Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Jan 16, 2008

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Web Strategy Summary
Seems like a lot of media announcements this week as more entertainment brands get in on the action. On the flip side, CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a TV debut and appears on 60 minutes. More people’s lives are impacted as their online and professional lives collide, often with bad results.

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Copyright: Scrabble recalls Scrabulous game on Facebook
Sad move, but Scrabble makers don’t get the new world we live in, and recall the usage of their scrabulicous game on Facebook. A bad move, passing up some real advertising, sponsorship, insight, and ability to up and cross sell related products is now gone.

Distributed: Year of Widget Advertising
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know how I continue to focus on the distributed web strategy. This article by Red Herring outlines how the future will involve widgets that spread from site to site. I was quoted.

Customer Insight: Del Monte uses social networks
Del Monte developed it’s latest product “snausages” based upon insight from customers with it’s “I love my dog” social network. Expect other brand to get into the action and build communities around lifestyles and work with customers to build next generation products. Link via Jeremy Pepper.

Social Graph: Xobni aggregates email
If the original social graph is your email and all the contacts within it, then Zobni (inbox backwards) is going to create a social network that leverages this common communication tool. Which is in the same space as VisiblePath.

Container: Bebo opens Application Platform
Having announced it would port certain applications over in the past, Bebo is now announcing that developers of all shapes and sizes can now build applications on it’s platform, connecting with it’s young and media hungry community. And no, OpenSocial still remains a myth.

Performance: Facebook and Twitter “slow and inaccessible”
In a study showing the agility and performance of social sites, many are poorly rated, with Facebook, and even worse ratings for Twitter, which just about crawls.

CEO: Beacon and 60 Minutes, Zuckerberg steps forward
Well it’s official, now coming from 23 year old CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Beacon needs work“. You can learn more about Mark in his recent interview with 60 Minutes. Colleague Charlene Li was one of the experts interviewed in the segment, she recaps on her blog. On a related note, the ability for members to hide applications is expected to come.

Crime: Police subpoena for MySpace related suicide
Recently, a mother impersonated a young boy on MySpace wooed a young girl, then humiliated her in public. The girl committed suicide and now legal action will take place against the accused.

Public Eye: MySpace launches Celebrity pages
A play to their strength, MySpace releases celebrity pages that let members connect to celebrities, build affinities and self-express. As our worlds collide on social networks, this female mayor bared too much on her MySpace profile and resulted in her leaving office.

Web Usage: Facebook penetration in UK, US, and Canada
Apparently London, Toronto, then New York have the most registered Facebook users. If wish they would break it down by population percentage, so we can see real pentration percents.

Media: Bebo launches next version of Lonely Girl
KateModern a new unique show for the web launched on bebo. There are episodes that center around kidnappings, drama, and mystery. Expect more TV shows to move to the social web and for shows native to social networks to appear.

It’s my job to watch this industry, so if you’ve other similar stories, please submit a link below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Digest, Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.