|
Saturday, November 24, 2007
MySpace Updates: MySpace November Newsletter
Latest Facebook News
Facebook disables prohibited porn ads
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA
By Elise Ackerman and John Boudreau Facebook said Friday it has disabled pornographic ads that were placed on profiles created by users of the popular ...
myspace Hypertargeting vs Facebook Beacon: Which one is creepier?
CNet News.com Blog - USA
But Google is far less intrusive (for now) than myspace or Facebook which usurp data you never signed up to disclose. "Our mission with hypertargeting by ...
Facebook backlash over sale of personal data
Independent - London,England,UK
Following weeks of discontent on group discussion boards on Facebook, one of world's biggest internet sites, it is facing a privacy backlash organised by ...
Facebook Tricks
By garhwalk(Yogesh Goel)
Facebook has been the buzz word in recent times. Well, almost all the social networking sites are getting world's attention. We are enjoying this wonderful phase web 2.0 and we keep on trying our hands on cool tips and tricks to enhance ...
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Extreme social networking
The process begins, disgustingly enough, with spit. You purchase a $999 “spit kit” and you supply the requisite DNA. The company, 23andMe, tests your saliva and posts the results on their site, where you can use “…our interactive tools to shed new light on your distant ancestors, your close family and most of all, yourself.
http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/11/21/extreme-social-networking/
Top 100 Social Media and Social Networking Blogs
Social media and social networking sites aren’t just about making new friends. These concepts have introduced a whole new way of communicating and managing information with the help of Web-based communities, software and tools to build business contacts, and design marketing and branding strategies. These tools help users to share information in innovative and creative ways. This list of the top 100 social media and social networking blogs (in no particular order) are full of tips, news, and analyses about today’s social media outlets.
http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/top-100-social-media-and-social-networking-blogs/
Paltalk Pioneers "Socialcasting"
Hey, online video fans--tired of watching alone? Ever miss hanging out with your friends? Well, good news: Paltalk has taken Web 2.0 and introduced TV 2.0. Specifically, Paltalk has married online video with elements of traditional broadcasting, interactive community, and social networking.
Facebook Beacon's a flop? and funding news
Flush with cash, allied with Microsoft, growing exponentially, and positively humming with buzz, Facebook is definitely the "it" site on the Internet. Now what?
At the annual Foursquare Conference today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave some hints about the future of the social networking phenomenon. He described its new advertising initiative, spoke of its relationship with Microsoft, and alluded to its budding rivalry with Google.
First, financing. C.F.O. Gideon Yu told Portfolio.com today that the company is preparing to raise an additional $260 million to close its Series D financing round.
During a question and answer session, Zuckerberg described the company's new advertising initiative, which he announced yesterday.
Among other things, it will allow businesses to set up their own Facebook pages and then reach out to real, live users -- that is, potential customers -- based on the interests they have described in their profiles.
If those interests include not seeing advertising, that is too bad. "There is no opting out of advertising," Zuckerberg said.
If it is any consolation, he added: "The ads are going to feel like content to a lot of people."
He also alluded to a budding rivalry with Google. Asked why Facebook chose not to participate in Google's new social networking consortium Open Social, Zuckerberg replied, "Who says we didn't choose to be a part of it?"
In fact, he added, "We didn't really find out about it until an hour after it launched."
Zuckerberg said it is "conceivable" that Facebook could seek to join Open Social in the future, but the company has no such plans at present.
"If it does really well, we may want to participate in it," he said.
At one point, Google co-founder Sergey Brin emerged from a side room at the conference, which was held at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan, and headed straight for Zuckerberg. Bystanders held their breath, waiting for some kind of showdown.
But like a couple of championship boxers at a pre-fight weigh-in, they didn't so much as acknowledge one another. Brin just smiled as he walked straight past Zuckerberg, who kept his gaze straight ahead.
Describing Facebook's $240 million partnership with Microsoft, which includes an advertising component, the famously terse, frequently monosyllabic Zuckerberg said, "Microsoft does a lot of things that just make sense for us."
He said Facebook chose Microsoft as its advertising partner instead of Google, which has been much more successful at online advertising, for a simple reason:
"Not having done something before -- we don't see that as a disadvantage," he said, prompting laughter from the assembled media moguls.
Indeed, the lack of a track record has not hampered Facebook. Zuckerberg said the web site currently has 52 million active users, and is growing at 3 percent per week -- essentially doubling in size every six months. At that rate, he said, Facebook could have 200 million users by the end of 2008.
and....
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/11/facebooks-beaco.html :
Facebook's "social ads" so far appear to be a flop. Not only was the "once in a hundred years" announcement largely a yawn, the complaints of Facebook users and MoveOn about the primal annoying-ness of "Beacon" are right on the money. Although we can't imagine why MoveOn can't find something better to do than complain about Facebook, we do note the speed with which 1) Facebook responded to MoveOn's complaint, and 2) 2,000 Facebook users signed up to support MoveOn. And we don't blame them. We already hate the idea of bombarding friends with lists of the crap we buy.
The fact that Facebook will only let us opt-out of that bombardment on a case-by-case basis (at the virtual cash register at third-party sites) is infuriating.Facebook should immediately make Beacon 100% opt-in. Not because MoveOn is complaining--because the current system will drive users right out the door.
The tiny minority of Facebookers who want to bombard friends with lists of the crap they buy--and friends who are actually interested in hearing about this--can elect to do so. The vast majority who don't should never have to hear about this ridiculous concept again. (And if this embarrassing backtrack hurts Facebook's ability to raise more money at a $15 billion valuation, so be it: This is the right thing to do for the long-term health of the company, and the fund-raising effort seems to be in trouble anyway).
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
MoveOn.org takes on Facebook's 'Beacon' ads
Online activist group MoveOn.org is poised to announce a campaign targeting Facebook's "Beacon" advertisements, which post information about users' activity on partner sites (movie rentals, purchases from online retailers) onto their friends' News Feeds. According to MoveOn representatives, the organization considers this to be a "glaring violation of (Facebook's) users' privacy," and has launched a paid ad campaign on Facebook, a "protest group" on the social-networking site, and an online petition to encourage the company to allow users to opt into the program at their own volition."The bottom line," MoveOn spokesman Adam Green said in an interview with CNET News.com, "is that no Facebook user should have their private purchases online posted for the entire world to see without their explicit opted-in permission."
It's true that Beacon advertisements are limited to the news feeds of the people on a user's friends list, but Green said that doesn't make a difference. He cited Facebook user testimonials that ranged from members who said their entire Christmas lists had been published on their News Feeds (spoiling many a surprise in the process) to student activists who were concerned that sensitive purchases might show up and result in serious consequences--"If a college kid rents Brokeback Mountain and some homophobic person on his campus sees that, that could be a real problem," he explained.
http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9821170-36.html
What Facebook Learned from Search
What Facebook did was take the classic search channels of paid search, natural search, and paid inclusion and adapt them to its own platform. Compared to search, Facebook’s ad targeting isn’t quite as precise as advertising to people who explicitly express interest with their queries. Yet compared to contextual advertising, Facebook offers the proposition of targeting to explicitly expressed interests on members’ profiles, and marketing is further amplified with the web of member connections often described as the “social graph.”
>> http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=663
Websites Look to Shine with Facebook Beacon
Facebook’s importance as a platform that facilitates business rather than just socializing has been growing day by day. Recently, it has announced that 44 websites are using Facebook Beacon, which allows users to share information from other websites for distribution to their friends on Facebook.
Beacon is the targeted advertising system of the Facebook. Very soon when Beacon is linked to eBay , the business horizons of Fecebook users will further expand to unimaginable levels.
Facebook suggests that reaching millions of people is just 3 lines of code away. With Facebook Beacon, Web site owners can simply determine which user actions they would like publish to Facebook. Beacon supports actions including purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more.
>> more: http://internetcommunications.tmcnet.com/..es/15075-websites-look-shine-with-facebook-beacon.htm
Social network for sportsmen launched in Runet
Runet opened the portal www.SpurtUp.com, which is the first web-resource in Russia offering a new approach to popularization and support of amateur spot in Russia.
The portal is focused on uniting sport and active live amateurs, who live in one city, neighboring districts or across the country.
On SpurtUp.com each user might place the latest news related to the future or already past sports events.
On SpurtUp.com the portal creators intend to use modern internet technology, social network elements and specialized services, such as coaching and competition calendar, team management, tournament organization, holding lots, single base of sports facilities in Russia.
One student's intrepretation of Facebook
As per this homework assignment, I have actually joined facebook…if you look my status should say that I’m currently looking for my dignity while you read this blog entry……
http://tbgolden.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/major-studio-the-death-of-me/
YooGuu.com - Social Network Just Like the Rest
more>>
http://www.killerstartups.com/...--Social-Network-Just-Like-the-Rest/
directly to:
http://yooguu.com
Book Review: Practical Rails Social Networking Sites
Rails Social Networking Sites walks you through the process of building a Web 2.0 social networking site (something like MySpace), called Rails Coders that includes the features you would expect in that sort of site:
- User signup and management (based on restful_authentication)
- Content management
- Blogging (with web services)
- Markup languages like Textile and Liquid
- Mashups using Google Maps and Flickr
- photo management (attachment_fu and RMagick)
- Tagging
Facebook To Drop 'Is' From Status Updates
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Bill Clinton can rest easy knowing that he will soon have more verb options when updating his status on Facebook. Facebook announced to developers last night that it will soon be dropping the word "is" from status message updates. The developer platform has already been updated so that external applications that update user status can avoid prepending the word "is." For now, status updates on Facebook still include the "is," but Facebook platform engineers promise that the change will be pushed to Facebook at large soon and make the lack of verb a default behavior rather than something you have to specify. "In a few, we will delete that parameter and change the default behavior to be that you must include your own verb," they wrote.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
E07 Podcast: Social Networking Technologies: A "Poke" for Campus Services | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
This 27-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features Joanne E. Berg, Vice Provost and Registrar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lori Berquam, Dean of Students, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kathleen Christoph, Director, Academic Technology, University of Wisconsin-Madison speaking on Social Networking Technologies: A "Poke" for Campus Services.
The session abstract:
Social networking software like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube has become a way of life for today's students. In this session, we will explore whether and how we might use these technologies, or ideas they generate, to create better and more effective student and academic services at our institutions.
E07 Podcast: Social Networking Technologies: A "Poke" for Campus Services | EDUCAUSE CONNECTSexy Widget: RockYou Revenue - $100K per Month
Sexy Widget: RockYou Revenue - $100K per Month
Since RockYou’s founding two years ago, 90 million social networkers have downloaded its applications. For this, RockYou is making more than $100,000 a month in revenues showing ads alongside its mini-applications for brands like AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), as well as by plugging other developers’ mini-apps (for a fee).
AND the comment:
I don't know - this gels with what Lance Tokuda was saying at the Widget Summit. It might be a disinformation strategy, but that panel more or less agreed that the ENTIRE widget/apps market was only about $12 million a year, as lowball as that might seem.
Heads are turning to Facebook - Los Angeles Times
the social website started by a Harvard dropout is stealing the spotlight from Google. PALO ALTO -- -- Google Inc. is used to being the center of attention, the giant that executives at other Internet companies wish Silicon Valley would shut up about already.
For the moment, they've got their wish. People here can't stop talking about Facebook Inc.
Heads are turning to Facebook - Los Angeles Times