June, 2012

Uniqlo and FirstBorn team up for a project that owns Pinterest — literally.

To wake Pinterest users from a scrolling slumber, the agency created 100 separate shell Pinterest accounts that pinned images simultaneously. As users scrolled down their favorite categories, they came across all the images, which combined to create giant mosaics that “animated” when scrolled through.

The giant branded mosaics can be seen by Pinterest users whether or not they follow the Uniqlo brand page. The project targets five categories on which mosaics will appear: men’s apparel, women’s apparel, geek, fitness and sports.

Microsoft Corp. and Yammer Inc. have announced Yammer, a leading provider of enterprise social networks is to be acquired for $1.2 billion in cash. Yammer will join the Microsoft Office Division, led by division President Kurt DelBene, and the team will continue to report to current CEO David Sacks.

Yammer will continue to develop its standalone service and maintain its commitment to simplicity, innovation and cross-platform experiences. Moving forward, Microsoft plans to accelerate Yammer’s adoption alongside complementary offerings from Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype.

Launched in 2008, Yammer now has more than 5 million corporate users, including employees at 85 percent of the Fortune 500. The service allows employees to join a secure, private social network for free and then makes it easy for companies to convert a grassroots movement into companywide strategic initiative.

Facebook was seen as the source of personal data that reveal the most about a person, with 26 percent of respondents to a survey of more than 2,000 U.K. consumers citing the social network.

Following Facebook on the survey, conducted by YouGov and commissioned by Informatica, were:

Bank statements, 24 percent
Search-engine history, 14 percent
Credit-card statements, 11 percent
Twitter profiles, 1 percent

The survey also found that five times as many 18- to 34-year-olds would use their Facebook credentials to log into a website without being offered incentives to do so (10 percent versus 2 percent), and more than three times would do so if provided a discount or offer (20 percent versus 6 percent).

Informatica Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Enablement and Informatica University Chris Boorman said:

There is clearly a trust issue over data in the U.K., which could easily be addressed through better communication. Consumers want to know what their personal data will be used for and how the privacy of that information will be upheld. The younger generation is spot-on: They feed the likes of Facebook and search-engine histories with more information about themselves than any other sources. With this in mind, there’s an opportunity here for organizations to be more transparent with consumers when it comes to how they plan to use their personal information and what’s in it for the consumer. Achieve this, and companies can forge stronger relationships with their customers.

I like the thinking here by @faris.