Posted on May 21, 2008. Filed under: social networking, tech news, web 2.0 | Tags: facebook, linkedin, nielsen |
The latest Nielsen data has some interesting insights on social media traffic. The most noticeable of these is that LinkedIn has grown 361% YoY.
The major social media sites are all opening up their platforms to 3rd party Application devs. When would LinkedIn open up?
“The numbers also reveal that business social network LinkedIn, which may or may not be aiming for a billion-dollar valuation, is still growing rapidly, pulling in 361 percent more unique users than it did a year ago. Facebook is growing more slowly, with 56 percent more visitors–and keep in mind that April 2007 was just a month before the company announced its developer platform and “exploded,” at least in terms of Valley chit-chat.”
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Posted on May 17, 2008. Filed under: blogging, facebook | Tags: amy winehouse, avril lavigne, barack obama, chris brown, chris moyles show, daft punk, dave matthews, dave matthews band, facebook, foo fighters, hillary clinton, hot chili peppers, john mccain, justin timberlake, marketing, pink floyd, radiohead, red hot chili, red hot chili peppers, stig, top gear |
Six months ago, Facebook launched Pages as a way for “businesses, brands, and celebrities to represent themselves on Facebook.” Now that Pages have been out for six months, who do you think are the most popular?
So here’s the list of the 25 Most Popular Pages on Facebook. The results?
- Amy Winehouse has more fans than John McCain. And so does Nutella.
- There’s no stopping Barack. He has twice as many fans as anyone or anything else.
- Pages are all about the music. 40% of the top 25 are bands.
- Some brands have made a big splash.
What does this say about marketing on Facebook?
2. The Chris Moyles Show – 426,635 fans
3. Apple Students – 415,440 fans
4. Victoria’s Secret PINK – 350,983 fans
5. The Stig – 262,899 fans
6. Daft Punk – 186,036 fans
7. Linkin Park – 176,154 fans
8. Justin Timberlake – 169,818 fans
9. Top Gear – 166,010 fans
10. Chris Brown – 160,575 fans
11. Hillary Clinton – 156,532 supporters
12. Pink Floyd – 154,569 fans
13. Dave Matthews Band – 152,890 fans
14. Skins – 141,803 fans
15. Avril Lavigne – 139,715 fans
16. Radiohead – 139,420 fans
17. NBA – 138,884 fans
18. Jabbawockeez – 136,384 fans
19. Coldplay – 133,794 fans
20. Amy Winehouse – 131,099 fans
21. Nutella – 127,912 fans
22. Hollyoaks – 127,512 fans
23. John McCain – 127,143 supporters
24. Red Hot Chili Peppers – 121,724 fans
25. Foo Fighters – 121,452 fans
Source
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Posted on May 12, 2008. Filed under: social networking, tech news | Tags: Adam D'Angelo, CTO, facebook, mark zuckerberg, startups |
The word got out, and now it is confirmed. CTO Adam D’Angelo to Leave Facebook. D’Angelo wrote a letter to Facebook staff on Friday about the move. He said he wanted a break. But, according to sources close to the company, D’Angelo felt his responsibilities no longer fit well with his skills and interests. There were rumors of some tension with Zuckerberg too. But sources said D’Angelo simply wanted to do something different (and he is only 23!). He is a friend of founder Mark Zuckerberg since high school. I am sure there is not more to read in this news than will be made to look, but the timing is kind of uncanny. Facebook Connect announcement last week.. and then this. Hmmm.
According to Venturebeat, Zuckerberg and D’Angelo met in high school and developed a music discovery service called Synapse that garnered positive press and subsequently interest (but no purchase offers) from large companies looking to hire the young developers. Zuckerberg, as most readers know, went to on Harvard and started Facebook out of his dorm room. D’Angelo was one of the first people he tapped to join him.
In fact, according to this Harvard Crimson article, Zuckerberg moved the company from Boston to Palo Alto, Calif. in 2005 in part to be closer to D’Angelo, who was attending Caltech at the time.
Facebook will not be replacing the CTO role, sources said, but has a search underway for a VP of engineering.
Adam kept a low profile for himself all along. He was universally loved at Facebook, says a source close to him. Wish him all the best!
About Adam D’Angelo: From his LinkedIn Profile
I am interested in social networks, viral engineering, development methodology, web applications, platforms, collaborative filtering, reputation systems, data mining, machine vision, computational trust, online markets, and privacy.
Specialties:
algorithms, machine learning, distributed systems, optimization, scalability, decentralized networks, programming languages
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Posted on May 10, 2008. Filed under: facebook, Uncategorized | Tags: authentication credentials, connect, facebook, google, myspace, social platform, web 2.0 |
Everyone seems to have a say on Facebook’s Connect announcement. Just look at the techmeme snapshot taken a few mins back, and these post snippets (see below)! And there is nothing new anyone is saying. Read on…
Oliver Thylmann’s Thoughts, Bits, The Social, The Real McCrea, Inside Facebook, Guardian Unlimited, Brij’s One More Idea, Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim, Running With Foxes, AppScout, The Inquisitr, Valleywag, FaceReviews, WebProNews, VentureBeat, All Facebook, Silicon Alley Insider, Mashable!, Web Community Forum, WebGuild…
Can Facebook Build a Better Passport It didn’t take long for Facebook to react to the announcement by MySpace Thursday that it would enable other Web sites to tap into information about its users and their friends.
Facebook’s announcement, in a blog post Friday afternoon, is a bit sketchy on the details and has all the appearance of being rushed to match MySpace. Still, what the company calls Facebook Connect offers many of the same capabilities and a few more, too.
Facebook Answers MySpace Data Availability With Facebook Connect Yesterday, we brought you news of MySpace’s surprising Data Portability partnerships with Yahoo!, Twitter, and Ebay, which will allow MySpace users to port their public profiles, photos, videos and some friend data from one site to another. Facebook, not looking to be outdone, has announced plans to launch their new Facebook Connect platform, which has similar functionality to MySpace’s Data Availability.
Facebook announces Connect, to use your data on external sites The Facebook developers blog has announced Facebook Connect, which “allows users to ‘connect’ their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site”.
Facebook to open the gates with ‘Facebook Connect’ Social network Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.
Facebook: Our Doors Are Just As Open As MySpace’s Yesterday MySpace (NWS) announced Data AvailabilityFacebook Connect – a new service that allows you to share data with third-party sites that will launch in a couple of weeks. – a new service that allows you to share data with third-party sites that will launch in a couple of weeks. Today Facebook announced
Facebook sees MySpace’s Twitter partnership and raises it Digg We’re at the point that when either of the two social networking giants, MySpace and Facebook, does something, the other has to respond. Yesterday, MySpace unveiled its “Data Availability” initiative, allowing other sites around the Internet to utilize its users’ data to update profiles, photos, videos and other attributes. Today, according to a TechCrunch scoop, Facebook is following that up with “Facebook Connect”. Which does, wait for it — the exact same thing.
Facebook Counters MySpace; Will Let Users Port Profile Data On the heels of yesterday’s “Data Availability” announcement from MySpace, Facebook has just announced the launch their own initiative to allow users to port their profile data to other web sites. Here’s what will be included in Facebook’s version according to a post on the company’s developer blog:
Facebook Responds To MySpace With Facebook Connect Facebook will announce later today Facebook Connect, which has similar functionality to MySpace Data Availability, announced just yesterday. The actual product won’t be released for at least a few weeks, so the timing on this, coming immediately after MySpace, is somewhat suspicious.
Facebook follows MySpace’s lead in letting users share personal … The popular online social hangout Facebook Inc. says it is setting up a new system that will allow its 70 million users to take their personal profiles with them as they surf other websites. Users will be able to automatically copy pictures, personal information and other customized applications established on Facebook to other websites without extra effort once the changes that were announced Friday take effect.
Well, after reading all this, I didn’t want to even comment on the subject.
Reminds me of the time-lapse video of the Techmeme front page created by Amit Argawal (see his blog post) shows how bloggers herd around stories. This entertaining video, which covers 50 hours in the life of the Internet–interestingly, the two days surrounding the Scoble Facebook kerfuffle–shows stories popping on and off the front page of the service, and it graphically illustrates how bloggers and other journalists report on items that have just been covered by their peers and competitors.
See also this post on News.com analyzing this techmeme-effect.
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Posted on May 5, 2008. Filed under: blogging, internet, social networking, tech news | Tags: browser plugin, facebook, firefox, networking tools, sidebar, social networking, social networks, techcrunch, twitter, web content, webware, yoono |
In this social networking tools clutter, it is a pain to sift through the information that you really “may” care for. A few weeks back, I was ranting off on why I will not use twitter. And then I may feel a lot older when I get into the FB or Myspace forums. LinkedIn still remains my favorite, and the one I find most useful in my professional capacity.
Anyway, I digress. Two recent posts (on webware and techcrunch) made me look at this browser plugin called Yoono, for discovering and sharing Web content and to help track your friends’ activities. The tool integrates with several popular social networks and microblogging services including Twitter, letting you access and interact with the communities of all of them in one place.
While you are surfing, Yoono instantly suggests what others have discovered: websites, people and articles. You can create a rich scrapbook of your favorite stuff with the new “Buzz It!” feature, one-click grab and share videos, photos and texts from any web page. Yoono keeps your scrapbook and original Firefox bookmarks synchronized across your computers.
In a nutshell: Yoono is a browser sidebar that will aggregate your social network upates and allow you to update all statuses at once. In addition, while you surf, Yoono displays a list of other web pages that are “people-rated” – others have classified them in their favorites. You can also find other users who have a particular web page in their favorites.
See a demo:
If you’re an avid Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr user, they you’ll need to download this free app to manage your accounts. Check out Yoono.com, but watch the video below first to see what it can do for you (source: techiediva).
The UI is really neat and clean, looks impressive. It is also impressive how much has been packed into a plugin. I am sure designing such an app is a challenge – whom to target, what features to bring in, what to leave out. Overall, I am quite impressed. I may end up actually using it!
Users can now view related pictures, music, and videos from pages they’re on.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
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Posted on May 2, 2008. Filed under: internet, social networking, technology | Tags: facebook, facebook friends, identity theft, malicious application, media attention, myspace, risk, social networking, social platforms |
In January, everything went a little crazy because of a Facebook application that (if you believed the hype) force installed Zango, hijacked your PC, set fire to your house, killed your pets…..well, you get the idea. In actual fact, the truth of the matter was a little more convoluted. All I could see was that this application opened up a popup, which (every now and again) would just happen to be an advert for Zango. Hardly Earth shattering, but of course it did switch people on to the fact that they needed to be careful which applications they gave permission to access their data while on Facebook.
Well, a few months on and it looks like the BBC had a coder create an application (in three hours or less) that could swipe a whole pile of data on both you and your friends, before mailing it back home to base. I can’t stress enough – when it comes to social networking sites, NEVER post anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable posting on an otherwise open and accessible site such as your blog, personal website, whatever. I have pages on Myspace, Facebook, Orkut and a whole bunch of others – and there is NOTHING on them that you couldn’t find elsewhere. There is no hidden treasure trove of data to mine, and so I don’t care what happens to it because it’s all out there in the public domain anyway. This is what I’ve been telling people for the longest time, and it works.
The hacker in this case has been able set up a malicious application that can steal details of not only your information but the people you’re connected with. This is because in Facebook, applications have permission to ‘walk the tree’ of your friend contact details, letting the apps do things like populate the list of people for you to forward to, when you choose to “forward this and see what happens.”
We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.
The article is worth reading. Wow, good job British hax0rz! I won’t say “the sky is falling” because this has been pretty well-known among the geek-o-rati for a long time. BBC notes MySpace apps run on MySpace’s servers, giving MySpace a much clearer idea of what an application is doing with the data.
Perhaps the media attention this is sure to draw will move FB to a more secure model. One can hope.
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Posted on April 21, 2008. Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business networking, ebay inc, facebook, internet entrepreneurs, internet startups, linkedin, myspace, professional networking, Silicon Valley, social networking, social platforms |
You love to read these kind of success stories.
Few Internet entrepreneurs practice what they preach as devoutly as LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, whose business revolves around his belief that good fortune flows from good relationships.
Hoffman, 40, has put that principle to work by mining his own vast network of Silicon Valley connections to rake in one Internet jackpot after another.
A college friendship led Hoffman to PayPal and his first windfall when eBay Inc. bought the online payment service for $1.5 billion in 2002. Since then, he has become even wealthier by investing in other Internet startups he discovered through friends and former colleagues.
Along the way, Hoffman also used some of his PayPal proceeds to help start LinkedIn, an online business-networking service that helps professionals like him realize the value of their contacts from the past and present.
With more than 1 million people joining each month and projected 2008 revenue of $75 million to $100 million, LinkedIn Corp. seems likely to deliver another big payoff for Hoffman.
“LinkedIn is a great expression of who Reid is,” said John Lilly, chief executive of the Firefox Web browser maker, Mozilla Corp., where Hoffman sits on the board of directors. “It’s really his brain on the Web.”
LinkedIn tries to help people who know each other elsewhere more easily meet others who might help their careers. For example, if Mary and Bob are both part of Fred’s online network, Mary could ask Fred for a referral to Bob, who could then decide whether he wanted to embrace a new relationship with Mary.
LinkedIn’s focus on professional networking distinguishes it from social playgrounds like Facebook and News Corp.’s MySpace, where users are encouraged to share their personal lives by posting party photos and adding favorite bands.
Although it may not sound as much fun, LinkedIn appears to be thriving. About 18 million people now have profiles on the site, roughly twice as many as a year ago.
Hoffman, who remains LinkedIn’s chairman and largest shareholder five years after starting the company, said the Mountain View-based company will probably file for an initial public offering of stock before 2010 if he isn’t first tempted to sell to one of the suitors that have inquired about buying LinkedIn. Hoffman wouldn’t identify the suitors.
“I know we are going to be much more valuable in a year or two,” Hoffman said. “We have had (buyout) conversations with all the usual suspects, but I think an IPO is by far and away the most likely outcome.”
Nonetheless, LinkedIn has its share of detractors, who see it as little more than a tool for job hunters and employment recruiters, a slightly different twist on online help-wanted services like Monster.com or Yahoo Inc.’s HotJobs. Besides selling ads, the site lets employment recruiters and others pay for expanded access to LinkedIn members.
Although former LinkedIn executive Keith Rabois isn’t as harsh, he believes Hoffman needs to pursue an IPO as soon as possible to create a bigger buzz about the service.
“Right now, LinkedIn just doesn’t seem to be at the center of the Internet universe and an IPO would be an amazing marketing opportunity,” said Rabois, who left LinkedIn last year to join another rapidly growing startup, Slide Inc.
LinkedIn so far hasn’t generated the same kind buzz as Facebook Inc., which has been attracting many of the same users as LinkedIn. With 60 million users, privately held Facebook already boasts a $15 billion market value and has indicated it will pursue its own IPO in 2009 or 2010.
Hoffman happens to have a stake in Facebook, underscoring his knack for identifying promising Internet opportunities in their early stages.
“It’s like he is able to look at the Internet and figure out where all the pieces fit together,” said Mark Kvamme, a partner at Sequoia Capital and a member of LinkedIn’s board of directors.
While Facebook could produce Hoffman’s biggest investment return, it threatens to become a thorn in his side if it diminishes the amount of time people spend at LinkedIn.
As a countermeasure, LinkedIn in recent months has been adopting more Facebook-like features. The changes have allowed LinkedIn users to display pictures next to their personal profiles and opened up the site for outsiders to post mini-applications, known as widgets, designed to help people with common connections to share information.
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Posted on April 19, 2008. Filed under: facebook, security, social networking | Tags: facebook, greater manchester police, police web, public awareness, social networking site, uk police, worklight |
This is very interesting use of Social Network Maps; Greater Manchester Police (GMP) recently announced that it is now using social networking site, Facebook, to help in its fight against crime. Facebook and GMP have collaborated on the development of a Web 2.0 application which provides news feeds, and links to a crime-reporting form, Police Web sites and videos. Facebook members can add the application to their user profiles at http://apps.facebook.com/gmpupdates.
GMP hopes the move will help it raise public awareness of local incidents and facilitate the exchange of information on crime. GMP is the first police force in the UK to use the site in this way.
According to Worklight Inc, a Web 2.0 security specialist, GMP’s use of Facebook is in line with an increasing trend for organisations to use social network sites as business tools. However, Worklight also highlights the need for tight control in order to eliminate security risks. WorkLight claims its technology allows organisations to use Web 2.0 consumer services, including Facebook, for business purposes, without the attendant security risks.
Source:Techwatch UK
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Posted on April 16, 2008. Filed under: blogging, social networking | Tags: blogger, blogging, facebook, sixapart, social networking, social platforms, tumblr |
SixApart launched BlogIt by TypePad last night, a Facebook app that lets you post to SixApart blogs and other blogging software like WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr, to your Facebook Newsfeed and to Twitter all from one place. It’s the kind of app that makes Facebook all the closer to being a one stop social media experience.
The service could be more fully developed but it’s certainly in the lead compared to other services aiming to do the same thing. A close look at the details leads us to believe that this could be a much bigger move than it might seem to be. Here’s a few reasons why we believe it’s so interesting.
SixApart is a leading company in the field of social graph experimentation and the most outspoken participating company willing to be critical of some of Google’s efforts like OpenSocial.
Read more here
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Posted on April 8, 2008. Filed under: apple, internet, social networking, yahoo | Tags: connectu, facebook, mark zuckerberg |
Facebook is close to putting an uncomfortable and embarrassing legal episode behind it.
ConnectU founders Tyler Winklevoss, left, and Cameron Winklevoss, right, and Divya Narendra. (Photo: Charles Krupa/Associated Press)
A person briefed on the status of dueling lawsuits between Facebook and the competing site ConnectU said on Sunday that Facebook was finalizing a settlement with the founders of ConnectU — brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their colleague, Divya Narendra.
The ConnectU founders were accusing Mark Zuckerberg and the original crew behind Facebook of pilfering their profitable idea back in 2003, when they were all Harvard students. Facebook had filed a countersuit, accusing ConnectU of unfair business practices.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. In the meantime, all motions in the case against ConnectU have been terminated.
ConnectU did not immediately respond to an e-mail message requesting comment. A California federal judge had ordered the parties into mediation last year.
The ConnectU founders asserted that they hired Mr. Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, in 2003 to help create a campus-wide dating site called Harvard Connection. They say that he stalled on the project for months while nurturing his own idea and ultimately starting TheFacebook.com. The case cast doubts on Mr. Zuckerberg’s ingenuity, and discovery efforts turned up some embarrassing material — like his diary. Facebook clearly needed to make the suit go away before a widely expected initial public offering that could come as early as next year.
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company would not comment on legal matters. But the person briefed on the status of the negotiations said motions to dismiss the cases were expected to be filed “within weeks.”
Source: NYT
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