An interesting study dropped into my inbox this morning. Being a journalist I get sent studies day in day out, but this one caught my eye for two reasons. Firstly for the fact that according to the study UK consumers (61% of them anyway) don’t want to be bugged by brands on social networks.

The second thing to catch my eye was the fact that TNS, which carried out the survey, did its homework on this one, surveying 72,000 consumers in 60 countries to look at a range of attitudes to the presence of brands on social networking sites.

According to TNS 61% of Brits (and 57% of people across the developed world as a whole) aren’t interested in engaging with brands via social media. “Misguided digital strategies are generating mountains of digital waste, from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads”, TNS sighs.

So why am I surprised? Not because I am drawn in by the angle that TNS is pushing – in fact quite the opposite. I’m quite surprised that the stat means that 40% of consumers DO want to be “bothered” (as TNS puts it) on social networks. In marketing terms, I find that a pretty healthy statistic. Because you’ve got two in every five people willing to engage with brands on Facebook, Twitter or whatever, and the rest – well it’s your job to persuade them!

It does appear that we are on the back foot here in the UK though – only a fifth of the 2,093 Brits surveyed agreed that social networks are a good place to buy products, compared to a global average of 40%.

Perhaps we need to look to the Chinese for inspiration on how to get consumers interacting with brands on the likes of Facebook – according to TNS 74% of Chinese consumers comment regularly about brands online compared to only 33% of Brits.

It appears that fast-growth markets are in general far more open to brand interaction on social networks – just 33% of Columbians and 37% of Mexicans said they don’t want to be bothered by them, while 59% of people across fast-growing countries see social networks as a good place to learn about brands (compared to only 44% of consumers in developed markets).

So the survey might suggest that there is a work to be done in persuading Brits that social networks are as good a place as any to engage with brands. Regardless, brand presence is creeping ever more quickly into Facebook’s pages, as demonstrated by the launch of its Open Graph a few weeks ago (something I wrote all about earlier this week).

I’m not sure whether this viral for a Memphis clothes store is an actual ad or just a thinly veiled plot for the store’s owner to get his hands on some “booty”.

Nethertheless, this ad was shot on a budget of just $500 (of which I suspect the majority of went on that super-shiny suit?!).

Star of the ad, and store owner Divine Maja (yes, really) hasn’t done badly out of his budget offering – the viral has received something in the region of four million You Tube hits. Whether it brings Devine riches out of rags though remains to be seen…

Is it me or is Google, king of the internet, playing a constant game of catch up these days?

I say this because the thought struck me while writing about Google Offers – its own version of a Groupon style deals service. Then earlier this year it launched Google+ – its own version of a Facebook style social network. And when it comes to nicking ideas from Twitter, Google is going positively backwards. It saw what realtime feeds did for the microblogging site, liked what it saw, incorporated realtime results into its own pages and then promptly fell out with Twitter so that for now at least its realtime search function is redundant.

Has Google lost its cutting edge? Of course it has absolutely shaped the way that the internet is today, but will it be such a big part of the internet tomorrow?

Google founder Eric Schmidt has, since stepping down as CEO, held up his hands and admitted that he was wrong not to take Facebook on as a serious threat in its early days. But is it already repeating this same mistake again? Realtime search is a huge part of the future of the internet. As I read somewhere recently, “the era of ubiquitous web is upon us”.

So what is Google doing falling out of bed with Twitter? And on the point of its launch of a Groupon rival – is Google serious about taking a stake in the daily deals market? A part of me can’t help feeling that this particular rivalry is a bit of sour grapes over the fact that Google lost out on its bid to purchase Groupon last year.

I feel as if Google has got its fingers in too many luke warm pies right now, rather than cooking up its own storm in the kitchen.

It was hardly breaking news, but last week Facebook launched ‘Facebook for Business’. Now before you get too excited and start dreaming up images of a whole new version of the social network – ‘Facebook for Business’ is actually a kind of resource hub for companies looking to up their social media strategy. It aims to explain, in biz-friendly terms, how brands can use all of Facebook’s features to good effect.

It makes sense for Facebook to launch the hub – after all its aim is to attract as much revenue as it can from small business owners.

But is this a clever bit of timing, given that Google+ is due any time now to launch its own business pages? So far brands that have been trying to put their presence up onto Google+ have reportedly been beaten back down (i.e. had their accounts deleted) and been told to wait until Google launches a support network that will help them to get the most out of the platform.

Could we be able to witness the latest phase in the Facebook / Google war as they fight for the attention of brands? Sure, Facebook is already well established in this area. But Google+ does seem to be a force to be reckoned with. It’s already gained 20 million + users (it took Facebook three years to get to that point) – and where it may have the advantage over Facebook is its ability to offer total internet visibility, as what a brand does on Google+ automatically will have an impact on Google search results.

It will be interesting to see how this battle pans out…

So Twitter has reached another milestone – apparently people are now sending more than 200 million tweets per day. (That’s up to 28 billion characters, by the way).

It’s a big leap for the micro blogging site – which this time last year was only (only?!) sending 65 million tweets per day. And back in January 2009, the figure was a mere two million tweets per day (and most of those were probably being sent by Stephen Fry, right?).

So it’s all good news for Twitter. Well yes – but the growth rate may not quite be a true reflection of its actual growth in popularity. The figures include feeds from publishers for example, which technically are automated tweets – that’s not to suggest that they’re not genuine, but automated tweets dramatically boost the overall number of tweets fired into the ether every day. (By the way a shameless plug coming here, but for all of UTalkMarketing’s latest headlines as they happen, be sure to follow us @utalkmarketing… we don’t just auto-tweet headlines either, honest).

Then there are the Twitter-bots, those irritating churners-out of random links to random people.

We found a pretty cool infographic last week that suggests that a pretty small proportion of the Twitter population is helping to ramp up the number of tweets being fired out. According to this, half of all tweeters tweet less than once a week, and just 5% of the Twitter population accounts for 75% of all tweets (and 32% of those tweets are created by “bots”).

Cross analysis of the stats aside, it is clear that the site is on the up – why else would it be worth around $10 billion? It’s got a way to go before it reaches Facebook’s 750 million plus users – but who knows what the future holds? Three years ago, Myspace was the biggest social networking site on the planet…

What do you make of Twitter’s new milestone?

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They say that art often mirrors life, and this week in the digital world it certainly did.

Justin Timberlake has bought a stake in Myspace alongside US ad agency Specific Media. No, the irony of this has not escaped most – Justin’s not long out of the role of playing Napster co-founder Sean Parker in “The Social Network,” that movie about Facebook during which Timberlake had lot of ideas about the future of social networking.

Apparently he will have his own office at Myspace’s Beverly Hills HQ and a bevvy of staff to work for him round-the-clock. (That’s one job I don’t mind admitting I’d take – Beverly Hills sunshine and the chance to hang around a hot pop star all day? Go on then).

But will a bit of iconic input from La Timberlake be enough to revive the ailing site? It certainly looks as though the plan is to keep Myspace a site for music lovers to interact with brands for the time being at least.

Founder of Specific Media Tim Vanderhook has told The Associated Press that “one of (Timberlake’s) passions is he really enjoys helping other artists and creating a community for people to really express themselves. I think we were blown away that we were able to get someone like Justin to be so excited about what we were doing.”

Plans from Timberlake and Specific Media about the future of the site are due soon. I for one am keen to see them put the sexy back into Myspace (that was shameless, I apologise), But it’s played a huge role in the evolvement of social media. Plus, it would be good to write about a successful, entertainment driven social networking site that’s NOT Facebook from time to time…

Is Apple going to release not one, but two new mobile phones later this year?

Last week came the news that the much hyped iPhone 5 will be winging its way to UK shores this autumn – but now there is talk of not one, but two new handsets.

Before anyone gets too excited, the second handset is so far rumoured to be an improved version of the iPhone 4.

Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank told the Telegraph this week that “with Nokia and RIM struggling the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid-range smartphone market.”

Interestingly, Whitmore reckons that the cheaper of the two phones, the iPhone 4S, will cost as little as £220 and target pre-paid rather than contract customers.

This really could be seen as sticking the knife into Blackberry and Nokia. They might already be struggling – but if Apple makes itself a cosy nest in the mid-range market – where most of Blackberry and Nokia’s best models sit (for those of us that want a smartphone but don’t want to remorgage our houses to have one) – then that’s really turning the screws.

Creative agency Studio Output has been given the (unenviable?) task of putting together a brand campaign to promote Cher Lloyd (for those who, unlike me don’t give up their weekend social life between August and December to watch X-Factor – Lloyd is one of last year’s contestants who – I’m sorry but – reminds me of a cross between Cheryl Cole and the Crazy Frog.)

I say unenviable because her debut single isn’t even out yet and already it’s received a barrage of bad reviews and bad press. On Twitter (otherwise known these days as the voice of the world), Lloyds own “fans” have rubbished it and called it a rip off. The song – ‘Swagger Jagger’ – was leaked online last week, but isn’t due out until August 7.

Syco Music (Simon Cowell’s music company, to which Lloyd is signed) has just taken on a new marketing director – Mark Hardy – who will be working with Studio Output to create the Cher Lloyd brand. To Hardy and Studio Output’s credit, they’ve got a pretty good track record in working together – both were behind the successful launch of the PlayStation Move controller, which has now sold over four million units.

I think they’ve got their work cut out here though. As far as I’m aware, the Playstation Move controller wasn’t subject to a fairly vitriolic hate campaign prior to actually going to market, it were.

According to Syco, “instead of hiring individual specialists to deliver services like styling, photography, web designer, etc – none of whom get involved in the creation of the core marketing strategy – Syco has concentrated this into one agency. Studio Output has collaborated with a range of partners to create a multi-platform brand and art direction campaign.”

They’re certainly going to town on the “launch” of Miss Lloyd – expect to see her on (deep breath…) Vevo, Facebook, YouTube, Cher’s website, iTunes, all digital music video channels, Android, Blackberry, iPhone, press, posters and outdoor.

From what I can see, Cher Lloyd is a bit like marmite – from the comments on Twitter people either absolutely love her or completely loathe her. Vanilla she ‘aint. Will this brand activity have a happy ending? I guess the music charts in August will shed light on that one…

Sadly, I’m not even joking. Over the weekend I was temporarily seperated from my Blackberry phone (not through choice, but because some thieving git spotted it in my handbag and decided, wonderfully, that they needed it for themselves). Never the best start to a weekend, but I thought perhaps an ideal opportunity to prove that I can live without being connected to the internet 24-7. Armed with a £5 Nokia pay-as-you-go job, £10′s worth of T-Mobile credit and a couple of essential phone numbers, I optimistically skipped into a tech-free weekend.

It did not go well. First task on Friday evening involved getting on a train to Brighton (from London) to meet friends. London Bridge presented a complicated array of options – would it be quicker to go to nearby Hove? Or change trains midway? Ah, I’ll look it up using my travel app, I thought. Only to remember that I’m not in possession of the travel app. After wrestling with my Nokia’s web browser for five minutes (no screen optimisation, not an app in sight, incredibly slow to load anything) I gave up. A total lack of an address book too meant that I couldn’t even call a friend and get them to “Google it”. So I winged it. Badly. I chanced it on a slower train and lost half an hour’s worth of valuable Friday night drinking time.

Nor could I add up what I was drinking on the evening using the Drinkaware app I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with. No app, no way of measuring units – so obviously I could blame the lack of a smartphone for Saturday’s hangover too.

I really never thought I was one of those people with their smartphone glued firmly to their hand. But I missed my music. I was completely lost without my calendar – a simple “what are you up to next week” from a friend made me realise in panic that I hadn’t a clue – my phone is my PA and handles all of that for me. I couldn’t annoy people with drunken silly Facebook updates. I didn’t know what people were tweeting about. I had to manually log in to my email account to check it – it took me 15 minutes to work out what the password was. My laptop, which since I first purchased a smartphone has done a lot of sitting in my bedroom not doing very much, received an extraordinary amount of action over the weekend.

The whole experience served as a bit of a wake up call as to just how much we take technology for granted now. I’m of an age where I can just about remember my life pre-mobile phone and pre the internet – I was 16 when we had our first dial up modem at home. Thinking about it now, life then was very different. When you arranged to meet someone you actually had to turn up on time. The fax machine still seemed pretty cool. Making a call to one of the few people you knew who had a mobile phone (or “brick” as we’d lovingly refer to it these days) required you to take out an overdraft to pay the 50p per minute bill.

We talk a lot about mobile marketing at UTalk, about how it’s part of the future and about how it can reap great rewards if executed in the right way. After my weekend experience, I’m more convinced than ever that these mini computers that go everywhere with us are becoming the main way in which we interact with the world – whether we like it or not. Just days ago it emerged that nearly 8.8 million UK mobile owners used an app that connected to the internet during April 2011, with Google Maps ranking as the most accessed app (with 6.4 million unique users).

My replacement Blackberry arrived last night. Thankfully I’m a backer-upper, so everything that was on Blackberry A could be downloaded onto Blackberry B in an instant. And I have no shame (OK, maybe just a little bit of shame) in admitting that the little “restore” button didn’t just restore my data, it restored a little bit of me too.

When aspiring comedian Scott Jones was caught up, along with his girlfriend, in the Vancouver riots last week, little would he have known then that he was stumbling into the most amazing piece of PR imaginable. We’re talking the kind of PR money can’t buy – instant, global fame.

For those that don’t know this story already (where have you been living, under a rock?), Jones and his girlfriend, Alex Thomas were very unfortunately caught up in last week’s Stanley Cup hockey riots – video footage shows them being knocked to the ground by cops in the stampede. When Jones leaned in to calm his visibly distressed girlfriend down with a kiss, somebody snapped the moment – the result – an iconic image that has since graced websites around the world.

Initially appearing to shun the unexpected limelight the photo threw the couple into, Jones has since done an about turn and hired a top US PR firm called Markson Sparks to handle the intense media interest in the couple.

Max Markson, who heads up the PR firm, is like the US equivalent of Max Clifford – he’s known for his celebrity client list. Already he’s busy organising TV appearances and potential endorsements for the couple. For Jones – what’s happened is nothing short of mind blowing; pre-kiss he was a struggling comedian, working mainly in Vancouver bars. Today, Markson is busy shouting to the press about how the whole situation is a “tremendous opportunity for him to springboard his acting and stand-up comedy”. Some are estimating that the kiss could rake in $10 million for the couple. People know more about the kiss than they do about the riots themselves.

Markson might be taking up the PR campaign from here on in – but James kicked it off all by himself (well, with a little “help” from the riot police), and for absolutely no cost. If he could bottle up that kind of PR and sell it, he’d never need work again.

“An obvious commercial opportunity” says Markson. The beauty is in the irony of these very four words – spoken day in and day out in boardrooms across the land. Because this entire opportunity was borne out of the complete and utter opposite – something completely natural and non-obvious.

It was only a kiss… but it’s changed one man’s life forever.