Social Media and Financial Planners, Emoticons Age

We asked our bloggers to tell us what they found interesting on the Internet this week. What would you add to this list?

 

Jonathan B. Cox - This Wall Street Journal story is about how financial planners are harnessing the power of social media. Financial planners are using social media to deepen relationships with existing clients and find new ones. There are lots of creative, real-life examples of how social media is paying off.

 

 

 

Stacie Saunders - Monday was the 29th birthday of the emoticon. This is an interesting look  back  at how we began to inject emotion into our online communications. Honestly, I was surprised the colon-hyphen-parenthesis :-) was introduced as far back as 1982…and even more surprised that the concept can be dated back to 1881! This fun, short read will help you turn that Friday :-( upside down!

 

 

James Schiavone – Towson University returned football tickets allotted by the  University of  Maryland for their matchup on Oct. 1 and instead told their fans to buy tickets on StubHub. Due to  a large concentration of available tickets for the game, tickets were selling for as little as $4 (face value is $38). This is a great example of how secondary markets and daily deal sites are becoming more popular and allowing one to determine their own “fair value” for a product. I’m less likely to pay $50 for food if I can get the same $50 of food for $25 through a secondary market.

 

Gregory J. Wright – Netflix announced it will spin off its DVD rental service to a new company  called Qwikster in the 10th paragraph of their CEO’s blog post, after customer outrage in July over price increases. Their stock immediately took a tumble and is 42% lower than it was in July.