Ramping up this Orwellian reality is a proposed 2012 ‘trend’ set to completely revolutionise (for better or worse) the F-commerce landscape: behavioural pricing, the idea that through analysis of your on (and off-) line shopping habits, brands and companies can determine exactly how much they can get away with charging you for a product.

Yesterday we launched the 2012 SMI-Wizness Social Media Sustainability Index. Here is the presentation deck that we shared with attendees of the launch.

CharityBids, creators of the world’s most advanced auction platform specifically for non-profits, has launched an auction app for charities to use exclusively on Facebook.

One year ago, we published the inaugural Social Media Sustainability Index, a trawl through 287 major companies in North America and Europe to identify who was using social media tools and thinking to communicate sustainability. …

In 2012, corporate communicators will continue to grapple with the impact of social media – especially in the realm of crisis communications. How can they tailor and adapt plans to take into account a rapidly changing world that expects them to provide information almost instantly, Neil Chapman writes.

From a crisis communications perspective, Carnival Cruises, parent company of the stricken Costa Concordia Italian cruise ship, is in a precarious position. The company’s safety record is taking a tarring daily in the press and we may not yet have seen the worst: the ship could still sink further into the sea, creating an environmental hazard and adding further shock to the families of the missing. How then does the company respond to this? By offering survivors a 30% discount on future cruises! Cue: the hammering on Twitter.

With the New Year very much in swing, the chances that you’re still hitting the gym every day, or forsaking that chocolate biscuit with your afternoon cuppa, have likely dropped dramatically, despite your best intentions. But don’t beat yourself up about it, because a new Facebook campaign has got your back.

Of course, the value of that depends on the user’s ability to delete it quickly: the traditional Facebook/Spotify collab saw many a timeline marred by embarrassing musical revelations. Listening to Justin Bieber is one thing, but telling the world you’ve bought tickets to one of his shows? To the embarrassment hub!

Entirely hosted on the brand’s Facebook page, the Now Boarding contest-based campaign takes inspiration from the fearless travel culture associated with snowboarding, and has tapped into the psyche of snow worshippers perfectly

Security concerns and trust worries are playing a big role in a general apprehension towards Facebook shopping, a new survey by the Ponemon Institute and ThreatMetrix suggests.