Paul Adams is a user experience research at Google. He recently gave a speech outlining research by Google and others into how people connect with each other and what that means for the internet.

This presentation looks at behavior and how people act online and is less about the technology. About 20% into the presentation Paul says we’ll all need to become skilled at social web design and I’ve to agree. The technology will help us get to where we want to go. First, we’ll need to know what we’ll want to do and which relationships we want to build.

Found Via: Digital Alex

Facebook has announced that it now has 500m active users, just six years after it was launched. The site has become the poster child of social networking on the web. While some others have seen growth, MySpace, Flickr and Bebo appear to have declined in the past year, according to these figures from Nielsen. Interesting international variations are seen, both in the amount of time Facebook users spend on the site each month and in the competing networks’ popularity in different countries.

Wanted to share this great infographic by BBC about the mood of people on Facebook over the last year. The infographic covers the US, UK, Spain, France and many more. Check it out.

The company is one of the first to receive money from Google Ventures. Recorded Future is a social media monitoring tool in its basic form. However, it’s looking to help track events and the data around that. Below is a video off their YouTube channel

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m going to test the tool this week and look at Comic-Con, which the geek event or all events taking place this summer. I’m going to add them to my list of Paid Social Media Monitoring and Measurement Tools.

[Update] The system doesn’t want to let me track comic con. I’m in touch with me contact to see about this.

I was minding my own business as I often do on Twitter and came across this tweet by Emma Brooks:

I love the people I follow on Twitter and the great opportunities to connect with more interesting people and projects through them is amazing. I may even go as far as say it’s bliss.

Bud Caddell over at WhatConsumesMe has started an awesome new book project called The Bucket Brigade.

Let’s help brands and marketers better understand how to court and support existing communities, crowds, and networks; that each is different and that each possesses people seeking unique interests.

Let’s prove to brands that there’s far more value in earning, feeding, and sustaining their own communities, crowds, and networks than a few more repeat purchases.

Let’s prove what a farce it is to measure that value in terms of media impressions.

Let’s set the record straight, there is no free user generated content and there is no magical viral answer to reintroducing the corporation to culture.

This book is going to help change people’s views I hope and teach us all something along the way. Please check out Kickstarter and fund it!

Last week I was happy to see my second article go live at Gamasutra: The Real Cost Of Marketing Your Game With Social Media. Some areas I cover are:

1. Real-Time Listening in Social Media
2. Building out Your Social Engagement Organically
3. Business Objectives
4. The Cost of Social Media

There a few comments and I love the feedback from the video game community that I get. Now I need to think about what my next article will be. I’ve a few ideas but need to flush them out.

The Web Trend Map community curates meaningful link trends by choosing sources they trust.

Old Spice is one of the trending topics for YouTube of course. Web Trend Map.

Reports are coming in over the weekend that Facebook usage is starting to decline among teens. This was always a question of when for Facebook and not if.

Social networks in general take up a large portion of teens’ time online – over 80% of it according to this survey. The Facebook burnout isn’t affecting all of these youthful social networkers: 90% of teens say they use social networks and prefer Facebook above all others. However, nearly a fifth of these (19%) say they use the site less often, or have stopped altogether in recent weeks. Also, 21% of those surveyed say that their friends are using Facebook less often than before.

So what does this mean? Do we go vertical like I talked about on Saturday. I think that’s one option. However, the other option is really the one we should have been looking at as well. Building out your own database of information on your consumers. To many brands replied on Facebook to the keepers of information about their consumers and that’s going to be a challenge as Facebook becomes less relevant over time.

Came across WellKnown.as the other day and can’t honestly remember how.

Wellknown.as helps you discover events based on your location or area of interest; attend and meet up with peers, and develop your network in all events.

After checking out the site and seeing what they’re doing for the Social Media Marketing 2010 San Francisco. I feel like this is a benefit or feature of an existing platform like Plancast or events on Facebook.

I don’t feel compelled enough to join another event site even if they are trying to get more social.

Found this via the crazy team over at Noise Digital & Marketing Map.