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Black Friday 2009: The Best Deals On The Items You Want

Jeremy Muncy — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:17:18 +0000

Is there a better way to kick off the Holiday season then slowly dragging yourself out of your tryptophan induced coma to go shopping during the wee hours of the day after Thanksgiving a.k.a. Black Friday?

Sure, Black Friday seems utterly atrocious when thinking about it. I mean you got long lines, rabid shoppers, insane traffic, and bitterly cold weather. Mix that with sleep deprivation and you get a very lethal cocktail of insanity. So why do people put themselves through this monotony?

Well the answer to that is quite easy: It’s the deals.

Although Black Friday got its start sometime during the 1960s, online deals didn't come into play until around 2000. The reasoning for this was that most people had very slow dial-up connections at home, which made online purchases more of an annoyance, then a convenience. Most people would wait until the following Monday, when they returned to work, to do there online shopping. Utilizing the faster connection of the workplace, people would do their online shopping, thus creating Cyber Monday (often referred to as the busiest online shopping day of the year).

Have you found any good deals online this week? Let us know.

One thing some people might not realize is that you don't have to brave the crowds to find great deals for your Holiday shopping. Did you know that numerous stores are currently offering Black Friday deals online? That's right, you could do most of your shopping from the comfort of your own home. Unlike the traditional Black Friday sales, the online deals tend to be more of a "one deal per day" sort of thing. Black-Friday.net offers the following info about this...

"During the entire month of November, stores such as Amazon.com, Walmart, and even eBay will be offering a "Deal of the Day". These deals are just as good as their Black Friday deals, except they are only good for one day! Be sure to check out the stores below to find out what they are offering today."

The site also lists online deals for 16 total stores (with more being added daily it seems), they are: Amazon.com, eBay, Walmart, onSale, Target, Kohl's, MacMall, Best Buy, HP, Dell, Meijer, Sears, NewEgg.com, Buy.com, Kmart and 6th Ave.

Online Holiday sales might be "old hat" to Amazon, but they're becoming known for the deals they have during the week of Thanksgiving. The site offers the following description of the weeklong sale...

You shouldn’t have to stand in a long line to get a great deal. We’re searching for the best Black Friday deals everywhere--including deals other stores are planning--so we can meet or beat their prices and bring them to you even earlier. These limited-supply offers will go quickly but we’ll add new ones throughout the day, every day this week, so you can skip the long lines and still save a bundle.

One company that is getting in on the Black Friday goodness is Apple, as they've announced a “one-day shopping event” which will surely make it a happy Friday for some shoppers. Apple posted the following teaser to get shoppers stirring…

"Come back to the Apple Online Store this Friday for a special one-day-only shopping event. You’ll find lots of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas - all with free shipping."

Like we said before, shoppers will go to great lengths to save some money, some more so than others. So, what are some of the best deals that will be taking place on Black Friday 2009 in stores? We’ve scoured through the Black Friday advertisements and have listed the best prices for what surely will be the best selling items.

Televisions
[Target] Westinghouse 32" Class 720p LCD HDTV - $246.00
[Walmart] Emerson 32" LCD 720p HDTV - $248.00
[Best Buy] Dynex 32" 720p 60Hz LCD HDTV - $299.99
[Sears] Vizio 32" Class 720p LCD HDTV - $349.99

Desktop Computers
[Best Buy] eMachines Desktop: 18.5" LCD, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD - $299.97
[Dell Home] Dell Inspiron 537s: 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD - $349.00
[Walmart] HP Pavilion Desktop: 20" LCD, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD - $398.00

Laptops / Netbooks
[Walmart] eMachines 15.6" Laptop: 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD - $198.00
[Best Buy] Compaq Netbook: 1GB RAM, 160GB HD - $179.99
[Kmart] Delstar 7" Wireless Netbook - $119.99
[Radio Shack] Acer Aspire One Netbook - 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD - $249.99

MP3 Players - 4GB and under
[Kmart] Sylvania 4GB MP3/Video Player - $19.99
[Kohl's] 2GB MP3 Player with Video - $24.99
[Walmart] Philips 4GB MP3/Video Player - $29.00
[Best Buy] SanDisk: Sansa Fuze 4GB - $44.99

MP3 Players - 4GB and up
[Costco] Apple 8GB iPod Nano - $129.99
[Target] Apple 5th Gen. 8GB iPod Nano 2/ $15 Target Gift Card - $145.00
[Walmart] Apple 8GB iPod Touch w/ $50 iTunes Gift Card - $195.00

Digital Cameras
[Toys R Us] Vivitar 8.1MP Digital Camera - $39.99
[Best Buy] Insignia Digital Camera - $49.99
[Walmart] Kodak CD82: 12MP, 3x Optical Zoom, 3" LCD - $69.00
[Sears] GE A1250 12MP Black Digital Camera - $69.99

Will you be doing any shopping on Black Friday? Online or In Store? Tell us

Other Black Friday Resources:

Black Friday Websites
Two of the more popular Black Friday sites are BFAds.net and BlackFriday.info. Both are relatively the same, as they both feature scans, lists by store, and the ability to save to a shopping/wish list.

Black Friday & Facebook
Black-Friday.net runs a Facebook page, which lists the various Black Friday deals. The great thing about the Facebook page is that users can see the likes and comments, which could aid in the Black Friday planning for Facebook users.

Black Friday & Twitter
CheapTweet.com, a site that lists various deals, runs a very popular Twitter account, which tweets out Black Friday deals.

iPhone Apps
Black Friday? Yeah, there’s an app for that. With TGI Black Friday (iTunes link) you’re never without the latest Black Friday deal news. The best part about the app... it’s Free.

What are you going after this year on Black Friday? Have any good Black Friday stories? Tell us.

Facebook Stock Maneuver Feeds IPO Rumors

Doug Caverly — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:27:41 +0000

Consider yourself forewarned: the official line is that "Facebook has no plans to go public at this time." Just the same, a financial maneuver the company's performing has raised a few eyebrows since it seems to point towards that possibility.

Jessica E. Vascellaro reported this afternoon, "The company is in the process of converting all current shareholders to Class B stock, which carries ten times the voting power of Class A stock . . . . Those shares will remain Class B shares unless the owner sells them during an initial public offering, at which time they will become Class A shares . . ."

This sort of exercise helps ensure that existing stockholders retain control of a company regardless of what happens on an open market. In Facebook's case, Mark Zuckerberg, who owns many, many shares, would benefit most. (Important note: It's not necessarily an "evil" move, though, as Google did the same sort of thing for the sake of Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt.)

So what we have here is one more piece of evidence (remember the preexisting enthusiasm surrounding its stock?) that Facebook could be headed towards an IPO.

Even if Facebook doesn't have definite plans to go public, the recession at least hasn't completely scared the company away from the idea, then.

Related Articles:

> (Private) Facebook Shares Up 42% In Four Months

> Facebook Catapults Into Third Place Among Video Sites

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Facebook Sends Cease And Desist To Friend-Seller

Doug Caverly — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:17:28 +0000

uSocial is a controversial advertising company that specializes in social media. For a fee, it promises to get stories on the front page of Digg, direct followers to a Twitter account, and/or find someone Facebook fans (among other things). But Facebook's put at least a temporary stop to the sale of friends.

The BBC reported this afternoon, "Facebook sent Cease and Desist letters to USocial claiming that the way the marketing firm operates violates its rights by sending spam, using web tools to harvest pages, getting login names and by accessing accounts that did not belong to the marketing firm."

As a result, "USocial defended itself against Facebook's claims, saying that it did not spam users or use web tools to gather information about profiles. . . . However, in response to the legal letters, USocial said it would delete the login information it had collected and broadly stop offering to sell Facebook friends."

This is an interesting development insofar as, three months ago, Twitter also tried to crack down on uSocial. Its back-channel methods apparently didn't succeed, but now that Facebook's established a precedent, we might see another attempt. Delicious, Digg, and Reddit could well join the fight, too.

Of course, the hubbub around such a scuffle would act as free advertising for uSocial and might spread the notion that these social media sites can be gamed, so it's also possible that absolutely nothing will occur.

Related Articles:

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Bebo May Beat Retreat From Australia

Doug Caverly — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:15:26 +0000

Sometimes you just have to know when to call it quits, and a new report indicates that Bebo has decided now's the time to cut its losses in Australia. Bebo is supposed to end its operations in the country before the end of the year.

Paul McIntyre, who was the first to report this potential move, noted today that nothing official's been announced. He then continued, "However, Bebo has already started informing Australian partners of its exit, which is due in part to Facebook."

And Facebook's growth in Australia has indeed been phenomenal. A director of analytics at Nielsen told McIntyre that Australian Internet users are dedicating about 30 percent of their online hours to Facebook, leading the firm to divide things into "Facebook Time" and "Non Facebook Time."

By comparison, recent Hitwise stats show that Facebook receives about one-fourth of all U.S. page views, and one-seventh of all UK page views.

So it's quite plausible that Bebo will exit Australia, a market in which its performance has been substandard. This would represent a significant loss for AOL, though, which paid $850 million for Bebo last year.

UPDATE: An AOL representative sent us an email that in part read, "We can confirm that there have been some layoffs, but Bebo.com will continue to have a presence in Australia. Bebo has only ever had a small number of sales/support staff on the ground in Australia and San Francisco remains Bebo's headquarters and main operation."

The email then continued, "We are in the process of re-aligning the Bebo business and need to make sure that our resources are aligned with our new business mode in order to execute effectively against our future vision and stay competitive. We are therefore required to make some difficult decisions about the future of our organisation and its people in order to stay competitive, and are exploring the possibility of centralising a number of our business operations and services."

Related Articles:

> Former Googler Gets Top Spot At Bebo

> MySpace, Bebo Not For Sale

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Twitter Expands Into More Than Just 2 Languages

Chris Crum — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:14:24 +0000

Update 2 : Twitter is now supporting the French language.

Update: Twitter is now supporting the Spanish language.

Original Article: Twitter announced that it intends to roll out the service in the French, Italian, German, and Spanish languages. Currently it's only available in English and Japanese.

Expanding into more languages should have a profound impact on Twitter's growth in new users. The company doesn't plan to stop there either though. Co-founder Biz Stone says that's just a starting point.

Twitter is taking a cue from Facebook and calling upon users to help with translations. The company has launched a tool for people with experience in different languages to suggest translations for the Twitter site itself. "Then, we'll follow up technically," says Stone.

"We are inviting a small group of people to become volunteer translators at first," he explains. "As more folks volunteer, the translation suggestions should accumulate faster and we'll have enough material to respond by making Twitter available not only in English and Japanese but also French, Italian, German, and Spanish. We will distribute the translations to Twitter platform developers making it easier for them to offer multiple language support as well."

Our latest numbers have shown that new user registrations have declined slightly for Twitter. The more languages that Twitter supports, obviously the more useful more people will find it. It has a long way to go to get Facebook-like numbers, but this would be a huge step in the right direction (along with the forthcoming "lists" feature) to step up the game.

Related Articles:

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(Private) Facebook Shares Up 42% In Four Months

Doug Caverly — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:10:50 +0000

Some time ago, Mark Zuckerberg began allowing Facebook employees to make a quick buck by selling their shares through private channels (as opposed to waiting for Facebook to hit the Nasdaq or Dow). Since then, many have done exactly that. The interesting thing is that the price of Facebook's stock has risen a whole lot in recent months.

Brian Womack talked to Adam Oliveri, a managing director at SecondMarket, and discovered, "Facebook shares are currently selling for about $21 each . . . . That's up from $14.77 in July." Which works out to a gain of 42 percent.

The Dow, by comparison, has risen about 23 percent in the same period. And the Nasdaq - which, with all its tech stocks, makes for a better point of comparison - is only up 20 percent.

So why all the interest in Facebook? Well, its growth rate has been spectacular. And it's not like similar companies are going unnoticed; just yesterday, we reported a big transaction involving Xing.

Still, it looks like folks are again expecting a Facebook IPO. Paul Bard, a Renaissance Capital analyst, told Womack, "The fact that the stock on these private exchanges moved - I'm sure that has to do with the fact that people think a deal is coming sooner rather than later."

Related Articles:

> Facebook Catapults Into Third Place Among Video Sites

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More For Google/Bing Rankings

Facebook Catapults Into Third Place Among Video Sites

Doug Caverly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:27:23 +0000

When tracking statistics from month to month, we're often forced to examine very tiny changes, and determining whether they're significant can be tough. Facebook just made things easy, jumping from tenth place to third on a list of top video sites in definitely-momentous move.

Facebook racked up about 217.8 million streams in October, according to Nielsen, which put it behind only YouTube (with 6.6 billion streams) and Hulu (with 632.7 billion). Microsoft's sites, Yahoo's sites, and all other sorts of stuff got left behind by a margin of 31.2 million streams or more.

Impressive, right? And in terms of unique viewers, Facebook did even better, coming in second to YouTube.

Of course, Chris Albrecht noted, "[T]his isn't too shocking given the nature of short, personal video sharing that goes on on Facebook versus the longer-form viewing that happens on Hulu. But the social network's ascendancy should have the Hulu folks on alert. Facebook already got the early premiere of the NBC (and Hulu owner) show Community earlier this year, and Zuckerberg and Co. could flex their newfound video muscles to snatch even more premium content from the Hulu-gurus."

Although another seven-place jump is impossible for Facebook, next month's stats should be worth seeing.

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> Animators Collaborate On Facebook All The Way To The Theaters

> Facebook User Count Now 325 Million (Or More)

> Facebook, Foo Fighters To Pair Up Tonight

Facebook Puts Privacy Policy in Users' Hands

Chris Crum — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:55:40 +0000

Update: Facebook announced that it has adopted a new privacy policy. The company says that the number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, but Facebook has decided to adopt the revised policy, which it will be posting soon. The company says:

"In the coming weeks and months, we plan to build on the progress we've already made in making the document more accessible by also adding definitions of key terms, screen shots of important pages and informational 'learn more' videos. We think these visual resources will make it even easier to understand how privacy works on Facebook."

Original Article: Earlier this year, Facebook launched its new system of governance for the social network's policies. The system lets users comment and vote on proposed changes to governing policies. The company is now using this system with its Privacy Policy, and has made it available for review and comment.

"Our primary goals remain transparency and readability, which is why we've used plain language and included numerous examples to help illustrate our points," says Facebook's Elliot Schrage. He points to an example about how they explain users' options for modifying or deleting info or content. Here is the section in the current policy:

When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information. ...
... Even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User
Content. ...
Access and control over most personal information on Facebook is readily available through the profile editing tools. Facebook users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook.

Here's how the section reads in the new proposed policy:

Viewing and editing your profile. You may change or delete your profile information at any time by going to your profile page and clicking "Edit My Profile." Information will be updated immediately. While you cannot delete your date of birth, you can use the setting on the info tab of your profile information page to hide all or part of it from other users. ...

Deactivating or deleting your account. If you want to stop using your account you may deactivate it or delete it. When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their information until they return to Facebook. You will still have the ability to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted. You should only delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may deactivate your account on your account settings page or delete your account on this help page.

Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Facebook. (For example, if you post something to another user's profile, and then you delete your account, that post may remain, but be attributed to an "Anonymous Facebook User.") Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested.

Backup copies. Removed and deleted information may persist in backup copies for up to 90 days, but will not be available to others.

Facebook has restructured the document with key points and links for jumping to different sections. They've added sections on current practices and a new concept around Facebook Ads.

Users can read more about Facebook's proposed changes to its policies here. The comment period ends at 12:00 p.m. PST on November 5. At that point, Facebook will review the feedback and update users on the steps that will follow.

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Animators Collaborate on Facebook All the Way to the Theaters

Chris Crum — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:58:56 +0000

Last fall, Mass Animation, which calls itself the largest global animation collaboration ever, posted an invitation on Facebook for artists around the world to collaborate on the making of an animated short film. This film is now getting a theatrical release this week with Columbia Pictures' Planet 51 release. It's called "Live Music."

"When artists arrived at Mass Animation's virtual studio on Facebook, they were given the essential tools and animation software necessary to participate, including individual storyboards and 3D models bundled for download along with guidelines on animation," a representative for Facebook tells WebProNews. "Through the social networking features of the application, animated shots could then be viewed, voted on and shared with friends."

"'Live Music' reflects the input of 58,000+ participants from 101 countries and 51 animators who collaborated in the making of this unique film, which introduces Mass Animation to the world," she adds.

Mass Animation has illustrated to a great extent what can truly be acheived with collaboration efforts on Facebook (or social media in general). It probably helps that Mass Animation puts so much focus on Facebook as a tool. They even use their Facebook page as their website. If you go to massanimation.com, it redirects to facebook.com/massanimation. That's some dedication to a specific channel.

Now Mass Animation is involved in another Facebook project with Sony Online Entertainment and DC Comics. This week the DC Universe Online Animation Contest was announced. This is being called version 2.0 of the Mass Animation FB app and will give DC fans, gamers, and animators a chance to animate characters from the DC Universe online game that Sony is developing. This is another example of Mass Animation allowing fans to collaborate on a big product. The contest will launch on December 7.

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Major Companies Endorse Legal Agreement For Open Standards

Doug Caverly — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:24:02 +0000

Sharing open source software just got a whole lot easier. The Open Web Foundation has announced the availability of the Open Web Foundation Agreement, and some huge corporations - namely Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo - have given the arrangement their figurative seal of approval.

It's important to note that this isn't some superfluous, feel-good pact. Eran Hammer-Lahav, Director of Standards Development at Yahoo and President of the Open Web Foundation explained in a post on Yodel Anecdotal, "While Open Source software enjoys a wide range of licenses for making software freely available, specifications and standards are usually licensed under a complex set of rules and conditions."

He then continued, "These licenses are hard to read and spread over many pages full of terms even many lawyers don't fully understand. There was also no suitable standalone agreement available for companies and communities to use when making their work available, forcing them into long and costly legal negotiation between the contributors."

The Open Web Foundation Agreement should address most of those problems. It's a relatively short, relatively simple, and easily tailored document that's meant to be serve individual developers, large corporations, and everything in between.

The fact that so many important organizations support the Agreement should ensure that it actually gets some use, too, and perhaps becomes the standard it's meant to be. Without Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, the Open Web Foundation Agreement - interesting as it is - might be forgotten within days or weeks.

But as things stand, Hammer-Lahav concluded, "This is just the first step in what we hope will be a new path for open collaboration and innovation on the web."

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Facebook and Twitter Now on Xbox 360

Chris Crum — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:08:59 +0000

Update 2: Sony's Playstation 3 is also Now integrating with Facebook.

Update: Facebook officially announced the integration of Facebook and Xbox today:

We're excited that beginning today the social game experience is coming to Xbox Live, so now you can play Xbox games with your Facebook friends...

The Xbox Facebook integration allows you to take part in some of the most popular activities on Facebook directly from your living room on your television. With Facebook for Xbox, you can update your status, browse updates from your friends and view photos on the big screen. You also can link your Facebook profile to your Xbox Gamertag to find your Facebook friends and connect with them on Xbox Live. It's never been easier to discover friends you never even knew played Xbox.

According to Mashable, Twitter is also now available on Xbox via the latest Xbox 360 system update.

Original Article: At the E3 Expo today, it was announced that Facebook and Twitter integration would be coming to Xbox. I guess MySpace gets left behind here too. Liveblogging the event, Daniel Terdiman of CNET writes:

Finally, Xbox Live members will now be able to interact with both Facebook and Twitter through their consoles. They'll be able to share photos with Facebook friends via Xbox Live, and be able to see their lists of Xbox Live and Facebook friends simultaneously.

As for Twitter functionality, Xbox Live users will be able to post tweets directly from their consoles, without a PC.

It only makes sense that social networks and the gaming consoles get together. Games (particularly a service like Xbox live) are already social by nature, and Facebook and Twitter just happen to be two of the hottest forms of communication at the moment.

"Ever since the Facebook Platform launched two years ago, Facebook has become an increasingly important platform for online game developers. Entirely new companies have been built on the back of the Facebook Platform, like Playfish, Zynga, and SGN, that are creating the next generation of social games," says Justin Smith at Inside Facebook. "However, today’s announcement shows Facebook’s potential as a content distribution channel that could actually lead to more viral growth for games on other platforms."

It will be interesting to see if other consoles and social media companies integrate with one another. Smith notes that Electronic Arts is taking advantage of Facebook Connect for its Xbox version of Tiger Woods 2010.

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> Facebook Connect Adds New Features To Service

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Who We Are On The Social Web

Bill Alberti — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:52:17 +0000

I'm a different person at work than I am at home. I tell different jokes. I have different stories. I share different experiences with different people in different ways depending on a host of different factors (e.g., how well we know each other; where we went to school; what our shared interests may be, etc.).

The context in which I know people is different from one person, one situation to the next. By and large, this is a good thing. I wouldn't want my co-workers to know all that my wife knows and my wife wouldn't be interested in all that my co-workers know.

Not surprisingly, online these relationships play out differently through different social networks. As a fairly engaged social networker (and dork), I recently tested my own social networks for what I'm calling, "social overlap" – the percent of overlapping "friends and followers" I have between the three social networks I am engaged in most: Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. (I highly recommend doing this exercise yourself, it shows a number of revealing insights about yourself. Here are some of mine. I'd love to hear your findings in the comments.

This analysis shows how few of my contacts overlap between different social networking platforms. This online fact echoes my offline reality of having different kinds of relationships with different people depending on the context of how we know one another.

My own lack of "social overlap" is complemented by a recent report from Forrester. Analyst Jeremiah Owyang (who recently left the company) suggests, "Today's social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit." Owyang goes on to say, "This creates friction for consumers who must now manage multiplying personal information and username/password combinations."

As a solution to this "friction" Owyang predicts that people will bring a single online identity from one social network to the next. Early examples of this prediction coming to light are "Facebook Connect," which allows users to "connect" their Facebook identity to any site, and "Open ID," a potential social network standard for a shared identity system.

However, a single online ID seems out of synch with how we (or at least I) naturally relate to others in our offline/real world lives. Maybe I like having different platforms on which to interact with co-workers vs. family members. Maybe I'm not comfortable showing the same side of me to everyone I know, regardless of how I know them. Maybe my lack of "social overlap" online is a good thing...much as it is offline.

The point here is not to knock a single online ID, it's to ask bigger questions about who we are on the social web. How are we different consumers in different contexts? What permission do we give different brands on different sites? How does your brand fit in with your customers on Facebook differently than it does on Twitter? Because it's not just a different tool, it may be a "different person" with whom you're connecting.

These questions point to the critical need to listen first before coming to market with a social media strategy. To understand how your customers think of your brand, product or service as relevant and meaningful in different social media contexts. Because maybe your customers are not the same people in one context that they are in another.

Facebook Blocks Popular iLike App

Bruce Houghton — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:50:17 +0000

Now that iLike owned by rival MySpace, Facebook is restricting some features of the iLike app on it pages. The move is bound to be unpopular with the 12 million users that have made iLike the #1 music app on Facebook. Over the last few days Facebook users who had installed the iLike app received this message:

"Due to upcoming Facebook changes, your Music data on Facebook won’t show on your profile and you’ll stop getting concert alerts. Take this step to save your music data."

The restrictions stop users from adding music to the Facebook profile and receiving personalized concert alerts. iLike has responded by asking users for their email address to send concert alers directly.

Facebook's move against iLike is also a bi-product of what they called a wider

campaign of "New Ways to Find and Engage with Your Favorite Applications". Obviously, new does not always mean better.

Comments

Facebook And Twitter Land New Words In Dictionary

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:06:13 +0000

Facebook users will be familiar with the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year, "unfriend."

Oxford says the term unfriend is a verb. Its definition of the word is "To remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook."

"It has both currency and potential longevity," said Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program. "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year.

"Most 'un-' prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar 'un-' verbs (uncap, unpack), but 'unfriend' is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of 'friend' that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal."

Other Words of the Year finalists include:

hashtag - a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets
intexticated - distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle
netbook - a small, very portable laptop computer with limited memory
paywall - a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers
sexting - the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone
freemium - a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content

Twitter releated word clusters for 2009 include:

Tweeps
Tweetup
Twitt
Twitterati
Twitterature
Twitterverse/sphere
Retweet
Twibe
Sweeple
Tweepish
Tweetaholic
Twittermob
Twitterhea

To determine the Word of the Year, Oxford says its lexicographers track the vocabulary of the English language to see how it changes from year to year. The word is then debated and chosen with the selection made to reflect the mindset of the year and its lasting potential for cultural significance and use.

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> Thinking Beyond Facebook And Twitter For Social Relevance

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>Twitter Expands Into More Than Just 2 Languages

Who Owns Your Content?

Chris Crum — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:30:51 +0000

Have you ever wondered what would happen to your content on third-party sites if those sites ceased to exist? You may own your content on them as it stands now, but what if they went away?

Would you be ok if your tweets or your status updates disappeared? Discuss here.

You may recall earlier this year when URL-shortening service Tr.im announced it was going to shut down and sparked a big discussion about what happens to all of these links if such a service just decides it doesn't want to exist anymore. It is an interesting discussion, and it ultimately led to Tr.im having a change of heart and deciding to remain functional.

Now, the Internet Archive has announced the launch of 301Works.org, a service, which archives shortened URLs. The organization sums up the need for such a service pretty well:

The use of shortened URLs has grown dramatically due to the popularity of Twitter and similar micro-streaming services where posts are limited to a small number of characters. Millions of shortened URLs are generated for users every day by a wide variety of companies.

But when a URL shortening service shuts down, the shortened URLs people put in their blogs, tweets, emails and web sites break. Unless users have kept a record of each shortened URL and where it was supposed to redirect to, it’s not possible to fix them.

Over 20 URL shortening services have gotten involved with 301Works.org, and Bit.ly (Twitter's service of choice) has already begun donating archives.

"Short URL providers have in the space of eighteen months become a corner stone of the real time web — 301Works.org was conceived to provide redundancy so that users and services could resolve a URL mapping regardless of availability. The Internet Archive is a perfect host organization to run and manage this for all providers," said Bit.ly CEO John Borthwick.

"The Internet Archive is honored to play this role to help make the Web more robust," added Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive.

The issue of archiving the web of course touches a much broader spectrum than that of URL-shorteners. 301Works should go a long way for maintaining shortened URLs, but what about Facebook updates? Tweets? What if Facebook or Twitter decided to shut down one day? According to Twitter's terms of service, you own your content, but Twitter does host it and they have control over it regardless of whether or not you own it. Jesse Stay talked about this with WebProNews in a recent interview:

The concept of Twitter or Facebook shutting down seems far-fetched, but the same thing probably could've been said about Geocities 12 years ago. Now Yahoo has shut it down. It's just something to think about. Given the speed of the real-time web, it seems that archiving could become a concept of growing importance.

Do you agree that archiving is growing in importance? Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

>Ushering In a Whole New Era of Linking Questions

>R.I.P. GeoCities: A Community is Killed

>Who Really Owns Your Tweets?

YouTube Talks Up Social Side

Doug Caverly — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:27:06 +0000

YouTube wants you to know that it's not just a place for individuals to watch videos. This afternoon, the site released some stats (and used the word "social" about six times) to show that users are interacting with each other and with different sites in all sorts of ways.

As usual, YouTube kept a bunch of numbers to itself; don't go looking for either a whole lot of data or many specific digits (think "1.63 million" as opposed to rounded-off descriptive words). Still, the first fact that a post on the YouTube Blog shared was that "[o]ver one million people are AutoSharing videos to Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader," which is an interesting detail.

Then here's another one: "Each AutoShared Tweet you send out from YouTube turns into an average of seven new sessions on YouTube.com." So it's not like a bunch of people are just spewing out clips into a void.

Finally, "Over a million people have found and subscribed to at least one friend on YouTube based on our Friend Suggest feature."

YouTube's turning into quite the little community, then. And since it plans to keep introducing new social features (and probably reminding us about the existing ones), this aspect of the site is liable to grow.

Related Articles:

> Yahoo Challenges YouTube On Music Video Front

> Watch: Will Ferrell And Adam McKay Talk YouTube

> 35 Ways To Improve Your Online Video Performance

Fox Launches iPhone DVD Trivia App

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:17:43 +0000

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has launched an iPhone and computer application called FoxPop, aimed at offering users a more interactive experience while they watch DVDs or Blu-ray Disc.

The FoxPop app is free and works by "listening" and syncing to an exact moment in a movie, using real-time audio recognition technology. As events happen in the movie, facts and trivia automatically "pop up" on the iPhone or computer offering viewers new information each time they watch a movie. From am actor on the screen, a location, or song, FoxPop provides users with information about the scene.

FoxPop will launch with the DVD release of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" on December 1. Other films slated to receive the FoxPop treatment include "500 Days of Summer" and "Jennifer's Body."

Additional application features include the ability for users to share and chat with friends while watching a movie via social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. A collapsible dashboard "Now Playing" feature provides users with a large space to see information about characters, places and trivia related to the film.

"By providing interesting movie-related information and the ability to engage with fellow Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian audiences, the application creates a powerful new connection between the movie and its viewers," said Mary Daily, EVP North America Marketing of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Related Articles:

>News Corp Posts Disappointing Financial Results

>WSJ Points To Facebook Advertising Issues

>Facebook Connects Users With iPhone Apps

20 Goals for Business Social Media Use

Chris Crum — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:30:18 +0000

I probably don't have to tell you that many businesses are still struggling with the concept of using social media. Many simply can't find a good reason to use it at all, and many more find themselves using it but struggling to validate that use. They can't find the ROI. They feel that too much time is being wasted. Basically, they're just using social networks because they feel like they're supposed to. They just want to keep up.

Many businesses are even banning social media from the workplace entirely. In fact, a great deal of our readers have expressed that they feel that social media doesn't belong in the workplace because employees are there to "work," not "goof off."

Well, that may be the case, and perhaps social media doesn't fit into your business at all, but considering your general business goals can help you decide whether or not there is a place for social media, and whether or not your employees can fit into that puzzle.

As social media enthusiast Chris Brogan told WebProNews in a recent interview, it's time to get over the touristy part of social media and start getting down to business.

He says it's not "Gee whiz, it's cool" anymore. It's "What are we gonna do with it?"

"Great you can type. Now what?" he says.

Here are some sample goals a business owner or manager might set for social media use. Once the goal is considered, then you can look at the tools that are out there and evaluate which ones will give you the best shot of achieving those goals.

20 Possible Goals

1. I'm a content provider, and I want to expand my reach.

2. I want my customers to be able to stay updated with news about my company.

3. I want to get to know my customers.

4. I want to promote my product.

5. I want to stay abreast of current news and trends.

6. I want to share my ideas with likeminded individuals.

7. I want to increase brand awareness.

8. I want to provide customer service and support easily.

9. I want to find a job.

10. I want to recruit.

11. I want people to like my brand.

12. I want to collaborate on business projects.

13. I want to directly sell a product.

14. I want to earn respect within my industry.

15. I am getting information overload, and I want to get organized.

16. I want to drive traffic to my site.

17. I want to attract advertisers and make money.

18. I want to get more involved with local prospects.

19. I want to get more involved with people on an international and global level.

20. I want to keep up with my competitors.

There are certainly more possible goals for business social media use out there. I've probably not even scratched the surface. What goals do you set for your social media efforts? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email

Chris Crum — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:54:53 +0000

Update: VerticalResponse CEO Janine Popick has written a separate piece adding 10 more reasons.

Original Article: The Wall Street Journal just ran a piece about the evolution of communication technology, chronicling the rise and alleged fall of email to social media. "Email no longer rules," the title reads.

Do you agree that email no longer rules? Tell us why or why not.

"We all still use email, of course," says Jessica E. Vascellaro, the author of the piece. "But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all social networks also require logging on to use? Sure, you can set them up to remember your info so you don't have to log-in every time, but the same could be said for most email services. That's beside the point though.

It's fun to look at how communication has evolved, and it's easy to declare the old medium dead (although to be fair, Vascellaro didn't exactly go that far). It's just not the case.

WebProNews recently ran an article about how social media will not replace search, despite plenty of mutterings to the contrary. I will go ahead and declare the same thing about email. Social media will not replace email. Just as it did with search, it may replace it in some (even many) instances, but there is room for both forms of communication. In fact, they do a pretty good job of complimenting each other (for better or for worse).

Reasons Email Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon

1. People still send hand-written letters via snail mail, even though they could instead make a phone call, send an email, text message, or status update.

2. Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address. Some are starting to integrate social media into this process (through things like Facebook Connect), but that is still a very small fraction, and they typically still allow for email information as well.

3. Email notifies you of updates from all social networks you are a part of (provided your settings are set up that way).

4. We haven't seen any evidence yet that Google Wave really is the next big thing and will catch on on a large scale.

5. Email is universal, and social networks are not. Nearly everybody on the web (while there are no doubt some exceptions) has an email address. Many places of employment give employees email addresses when they begin working there. Meanwhile, a great deal of them are banning workers from even accessing social networks.

6. There are plenty of people who have no interest in joining social networks. Frequent news stories about security, privacy, and reputation issues do not help convince them.

7. Email is still improving. It hasn't screeched to a halt with the rise of social media. There is still innovation going on, and integration with social media. Look at how Google is constantly adding new features to Gmail. Look at the new Yahoo Mail.

8. Even social networks themselves recognize the importance of email. Never mind that they update users about community-driven happenings via email. MySpace (still one of the biggest social networks) even launched its own email service recently.

9. More social media use means more email use. Look at these recent findings from Nielsen. The people consuming the largest amount of social media are also the people consuming the largest amount of email.

10. As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well, as many companies continue to struggle to find the right social media strategy to suit their needs.

Email Marketing

Let's expand on that last one a bit. There have been a significant number of studies released in recent memory, indicating that email marketing is doing quite well. Epsilon shared some findings about how email marketing is driving offline purchases. The same firm also found that email open rates increased for the fourth quarter in a row (up 18% YoY according to the most recent study). Forrester Consulting and ExactTarget found that email marketing is the most popular channel for consumers. Earlier this year, Forrester Research reported that email marketing in the U.S. alone was expected to reach $2 billion by 2014.

Is the email landscape changing? Yes, without a doubt. Social media has become a very large part of the online lives for many Internet users. Earlier this year, social sites were even said to have surpassed email in usage. That said, Facebook has come significantly close to matching Google in terms of unique visitors, but that doesn't make Google any less important does it? The two can co-exist, and so can email and social media. They are co-existing.

Email marketers are facing new challenges with an increasingly social and mobile web. For tips on embracing this, check out our coverage of a related session from the recent Shop.org summit.

Related Articles:

> People 18-24 Would Rather Give Up Social Networks Than Email

> Social Networks Blamed For $2.25B In Lost Productivity

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Making Money With Social Media Marketing

> Report: Online Video the Top Priority in Marketing

Do you think social networks will replace email? Share your thoughts here.

Consumers Are Looking for Offers on Social Networks

Chris Crum — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:59:50 +0000

Razorfish has released a wealth of interesting data about consumer online behavior, and a good deal has to do with social media and brand interaction. For those struggling to find the right use of social networks for their business, the data is worth paying attention to.

The data is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the US, about half male and half female. They cover four major age groups and 10 major cities.

"To avoid duplicating the more broad-based work of Pew, Forrester, and other research firms, our goal was to survey what we call "connected consumers,'" Razorfish explains. These connected consumers have broadband access, have spent at least $150 online in the past six months, have visited a "community site" (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Yelp, etc.), and have consumed or created some form of digital media like photos, videos, music, or news.

"Based on previous Razorfish consumer research, we have found that these 'connected consumers' roughly mirror the U.S. population with broadband access. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet connection, up from only 55% in 2008. This translates to roughly 200 million people, based on a July 2009 population estimate from the CIA World Factbook (total population 307,212,123, July 2009 estimate)."

In other words, pay attention to the results. You can find them all here. I wanted to highlight a few of the particularly interesting ones here, which pertain to social media use. They paint a pretty good picture of what consumers are looking for from brands on social networks (although these are certainly not the limits of what companies can do with them).

Beyond the data in the above graphs, another point worth mentioning derived from the research is that for Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, those who follow brands are mostly looking for exclusive deals or offers. This mentality will likely increase moving forward as deals get more personalized as well.

Like Jeremiah Owyang recently discussed with WebProNews, sites can connect with existing networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (think Facebook Connect and similar services), and in the future, people may be able to log-in to corporate sites with their Facebook (or whatever) account, which will bring up their profile information for companies to serve personalized content (or perhaps personalized deals).

The point is, consumers are clearly more than willing to interact with brands through social media, and this will likely become increasingly true as social networks themselves gain more users. It's not only about pushing your offers out there and hoping people bite. People are becoming friends/fans of brands hoping you do give them special offers.

Interesting new marketing opportunities are going to continue to present themselves moving forward as networks get more advanced and more brands figure out new ways to use them.

Related Articles:

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:18:47 +0000

Webinars and podcasts are the most popular social media resources for business people, used by 69 percent of those who turn to such channels for business information, according to a new study by Business.com.

Facebook is the primary social network on which consumer-focused companies maintain one or more profiles, cited by 83 percent of respondents compared with 45 percent for Twitter. Business-to-business companies maintain a presence on both social sites with 77 percent maintaining a profile on Facebook and 73 percent on Twitter.

Among those using social media for business purposes in their jobs, 62 percent visit company or brand profiles on social networking sites and 55 percent search for business information on these sites.

Consultants and marketers are the most active users of social media as a resource for business information, particularly in micro (less than 10 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees). IT professionals have the lowest participation rate.

The average company in this study was planning, developing or running seven different social media initiatives; 65 percent of respondents staffing those initiatives, and 71 percent of companies themselves, have less than two years of experience with social media for business.

Building brand awareness and brand reputation are two of the top social media success metrics, but nearly two-thirds of companies focused on these metrics have little insight into performance via standard or easily accessible reports.

"We are constantly analyzing trends to determine exactly what tools business professionals leverage most for purchasing," said Ben Hanna, Ph.D., vice president, marketing, Business.com

"This survey was a way for us to benchmark where businesses, and business people, are finding value in social media."

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Thinking Beyond Facebook and Twitter for Social Relevance

Chris Crum — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:17:32 +0000

Update: Ford announced profits o nearly $1 billion between July and September. This is attributed to increased market share and a successful cost-cutting program. I wonder if the company's social media strategy played a significant role.

Original Article: When you think about social media marketing or building your social media presence, you probably think about Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps YouTube or MySpace. That's good. These are some of the top places on the Internet where people are spending their time online.

What online communities do you focus on? Comment here.

That said, there are probably plenty of places that you are either overlooking or just plain ignoring. They might not have the broad user-bases of the aforementioned services, but there are people there, and the more people you can reach and engage with, the better off you may be in some cases (depending on your goals for social network use).

According to Hitwise data, the top ten social networking websites and forums by US market share of visits looked like this:

To be clear, the Hitwise data from which MarketingCharts compiled the above graph is based on US market share of visits as defined by the IAB, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from Hitwise's sample of 10 million US internet users. It's unclear exactly what all kinds of sites fall into the social networks category.

But the point is that there are a lot of places out there where people are forming communities that you may not be thinking of, but may provide plenty of opportunities for driving more engagement, brand awareness, and/or even traffic.

Are you considering things like Tagged or Yahoo Profiles/Groups? Are you considering the forums out there that pertain to your niche? Forums are relevant in social media marketing. I've discussed this in the past. Forums are basically social networks. They're communities too. You have to think about where the people are, and not just where they are, but where they are talking. Where they're communicating with others.

Forums or other more narrow communities may even prove to be more valuable tools than Facebook or Twitter in some cases. They are more likely to be focused on specific niches, than on the general public. There are certainly plenty of times where the general public - the Facebook/Twitter crowds are who you are trying to reach, but there will be other times when you may want to reach a specific group of people, which may or may not be a part of Facebook or Twitter.

Look at Ford for example. Scott Monty, who runs the social media efforts for the Ford Motor Company recently told WebProNews that they use all sorts of forms of social media, because "Let's face it, people are using all sorts of forms."

"We try to be where the mainstream are and we do it in a way that humanizes the company at every turn, so we're on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Scribd, Delicious, and upcoming as our major platforms," he said. "And we're constantly monitoring to see what the trends are and where people are going, so that we're relevant."

The key word there is relevant. Go where you're relevant.

What are some less thought about communities that you use to engage with people? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

Chris Crum — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:37:53 +0000

WebProNews recently covered a study from Chitika, which found that Facebook was the most valuable social media tool for driving repeat readers to content sites. The study was based on 33 million unique users across Chitika's publisher network in September. It compared the number of visitors coming from major traffic sources Digg, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter, to the number of times those visitors came back to the referred site. Visitors that went to a site four or more times in one week were considered loyal users. By a wide margin, Facebook led the pack in providing loyal traffic. 20% of all visitors from Facebook visited the site four or more times per week.

Where does your most loyal traffic come from? Facebook or somewhere else? Comment here.

"We've received the most clients from Facebook than any other social media website," a reader commented on the article. "Although we've received slightly more visitors from Digg and Stumbleupon, the viewers have not converted into customers the same way they had through Facebook."

There has certainly been plenty of talk about how Facebook can drive traffic, but clearly there are still a lot of people struggling with just how to go about doing so.

"Why am I not getting this?" another reader asked. "Blogs I've done are boosting my Google, Yahoo, and Bing ratings and getting traffic to my web site, but I'm not getting how Facebok can do this."

Comments like these are not uncommon, and to be fair, this one was made prior to Microsoft's announcement of a deal with Facebook (Google has been rumored to be in talks with Facebook as well).

But not all traffic has to come from search, although Facebook exposure can certainly contribute to that as well, if nothing else, than simply through promotion leading to links.

When a Facebook user frequently checks for status updates, he/she is likely to see new posts made from Facebook Pages he/she is subscribed to. This means creating a Facebook page can have a great effect on page owners. Making readers aware of the page is key as well. Luckily Facebook has a widget called the Fan box, that you can put on your site, which can lead new visitors directly to your Facebook page.

Facebook has also just updated another important widget - the share button. Now it will provide a live count of shares, as well as analytical information. You can find out how people are sharing and engaging with your content, and gain further insight into how your stuff is doing with the Facebook community (and adjust your strategy accordingly).

Traffic is a common goal, but it is not the only one. Going back to the topic at the beginning of this article, brand loyalty is a big one.

A representative for Stuzo Group, one of Facebook's exclusive development partners, shared some interesting case studies with us, looking at how they created branded applications and fan pages for brands like Doritos, Budweiser, Smashbox, and Purina.

"When Stuzo works with these brands, the goals that they have most often in creating these promotions is to increase brand loyalty and recognition, boost traffic to their website, and drive sales," the representative said. "These goals all go hand in hand, and explain why Chitika's study was so valuable; hits to a website are great, but they don't mean much unless they contribute to brand loyalty and positive recognition of the brand." (emphasis added)

A common theme among the case studies provided by Stuzo is that they all present clear objectives for what they want to accomplish with Facebook. For example, Budweiser's were:

1. Create brand awareness through a strong fan base and social channel opt-ins

2. Incentivize users to engage with the brand on a regular basis

3. Convert new customers and drive increase in sales

Budweiser went the route of contests and competitions (which are viral by nature). According to the case study, this has resulted in:

- Hundreds of thousands of Unique Pageviews

- Sustained high level of brand engagement by all measurements

- Significant, continued growth in Budweiser’s Social CRM and social channel opt-ins

Budweiser is just one example of a big brand finding success through social media, and through the use of Facebook in particular. As I recently discussed, you can find new and interesting ways to integrate social media into your own plans by looking at some of the brands you use yourself and how they employ different tools. This helps you to put yourself in the customer's shoes and determine the things that work and the things that don't.

What brands have you seen using social media in interesting ways? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> The Most Loyal Traffic Comes from Facebook

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

Chris Crum — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:17:52 +0000

Disclaimer: This article was originally written before Google made its announcement, and has been updated to reflect that.

Google and Microsoft have both inked deals with Twitter and Microsoft has also inked one with Facebook to integrate Twitter and Facebook updates into Bing search results. Google will be adding tweets to search results.

Google's Marissa Mayer says, " We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."

Google's Announcement:

There is a good chance that Google will be making a similar deal with Facebook, but even if they don't, their deal with Twitter and Bing's deals with both make it all the more important for marketers to be found in real-time searches and Facebook/Twitter in general.

Do you spend anytime trying to be found in real-time searches? Discuss here.

A while back WebProNews compiled a list of five tips for getting found in real-time searches, which basically boils down to staying in the conversation for relevant topics that people are searching for. The tips were:

1. Use keywords
2. Talk about timely events
3. Have a lot of followers
4. Promote conversation
5. Include calls to engagement

I elaborated on each of these in the previous article. Social media is viral by nature, and real-time search is nothing more than putting things in chronological order. You have to keep people talking to stay relevant "right now."

That said, we don't know all the details about how Google and Bing will be integrating its Twitter and Facebook results into the rest of their results yet. Bing has made available a beta tool for people to mess around with for searching tweets with the search engine. "You can now search for what people are saying all over the web about breaking news topics, your favorite celebrity, hometown sports team, and anything else you use Twitter to stay on top of today," says Paul Yiu of Bing's Social Search team.

A spokesperson for Microsoft tells WebProNews, more specifically, the new Twitter developments in Bing include:

A real-time index of the Tweets that match your search queries in results. This feature makes it easier to follow what’s going on by reducing the amount of duplicates, spam, and adult content.

Giving you the option to rank tweets either by most recent or by “best match,” where we consider a Tweeter’s popularity, interestingness of the tweet, and other indicators of quality and trustworthiness.

Providing the top links shared on Twitter around your specific search query by showcasing a few of the most relevant tweets. Additionally, Bing automatically expands those small URLs (like bit.ly) to enable you to understand what people are tweeting about. Instead of showing standard search result captions, we select 2 top tweets to give users a glimpse of the sentiment around the shared link.

Bing already displays some Tweets for certain people results at the very top of the regular web search results page. That's a good place to appear. Here is a little info about how they rank tweets in their Twitter search.

Google announced a new Google labs project that injects social media into its own search results. This was also announced at the Web 2.0 Summit. Ben Parr with Mashable has the details from Mayer:

    - The bottom of search results will soon have social networking information from your friends, like their Flickr (Flickr) photos or their status updates. It’s a blended search integration, similar to seeing news or image results.

    - These are pulled from social networks connected to your Google Profile. The more that are connected, the more social information that will appear in search results.

    - They have also improved searching for images using social networks. Images become more relevant using social networking data.

    - It will launch in Google Labs in the next few weeks.

The deals with Microsoft and Google make social media marketing all the more important to marketing in general, and specifically search engine marketing. Where social media has generally fit into the SEO equation thus far, has been the promotion of content, which inspires links and conversation, which can in turn help search engine rankings.

Now, if status updates and tweets become directly integrated into search results in Universal Search-type fashion, it will be not only be about promotion and outside links, it will be about direct exposure right in the results, not unlike the importance of online video right now (as you're probably aware, videos are often displayed prominently on the first page of Google results).

Now, forgetting about Google for a moment, pretend that the deals with Microsoft are the only ones that happened. You may also recall that Microsoft has a certain deal in the works with Yahoo. This (if everything goes according to plan) will see Bing results taking over Yahoo's own. Yahoo may still be controlling the front-end of its search, but Bing will be controlling the back-end. Ranking for Bing will mean ranking for Yahoo.

So with Yahoo, Twitter, and Facebook deals all in place for Bing, getting found in real-time searches may not only mean getting found in Twitter searches, Facebook searches, and such. It may also mean getting found in Bing searches and in Yahoo searches. That's pretty much the meat of the non-Google U.S. search market.

Now let's bring Google back into the equation. It has a deal with Twitter and may very well have one with Facebook before long. Kara Swisher who broke the news about Microsoft's deals says Google's been talking with both social networks. Still think real-time search and social media are not worth your time?

Do you think deals with Bing and Google will have a big impact on traffic from Twitter and Facebook? Share your thoughts.

Social Media Not a Priority for Many Small Businesses

Chris Crum — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:10:44 +0000

Citibank has released the results of a survey about small business social media use. According to Citibank, few small business owners and managers are increasingly using social networking sites.

Over 500 small business executives across the United States were surveyed, and 76% of them haven't found sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads or expanding their business during the last year. 86% said they hadn't used social networks to get business advice or information either.

"Our survey suggests that small business owners are still feeling their way into social media, particularly when it comes to using these tools to grow their businesses," said Maria Veltre, Executive Vice President of Citi's Small Business Segment. "While social media can provide additional channels to network and help grow a business, many small businesses may not have the manpower or the time required take advantage of them."

According to the survey, small businesses are relying much more on search engines than they are social media, or even small business-focused sites and WSJ.com.

42% of small business owners and managers say they've made greater use of their company's website to generate business leads and sales in the last year. Among companies with 20-99 employees, 57% say they've made greater use of their sites. 28% are using email marketing and 25% are using online advertising for generating leads and sales.

FTC Guidelines Raise Big Blogging Questions

Chris Crum — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:25:04 +0000

Update 2: Now Cleland says, "If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers, that's not true. That's not going to happen today, not ever." (via)

Update: The FTC is now saying that the $11,000 fine is not accurate, at least for the first violation. Fast company got some responses from Richard Cleland, assistant director, division of advertising practices at the FTC, who says:

“That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?” [empahsis added]

Cleland addresses more of the concerns here.

Original Article: The Federal Trade Commission has released its revised guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The revisions include a focus on "bloggers" and social media users, requiring them to properly disclose when they have received payment in the form of either money or product from a company or organization and produce content regarding said company or organization. The word is that bloggers can be fined up to $11,000 per post for not disclosing.

Have you ever mentioned a free product you received online and not disclosed it? Comment here.

The reasoning behind the guidelines seems noble enough - provide transparency and keep consumers safe from hokey information. However, the concept of the government dictating how this happens does not sit well with a lot of people. The revisions (which can be found in this 81 page document [pdf], should you care to peruse them [they start around page 55]) have ruffled quite a few feathers and the conversation has become one about free speech.

Well-known author/editor/publisher Jeff Jarvis makes a really good point. He says the FTC assumes that the Internet is a medium. "It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking," he says. "So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed."

It's not hard to find echoes of Jarvis's sentiment all over the web. Although, I don't believe I've seen it as eloquently put as with the Denny's analogy. Still, not everyone sees the FTC regulations as a bad thing. In fact, Google's Matt Cutts stepped into the conversation with Jeff Jarvis, expressing a bit more enthusiasm for the guidelines.

"As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers," he says. "Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web."

Commenters essentially tell Matt the whole thing would smell a lot better if he were the one regulating it. The reasoning for this is that Matt is involved with the industry. He is not a government worker that has been one his whole life. He's been in the field. He knows the score. The argument coming from most of the opposition is not about the fundamental principle of making content more trustworthy for consumers. At the root of it, it appears that people are much more concerned about a government body of regulators who aren't necessarily involved with online content production telling them how it is, when there are many, many questions about what falls under the criteria.

A number of these questions are nicely placed in an "open letter to the FTC" from Ron Hogan at MediaBistro's GalleyCat. Here are a few of them:

- If an unpaid blogger at the Huffington Post "endorses" a consumer product without meeting the FTC guidelines for disclosure of "material connections" to the makers of that consumer product, who's liable: the blogger or the Huffington Post?

- If a blogger prints out a series of blog posts and distributes those printed copies, is he now the publisher of a newspaper or magazine? If so, the Village Voice is distributed for free, so can a blogger/publisher distribute his newspaper or magazine for free, too?

- What if a blogger confines herself to stating demonstrably proven facts about a book, its author, its contents, and the matter of its publication? Does the FTC consider that an endorsement? What if she confines herself to stating such facts and includes links to an ecommerce site? Has her writing somehow been transformed from a statement of fact to an endorsement?

There are plenty more where that came from. The list goes on. You can probably think of a few yourself. It may be hard for the guidelines to be enforced. The FTC does acknowledge that its guidelines aren't exactly the law themselves. The FTC says:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

It should also be noted that the rules presumably apply to publications beyond bloggers and social media users, but for some reason it appears that "bloggers" are the ones with whom the FTC had on its collective mind when drafting these guidelines. You have to wonder if they are able to come up with a definition for "blogging" (others have had trouble in the past. Even those directly involved in the online content industry). The rules are scheduled to take effect on December 1st.

What questions do you have about the FTC's guidelines? Share them here.

Facebook User Count Now 325 Million (Or More)

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:00:25 +0000

On September 15th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook "now serves 300 million people across the world." It seems the site's growth hadn't exactly come to a stop, either, as about a month and a half later, stats indicate the number of users has risen to at least 325 million.

This isn't a case of comScore versus Hitwise or Compete versus Nielsen discrepancies. Nick O'Neill reported today, "According to Facebook's own advertising statistics . . . the company is now beyond 325 million users and continuing to grow." So everyone should be on the same page.

What we appear to have here is a social network simply gaining 25 million users in the space of seven weeks.

That's an impressive fact all by itself. Another way of looking at it is that, if Facebook users created their own country, the Land of Zuckerberg would have a larger population than the good old U.S. of A. (even if the users somehow didn't leave America at the same time).

What's next, then? Well, that's hard to say. Facebook's almost sure to need additional hardware and employees. Marketers are liable to worship it more, improving the results of monetization efforts. Otherwise, this is pretty much uncharted territory.

Related Articles:

> Nearly Half Of Consumers Would Recommend A Product On Facebook

> Social Networking Donation Cause Leaves MySpace For Facebook

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Nearly Half Of Consumers Would Recommend A Product On Facebook

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:57:34 +0000

Consumers are more willing to engage with and buy from brands on social networking sites, according to a new study by Performics and ROI Research.

The study found thirty-four percent of respondents who have used a search engine to find information on a product/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site. In addition, thirty percent have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site.

"Social networks are creating a monumental shift in how people communicate with each other and with brands," said Michael Kahn, SVP of Marketing at Performics.

"The results of this study can help marketers better understand where and how consumers interact with social media sites and what types of offers and communications engage them and motivate them to act."

The study also found the opportunity for engaging with consumers on specific social networking sites:

Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
Forty-four percent of Twitter users have recommended a product
Thirty-six percent of YouTube users say that they have gone to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a brand on a social networking site

"The numbers are staggering. One in four respondents have four or more active social network accounts and more than one quarter access their Facebook or Twitter accounts at least once a day via their mobile phone," said Scott Haiges, President of ROI Research.

"We knew that these sites are extremely popular for socializing, but the level of interest for branding and promotional marketing content is surprisingly large."

Related Articles:

>Facebook Reminds Users How To Handle Death

>6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing The Game

>Facebook Connects Users With iPhone Apps

Social Networking Donation Cause Leaves MySpace For Facebook

Dan Morrill — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:32:19 +0000

Causes is a social networking donation platform that uses MySpace so that people can raise money for causes or issues that they believe in. Generally these kinds of activities help provide a community around issues like Breast Cancer, or stop smoking, or other issues that are part of our daily life. Causes is an excellent application that makes the process of raising and donating money for a specific cause very easy and embeddable into someone’s MySpace page.

Last night according to ReadWriteWeb and Stanford Social Innovation Review, Causes has sent an e-mail out to all their MySpace members stating that they will be moving over to Facebook and no longer supporting MySpace. I do not see why they could not do both, but apparently Causes does not want to support both platforms. From a business viewpoint – Causes would be very smart to provide support for both platforms; everyone needs a simple easy way to donate to the cause they believe in.

Stanford Social Innovation Review though also brings up the specter of money, in that it is well known that Facebook caters to a richer clientele than MySpace. Going out to Quanticast – the demographics for MySpace and Facebook makes this a compelling argument.

MySpace Demographics:

Facebook Demographics:

What is interesting about the Quanticast information is on the right side data pane where people who are likely to visit Facebook, Causes shows up as the number one entry in the likely to visit category.

Where on the likely to visit column causes does not even show up.

Demographics are also telling – people are much less likely to be college educated on MySpace, meaning they just simply do not make a lot of money. However, some research points out that poor people donate more overall money to causes that influence their groups or their interest groups than rich people do. The problem also might be in the micropayments processing side; small amounts of money usually are quickly degraded by mounting fees from payment processors, handling, and movement than larger payments, which is a definite possibility and, one of the drawbacks to the micropayment system.

What is sad though is that rather than supporting both platforms, which is just good business, Causes has decided to abandon MySpace in favor of Facebook. Regardless of the reason, from a business viewpoint you don’t abandon a channel until it stops being profitable, if Causes believes that MySpace is no longer profitable, then there is more here about the internal workings and visitor counts of MySpace than we generally have discussed in the blogging world, let alone the press.

Causes definitely needs to post a statement on their blog, so we know what the reason is, rather than speculating as to what the reasons are.

Comments

Facebook Blocks More Ad Networks

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:21 +0000

Back in July Facebook updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform. The company disabled two entire ad networks and over 100 more apps were suspended or brought into compliance over ad-related violations. Half of those had over a million monthly active users.

Facebook has now disabled two more offer and ad networks, which the company says have repeatedly violated its policies. This has all been part of Facebook's continued action against deceptive ads. The company has addressed its efforts in this area on the company's developer blog.

"First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively," says Facebook's Nick Gianos. "This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers."

"We recognize that monitoring ads isn't the first area of focus for an entrepreneur just getting started with social applications," he says. "That's why ad networks that don’t play by the rules should expect to be our first point of contact in our line of enforcement. Our policies are clear. If you're an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease."

The company emphasizes that it is the responsibility not only of ad networks, but also of developers to make sure content running in third-party apps is appropriate.

Facebook's policies on offers and "inappropriate" ad content can be viewed here. If there are questions, which there no doubt will be, they can be sent to Facebook via the Platform Advertising Contact form.

Related Articles:

> Facebook App Developers Face New Obstacles

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy in Users' Hands

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses