The Associated Press never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. First, the flap about preventing bloggers from snippet-izing its content. Now it has decided that, rather than send traffic from its Twitter account to its own website, it would rather send it to Facebook.

Say what?

The AP obviously has a ton [...]]]>

The Associated Press never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. First, the flap about preventing bloggers from snippet-izing its content. Now it has decided that, rather than send traffic from its Twitter account to its own website, it would rather send it to Facebook.

Say what?

The AP obviously has a ton of media partners, and they could easily link to any of those, or even the story hosted on their own site. But no, instead they’re copying all these stories to their Facebook page and linking there for no apparent reason.

As a result, Facebook gets to count all those page views as its own, while AP probably continues to wonder why it is not seeing a significant lift in its own site metrics. Painful.

via The AP Is Using Twitter To Send People To Facebook. Wait. What?.

It doesn’t seem to take much for the digital press to slam MySpace these days. First, concerns about the usability of MySpace Music. Then the highly-publicized ousting of founder Chris DeWolfe. Insert layoff. Then, the recent announcement that new CEO Owen Van Natta had been sacked. And against all of this, the steady, [...]]]>

It doesn’t seem to take much for the digital press to slam MySpace these days. First, concerns about the usability of MySpace Music. Then the highly-publicized ousting of founder Chris DeWolfe. Insert layoff. Then, the recent announcement that new CEO Owen Van Natta had been sacked. And against all of this, the steady, exploding phenomena that is Facebook’s gravity-defying growth.

TechCrunch was on-hand at MySpace’s recent company meeting, and reports on the social networking giant’s new plan:

MySpace’s go forward vision was presented to employees, say our sources, and it was all about a single feature thrust that they’re calling “Discovery.”

The idea is to hit users over the head with new stuff when they come to MySpace… If they get this right, the thinking goes, people will want to visit the site over and over again to see what new stuff they can do.

This is effectively a recommendation engine around new content, says one source, but MySpace doesn’t want people calling it that.

A reco engine is MySpace’s deus ex machina? This could prove tricky, as many observers have noted that who a person says he or she is on MySpace may have little resemblance to who they are in real life. How can MySpace hope to effectively unearth its users’ preferences when it cannot verify much factual information about them? (The counter-argument to this is that, regardless of who I say I am on MySpace, I reveal my true preferences through the multimedia content I consume. Tracking my “digital fingerprints” this way may eliminate the need for greater identify verification.)

I hope MySpace finds its mojo on this one, but hearing astute observers like TechCrunch describe this new strategy as a “Hail Mary” play does not inspire confidence.

via MySpace’s Hail Mary Strategy: “Discovery”.

Twitter, however, is undaunted by such stats, and, instead, promotes the fact that its monthly number of tweets continues to climb ever higher:

But what is the value [...]]]> Concerns have recently been voiced about Twitter’s user base: churn is over 90%, and the average number of tweets sent by a Twitter user is, er, 1.

Twitter, however, is undaunted by such stats, and, instead, promotes the fact that its monthly number of tweets continues to climb ever higher:

But what is the value of a tweet? Metrics I’ve seen range from a couple of cents to a few fractions of a cent. Is Twitter selecting the data that presents it in the best possible light, while ignoring the fact that its astronomic growth rate may have peaked? And how many of the tweets in the above graph are result of spam bots?

Now that Facebook, and, more recently, Google, have gotten into the realtime microblog scene, expect to see Twitter’s user base numbers continue to erode in the months ahead.

via Twitter Is Still Growing Rapidly [STATS].

Transplanting social network success to distant shores can be damn near impossible.

Unless you’re Facebook.

Consider MySpace’s experience: pushed by Murdoch to expand its international operations, the social network opened a series of foreign offices in countries as far-flung as South Korea and Turkey. These outcroppings at the edge of the digital empire were sacrificed [...]]]>

Transplanting social network success to distant shores can be damn near impossible.

Unless you’re Facebook.

Consider MySpace’s experience: pushed by Murdoch to expand its international operations, the social network opened a series of foreign offices in countries as far-flung as South Korea and Turkey. These outcroppings at the edge of the digital empire were sacrificed early in the economic meltdown, and MySpace has since reconsidered its plans for international expansion in the post-DeWolfe era.

Now, Bebo is shutting down its Australian offices. While this will not result in any disruption to Bebo users down under, it is significant nonetheless, because it suggests that Bebo is suffering a similar fate to MySpace in that it is simply unable to compete against Facebook’s international crush:

A remarkable story from this picture is that MySpace, once heralded as the social network of our generation, will soon be reduced to the same tiny share of Bebo, a social network most Americans have never heard of before– and all because of the emergence of a relatively late entrant to the field of social networks. One wonders whether Bebo can pick up any opportunities to steal share from MySpace as both networks continue to lose ground.

Hitwise Intelligence – Alan Long – Asia Pacific.

It may be a far cry from the $15 billion valuation it received three years ago from Microsoft, but Facebook has jumped to a new valuation of $9.5 billion. While this represents a downgrade since the highs of 2006, it is a considerable win for the social networking behemoth, which saw its valuation [...]]]>

It may be a far cry from the $15 billion valuation it received three years ago from Microsoft, but Facebook has jumped to a new valuation of $9.5 billion. While this represents a downgrade since the highs of 2006, it is a considerable win for the social networking behemoth, which saw its valuation sink to $1.3 billion on the private exchanges as recently as one year after Microsoft took a stake in it.

What’s moving the stock? The fact that Facebook has continued its meteoric rise despite the global recession certainly counts for something. Chances are, however, that it has more to do with the fact that Facebook recently turned cash flow-positive. The holy grail of social networks– monetization –is beginning to happen, and investors are noticing. Also hovering in the background are persistent expectations that, as the economy continues to improve, Zuckerberg and company will have more opportunities to consider their exit strategy:

“The fact that the stock on these private exchanges moved — I’m sure that has to do with the fact that people think a deal is coming sooner rather than later,” said Bard, whose firm is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

via Facebook Common Stock Valuation Jumps 42% to $9.5 Billion – Bloomberg.com.

Bebo recently implemented a new site button which let’s its users report priority issues:

The button is called the CEOP Report button, (CEOP stands for UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), if you click on it, you’ll get advice and help about issues such as child abuse (but also viruses and hacking), as [...]]]>

Bebo recently implemented a new site button which let’s its users report priority issues:

The button is called the CEOP Report button, (CEOP stands for UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), if you click on it, you’ll get advice and help about issues such as child abuse (but also viruses and hacking), as well as details on how to inform the police and CEOP.

It’s a smart move that signals to law enforcement just how serious Bebo takes child safety. The fact that it is user-driven is another plus, as it does not require Bebo to do anything other than react in a timely manner to reports coming in. Of course, there will always be users who see a predator behind every tree, but wading through the false positives is hopefully something that Bebo bore in mind prior to releasing this feature.

Will MySpace and Facebook release a similar feature? Don’t count on it. MySpace appears to be in a kind of cozy equilibrium with law enforcement, and has little reason to take a proactive measure like this unless compelled to do so. Due to its walled garden approach, Facebook also does not seem to require such a feature. Its users already seem capable of reporting such issues to the mothership without the need for additional mechanisms.

Of course, all of these sites are one ambitious politician’s press conference away from implementing significant new controls to keep their users safe.

via Bebo’s Abuse Button: Should Facebook and MySpace Follow Suit?.

As the picture suggests, the first partner onboard is LinkedIn, but I expect other social nets to take notice. Despite [...]]]> Microsoft has just launched a new feature to Office 2010 called Outlook Social Connector. Whenever someone sends an email to your Outlook, that person’s social networking profile will be displayed along with their message:

As the picture suggests, the first partner onboard is LinkedIn, but I expect other social nets to take notice. Despite its shortcomings, Outlook is still the 800-lb gorilla in the world of client email. Of course, this is a frontal assault on Xobni, which functions as a plug-in to, er, Outlook, and ‘ports in your friends’ social graph whenever they send you an email. Interesting that Microsoft chose to roll its own here, rather than simply acquire Xobni outright.

Think we’ll see Facebook soon? With Microsoft’s 1.6% stake in the social networking giant, I’d count on it.

via Microsoft Outlook to Connect LinkedIn to Your Inbox.

The question is: how many of these ad dollars will flow to social media? Andy Beal explains:

Sixty-two percent of U.S. online buyers use social networking sites like [...]]]> Forrester Research has just published a report which shows moribund growth in affiliate marketing budgets for 2009, followed by an aggressive compound annual growth rate of 16%:

The question is: how many of these ad dollars will flow to social media? Andy Beal explains:

Sixty-two percent of U.S. online buyers use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace.com for communicating and keeping up with friends. Only 2% of U.S. online buyers have purchased products through social networking sites. Affiliate sites get paid based on transactions they drive, not simply click-throughs. Thus, affiliate sites currently experimenting with social networks may be getting traffic from these sites, but they are sending very few qualified leads to marketers. Little money will therefore change hands in this scenario.

There’s that word again: experimental. It began as a term of admiration, as in: “Cool– we can allocate some of our ad budget to experimental, up-and-coming sites like Facebook and MySpace.” Over time, however, the term has taken on a less enthusiastic connotation, as in: “Our ad budget is down as it is– you really want to invest some of it in experimental areas like social media?”

I think the cancer at the heart of the rose here is social marketing’s inability to affix ROI metrics to advertising campaigns. A recent report shows that only 16% of companies that use social marketing even bother tracking ROI. (Read another way, a full 84% of companies using social marketing do so in the blind.)

Until we can create a common dashboard of meaningful metrics to measure success, social media will continue to be plagued with the “experimental” moniker.

via Marketers: Don’t Count on Facebook — Seeking Alpha.