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

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

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

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

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

All Social Networks

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

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

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

Bebo

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

Facebook

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

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

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

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

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn demographics presentation from Aug, 2008, Erick of Techcrunch

MySpace

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

Reunion

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

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

Second LIfe

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

Twitter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lessons Learned

Always test your campaign with a small segment first

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

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

The participants have the power, so participate

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

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

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

#1 Fred

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

#2 Nigahiga

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

#3 Smosh

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

#4 Universal Music Group

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

#5 Jonas Brothers Music

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

#34 Barack Obama’s YouTube Channel

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing your Career: Do at GUT Check:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Susan Etlinger, our host and panel mate gives her thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos from last night’s event:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case Study: Nike’s social networking efforts grow
Great example of how a brand can reach a ‘lifestyle’ of runners using compatible products (iPods) and social networks as well as their running gear to reach a market.

Culture: Why Italians may not want your social software
Interesting lifestyle perspective shows how some Italians may prefer face to face networking over an online tools. Culture, for sure, plays into technology adoption.

World: Map shows “top” social networks by country
Although they’re only getting data from Alexa (questionable at best) this map shows the top social networks by country. Keep in mind, there’s a million ways to cut data, this is only on of many ways to do this.

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

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

I took the day off from work yesterday, and did some sight seeing of the Rockies (thanks to long term friend Kit who was one of the organizers of the Thin Air Summit) and had an opportunity to meet the large tech community at the “Tea House” in Boulder. I quickly learned that the tech scene is active, there’s many startups, events, and a VC community (including this incubator program called TechStars) that helps spur this eco system forward. What makes it attractive? The opportunity to be exposed to the great outdoors, the clean (yet expensive) Boulder area, great food, and healthy lifestyle.

Being in Silicon Valley, we’re so centrist in our thinking and don’t get enough exposure to the other tech communities around the country and globe (although I’m trying hard to meet each community) as a result we haven’t heard that much about Colorado’s tech corridor.

I observed that the entrepreneurial spirit runs high in Colorado, many folks want to strike it out on their own (I wonder if this is tied back to the silver rush and early settlers) vs many in Silicon Valley may prefer to join startups and exit rather than building their own sole-propertiership. The environment was warm and people shared –even with risk of sharing competitive information.

Despite the warmth of this community that’s nestled between the Rocky mountains and the great plains, they’re very insular and don’t share their story to the rest of the world. I’ve visited countries where they actually have government sponsored outreach programs just to tell their story in order to attract buyers, partners, and employees –Colorado could really benefit by not only focusing inward, but being a bit more extroverted and sharing their story with others.

Well, if anyone in Colorado was hoping to keep their ecosystem a secret –too late now, I just told my community.

Above, I interviewed Kit Seeborg and was joined by Jason and James both of Room 214, a local pure play social media agency.

The list of startups we were throwing out were just a small sample, I crowdsourced the list through Twitter, if you know of other startups, tweet the name and tag it #costartup. See the growing list of tech startups in Colorado in this twitter search result.

If you attended the Tweetup yesterday, leave a comment with your handle.

Left: I met much of the founding team of Demand Media last week in SF at the Web 2.0 expo.

A few days ago, I had lunch with Richard Rosenblat, CEO of 2.5 year old Demand Media (who recently purchased Pluck) to learn about his unique business model which sits in between self-publishing and mainstream media. This company has been pretty tight lipped but after Richard’s presentation at Web 2.0 Expo and an interview with Kara Swisher, he was interested in briefing an analyst. If you’re familiar with the long tail concept you’d be aware of the large head, long tail –and fat neck. Overused metaphors, but visually it helps to explain this concept.

1) Enterprise Generated Media
Mainstream media publishing existing content (TV, Newspaper, Magazine) or spending quite a bit of resources or high quality created content like Funny or Die. This content is easy to spot, it’s highly refined, quality is often high, and is expensive to create.
Content: Refined
Cost: Expensive
Model: Broadcast, Large Head

2) Consumer Generated media
The second model is everyone who is self-publishing from their own blogs, websites, podcasts and videos, they’ll often create their own content, find advertising revenue opportunities and may band together forming blog networks like B5, Glam, BlogHer, and Federated Media.
Content: Varies, but can be low
Cost: Inexpensive
Model: Social, Long Tail

3) Curated Social Content (CSC)
This model is unique as it scoops up the best of CGM and serves it up to EGM sites who need it. Here’s how Demand Media is doing it:

1) SCC company finds EGM “passion verticals” where there’s a strong desire for content –but they don’t have resources to create it all. For example: Lance Armstrong wants to launch a health site.

2) The CSC company issues a request for consumer experts to write articles, they get paid (Richard of Demand Media told me it often starts at $15) in which they buy and own the content. For Example: Demand asks Health experts to submit articles, a team of editors will determine which article will get paid.

3) Content is posted on the EGM site and attracts visitors, as well as boost SEO. Advertising generates revenue. For Example: Lance’s health site will have a regular influx of new content from industry experts, content hungry people will visit the site, and then interact

4) Both parties have revenue share from advertisements and the CSC company, like Demand Media, takes a cut. For example: Lance’s health site will generate clicks through advertisements (or other revenue opportunities) as new members are attracted to the site.

Impacts to mainstream media sites: In times of economic downturn this could be a model that purchases media on demand for a large base of creators, content that is often customized. This could reduce the full-time staff at a publishing company. The upside is the increased content created by the crowd, yet reducing the risk of unqualified content. The risk? Media companies still need a strategy, editorial guidance and need to ensure quality and consistent content is provided to the site.

Impacts to content creators: If you’re an expert at a topic and already blog about a topic, now there’s an opportunity to get compensated for it. This plays to the future of ‘everyone can be a freelancer’ using the distributed web. The risk? While your content will now be featured on mainstream sites, the content is now legally owned by Demand Media, you don’t have direct ownership of the content. Also, not everyone will be able to be a publisher, as you have to demonstrate expertise in your arena. This seems competitive to companies like Wikia, Mahalo, and other curated website content, as well as blog networks I mentioned earlier like B5, Federated Media, and others.

Talk Back:

Is this a viable content strategy for mainstream media companies?

Will community experts embrace this way of monetizing their knowledge?

During an economic downturn will this be a cost effective way for both publisher and creator to generate revenues?

I’m sitting here at the Thin Air Summit in Denver, anyone who is here on a Saturday is very serious about social media –I guess I fit the bill. I don’t know that much about SEO when it comes to social media, so I’m going to blog some of the key findings.

Moderator: Micah Baldwin
Panelists: Brett Borders, Elizabeth Yarnell, John Fischer

Think beyond keywords and be actionable
Bad: “Elizabeth Yarnell, Author” instead use the title bar to put in keywords about your product, you’ll have better search results.
Better: “Learn to cook fast meals with Elizabeth Yarnell”, notice the call to action.

Existing social media sites score high
She suggests that social media sites (like flickr, myspace, blogger) already get lots of traffic, and page rank, and will increase your SEO ranking.

Social Media is about the abundance theory
It’s about giving away what you know and to share with others, in return they will come back to you.

Learn the keyword search tools on the internet, such as keyword tracker, google tracker, word tracker. Many are free, some are expensive.

Create video to dominate universal search results
Since Google launched ‘universal search’ (showing images, video, beyond just text) these are opportunities to score well on your search results. Create content in multiple mediums that all support your marketing effort. A snapshot of the video will show up on the universal search results.

Free Google Adwords
How to do free google adwords? Have you blog post create similar content pointing to the video, then submit to digg. It can ’sometimes’ provide Google ads. (I really don’t get this)

Ego Searches influence your SERP –but not everyone else’s
If you do lots of ego searches for your own domains, Brett suggests that personalized search will actually cause your results to show higher –but that’s just what you see, not everyone else. You can go to your web history tools and have your history cleared which will prevent this from happening.

Persona Blogging (flogging)
Create a branded human character, as a facade, and ‘uplift’ the community, then link to your site every 25 times. There are agencies that are doing this. The risks? like the Edelman fiasco can get the ill will of your community and can result in brand backlash. These tactics will be found out in a few years.

Make Friends –make links
Create profiles in social networks such as tribe, then make a lot of friends which will send traffic back to your profile –which links to your website.

Follow folks on Twitter
A discussion talking about an automated way to gain followers on twitter, despite the limit of 2000, you can remove them then add more. These get more followers then you can spam them with tweets.

Link Tuning –and tone down adsl
Suggests that webmasters tune their page so not important pages have a ‘no-follow’ so Google doesn’t index it. Also he suggests that new blogs not be adsense heavy so it doesn’t look so commercial.

Focus on business goals –not your personal name
After reviewing one of the attendee’s website suggested that her website content/titles focus on her business goals, not her given name. People will search on her business, not her name

Show off your media
On your blog, make it obvious and promote your social media content: youtube, flickr, ustream, seesmic, perhaps use a friendfeed widget, so readers know who you are.

Understand the difference between long and short term SEO strategies
There’s a long term and short term strategy. While there’s a lot of things you can do in the short term to generate traffic, it can result in you getting banned in the long term. The short term low value may build up long term value.

Be pervasive with a sticky post
Suggests creating a ’sticky post’ that stays at the top of a blog and lists all the important information regardless of what you’ve posted recently. I think a header or footer could also help accomplish this

The end suggestions were to be passionate about whatever you’re doing, it will help you to be relevant in the long term.

Although I’ve been traveling all about speaking to different companies and business conferences, it’s been some time since I’ve gone to conferences in my core passion area of social media and web 2.0. Although I was only able to attend the third of three days, Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Summit really gave a good show in the most literal meaning. The 3k ticket price brought forth amazing speakers from Mark Zuckerberg, Arianna Huffington, Jerry Yang, Lance Armstrong, Issac Mao, Marc Benioff, Kevin Rose, and an inspirational keynote by Al Gore.

Unlike previous Web 2.0 events the theme was very clear to me, these social tools are now impacting so much more than the tech blogger circle jerk that we all tire of. With our future President launching a blog on Wednesday, Lance Armstrong discussing politics, ego and the web, and Al Gore on stage discussing how energy and global crises can help be solved from collaborative means.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been at a tech conference where we didn’t fondle the hammer and actually focused on building the house. Actually choosing an objective to apply these tools to much bigger problems: cancer, health, politics, global warming, energy crises, and connecting the world.

In an earlier panel we saw the bumping of elbows between Google, Microsoft, MySpace and Facebook each pitting themselves against each other in this cage match panel, yet it was more inspiring to hear in Al Gore’s closing keynote, he talked about having a purpose to using these tools to impact something far bigger than ever before.

Top Three Answers of Industry Analysts:

1) It depends.

2) On one hand… on the other hand…

3) It’s complicated, fortunately I wrote a report about it.

No, we didn’t get any training to answer this way, it comes with experience, heh.

You gotta laugh at yourself once in a while, and enjoy the journey, I’m in self-analysis mode right now. Why? I don’t do everything right in fact, I’ve made a few mistakes in front of clients, one very recently, and I need to check myself, sometimes it stings, but I have to remember to fail fast.

Today I’m headed to the office for some early morning meetings, then up to the Web 2.0 Summit, where I’ll be meeting some vendors, and hear Al Gore speak. Tomorrow at 6am I fly out to Colorado to keynote the Thin Air Summit.

So, what are the other 4+ answers you frequently hear from analysts? Have fun with this one, tgif.

“A social network researcher says you can expect Barack Obama to win the election. Analyzing the candidates social networking pages, Jermiah Owyang found Obama has more supporters than John McCain.

According to Ownyang’s research, Obama almost 4 times the number of supporters on facebook.com & myspace.com.

Ownyang cites two reasons for the difference. “[The] Obama campaign moved quicker to social networking and social media, McCain only recently launched his own social network with KickApps.”

He also says Obama supporters are also much more likely to use social networking sites.”

As much as I would love to be a political analyst, I cannot take credit for predicting the election results, so the first sentence isn’t quite accurate. There’s likely a correlation between social network activity, but it’s certainly not a causation of the win happening –nor can it be an accurate indicator of political outcomes as the sample size doesn’t take into account the average voter. Furthermore. it’s amazing my name was incorrectly spelled, not once –but twice.

In the true spirit of the crowd, the commenters in the article actually self-correct, a trend we often see on blog posts. Perhaps a future social mechanism could be developed that let’s them edit (or suggest edits) to keep the article accurate and helpful.

I just learned that Obama and Biden have launched this website called change.gov that transparently puts forth agenda items, a blog introducing latest videos, as well as a web form to submit your American ideas. The site is more one way in communication –there’s not a lot of places to leave your own comments– but based upon the promises he’s made for collaborative technology, we could expect a “Digg” like feature to emerge at some point, the challenge will be managing logins, detractors, and identity issues. Of course, any website of this caliber that offers an online dialog is going to be overloaded with comments, perhaps some type of way to login with a unique ID will appear.

The ideas that are submitted (citizen visions) will likely enter a database, filtering out patterns will be quite the task for the web management team. So there are still quite a few challenges this site is going to have, it may not be two way communication in a way that we’re used to for some time but it’s a start, and a dang good one. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager (as I learned from Eric) apparently is one that is spearheading some of these efforts.

I certainly hope the Obama administration applies for next year’s Groundswell awards , they’d be a fantastic case study of how institutions are embracing social technologies to connect with people. It’s really hard for anyone to be a nay-sayers about the adoption of these tools now, if the big ol’ government can start to connect with people, corporations can too.

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
Data shows that one third of brands have a presence on social networks sites, Ill bet if I applied my scorecard, most are doing it wrong. Despite this increase in marketer adoption, ad rates have dropped in third quarter. Watch how some startups are received large amounts of funding, like LinkedIn last week, to RockYou this week, a great time to grow the business is when other boats are leaking.

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Data: 1/3rd of Brands have a presence on Social Sites
Although Facebook needs to step up how they interact with brands, 1/3 of them have a presence on the popular social network according to eMarketer. MySpace and YouTube quickly follow suit. Adam Cohen of Rosetta was quoted –I met him last week.

Data: Ad Rates drop in Social Networks
This chart (Rubison), which shows more than social networks, indicates that the cost of CPMs for social networks has gone down 3% quarter per quarter. Other niche segments hit worse, yet tv, technology, and particularly news go up.

Funding: RockYou aims for Asia, raises $17mm
Using Asian investors, Widget maker Rockyou plans to expands to Asia by raising funds then growing into Asian markets –great for mobile.

Policy: Management should have process for employees on social networks
Seems more like a brain dead ‘duh’ but management should have policy for how people communicate in this world where life and work collide both at the office –and at home.

Growth: Facebook growth spurt may require more finance
Excellent analysis from Techcrunch on the growth of Facebook, showing some of the costs and indicators of revenue not meeting expenses. As a result, it’s suggesting financing may be needed for further it along.

Study: Social Networking may help in workplace
This 90+ page document suggests that social networking in the workplace may give some cultures an edge up from others.

Open: Facebook Connect to gain adoption
RWW discusses how FB Connect to gain adoption in coming time, we know Barack Obama’s site is already compliant.

Advertising: MySpace + MTV partner in contextual ads
Perhaps more than just contextual, these ads are aware and trigger information about the show on MySpace, extending the shows effort to cross medium: “For example: an “attribution ad” for Comedy Central talk show The Colbert Report could include information about when the program is broadcast on-air.”

Best Practices: How to get the most out of LinkedIn
This guide gives some practical advice how to get the most out of growing business social network, LinkedIn.

RIF: LinkedIn cuts 10%
In order to stay in the black, LinkedIn (like many other Sequoia backed companies) cuts back expenses, odd considering they’ve raised so much recent capital.

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

I’m not a great speaker, but someday hope to be one. I have learned that being in tune with your audience is key when it comes to giving your presentation. When I’m at public conferences and speaking, I watch twitter in real time, in hopes of avoiding an audience Groundswell.

Like a good doctor, my job is to learn and listen, diagnose problems, and offer remedies to my patients. Since I often speak to the web strategists at a company, (VP, Dir, Manager of Web) and related marketing cohorts I’ve started to become really in tune with the non verbal gestures within a room as it relates to their core pain points. Body language, which often accounts for 80% of all in person communication, really helps me to tune into what’s really happening at the company:

Antagonist/Protagonist
Often analyst are brought in to settle disputes using data and insight between debating groups or product teams, and I can often tell when questions are being loaded, aimed, and fired at me for me to then resolve. For example, when one individual asks a particular loaded question, I immediately watch the glances of everyone else in the room –they’ll likely shoot right over to the antagonist. After I give my answer, you can often watch shoulder tension fall or raise, which can sometimes indicate where more conversation will happen later.

Find the power
It’s easy to spot the decision maker in the room, when the topic of budgets, roles, responsibilities comes up in t