Anyways, the data for the December 26 through January 1 have been released and it appears that people greatly prefer to check-in the new year with Ryan Seacrest’s boyish mug than Anderson Cooper’s silver-topped noggin. 2-to-1 prefer Seacrest and the rest of the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, in fact, as the program “gave the network its largest audience in 11 years and its strongest showing among adults 18-49 in 8 years,” Nielsen reports.

What’s more is that Animal Planet had a strong showing with their “Finding Bigfoot” special during the last week of 2011. From GetGlue:

The most notable series entrant in our Top 10 this week is Animal Planet’s “Finding Bigfoot,” with its Sunday night “Baby Bigfoot” (awwwww!) episode. Per Animal Planet’s episode summary: “The bigfoot research team heads to New York to investigate video of an alleged baby bigfoot. When locals report bigfoot activity in the neighboring woods, the team tries a new search method in hopes of finding bigfoots near the Big Apple.”

Honestly, these might be happy numbers for assorted television executives but all this data shows me is a missed opportunity. Really, think about the number of check-ins that a ABC-Animal Planet crossover could’ve garnered if Ryan Seacrest had set out to locate Baby Bigfoot on New Year’s Eve and then retrieved the furry little tyke just in time to plant a big smooch on Mama Bigfoot as the ball dropped to commence the beginning of 2012. Nobody, and I mean nobody, would even remember that awkward midnight kiss between NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Lady Gaga.

Now? Not so much, but that doesn’t mean people still watch the award show when it airs.

Nevertheless, by most reports, the 2011 VMAs were a hit, as over 12 million people tuned in. They also tweeted about it–en masse, apparently–but the Twitter count hit another all-time high in regards to tweets per second when Beyonce’s pregnancy was announced, which takes place in the video leading this post. For those that haven’t seen it, the announcement comes after her performance.

According to various reports, Beyonce’s “I’m with child” announcement broke the TPS (tweet per second) record, one that was set during the Women’s World Cup Final. The title for TPS has switched hands a few times, but now, thanks to Beyonce’s announcement, MTV is, vicariously, the proud owner of the new TPS title.

So yeah, more people tweeted about Beyonce’s pregnancy than any other event since the inception of Twitter. For some reason, when I think about the societal impact of such knowledge, I keep going back to this song by Trent Reznor. It’s fairly NSFW, but it definitely captures the tone of what motivates such reaction quite well.

Digression aside, did Beyonce’s announcement improve the ratings for the VMAs? If you listen to Twitter, perhaps, but then, there’s another perspective that blows the idea out of the water.

In a post over at Forbes, Brandon Mendelson scoffs at the idea that all these Beyonce tweets did much to impact MTV’s rating count for the VMAs, regardless of the propaganda offered to support such a claim:

Is it possible that Twitter could lead to an increase in the ratings of a television show? Absolutely; however, since the service rolled out in 2006 this has yet to be the case…

But when you consider Twitter is only used by 13% of Americans (according to PEW), and that of those 13%, less than a quarter of them are responsible for the majority of tweets sent, the truth disproves the fiction. Not to mention, given the number of people like me who use the service to write jokes, how many of them do you think are watching the thing they’re mocking?

It’s a compelling argument, especially the 13 percent aspect, but when you see headlines that say stuff like “This year’s VMA ratings reach record-breaking levels,” then maybe social media as a whole should be given credit.

Granted, that 13 percent sticks out like a sore thumb, but it’s highly doubtful Twitter was the only social media platform where the VMAs were being discussed. Facebook, I’m sure, was also a conduit for the discussion, which could very easily contribute to the ratings increase as well. Of course, then there’s the idea that nothing was on that Sunday, except for new HBO Originals episodes–True Blood, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage–and Breaking Bad.

When you consider the average age of the pop music sycophant who uses Twitter–no data here, but just from a quick glance at the various pop music trends that show up daily on Twitter–they probably weren’t allowed to watch those mature shows, and so, they resorted to living vicariously through Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Whatever the case, Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement now holds the tweets-per-second record, and that’s kind of sad.

Now, the rollercoaster ratings ride seems to be on the climb, as Piers saw a boost in March, directly attributable to interviews with Twitter stars Charlie Sheen and Kim Kardashian as well as his Twitter-themed show with founders Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey.  Statistics put out by Ad Age show that Piers himself is becoming quite the Twitter star, and it way be helping his fledgling show compete in a tough market.

Piers joined Twitter at the end of last year and as of the writing of this article, has amassed over 512,000 followers.  Ad Age’s editorial partner Trendrr crunched the numbers and gives us a pretty clear indication of who is talking about Piers and how much.

Four months into owning a Twitter account, Piers Morgan has tweeted over 5,100 times.  Many of these tweets are updates regarding interview guests for his daily show.  He is able to use @mentions to successfully interact with celebrities, increasing his presence.  Although he most likely has some help in maintaining his status as a prolific tweeter, most indications are that he is thoroughly involved in the tweeting.

Globally, the top five places where Piers Morgan is mentioned the most on Twitter are London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Manchester.  As of late, 43% of his Twitter buzz is coming from the States, while 31% is coming from England.  He is mentioned an average of 2,500 times a day – peaking at 9,851 times when he interviewed Charlie Sheen and 39,760 times during his Twitter themed show on March 25th.

Just for fun, Ad Age plotted Piers’ popularity on Twitter against Charlie Sheen’s.  Though Sheen is obviously WINNING (forgive me), Piers surpasses him on numerous occasions.

Twitter has definitely helped other talking heads like Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Bill Maher create considerable buzz.  Can Twitter help Piers Morgan’s show stay afloat?

When people use the Zillow Directory to search for a real estate agent in their area, results are sorted by local agents with the highest overall ratings and the largest number of reviews.

Overall ratings are based on recommendations on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “very likely” and 1 “very unlikely.” Users can compare agents’ overall ratings, as well as ratings across a number of categories including: process expertise, local knowledge, responsiveness and negotiation skills.

"Zillow was created to help people make smarter real estate decisions, and choosing an agent is one of the most important decisions a buyer or seller can make," said Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff.

"Agent Reviews are another huge step towards transparency for buyers and sellers. For good agents, it’s a terrific way to stand out from the crowd – the next best thing to a referral. "

US market share for videos tipped more than three out of every ten visits to Google’s properties. The biggest video draw, YouTube, helped Google grab 31.3 percent of the 9.5 billion videos viewed online in November 2007.

The figures from comScore found that of the 3 billion videos served by Google’s sites, 2.9 billion found their way into the media players of visitors from YouTube.

Second place in video delivery is by no means a sealed prospect. Fox sites picked up 4.4 percent of US visits, followed closely by Yahoo’s 3.5 percent and Viacom Digital’s 2.6 percent.

A modest increase in traffic for any of that trio, driven by a handful of popular clips in a given month, could see these sites jostle for position behind Google.

About three in four Americans viewed some online video in November. Google’s audience consisted of 76.2 million unique viewers, Fox’s held 46.3 million, while Yahoo drew 37.3 million.

As all of these sites chase the video advertising dollar, a variety of ways to capture attention and deliver value to marketers have appeared in the marketplace.

Inobtrusive and interactive look like the watchwords for video ad technology in 2008; we discussed how Dailymotion will use them and last year, Adobe said Flash ‘Bug’ ads in their Media Player would do something similar.

After all, here’s the thing about user-generated content: a lot of it sucks, and maps are probably no exception to this rule.  On the other hand, we’ve seen some really neat maps tossed about, and their creators definitely deserve a pat on the back.

So whether you want to give kudos or kill somebody’s creativity, Google’s Qiushuang (Autumn) Zhang writes, “To get to the new comments page, just click on the new ratings and comments links on the My Maps pages.”

On the Google LatLong Blog, Zhang also lets readers know, “You’ll . . . find a top links section that shows which websites and blogs are referring traffic to the map.  If you’re curious about where your map’s huge number of views have been coming from, just check out your referrals.”

We’ve seen at least one other example of Google Maps becoming more social in the past month, and this week’s developments just continue a positive trend.

Now, when you search for a place to eat, if CleanScores has it in their database (which for now only includes San Francisco and LA), the Google Maps results will show you the violations the food inspectors discovered in that place.

From experience, I don’t think this is such a great idea, to expose people who don’t know anything about food inspections to raw data about them. I remember writing a story about a food establishment that had been shut down due to health code violations, and when I went to the health department’s website to look up other local eateries, I was shocked to discover that every place I liked to eat had some minor violations.

Even minor violations sound terrible, like mouse droppings and dead flies, but these are so commonplace that many normal, clean restaurants have these on their record, and they don’t get shut down. I don’t pretend to know why places that are on record as having mouse poo are okay, but the health inspectors seem to think so.

Either way, if these places are truly safe, then adding the data to Google Maps will only serve to frighten people, and those people have no context for what violations are no big deal (but sound terrible) and which ones they really need to be careful about before sitting down to eat. Merely listing the violations can sometimes be irresponsible and not at all helpful.

Still, once you understand that not all violations are created equal, the data is useful. Hopefully, Google Maps users will get the message quickly before they decide to stop eating anywhere, ever.

Image by Orin Optiglot under CC

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Christian Delhaye, worldwide head of maps and guides for Michelin, said, "It was a mistake" that it was briefly made available on Michelin’s Web site. "It was only up for a short time."

French chef Joel Robuchon’s Las Vegas restaurant received the only three-star rating, which is described as "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey." "One of our patrons called me," Robuchon told the Los Angeles Times. "He looked on the Internet site and saw all the results of the guide. There were rumors circulating, but nothing official. I’m really happily stunned."

Los Angeles area restaurants that did well in the Michelin ratings include Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills, which earned a two-star rating, along with French restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica and the 10-set Japanese restaurant Urasawa in Beverly Hills.

"I am very happy about two stars," Josiah Citrin, chef and owner of Melisse, told the Times. "This isn’t just L.A. two stars, this is two stars across the world. Americans might not know how hard it is to have even one star and how few there are."

The guide describes a two star restaurant as one that serves "excellent cuisine, worth a detour, with specialties and wine of first class quality."

The Michelin guide has been published by the French tire company for more than 100 years and covers 21 countries. Its three-star rating is viewed as the highest honor in dining around the world.

The Guardian Unlimited’s Jemima Kiss describes Backfence as a “network of citizen journalism sites in the US,” and notes that it was “touted as one of the big web hopes for the development of participatory media.”  Backfence’s passing has elicited comments from such sources as BusinessWeek, American Journalism Review, and VC Ratings.

But despite its apparent popularity, Backfence is indeed dead.  Paul Farhi writes, “The failure of Backfence may offer no greater lesson than the old one about pioneers being the ones with arrows in their backs.  New ventures fail all the time.  But it could also sound a cautionary note about the present – and immediate future – of hyperlocal news sites.”

Should Google, CNN, and the rest be worried, then?  Farhi goes on to pinpoint Backfence’s problems as “getting the word out and getting the money in” – problems that bigger companies aren’t likely to encounter – so I’m going to say “no.”  But Farhi responds to a similar question (“Is there a real business in this kind of business?”) with an answer that Google and CNN won’t like; companies without piles of money will hate his discovery that hyperlocal news isn’t yet profitable.

I dunno.  Some pioneers were able to pave the way for others, but there’s no doubt that some pioneers just died.  It remains to be seen into which of those groups Backfence will fall.

According to this recent article By David Bauder AP Television Writer, the total viewership is about 37.6 million, down from 40.3 million for the same period in 2006.

Considering (from the same article) that they collected about 8.8 billion in ad revenues, it would take a strong profit margin per customer to justify and/or cash-flow such an investment! (That is a very high cost per view!)

Fortunately, that advertising model is no longer necessary: more and more, we don’t watch the commercials anyway!

But when I want something, I can find it on Google, in seconds, with a key word search.

There are ads there too: it costs over 15$ per click for many coveted real estate searches: but how often do you click a sponsored link or a pop-up banner? Chances are, you said rarely or never. Now: how often do you click a first page result? Five, ten, fifteen times some days?

But the first page results are not for sale: they are what Google and the other search engines give away for free, to get you to come to the site to see the ads.

The most cost-effective advertising available today (in my humble opinion) is to feed the search engines and directories that free information that they give away, in just the right format, so that you can be found in those first page results.

Just in case you were wondering what exactly we do here at Social Media Systems, it has a lot to do with that marketing strategy, and our own special system of advertising: we make our clients into what people are searching for.