Do Facebook Fans Read a Brand's Posts?

Large brands, with a million people who have "Liked" a brand site, aren't necessarily reaping outsized results if the metric is attention paid to brand posts, a new study suggests.

The study suggests only about three to five percent of those "Likers" actually read posts put up by the brand on any given day, says PageLever.

Whether that's a good thing or not depends on one's point of view. HubSpot recommends a 0.5 percent feedback rate as a goal. But some fan pages, on sites with several hundred thousand fans, sometimes achieve feedback rates above one percent regularly when they post purposely to get likes and comments.

3% To 7.5% Of Fans See Your Page’s Posts

$31 Billion in Mobile Commerce in 2016

U.S. mobile commerce will  reach $31 billion in sales volume by 2016, growing at a 39 percent compound rate, according to Forrester Research. That will be about But the report seven percent of overall e-commerce sales by 2016 and only one percent of total retail sales.

In 2011,  mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $6 billion.

Read more here.

Cable TV Subs Drop in First Quarter 2011, 8% on an Annual Basis

Cable subscribers declined as much as eight percent on an annual basis in the top 15 markets in the first quarter of 2011, balanced by strong growth in telco TV and mixed results in DBS subs, SNL Kagan reports.

Overall, cable subscribers dropped from 24.1 million to 23.2 million in the top 15 markets, year over year, about 900,000 on a national basis.

Cable subscriber losses were the greatest in Dallas and Atlanta, markets where telco video subs increased 7.8 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Year-over-year DBS subs dropped 5.1 percent from the first quarter of 2010 in Atlanta, but grew nearly four percent in Washington, D.C., and Houston.

Telco video subs increased nearly 51 percent in Los Angeles.

SNL: Article

41% of T-Mobile Retail Locations Could Close After Merger

One of the dangers for T-Mobile USA is what happens if the deal is not approved. Not only will T-Mobile USA have lost customers, it might also have lost retail partners and more than a year's worth of marketing effort.

Foursquare Goes National with American Express

Last March, foursquare conducted a test with American Express, allowing users to link their AmEx and foursquare accounts, spend at least $5 at a local merchant in Austin, and get a $5 savings applied directly to your monthly statement.

Now the partnership is going national. Across the whole country, at select merchants, you can now check-in with foursquare, pay with your American Express card, and get big savings on your monthly statement.

There’s no cutting out coupons or showing your phone to the cashier. The savings are automatically credited to your account within a few days. The deal is one way "payments" are being integrated with other activities, ranging from check-ins and offers to advertising and in-store promotion,.

Foursquare Blog | Foursquare Blog

Verizon Open to Featuring Netflix on FiOS TV

Would Verizon feature Netflix on FiOS? Possibly, Verizon says. “The answer is definitely not no,” says Eric Bruno,Verizon FIOS SVP.

“People are going there anyway. If they are going there anyway I would rather have them go to Verizon.” And Bruno says Verizon would be open to doing the same thing with YouTube.

See the video here.

Loopt Aggregates Buyers, Then Finds Sellers

There are several ways to approach the aggregation of "deals" to offer consumers. One can aggregate deals first, then match with consumers who want them. Or you can aggregate demand first, then find retailers to supply the demand. The latter is what Loopt is attempting.