There are five steps in social media we always recommend to new clients who are just beginning to branch out online. They are listen, assess, engage, measure, and refine/improve. The Art and Science of Listening While each step is important, the foundation to any online effort is listening. And it's the one step you can do without [...]

Read More: Eight Tools for Social Media Listening

On Monday Spotify announced that their service is now freely available for anyone who wants to sign up, previously it was available only by invite. At that time Spotify also announced their participation with Facebook's "frictionless sharing" were the songs you listen to automatically appear in your friend's ticker and newsfeed without you needing to do anything. Several users did not like the idea and apparently Spotify has listen to them and has released an update with a private listening mode [...]

Read More: Spotify Update Brings Private Listening Mode

Wish that Spotify's Facebook sharing feature, introduced last week, was a little more selective? Your wish has been granted The comapny's CEO Daniel Ek tweeted that "We're rolling out a...

Read More: Spotify rolls out ‘Private Listening’ mode to counter Facebook sharing complaints

The market for listening services is rapidly maturing with vendors such as Radian6, Spiral16, Crimson Hexagon, Research.ly, Lithium, Sysomos, and many others improving how businesses monitor consumer conversations and experiences. The wide array of options and capabilities are nothing less than baffling, requiring expert analysis prior to committing any significant investment of finances or organizational [...]

Read More: The Need for a New Listening Movement: From monitoring to learning