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In the 3 days after the Super Bowl was broadcast, the top 10 ads have earned a total of over $1 million in impressions via online video, according to a new report from Kantar Video. Volkswagen's "The Force" ad was the most popular, earning the brand $538,000 due to its successful viral strategy by launch a week before the Super Bowl and attracting heavy media coverage.

The Grocer recently published its Top 100 advertisers report and showed that Coca-Cola cut ad spend by 6.6% in 2010 and invested more in social media. A spokeswoman at Coca-Cola said that while TV is still an important medium from promoting their brands,"many of our recent advertising campaigns and promotions have also utilised online facilities such as Facebook and YouTube more". With the launch of Coke Zone, a social media oriented site which offers Coke drinkers access to exclusive content and rewards, Coca-Cola has clearly realised the value of integrating offline and online marketing.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the launch of a new government initiative aimed at promoting digital literacy resources and collaboration. The federal Digital Literacy Initiative represents a major advance toward implementing the Knight Commission's recommendations for enhancing the information capacity of individuals through new collaborations, public policies and investments in technology. The centerpiece of the initiative is the DigitalLiteracy.gov portal, an online hub for librarians, educators, and other digital literacy practitioners to share content and best practices. It recognizes that Americans cannot compete globally without the skills and understanding to use technology and information effectively.

"It turns out that while most people still talk about brands face to face, their conversations are informed by the Internet more than any other media source," she adds. And when they're online, users go to search sites more than any other. This is even more true afterconversations, especially those sparked by TV. People follow up by searching for more information and prices more than any other online activity, including social media.

Communicopia undertook this research to better understand how non-profit leaders manage digital and online initiatives in their organizations. In our experience it's well led, well structured, and well resourced teams that are the fundamental building blocks for success online. We've gathered data from 67 senior level staff who run digital departments in non-profits and combined this with our own insights & analysis to help start a conversation in our sector about building better teams.

"A new study that seeks to understand how new, kid-focused online venues effect adolescence says that social media forums can promote forms of social and identity development. Those skills, the study says, can help encourage civic involvement later in life. "

"This year, the Girl Scouts also has a program that encourages girls to collect donations for the "I Care" program, which sends Girl Scout Cookies to troops overseas. In the past, girls in Girl Scout troops have typically sold cookies and exchange currency face-to-face. Now, with the mainstream adoption of social media and technology, girls like 11-year-old Emma Vermaak have turned to social media and PayPal to help market and sell cookies, as well as collect these donations. When the Girl Scouts discovered Emma was using PayPal to collect donations for the "I Care" program, the organization initially tweeted her support for doing what "Girl Scouts is all about!" Shortly afterwards, Emma's mom, Kimberly Reynolds, was contacted by Emma's troop's leader, who was told Emma could only take cash. The Girl Scouts then tweeted at Emma the next day (while she was at school), clarifying that they didn't mean to cause confusion by supporting her efforts, explaining "But girls cannot transact the sale (take payment) online. That must happen in person to build oh-so-important people skills.""

"Done well, on-line professional development is as effective as face-to-face professional development.  These results are promising for our CSLearning4U project. In particular, the benefit that Barry Fishman saw is what we were most hoping for, based on our studies with Klara Benda - it's all about fitting into the teachers' lives."

To get its employees on board with social media, FedEx's team "realized we needed to go a lot deeper" than just one hourlong workshop. So team members ended up developing an online curriculum with 17 courses. In about 18 months, more than 500 employees had completed the coursework, Horne said. "This is probably one of the best investments we could have ever made," she said. To convince leaders that investments in social media platforms made sense, Horne said she and her IT partners discovered some of the "hidden dollars" that departments were spending to build their own, ad-hoc technology to connect and seek out experts.

The Baltimore City Fire Department plans to implement new social media guidelines after Chief James S. Clack said he found that firefighters and officers were "crossing the line" by posting inappropriate or sensitive information online. The social media website Twitter has become a forum for griping about City Hall policies in 140 characters or fewer - the maximum allowed in postings. The new policy comes after fire personnel have written a number of heated, politically charged barbs aimed at the department, Clack, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the City Council over a recent budgetary decision to close three fire companies in the city

What all this means is that "public or private" is more complicated than it seems. Twitter and its ilk aren't going away, and the answer to responsible use isn't to shut teens out of public life. Many teens are indeed more visible today than ever before, but, through experience, they're also developing skills to manage privacy in public.

Parents fearing the public nature of Twitter must understand teenagers have become adept at managing their privacy online

Surprisingly, a study of deception in e-mails versus phone calls found that people were more honest in e-mails because they can be documented, saved and aren't real-time communication scenarios, which is when most people drop white lies. Technology isn't the gateway to rampant deception; instead, Toma and Hancock both suspect that our distrust of communication technology is more likely rooted in our fear of it. "We've evolved as a species that talks face to face, and evolution is a slow process, and we're interacting in a new environment where our basic assumptions are undercut," Hancock said. So, in a way, it's natural to expect people to lie more online. "Every time a technology is new, it elicits great fears. Many people are fearful about what it's going to do," Toma said. "So I think fears about deception stem from this general fear of technology and certain features of technologies that make it easy to lie."

A new report on young people's use of social networking and cyber safety reveals that young people may be more aware and better able to manage online risks than their parents commonly think.

grey matter density of the amygdala, which was previously shown to be linked with real-world social network size, was also correlated with online social network size

"The University of Michigan athletic department denied claims made Friday morning that it had been creating fake online personas -- also known as "catfishing" -- to lure its own student-athletes into fictitious relationships, following comments made during a speech by Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon."

"Employers are increasingly using Facebook to screen job applicants and weed out candidates they think have undesirable traits. But a new study from North Carolina State University shows that those companies may have a fundamental misunderstanding of online behavior and, as a result, may be eliminating desirable job candidates."

"In a move to boost sales through social recommendations, online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos, which is owned by Amazon, has added a new feature called "PinPointing" that offers recommendations based on Pinterest accounts. Unfortunately, the feature doesn't work very well yet."

This website is designed as a social mirror to show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society. Words and phrases like "faggot," "dyke," "no homo," and "so gay" are used casually in everyday language, despite promoting the continued alienation, isolation and - in some tragic cases - suicide of sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ) youth. We no longer tolerate racist language, we're getting better at dealing with sexist language, but sadly we're still not actively addressing homophobic and transphobic language in our society. Let's put an end to casual homophobia. Speak out when you see or hear homophobic or transphobic language from friends, at school, in the locker room, at work or online. Use #NoHomophobes to show your support. And visit one of our resource websites to get more involved.