Western Union recently launched a microsite within Facebook called “World in Motion,” designed to help immigrant workers become acclimated to different cultures and locales around the world. Features include the “Wall”, where members engage in discussions, a “Stories” section where members can submit stories about how the word “Yes!” has impacted their lives, an “Event” area, and a “Support” feature where users can post links to restaurants, places to work out, job opportunities and the like.
YouTube’s Hispanic audience has grown 80% this past year and the company has taken notice: on Monday, the influential social media site announced a deal to make programming from Univision’s networks available on YouTube:
If you haven’t heard of CitySaheli, just wait—you will. It’s a cool, new social networking site for the modern South Asian woman. Features include Hip & Happening (for events, nightlife, giving back, cultural info), Lookin’ Good (fashion and beauty), 9 to 5 (careers) , I Do! (weddings), Chit Chat (forums), and Baby (for new moms, launching this week). CitySaheli is geared toward South Asian women, but there is definitely something for every woman on the site.
I caught up with Monica Sangani Gupta, one of CitySaheli’s co-founders, to find out more:
The battle is on. And Honda’s a big part of it.
Honda is using social media as part of its ”Battle of the Bands” initiative, a showcase and competition for marching bands from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The prize? Each of the schools of the participating bands receives $1,000; the eight schools whose bands make the finals receive $20,000. Honda uses a social media site, Hondabattleofthebands.com, to provide information, updates, videos, photos and to allow fans to vote for their favorite bands. It’s a very relevant use of social media in the African-American community:
When you think about State Farm, you don’t necessarily think of Bollywood. Until now.
State Farm, in conjunction with Saavn, a digital distributor of Bollywood content and interTrend, a Asian-American advertising agency, sponsored a competition called “Bollywood Star”, where an online community helped select two singers to be featured in an upcoming Bollywood movie. The social media site, Bollystar2009.com, allowed Bollywood hopefuls to upload videos in hopes of being selected, while others used the blogging and comment/rating systems.
It’s official: Twitter is now available in Spanish. The announcement on the Twitter blog, is written entirely in Spanish (here’s an English translation, with an assist from from Google Translate):