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Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Facebook consolidates with acquisition of FriendFeed

August 11th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Social media

One loss making company acquired another on Monday when Facebook shelled out $50m in cash and stock for the sharing service and social network, FriendFeed. Facebook is valued at $6.5bn.

Facebook announcement.

FriendFeed has made little impact on the mainstream but it does appeal to the geek audience, including myself. In my mind, FriendFeed works best as an aggregator as opposed to a destination for content – its closer to the failed Facebook acqusition target, Twitter. The FriendFeed interface is very simplistic unlike the increasingly congested and hectic Facebook.

The user bases are very different, which suggests primary motivation is to absorb talent and expertise (particularly in the area of real-time services) rather than eliminate a competitor – FriendFeed traffic has stagnated for most of the year. The co-founders of FriendFeed and staff will join Facebook’s engineering team.

I think its unlikely that Facebook will continue to support FriendFeed as a separate entity given the fact that both sites are burning rather than generating cash at this point in time. It makes sense for Facebook to consolidate but expect a lot of user angst from one or both communities when the integration process begins.

This is very early days for the social networking sector as a whole. Will Facebook still hold the lead when the industry begins to mature (whenever that might be but a fair few years from now)? Who knows? It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, not least in relation to the monetization and data privacy issues – the elephants in the room for this industry sector. This space won’t stand still for long as evidenced by a wide range of social networking services out there nipping at the heels of Facebook.

Check out Twine, FourSquare, Posterous, Yahoo Mosh and MySpace (just joking).

Tags: facebook, FourSquare, FriendFeed, Mosh, myspace, Posterous, SocialNetworking, Twine, twitter

Is the social networking star waning?

July 14th, 2009 by Daniel Young | 3 Comments | Filed in Social media

Is the social networking star waning?

This graph shows the Traffic Rank for the three biggest international social networks since mid-2007, courtsey of Alexa.

Traffic Rank compares all websites and ranks them from number 1 up in terms of traffic figures. Facebook has been the fourth most Trafficked website on average over the last 3 months.

MySpace has gone from 6 in mid-2007 to 11 today. Twitter has enjoyed a steep ascent from around the 3,000 mark in mid-2007 to 15 today.

Google.com is number 1, at the time of writing. The number 1 spot rotates between Google and Yahoo.

This graph shows that total social networking activity peaked in Q308. It shows the percentage of total daily page views for each of the three sites. MySpace has been on a steady decline since then.

The MySpace experience suggests that social networks have a limited lifespan or that they need continual re-invention to motivate their members. The challenge lies in making changes and re-inventing without alienating users, as Facebook has found to its cost.

News Limited is about to embark on a new strategy for the loss-making site . The site will re-cast itself as an “entertainment portal” following a spate of redundancies and cut backs.

In 2008, U.S. ad spending on MySpace was $585 million, up 15% from 2007, and on Facebook was $210 million, up 50%, according to eMarketer. Facebook generated $210 million in ad revenues in the same period.

Ad spending on Facebook is expected to surpass that of MySpace in 2011. This will be a good indicator of the overall health of the social networking market.

Twitter has dominated the headlines in 2009 thus far. Facebook – which was today valued at $6.5billion – continues to be the star of social networking but I feel that there are signs that it’s star is waning.

Anecdotal feedback from friends suggest that the novelty factor has worn off. Photo sharing seems to be the primary function of the site for most users who tend to interact inside Facebook with the close circle of friends that they hang out with in real life. The re-design hid many applications and services behind tabs meaning that users have to go and look for content rather than have it come to them.

There are signs of an emergence of editorial ruminating about the future and usefulness of Facebook. In this article for Mac World, Hillary Rhodes asks: Is Facebook past its prime? Hillary makes the point that ‘the quality of the content that people share at Facebook may contribute to the longevity of the site far more than the sheer number of people who connect with each other’.

Negative editorial can only serve to speed the deterioration of the Facebook brand as a cool go to place. We always knew it was geeky but perceptions of the site seem to be edging into ‘un-cool’ or at least ‘old-hat’.

A recent study covered by The Australian identified a reaction to digital lifestyles. It found that the younger demographic longs for simpler times, it interested in retro and vintage (comes as no surprise if you live in Surry Hills) and has a desire for more authentic real-world relationships. The study found declines in the time spent on the Internet amongst 1,600 young adults (16-30 years old).

My view is that Twitter has a relatively sustainable lifespan because of its simplicity and its diversity. Twitter seems to have m0re potential due to the fact that it connects people that don’t know one another creating many more opportunities for users to refresh, grow and evolve their networks, exposing them to new sources of information and opinion.

It seems inevitable to me that the traditional / new media pendulum would swing back towards the reality of physical offline media. Like the dotcom bust, this process will redress the balance and bring a sense of reality to what has been a massively over-hyped area. I’d be a nut to argue that social media has had its day. We’re still in the formative phase of social networking and the chances are that Facebook will be superseded by something else in the short to medium term, in the same way that it has overtaken MySpace.

What does this mean for marketers?

Firstly, for online campaigns leveraging social networks and the Web. Marketers must ensure they have a presence within all major social network. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. It must be possible for the customer to engage with the brand and participate in the campaign within the social network of their chosing. This ensures maximum reach. Post campaign analysis will provide some interesting insights as to where your audience participates, which can be weaved into future campaigns.

Secondly, social networks will come and go. What’s important is that brands interact with their target audiences online in an authentic and credible voice. Its not about Facebook, MySpace or any other social network per se, its about understanding your customers and engaging them via the Internet and other forms of media in meaningful and valued interactions and conversations.

Tags: Bebo, facebook, myspace, Socia, social, Social media, social networks, twitter, Web

Twitter still talk of the town

June 2nd, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Public Relations, Social media

We held a digital workshop for a client today, which was very enjoyable. It was a 101 session that looked at best in class case studies across various facets of digital PR – social media releases, Twitter (covering hashtagging, wefollow and various add-on applications), social networking, virals, corporate blogging, integrated campaigns and so on. We also profiled some high ranking Australian bloggers, discussed social media policy and presented a high level strategic approach. Looking forward to next steps…

Elsewhere in the B-M world, we (not me) launched TweetElect09 – a real-time European election monitor and dashboard that is tracking – you guessed it – the European elections.

Tags: Burson, digital, facebook, Media, monitor, PR, real-time, social, twitter, virals

Social Networks Weaken Arguments Against National Identity Cards

April 6th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Politics, Social media

In April 2006, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced plans to introduce an Access Card system for health and welfare services. The half baked proposal received a lot of negative press and the Government was accused of attempting to introduce an national identity card by stealth. The Labour Government dropped the idea shortly after winning the 2007 Federal election.

Do you know who I am?

The Access Card was the latest attempt by Federal and State Governmentin Australia to introduce an identity card.

The world has changed significantly since 2006 – we’ve seen a major shift in consumer attitudes towards personal information as a result of mainstream social networking.

Internet companies now have access to vast amounts of data and in a wide variety of formats, take Google Street View for example.

Companies like Salesforce.com are tapping into social networks in order to cross reference the information that is readily available there with the information that they hold in databases and CRM systems.

Governments around the world have invested heavily in bail-outs and stimulus packages sending many into deep deficits. Will the heightened need to ensure that public funds are spent wisely strengthen the argument for citizen accountability via an identity card?

One wonders if these developments will compromise attempts to oppose the introduction of an identity card – or equivalent – in the future.

Tags: facebook, federal, Google, Government, howard, identity, information, privacy, rudd, salesforce

MySpace launches demographic targeting capabilities at Ad:tech Sydney 2009

March 10th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Music, My Blogroll, Social media, Technology

I attended the ad:tech 09 conference at the Sydney Convention Centre today, which provided plenty of food for thought on a wide range of digital marketing issues.

The conference kicked off with two keynotes in the morning and then split into three tracks.

The presentations that I saw were very case study driven, which is nearly always the case with these types of conferences. Agencies and clients were happy to talk about the revolution that ‘is occurring’ or ‘has occurred’ and to report back on successful campaigns and projects but few were willing to tackle some of the more challenging topics and issues facing the industry. I saw four members of one panel swerve the question of: What is influence and how can it be measured?

This is a topic that I plan to come back to.

Fox Interactive Media announced ‘four new initiatives‘ to ensure that it ‘enables marketers in their fight to be more efficient and relevant’.

One of the four initiatives – MySpace Lifestages’ will allow marketers to target Australians in a range of lifestages, including:

When a MySpace user has graduated from Uni
Is engaged to be married
Is Pregnant
Has given birth
Has lost a job
Has entered a new job
Has had a birthday

MySpace will provide marketers with access to this data in real-time (its based on the users’ self expressed interests on their public MySpace profiles’.

Some facts about MySpace Australia:

More than 2.4million uniqe Australian visitors in Jan 2009 – according to Nielson Online
Australians spents 2.3million hours on MySpace during Jan 2009
65% of MySpace Australia users are 18 years or over

The theme of brands engaging with consumers via existing social networks was a dominant one during day one of Ad:tech and its clear that huge value lies in the access that these social networks have to user data. Further, the value held in this data is the key to successful monetisation of social networks. The ability of social networks to harness information and present it in ways that are useful to marketing people will determine the future of social networking.

Users have – in the most part unwittingly – accepted this process by agreeing to the End User License Agreement, which is an essential step when signing up or becoming a member of a social network but one wonders how consumers will react in the long run when it becomes apparent to them that brands have access to this information and are using it to target them with offers and promotions. The onus is on the marketing industry to do this in a way that is truly engaging, entertaining or useful.

There were examples of some creative and engaging campaigns today.

I think there is an inherent danger for today’s popular social networks – the pressure to successfully monetize will increase over time (accelerating from now) resulting in them making more and more information available to marketers and potentially alienating their members. This may create the opportunity for new social networks to come in with promises not to share personal information with marketers.

Of course, there are other methods of monetizing social networks. This post by Laurel Papworth provides a comprehensive run down while Robert Andrews at The Guardian predicts a tough 2009.

Some more thoughts on day 1 from Ben Shepherd at Talking Digital here.

It’s OK, I’m back…

January 19th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Music

St. Malo, France (unrelated to the post)

Velvet Blues recently blogged on the trend towards shorter posts in the blogosphere. I can relate to this trend having not written a jot for more than a month. I just know that my legions of fans have been waiting with baited breath for the next installment – AND HERE IT IS.

I had a month off over Xmas and New Year, which included a week camping, a week in Byron and some quality time with my brother who was visiting from the UK.

I am keen to get the blog up and running and maybe shorted observational posts is the way forward. I often think about posts but struggle to find the time to extract them from my head. It didn’t help that the iBurst network went down (as a result of Commander’s bankruptcy), taking my Chilli Internet access with it. The offered me a discounted 24 month contract with 3 but my instincts told me that that would be pretty lame. So I moved over to ADSL with Telstra, which I am happy with so far.

I just learnt that Telstra acquired the iBurst’s wireless spectrum. Telstra is expected to wrap it up in cotton wool and hide it away to prevent any competitive activity – nice.

So here are some of the random thoughts that I thought would make nice topics for blog posts:

Music habits are changing – bands are coming and going very quickly as a result of the Web and iPOD phenomenon. Mass audience band loyalty/ affinity is a thing of the past (no ‘r’). The big mega bands are in decline, the future of music will be dominated by fly by nights – one hit wonders if you like that can pick up a small niche audience quickly and then fade from view for the next hot thing. This story tends to contradict my synopsis however…
‘My following is bigger than yours’ discussions are boring! I’ve been witness to almost relentless toing and froing from prominent personalities on Twitter about the size of their followings. It’s what you do with it guys.
I think it would be interesting to have a blog in Australia on the topic of the media landscape.
Its interesting to see celebrities jumping on to Twitter (Stephen Fry, Jonathon Woss, Paris, Britney (yes we are on first name terms)). I get a lot of value from Twitter. I think my follows have reached a critical mass.
I thought a lot about a post on potential business models for Twitter. That one might actually happen.
Social media monitoring tools have come a long way in the last 12 months (we’ve trialled loads) but there are still some big holes. This is an exciting area.

So there you go – some very succint posts. Watch this space.

Oh, and this blog needs a re-vamp. A friend described it as ‘cluttered’ – it’s been bugging me because he’s right. I work in PR so its all about style over substance *joke.

Tags: Blogging, facebook, iPOD, Music, twitter

With Fewer Staff Will Companies Respond by Blocking Access to Social Media in the Workplace

October 21st, 2008 by Daniel Young | 2 Comments | Filed in Social media, Technology

Dealing with the YouthForce

The Millenials and Gen Ys are an increasingly important segment of our workforce. This demographic has had the luxury of a prosperous economy during their teenage years and adult life. They haven’t experienced an economic downturn or heaven forbid – an R!

Accenture coined the term user-determined computing. The relates to the increasingly tech savvy workforce and the dramatic increase in the availability of free, customisable and easy to implement software.

The Accenture argument goes that new technology within the workforce is just as likely to be deployed by users as it is by the IT department, which poses the question: How much control should IT (the business) exert over its users in the Web 2.0 world?

In recent years, we’ve seen social networking applications, instant messenging, RSS readers and so on enter the workforce in a big way. They may or may not be being used for work related activities.

Companies are presented with four options:

Get Back to Work Make a Phone Call!

BLOCK: Prevent access to social networks, sites and services that aren’t obviously related to work.

TRUST: Allow access and leave workers to discover their own professional uses for the technology.

APPLY: Work with employees and third party consultants to identify ways in which the technology can be applied to work. Lay down guidelines for the use of social media and other tools in partnership with staff and communicate these guidelines.

MANAGE: Tap into workers enthusiasm for online communication by rolling out a Facebook-like platform for internal (and external with trusted partners) company communications.

Telstra and Channel 7 are two companies in Australia that have received negative media coverage for blocking access to social networks (Facebook in both cases).

It will be interesting to see how the issue of the tightening economy and the use of social networks in the work place converge during the next twelve months. We’ve seen a rash of retrenchments in Australia and around the world, which looks likely to continue.

Recent research by the people at Wikinomics found that 50% of the Net Generations surveyed spend more than 2 hours every day using work technologies (Internet, IM etc.) to complete non-work tasks.

My bet would be that corporations will increasingly opt to BLOCK as staff are cut back.

The forward thinking companies will respond to this issue by trying to find ways to use new technology to increase productivity in the workplace rather than adopting the punitive BLOCK mentality.

Here are the results from Wikinomics:

Disclosure: Accenture is a client.

Tags: Bebo, facebook, Friendster, Gen Y, Generation, IM, Millenials, myspace, Net, Recession, Social media

Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

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