A message from our CEO about the intended Cornerworld Acquisition

We are excited about the potential acquisition of Sway, Inc. by Cornerworld Corp. The acquisition will allow us to accelerate the growth our of flagship product, Shoutlet. Sway will remain independently run as a wholly owned company of Cornerworld. We will remain based here in Middleton, Wisconsin. We will continue to operate and service our clients and Shoutlet licensees as usual.

I'd like to personally thank our team and clients for their continued support. We are excited about what the future holds for Sway. More details will be available in the coming weeks on our blog. Stay tuned!

Regards,

Jason Weaver, CEO
Sway, Inc.

Sway to be Acquired for $30M

Dallas, TX – Cornerworld Corp. (OTCBB: CWRL - News) announced today that it has signed a letter of intent to purchase Sway Inc. (http://www.swayonline.com), a social media marketing company that sells sophisticated digital media tools to leading advertisers. Sway products enable central control for administering marketing campaigns across numerous platforms.

“Sway has pioneered the technology that helps top brands build their social networks,” said Scott Beck, Cornerworld CEO. “The Sway team’s expertise will help all creators with brand management, and market building.”

Sway’s flagship product, Shoutlet® (http://www.shoutlet.com), the comprehensive social media marketing tool that allows content distribution across multiple Web 2.0 platforms, is used by Sway to distribute campaigns for leading companies including eBay, Sara Lee, and Remington. It provides its customers with real-time results tracking and is an easy-to-use solution for professional campaign administration. The platform includes HTML e-mail, podcasts, video syndication, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and SMS mobile phone text messaging.

Sway offers service and consulting in addition to its licensing. The company designs and executes precision campaigns for global brands that reach and engage their target audiences such as Wrigley and Miller Brewing.

“Gone are the days of banner ads and sponsored text links. Internet users demand a more interactive experience with advertisers. Sway’s tools deliver relevant, engaging content to social communities while simultaneously providing effective brand engagement for advertisers.” said Jason Weaver, Sway CEO.

Pursuant to the terms of the Letter of intent Cornerworld would acquire 100% of Sway for $30 million through a combination of cash and Cornerworld Corporation stock. The transaction is subject to execution of definitive agreements and there is no assurance that the transaction will be consummated.

About CornerWorld Corp.

Cornerworld is a free, groundbreaking business management and social networking platform that empowers independent content creators to share and profit from their skill, offering a mash-up of the best Web 2.0 Building from the lessons and success of its predecessor, Cornerband.com, Cornerworld offers free "business manager" services for anyone with sellable content. From comedians to candidates, musicians, models and movie-makers, Cornerworld is committed to celebrating individuality and fostering creation in an intuitive, trusted, grassroots environment. Cornerworld adds live video feeds and capture to enhance the social networking aspects of content sharing, and inserts new functionality that displays, rates and encourages interaction. Cornerworld is easy to visit and free to join in four levels of membership: amateurs, rated amateurs, instant professionals and professionals. For more information, visit http://www.cornerworld.com

About Sway Inc.

Sway, Inc. is a leading social media marketing company with offices in Madison, Wis. Founded in 2004, Sway executes highly targeted online marketing campaigns using Web 2.0 marketing tools such as HTML email, Podcasts, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), and Mobile Phone SMS text messaging. Sway's proprietary online tools help companies reach their target audiences distribute content and measure results online. More information is available at http://www.swayonline.com.


Safe Harbor

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These statements can be identified by the words, "expects," "continues," "projects," "hopes," "believes," "could," and other similar words. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. Because such statements are based on expectations and are not statements of fact, actual events and results may differ materially from those projected. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. While these forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested herein. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to actual results.


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Contact:

Casey Burt
Mirador Consulting, Inc.
Phone 561-989-3600 or
877-MIRADOR (647-2367)

Media
Kelly Larabee
602-258-1416
Kelly@envoy2.com

Text-Happy Teens

Last week on a recent plane ride from Chicago from Los Angeles, I found myself next to a couple of teenagers. It was fascinating to watch them on their Nokia Sidekicks, sending a sea of SMS mobile text messages to their friends. They continued to send messages in silence as furiously as they could. I think they were brother and sister, however, neither said a word to each other the entire flight.

The teens seemed addicted to their SMS devices. At one point after the "please put away all portable electronics" message came over the intercom, a flight attendant actually snapped at them to get their phones put away. "I'd be happy to show you the rules of this flight if needed," she snapped. The funniest thing during the entire flight was to watch how uncomfortable they both felt without their ability to communicate. It was like they were both without oxygen for the entire flight. I was amazed.

According to BBC news, IM and SMS is popular with teens:

"Teens spurn e-mail for messaging. ...instant messaging was proving the most popular way to chat with friends. Three-quarters (75%) of online teenagers in the US have used IM, the survey found, with personalised features proving popular."

I'm even more convinced after my long flight that SMS is here to stay. As the world ages, these teenagers will be our communication leaders. As marketers, we need to embrace strategies that help us reach these "always on, always connected" kids.

Online Video: Viewers and Video-sharing Sites

BurstMedia surveyed U.S. adult Internet users and found that seven out of 10 are viewing online video content.

Young men are viewing videos most often, with more than a third (or 33.7%) of males ages 18 to 24 reportedly watching online videos once a day or more and almost 29% watching online videos a couple of times a week.

The BurstMedia research, however, also showed that the majority of all age segments had watched online videos, including more than half of the respondents ages 65 and older.

Another key finding from the BurstMedia research was that most online video consumers are not yet willing to sit through advertising to get the content they seek in the video. This suggests that placing video in a branded video player is a better way to go versus having a pre-roll or post-roll ad that is ignored or causes the viewer to close the video early.

We all are familiar with user-generated videos that are done for fun, contests, instructional purposes, keeping in touch with family, etc. It has recently been reported that user-generated videos received 22 billion U.S. views in 2007, up 70% over 2006 (Source: Accustream iMedia Research). Accustream predicts that in 2008 there will be 34 billion U.S. views of user-generated videos.

These videos are being viewed on variety of free video sites like YouTube, Revver, Yahoo!, Google, and MetaCafe, to name just a few. These sites are experiencing exceptionally high levels of video submissions and traffic.

More and more, placing videos on video-sharing sites is becoming a standard part of online marketing campaigns -- campaigns with large budgets and those with small budgets. One of the negatives of doing this type of placement is that it tends to be a laborious process. Additionally, measuring/tracking views can be difficult, although there are tools that allow users to push video to multiple sites, making the task much easier and improving measurability.

Sway knows incorporating video in even small campaigns can be easy and an important supplement to other tactics in an online campaign.

When Advertisers Blog.

Ever felt inspired to write a blog about how great a certain brand of Peanut Butter is? Or just couldn't think of doing anything else before you let the world know that you can lose 20 pounds in a week?
Neither have we.
Bloggers have recently been the center of attention in the world of social media. everyone reads them from gardeners to sports fans and that means one thing: advertisers are reading them too. The wheels are turning in their little heads about how they can possibly make money off of them and a few have found a way. Pay them.
Now at first this may not seem like a bad idea, simply pay the blogger to back your product and they're happy and the advertiser is happy. But now we are starting to see gardening blogs hawking blenders and sports blogs writing about the merits of loan companies. The truth is, advertisers thought they'd give "social media"a try in the same ways that they advertise everything else which is just to pay for it and force people to read it or watch it.
One of the beautiful things about a lot of social media is that much of the content comes from consumers and it's other consumers that read it. Instead of pushing ads at people, users are pulling only the information that they want. Great for web users, horrible for advertisers, and pretty darn funny for social media experts that know that the public will simply dump the blogs that become advertising mouthpieces.
Social media requires a delicate touch and actual relevant content. Partnering products with relevant blogs and sites isn't necessarily a bad thing, people talk about products on their own every day. Without being paid! They have simply tried a product, liked it, and recommended it to their friends. The trick is finding the correct niche community to work with and letting the product speak for itself.
The public is becoming very sensitive to unwanted ads and I predict an angry uproar when advertisers continue their "push" method in the world of social media.

Will a Blogger Be the Next 'Deep Throat'?

The 2008 presidential election is just over nine months away. With the candidates’ strategies including more and more social media tactics, such as online video, MySpace and Facebook pages, FlickR accounts, online communities and text messaging campaigns, they are doing what we here at Sway advocate to brands every day – reach your target audience at the places and through the formats it is already spending time with in social media.

Another major player in the election cycle, the press, has noticed where the public is spending their time as well. A survey of North American reporters and editors found that the blogosphere is having an impact on news coverage.

The study, conducted by by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group, found that “new media” (defined here as social media and blogs), are, not surprisingly, having an impact on the speed and availability of news.

But what’s even more interesting: More than half of journalists surveyed said blogs
were having a significant impact on the "tone" (61.8 percent) and "editorial direction" (51.1 percent) of news reporting, according to MarketingVox.

Almost 70 percent of the journalists surveyed said they regularly read blogs, and three-quarters of them get story ideas, story angles, and insight into the tone of an issue from what they’re reading online.

Journalists have been known as the “gatekeepers” of news. It’s widely known that the way traditional journalism works is being challenged by the online space. But the influence of reporters by bloggers puts an interesting and thought-provoking spin on how the media develops the news pieces that the general public is hearing and seeing daily.

If this study is an accurate assessment, the public is indirectly being influenced by the blogosphere. It’s a fascinating finding, especially since some still believe that social media is nothing but a fad fueled by suburban tweens.

We know that social media is more than just a trend. And the Fourth Estate and the candidates for the most powerful office in the world know it as well.

B2B Social Media Movement - It's Time

I received my daily email last night from eMarketer and one of the articles they included in this issue caught my eye. B2B Marketing Online - Business Meets Social Media.

According to their report, "Last year was the first time trade shows—or “face-to-face” media—surpassed business publications in share of total revenue. The emphasis on socialization—and social media—is growing for digital media, too.

The B2B Marketing Online report tracks the tectonic shifts that are shaking up the once solid and predictable world of long, complicated sales cycles.

Of course, reaching the ultimate decision maker is still the key goal, but marketers also need to target researchers, technical advisors and negotiators at every stage of the process.

In addition, search plays a major role for buyers in every phase of the purchase process, and social media—such as blogs, wikis, social networks—are being consulted as well.

eMarketer projects that in 2008, US B2B online advertising spending will increase almost 19%, to $5.2 billion."

$5.2 billion, although a huge increase for B2B online spending, is a far cry from the B2C spending. Why the hesitation? Most of our B2B clients or B2B companies who are just now exploring the world of Social Media to reach their customers have told me they hesitated to do so, because Social Media feels more consumer-oriented. Social media for B2C was an easy transition for corporations, look at the big social communities, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook -- they were a natural for reaching the masses (much like advertising during the super bowl). For B2B the social media world is a bit more difficult to navigate. The larger sites are not a natural fit for them, but there are hundreds of thousands of social communities dedicated to professionals and professional growth. The trick is to find them and craft an appropriate message to engage them.

eMarketer suggests that Search (Web 1.0) will continue to play a major role in the purchasing process, our independent research confirms their statement that blogs, wiki's and social networks also play a strong role in purchase decisions as well. Get your corporate message to the bloggers and on the social communities before your competitors and your winning the race!

Social Media Beats PPC

I've been telling our clients for years that to truly measure ROI effectiveness with your PPC or search campaign, you need to look at the process from beginning to end in its entirety. Snapshots of your campaign at any given time are misleading, such as the "Cost per Click" section for you Google Adword users. It seems that you will be paying for one person to click on your ad right? Wrong.

Seth Godin's book, Small Is The New Big, has a paragraph that talks about the actual cost of a Google campaign. If you really break it down, it can be quite expensive despite the claims of low costs per click.

This paragraph illustrates that even if people do click on your Google ad, they may not ever make it beyond the first page of your site. For most sites, this will be a problem. For example, if your site has its conversion page (the page where you can buy things) four pages into the site, then you may lose more than 75% of those people that clicked on your ad. This, in turn, means that what you are spending just to get people to the first page of the site may not be enough.

When you add the costs of people who clicked onto your homepage but didn't go any further, those costs start to add up - and can equal $100 per customer or even more. (Yes, even you folks paying 10 cents for your clicks can get this kind of add-up.)
For that amount, why don't you take each prospective buyer out to lunch and personally ask them to buy from you? It's no less expensive, and you'll make quite a few friends.

This article I came across at Promotion World, and it shows a comparison between Social Media and PPC. and comes to similar conclusions.
http://www.promotionworld.com/internet/articles/IfYou.html

Of course, we at Sway like Social Media because it encourages pass-along. And it's a whole lot cooler than a Google Adword. It's not uncommon for our clients to gain more traction than they expect from a campaign because of its viral pass-along power. Granted, not all campaigns explode across the net, but if managed correctly, they can further the possibility of success with strategic Social Media tactics.
And let's be honest, there's zero possibility of net explosion with a Google Adword.

Web 2.0 and B2B Companies

We all know that social media is hot with B2C companies, but what about social media and B2B companies?

According to an eMarketer survey from December 2007, U.S. B2B online advertising spending is forecast to grow from $2.8 billion in 2006 to $8 billion in 2011. And, as a percent of overall online advertising spending that includes B2C, the B2B share remains small, representing 16.6% of the total online advertising spending in 2006 and 19% of total online advertising spending in 2011.

Additionally, it seems Web 1.0 strategies will continue to dominate B2B marketing for the near future, with the top three increases in marketing budget spending occurring in web site development, e-mail marketing, and search engine optimization (BtoB Magazine).

But for those B2Bs who want to make the transition into social media, what can be done with social media, and why is this an important opportunity?

One low-hanging opportunity is to engage the target audience in the online professional communities they are spending time in. Professional communities focus on topics specific to a professional discipline and tend to be more structured than consumer social networks with increased levels of moderation. For example, if the target audience is CPAs, then CPAnet.com would be a community to work with. To engage with these CPA professionals, the company could utilize existing content and syndicate sponsored stories and white papers, syndicate tutorial videos, host trivia/product knowledge polls or contests, distribute an SMS text campaign, or simply sponsor a message board/forum. Depending on the content that is important to the target audience and their preference for receiving it, the tactics will change. Companies must study the social media landscape for their audience and monitor the conversations because they are happening in these communities and networks.

Peter DeLegge of Marketing Today did an excellent job of summing up the B2B opportunity:

"Whether marketers and PR professionals like it or not, the folks we market to can now have a real voice and we would do well to take this seriously. More than that, it no longer requires money and influence to be heard; it requires being at the right place with a message that resonates. Even more, there is growing distrust from messages from marketers. This isn't merely a consumer phenomena. In the B2B world, Internet users are using online communities to make their voices heard--sharing their experiences and opinions. Sure, consumers are more engaged in social media, but business users are increasingly using it, and I am confident it will become the norm over the next few years. Business decision makers have a lot invested in the decisions they make--their careers--and they're likely to increasingly turn to these outlets to learn about companies they buy from and work with as they become more familiar with the tools."

A Bigger Slice of the Pie

Life’s getting sweeter for online advertising.

In a recent study by Advertiser Perceptions, ad execs were asked this question:

Imagine the amount of your company's/your client's total advertising budget as a whole is a pie, and each of these media types is a share of the pie. In the next six months, would you expect the share spent on each to increase, decrease or stay the same as compared to the previous six months?

So who is getting a smaller slice of the pie? Radio and broadcast TV. But ad executives are optimistic about online advertising and mobile ads, with the majority of respondents expecting these budgets to rise.

More and more advertising pros know that incorporating a strong online component to advertising or marketing campaigns is more important than ever. The medium continues to steadily climb, and it’s becoming more customary to assume online strategies are a major part of an overall campaign.

The same is becoming true for direct marketers, too. So much so that those marketers who didn’t seize the opportunity to try more creative marketing tactics in 2007 are regretting it.

In the "Brand Strategy Trends Survey" by Next Level SMG, 21 percent said they wished their brands had relied less on "tried and true" marketing strategies last year and branched out into more creative marketing efforts.

So whether you’re promoting your brand or someone else’s, you should definitely save room for dessert.

Impressionable Minds

When I walk into a meeting and hear "how many impressions will we get?", I know I'm in for a long conversation. Impressions have long been the measuring stick for advertising agencies and marketers in terms of campaign success. High impressions: good. Low impressions: bad. And that was that. When agencies stretched their inventories to website banner ads and leaderboards, the 'impressions' term made the jump from print to web, but can it really make the grade with web 2.0? And just how well is that working these days anyway?
The word impression by nature means that it had some effect on the person who saw it, implying to our clients that all you have to do, is set an ad in front of people and they will see and read it. However, that may not be the case. For example, if a video is placed on a site and users 'see' it but don't click it, does that mean that an impression was counted? The answer is yes, the agency would consider that an impression and thus a successful placement of that video. In addition, if a popular blogger writes about a product and 4,000 people read about it as a word of mouth endorsement, how many 'impressions' would that be?
We have simply outgrown the two-dimensional term in favor of more comprehensive and thorough ones. Engagements, for one. These guys tend to be lower than impressions but mean that a user has actually interacted with your video, or ad, or RSS feed. Unfortunately, a lot of people just interchange the two and ask me why the impression numbers are down.
To add confusion, many agencies still ask us to provide 'impressions' for blog outreach and video plays. Thus ensuing the long conversation I mentioned earlier. These long conversations are good though, and certainly a move in the right direction towards finding a better way to measure our web 2.0 successes.
Otherwise, we're just seeing things.

Mark Zuckerberg defends Beacon on 60 Minutes

So it seems that Beacon actually makes Facebook "less commercial". At least that's what Mark Zuckerberg said last night on 60 Minutes. Now before you respond with the usual "what!?!" that just about everyone else did you should know one thing. He's right.
Beacon does in fact make Facebook less commercial. I mean, it is more personal to see what a friend bought than a general banner ad but that's pretty much where the "Beacon is Better" conversation ends. Zuckerberg wore simple clothes and sandals on the air and told Lesley Stahl that he "sleeps on a mattress on the floor". Very compelling. And unless he's trying some kind of homeless chic redecoration, it's also probably not true. He was almost smug as he told Stahl that his company was benefiting from the fact that Facebook doesn't have to be transparent in its financial gains. Which of course means that they don't make much money right? And that's why Microsoft just dumped millions to own a slice?
Beacon is Facebook's way of making money- lots of it, by making everyone their spokesperson. On the plus side, Facebook will become "less commercial" and hopefully, poor Mark won't have to sleep on the floor anymore.

What the Writer's Strike Means for Us

Most people underestimated the Writer's Strike. After all, how much damage could they do? They're not actors, they're not producers, and everyone figured this would go away within a week or so.
When The Office went rerun, I noticed.
When video site views more than doubled, the Web 2.0 world noticed.
Suddenly, one man's loss is another man's gain. Reality TV has enjoyed a second revival as networks scramble for content and recruiters scour the streets for one more model wannabe with an attitude problem. Yet with a gaping hole still marring the entertainment world, people dutifully picked up their video cameras and went to work.
And the world watched.
One of my favorite blogs TechCrunch has also been following the story and has a Nielson ratings estimate at Youtube's growth rate reaching 18% since the strike started. For amateur video stars everywhere, it's a chance to be seen and for online media companies, a major challenge. With millions of videos out there, how do you get your videos viewed by anyone other than your friends? Clever tags, interesting titles, and witty content can help but with this insatiable appetite for entertainment growing, it seems as if marketers already taking advantage of the viral video will have their work cut out for them.
Who knew that 3 million people wanted to watch a struggling actor scream about Britney? Who knew that we as marketing content producers would have to compete with celebrity breakdowns for video views?
No one can argue that there is a definite change in the video viewing world, it's how to best take advantage of it that becomes our stumbling block.
And with video syndication becoming the unlikely star of early 2008, we have to ask ourselves whether our moment in the sun will allow video to take a backseat to the writers once they return or if video's stardom is just beginning.

Social Media Fragmentation/Opportunity Continues

eMarketer released an article today on continued trends with Social Media. See excerpt below:

"Social media was a major focus for U.S. advertisers in 2007, and eMarketer is pegging that trend to continue, with spending on social networks slated to top $1.5 billion in 2008. According to Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer senior analyst, that 163% jump from last year's $920 million will not be solely focused on ads on sites like MySpace or Facebook.

"Although targeted advertising is getting the lion's share of attention and will continue to be a hot button in 2008, other forms of social network marketing, such as search advertising, widgets and e-commerce, will draw increased marketer interest," Williamson said. "Facebook's hipness will wane in favor of niche community Web sites," said Cree Lawson, CEO of Travel Ad Network. Indeed, as the online audience continues to fragment, the idea of a generic "social media ad strategy" tied to a Facebook or MySpace campaign will be severely challenged."

I've been talking to my clients for years about the importance of focusing on niche communities, rather than, trying to work with the larger properties like MySpace. As MySpace, Facebook, etc continue to grow, so will their rate card and their inability to reach a targeted audience. Sway has experience more success from working with niche communities because of their passion to support a sponsored campaign and their targeting capabilities. We always get more out of working with niche communities than the bigger ones.

Social Media continues to climb. What's your 2008 Social Media marketing strategy?