The Emergence of Pinterest: Why So Important?

Pinterest is a focal point because of its uniqueness and versatility but why is it so important? With the evolution into visual social media, Pinterest is a pioneer for this trend. This article will discuss many aspects of Pinterest, including how media outlets are utilizing it, the marketing interest (or disinterest), and the growth of the site. As in many other social media websites, users use Pinterest for a variety of reasons. This article will explore some those uses.

Many media outlets have found Pinterest and have created ways to utilize the technology for their benefit. Journalists and news organizations are finding a role for Pinterest and using the site for hard news and features. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both have successful Pinterest pages that correspond so stories they’ve done including popular Pinterest board topics, fashion and weddings (Tenore). There are lots of fun events that new organizations cover that could be converted into a Pinterest board to keep the information top of mind to the consumer and to make the information more accessible and available to the user to be saved for a later time.

News organizations can also extend the shelf life of articles and features by resurfacing old content (like holiday recipes, and events like the Olympics) on their Pinterest pages (Tenore). Picture story boards can be created linking back to the old information, as far as an archive goes: organizations could use Pinterest to keep the information relevant. Pinterest is also a good organizational tool news organizations can use to respond to an event. The Dallas Morning News created a board to post all of the pictures viewers were sending in after a hail storm in their area. They needed a way to show the importance of the event and they did this by pinning all of the photos to be viewed at once (Tenore). All of these uses of Pinterest keeps the news organizations’ stories top of mind to viewers and keeps them in the presence of the viewers. The Today Show as well as the Weather Channel both find Pinterest to be a tool that fit naturally into their lifestyle type of content, fitting in with what they did already but giving them a new avenue to share the information with the followers (Rubino, 14). If viewers have the ability to pin that information to their own boards it becomes something that they want to keep and save for later, not just another passing news story.

Even though the platform is working for some news organizations, not all of them are excited to have another social medium to have access to, while others want to see the copywriting issues settled, some say it is too female audience skewed, while others don’t believe it is a good fit for hard news (Malone, 15). These are all valid concerns that happen with many social media platforms.

Because of the curating nature of Pinterest, marketers are finding this medium an interesting one for branding and promotion. Marketers are also using Pinterest as a tool to boost their website traffic and Pinterest is fast becoming an important part of referral traffic (Schlereth). Pinterest can also give marketers insights into the interests and inspirations of their audiences and not just insights into what users are up to, that other social media websites are useful for (Schlereth). This information can be an invaluable tool to advertisers and their media plans. Marketers do need to utilize this medium correctly, not just for promotions; the site should be organized around “passion points” that personify brands and evoke emotions. (Schlereth). Users like to be able to follow the content they crave and having too many promotional pins may lead the pinner to un-follow the brand or company. It is always important to make sure, for marketers, that their content doesn’t clutter their followers’ with junk.

Pinterest is a fast growing social media website with more than a 4000 percent growth between May 2011 and February 2012 with users spending an average of 64.4 minutes on the site (Schlereth). With the huge amount of success Pinterest has found, other websites are out their copying the format.

The Pinterest community is a majority of females leaving an open market for male audiences. With sites skewed more toward men, like dartitup.com, gentlemint.com, and manteresting.com, the virtual pin-board style of curating information does not appear to be going anywhere. There are also websites like Pinterest that cater to specific categories; trippy.com is devoted to travel, learnist.com is devoted to education and dropula.com is devoted to graphic arts, etc. Although Pinterest has sections for this type of content, other sites have created a space devoted to specific topics allowing users to focus their time on certain posts. These sites, however, don’t share the huge following that Pinterest does.

It will be exciting to see new ways Pinterest can be utilized and to see where Pinterest takes the brand. They are creating new features for the site as needed and seem to be dedicated to creating a satisfying user experience. As social media and as Pinterest evolve the importance of the media will evolve with it. Where do we go from here?

Sources

• Malone, Michael. “Stations Show Some Interest in Pinterest”. “Broadcasting & Cable, 12 Mar. 2012, 15. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
• Rubino, Lindsay. “New Organizations Pin Hopes on Social Media”. Broadcasting & Cable, 12 Mar. 2012, 14-15. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
• Schlereth, Laura. “Marketers’ Interest in Pinterest; The Buzz-worthy Virtual Scrapbook is Helping Brands Large and Small Project Their Personalities in the Social Sphere.” Marketing News 46.5 (2012): 8. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.
• Tenore, Mallary Jean. “5 Ways Journalists are Using Pinterest”. The Poynter Institute, 2012. 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Dec 2012.  

Value to Consumers: Audience uses of Social Media

Just as advertisers get value out of social media, so do the consumers that use these sites. The uses of social media differ between different groups of people but value is gained for the consumer any way they decide to utilize the medium. Social media users interact with different sites and everyone uses the medium differently, but no doubt, the technology is being used. Between 2011 and 2012, time spent on social media went up 37 percent (Shea). Whether it’s to connect with family and friends, meet new people, to keep up with a favorite celebrity, brand or company or to have a convenient place to get news, social media users spend a lot of their time on these sites either on their mobile phone, tablet or computer.

With social media, consumers get more of a voice and get the chance to interact with brands and advertisers more than ever before and on an instantaneous basis. Consumers have some power and can post positive and negative reviews of products, brands, restaurants, stores, and services, both local and national. 87 percent of Facebook users “like” brand page; 75 percent of those people feel more connected to a brand on Facebook. The biggest motivator of consumers to “like” a brand, 34 percent of brand liking users, is so they can get promotions and discounts on products. 77 percent of “brand likers” have saved money because they liked the product on Facebook (Murphy). Consumers are getting satisfaction and savings out of following brands; this is a value of social media that consumers are seeing in the online practices. Consumers are also getting better and more up to date information via social media regarding brands and products, giving them more confidence when they make online purchases.

What else do consumers get out of social media? Matt, who works in the industry, was asked the question of value many times so he strove to figure it out for himself. He came to the conclusion that social media is truly what the user makes out of it and only they can say what the true value is for themselves. Whether social media users find value in talking to family and friends, keep up on current events, post pictures of everything they do or find new information that wouldn't have been discovered without their social media network, value is in the eye of the user.

Over time, social media users have gone from focusing the time creating content and communicating with friends to being more passive and digesting content from sources they trust. In September 2012, 22 percent of Facebook users that visited the site did not make a contribution (Bosomworth). This could be an evolution in how consumers are using social media and could explain the popularity that Pinterest has enjoyed. With newer social media sites like Pinterest the value to the consumer comes with the organization of Pinterest. The goal isn't necessarily to create new content on Pinterest; it is more about curating existing content that the user finds interesting or helpful in some way and organizing it to fit their needs.

All things considered, I am intrigued by Matt’s assessment and believe it to be the best explanation of the value of social media. So many people use the features of the websites/apps differently and for their own pleasure. What I get out of social media isn't necessarily what my friends, family or a stranger get out of social media; it’s all what the user makes out of it. Social media users can be the creators of content, consumers of content, or do a combination of the two.

Sources

• Bosomworth, Danyl. “Will Social media become a Broadcast Channel?”. Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Ltd. 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
• Matt. “What is the Value of Social Media?”. MWilbanks.com, 2012. 20 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Dec 2012.
• Murphy, Samantha. “50% of Consumers Value a Brand’s Facebook Page More than its Website”. Lab 42, Market Research. Smarter. 24 Sep. 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
• Shea, Erin. ”30pc of Consumer Mobile Action Tie to Social Media: Nielsen”. Napean LLC, 2012. 5 Dec. 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

Shorter Posts: Cultural Significance to the Shift

With the shift in technologies and expanding types of social media, it seems as though the shorter posts are becoming king. With the transition from long posts into visual social media (that was discussed in another article) a look at the significance of the shorter posts is an important discussion about social media and culture.

A study done by Buddy Media showed that Facebook posts of 80 characters or less have a 27 percent higher engagement rate than longer posts; not surprising given the huge amount of things to read, watch and respond to daily (Seiter). With the over saturation of articles/posts/updates/blogs to read and images and video to look at, it is understandable that social media users are more likely to read and engage with shorter posts. Social media has given way to the rewiring of our society’s brains; creating shorter attention spans and the rise of storytelling in bullet-points, and creating a society of skim readers (Seiter). Even the newest formatting change by Facebook reorganized user pages to a timeline style, telling stories through images and bullet-point like text posts.

The average American’s attention span 10 years ago was 12 minutes; today it is only 5 minutes. Studies are pointing to social media as the main cause for this drastic decline noting that younger people have shorter attention spans than the elderly (How Social Media is Ruining our Minds). This rewiring of the brain is having an impact on our culture with younger generations being more likely to skim over information and have a short attention span.

Not only are updates getting shorter and loaded with image and video, blog posts are also becoming shorter and generally have some sort of image accompanying the post. Readers want to have easily understandable content that is easily read or skimmed. Experts say there are some advantages to going shorter, like ability to write more frequently, less writer’s block, better chance for new readers, and more comments (DangApricot). These reasons for shorter blog entries make sense but the better chance for new readers is the interesting one for this article. Generally readers are looking for something specific when reading blogs and if it isn’t easily accessible they will leave the site. Writers want to keep readers coming back for more and want to capture their attention.

Shorter posts, namely pictures, have become a quick communication tool to social media users. The shortage of time and amount of content to sift through has a profound effect on this change. Technological advances and the attention span of social media users seems to be at least part of the explanation to why posts are getting shorter and a move toward the visual is taking place in social media culture.

Sources

• DangApricot. “Why Are Bloggers Writing Shorter and Shorter Posts?” Velvet Blues, Inc. 2005- 2012. N.d. Web. 16 Dec 2012.
• “How Social Media is ruining our Minds [Infographic]”. Assisted Living Today, 2011. 13 Dec. 2011. Web. 16 Dec 2012.
• Seiter, Courtney. “Short Attention Spans and Social Media: How to Fight Back”. Third Door Media, Inc. 2012. 3 Jan. 2012. Web. 16 Dec 2012.

The Transition: Move to Visual Social Media

There is no doubt that visual social media is overtaking text based social media. More and more social media users are skipping words and expressing themselves with visual elements such as videos and photographs. Videos are shared 1200 percent more than links and text posts combined and photos are liked 200 percent more than text updates (Bullas, The Facts and Figures). More social media sites are moving to the visual and storytelling formats, with Pinterest and Instagram as visual sites and Facebook adding the timeline feature to express information as a story. Pinterest is referring more traffic than Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Google+, via photo and video posts (Bullas, The Facts and Figures).

At the beginning of social media, we started with blogging, with long text heavy posts. Then we moved into the Facebook updates and our posts became shorter. Eventually microblogging was born with sites like Twitter giving the user a maximum of 140 characters to express themselves. Now with Pinterest and Instagram, most of the time users are skipping words and posting only pictures.

Why is this evolution taking place within social media? One opinion is that this shift seems to be caused by “our overwhelming preference for mobile devices” with 78 percent of Americans using their mobile device to access the Internet and only 68 percent that do it from a desktop or laptop computer (Connor). Generally, it is easier to upload a picture taken with a mobile device than to type a status or tweet. Another theory explaining the shift toward the visual is that using visualizations in the A.D.D culture we live in today helps readers remember content more than just words and visuals make meaning easier to understand at a glance in the multitasking culture (Trewe). In addition, editing tools have become easier to use and more readily available (Trewe).

One theory I haven’t found any explicit mention of is the use of signs/symbols/pictures that are used throughout our culture. From denoting the men’s and female’s restrooms to traffic signals to navigation through an airport, our culture uses pictures and signs all over the place, ensuring people from different cultures and that speak different languages are able to interpret meaning.

The transition to visual was an inevitable one considering the immediacy of the culture of today. Today, there are 2.5 billion camera phones in use, creating a massive increase in photograph creation; 10 percent of photos taken by humankind were taken in the last 12 months, as of May 2012 (Bullas, 6 Powerful Reasons). This statistic is staggering and shows that visual media is on the rise due to the importance of this medium to culture. The sharing aspect that the culture had developed with the use of social media also gives users a reason to take these photos; more than the want to preserve memories.

Images are important, not just in purely visual media, but in blog posts and articles as well, with articles that have images receiving 94 percent more views. Visuals are also important to consumers, with 67 percent of consumers noting that a quality picture of the product is “very important” when making purchases (Bullas, 6 Powerful Reasons).

The use of images is an important aspect in our culture and this evolution towards visual social media was something that was bound to happen considering the technological advances and the lack of focus in the culture and the need for immediacy.

Sources

• Bullas, Jeff. “6 Powerful Reasons why you should Include Image in Your Marketing (Infographic)”. Business 2 Community, 2010-2012. 28 May 2012. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.
• ---. “The Facts and Figures about the Power of Visual Content – Infographic.” Jeffbullas’s Blog, 2012. N.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.
• Connor. “Embracing Visual Social Media”. Pongr, 2012. 30 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.
• Trewe, Marti. “More Reasons for the Rise of the Visual Web.” AGBeat, 2007-2012. 6 Jul 2012. Web. 16 Dec 2012.

Privacy and Boundaries: What's left?

As our culture becomes interconnected with more and more adults utilizing social media and other online features, what does privacy and boundaries mean to us anymore? From users posting every aspect of their lives to behind the scenes tracking and data mining, do online users have any privacy left and do they even think about their own privacy? This article will look at the relationship between online users and their privacy. How far is too far when it comes to advertisers monitoring our every move on social media and when do the all of the details of a person’s life become too much? Social media is evolving and with that evolution society is faced with new social situations it may have never thought of before; who would have ever thought our every move can be tracked every time a user gets on social media.

So what is meant by data mining? Data mining is “the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information – information that can be used to increase revenue, cut costs or both” (Palace, What is Data Mining). One problem that can come out of data mining is individual privacy; discovering information about their buying habits and preferences (Palace, Data Mining: Issue).

By the very nature of social media, it is meant to be a social situation where people connect to each other; generally this includes products and companies. In 2009, there was much discussion that Google was going to purchase Twitter due to the addition it would give them in data and information about users, to then sell to advertisers. Deep information about consumers has always been valuable to marketers and social media, email and other online activities can be tracked and that information can be accessed (Dvorak). In the case of social media, many users update what they are doing/eating, where they are or what they’ve recently purchased and sometimes connect this to the specific company/product/restaurant etc. In addition to social media, data is being collected when Internet users perform other tasks online, including online purchases, scheduling classes, and interacting with the government (taxes, census, and car and voter registration) just to name a few (Edelstein & Millenson).Purchasing sites like Amazon have a button that can be clicked after a customer has made a purchase to post the information about what was bought to social media like Facebook and Twitter. Amazon also has similar features when a Kindle user has finished reading a book, this information can be shared to social media. This information can all be used, stored, and collected by data-miners. It seems as though many users use these features without thinking about what is actually happening when they post these things on social media.

Pinterest is a data-mining gold rush with users pinning their favorite things all in one place. Pinterest is considered a bookmarking site and these “interest-based social networks allows for better models of user interest in context of established and new tasks, connecting interest with demographic characteristics, studying changes in user interest with respect to time and location…” (Popescu, 11). Because of websites like Pinterest, data miners are able to track trends easier than ever before because Pinterest is a curation tool that assembles updates and shares users’ interests, using boards (collections) of images (Popescu, 11).

With social media being a public space where individuals share ideas, where does the line of privacy start? Legally, that is a discussion for another day or another researcher. Culturally, in my view, it seems as though privacy isn’t something the majority of social media users are worrying themselves about. On December 12, 2012, Facebook changed their privacy settings. Facebook had a privacy policy voting poll that users could vote in to keep current privacy settings. However, only .07 percent of Facebook users participated; needing 300 million votes for their voices to be heard, only 600,000 users participated (Harris). Although privacy seems like an important issue, online users’ relationship with their own privacy would appear as though it’s lacking. Social media users to have the options of changing their privacy settings; allowing only users they consider friends to see their content. This is one step users to utilize to keep their user profiles less public than others. As more and more people use social media privacy will remain an issue as data mining becomes easier with new methods and website structures. This is a continuing issue that will have to kept top of mind.

UPDATE Dec 18, 2012:
A new privacy policy has been released for Instagram, giving themselves the right to sell users' images to advertisers without notifying the user. The policy also states that Instagram can share information about its users with its parent company, Facebook, as well as other affiliates and advertisers (BBC). The social media world is aflutter with discussion.

Sources

• BBC. "Instagram Seeks Rights to Sell Access to Photos to Advertisers". BBC, 2012. 18 Dec 2012. Web. 18 Dec 2012. 
• Dvorak, John. “Data Mining and the Death of Privacy”. PC Magazine. 25.8 (2009): 38. Web. 12 Dec 2012.
• Edelstein, Herb & Janet Millenson. “Data Mining and Privacy”. DM Review 13.12 (2003): 65. Web. 12 Dec 2012.
• Harris, Alistair. “Facebook Privacy Controls Updated After Users Ignore Policy Vote”. Click- Through Marketing. n.p. 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
• Palace, Bill. “Data Mining: Issues”. Anderson Graduate School of management of UCLA. (1996). Web. 13 Dec 2012.
• ---. “What is Data Mining”. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. (1996). Web. 13 Dec 2012.
• Popescu, Ana-Maria. “Pinterest: Towards a Better Understanding of User Interest”. The Conference of Information and Knowledge Management, October 29 – November 2: Maui, HI. 11-12. New York, 2012. Web. 12 Dec 2012.

Value of Social Media: What does it do for Advertisers?

What is the value of social media? Seems like a simple enough question. This article will explore the value social media has for advertisers. To start, what is value? It can mean different things but in this article value will be defined as, “relative worth, merit or importance”, as defined by Dictionary.com. Why is social media important to advertisers?

Social media advertising is more than buying an ad on the site; advertisers could also create pages, these pages are free, on social media where consumers can follow what that advertiser is up to. It takes a lot of work and commitment to create a successful social media page due to the constant updating that needs to be maintained to keep consumers entertained and engage with their comments. Many companies will inform consumers of specials, coupons, upcoming events, giveaways, what’s new and different updates using their social media pages. The model for social media marketing is generally different than traditional marketing; the consumer comes to the advertiser/company by “liking” or “following” a company, and with 53 percent of active adult social media network users follows a brand (Nielsen, 1) these social media pages need to be interesting to the consumers.

With more people on social media than ever, consumers have many ways to connect to anything they watch and buy. “In the U.S., social networks and blogs reach nearly 80 percent of active U.S Internet users and represent the majority of Americans’ time online” (Nielsen, 1).

Consumers see a barrage of advertisements when they log onto Facebook and other social media, but what is the evaluation of social media from an advertiser’s perspective? For some marketers that participated in a survey, social media is more of an engagement tool and not a something that will necessarily generate new business; although some advertisers disagree with this assessment (Baker). Although some advertisers have a hard time justifying the use or money spent on social media, 74.5 percent of marketers that participated in Baker’s survey noted they would increase spending in 2012 on social media. In another survey, 57 percent of consumers felt like they were better served by a business if they can have direct contact with them via social media (Calbreath). 60 percent of social media users create reviews of products and services and consumer-created reviews are the preferred source of information about products (Nielsen, 10). As these numbers about social media continue to increase, it gives advertisers something to think about when building their media plans.

With visual social media coming onto the scene, with not all advertisers jumping onto the “older” social media bandwagon, how is Pinterest being used and evaluated by advertisers? Ki Mae Heussner states that “retailers were among the first to join to social scrapbooking site. But marketers of all kinds will soon realize they’d better start pinning too” (11). In January 2012, Pinterest drove more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined and in February 2012, Pinterest had 11.7 million unique visitors in the United States alone (Heussner, 11). Advertisers are finding value in Pinterest whether they are pinning recipes that use their product or pin their latest fashion trends if they are a clothes retailer; whatever their product, advertisers have a new platform to connect to the consumer and share the brand personality like never before (Heussner, 11).

Although advertisers have so many options and ways to use social media it becomes clear that if used correctly, these avenues can be of great importance to reaching the target audiences for the advertiser. With so many adults using social media and their willingness to engage with brands, social media gives advertisers ample opportunity to reach new and existing customers.

Sources

• Baker, Rosie. “Marketers Query Value of Social Media”. Marketing Week (Online), 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
• Calbreath, Dean. “Evaluating the Value of Social Media”. McClatchy – Tribune Business News, Feb 25 2010. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
• Heussner, Ki Mae. “Brands Pinning it on Pinterest”. Adweek, 53.7 (2012): 11. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.
• Nielsen. “State of the Media: The Social Media Report Q3 2011”. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.
• “Value” Dictionary.com LLC. 2012. Web.

Sharing Aspect of Social Media

This article will look at the sharing aspect of social media and what it means/has done to the culture in the United States. For me, there are two different types of sharing on social media. One: the exchange between the “poster” or author of the blog/tweet/post and anyone who may comment on that blog/tweet/post. The sharing aspect here has to do with the sharing of ideas (communication) between the participants. The second has to do with the content the author is posting. The sharing is anything they decide to post, whether they are sharing parts of their day/life or sharing something that is important to them like an article/cause/video/etc.

For me, the first concept is not a new one; people communicating and exchanging ideas. This concept is still an important one and it will be discussed a little bit later when talking about co-created online content. To a certain extent, the second type of sharing is also not completely new (people could write letters to their friends sharing aspects of their day), but the idea of sharing these thoughts with the world (and to the extent some people share) is a new idea brought about by social media.

For the purpose of this article, the second type of sharing will be the focus. Humans have always wanted to connect with one another, and social media has given them a new medium in which to do this. The ease of communication has given way to what Jari Multisilta and Marcelo Milrad have dubbed “life publishing” (1). With the available mobile technology available today, users can share their experiences from anywhere that has network access (Multisilta, 2). This sharing could be in the form of a picture, a video, a post or a combination of those elements and uploaded to any number of social media websites. These shared experiences can be uploaded instantaneously by the user, in real time as the event is happening.

Social media has created a hybridized creation that is a combination of the user/author and the audience. Messages are no longer created solely by the author/owner; messages can be contributed to by other users on the medium, whether they are “friends” with the author or not. Other users can “write statements and post pictures on each other’s profiles, essentially co-creating self-presentation” of the author (DeAndrea, 510). Often, particularly on Facebook, “friends” are not intimately familiar with each other (DeAndrea, 525).

The cultural significance of the occurrence of co-creating could be the perception others have about the owners’ content on their social media pages, whether it was written by the owner or not. Will viewers perceive that all content on the page is the owners’ is reflective of their views or will there be a separation of owner generated material and material generated by others? DeAndrea’s study on this matter seems to indicate that if viewers of a social media site think the owner has full control of the page and updates it frequently, then they are responsible for all content on the page, favorable or not, because they have the ability to delete unwanted co-created content (524). This study brings to light some of the possible implications social media could have on relationships people have with others, whether they know them personally or not.

On a different note, moving away from interpersonal communications, marketers are beginning to understand the benefits of the sharing culture on social media sites. Modiv Media launched Modiv Social, which allows users to share coupons with their friends via Facebook. Not only are the retailer’s coupons being distributed and shoppers are being rewarded for their behavior with savings, Motiv Media is able to gather data about the sharers. Who are they and why are they influential in their social group? (Modiv Media). As all social media users know, this company is not the only one to post coupons on social media sites with the ability of sharing.

As a cultural phenomenon, the concept of sharing is changing the way people talk to each other on social media. Facebook has added a “share” button so certain posts can be shared very easily. With the frequency social media users update with new pictures and posts about their personal lives, it seems as though “personal lives” are diminishing in importance to these users. Getting the approval from peers and strangers would seem to be more important an endeavor than keeping what was once personal to yourself. Where can we go from here?

Sources

• DeAndrea, David. Participatory Social Media and the Evolution of Online Behavior. Human Communication Research, 38 (2012) 510-528. Web. 30 October 2012.
• "Modiv Media Launches Mobile-Social Coupon Sharing Feature." Professional Services Close - Up (2012)ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 4 December 2012.
• Multisilta, Jari & Marcelo Milrad. “Sharing Experiences with Social Mobile Media”. Proceedings of the 11th international Conference on Human-Computer interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (2009). Web. 4 December 2012.