I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly summary.

I’ve created a new tag called Digest where you can start to track and access these going forward. The hope? To make it easy for a web strategist to quickly scan the activity in the last week. I strive to make headlines on items categorized and succinct.

Need to make decisions about your web strategy? I’m here to help: subscribe to my blog, sign up for emails (right nav), follow me on Twitter, or add me on Facebook (I’ll add you back for each).

Web Strategy Summary
A continutation of segmentation occurs as more startups emerge focused on niche demographics. Funding continues into this space, and Facebook has growing pains. We should see more advertising dollars flow to social networks as awareness continues to grow.

---

Usage: Youth Activity (Recommended Reading)
A National School Board Association (NSAB) published this PDF report indicates that youths (9-17 years of age) the top activities includes: 1) Posting messages, 2) Downloading music, 3) Watching videos. “Among teens,
that amounts to about 9 hours a week on social networking activities, compared to about 10 hours a week watching TV.” (Link via Glen)

Usage: Facebook gaining on MySpace
These numbers indicate that the swell is happening on Facebook’s site, in terms of registered users, visitors, and engagement. MySpace is losing traction, says the report.

Search: Facebook opens up public profiles
Facebook opened it’s profile pages as public so search engines can crawl and index individuals. Previously a private network, this has impacts to people with personal profile content and images potentially being exposed to a business network. Facebook users should review profile and ensure it’s public data is appropriate. This may impact people based search companies like Spock and even Mahalo.

Productivity: Employers on hunt for Facebook waste
Didn’t they say the same thing about MySpace when it launched? and before that, the internet? BBC reports that “Workers who spend time on sites such as Facebook could be costing firms over £130m a day, a study has calculated”. Sadly, I don’t see the reports on how Facebook is helping people get business done, although Shel Israel sees the fun, and return on time.

Segmentation: College Students
A void has been left as Facebook has now gone from college only, to now being public. College.com offers students a social networking tool, without having those pesky parents watching. There appears to be advertising opportunities, an important demographic that’s often elusive.

Mobile: SoNets for Mobile Phone Users
Aka Aki provides the German mobile user the ability to connect with other mobile phone users with their site, a social network for mobile phone users. For cell phone entrenched cultures, this could be an interesting dynamic as location based data impacts how people connect.

Facebook: Challenges
Danah Boyd gives reasons why she finds Facebook confusing: 1) banning of users, 2) Walled Garden 3) Once private profiles, now public, 4) Privacy concerns and other worthy concerns. Buzz was one of the Facebook users banned, and tells his story (link via Connie)

Investing: Dopplr gets funding
Dopplr is a travel based social networking site, receives funding of an undisclosed amount. Using Dopplr, I can find out which one of my friends are traveling to a city, when they are going, and get their opinions and tips on every city. There could certainly be security concerns by publishing this much personal information.

Investing and Segmentation: Multiply raises $16mil
VentureBeat has the story, “Multiply, a social network aimed at 30-somethings, has just announced additional venture funding of $16.6 million”. This social network is aimed at people over 30, there are over 6 million users.

Advertising: Facebook
Nick lists three ways to advertise on Facebook: 1) Develop targeted ads 2) Filter ads displayed 3) Develop behavioral-targeted ads. I’ll add you can created sponsored groups, as well as sponsor any number of existing programs, widgets, or people.

Development: Facebook pushes software growth
The development community continues to embrace Facebook, providing growth in software development. “Software developers have built more than 3,000 programs to run on the social networking site in the last three months. The uses range from the practical, such as buying music or scouting vacation spots, to the quirky, including sending virtual gifts or biting your friends to turn them into zombies”

Funding: Facebook to raise funds?
Still in speculation phase, but Zuckerberg could be fund raising mode. We should learn more by next week.

Be sure to give me feedback, let me know if this was helpful.