its mobile app. "Walmart imagines that as you go through an average day, you'll remember things you need--milk, bread, a new tennis racquet, a toy truck for your nephew's birthday--and tell the voice-enabled Walmart app. The app will list each item's location inside your local Walmart and include product info; eventually, it will also learn your preferences and offer recommendations. And once you're actually in the store, you'll be able to summon an associate to help you," Manjoo says. "

"Line, a Japan-made WhatsApp rival that is owned by Korean content giant Naver, just announced that it has hit 10 million registered users in Thailand at a press conference in Bangkok today, marking the first time it has provided a figure for a market outside of its native Japan. The company has more than 75 million users worldwide, so a pretty significant chunk of its user base is in Thailand, but more impressive than that is the fact that Facebook itself has 17.9 million users in Thailand (it is Facebook's 17th largest market)."

This could be interesting for global markets, emerging markets, and countries where sharing via web is not easy.

Zappix aims to replace voice menus with a web-based visual option that determines the best department to connect them to before initiating the call.

Amazon is hoping to extend its reach and integration beyond its own properties with yesterday's launch of Login with Amazon. The new service lets Amazon's 200+ million users to sign into websites, games and apps with their Amazon logins. Third-party developers can implement Login with Amazon on their web and mobile properties in the same way they integrate social logins like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Thirty-five percent of America's 170 million fans are using mobile devices to follow sports, which is up from 21 percent in 2011 and reflects overall web trends; 23 percent of these are using mobile to watch video

"Here at TechCrunch, we've heard Twitter is reaching out to TV producers and showrunners to find out ways that it can further integrate with the TV experience. That could mean Twitter-based voting, in the case of some competitive reality shows. It could also mean introducing interactive elements in scripted shows that viewers could use to unlock new content or web experiences. For what it's worth, Twitter is hiring for a role just like this: One of the positions listed on its jobs site is a "Manager of TV Relationships" position based in Los Angeles. The purpose of the job is to act as a "Twitter ambassador/evangelist to TV celebrities," getting them to tweet more during their own shows and just in general. But the goal also to work with high-profile showrunners and producers to find ways to integrate Twitter into their programming. One listed responsibility is to "manage and execute a volume of creative content plays with TV talent, such as live tweeting of shows, talent Q&As, and other creative uses of Twitter.""

Watch your media on every single screen, across platforms, and now operating systems.

"These 240 Hz panel sets have a 1080p AQUOS LED display, and built-in Wi-Fi, as well as Sharp's SmartCentral connected TV hub. They support HTML5 and Flash, so it's kind of like surfing the web on your computer. Along that same line, a multi-screen experience will let you watch TV and browse the internet at the same time."

asounds like a dd group albums that can be accessed by many people and smarter editing of your personal moments. the addition of group albums that accessible via the web. With group albums, you can connect with family and friends and share one big collection of memories. Personally, I like the idea of using it with family to collect intimate and important moments - documenting your children's big moments, an engagement, wedding, holidays, etc.