Myspace. What Facebook’s Developer Announcement means: How Community can. Update: Several have suggested that this announcement is nothing new, (See initial announcement in 2006) and upon further investigation (and a quick email exchange with the Facebook team) confirms this to be right. What’s new is that it’s now easier to do than before. Regardless, the awareness of this feature is low within the marketplace, and everything I write in the following still stands true. Consider this awareness raising, and more of these types of distributed web tactics to continue in 2008.
My goal is to simply tech speak and boil it down to what it means for you, a web strategist. I’ll update this post as I learn more information. What Facebook wrote In their most recent announcement they gave a very technical explanation regarding the announcement: “This JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site and makes it easy to create Ajax Facebook applications. This is really making the social features and widgets of Facebook portable.
Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan. Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR - Brand Republic Online - B. Facebook Sponsored Group Analysis: Target vs Wal-Mart. Web Strategist Connie Benson pointed out the Target Wal-Mart Sponsored group in Facebook isn’t getting a warm reception. As I cruised through the group, I noticed a much higher degree of interaction, amount of members, and community engagement.
[Target and Wal-Mart have both deployed a Sponsored Group within Facebook, each deploying contrasting strategies with different results] Here’s a comparison of the two groups as of Sept 10th, 2007:Please note, it’s impossible to tell who’s really behind some of these comments and threads, some could be hired on various services. Marketing StrategyThe timing is right to launch these site, as it’s back to school season Wal-Mart: College students, dorm roomsTarget: College students, dorm rooms URL to view live group: Wal-Mart: Direct lnk (Facebook account required)Target: Direct link (Facebook account required) PR Firm: Wal-Mart: EdelmanTarget: ?
Launch Date, estimated: Wal-Mart: Early AugustTarget: Early July Features: Number of current members: Screenshots. With FriendCSV, Data Sneaks Out Facebook’s Back Door. Facebook Grader Ranks Facebook Elite. I read Kottke’s post and his follow-up last week and the question he asks has been ratting around in my brain ever since. Is Facebook the new AOL? I’ve been debating his posts in private with a number of people and one of them, Jarid Lukin, the creator of the word freemium among other things, said the following to me: But, the bigger issue with Facebook to me is the reliance on the college market. I know they’ve opened up membership recently, but their user base is predominantly still college kids (and the TechCrunch crowd). Jarid runs a web-based business that targets a different sector than the college crowd so he is thinking about this through his lens, which we all do. It got me thinking. I had seen so many of my friends jump onto Facebook recently that I naively assumed it was gaining critical mass among the older crowd.
So I twittered the following message yesterday afternoon: Does anyone use facebook other than 15 to 25 year olds and the techcrunch 50,000? And I got a hit. ASP.NET Facebook Application Tutorial. ASP.NET. Facebook Connect Authentication for ASP.NET. The Social Media Revolution: Visualised Nine Out of Ten 25-34 Year Old U.K. Internet Users Visited a Soc. July 20, 2009 Nine Out of Ten 25-34 Year Old U.K. Internet Users Visited a Social Networking Site in May 2009 Internet Users Age 55 and Older More Likely to Visit Social Networking Sites than Business & Finance, Technology and Travel LONDON, U.K., July 20, 2009 – comScore, Inc.
(NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study into U.K. social networking site usage by age of visitor, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. The study found that 29.4 million people accessed at least one social networking site in the U.K. in May, averaging 4.6 hours per visitor during the month, with Facebook.com ranking as the most visited social networking site. Social Networking Reach High Among All Age Groups Social networking has become a mainstream online activity among all age groups, with 80 percent of the total U.K. online population having visited a site in the category in May. Top 10 Social Networking Sites in U.K. Social Networking: Everyone is Doing it, All the Time. ComScore has a report on the state of social networking in the UK, showing that social networking is a mainstream activity among all age groups, and the second online activity when it comes to time spent, behind instant messaging.
Simply put: everyone is doing it, and they're doing it often. According to the study, 80% of users among all age groups visited a social networking site in May 2009, at least once, spending an average time of 4.6 hours there. Young users are interested in social networking the most, with 89% of those 25 to 34 years visiting social networking sites, and older groups aren't falling behind that much, as 67% of those aged 55 or more visited a social networking site in May, spending an average of 3.7 hours there.
See the full stats in the table below: The Five Eras Of The Social Web. A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 « Web Strategy by. Facebook Grader | Score Your Profile. The 14 Peculiar Social Media Users | Design And Marketing Blog. List of Communities, Virtual Worlds, and Social Networks for You. I’m doing research around how different ages using social networks, communities, and virtual worlds by age, and will compile this list as it grows. I’m looking for established community sites that are mature enough to work with brands. There is already so much coverage on mainstream social networks like Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn that we forget about the other smaller niche networks.
First, understand technographics (how ages use social media 18+) by accessing Forrester’s profile tool, available for free. If you know the demographics for any of these, please leave a comment. Youth I’m primarily seeking communties that are under 18, beyond just MySpace. 50+ Now of course, boomers and retired are also going to be on lifestyle social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but I’m seeking examples that are focused in on reaching these folks.
Departed Someone suggests this in the comments in Friendfeed, makes sense. Related Resources. What makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks? Many brands are considering it, some have done it. Done what? Marketed on social networks (Facebook, Myspace, or private label social networks). Why? Social Networks are attractive because consumers are connecting with other consumers and the trust tends to be higher. Secondly, there’s a tremendous amount of buzz from the media for this newest form of marketing. Lastly, there’s lots of folks using social networks (about 2/3rds of all North American youth use it daily, and about 1/3rd of NA adults use it as least once a month –data From Forrester Research, Q4, 2007) Sadly, many brand are going to do it wrong, by wasting resources, or embarrassing their brand with a campaign that doesn’t fit the needs of a community.
I’m a laaaazy (or is it efficient?) The following attributes are what I think are often found in successful social networking campaigns, but don’t let me be the judge, I want your input. Marketing Campaigns on Social Networks share the following attributes: Three ways that social networks are different from other forms o. Social Networks are widely accepted to be the latest evolution of online communications, tracing a line back through instant messaging, webmail, chat rooms and bulletin boards. Now that we’ve had a little more time and perspective on how they are used, we’re starting to see a few differences between how social networks are used for online communication and previous forms of online communication. I can think of three primary differences: Stages for Performance.
As danah boyd has noted before, the public nature of many social network communications leads to performance aspects to communication. Users are simultaneously communicating with not just the recipient, but anyone else who happens to stumble across the recipient’s profile. Suppose it’s your birthday, and I know it. Lighter Weight Communications Historically, an important part of communicating with someone is having something to say. People have found lots of solutions to this problem. Context for communications. Social Media: Why social network “friends” are not necessarily f. 7 Key Learnings you should know from the Web Community Forum. I just spent the last two days exploring nearly all aspects of Facebook with 100 brands, marketers, widget companies, and developers at Seattle’s Web Community Forum (with a focus on Facebook).
Some have had success (some were strategic…others were in the right place at the right time), but many are trying to make sense of what to do. But what does it all mean, what’s the big takeaway? A few high-level themes that I observed: 1. Hard to keep up: Facebook platform is constantly changing Nearly every developer who presented mentioned that the Facebooks developer platform F8 is constantly changing, and sometimes without notice, it’s difficult to keep up.
New features are released (such as the ability to read messages in external email) without warning, and major changes are made that can impact privacy (Newsfeed and Beacon) with little warning to the community. Ok, now back to you, what other large themes and trends are you seeing? Facebook has been impressing more than just Compete over the past few months. As we reported on Tuesday, for the month of August, the social networking rising star is now ranked third in terms of pageviews, and may have started to finally pull users away from MySpace. But if Facebook was a novel, this domain level traffic would be the jacket; to get to the story you have to open it up"¦so here’s chapter one. Because of the Facebook’s design, it is essentially impossible to do anything as a non-member. While Facebook received over 26 million visitors in August, a little over 22 million end up signing in. Good Facebook stats. Rant: The Challenges of Social Media.
Social Media pessimist, Andrew Keen, has gotten to me. I first heard him speak at Vancouver’s vid fest, he was snarling at a public debate, and was able to tear into at least one of the panelists pretty well. I then started to watch his videos on TechOne with Steve Gilmor (language and obnoxious attitudes), be sure to watch the debate series. Apparently, he’s producing shows on PodTech, where I just left my full time role. Shhh don’t tell, but when no one’s looking, I read his blog. After you develop your callous from his abrasiveness you can hear some very valid points, he often writes about the problems of social media, and authored the hell raising “Cult of the Amateur”. In his latest post he writes: “Why am I the only critic of Web 2.0, people want to know?
I hear you Andrew. I’ve sung the praises of these tools after using them myself, I want to make sure we look at things in a fair and unbiased way, so here’s a 360 view: Social Media. Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Faceforce k. By Charlene Li I'm in the midst of writing a chapter on the enterprise use of social technologies and I noticed that Salesforce.com employee Clara Shih (an AppExchange Product Manager and author of the AppExchange blog) has teamed up with a software engineer at Facebook, Todd Perry, to create FaceForce.
This AppExchange app integrates Facebook profiles *into* Salesforce -- so it's not really a Facebook application so much as it's tapping into Facebook's APIs. Jeff Grosse has an excellent write-up and a Flash demo is also available from Clara (BTW, she's pretty darn smart). For those of you unfamiliar with AppExchange, it's the equivalent of Facebook for the enterprise.
Outside developers can create custom applications that sit on top of Salesforce, for example, enabling politicians to use Salesforce to manage their campaigns. So it's very fitting that Salesforce and Facebook join forces here to integrate their services. And that will change the nature of Facebook, for better or worse. Facebook Poke: Social Impact from a Feature with no Purpose.
Has someone poked you? What a colleague? Yes, I too know that awkward silence near the coffee machine the next day. When my friend Kit Seeborg first joined Facebook, she emailed me and text messages me asking me about what is the “poke feature” for in Facebook. I explained it was first a way for people to flirt, and even have an awkward one night stand at Brown University and now it’s a gesture, to get someone’s attention.
In fact there’s 172 groups (with chapters for major cities) within Facebook entitled “Enough with the Poking let’s just have sex“, go figure. Facebook has an official FAQ for the Poke Feature, “A poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. If you ‘remove’ a poke from your profile, Facebook let’s us know what happens: “Once a poke is hidden, it’s gone forever. Clueless? On previous blog posts, I’ve asked people to add me as their friend, and I promise to add them back, as long as they don’t poke or bite me, well, it didn’t work. List of Companies that Aggregate Social Networks.
It’s the Facebook Platform’s 3 Month Anniversary Today marks the 3-month anniversary of the Facebook Platform since it launched May 24 at F8 in San Francisco. Suffice it to say, the pace of innovation surrounding the Facebook Platform so far is faster than that for any platform ever before. I thought this would be a good opportunity to step back and take a look at some basic Platform stats and guideposts. In the first 90 days of the Facebook Platform: 3,261 applications have been created and vetted by Facebook (many more remain below the radar). Developers from around the world and every level of sophistication are building diverse categories of Facebook applications.
It is extremely cheap to develop and deploy Facebook apps.46 applications have garnered over 1 million net installations. Facebook has truly taken the social networking world by the <<>>, and the game is theirs to lose. However, not everything is hunky-dory… Developers are dying for decent Feed metrics. Sponsored Post. The numbers, from Facebook themselves. Digest of the Social Networking Space: August 15th, 2007. Social design for social media companies « Lightspeed Venture Pa. Article: Social Media, From the Drawing Board to the Board Room.
Website Magazine asked me to contribute an article on Social Media Measurement for this Fall’s issue, if you’re a web strategist at a corporate and need to justify your social media program these practical steps will help you get started. Yes, it’s ironic that there’s a print magazine about the web, but you can read much of it online anyways.
The need to measure is especially important during these early years of social media adoption at corporations, why? The need to justify something new and different will determine resources and budgets. When social media normalizes, we’ll have less need to prove ROI, and more focus on making this an efficient way to reach customers. You can access the article on their website or read below. Below: Article for Website Magazine Social Media: From the Drawing Board to the Board RoomBy Jeremiah OwyangAs the Web continues to evolve, so must corporate marketing and communications channels. Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Wal-Mart�. Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist.
Facebook Users Up 89% Over Last Year; Demographic Shift.