I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
Facebook reportadly in talks with Twitter, yet the deal did not go through, Kickapps raises a hefty “C” round of finance for $14mm, and more niche social networks launch, this one for the affluent gay market and ailing. YouTube launches “live video” streaming and MySpace couples with Guns and Roses for web launch.

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Stats: Collection of Social Network Stats
I’ve started to aggregate stats of all kinds, growth, revenue, demographics, website usage, and more on this page of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008. Bookmark it, and share it with others as I continue to update it.

No Deal: Facebook was in talks with Twitter
Kara Swisher uncovers a story about Facebook in talks with Twitter, yet no more, which they didn’t admit in public when probed. Some suspect exit strategy of overvalued equity a concern.

Funding: Kickapps Raises $14mm
This C round of $14mm should hold Kickapps through much of the economic downturn if they invest it correctly as well as bank some capital away.

Advertising: Baidu withdraws advertising from alleged scammers
Baidu apologizes for publishing ads from unlicensed medical practioners which critics call scams. I guess in this case the messenger has a responsibility to provide quality advertising.

Video: Scoble interviews Context Optional
The famous video blogger Robert Scoble interviews Kevin Barenblat’s of Context Optional to discuss how advertisements are now becoming interactive ads, watch the 6 min video to get the short.

Numbers: LinkedIn Stats from CEO
8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million says this interview with SFgate.

Enterprise 2.0: Social Networks not ready for business?
This article weighs the different viewpoints from business leaders about the opportunities for social networks within the enterprise. Although we see rabid adoption among consumers, is there value inside of the firewall? Read more to understand different opinions.

Verticals: Social Network for Gays and Businesses
GayWallet launches, in hopes of connecting the affluent gay market with companies what want to cater to their community. We continue to see niche social networks for every walk of life and interest.

Media: MySpace launches Guns and Roses latest album
Gaining lots of attention, Mr Rose launches his overdue album on social network MySpace which caters to a strong self-expression and media hungry audience. See the MySpace page which today has 75 million listens and 441k friends. To put this into perspective some of the top selling albums (sure a different medium) had 29 million album buys –Eagles.

Vertical: Social Network for sick and dying
More niche players emerge as this one for the ailing called caring bridge launches, the examiner has the story.

Visualization: Facebook shows off it’s global data
Global thermonuclear war? Wargames? Not quite, Facebook’s latest featured video shows off all the data that’s being created in the world on it’s platform, and how it’s shared. Trippy.

Video: YouTube Live makes video real time
Google’s YouTube launched a live show to showcase top performers and video bloggers in this first ever stream. Expect YouTube to take a more center stage in the family room experience –they also launched a wide screen player, a first step to going HD.

Research: Users on Social Networks but advertising “Anemic”
A recent IDC reports that there’s strong usage of consumers using these social networks, but brand advertising is still a miss. Yup, but we have to remember there are multiple ways to approach social netwroks, and the first way should be community marketing, which means being a resource to them and talking with them –not at them.

Etiqutte: Facebook Do’s and Dont’s
Forget polishing school for your Saturday supper clubs, now it’s time to pay attention to social network behavior, this polite guide gives the top five dos and donts.

Advertising Network: Glam media launches widget network
Some say that interactive widgets show higher engagement and interaction that traditional ads and Glam Media is rolling out a widget advertising network across 50 of it’s properties.

Culture: Examples of people being “Stupid” on social networks
What happens in the lockerroom doesn’t belong on social networks, read these three examples of some real winners, in “don’t be stupid”

If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date.

Stats: Have you seen my collection of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008? Bookmark it, and share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Bob Pearson (Twitter at bobpdell) Vice President, Communities & Conversations at Dell invited me out to Microsoft’s Architect Forum to co-lead a session on social computing.

I let my twitter community come up with questions, and I took three from the dozens to pose to Bob, select questions from: Cece Salomon-Lee, Ravit Lichtenberg, and oemporor (can’t find his tweet)

Here’s the questions I posed to Bob, if I could only spit the words out as well as I could write them:

Is IdeaStorm increasing revenues?

Is social media impacting the bottom and top line of Dell?

How Dell has made $1mm in revenue from Twitter.

Is social media superficial branding, or does it truly change the company?

How does an economic downturn impact Dell’s social media efforts?

Is it better for customers to self-support each other rather than calling Dell Support?

What’s the URL of your corporate webpage?

It’s great to learn first hand from Dell how they’ve used these tools to increase revenues and reduce costs –it’s time we focus on the business aspect of things rather than the feel good branding only. You can see one of Bob’s recent video interviews on the Direct 2 Dell site.

Or, see this visualization of the same interview by VizEdu

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Despite there being many layoffs in the startup space. I’ve started this post series (see archives) to recognize and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

Geoff Merrick joins Ripple6 in the new position of VP of Professional Services coming from Buzzhub. Ripple6 is growing & seeking others in the NYC learn more from their careers page.

Kris Hoet switches jobs within Microsoft and is now the Digital Media Communications Manager for all Windows Consumer brands - PC, mobile and online - as well as MSN and Live Search in EMEA.

MySpace Music to name Courtney Holt, a former MTV executive chief next week, this spells out a greater focus on media for MySpace rather than pure networking.

Dave Giusti joins Freepath in September as the myFreepath Community Manager. myFreepath is a network of people who exchange content (videos, audio, documents…you name it) through playlists created in Freepath.

David Gillespie is now a digital strategist currently in Melbourne, Australia but relocating early January to Toronto, Ontario! He writes Creative Is Not A Department which has been named one of the top 50 marketing blogs in Australia and also one of the top 15 business blogs. I’m already building up my net work on the ground there through Twitter but every little bit helps!

Marc Smith, formerly Senior Sociologist Researcher on Microsoft’s R&D team, has joined Telligent as Chief Social Scientist. I can’t wait to meet you and talk shop, congrats Marc and team.

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How to connect with others (or get a job):
Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how:

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, leave a comment below, or if you’re feeling shy (it’s cool to self-nominate) send me an email. Please include a link to your announcement, and ensure you’re really living and breathing in the social media world –this is not a small aspect of your role.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

List of Enterprise Social Media Professionals
This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals.

See Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, fees pay for my hosting)

Read Write Web also has job announcements in Jobwire, although at a broader scope than my announcements

Connect with others in the community manager group in Facebook

Check out Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

See Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, or I’ll delete it)

I’m seeking folks that are related to full time hands on social media strategy and community managers, to be on this list, so let me know if you see these folks, and please submit them –try to include links to announcements on blogs or on the wire. Also, I probably will not include executive management changes on this list at social media companies, as the list would go on and on, but you can feel free to express yourself in the comments!

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Word of Mouth, the Holy Grail of Marketing
Word of mouth marketing is one of the most desirable activities to brands, why? Because research on trust shows that consumers (folks like you and me) trust the opinions of people we know more than anyone else. It makes sense of course, think about the next time you’re going to buy a car, who’s opinion are you going to trust, those of your friends or the opinion of the sales guy representing the product?

[Information within Microblogging communities like Twitter encourage rapid word of mouth –of both positive and negative content]

Twitter, Although Small, Continues to Demonstrate Influence
Twitter, which I’m seeing informal stats of around 5 million users, has continued to show it’s viral capabilities, with last week’s Motrin mom’s brand punking of an advertisement to news being spread about natural disasters faster than traditional news, this toolset allows content to spread faster and farther than we’ve ever seen. Watching how Al Gore’s Current TV integrated tweets live on their TV broadcast and how CNN and CSPAN mentioned this microblogging service during the election months is a nod to it’s power. In some ways, long form blog posts like this seem so much slower and plodding compared to how quickly information can come and go in Twitter.

[Within the Twitter community a “Retweet” is a social gesture indicating endorsement of an idea]

The “Retweet” How Information Quickly Spreads
As a result, the most powerful activity within Twitter is to watch the “Retweet” phenomeneon. A retweet is when one individual copies a tweet from someone in their network and shares it with their network. It’s perhaps the highest degree of content approval, it means that the content was so valuable and important that they were willing to share it with their network –causing it to spread from one community to the next –retweets are the core essence of the viral aspect of content spreading. Early research from Peter Kim indicates that twitter users are brand sensitive, and spread information. Since content can be shared, consumed on mobile devices, this information can rapidly spread faster than any other infectious technology we’ve ever seen.

How to Measure and Monitor the Coveted Retweets
Expect to see social media measurement tools appear that measure the spread of retweets, URLs, and other commonly repeated content to look for how information is passed from a source to a node, to an entire community. In fact, in a very primitive way, you can see those that are repeating the content of others, for example Tim O’Reilly’s content. See this search query showing “Retweet @timorielly“, or “RT @timoreilly” (an abbreviated version).

You should do the same query for your brand, products, and those of your competitors, start with this query “retweet yourbrand“, and change out yourbrand. At some point we can expect a service to appear that will track a tweet from a single source, then track how it is retweeted, then by who (and their number of followers) then to create a numerical value of the velocity of that single original tweet as it cascades through a community.

Impacts to Users, Brands and Vendors

Twitter Users: If someone retweets your content, be and feel honored, it means that your content was so important or interesting to them they are willing to share it with their own trusted network. If you need some guidelines on how to retweet, read this handy guide.

Brands: Companies should pay close attention to how information spreads and should do searches on their product and brand to learn what type of information is being spread by who.

Vendors: Social media measurement companies like Cymfony, Buzzmetrics, Radian 6, Buzzlogic, and others should start tracking the retweet stream around a brand and product to monitor and map out community and content hotspots. It’s possible to create some type of “Digg” or “Delicious” tool that maps the social voting and bookmarking based off the data gleaned from Retweets and TinyURLs.

I’ll echo Shel Israel who posted similar thoughts that retweeting is the most powerful single aspect of Twitter.

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Testing a Twitter Advertising System
I tested out Magpie, an advertising system that creates tweets in my tweet stream, from third party advertisers then pays me.

Some have already blogged about their opposing thoughts on it, and some are publicaly open that they are now Magpies. For me, it was just a test that I’ve now ceased.

Part of my job as an analyst covering social media is to use the very tools in which I cover. I use this knowledge to write reports, help clients, and make suggestions to the vendors themselves. You can expect brands to ask me “how should we engage in Twitter” and I’ll point them to this very post.

There was quite the vitriolic reaction from some, others didn’t seem to mind, a few were acceptable of it. If there was anyone to test it, it makes sense for me, it’s part of my job, and I have a large enough follower base to average reactions.

I’m also going to measure the amount of folks that may have unsubscribed with TweepleTwak, hopefully they’ll realize it’s not permanent and return.

The Test
I setup the system a few days ago, and set it for every 10th tweet there would be an ad, the system is supposed to line up ads with content related to what I talk about. Either there was no brands related to what I talk about, or the system felt I talked about magpie enough, it tweeted this:

“#magpie startups give magpie a try! they’ve got a total reach of 500,000 followers. campaigns starting at EUR 10. http://rubyurl.com/k98e”

Immediately after, I let my followers know it was a test, and tweeted the following:

“That last tweet was my first test of Magpie, It was auto generated by them. I’m testing this as a social media analyst. What do you think? “

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Here are the 48 reactions, which I’ve sorted by sentiment:
Responses came in over 60 minutes.

Successful or Accepted: 7 Responses

findchris: @jowyang Not so bad as long as the #magpie tag is used.

gahlord: Also, fwiw, I don’t care that much if @jowyang uses Magpie (I put up with a lot of noise for Guy, why not for Owyang?)

nateritter: @jowyang at least it was relevant. Probably first thing I’ve clicked on in your stream in a while actually. It interests me.

mediamanx: @jowyang the magpie ad seems relevant - though self promoting to magpie. will be interesteing to see what follows & how frequent they run

davidkspencer: @jowyang I wouldn’t mind it if the #magpie tag somehow stood out. It blends in, easy to miss. That’s an issue with app, not business model.

DavidBrim: @jowyang #magpie sounds cool, but I don’t think a CPM model will be as effective as a CPC or CPA model. http://tinyurl.com/6cvgzo

KevinUrie: @jowyang it will work for you, and you will not loose many followers. But for most it will be a death sentence. Saying test, ruins the test

Unsure, Neutral or Conditional: 14 Responses

ewantoo: @jowyang I think it will all depend on the adverts carried, an ad to buy herbal viagra is going to get you or anyone else blocked

jasonlog: @jowyang should think of twit copywriting

gahlord: @jowyang Will you have to give a disclaimer about potential profit motives when writing about Magpie?

john_mcgann: @ jowyang If early adopters are important to the advertiser then advertwitting could actually *damage* a brand… IMHO

jusx: @jowyang i wouldn’t mind magpie if it labels it’s tweets with “SPONSOR” or “ADVERTISEMENT”. Yes in caps. It’s a bit deceiving IMHO.

fritzpw: @jowyang I got a message advertising magpie. Was that the intent?

sawinkler: @jakemarsh @jowyang just had the same exact tweets. did I just see magpie in action?

JoeSeale: @jowyang IMHO magpie gives a certain opaqueness to the term transparency. Where’s the disclaimer that you didn’t *actually* post that info?

A_F: @jowyang they need to disclose in the tweet that it is a “sponsored” tweet, else = FAIL

JoeSeale: @jowyang I suppose I missed the #magpie. Does that count as a disclaimer?

techpr: @jowyang auto-generated by magpie (not clear) and they refer to themselves in third person. lame. twitter is about transparency, no?

NoOneYouKnow: @jowyang Magpie site http://be-a-magpie.com/ is a little confusing - is it pay for tweet? ad network?

fbpda: @jowyang I don’t think that #magpie is going to annoy me but if it bothers one of my followers then it’s a no-go for me.

jasona: @jowyang It was a big, blatant billboard on the side of a nice, quite, untouched country road.

Negative Reaction: 20 Responses

GrantGriffiths: @jowyang What do I think. I think #Mappie is a bunch of BS that twitter doesn’t need.

WBkilburn: @jowyang To me, it diminishes your credibility. Advert is in your voice - on blog ads, there’s a distinction between autor and advertiser.

bloodandmilk: @jowyang It made me wonder why you were running an ad, and I doubted your judgement a little.

laser: @jowyang I wish that the magpie tweets came across as ads rather than personal announcements. Seems kind of misleading.

t_de_baillon: @jowyang Magpie means more noise for less signal. I never thought diluting a message was a good marketing strategy

WellTold: @jowyang re magpie, I’d rather eat my foot than use that. Ads on twitter - leave me alione!!!!!

kerry_anne: @jowyang I blogged my reasons for disliking #magpie a few weeks ago: http://is.gd/6hD8 (expand)

durjoy: @jowyang I think it’s noise pollution

jonesabi: @jowyang The trust I feel when I think of you plummeted.

gilliatt: @jowyang I think be-a-magpie.com is making http://magpie.net glad they rebranded earlier. Twitter spam will not make friends.

thehartworker: @jowyang as much as I know I cannot influence at all what magpie twitters in my name - therefore: no way I will use it

kellytirman: @jowyang I am not feeling it. There must be a better solution to monetize Twitter, if at all.

PatrickCourtney: @jowyang there’s no real barrier between ad and content. To me it weakens credibility - like pay per post for blogs.

dtd: @jowyang I think no. The Magpie “message” seems to be coming directly from you.

seanodotcom: @jowyang spammy.

zolierdos: @jowyang Jeremiah, you gotta be kidding, this is spam

theregoesdave: @jowyang i think magpie is paying for your credibility, but you don’t get it back when they’re done #magpie

brentnau: @jowyang I really believe that if the tweets do not pass the sniff test followers wiil revolt. Escpecially if used too often.

AndySwan: @jowyang please don’t. #magpie is NO DIFFERENT than accepting $$ to send your friends spam emails or intterupt their real convos with pitch

Benderelly: @jowyang I think you’re cashing in - I ain’t clicking on it.

Unfollow: The worst reaction: 7 Responses

quietrevolution: @jowyang I like folks promoting themselves/their biz etc. I would delete you from my followers & anyone else that uses it. No value to me.

ericagee: @jowyang Yeah, I hatethe idea of Magpie and agree with Joe - I’d unfollow anyone who started using it regularly.

ninjarunner: @jowyang i have told myself that i will unfollow people who use #magpie. Love your tweets, at a cross-roads if you use it…

adarowski: @jowyang I can’t really think of any cases where magpie ≠ unfollow.

JoeCascio: @jowyang Dude, you have to be kidding. Anybody that spams me thru Magpie gets an automatic un-follow. 4reelz.

wnourse: @jowyang Don’t like it - I may stop following if people start using it

mark2100: @jowyang @JessicaKnows I’m unfollowing you because of Magpie, it’s nothing personal but tweeter users need to take a stand against spam.

Findings
Positive Reactions 7, or 14%
Unsure Reactions 14, or 29%
Negative Reactions: 20, or 41%
Unfollow (very negative) 7, or 14%

As you can see, the majority of responses were negative (20), some downright annoyed or angry and ready to leave (7), that means that 56% of respondents had negative reactions. Many were confused (14), or had conditions on why it could be successful, and finally a few were actually ok with it (7) a mere 14%. Given the weight of the majority of negative responses, this system is not ready.

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Magpie not ready –and will self implode
In the end, Magpie (or any Twitter advertising system) is going to need some fixes to be successful. The ads need to be clearly identified as ads, the content relevant enough so followers would accept them, and a disclosure made by the tweeter to their followers what’s being done. Perhaps some alternative marketing methods would be developing ads when using the search tools, or on background screens (this has already happened).

Brands often don’t know how to engage in conversational marketing, we’ve seen quite a few brands create Twitter accounts, but are unsure what to do, some spit out press releases and links to blog posts alone, and others create personas like Popeye’s chicken that some are unsure how to react to.

Yet advertising in social media is already well accepted
One thing is for sure, just as we saw with the once “pure” blogs, marketers follow crowds, in fact, I remember in 2005 many bloggers would revolt against blogs having ads, my recent count showed that there are 4 on scobleizer, 12 on RWW, 14 on Techcrunch, and 21 ads on Mashable. (note, sometimes its hard to tell what’s an ad and what’s not). In fact, there are 1.5 million subscribers to Techcrunch’s RSS feed, which contains ads instream at the bottom of each post –ads are an acceptable part of opt-in content.

There’s also Glam Media, Federated Media, Google Ad sense and others, in fact, one of my favorite podcasts, For Immediate Release is sponsored by Ragan communications and other vendors, and I have no problem with this as the signal is high, and the ads are related to my interests.

Risks, Money, and Experiments
Yes, I took a risk losing some followers by doing this test, yet I’ve since stop the magpie service. Now that the test is over, and will be meeting with the Magpie team for a phone briefing if we can coordinate since the team is in Germany.

What about the money? It calculates the number of followers I have, (plus some other factors I believe) and Magpie let me know I earned a few euros, €32.87 which equates $41.39. I won’t be collecting the money, since they only cash out for 50 euros, and if they mail me a check, I’ll donate it to the Red Cross, my favorite charity.

Love to hear your reactions to this experiment.

Update: Just like Tivo, Ad blocking software and email spam filters appeared as a response to ads, a Magpie Blocking script has appeared which auto filters all messages that contain those messages in them.

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Stats on social networks are important, but I’m going to need your help in creating a community archive, can you submit stats as you find them?

I’m often asked, “What are the usage numbers for X social network” and I’ve received considerable traffic on my very old post (way back in Jan) of MySpace and Facebook stats, even months later. Decision makers, press, media, and users are hungry for numbers, so I’ll start to aggregate them as I see them

An industry analysts’ perspective on web measurement:
To be clear, my employer Forrester doesn’t provide specific numbers about social networks like Compete, Comscore, Nielsen or others, we conduct our own surveys on user/brand behavior, opinions, and technographics, so I’m often asked for these numbers by press. I’ll use this page as a library, and point clients, press, and media to it, so they’re armed.

Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and intrepreation, in fact, you’re going to see conflicting numbers of usage from many of the agencies and social networks themselves. The key is to look at trend movements, don’t focus on the specific numbers but the changes to them over time.

I put more weight on active unique users in the last 30 days vs overall registered, in fact, the actual active conversion rate will often range from 10-40% of actual users sticking around and using the social network, so don’t be fooled by puffed numbers.

No single metric is a good indicator, you have to evaluate the usage from multiple dimensions, so you also have to factor in what are users doing, time on site, interaction, and of course, did they end up buying, recommending products, or improving their lives.

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Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008

All Social Networks

Overall growth, Unique Audience of Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, LInkedIn, MySpace and beyond, Oct 23, 2008, Nielsen Wire

Social Media Stats: This comprehensive wiki has additional data, Helen Lawrenece

Membership in social sites: Facebook, MySpace… and Classmates.com, Oct 2008, Rubicon Consulting

Extensive list of social networks by traffic, and google insights mentions, and demographics (but doesn’t state source), it’s best to use this comparatively, Dec 2008, Ignite Social Media

Social Technographics
Understand how people use different social technologies –the first step before you determine which tools to use.

Social Technographics Profile Tool, Forrester Research

New 2008 Social Technographics data reveals rapid growth in adoption, Forrester Research

AdultFriendFinder

59 million unique worldwide visitors per month according to comScore, For the nine months ended September 30, 2008, we averaged more than four million new member registrations on our websites each month, averaged over one million paying subscribers each month from whom we derived 77.2% of our internet revenues. Dec, 2008 IPO statements

Bebo

40 million registered users, Nov 2008, from Bebo directly to me

Beth Kanter has an archive of stats she’s taken screenshots of, as well as this handy index list.

Digg

“Although the company claims it has 35 million unique users per month, independent researcher comScore (SCOR) says that Digg had 16.3 million users worldwide in October 2008, up 31% from last October’s user base of 12.4 million”, also “But according to Quantcast’s Web site, Digg.com claimed 21.7 million global users as of Nov. 30″, Dec 2008, Business Week

Facebook

Facebook usage skyrockets from election activity: Includes specific usage numbers, fans and supporters, Nov 5th, Source: Zdnet

Facebook 18 Million Unique Visitors in UK, top 5th overall web property, Sep-Aug 08, Source: Comscore

More than 120 million active users (does not indicate measure of active), Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world, More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries, Over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform, Nov 2008, from Facebook Stats Page

I was told by Mark Zuckerberg (face to face) that the total number of registered users is now 140mm, Dec, 2008

If the numbers are right, Facebook’s online users have grown by 30 million in the last four months, up from 90 million users in early July 2008. That means that Facebook is growing much faster than the 250,000 new users per day that the company had previously estimated, Nov 3, 2008, Epoch Times

Gather

Demographies: ages 25-54, median age is 42, 55% women, 1.2 milliion unique vistiors, 9 million pages views per month, 500k are registered, Dec 2008, as told to me by CEO Tom Gerace

Hi5

World’s fastest growing among the top-10 global social networks. Based on the June comScore Media Metrix worldwide figures, hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008 – more than twice the growth rate of any of the top 10 social networks. According to comScore, the popular site’s monthly unique visitors increased from 31.4 million in December 2007 to 56.4 million in June 2008 – an increase of 25 million monthly visitors. hi5’s October 2008 Worldwide daily average is: 505 million, July 2008 stats, as told to me by Adriana of Corp Comm of Hi5 team.

LinkedIn

Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users have high personal incomes and hold executive-level or consultant positions, Nov 10th, 2008, LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics.

LinkedIn demographics presentation from Aug, 2008, Erick of Techcrunch

Stats from CEO: 8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million, The average age is 41 years old. The average household income is $109,000; 76 percent of them have a college degree or a graduate degree. It’s pretty evenly split between men and women, slightly more men. Forty-eight percent are outside the United States, from 07 to 2008. Nov, SFGate.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is almost 10 years old and has 1.9 million active users (PDF), Dec, 2009

MySpace

MySpace has more than 110 million monthly active users around the globe, Jan 2008, emailed to me from press

Reunion

32 Million Registered Members, and Growing. Jan, 2008, Reunion to me direct

Update, Nov 20, 2008: 50 million total registered members, Adding 1.6 million+ members monthly (mostly adults), Nearly 1 million active paying subscribers. Numbers direct from Kate Zentall of Reunion to me.

Second LIfe

Second Life provides real time stats: Residents Logged-In During Last 30 Days: 985,92 (out of 16 million total registered). Nov 18, 2008, Linden Site

Twitter

Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.

Locations (Cities) with the most tweets, Tokyo is the most popular city, Real TimeTwitter Local

Twitter stats by usage during week, as well as comparing heavy vs light users, May 15th, Compete (submitted by Nick)

HP Labs has conducted research on twitter, I’ve highlighted the average number of followers, friends, tweets, and active user base.

Twitter is dominated by newer users - 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008, An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day, 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers, 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all, Dec 08, State of the Twittersphere

WeeWorld

This virtual world/social network aimed at teens who also use IM has reported 25mm registered users, and 1million unique active visitors in last 30 days, as told to me in Nov 2008 on briefing call

Caveat: As I mentioned before, do not quote these numbers are from me, I’m simply collecting them in one spot, as you’ll see the accuracy will be debated depending on source to source.

I need your help, as you find references to usage, visitors, or registered members numbers in articles or reports, please leave a comment with the URL.

59 comments

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
Deployment of social networking technology in verticals such as military, vets, and the Philipines continues to occur. Soon to e president Obama to publish weekly YouTube videos. Expect to see an increase in social networks adoption around politics and government. Jerry Yang removed from CEO role.

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Military: Vets and US Military get their own social networks
After banning YouTube, soldiers need an outlet to communicate with their families, introducing TroopTube. On a similar note, veterans get their own social network.

Politics: Obama to have weekly YouTube address to nation
Forget Saturday morning cartoons, Obama will be on YouTube each weekend discussing the state of the nation, go to his channel at Change.gov.

Leadership: Jerry Yang resigns CEO role
CEO of Yahoo steps down from his position, here’s why Forrester’s analyst Shar Van Boskirk thinks this is a good move for Yahoo.

Viewpoint: P&G asks Should brands be in Facebook?
One of Proctor and Gambles top digital marketers questions should brands be in Facebook, or is it too invasive? There are thousands of brands already in Facebook, and most are doing it wrong.

Funding: Social Network Multiply Raises $5 Million
Florida-based Multiply, which boasts 10 million users (not sure how many are active), has raised funding through equity investment, and seeks to take on the Filipino market.

Applications: Facebook to enforce quality applications
Although announced a few months ago, Facebook’s program to anoint applications that pass the user experience and security test has started. Interesting to read how developers must pay to be in the program –resulting in incremental revenue for Facebook.

OpenSocial: Social Networks vie for Developers
Platforms continue to seek developers to build on their containers and platforms (aka social networks that can have apps built on it), from Bebo, Hi5, MySpace, and Facebook. Google inserts themselves right in the middle by trying to be the open protocol. Also, continued adoption occurs for the OpenSocial protocol after 1 year of launch.

Partnership: Facebook and SalesForce team up
It’s key to watch how businesses will be impacted by social networks, and this announcement, to enable games and productivity to work together. Expect to see a new category of applications to be built that meet both these needs.

Growth: Twitter’s rapid growth
Comscore tracks an increase of 25% more tweets in twitter due to political debates, as well as as ‘hockey stick’ curve of growth.
Facebook bans racists
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AD3KZ20081114

Launch: Liveworld launches light edition
Reaching the mass markets, LiveWorld launches a lighter version of their product, although the price is indicated in their press release, I’ll find out from Bryan and team.

Deployment: Passenger wins Mercedes Deal
Passenger, an ‘insight community’ vendor wins deal to run Mercedes community for private label community. Passenger offers brands unique ability to glean customer insight –a real time focus group within a community.

Future: Social Networks to predict your buying behavior
Perhaps the holy grail for retailers, the ability to predict consumer buying behavior based on demographics, psychographics, technographics and social network behavior.

Culture: Teachers critiszed for use of Social Networks
Are teachers sanctioned to give their honest opinion in social networks, what if the content is intended to be private? This North Carolina school district is getting some heat.

If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date.

I slowly work on this digest through the week in draft format, collecting information that I see is interesting, and it only takes me a few minutes on wed morning to publish.

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I received a tweet from Monika pointing to this animation that was created by VizEdu, they created an animation showing how I used my blog to create a vendor product catalog for the white label/community platform space (its still a top viewed page). I started this list before I joined Forrester, as I saw a trend, and now I’m covering this space as an analyst.

I find blogs more effective in creating my many lists, as I can filter the comments and look for quality –sometimes wikis get jumbled with vendor pitches and not everyone treats quality the same way. Do note that I only use social media for some aspects of research, the majority of it leans on the proven methodologies put in place before me.

For those wondering where the Wave report is on this space, I’ve submitted my draft to my editor, it’s a long process, and we’re still plugging away, thanks for your patience.

Oh and funny how some of the spam comments showed up, I’ve since removed them, but like the song about the cat, they keep coming back, the very next day.

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While brand backlash (one example of a Groundswell) from social media tools are certainly an impact to the reputation of companies and how their consumers react, there are many different levels of severity from each.

First, see this list of brands that were punk’d from social media, I’ll add some categorization to each of them as I can best gauge in coming days.

To help gauge the differences, I’ve constructed these categories of brand backlash storms (leaning on the Hurricane categorization)

Category 1: Consumer revolt and use social media tools (Twitter, Blogs, YouTube) to tell their story, the brand doesn’t flinch, and there is no mainstream media coverage. Examples: A weekly, if not a daily occurance.

Category 2: The backlash extends beyond just social media tools (Twitter, blogs, YouTube), the brand makes changes based on consumer feedback, and coverage extends to mainstream media and press. Examples: Louis Vuitton brandjacked, Exxon Mobile’s Twitter experience.

Category 3: Consumers use social media tools to spread backlash and there is considerable mentions from mainstream press. the backlash is more severe resulting in significant changes from the brand (hiring, firing, processes, policies or new teams put in place). This becomes a case study for social media books and is often discussed in social media culture. Examples: Dell Hell, Comcast Cares, Kryptonite Locks, Wholefoods CEO.

Category 4: Number three plus short term financial impacts to the brand resulting in reduction of sales, revenue, increased costs, or impact to stock price less than 30 days. Examples: Apple Stock temporarily sinks from blog rumors.

Category 5: Number three plus brand backlash from social media tools resulting in long term financial impacts to the brand including reduction in sales, revenue, increased costs, and most importantly, stock price lasting over 30 days. In the most extreme cases, it causes closure of the business or bankruptcy. Examples: None.

I hope this puts things into context when we see brand backlash incidents occur.

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If you weren’t following what was happening online this weekend (yes, yes, ok you’ve got a life) there was a Groundswell against Motrin’s latest viral advertisement that was rejected by mothers in Twitter, spread to blogs, and YouTube. I’m not a mom, so at first glance I didn’t understand the offense, but apparently, it was condescending to moms who perceived wearing babies in a sling as ‘fashionable’ accessory, and who didn’t wanted to be labeled as an ‘official mom’. The original video, which was trying to lean on the light side, took to many generalizations with mothers and resulted in a revolt capped by this backlash video.

To learn more about the story, read Laura Fitton’s summary, Dave Knox of P&G is taking note, has made it to the NY Times Parenting Blog, and the VP of Marketing representing Motrin has apparently responded (I can’t confirm this). Update: Motrin has now apologized on their site (see screenshot below) and there’s MSM pickup by Scientific American and Computerworld (of all places)

As much as I’m interested in what folks are saying, allow me to provide an aspect that most others aren’t: short term numerical numbers. (it’s the analyst in me)

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The Motrin Moms Backlash by the Numbers
I watch the twitter storm start on Saturday (thanks zsazsa), and watched it carry on through the weekend, I’ve taken snapshots of various analytics and social media tools now on Monday morning.

Above Screentshot: Twitter stats indicate bump in mentions of “motrin” and “motrinmoms”

Above Screentshot: Twitscoop’s Twitter Analytics shows peak for “motrin” notice there’s no mention before the ad.

Above Screentshot: Twitscoop’s Twitter Analytics shows peak for “motrinmoms”

Above Screentshot: 6,000 views on Youtube Video: Motrin Ad Makes Moms Mad

Above Screentshot: As a result, 3rd result for “Motrin” in Youtube is to the mother video

Above Screentshot: Although there are only a few tags for “motrin” on delicious, most point to brand backlash

Above Screentshot: The Motrin.com website is down, likely they are removing the ad and reverting to a previous website

Above Screentshot: Google search results for “Motrin Mother” (I found an adjacent term to measure the impacts) are mainly to brand backlash

Above Screentshot: Brand backlash has not impacted Google search results for “motrin”

Update: Nov 20th, It’s finally hit the search results pages of google for “Motrin”, the 9th link down is to the NYT times blog.

Above Screenshot: The Motrin.com site is back up on Monday 11am PST, after being down for a few hours, with the public apology –which I think is handled well

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Conclusion: It’s not as bad as it looks…yet
In summary, there were some major blips in social networking tools like Twitter, (it was the top trending topic over the weekend, meaning many saw it that weren’t directly involved) however it’s not likely to cause enough of impact search engine results for “motrin”, be a mainstream press story, or cause damage to stock price.

Overtime, these search results may fade away, depending on how Motrin reacts, and how mothers decide to press the situation.

Although brand backlash certainly wasn’t intention, I’m sure that some at advertising firm who created the campaign will chalk this up as a success (it got influencers talking about the brand –who previously weren’t), although the PR group certainly has been dealing with this firestorm all weekend.

Lessons Learned

Always test your campaign with a small segment first

Always have staff on hand to be prepared to respond during the weekend

Don’t launch a campaign right before the weekend unless you’re prepared to respond

The participants have the power, so participate

For better or for worse, more influencers are talking about Motrin than ever before

I’d love to hear your comments on the fiasco, what short term and long term impacts does this have to the brand? Update: more stats from Freshtakes

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Obama has declared he’ll be using YouTube to provide weekly addresses to the nation and the world, I want to start taking snapshots of the analytics in order to understand the changes that are happening to our world. Each generation has it’s medium, and this one is the web –let’s see how our leadership grasps this.

The following is the most subscribed channels of all time. I use this as a primary measure as if someone subscribes it means they’re asking for updates whenever new content is published, preference. The following is a snapshot of numbers of the most Subscribed (All Time) YouTube Channels.

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YouTube’s Top 5 Most Subscribed Channels of all Time:

#1 Fred

This skit act from a very hyperactive spaz who had too many moutain dew and twizzlers publishes ‘burst’ style videos featuring non stop high-pitched clips stringed along designed to keep the attention of pre-teens, teens, and the occasional web strategist. Fred is now the star of the New TV conference. Notice the few amount of videos Fred has produced and high viewership.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 35
Joined: October 01, 2005
Videos Watched: 16,203
Subscribers: 647,697
Channel Views: 19,314,418

#2 Nigahiga

This Hawaiian comedy group does satires, interviews and slapstick style stunts.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 57
Joined: July 20, 2006
Videos Watched: 11,693
Subscribers: 632,891
Channel Views: 17,116,311

#3 Smosh

Two college age guys produce skit comedy.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 60
Joined: November 19, 2005
Videos Watched: 20,161
Subscribers: 597,161
Channel Views: 21,898,415

#4 Universal Music Group

The only ‘mainstream’ media channel to make it to the list, this shows TV clips and shows as a secondary medium to the TV screen. They’ve published a whopping 8k videos, a scattershot strategy, far beyond any of the other top 5.
Type: Director
Videos: 8,905
Joined: August 23, 2006
Subscribers: 499,766
Channel Views: 18,214,102

#5 Jonas Brothers Music

The only mainstream music group to make the top 5, the Jonas Brothers Music publish vids, behind the scenes videos and tour updates.
Type: Musician
Videos: 72
Joined: May 11, 2007
Videos Watched: 1,474
Subscribers: 385,888
Channel Views: 18,845,718

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The reason I’m posting these channel numbers is because I’m watching carefully the changes that will happen from Obama’s promise to be a YouTube president. He plans on publishing weekly videos from the white house to provide a human face as well as accepting feedback in a conversational way. Let’s stop and think about mediums used by past Presidents. Franklin D Roosevelt understood the power of the radio (during an economic crises), and was able to reach millions of Americans in ear shot, John F Kennedy harnessed TV, used makeup to keep his cool over his sweaty opponent and beat out and reached millions of American homes to beat out Nixon by 100,000 votes. Now, Obama is using the internet to reach millions around the globe, all at no additional cost of publishing than Fred. Here’s Obama’s stats on his official channel:

#34 Barack Obama’s YouTube Channel

Obama used social media tools for awareness, fundraising and word of mouth marketing. He has committed to doing weekly YouTube videos and publishing on Youtube and Change.gov to the nation and the world, here’s the first video.
Type: Political
Videos: 1,823
Joined: September 05, 2006
Subscribers: 137,570
Channel Views: 19,705,785

Change Dot Gov
Also, this channel has just been created this past week, and is just getting started…

Type: Political
Videos: 4
Joined: November 05, 2008
Subscribers: 4,550
Channel Views: 29,779

Fred vs Obama
Although Fred has almost the same number of Channel Views (both 19million) as the next president, Fred has 640k subscribers, 4.6 times more than Obama’s 137k subscribers. Of course, Fred’s preteen target audience is more likely to be regular YouTube users with registered accounts, they’ve all opted in for his videos.

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I’ll be tracking Obama’s YouTube stats as we move through the next four years, in the meantime, here’s the first of his weekly YouTube video.


Saturday, November 15, 2008 06:00am EST, at the time of this embed, there are only 3,858 views.

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This blog is focused on web professionals, and to be that, I’d like for you all to have jobs. Given the state of the economy there are three tips I want you to start on immediately, regardless of your rank, industry, or location.

There are actually great opportunities for those during a recession for professionals, restrained resources and competition will force you to become excellent in whatever you do. You’ll be forced to learn new skills and be more efficient than you’ve ever before. Some layoffs will leave opportunities for vertical growth and leadership opportunities.

You’re going to need a leg up in the market whether it be in your company, outside of your company, or to win new clients. You should start this process now, a simple three letter acronym that you should repeat during your day to yourself. Ready?

Growing your Career: Do at GUT Check:

G: Grow Your Network Before You Need Them
Nothing is more sad that seeing someone getting layed off and groveling to their non-qualified friends and family the need for a job. After this, they’ll go to their professional network to help and network with others, but the look of desperation is evident –no one wants to be hired out of pity. Be prepared.

Therefore you should always be building your professional network, espicially when your job feels secured. There’s really no excuse as many real world networking events are free, but if you’re in Juno, err Juneau Alaska, you can heavily lean on the digital tools, they’re also free. You should start by building your online profile in social network sites, finding the communities most tied to your industry, then reading, then answering some of the questions in forums. The trick here is to add value, not just ask for help, demonstrate your expertise by answering questions in an intelligent way and helping others. If you’re a web professional, start with my Facebook group, or if you’re a social media professional, I created this one for you. I’m not scalable –but networks are– so you’ll have to connect with others around us to grow.

U: Uncomfortness Leads to Growth
When you look at a candidates resume, and you see (esp in web industry) they’ve not grown in the last 3-5 years with their skillsets (not skillets), you ought to be worried. In a tough market, employers and clients want self-starters, those that go beyond the regular call of just doing the minimum requirements. Being Uncomfortable means trying something new, and eventually growing.

When I was an intern right out of college, I made a promise to myself to bug everyone in the IT department to teach me a new skill or task. You’d be surprised how thankful they were that someone so young wanted to learn from them. Each day, you should do the same, find someone and ask them to show you something or teach you something new in your career. What am I doing? I spend two hours each morning reading and blogging before I look at email, and I just started Guy’s latest book, Reality Check.

T: Tout Your Successes
Getting found online is part of the game, recruiters are going to do web searches before they purchase time on my job board, so you want to easily make yourself found. By this time if you’re a web professional and you don’t have your own personal domain I’m concerned for you, what are you waiting for, it’s only 10 dollars to register and 5 a month to host at some places.

If you’re worried about looking like you’re trying to find a new job, you can use your initials and just list the industry that you’re working in to protect your identity. If you’re still concerned, rather than post your resume on your own website, keep your LinkedIn profile updated with the higlights.

At industry parties and events I always ask folks: “What do you do” it’s surprising how folks are unable to articulate what they do, they beat around the bush, are self-deprecating, or try to avoid the topic all together. Instead, develop a single sentence describing what you do, practice your delivery, and learn how to ask an open ended question to trigger a conversation.

One caveat, this does not give you the right to be a raging egomaniac on your blog or website (sorta how I fear I come off sometimes) but is the chance for you to list what you’re capable of doing, what you’ve done, and what you can do for others.

Everyday I want you to do a GUT check, practice these skills, build your arsenal, don’t hesitate but do it now. Are you an HR professional, career development expert, or just learned a helpful tip along the way?? Now’s your time to leave a comment here with some other tips to demonstrate your own tips. Leave a comment or suggestion to help others.

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We’re seeing more news stories of layoffs hitting many industries –esp tech. I encourage you to build your network before you need it.

First start by connecting with folks in the Web Strategy Facebook group there are 8688 members that are web decision makers, join in the discussions, read the topics, or post questions. If you’re a Community Manager, or trying to become one, this Community Manager Facebook group has 2050 members to network with. I noticed that Community Managers are in demand, as on the web strategy job board, I was able to check the admin panel and see there were far more submissions to community manager roles than all others.

I’m not scalable in helping people find jobs (getting more and more request) so do try to use these resources as a first source. I suspect we’re going to need to connect more than every before in the coming months and years.

Update: Message to SUN
I was around when the first round of layoffs happened in 2000, yet I don’t recall seeing so much spin from a press release like this one from Sun Microsystems burying in the copy the 5,000-6,000 layoffs that are coming. It’s just condescending to your loyal employees and no one is fooled, as all the headlines from media clearly say ‘layoffs’ in the lead copy and headlines.

I know the Sun AR, PR, Corp Comm, and Agency read my blog, I think there’s really a chance to show your human/open side –after all, that’s what your CEO and mission statement preach to the market.

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This post is a response to last night’s event at the Horn Group called Is Social Media Killing PR? Sam Whitmore moderated Kara Swisher (media), and Susan Etlinger (PR) and me (analyst) for a lively debate, which resulted in the crowd chiming into the issues. I don’t think the conversation evolved as far enough as I wanted to see it go, so here’s what I wanted to share.

For years the Public Relations industry has ironically one of the worst reputations –esp since they are hired to look after the reputations of their own clients. Things only got worse as some brands got punk’d; the introduction of self-publishing tools that allowed anyone to connect to each other using social technologies, causing a shift in power. We’ve already talked to death about the risks and the changes that are happening to this industry, yet I’m hoping to elevate the viewpoint out of the gutter and focus on the larger opportunities –and risks at the industry level.

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Four Business Opportunities for the Evolved PR Agency:

1) Enhance Existing Functions
First of all, some things that are already in place need more focus, for example, it was discussed last night that now that influencers (press, media, bloggers, analysts, customers) can directly be reached by clients –PR professionals can be bypassed. In fact, when you look closely, everyone’s doing press, analysis and media.

A) Be a filter for clients: There’s a tremendous amount of noise now being created, creating an opportunity for PR folks to filter, sort, and prioritize what matters. You’ll need both access and understanding of brand monitoring tools as well as the ability to see patterns in the noise.
B) Council rather than conduit: Although strategic council has been happening for many years, now that clients and influencers can connect directly, this could result in a business shift resulting in more focus on coaching, less on pitching. Mary Trigiani suggests the same.
C) Extend Social Strategy: Most firms don’t have a strategic response to social media across the whole firm. While the young digital natives may use these pervasive tools, they lack strategic insight, yet the immigrant executives don’t fully understand how these tools change the communication lines.

2) Differentiate
Two potential customers were at the event, and both lamented that they can’t tell the difference between one firm to another –they all offer similar promises and relationships. The opportunity for PR firms to be more vocal in the areas of expertise they provide are at hand. PR firms should become part of the community they serve –regardless of the client they have on the accounts receivable. Instead, be known as the expert firm in your industry, not just pitching, but also serving and helping beyond your clients needs. There’s a business opportunity here for some smart entrepreneur to create a VRM system that allows clients to recommend PR firms to other brands.

3) Extend to the Entire Customer Lifecycle
I alluded to this yesterday in the panel, but this is perhaps the single largest opportunity for the evolved PR firm. As we know “Public” relations involves prospects and customers, social technologies mush up the lines between when this starts and stops. As a result, PR firms how learn how to offer value to other areas of the organization beyond corporate communications can find new revenue buckets in product marketing, product management, product support, and beyond.

4) Fix Your Own Damn Reputation
I’ll hit this again: it’s very ironic that an industry so focused on keeping the image of their clients reputation pristine is unable to shine their own shingle. Use these social tools to tell your story –and to get your clients to tell your story –on your behalf. Although the HORN group was the only firm to take this challenge head on, the industry as a whole needs to fix this, but it can’t be insular within the PR community, but looking outside the circle of pros.

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Related Resources (I’m updating this list)
Nov 14th, the next day: There’s really a tremendous amount of different voices, angles and perspectives on Wed’s discussion, read below.

Do read the responses from the attendees in twitter (the audience has the control), they tagged it with #prblog.

Ravit Lichtenberg Live blog: Is Social Media Killing PR? Live blogging from girls in tech and Horn Group.

Kara Swisher was taking video, and posts her thoughts, although she can make execs shake in their boots, she really makes me smile. Find out what the CEO of Yahoo and I have in common.

Cece (a marketing stakeholder) said we were taking on baby step topics and missed focusing on how PR should meet the need of marketing –and the business. She’s right.

Susan Etlinger, our host and panel mate gives her thoughts

Sam Whitmore the moderator poses some additional questions, I think we’ve all concluded last night’s event really just opened up far more discussions, this is all healthy.

Jennifer Leggio was covering this for ZDnet, and has published why PR is not dead, but shows it’s weaknesses.

There are photos coming in tagged Horn Group, it’s a thrill to see how all this feedback and media comes in real-time.

Charles Cooper from Cnet says that PR is killing PR, and that I focus to heavily on Social Media (which is my primary focus, yet he has a point)

Charles Cooper from Cnet says that PR is killing PR, and that I focus to heavily on Social Media (which is my primary focus, yet he has a point). Thanks to Chris Kenton for backing me, appreciated, thanks.

Kenneth suggests that Marketing and PR still has a core strategy –social should be left to the side

Adrian Chan publishes an email he had with a PR pro at Edelman discussing what we did and didn’t get.

Leave a comment below if I’ve missed anyone, sometimes trackbacks don’t show up

Photos from last night’s event:

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Left Image: Blake Commagere of Ohai tells of the success he’s had porting his popular apps from FaceBook to Bebo at AOL’s Mountain View campus.

Last night, I was invited to AOL’s offices in Mountain View to learn of Bebo’s Dev Nite, a public courtship to startups and developers who make web applications on social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 (Examples: Vampires, Scrabulous, Superwall). For anyone that didn’t get the association (it slipped my mind for a sec) that Bebo was acquired by AOL, they keep the branding very loosely separated –likely on purpose.

Bebo, a unique Social Network
Bebo’s community segment focuses on user sharing and media, and is somewhat in between the experiences of the wild ’self expression’ MySpace and more refined Facebook ‘communication’ experience. They claim to have over 40 million users, and has strong traction in UK, and other English speaking countries.

Bebo Reaches for Application Developers, and sets some parameters
While there were several things announced, Bebo’s has launched a 10 point based system that rates and ranks quality applications, defined by ‘engagement’. I asked, and they define engagement as repeat visitors and time on site. Developers are rewarded in this ‘game-like’ type of scenario so the top applications (scoring 10) will have the ability for some of their applications to appear on newsfeeds of users that do not install their apps. Translation: the opportunity for viral growth.
Bebo should also reward developers that attract new members to the Bebo sites. T

Porting applications from Facebook to Bebo and beyond
he first presentation from Blake Commagere of Ohai who created some of the more popular (but useless?) applications shared his case study of how he was easily able to port over Facebook apps to Bebo. It was discussed that OpenSocial, which is coming up on it’s 1st aniv still has a ways to go, as developers still have to cater to different protocols with each social network. Learn more at the Bebo blog –which transparently admits to having some issues with the platform.

Enterprise Companies reach for Startups
Why would Sun or Microsoft care about some scrappy vampire developer? With the rapid growth of social network adoption from consumers and businesses, some (most will not) of these garage startups will have needs to fill up their data center, (or cloud) with servers, storage, software and professional services.

As a result the Sun Startup Essentials team was there, (I’ve been tracking them for years, since I was at HDS) and offered developers free hosting with their partner Joyent (learn about the developer program), as well as access to Sun hardware, open source software, professional services, and connections with VCS. Sun should create an online community for startups, or build one inside of existing social networks to further extend their cause.

Microsoft, (who was not involved with this event) recently launched BizSpark, has far to go, and must truly join the community they want to serve. In my pre briefing meeting with them a few weeks ago, I recommended they reach and join this community, much like how Scoble did in 2005-2006. I expect them to work with existing social media stars, and to aggressively reach for this space.

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The Bottom Line:

The culture of each social network is unique, don’t expect applications to easily be ported and successfully run on different social networks –customization is always required.

Expect to see more applications on Facebook to also appear on Bebo and other sites, due to the catering of developers, as well as technologies such as OpenSocial.

Brands should explore relationships with these application developers who have success on more than one social network, this makes marketing more effective. Brands should first leverage existing sucess rather than build their own –this space is highly fast moving and specialized.

Bebo’s measurement index (although extremely limited in attributes) will not only encourage good behavior by those rascally developers, but also helps brands identify who they will want to work with.

Expect to see more enterprise companies catering to startups, in order to plan architectural seeds. Although most startups won’t bloom, some will turn into lush tropical forests, bringing ROI full circle.

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I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
As scrutiny over marketing budgets will increase, there is more discussion online about the value of marketing and advertising on social networks. Although we continue to see anecdotes and case studies, we’ve yet to see any social network offer a ROI on marketing efforts –or even public data.

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Vision: Where Zuckerberg sees Facebook heading
Mark took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit in SF, and was interviewed discussing his vision for the future of Facebook, business, users, and international growth. Perhaps one key stat is that 50% of users visit the site once a day.

Monetization: MySpace planning for Virtual Gifts
Hot on the heels of Facebook’s Virtual Gifting features, MySpace makes some plans to roll out their own.

Marketing: Social Network Post Election Analysis
Even this French newspaper is impressed with the Obama campaign to utilize the new tools of today.

Revenue: Facebook Advertising and Marketing
Although this article shows that advertising spend will be down in the next year, Facebook continues to focus on engagement ads to tie customers and brands together.

Redesign: MySpace launches profile
Although I was briefed by this minor design update, it’s not getting a warm reception from press blogs at Reuter and articles. I do know from research that self-expression is key with this market, so everything that helps this is in the right direction.

ReOrg: Six Apart Restructures and Refocuses
Although they’re reducing their headcount by 8% what’s interesting to read is the strategy focuses that Six Apart is going to aim for, including: Creating Six Apart “Genius” group, Growing Six Apart Services, and Six Apart Media.

Marketing Mix: Integrating social networks in other mediums
This study indicates that linking to social network sites in an email campaign may be a less than effective way to reach prospects and customers. Of course, the brand should first figure out if their audience even uses these social tools first

Case Study: Nike’s social networking efforts grow
Great example of how a brand can reach a ‘lifestyle’ of runners using compatible products (iPods) and social net