Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

The Top Viral Video Campaign, Updated February 16th, 2012

2012-02-19T08:49:00-05:00

Brand: Volkswagen
Campaign: The Dog Strikes Back
Agency: Deutsch (Los Angeles)
Source: VisibleMeasures.com

Twitter Opens Self-Serve Ad Platform Widely To Small Businesses

2012-02-17T14:24:55-05:00

MASHABLE - Feb 17 - After making the platform available to just a few advertisers in November, Twitter will expand its self-service ad product to all small businesses next month. Twitter is partnering with American Express for the initiative, which offers preferential treatment for American Express cardmembers. Such cardmembers will be invited first and AmEx will give $100 in free advertising to the first 10K businesses to sign up.

by Todd Wasserman
See full article at Mashable

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Zynga Wants To Cut Dependency On Facebook

2012-02-17T14:05:07-05:00

READ WRITE WEB - Feb 17 - Zynga is the largest game developer on Facebook and raised $1 billion last year in an IPO of its stock. But investor enthusiasm has been lackluster since then, in large part because the company, which credits 90% of its sales to Facebook, is seen as being too dependent on social networking giant. Facebook takes a 30% cut of virtual wares sold in Zynga games. Zynga is now set to launch a publishing program in March that will let other game developers advertise their games on a separate Web portal. Zynga would keep a percentage of sales for games sold through its site.

by Dave Copeland
See full article at Read Write Web

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Twitter Under Fire Post Mobile Privacy Row

2012-02-16T15:55:26-05:00

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Feb 16 - Twitter has acknowledged that it has copied the content of peoples’ entire address books from their mobile phones and stored the information on its servers, without many of its users realising. Twitter has promised to update its privacy settings to ensure it is more explicit about what personal data people are sharing when using Twitter on their smartphones. When people download the Twitter app on their mobiles, and click the ‘Find Friends’ option in bid to see who of their contacts are already using the service, they often do not realise that the service then has access to their entire address book. Facebook came under fire last year after making a change to its developer terms, which meant users may have had to share their phone number and address in order to access a third party application. However, it subsequently reneged on this modification after a backlash from privacy campaigners.

by Emma Barnett
See full article at Telegraph.co.uk

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In Brazil, Google Paves Facebook's Path To The Top

2012-02-15T16:14:28-05:00

IB TIMES - Feb 15 - Facebook said its number of active users in Brazil had nearly tripled in 2011, finally placing it ahead of Google Inc's Orkut service as the No. 1 social network in the country. Much of the credit for that may belong to Google, analysts say. While a growing economy and easier credit gave Brazilians the ability to purchase computers and broadband connections, Google's Orkut gave them a reason to do so in the first place. "Until Orkut came along in 2004, Internet use in Brazil was stagnant," said analyst José Calazans of market research firm IBOPEnielsen in Sao Paulo. Now many of those people are moving to Facebook." Orkut's failure to innovate in line with users' expectations created an opportunity for Facebook to step in, offering new apps and games, as well as the ability to connect with people beyond Brazil.

by Asher Levine
See full article at IB Times

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Twitter Won't Be Ready For IPO For "A Couple Of Years"

2012-02-14T18:27:51-05:00

READ WRITE WEB - Feb 14 - Don't expect IPO of shares of Twitter anytime soon. The company has placed restrictions on employees who hold shares, forcing them to keep 80% of the shares they own. It helps keep Twitter under 500 shareholders. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo sent out an email explaining the policy and the main reason for it. "We don't want to be public until we have very predictable quarterly earnings growth," Costolo wrote in his August email. "We're not ready to be a public company for a couple years."

by Dave Copeland
See full article at Read Write Web

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After Zynga Settlement, Layoffs Hit Vostu

2012-02-14T15:30:37-05:00

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 14 - Brazilian social gaming giant Vostu is laying off an undisclosed number of employees. Vostu, which has raised $46 million from Intel Capital, Accel Partners, General Catalyst, and Tiger Technology Global Management, is one of the largest social gaming companies in Latin America. The gaming company was founded in 2007 by three Harvard classmates: CEO Daniel Kafie, chief scientist Mario Schlosser, and Joshua Kushner. It’s unclear what’s caused the layoffs but Vostu is fresh off of a settlement with Zynga over copyright issues.

by Leena Rao
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Myspace Gains 1 Million Users

2012-02-13T16:02:47-05:00

CNN - Feb 13 - Maybe Justin Timberlake and friends weren't so crazy after all. Myspace added 1M new users over the past month, according to the company. A team of investors bought out Myspace in June for the fire-sale price of $35M. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid $580M for it in 2005. The new owners, most notably pop star/actor Timberlake, have effectively stopped trying to compete with Facebook and other social sites, instead focusing on Myspace's superior platform for posting and listening to music. Monday's release from Specific Media credited the site's new music player, with access to more than 42M songs, as offering the Web's biggest collection of free music. But with Spotify beginning to limit the number of songs users with free accounts can play, it seems possible there could be space for a new online music player serving up similar content for free.

by Doug Gross
See full article at CNN

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LinkedIn Set To Introduce Mobile Advertising

2012-02-13T14:54:05-05:00

ECONOMIC TIMES - Feb 12 - LinkedIn has planned to introduce mobile advertising through its apps across the Apple's and Android's operating systems. Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, gave no indication of timing for launching mobile ads. The news comes soon after Facebook announced that it would introduce mobile adverts as soon as next month.

See full article at The Economic Times

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The Top Viral Video Campaign, Updated February 2nd, 2012

2012-02-12T08:59:00-05:00

Brand: Biore / Ford / Revlon / Schick
Campaign: Dating Rules From My Future Self
Agency: -
Source: VisibleMeasures.com

LinkedIn Hits 150 Million Members

2012-02-10T16:07:23-05:00

MASHABLE - Feb 10 - LinkedIn has now 150M members in its network, a 20M increase over November. The company posted revenues of $167.7M, beating the analysts’ consensus of $160M for Q4. Adjusted profit was $0.12 cents per share, which beat analysts’ projections of 7c a share. LinkedIn’s stock was up more than 5% in after-hours trading.

by Todd Wasserman
See full article at Mashable

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Facebook Teams Up With Bango For Mobile Payments

2012-02-10T14:48:42-05:00

PC WORLD - Feb 9 - UK-based mobile billing and analytics company Bango has signed an agreement to provide payment services to Facebook. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion already uses Bango to enable customers to pay for apps through their operator contracts, saving them the trouble of typing in their credit card details each time they buy an app. Bango also struck a deal with Amazon in December.

by Sophie Curtis
See full article at PC World

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Facebook's Saverin Agreed To Sell Shares To Russians

2012-02-10T14:41:29-05:00

CNET NEWS - Feb 8 - Thanks to his depiction in the blockbuster film "The Social Network," Eduardo Saverin is one of the social network world's most famous co-founders. Facebook disclosed that Saverin cut a side deal to sell a chunk of his shares to Digital Sky Technologies in 2010. Facebook reported that Digital Sky, a Russian-based investment firm, and Saverin were involved in the transfer of shares as part of what it described as the "Saverin Agreement." It's unclear how many shares Saverin sold or what price he received. Digital Sky and its affiliates now owns 5.4% of the company's outstanding shares. But back on February 19, 2010, Digital Sky and a related party were said to own 8.2% of Facebook's outstanding stock.

by Charles Cooper
See full article at CNet News

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Facebook's Zuckerberg May Face $2 Billion Tax Bill

2012-02-08T18:54:51-05:00

CNN - Feb 8 - Facebook's upcoming IPO will make founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire -- but it will also stick him with an eye-popping tax bill that could reach as high as $2 billion. Zuckerberg currently owns almost 414M shares of Facebook, but he also holds options to buy another 120M shares at the bargain price of 6 cents a piece. Zuckerberg plans to exercise those options and will sell some of his shares during Facebook's initial offering to cover the tax bill. The type of options Zuckerberg holds are taxable as ordinary income when they're exercised, even if the shareholder hangs onto the shares and doesn't sell them. That means Zuckerberg will owe taxes on the difference between what he pays for his Facebook shares -- 6 cents -- and their market value the day he exercises the options. Facebook said in its IPO filing that it values its shares at $29.73. At that price, Zuckerberg's options windfall would be worth $3.6 billion.

by Stacy Cowley
See full article at CNN

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Conversion Conference, San Francisco, March 5-6, 2012

2012-02-08T16:35:44-05:00

OPW – Feb 8 – The next Conversion Conference is held in San Francisco, March 5-6, 2012. This 2 days event focuses on learning how to increase your website conversion and making your marketing campaigns more effective. Keynote speakers are: BJ Fogg, PhD (Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University), Jared Spool, CEO & Founding Principal (User Interface Engineering), Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence, Steve Krug, Web Usability Consultant & Author, Don't Make Me Thinkand Rocket Surgery Made Easy. See the full agenda. Register here.

LinkedIn Picks Up Rapportive For Around $15 Million

2012-02-08T16:18:18-05:00

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 8 - LinkedIn has bought contact management startup Rapportive. The startup, which aggregates and displays the social networking accounts of the people you contact through Gmail, was backed for $1M by seed investors Charles River Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Scott Banister, Jason Calacanis, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dharmesh Shah, Shervin Pishevar, Roy Rodenstein, Kima Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, 500 Startups, Michael Zirngibl, Ashish Soni and David Cancel.

by Alexia Tsotsis
See full article at Tech Crunch

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More Than Just Great Firewall Awaits Facebook In China

2012-02-08T16:11:26-05:00

REUTERS - Feb 8 - Facebook said last week it was contemplating re-entering China, the world's second biggest economy, after being blocked nearly three years ago. But its offering would likely face intense competition, political meddling and little commercial success. "It's actually a bit late for Facebook," said Hong Kong-based CLSA analyst Elinor Leung, who added that the market was already quite saturated with local players such as Sina Corp, Renren Inc, Kaixinwang001 and Tencent Holdings. Facebook first launched its Chinese interface in 2008 but was blocked by Beijing in mid-2009 following deadly riots in the western province of Xinjiang that authorities say were abetted by the social networking site. Facebook would face same the factors that have led to the failure of many foreign internet companies in China: nimble local competition, murky government regulation and bureaucracy, and difficulty in adapting to local tastes. Facebook would have to manage and censor content heavily in order to gain Beijing's blessing for entry.

by Melanie Lee
See full article at Reuters

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Google, Facebook Remove Content As India Threatens Lawsuits

2012-02-06T14:31:34-05:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS - Feb 6 - Google India has removed web pages deemed offensive to Indian political and religious leaders to comply with a court case that has raised censorship fears in the world’s largest democracy. The action follows weeks of intense government pressure for 22 Internet giants to remove photographs, videos or text considered “anti-religious” or “anti-social.” For India’s ~100M Internet users, the government says, U.S. Internet standards are not acceptable.

See full article at Washington Post

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