@JulieGibbons Sweet! Now I can visit Romulus, or finally have a coffee chat with my wookie pen pals! in reply to JulieGibbons 3 hrs ago

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Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands

Categories: Altimeter, MicroMedia, Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on October 22nd, 2009

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li, (cross posted) who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group.

Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams.  Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing.  This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and social web for marketing, support, and competitive strategies.  There are several impacts to the ecosystem, here’s what you should know:


  • Deal Fills In Technology and Relationship Gaps for Twitter. Twitter lacks the computing power of a premiere search engine, as their current Twitter search results are littered with spam, duplicate tweets, and are only sorted by time.   Leveraging the sophisticated engineers at Microsoft and Google affords Twitter an opportunity to focus on their platform –not search.  From a business aspect, this deal makes sense is that Microsoft and Google both have relationships with advertisers and brands, with trained sales forces to cut deals. Although the terms of the deal aren’t public, it’s suspect there was an exchange of material goods, it’s likely that Twitter will benefit from revenue share in the near future.
  • Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority. Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results.  As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo” location based tweets could provide additional context.  4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends.  Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile.
  • To Compete, Facebook Must Make More Content Public. For closed social networks like Facebook, this means they need to continue to offer up more data that can be searched in public by search engines.  With default settings in Facebook set to ‘friends only’ this will continue to be a challenge as Facebook’s community prefers the filters and privacy settings that this closed social network provides.
  • Twitter’s Future: Seamless Integration with the Web. Success for Twitter isn’t about becoming a destination site, but instead about becoming a data protocol that’s embedded everywhere.    Like “Air“, microblogging features are already present in multiple applications, desktop and mobile clients, and the bite-sized information is becoming available in context wherever it’s needed.
  • Customers Influence Search Results An even more amazing impact of these announcements is that for the first time, consumers will be able to directly impact web search results. Although companies spend thousands of marketing dollars controlling their search results by using Google’s advertising services, customers and competitors can quickly and cheaply impact search results using simple tools like Twitter.  Consumers, empowered using mobile devices as a publishing platform can link to content and influence search results. Now, a simple tweet with a picture of a plane landing on the Hudson from a mobile phone will show up at the top of search results.


Key Takeaways: Customers Impact Brand Search Results Using Twitter
Even if your company is not active on Twitter, your customers can influence the search results related to your company –you must pay attention to this trend.  Just as your company likely already has a search strategy through search optimization or paid search terms, you’ll need to extend micromedia to your strategy.  In order to be prepared for this change, companies must:

  1. Develop a Listening Strategy That Starts With Roles and Process.  Every business and market is now moving faster and faster as information spreads around the globe in minutes –if not seconds.  Companies must be ready to quickly identify flare ups, be ready to respond, and correct incorrect information.  Develop a listening strategy that has internal roles set in place, a process to respond and the right tools like Radian 6, Visible Technologies, BuzzMetrics, or Cymfony.
  2. Change The Marketing Mindset –Legacy Methods Ineffective. Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to. Instead, marketers should allow content on all web properties and email marketing to be easily added to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites by offering icons that encourage people to share. Providers like ShareThis and AddThis make this simple to do.
  3. Develop Influence Marketing Programs. Since these search engines have all noted that they will rank real time information on a person’s authority and not just traditional page ranking, marketers must double down on building these relationships.  More than ever, brands will need to foster discussions within Twitter as retweet, replies, and linking behavior will influence what is served up on results pages.  It takes time to build real relationships that develop into public conversations so get started now.

Related Links:
For a list of social networking stats (including Twitter) we’ve a 2009 collection we keep up to date.


Posted in Altimeter, MicroMedia, Social Media, Social Networking | Comments

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Revealing Google’s Stealth Social Network Play

Categories: Social NetworkingPosted on October 7th, 2009

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li, (who’s cross-posted) who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group.

Google has quietly been launching a social network right under our own chins. No, it’s not about Google extending Orkut, a social networking platform they developed a few years ago, or growing Google groups, or even launching their own version of a Twitter. Instead they’ve been releasing small bits of social networking features, little by little. Previously, we’ve made the case that email is already the largest social network, however Google’s plans go beyond Gmail. First, let’s define what to look for, in order to identify what Google is concocting.

Defining Social Networks
 To start with, we define a social network as having three baseline components: 1) A profile that contains a person’s information; 2) The ability for people to connect to each other via those profiles, often called a social graph; and 3) the ability to do something useful or valuable they couldn’t have done otherwise. Features such as discoverability or public access are often cited as social network features, but we believe that the common denominators across most social networks are the three characteristics we listed.

Now that we agree on the definition, we can see that Google is launching each of these features with little fanfare. Let’s break down what’s happening. Google allows people to:

Maintain a Rich Profile. Google recently launched new features called Google profiles which allows users to upload profile pics, include personal information and preferences, and allow it to be discoverable on the web. These are coupled with a Google account such as gmail, and is at the core of these efforts.

Connect and Communicate With Others. Individuals using the Google profiles can connect to each other and share information using a variety of tools, not all of them necessarily social. For example, Gmail and Google Talk contain not just your contacts, but also understand with whom you communicate the most. Google doesn’t explicitly ask if you’re a ‘friend’ or ‘fan’ of someone, but rather, allows people to connect to each other in a variety of communication tools. And most recently, Google launched Google Sidewiki, which allows anyone to add comments to any page on the Web with just a Firefox plug-in.

Centralize Information In A Useful Way. Allowing people to build profiles and communicate with each other isn’t of much value unless it can provide a more useful experience not previously available. Google provides a number of tools like Google Wave, a collaboration tool we’ve started to experiment with, Gtalk instant messanger, and Gmail which rivals Facebook’s newsfeed, chat, and inbox respectively.

Google’s Stealth Threat
The difference between Google and destination social networks like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook is that Google doesn’t have a specific URL. Instead, it is creating elements that envelope the web, by enabling every online (and mobile) activity to possibly be social one –then running it all on their own centralized platform. Google isn’t going after a frontal, brute force assault on Facebook and the other social networks — it simply can’t win at that game on a global basis. Instead Google is pursuing a softer approach, a zen-like attach much like water flowing around a rock. It is using its strengths — ubiquity and open platforms — to put “social” into every corner of the Web.

This is the stealth threat — that today’s social networks won’t really be losing share to the “Google network”, but rather, that they will become slowly less relevant as EVERYTHING gets social thanks to advances by Google. Their end goal? Google’s social network is designed to exist everywhere –not be centralized in any one location. By the way, two can play at this game and we see Microsoft making similar moves in the future. (Edit: It was pointed out to Charlene that Yahoo! is also making similar moves with its social APIs).

Key Takeaways

  1. Enveloping The Social Web Is Core To Google’s Strategy. This is inline with Google’s traditional strategy of organizing the world’s information –then serving up monetization options around it. Although a few years late to the game, Google’s move is crucial as they already have large amounts of information about what you look for, who you know, and the activities you do. It’s a natural step for them to also organize and make sense of the social and behavioral information that people create. In addition, Google — who already has long term relationships with agencies, brands, and marketers — will be a natural place for companies to look to for advertising and marketing opportunities around social data, rather than new players and start-ups.
  2. Google’s Recent Moves Threaten Incumbent Social Networks. Facebook and other competitors will need to quickly spread it’s Facebook Connect platform and evolve it to something that doesn’t even require APIs or registrations. The challenge with Facebook Connect is it requires the website owner (publisher) and the user to opt-in and allow for content to become social. With Google’s SideWiki, only the users need to opt-in, which will cause adoption to spread must faster. Facebook will need to extend it’s inline browser (surfing the web within the context of facebook.com) or developing their own browser to counter Google’s moves. Facebook’s core conundrum is balancing personal and often private information of its community with the need to expose information in public in order to be relevant in search and eventually advertising.
  3. Despite Privacy Concerns, Users Will Continue To Use Google. Although privacy concerns will continue to be the mainstay of objections, the benefits to the common user will outweigh any critics. We know that people will verbally object to their privacy being an opportunity for another company, yet they continue to behave in a way opposite to their objections. Why? For most, they’ve grown to trust players like Google. Or they are willing to give up control of some information in exchange for convenience, such as having social data conveniently show up on Google Maps on your phone. And for others, the price of privacy can be measured by what information they will give up to get ‘free shipping’. The root concern isn’t broadly about privacy, but specifically about privacy in the context of when you’re not in control of it. Google is highly motivated to maintain the trust of users and will do everything possible to continue earning and deserving that trust.

We’re not the only ones to notice this trend, Search Engine Watch also characterizes Google as a social media company. We hope our viewpoint sheds light to where Google is heading, and hope to hear your viewpoints too.

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Interlaced: Email and Social Networks

Categories: Email, Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on September 17th, 2009

Despite Having 300 Million Members, Facebook is Not The Largest Social Network
In my opinion, online social networks have three distinguishing features:  1) They have profiles that enable people to express their identity 2) Ability for people to connect to these profiles 3) To be successful, there’s a greater value created by a group of people sharing than as individuals who do not.

This week, Facebook announced it has ballooned to 300 million users, far more than MySpace and certainly Twitter.  Yet, I want to assert that Facebook isn’t the largest social network, email is (we’ve talked about this before).  Recent numbers from Microsoft showed that the number of active users (although the definition of ‘active’ isn’t explained) exceeds 375 million users for Hotmail.

When you combine all of the email networks from Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, and the millions in Outlook at corporations all over the world –it dominates over Facebook.

Not Everyone Agrees Email and Social Networks Are The Same
I took the conversation to my own community in Twitter, and while the majority seemed to agree others respectfully suggested that “email is not a social network because:”  1) It’s private, not public, 2) Lack of profiles, and  3) Lack of discoverability of people. I’d like to quickly address why I stand by that email is the largest social network:

Social networks can be private.  Just like in real life, some communities are not for the public.  In fact, Facebook is a closed social network, very little of your personal information can be seen by the public.  Secondly, some of the most successful social networks are deployed inside of companies, just ask folks like Telligent, Mzinga, Awareness, and Jive.

Email does indeed have profiles. Many argued that email doesn’t have a profile, yet, consumer email clients all offer profiles.  For example, see Yahoo’s, Microsoft Live, (which can spur from a hotmail account) and the Google profile.  We’re encouraged to put our handle, name, location, and other demographic information.  The second place to look is within the signature of each email you receive, people put their name, company, title, contact information and whatever else they want to self-express.  In both cases people opt-in to put that information in, and make their profile information accessible to those they want to share it with.

Email profiles are discoverable and social. Some who don’t believe email is a social network will argue that the profiles are not easy to find.  A social networks will help like-minded users find each other, and some social networks even recommend others to follow. Take another look corporations that have deployed exchange server have a large directory with individual names, profiles, and groups that they belong to.  You can search for titles, locations, and groups to find who in a company may have similar needs to you.  What about in the consumer space? Yahoo encourages it’s mail users to ask and answer questions from each other –even if you don’t know them directly.  In fact, in my Yahoo profile, there’s an area that suggests people I should connect with, one which is Shel Israel, who is certainly a friend, and Microsoft Live recommends people “like you” to connect with.

Agree or Disagree, Email and Social Networks Intertwine
A few more indicators that email and social networks are starting to merge: For public social networks like Facebook, Glassdoor, Yelp, and Twitter, email is a pre-requistite to register.  Messages that you receive in Facebook or Twitter, often end up in your email stream.  Email portals are already developing social features around them, have you seen the Yahoo homepage?  It’s starting to look like a social network.

Recommendations: Approach Email and Social Tech in an Integrated Strategy
It’s too easy to focus on the shiny microblogging tools and cast incumbent technologies by the side.  Savvy communicators should factor in how email and social networks fuel each other, they should:

  • Interlace email and social efforts. In your marketing efforts, make it easy for people to share content both on social sites and through email.  Use the sharethis feature on your websites encouraging people to post content on social networks –or email to each other.  In your email marketing, make it easy for people to also share the information on their social networking profiles.
  • Prepare for applications to be build on email platforms. Recognize that email portals are becoming social platforms, and brands will soon build or sponsor applications that interact with Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Live, and whatever comes next.
  • Focus on the relationships between individuals –less on the medium.  The medium isn’t as important as the relationships between the people.  When Twitter goes down, some shift to Friendfeed, or Facebook to communicate, people have a way to find each other regardless of the medium or channel.

I hope this triggers an interesting discussion, even if you don’t agree. Would love to hear a global perspective on mobile usage, how does that factor in?

Update: On a related note,this study indicates that email usage is being eroded away by social networking sites and instant messaging. This is the type of data that will send email providers scurrying to the product roadmap to quickly integrate into the social web as quickly as possible.

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Help! My Boss Wants To Be My Friend On Facebook

Categories: Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on September 7th, 2009

“Help! My boss wants to be my my friend on Facebook” was exactly the text message I received from someone close to me early last week.

Career Limiting Move or A Platform To Build A Great Relationship?
This young member of the Gen Y generation recently joined the workforce –and was experiencing the pain as personal and professional lives collide.  While some may laugh at the notion, first understand that Generation Y may share their most intimate of details on Facebook, from what they love and hate, who they love and hate, photos from last Saturday night to where they’re going tonight –it’s more of an online diary.

Don’t scoff at this situation, on this Web Strategy Blog we discuss how corporations can benefit from new technologies (like social) and know that employees will use them –often in the context of the workplace, this is just one instance of a particularly real issue.  What’s at stake?  Building a long term relationship with your boss –or sending the right or wrong message about your ability to be a worker (update: like this one link via William).   We were successfully able to wade through the situation, but first, let’s list out all the options available to you when this situation happens:

Contingency Planning: So Your Boss Wants To Friend You On Facebook

1) Do nothing.  Simply ignore the request and hope it goes away, it sends a message: one of inability to communicate or not follow through.

2) Deny them.  Suggest this isn’t how you want to communicate with them, with a message like “Sorry but Facebook is just for my family and friends” and risk alienating a relationship you could grow.

3) Add them and expose them to your entire life.  Adding one’s boss may be easy as a single click, but exposing them to their steamy private life could be detrimental to one’s career.

4) Redirect to LinkedIn. Suggesting that you want to keep professional relationships professional and they go in LinkedIn is a fine idea.  But snubbing them could be a career limiting move saying you don’t want to be in an engaging relationship –or worse yet: you’ve something to hide.

5) Use Facebook permission features and filter.  Although clunky and hard to figure out for most, users of Facebook can create groups (like one for colleagues) and allow them to only see certain types of information.

What Did We Do? Our Solution: The best course of action was number 5.  I had this individual create a separate group for work, and tag it the name of their company.  They then filtered what information that could be seen, of course, only professional related content void of those party pics from last week.   For the test they added me to this group and I confirmed it was only a limited view.  This individual then granted admission to their curious boss to Facebook –preserving the relationship.   In addition, I encouraged the individual to send a LinkedIn request –nothing like granting one’s request –and offering to grow it in yet another area.

What You Should Do: While it’s going to take time to setup, invest your time wisely and use Facebook’s group features from the start.  Everyone you add should be segmented into the right bucket so you can easily control who sees what of your life.  Also, set some guidelines of comfort where the line is for you, for some, putting colleagues into LinkedIn is the only place that it’s appropriate as Facebook could be for work alone.  See how to create and manage groups, manage privacy, and other advanced privacy features.

You A Boss?  First, Think It Through. A manager should first be sensitive to the relationship they have with their subordinates, you’re in a position of power.  Really gauge if your relationship is that of a friend, mentor, or just work related.   You may want to leave the offer open to your subordinates –and let them add as their prerogative, rather than forcing them into a potentially awkward situation.  If you do feel your relationship is on strong ground, send them a LinkedIn request first, and see if they reciprocate into Facebook.  Lastly, be sure to see if your content doesn’t embarrass you in front of your own team –use the filtering features yourself.

Social and Professional Lives Continue To Collide. Social networks technologies are pervasive, they’re creeping into our personal and professional lives.  The challenge is finding the separation –and defining the overlap between both.  Love to hear your stories of where social tools cross the employee and friend relationships.

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Requested Recommendations on Social Networks: Why I Won’t Do It

Categories: Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on July 17th, 2009

“Looking at LinkedIn Recommendations, They are Puffery”
I’m currently doing research on what skills marketers are looking for in their social media team, and interviewed one hiring manager yesterday. She told me she didn’t value the references on LinkedIn and told me that “Looking at LinkedIn recommendations, they are puffery”. Instead she was looking for examples of work experience, eagerness to do the job, and of course ability. I agree with her, when I see recommendations on LinkedIn, my alarm goes off, I know most are not objective.

Why These Reccomendations May Not Be Trusted
From time to time, former colleagues ask me to be their reference –or even do recommendations (online references or testimonials) for them on social sites, like LinkedIn. Yet having gone through this process, they aren’t that trustworthy, here’s why:

  • Filter One: I question how honest and authentic recommendations are when the system primarily has features that vet out unwanted reviews. In nearly every experience I’ve been in, a former colleague or someone I’ve worked with requests a recommendation, this means they are expecting a positive review. Since the content is in public, saying something bad about someone else (even if it’s true) isn’t going to help your network, so the the contributor is biased.
  • Filter Two: Then, they can review my submitted review, and then accept or reject. I’ve had someone reject my reference, and ask me to rewrite it once before (I think it may have been because I had a typo). Because these three filters are setup, it’s unlikely that you’ll see reviews that are have objective content, or negative information.

Now it’s not just recommendation systems in business social networks, it’s also case studies from vendors, and customer testimonials. All of this content is cleaned, scrubbed, and presentable in favor the seller.

Potential Solutions
RSomers suggested that LinkedIn reduce the number of recommendations people can give.  Like UserVoice or Deal Ideastorm they give a certain amount of points anyone can use, forcing people to be choosey and selective in where they put their vote.   Also, Get Glue has interesting technology to do this for the media side –maybe they can apply this to job candidates too.

References Will Always Have Their Place
I triggered a discussion on twitter, and had a variety of responses, many who see the positives. At least two people told me they received their jobs from recommendations they’d received on LinkedIn, but not because the content was objective, but because it triggered a notification in the references stream –causing word of mouth to happen.   Luke said he got his job from a LinkedIn recommendation, and says ‘who’ reccomends him is more important.

Recommendations in any form still matter, but become more relevant if they come from someone who are at the top of their game, or have a relationship to the buyer.  This isn’t to say that none of these are helpful, they have their time and place in the marketing process. While a plethora of glowing references on a company or professional profile on LinkedIn may seem like typical marketing –in the end, smart buyers and employers will dig deeper to find where sellers and candidates shine –and need some polishing.

I Won’t be Giving LinkedIn Recommendations
Although I’ve only given honest recommendations in LinkedIn, I won’t be giving anymore recommendations on that platform (at least for the foreseeable future), instead, I’ll use my blog and Twitter to provide them in a more organic area where there aren’t obvious filters –making the recommendations count even more.  The challenge of course is finding them will not be easy.

Takeaways

  • Recommendations that are vetted by the requestor will  never be fully viewed as objective –savvy buyers know that, and can figure out how to get the information through private conversations or other reviews.
  • Reccomendations still matter, but who they come from, and in what context matters ever more, indicating you liked working with someone is still valuable –even if they are filtered.
  • Buyers should look for references (positive and negative) from more organic locations like blogs and Twitter, where the candidate/seller has less control over filtering and scrubbing the content.
  • Canidates and sellers need to prepare for the open reviews of good –and bad–reviews about their company and resume.
  • LinkedIn very valuable, and has many other features of note. This isn’t a knock on them, but instead on the marketing and pitching process in general.

Related:  Impacts of Social Media on Customer Reference Pages

Update: Russ Somers has extended the converation on his blog: Evaluating LinkedIn Reccomendations

LinkedIn’s communications savvy Kay Luo, contacted me and gave some best practices around how recommendations should work, as such, she gave a recommendation to my own account, which I accepted.  If they have any best practices around recommendations, I’ll be happy to link to them from this post –furthering the conversation.

Update: July 24th, LinkedIn has responded from their blog, discussing the benefits of recommendations and the social economy.  They suggest that you give recommendations to five people unsolicited, although I’d suggest don’t feel obligated to meet a number, just do it when you believe in it.  I really appreciate them being part of the conversation –so we can make these systems better.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: May 11, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on May 11th, 2009

 

digest3 

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
Been a light week as far as significant news goes. Facebook and Digg start to connect their social identities. Ning launches an application gallery, and MySpace trims staff.

Social Colonization: Digg adopts Facebook Connect
In an ongoing effort to spread its network, Facebook allowed third party sites to connect to it’s user and member base, now Digg users can use this to access their account info and social graph. The challenge is you can’t register FB with Digg if you’re using the same email address in Digg –the social profiles don’t yet merge.

Apps: Ning provides application gallery
Previously, Ning applications had to be installed by individuals, but now they can be replicated across networks, with what appears to be a widget gallery type feature.

Downsizing: MySpace trims workforce
While other social networks have also had layoffs (Hi5 in particular) MySpace trims 45 members of it’s staff, and is undergoing a major executive change out.

Findings: Wrapup from Inbound Marketing Summit
What was learned at the Inbound Marketing Summit? This excellent wrap up summarizes the key findings.

Ads: blogs come into their own
A few months ago, GigaOm’s network left Federated Media, and now Techcrunch sprouts it’s own advertising capabilities. Blogs are maturing now where they can reduce third party dependency on advertising revenue, demonstrating they’re their own media outlets.

Interview: Thor, of Get Satisfaction
Interesting audio interview from the founder of Get Satisfaction, a third party support site, that’s quite disruptive to corporate websites. Thor, the former CEO is now the CTO, having recently hired Wendy Lea. The chatter is casual at first, but gets focused as it progresses.

To watch: Cisco Eos puts stake in ground for media
Cisco’s Dan Scheinman is a general manager at the Eos, a community platform aimed at reaching media industry. While still early to market, I’m carefully watching this vendor as they have large backing from Cisco, that has a large enterprise footprint. Dan’s post suggests that Eos is intended to help Hollywood make money online, leveraging the disruption that new technologies have brought them.

Google: Analysis on Ad Behavior to improve TV ads
Google is doing some interesting and hopefully interesting analysis that will improve the context of ads, see their lengthy explanation and charts.

Accolades: Neighborhood America gets second award
Neighborhood America announces today that it has won its second consecutive CODiE Award for ‘Best Social Networking Solution’ for enterprises. See the many other categories and finalists.

Personal: Happy Mother’s Day Mom
Thanks for all you’ve done for me, supporting me when I was a young snot, and still supporting me as I’m an older snot. Love you mom. Now, I’m off to Amsterdam to help clients and speak at conferences, then going to Paris the week after.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: May 2, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on May 2nd, 2009

digest3

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
Busy week, yet again. Vignette starts to come forth with it’s community features, which are a direct challenge to the community platform vendors. Facebook extends further into the era of social colonization by allowing activity streams to be displayed on third party sites. The impacts of the swing flu echo throughout social networks.

Launch: Vignette CMS rolls out social features
Community platform vendors need to be prepared to be squeezed from above as more CMS vendors prepare to enter this market. Vignette, who has a stable footprint in the enterprise space, launches first generation social features. They’re also demonstrating thought leadership by publishing best practices documents. Watch this change –the incumbents are waking up. I spent an hour with this team last week reviewing their live product, they just rolled this out, and hope to have customer adoption soon.

Colonization: Facebook exposes activity stream
Social colonization is when every web experience will be social. With FB opening it’s activity stream for third party developers (like Seesmic) it’s the start of the experience extending beyond the Facebook walls.

Government: Obama addresses nation on Flu
Using his weekly Youtube platform, Obama gives a clear assessment – Google Search of the situation, gives recommendations to schools, businesses, and people, then discloses the solution that have in place for vaccines, all without doublespeak. These simple social tools are empowering –but the content is most important.

Feature: Silverlight and Facebook create shiny UI
This is shiny, meaning it’s pretty, but doesn’t neccesarily offer multiplicative collaboration (useful), either way, see how silverlight flexes it’s UI muscles by displaying FB pictures.

Culture: US Military uses Social Networks to recruit soldiers
Now, you can befriend a recruiter. The pentagon is making considerable shifts towards using social networks to recruit young Gen Y folks for the military. Facebook is the leading social technology where they will deploy.

Context: Early examples of social context via scraping
Social networks are the first place where we’ve seen people voluntarily give up so much information about themselves unprompted. As a result, we’ll see an increase of services that scrape demographics to increase marketing and advertising effectiveness. While not a mature example of social context, it’s getting closer.

Risks: Social networking sites have downsides
This is an important article by Computerworld, in which it shows the potential risks that social networking sites bring to professional relationships and the office as many users are not aware of how privacy works. Beyond this, potential IP and corporate knowledge could be spread in social networking sites, learn about these risks.

Twitter Hype: People come –but don’t come back
The overhyped Twitter shows that some come but never come back, yet Nielsen responds vis this video suggesting that the small community is indeed very influential.

Oddparts: Facebook trivia
Culture, anonymity and a strong virtual gift economy make Facebook a misfit in China. Facebook is able to map mentions of the Swine Flu within it’s network from state to state.

Personal: IBM’s Impact and Calgary’s Web Strategy Summit
Last week, I started to give personal updates, and some suggested I continue. I launched the future of the social web report this week, and it received positive feedback. I’m headed to IBM’s IMPACT conference in vegas to speak, then to the Web Strategy Summit in Calgary to present my findings on the future of the social web. I’ve mentioned several times on Twitter that I’m forgoing shaking hands to protect the community, I’m a germ magnet, since I travel so much and meet many.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: April 26, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on April 26th, 2009

digest3

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
For once, this week has some actual strategic news: Google’s intent to bypass closed social networks by creating public profiles are aligned with it’s strategy. MySpace is undergoing some leadership changes, in order to win back the media’s attention, they’ll need to quickly innovate. Following the executive turnover we’re seeing all over the industry, Hi5 follows suit.

Strategy: Google to circumvent social networks
This is an important gesture in the world of social networks. Google has launched a profile feature that allows people to create profiles in exchange for influence on search results page. As you know, social networks are comprised of profiles and people connecting to each other. This strategy enables Google to build a ‘non-social network’ that rather than focus on a destination, instead lives on the open web. This is aligned with Google’s open strategy towards the web. Given their large user base, this will likely be successful, my question however is simple: what took so long?

Leadership: MySpace names Owen Vean Natta as CEO
News Corp’s MySpace has been doing the executive cleanse, having removed a handful of leadership now including Chris DeWolfe. This move, likely in response to the daunting growth and buzz of Facebook, and the potential fall out from the Google deal. While MySpace has been innovating with media, music, and catering to small businesses, they’ve not caught the eye of the market as the innovative player. Brands shouldn’t walk away from MySpace, they’ve still a thriving community, and this new leadership could offer innovation –although expect it to takes months to emerge. I’ve requested numbers from MySpace, to evaluate their current capabilities.

Leadership: Hi5 appoints new CEO of axe swings
Hi5, a very quickly growing social network with 60mm users missed it’s opportunity to monetize that growth resulting in layoffs that cut deep in this social network. They’ve now appointed Bill Gossman as the CEO, who has connections with their investors. Former CEO Ramu Yalamanchi, will step to a Chief Product role with a focus on operations.

Culture: Silicon Valley Social Media Deployed in Iraq
Cultures are often defined on how the common people are allowed to communicate and share their voices. Silicon Valley leaders or founders from Twitter, Meetup, Hocast, and YouTube assemble in Iraq to share expertise and discuss how social tools can improve the local situation.

Security: Cybergangs crowdsource thugs
Not uncommon, but social networking tools can be used to steal people’s identity, financial info, or release harmful code. Cybergangs are employing crowd created mobs to break captcha codes, a brute force tactic to get into people’s personal info.

Verticals: Social network for the beautiful…only
Modelfeed is a social network for the beautiful, and is in line with social networks being created for every possible vertical. What’s next? How about a social network for the fugly.

Deals: Mzinga lands Playboy
This large media company will try it’s hand to let the community of 6 million users to it’s website to engage by participating in voting, sharing, and discussions. Mzinga scored well in my recent Wave for moderation –which could come in handy for a large, and ‘passionate’ community.

Features: Facebook continues to emulate Twitter
Facebook made motions to buy Twitter, but the deal didn’t go through, Facebook can easily replicate the features, and has done so with text based updates that you can now receive on your mobile phone. This is an example of social colonization.

Research: Social Networks used by Marketers
This research, (I can’t vouch for the methodolgy) suggests that many marketers are using social networking tools, with a focus on Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs. Overall, these numbers look high, but it depends on how the questions were posed, and over what time period.

Hype: Twitter growth numbers misleading
Twitter is overhyped, and although they’ve received mainstream attention, it doesn’t account for true recurring users on a monthly or weekly basis. Visitors to the site don’t account for registrations –nor can it truly count for global and client based activity such as tweetdeck. The true Twitter usage numbers are allusive –although it’s clear, it has media attention.

App: When did you join Twitter?
For kicks: this little application tells you when you joined Twitter. It says I joined in Dec 2006, and at the time, I felt I was behind the early adopter curve.

Personal: On the road
This is the first time I’ve done a weekly update on me, let me know if you think I should continue this. I’ve been on the road for the last 5 out of 6 weeks, I got back at midnight last night from Forrester’s marketing forum in Orlando. While I find my work enjoyable, at the same time it’s exhausting. I do look forward to these quiet moments on the weekend where I can really think about where the industry is headed. It’s moving so incredibly fast, I find that aggregation, and a quiet hour every weekend is very important to do. On Monday, my report “future of the social web” launches. Stay tuned. Next week I go to IBM’s Impact event, then to Calgary to speak at the Web Strategy conference.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Video: Facebook Etiquette, Getting it Right

Categories: Social Networking, VideoPosted on April 25th, 2009

Make sure you do your Facebookin’ breakups right or you might get McCarthied. Enjoy this fun video.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: April 19, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on April 19th, 2009

digest3

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
This is only a sample of the news that happened last week. Without a doubt, this space is starting to move faster and faster, and it’s real struggle for me, an industry analyst, to keep up. Here’s what I think is important: things beyond the hype, deals, partnerships, movements of money, and potential for future growth.

Europe: Facebook trumps Hi5 and Bebo
Facebook Ranks as Top Social Networking Site in the Majority of European Countries. Facebook Captures #1 Ranking in Spain for the First Time in February, comScore, April

Partnership: Adobe and Gigya Partner to spread widget advertising
Adobe allows flash developers to extend advertisements to Gigya’s widget network using flash pro. This makes flash development easy to use and now social.

Security: Twitter compromised by hacker
Popular microblogging service Twitter was afflicted with a worm last weekend, causing the company to scramble to deal with it before the larger media attention mid week, and briefly resurfaced on Friday. Twitter must focus not only on making it’s site scalable (had major issues last year) but now must focus on making it safer through hardened security.

Growth: Ning hits 1 million communities
White label do it yourself social networking site Ning has reached a milestone, having hit 1 million individual social networks, or communities. Expect this trend to continue as we’ve seen an increase in ‘joiner’ behavior from year to year.

Amazon “Ham Fists” it’s adult books
A Twitter storm erupts, followed by blogs, then mainstream media as an apparent glitch by a ham fisted error caused the community to backlash. During the incident, it was hard to separate fact from fiction, but it became clear that from these news stories what really happened.

Spinout: StumbleUpon breaks free from eBay
I spoke with David Hornik, who’s on the board of Stumbleupon, who has now broken free from eBay. Expect to see some innovation occur now that the company is back in an open space environment. If they do this right, they could impact search as we know it.

Case Study: CPG $1.28 Million in Sales From $1 Million Social-Media Campaign
While not the highest possible margins you’d hope for in a social media campaign, this measurement reported by ad age shows that myspace worked with comscore and other agencies to measure a recent sales of a CPG effort. The study doesn’t indicate the positive word of mouth or other social residuals that may increase awareness, consideration, or brand preference.

Hype: Social noise as celebrities jump on Twitter
Of course, it shouldn’t go without mention that there’s quite a bit of noise within the social sphere beyond the AmazonFail incident, but the race to 1 million users by Ashton vs CNN. Ashton going on Oprah, her evangelizing the tool to her millions –and the continued growth we should expect from that. I have another blog post for that topic in a few.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: April 12, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on April 12th, 2009

digest3

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 used to publish these on Wednesday, but now I’m spending more quiet time on the weekend reflecting on this fast moving space, do you know of any other industries that have this much movement?

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
It’s interesting to watch the bridges being drawn between the different players moving into the social space, such as Webtrends partnering with Radian 6 to offer a social media offering to traditional web analytics customers. Secondly, there’s reports of growth in a variety of areas of Facebook, Twitter, and Chinese social networks. Finally, more mobile devices and deployments are occurring, as Sony’s latest phone comes pre-installed with Facebook, and SalesForce offers a mobile version.

Partnerships: Webtrends and Radian 6. Social monitoring meets web analytics
Webtrends is now offering the Radian 6 package in a co-branded solution. It makes sense for Webtrends to partner to quickly get out the door as brand managers are in current need to monitor the social web. I’ll be watching the other analytics players to see how they respond. Expect to see more partnerships between vendors in brand monitoring, web analytics, CRM, CMS as they connect with the social web.

Global: Chinese social networks get more traction –and revenue
Chinese developers have long since copied social networks like Facebook and MySpace, yet the twist is, their generating revenue from a far larger consumer base than the US. As a result, we’re seeing some interesting stories of successful apps and social networks (like Farming) emerge like QQ, 51, and Baidu.

Storage: Facebook creates storage ‘Haystack’ to manage photos
With more photos than even some dedicated photo websites, Facebook needs a way to quickly serve up photos, as a result they created ‘haystack’ which is 50% faster than traditional systems. Niall has a more detailed look at how this storage system works, the backend servers are powered by NetApp. (update: Niall points out that Haystack is designed to reduce reliance on NetApp servers)

Culture: Britney Spears trumps Obama –at least in Twitter
With the rise of celebrities joining Twitter, it’s interesting to note the original power geeks have had to share the spotlight with mainstream celebrities. Perhaps on a note of what the world really cares about, Britney Spears now has more followers than the non-tweeting Obama. The one to watch? Ashton is quickly moving up the ranks, with 800k followers.

Mobile: Facebook to come pre-installed on Sony Ericsson mobile devices
Sony’s C510 phone will come pre-installed with Facebook on it’s latest phones. What impacts could this bring? In the near future, people could dial their contacts from their Facebook address, or contact them through IP phones.

CRM: SalesForce goes mobile
I’ve my eye on CRMs as they get closer to the social web (or as Paul Greenberg would suggest, the other way around) as SalesForce launches a mobile version to allow sales, account, and support teams to support customers on the go. Imagine meeting someone in real life, and watch as they update their account on your interaction. “Firm handshake, check. Lack of eye contact, requires followup”

Revenues: Facebook financial breakdown
This Forbes article breaks down the cost per users, and advertising per user, and reflects on the overall financial viability of Facebook. BusinessWeek asks if Facebook’s future plan involves premium memberships, and Facebook continues to focus on advertising.

Stats: Twitter Growth and Demographics
While we already know that Twitter is quickly growing, it’s important to see by who. This Cnet article states that; “ComScore also reported this week that 10 percent of Twitter users are between 55 and 64. That’s the same percentage as are between 18 and 24. In fact, the majority of Twitter users are 35 or older. And here’s Reuters telling us that 18- to 24-year-olds are 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter.”

Stats: Facebook continues to grow
Facebook continues to to grow, and Inside Facebook suggests that in the last 2 months, US membership has doubled, with a spur in an older crowd of 35-44. I suspect that Gen Y and X is nearly saturated in US, thus we’re seeing other age groups grow.

Culture: Twitter used for nefarious purposes
Dangers of the internet? Do we blame the people or the tools? Apparently Twitter is being used for prostitution, police to crack down from this mobile social network and microblog.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: April 5, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on April 5th, 2009

digest3

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
This has been one busy week, between the many announcements stemming from Web 2.0 Expo, to the toll of the recession, there’s a lot to keep track of, here’s what matters: Twitter is starting to monetize through a few different trial directions, from working with Federated Media to do sponsored aggregation, advertising with Google, and in preliminary talks with Google that don’t prove to be much of anything. MySpace and Microsoft team up, also on a similar vein Facebook and Adobe. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to track everything that’s going on in this space, so if you see I missed anything, leave a comment.

Advertisements: Google and Twitter
Google offers Ads using Tweets, seem odd? Intuit is the first to take this on by: “…Intuit, whose TurboTax brand is trying to boost its Twitter followers. Intuit used several of the measures available for any AdSense campaign to target the ads, which are running on sites such as Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace and Alltop.” I guess it goes to show, if you can’t earn ‘em, buy ‘em.

Launch: MySpace runs after Yelp
This article states is succinctly that: “MySpace announced Tuesday that it is adding local business ratings tools to its social network. As with Yelp, MySpace users will soon be able to look up phone numbers and addresses for local restaurants and bars on the site and post comments about their customer experiences.”

Partnerships: Adobe and MySpace vs Facebook and MYSpace
Coincidental timing? Or competitive response? It’s hard to tell as Adobe offers Flash to Facebook. In rapid succession, MySpace partners with Microsoft to offer Silverlight, or is it the other way around? The MySpace website will also now be available on windows mobile. Either way, the web experiences for both containers will become richer.

Culture: Digital youth may feel overconnected
This study indicates there are difference classes of those who are connected, each with a different sentiment and ability to cope with the digital world. I know some colleagues that feel that their blackberry is actually a tether.

Partnership: Federated Media and Twitter Team Up
In addition to the ExecTweets campaign, which aggregates executive tweets with Microsoft sponsor, FM and Twitter have teamed up to offer a campaign around March Madness with AT&T.

Targeting: Researches can determine who anonymous members are
Do you have an anonymous twitter account? These researchers can get a general sense of who you are based on your friends, and cross-comparing it to other social networks. Add in behavioral analysis, and this could start to get targeted.

Challenges: Mainstream Media Doesn’t Care about Twitter Tantrums
This interesting AdAge article suggests that mainstream users aren’t aware –nor care — about social media brand backlashes like Motrin moms. The next question is to ask “do these edgelings influence the mainstream?”

Viewpoint: CMS vs Community vs LMS
Clark Quinn compares the product direction of LMS systems, CMS systems and Community Platform systems and discusses how each approach is different. Decoupled vs coupled, or distributed or centralized? Clark then poses some questions on which direction you think these vendors should head.

Degree: Social media taught at University
Community, conversations, and sharing of ideas aren’t just within the corporate world, they’re now spreading to academia, take for example, this college which are offering classes –and degrees.

Strategy: Facebook Analysis
Ravit writes an excellent strategy breakdown of Facebook, and gives some very practical advice to Facebook, the top three tips include: Start thinking like the large company you are becoming, Choose an identity and stick with it, finally, Listen to your users

Layoffs: Hi5 Reduces Staff
This fast growing network doesn’t appear to be trending well. Despite their rapid growth that we’ve outlined in previous digests, they’ve not been able to monetize this traffic, with the change in the economic weather, they’re now dealing with downsizing.

Digg launches DiggBar
This portable bar is an ‘overlay’ to visiting other websites (sure a simple frame) but when you add social features to it, the Digg army travels with you as you surf the web.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Social Network Humor: Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook

Categories: Social Networking, VideoPosted on March 28th, 2009

I grew up on watching Three’s Company the San Diego sitcom, and got a real kick out of this funny video. For some reason, Friendster reminds me of one of my college roommates. Caution, this is one of those videos that you may want to watch at home as it has some borderline adult humor, may not be safe for work. Buy hey, since it’s Saturday, that shouldn’t be a problem, right? If you like this video, I’ve been collecting them and tagging them here.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 26, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 26th, 2009

digest3

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 undergoes user revolt for latest redesign, although they trump most other social networks for usage. Expect to see more integration between social networks and traditional media sites like Twitter and BusinessWeek. Earlier this week, Twitter announced API integration with SalesForce –notice the connective tentacles from social networks spreading everywhere. This is a race to see who can spread the fastest.

Feedback: Facebook community not happy about latest changes
Communities always overtake the brand, and even in this case, Facebook’s redesign is getting some fire from many members, and Facebook may make some changes to meet the community concerns. Ben Parr from Mashable suggests Facebook should stay the course. I suggest next time, that the redesign have a bit more community testing and acceptance before making dramatic changes.

Usage: Facebook is for your Mom and Dad
Apparently so, since the “older” generation of “Women over 55 remain the fastest growing group, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds.” says Wired

Deal: Twitter integrates with SalesForce
SalesForce CRM can now show simple displays of twitter conversations and discussions within it’s interface. This is the first step in many where social networks and communities become the first step in CRM. My take here.

Privacy: UK government discusses monitoring social networks
Fueled by the thought that terrorist discussions could be within social networks, the Guardian suggests that social networks like Facebook and MySpace could ‘hold information’ and perhaps make it accessible to authorities.

Spending: Social media marketing funding to increase
This data is from eMarketer, that indicates that most marketers are going to increase their social media spend, and only a few (3%) will decrease. These findings are related to the report we just published on the same topic.

Integration: BusinessWeek syncs Twitter Comments
One of the first media companies to integrate twitter comments is now BusinessWeek –which allows users to provide feedback and responses about articles from Twitter which will be aggregated on BW.

Transparency: Questions over transparency over Yelp –and other SNS
Yelp under continued scrutiny over how it’s treating restaurants and small businesses. There’s been increased criticism against this company as the community asserts control over restaurants, this quote sums it up best: “Yet as the site grows, some of the businesses scrutinized on Yelp are turning the tables and griping about the company itself.”

Best Practices: Online Moderation
This moderation professional is sharing a great deal of expertise, swing over to Mike’s blog.

Money: Tencent grows and grows
Tencent, a fast growing social network in China is generating revenues based off virtual goods. Their reporting healthy revenues at 70.5 percent or $719.1 million, a 95.5 increase over 2007.

Data: Social networks trump email
Social networks more popular than email says this report from Nielsen and covered by Cnet, and further goes on to show that member communities are more popular than email. Data from eMarketer via Cnet

Usage: Twtiter fastest growing soical network
Twitter’s growth up by says Nielsen sporting: “Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009,”

Irony: Government employees disocuraged to use social networks
Although these employees are encouraged to use social networks, they find it ironic they’re discouraged not to use these same tools.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 18, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 18th, 2009

digest3

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
There were several announcements at SXSW, primarily highlighting new apps, and connectivity between the iPhone and Facebook. Simple ads appear on Twitter, and security pros are ever concerned about social networks as they connect to each other.

SXSW launches: Facebook, Tweetdeck
Facebook made a series of announcements extending Facebook connect with the iPhone, and there are several other announcements from this Techcrunch roster. Tweetdeck allows users to publish to both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. Best Buy launched an API that extends their corporate website, my thoughts.

Advertising: ‘House’ Ads on Twitter spotted
This screenshot shows some “house” ads (promoting the features and fuctions) on Twitter’s right hand column, this could be a potential placement for other types of ads.

Security: Social Networks post Threats
This interesting article suggests that as social networks continue to share data across multiple platforms that security risks are likely to be exposed. For example, information that you share cross network could be seen by friends that are connected to competitors –causing potential leakages. Expect more risks to surface as the social web continues to proliferate.

Best Practices: Streamlining Community
Social media scientists will appreciate the heavy recommendations in this article, which suggests the following: User anonymity should be forced, Barriers to participation should be as low as possible, Moderation should not focus on users or on comments in isolation, but on the relational quality of comments. Read more in attacked from within

Fandom: Coke’s Unexpected Facebook Community
Adage highlights the Coke community within Facebook that has grown –yet it’s not from it’s own marketing team, but instead from fans.

Deals: Pluck wins Batanga
Integrating with it’s Sitelife product, Pluck powers the Batanga Latin music portal and claims to have 38% increase in registrations since the deployment.

Strategy: MySpace continues to focus on hypertargeting
In this article based on interview with MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe, MySpace is critiqued for having slower growth yet maintains a large community. They plan to focus on hypertargetted ads which are customized to users.

Redesign: Facebook’s redesign leaves some wanting
Facebook’s redesign last week has indicated how the web is moving real time, however with every change comes drawbacks, RWW suggests that the profile pages are limited, access with twitter, and confusion between pages and profiles. Ugh, now I need to take a closer look to make sure I can tell the difference.

OpenStack: Twitter now oAuth compliant
Twitter has now announced compliance with oAuth, which will allow third party developers to access the data–without exposing your personal info and login info. Ya’ know all those twitter clients that require you to fully login with your user name and password? Now it could authenticate, keeping your password just to yourself.

Data: Twitter growth, small, but quickly growing
Comscore data shows that “In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.”

Culture: Cell Phones Cameras + Teens = “Sexting”
A recent trend among teens is apparently to share photos of themselves in suggestive and inappropriate situations. This has led some contributors and receivers to be considered to be participating in illegal activities.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 11, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 11th, 2009

digest3

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 launches redesign, indicates that the web is moving faster to real time with Twitter-like features. Social Networks grow in online activity, it’s becoming a mainstream activity. Jive made a lot of noise with their new product launch (Social Business Software) yet the market needs to see the product –beyond vapor.

Redesign: Facebook becomes more real time
Facebook does a redesign (read the pronouncement), and makes it real time, you can see a variety of screenshots, all showing the real-time life streaming features. They are clearly watching what Friendfeed and Twitter are doing.

Usage: Social Networks 4th most popular online activity.
Nielsen Online shows that: Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity ahead of personal email, Member communities are visited by 67% of the global online population, time spent is growing at 3 times the overall internet rate, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, PDF, Nielsen Online, March

Launch: Jive attempts to redefine a category, yet where’s the product?
Jive has launched a new major version of their platform called Social Business Software (SBS) software which is intending to redefine this space as a new category for enterprise software. Will they succeed? It depends if customers are ready to adopt this phrasing –I’ll be watching. I want to get a product demo –beyond slides then I’ll blog some of my findings. Update: Scoble has a video interview with Dave the CEO, see part 1 and part 2. First video focuses on the famed tattoo.

Economy: Social Networks help cash strapped firms and brands
Forbes indicates that companies, marketers and PR professionals that want their money to go the distance are looking at social networks.

Ads: Social Networks should couple with Oscars
Interesting thought piece by CEO of Nielsen Online who suggests that social network adoption goes mainstream –esp during Oscars, giving advertising opportunities for brands. I say don’t limit this to just the Oscars, but look at other large TV events.

Identity: MySpace rolls out MySpace ID
Similar to other identity systems, this allows third party sites to access a MySpace users information and network contacts. Critics suggest that it’s too complicated and doesn’t support SSO. Why don’t they use OpenID?

Revenue: Tencent’s Monetization a Model
This interesting post suggests that China’s IM social network Tencent be a model that Facebook and MySpace copy. The stats? “TenCent was founded in 1998, has 355 million users, US$1.2B in annual revenues, and a US$11.2B market capitalization.” The challenge is that social networks act differently depending on each culture, deployment and features. Sure figure out what worked, but don’t expect it to work the same in Western markets.

Deployment: HiveLive
Thoughtworks launchess community powered by Hivelive, which is intended to be a customer focused community.

Opportunities for Twitter
Twitter has a few business opportunities, and this Business Week article shows that some of the opportunities include rich data about what people think and prefer –including celebrities.

Social CRM: Neighborhood America buddies with Microsoft
Although I’ve not seen what they are working on, they’re indicating that they’re going to connect with Microsoft’s Dynamic CRM, this is a trend, as we know that Leverage Software comes pre-integrated with SalesForce CRM. Expect to see more of this in the upcoming months.

I’m listening: 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 4, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 4th, 2009

digest3

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
The big trends? Facebook recoils from PR nightmare over terms of service and goes democratic style “let the people decide”. Social network adoption continues to increase with tools like LinkedIn, Congress, and takes the mainstream media as it gets overhyped. Several minor announcements from vendors, with more studies being done on how people actually interact with each other in these social tools.

Privacy: Facebook asks for Communtiy Feedback for ToS
Mark composes this well crafted PR blog post asking for community feedback on the next Terms of Service, that stirred a community revolt a few weeks ago. The question is, why didn’t they just do this in the first place? You can start to see some of the sample ToS that venturebeat is highlighting.

Usage: LinkedIn usage up, even during recession
Unsure about what goes up when everything else goes down? LinkedIn is in the midst of a growth opportunity, as well as other social networks as usage goes up from those that have more time –and need to connect to each other.

Adoption: Twitter takes Washington DC by Storm
AFP news reports that more political folks are now on twitter, and are tweeting live from congress and meetings.

Data: How people interact with Twitter
Twitter, a social network with microblogging features provides users the ability to rapidly exchange information. See how the breakdown of tools is used, most are using the web browser, and a few clients.

Data: Why Facebook Dominates MySpace
Compare the dominant Facebook vs MySpace traffic, stickablilty, and engagement, in this report from Compete which shows a few tipping points at the end of 2008.

Headcount: Changes in MySpace Exec Board
Related to the above: It appears that three executives are leaving MySpace, reportedly to start a new company. When you have this many leaders leaving at the same time, there was either a cleaning of the house by the board, or a revolt against upper management. Either way, MySpace must innovate to keep up with growing Facebook.

Usage: Facebook users only interact with a few
Despite those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across those that do not interact. On a similar thread, primates appear to be prone to grooming.

Launch: Radian 6 releases new features
Socila media management company Radian 6 launches alert features, management features to tag information, and route ‘tickets’ to different team members could help brands manage their online reputation.

Culture: When ‘friending’ celebrities becomes in style
This interesting WSJ article tells Jeff Shapiro’s story of how he befriended (virtually that is) a few celebrities which quickly launched him into the inner circle of friending other celebrities.

Twitter: Brands jump on the Twitter wagon
The twitter wagon is getting more brands on board, the barriers to entry are low, there’s media hype, that results in these top brands to follow on Twitter and why.

M&A: Why the Twitter and Facebook deal fell through
BusinessWeek digs into why Twitter walked away from Facebook’s offer for acquisition, the quick: Uncertain valuation made the equity trade a risky bet for Twitter, that was already gaining traction.

Future of Social Networks
Fred Wilsons vision of the future of the social web, showcases some key attributes that entrepreneurs, investors, and others must know.

Expansion: UserVoice shoots for global
This young startup provides ‘embracing’ software for companies and employees to submit ideas. They are now expanding with global reach by launching in different languages. I’d like to see them partner with Yammer to bring in-house innovation to companies.

Humor: Comedian Jon Stewart Tweets
This silly video pokes fun at Twitter –now we know it’s going mainstream

Humor: Stats about Social Networks that ought to be true
Gotta give credit to the brainz folks for coming up with this silly –yet sad– truth about the citizens of social networks.

I’m listening: 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Feb 26, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on February 26th, 2009

digest3

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
This has been one of the busiest weeks to date, so the need for this digest is great. A trend to launch lifestreaming features is taking off, also Facebook extends it’s reach by connecting to commenting systems –expect that to grow even further. Community platform vendors launch education suites and listening tools, and companies like Sharethis that are collecting data have a platform opportunity.

Trends: AOL launches lifestream product
We’re seeing more and more lifestreams appear out of products, as indivudals publish on disparate systems, the need to aggregate in one place becomes important for both personal and brands. AOL launches their own lifestream product, emulating what others before them have done.

Trend: CIOs seeing opportunities of social network
This ZDnet article suggests that CIOs and IT directors are coming around to the benefits of social networks based on a recent panel that had with practitioners.

Launch: Mzinga launches Learning Suite
This Learning Suite is intended to make corporate training socialized by encouraging students to learn with and from peers. With this launch, they’ll extend to different buyers within the enterprise, from sales to HR, but may still have to deal with IT stakeholders.

Launch: Lithium launches measurement suite
I’ve given my thoughts on the product here, this product is a next generation community gauging tool that can help brands identify troublespots as well as receive automated and human recommendations.

Strategy: ShareThis has data, seeks to be platform
Data collection is powerful, but when you are able to make sense of it, it can be monetized to those who want to reach influencers. Sharethis, a popular sharing embed is now expanding their reach and aiming to be a data platform, they know who shares what and how.

Deployment: Facebook connect deploys in comments boxes
Pretty simple deployment, you can now leave comments on blogs that have connected with Facebook, expect more and more of this to happen.

Viewpoint: Google’s view on social network and open stack
Google’s Kevin Marks does a guest post on Techcrunch (it’s not really an interview right?) that discuses Google’s view on the open stack and connective tissues.

Revenue: Facebook and Apps ecosystem grapples with monetization
Adweek stirs the importance of the ecoystem of an application tax that may go into effect in order for Facebook to monetize and drive revenues. There’s been critical eyes cast (myself included) about using advertising on their network to generate revenues. Here’s some options to monetize web apps –and a breakdown of what’s popular.

Culture: Social networks harm children’s development and your health
Interesting research that indicates that social networks teaches children to be too focused on just about nothing. With this reduced attention span and immediate gratification, this causes concern for children who are not learning from the ‘real ‘world. Oh it’s also not good for your health, time to go to the gym?

Elitism? Twitter suggest causes an uproar
LA Times captures the essence: “Some high-profile Twitter accounts have been seeing astronomical jumps in the number of users subscribing to their profile updates — tens of thousands of new followers, in some cases.” many who are not on the list, are well, jealous.

Awards: Social Networking awards by Codie
Who won this category for Best Social Networking Solution the Codie Awards? Dow Jones g2, Dow Jones Business & Relationship Intelligence, Lithium Technologies, Mzinga, Neighborhood America, Inc, RM Honeycomb, RM Educational Software, SchoolNet, Inc. congrats (Update: these are finalists, not winners)

Advertising: Shift to social engagement ads
SFGate suggests that the next evolution in advertisements will pivot around social networks and communities. The challenge is, we’ve yet to see true numbers on click through rates to prove. I wrote a report on engagement ads, do read if you’ve access.

Campaign: Ford reaches for Social Networks for campaign
Pitching it’s cost effective Festiva car, Ford launches the campaign page calling individuals to create a video to explain why they want this car.

Deployment: Innovis launches social network
I meet with a lot of brands that are deploying their own social network, and as a result, we see deployments for every type of vertical, in this case, Innovis launches one for vendors and suppliers.

Privacy: Facebook withdraws Terms of Service
After the dustup last week with Facebook’s change in terms of service, they’ve now retracted, the third time making a mistake when it comes to privacy. Tip: ask first, then act human.

Ethics: Yelp under fire for extortion
Growing social network that allows customers to review restaurants (it’s a decision maker for patrons here in the bay area) is under fire for being accused of being an extortion racket to small businesses. Article suggests that some restaurant owners are offered to remove negative reviews for a few hundred dollars a month.

Hurmous Self-Assesment: What type of Facebook friend are you?
Go on, be honest, what kind of friend are you? I’ll be honest, I’m an exhibitionist.

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.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Feb 18, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on February 18th, 2009

digest3

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
Twitter raises a very large round of funding, potentially enough to last the economic drought for their small company. LinkedIn and Facebook demonstrate they continue to grow –especially in a recession. More individuals are worried by Facebook’s new Terms of service, which the CEO has responded to.

Funding: Twitter raises $35mm –without generating any revenue
Raising money in a recession is always tricky, valuations fluctuate, and business models do too. Twitter raised a cool $35mm (one of the largest rounds since the recession was announced in Oct 08), despite not generating any revenue. Their hype, buzz, and accelerated growth (albiet a small community of estimated of around 5mm from some news sources) leave many wondering if they will generate revenue from brands.

Recession: Linkedin continues to grow during a recession
The social networking industry has opportunity during economic downturns, perhaps this is due to people having more time to after being laid off, those want to connect and find new opportunities, or the natural instinct in many social animals to find safety in numbers. Comscore data shows an increase in total unique views since the recession was announced in Sept. Do see this report from Pingdom that indicates that Twitter and LinkedIn’s network availability may be changing.

Stats: Facebook continues to grow
Now reported to have 175mm users with 600k new users everyday this social newtork continues to grow. Already saturated with you, now the fastest growing demographic is “Women over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days. Facebook growing faster with women than men in almost every age group.”

Feature: MySpace to index and search images
MySpace has confirmed that it recently went live, and indexes around 3 billion of the site’s 7 billion photo according to coverage by Techcrunch. This feature will allow people to quickly find related content, and could help with contextual advertising.

Security: Dangers of Social Networks
Recent PCWorld article discusses with so many people in one location the dangers of a social network being hacked and exposing a great degree of personal information in one place. Given users don’t’ pay for a contract, nor terms of service, this is a liability most don’t foresee.

Privacy: Facebook’ Terms of Service Scare
More than a few folks are concerned about private and personal data, but when articles that suggest that Facebook’s terms of service mean they can do anything they want at anytime, (like forever) it starts to scare on folks, do read Mark Z’s response.

Ning continues to grow, despite porn removal
A few months ago, Ning made a bold announcement to remove all adult content from their network, despite this gash in content inventory, they still continue to grow, Techcrunch cites Comscore data

Usage: Surge in Europe, acceleration in France
Comscore reports that social networking in Europe is up, with France having a 45% year of growth. Key finding: “Of the 282.7 million European Internet users age 15 and older who went online via a home or work computer in December 2008, 211 million visited a social networking site – representing a penetration of 74.6 percent”

Culture: Facebook is for the old?
Time Magazine gives some pretty silly –and somewhat true reasons why Facebook is for old folks, funny thing is, my parents nor my grandma is on it …yet.

Culture: Hackers take aim at celebrity accounts
Apparently, Miley Cyrus, who plays Hannah Montana, knows how to write a lot better than her hackers led on. This is the second case we’ve heard of Twitter being ‘hacked’ in a few months.

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.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Feb 14, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on February 14th, 2009

digest3

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 adopts OpenID, and makes more of their API available to developers shows a new leaf as the largest platform by registered users opens up –this should spur growth even further. MySpace, likely in reaction to all the Facebook clamor, and touts it’s engagement numbers and Hi5 aims after gaming, an activity ripe for a recession.

Data: Facebook adopts OpenID
The biggest news of the past days is Facebook’s adoption of OpenID, which will mean that universal logins will be available to users, and eventually sharing of data, portable information to pass around the social web is also amplified as they’ve announced that APIs are available to impact Status, Notes, Links, and Video to Facebook Platform

Engagement: MySpace touts user interaction
Perhaps in a punch back to Facebook’s total user claims, MySpace ignites a PR campaign and touts that it’s user engagement is high: “The average MySpace user now spends 266 minutes (4.4 hours) on the site every month; a 5% increase over last month and a +31% increase year over year. MySpace says its users spend nearly 100 minutes more per visitor than the closest competitor. ”

Launch: Hi5 launches games
Hi5, which has a high growth rate, is now introducing gaming to it’s social network platform, which are not only popular during normal growth but could skyrocket during a recession. There are sponsorship opportunities and advertising opportunities for brands that want to get into this space.

Best Practices: Craig Newmark on the secrets of Community
RWW distills how Craig’s list built their online community: Recognize the Importance of a Feedback Loop, Get out of the Way, and Understand we live in a culture of participation.

Stats: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr
This image, which I don’t have much background on, gives some data on some of the social networks. Also see these stats from Compete, collected by CNET

Culture: Don’t get Facebook?
While 150mm clammer on Facebook actively, some still aren’t sure of it’s purpose, and that’s ok. Read how some do get it, and even those that don’t may still be addicted. Others question if it can continue, despite being 5 years old.

Culture: Suicide on MySpace prevented
An odd, but ever so real story how those on MySpace were able to prevent another from committing suicide. Expect more stories like this to increase during the year.

2009 Social Networking Stats continues to grow
My not so secret collection continues to grow, read it, submit to it, and book mark it. Read Social Networking Stats for 2009.

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.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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