Author: kullin

Swedish customers can book Lufthansa tickets on Facebook

I blogged a week ago about how Delta Air Lines lets customers book airline tickets on the Delta Facebook page. EasyJet also has this application on its page on Facebook. Now Lufthansa has also introduced the same functionality to its page and it is available for customers in Sweden, USA, Germany, India, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Further markets will be added by the end of the year.

Lufthansa  also cooperates with the location-based site Foursquare in Germany and users who check in at three different locations via Foursquare can get a 20 euro voucher for their next Lufthansa flight booking.

lufthansa-facebook-1

Users who select a certain country, get local news (see below from Sweden).

lufthansa-facebook-2

lufthansa-facebook-3

Flickr reaches 5 billion photos

The photo sharing site Flickr just reached 5 billion photos this morning. Here is a link to photo number 5 billion, a photo of Woodward’s building in Vancouver, taken by Aaron Yeo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeoaaron/5000000000/

Update: Since it became known it was the 5 billionth photo, Aaron Yeo has decided to share the Woodwards Collage picture with a CC license. So here it is:

Woodwards Collage

Despite the fact that social networks like Facebook have become popular places to share photos, it seems that the growth of Flickr continues at the same pace as during the last 3 years, adding about one billion photos per year. (Facebook claims that users uploaded 2.5 billion photos per month, in February 2010.)

I have been tracking the dates when Flickr has passed different milestones and calculated the graph below. Although Flickr seems to be handing out id numbers to each photo somewhat randomely, for example, the graph below has an id number just below 5 billion although it was uploaded after the photo mentioned above, it still seems to be pretty accurate.

flickr-5-billion

Previous milestones for Flickr:

22 Oct 04: 1,000,000
20 Apr 05: 10,000,000
15 Feb 06: 100,000,000
22 Sep 06: 250,000,000
15 May 07: 500,000,000
19 Jul 07: 850,000,000
06 Oct 07: 1,500,000,000
13 Nov 07: 2,000,000,000
17 May 08: 2,500,000,000
03 Nov 08: 3,000,000,000
04 May 09: 3,500,000,000
11 Oct 09: 4,000,000,000
18 Sept 10: 5,000,000,000

Update: Flickr has confirmed on its blog that the site has now reached 5 billion photos.

Book airline tickets with Delta on Facebook

Many businesses worry that there is a weak connection between their engagement in social media and actual sales. But there are examples of companies that use social media to drive sales:

  • Pizza Hut generated $1 million in sales via an iPhone application
  • Sony and Dell have generated millions via Twitter channels
  • Dunkin’ Donuts are tracking sales from its Twitter account
  • Uniqlo in the UK are giving discounts based on the number of times an item has been tweeted
  • Below is also a case study from Jimmy Choo on how to drive sales:
Social media case study: Jimmy Choo

The latest example I have found (via a tweet by Sally Falkow) is Delta Air Lines that lets customers book airline tickets on the Delta Facebook page. According to an article on CNN, the ‘Ticket Window’ service has been up and running for about one month.

“Our customers are spending more time online and are looking for new ways to connect with us. We’re now delivering technology where our customers are – from our own website to our Facebook page to Internet news sites and beyond,” said Bob Kupbens, Delta’s vice president – eCommerce in a press release. “We already know Facebook is the most used website by inflight WiFi users on more than 2,000 Delta flights every day, giving us the natural launching point for a new online Ticket Window.”

Delta plans to expand its Ticket Window to other sites, including online banner ads to allow full booking capabilities within the airline’s advertisements.

delta-facebook-tickets

Promoting Facebook groups is a breach of the Swedish Radio and Television Act

A verdict today from The Swedish Broadcasting Commission (Granskningsnämnden för radio och TV) declared that public service radio and tv shows that encouraged listeners to join or discuss a topic in a Facebook group, were in breach of the Swedish Radio and Television Act.

facebook The Commission slammed the radio shows “Ring så spelar vi” in channel P4 and “Förmiddag” in the local channel P4 Kristianstad for encouraging listeners to join their respective Facebook groups. And the tv news show Sydnytt on SVT1 encouraged viewers to state their opinion on a certain topic on a Facebook page. That was also interpreted as being in breach of the Radio and Television Act because it was improper favoritism of a commercial enterprise.

One can question whether the law is really in tune with the current trends in the media landscape.

Update: According to the Commission, it is accepted to inform the public of the existence of a Facebook page or group, but encouraging listeners or viewers to join them is considered one step too far.

Thumbs up for social shopping

More and more retailers are starting to insert elements of social shopping to their web sites. Social shopping is the concept of involving a customer’s friends or other customers in the shopping experience by for example letting their recommendations influence what items are shown first on a site.

Here is an example. When you enter the US version of Urban Outfitters’ site, a giant thumb is currently being displayed.  Once you click on the image you can sort items (women’s, men’s or apartement) after which ones have been liked the most by people on Facebook. The top women’s item is a cardigan that has been “liked” 90 times. So if you want to know what clothes that currently are in fashion, this is a neat service. If you want a unique look, you probably should start searching among the least liked items.

urban-outfitters-facebook

Via Market.se (in Swedish).