Posts Tagged ‘social networking news’

• Craigslist Is Our Mirror, Nothing Better (Or Worse) on TechCrunch
  “I flipped on the news today (yes, my actual television, not sure why) and the big story was Craigslist gone wrong. Someone placed an ad on Craigslist saying that anything at a home in Jacksonville, Oregon was up for grabs. People responded, and carted away most of the belongings of resident Robert Salisbury. He arrived home to thirty people picking over the last of his stuff. Even the man’s horse was taken.”
  Apparently, sticks and stones may break your bones and words written on Craigslist may indeed hurt you!
• SmartyPig is One Smart (Social) Savings Plan on Mashable
  “SmartyPig is a recently launched site that brings a community approach to a single savings goal. With SmartyPig, you actually set up a savings account with the bank it’s partnered with (West Bank), and invite others to contribute to your savings account. The idea is to set a goal (for a new bike or books for college), and allow others (parents, grandparents, friends) to contribute to your achieving this savings goal. These goals can be set as private or public. SmartyPig has introduced a highly secure system in which others can send money to your savings account, and once your goal has been reached, you can withdraw the funds (unless you cancel it all together).”
  What a great concept, I wish I had this when I was a kid! If you’re looking to raise money for a mission trip or college or any other goal, this site adds serious value!
• Employees should be banned from searching Facebook profiles of job applicants, says children’s groups on Daily Mail
  “Studies show one in five employers use the internet to check out candidates and two thirds of those admit their final decision has been influenced by what they found. Checking networking sites is also common practice for recruitment agencies with research showing more than 60 per cent of British executives are signed up to Facebook or similar. The children’s charities argue that this is akin to nosing through someone’s diary and is examining whether existing discrimination laws could be used to prevent the practice.”
  I agree that many employers use social networking sites to learn about candidates, but I’m not sure I agree this practice is unethical or should be banned. If you choose to post stuff online, it’s your choice. The fact that it will remain online and can affect hiring chances is a fact of life in the world of web 2.0. This is why taking a proactive approach to your social networking and promoting yourself in the right light is very important. In fact, I registered SocialScreeners.com for that entrepreneur that wants to make a business out of social networking screening services!
• MySpace and Friends Need to Make Money. And Fast. on Wired
  “The numbers are amazing. MySpace’s membership has ballooned from 20 million people in 2005 to 225 million today, an average annual growth rate of 513 percent. Rival Facebook grew at 550 percent a year during the same period. LinkedIn’s rate was 182 percent. Yet one social networking metric is distinctly underwhelming: the one with a dollar sign. Lookery, an ad network specializing in social media, offers display ads on MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo for only 13 cents per thousand times the ad is served (CPM); Yahoo’s average CPM is estimated at $13. Video ads on MySpace reportedly fetch just $25 per thousand showings; CBS charges $50 on affiliated sites, NBC as much as $75.”
• Will Musician’s Custom Networks Create Disarray On Social Web on Mashable
  “Want to network with rapper 50 Cent? How about befriending Kylie Minogue? Or Ludacris, or the Pussycat Dolls, for that matter? If so, perhaps you should look elsewhere than, say, MySpace, the default service for most things musical on the social Web. The alternative destination to hit? Well, actually, there is more than one place that you will be able to go to to connect with some well-known artists. Musicians are looking to go from the mass complex that is MySpace to locations a little more personal. Some are putting together their own sites meant to connect with a fan base devoted exclusively to them and their projects. Case in point: Thisis50.com.”
• Wikipedia Passes Another Milestone: 10 Million Articles on Mashable
  “Wikipedia, the community driven encyclopedia, passed a huge milestone this week in the form of 10 million articles in over 250 languages. As explained by Emily Chang, the 10 millionth article was a biography of a 16th century English goldsmith and painter named Nicholas Hilliard, written by user named Pataki Marta.”
• Evolution of the social network on BBC News
  “Recent reports of social networking’s demise may be slightly premature. Sure, some users are completely fed up with receiving friends invites, being “bitten”, “poked” and indeed having sheep thrown at them. And there has been a 5% slowdown in new UK users to the larger social networks, Facebook and MySpace, between December 2007 and January this year. But Alex Burmaster, an analyst at Nielsen Online which compiled the figures showing the decline, says: “The slow down in social networks is being somewhat exaggerated. It’s a natural form of any growth that we see in the online eco-system.”
• Online social networking sites spring up for the religious on KeyeTV.com
  “Online social networking sites crop up for the religious About two-thirds of Americans today use the Internet for some type of religion or religious experience. Experts say social networking online is fast becoming a heavenly experience.”
• Social networking sites to go 3-d on The Editors Weblog
  ” Through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, people can keep updated with their friends by posting messages back and forth or by checking status updates. But imagine if the social networking world became 3-D. Based in Menlo Park, California, Vivaty has been creating 3-D virtual chat rooms that people can add to sites where they spend most of their Internet time. Users will choose pre-existing avatars to represent themselves as they do on services such as Second Life, and navigate through a gothic urban warehouse, seaside villa, or another of the dozen environments. Users will also be able to create their own environment wherever HTML code can be imbedded. Vivaty plans on allowing companies to construct their own virtual rooms with their own décor and messages.”
  Very cool; we’re planning on a 3-d social networking service offering soon as well as I believe this can potentially have huge value to the right niche social network.

Here are just a few of the latest headlines in the social networking realm. Both positive and negative, the social networking space is shifting and evolving with every day that passes as the expanding force of social networks adjust and re-adjust their approaches and strategies in light of changing statistics, problems, and breakthroughs.

It’s interesting to note that it seems more and more people are realizing that turnkey social networking platforms (e.g. “launch your social network in minutes!”) may not always be the best route to take. A custom, scalable social networking website built with innovative spins on “same-old-same-old” features combined with a new level of usability and integration with other non-networking based features may be the way of the future. It’s still very possible to create a hit as exciting news in mobile social networking, continued interest, and a shake-out of the clutter leaves room for the remarkable sites to rise to the top.

• Mobile Social Networking Revenues Could Reach $52 Billion Within 4 Years
  “Mobile Social Networking is already an established service in some regions, but in 2008 and beyond new features are attracting larger numbers of users and permitting new business opportunities. Mobile Social Networking is now a global phenomenon with expansion in all directions.”
  Couldn’t agree more and that’s why our entire team is focused on mobile social networking as the next level of our custom social networking services…
• Facebook’s Membership “Stickiness”
  “Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract.”
  They’re at it again!
• The Many Challenges of Social Network Sites
  “From white label social networks to existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and on, there’s been much hoopa raised. Yet, we should always remember the challenges that are facing these tools, as there are many difficulties to overcome.”
  Excellent points of contention; each obstacle can be overcome, but the overall lesson is that it isn’t easy to build a vibrant community and a great deal of strategy, planning, and innovation should exist in order to spawn success.
• Social Networks Still Going Strong, Engagement Leveling Off
  “Stats to be released tomorrow by comScore show that traffic to most of the top social networking sites is continuing to increase in the US, although the amount of time users spend on such sites is leveling off. For example, while MySpace is showing 11.6% year-to-year growth in unique visitors and Facebook is up 78.6%, the amount of time the average user spends on each site is down 10.4% and up just 1.1%, respectively.”
  Time spent and repetition of visits will be the name of the game as social networking evolves.