Weekly comms news round up 10/08/12

My weekly pick of comms news curated via @CisionUK.

Sunday Times launches Marie Colvin scholarship via @pressgazette PressGazette

“The Sunday Times has launched a new one-year scholarship in memory of Marie Colvin, the foreign correspondent killed by Syrian government forces during a shell attack in February.”

How To Measure Social Media Efforts by Cheri-Percy via @distilled distilled

“Acting as the Distilled Community and Content Assistant is as new to me as it is to the company. There’s certainly a lot of emphasis in marketing placed on generating a strong community and raising web visibility. You can find a whole host of posts relating to such matter – MackWeb Solutions talk you through a manageable content and social media marketing process on their recent SEOMoz piece with aplomb but what of those with new domains, starting out and struggling with the bewildering task of manning these social channels?”

Direct marketing industry projected to grow by 7% in 2012 via @thedrum The Drum

“The Direct marketing Association has published research which suggests that the sector could grow 7% this year to reach nearly £15.2bn.

Fuelling this growth is the burgeoning expenditure on digital channels as well as an 11.5% increase in email marketing investment to £2.5bn and an 8.1% boost to social marketing spend to £2.2bn.”

Is this change to Facebook Open Graph a missed opportunity for brand marketers? by @declankennedy via The Wall

“What may seem to be a small technical changeto the way Open Graph works on third party sites, will affect how marketers communicate with their Facebook audience.

When Facebook introduced Open Graph in 2010, it marked a big change in the way brands could interact with their fans and build direct relationships with them through the social network. Rather than just piling up Likes on their main Facebook page – where surprisingly few fans ever visit again – brands could put the Like button on their own website next to a product.  Brands could then leverage the nearly 1 billion users on Facebook to get them to discover content on the brand website.”

This creative agency thinks it can redesign Wikipedia to be more usable, and it’s on to something by @thatdrew via The Next Web

“We’re all armchair quarterbacks when it comes to technology and apps that we love. There’s nothing wrong with that, since the feedback that we provide is sometimes turned into action.

You’ve probably used Wikipedia, and it’s safe to say that you’d agree with the statement “It ain’t pretty.” Yes, Wikipedia is all about content and not so pleasing on the eye. What if it was a bit prettier, and more usable? A creative agency named New! has taken it upon themselves to “what if?” this scenario.”