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Social Media News Brief: Jan. 8, 2010

Social Media made a presence at CES, while Twitter starts nominations for the Shorty Awards! Find out all the details in today’s Social Media News Brief.

The consumer electronic show, took place this week in Las Vegas, and while 3DTV, and a 7 millimeter widescreen television are defiantly some of the top stories, social media & internet giants are trying to get into the television business.  On Tuesday, Skype announced they have created a program which will allow you to make both Skype to Skype calls, along with Skype to landline and mobile phones all from your television.  The company says that all you’ll need to do is purchase a special web camera and connect it to you television set.  The new webcam will have special HD compatibilities and a special microphone, so you won’t have to sit right next to your television set as you make those calls.  Then on Thursday, Yahoo announced that starting immediately, that they would begin to bring Connected TV to a number of LG, Sony, Samsung and Vizio TVs.  Connected TV is a widget which lets you do a number of things you would normally do online, such as update your Facebook status, tweet what your watching, shop for online for things on Amazon and even watch YouTube videos.  For more information about both these products be sure to check out our blog at iePlexus.com/blog.

Twitter announced this week that nominations for the second annual Shorty Awards has begun.  Twitter users can nominate each other as “a fun way to show appreciation to the people behind the tweets we read every day.” This year there are 27 official categories with a possibility for other’s if they become popular enough.  As of right now the most popular category is an unofficial category titled egocentric.  Some of the few of the official categories include Business Brands, Design, Customer service, and journalist.  An awards ceremony will take place in March, complete with 140-character acceptance speeches, in New York City.  It will also be streamed live online.  To cast you vote, be sure to visit shortyawards.com