Crenk » Social Networks

Social Media Revolution

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:07:11 +0000

How much is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google involved in your common day activities? Did you ever ask yourself that? Where would you be if those didn’t exist?

Well there thousands of those existential questions that you may or may not asked yourself, and there’s no need to get real philosophical about this, but we sure can be certain that those technologies, web apps and more have an important presence in most of our days.

About those presences, here’s a very interesting video about the facts of several of these social tools, technologies and media: “Social Media Revolution”

Here are some of the facts that caught my attention:

Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web
1 of 8 couples married in the US met via social media
If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest
TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users, Facebook took less than 9 months to reach 100 millions
Ashton Kutcher has more Twitter followers than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
35% of books sales on Amazon are for Kindle

“Social media isn’t a fad; it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate”

Silly Girl Loses Job Over Facebook Post

Dean Sherwin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:38:19 +0000

Different surveys have been carried out over the past number of years about how many of us actually like our jobs. The average of these surveys tells us that around 60% of us hate our jobs. It could be the hours, the pay, the conditions, the work or in this case – THE BOSS!

It’s well-known that social networking sites and blogs have cost people their jobs because they said bad things about the company and they were discovered by chance on the web. That’s got to sting. But how about this girl who actually added her new boss on FaceBook and then decided she would virtually tear him to shreds?

Needless to say, she lost her job and perhaps rightfully so – I mean, how stupid do you have to be to do that? She might as well have sent him the link.

I’d imagine there either from the UK or the Republic of Ireland as these are the only two countries that use P45 forms when jobs get terminated.

Here what the post and the bosses reply said. (Obviously their names have been removed).

US Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace and Facebook

Dean — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:26:29 +0000

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) are currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting day in day out against insurgency and terrorism under the constant threat of IEDs and enemy Kalashnikov or RPG fire. They bravely soldier on throughout.

However, when it comes to Web 2.0 they’re left quivering in their combat boots. The USMC has just announced that it is placing a network wide ban on Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter, MySpace and FaceBook in an effort to make their systems more secure.

They say that these sites are easily hacked and used by hackers and scammers and indeed those against US operations to post links to malicious sites in the hope a marine on R&R or a USMC staff member might click on them.

This would expose the soft underbelly of the USMC’s network and would lead to disaster. Here is what the USMC order read :

“These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries…”
“The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel… at an elevated risk of compromise.”

Top Social Networks for Advertising

Steven Finch — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:39:41 +0000

I came across this excellent list of social networks with their user bases and projected ad spending for 09. The list was put together by Borreall Associates and is a great resource. On the list are 118 networks that accept advertising and media buying.

Of course, Facebook and Myspace count for the majority of social media advertising, but there is still enough good traffic on other sites to be worth testing.

The download system is kind of a pain But since the report is free and this kind of data is valuable, its worth it. Download PDF or Excel version here.

Here are the top 30:

Microsoft’s Social Network: Windows Live Planet

Augusto Alvarez — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:42:05 +0000

I think it took a little more time to show up, but the Microsoft social network experiment is here: Windows Live Planet. Still seems that is very experimental since there are no big signs out there that encourage people to start getting involved with this site.

The marketing strategy seems to start focusing in one big costumer: India. The MSN India home page is linking to this new social network site; and already is using a Scribble Pad feature same as Orkut (India’s favorite social network site); that actually works very similar as Facebook’s wall, where your friends can stop by and write something for you.

The usability is the same as any other social network. You don’t need to create an account, with your Passport (Hotmail or any other) will give you direct access to your profile. And the cool thing that I found so far, is the Windows Live Messenger integration with the site.

Still, it needs a lot of work and improvement to actually be considered as a Facebook competitor.

Facebook’s Future: Not a Website

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:31:55 +0000

Who said it? Mark Zuckeberg, Facebook’s CEO.

He is quite sure that the real value from the web platform resides in multiple websites and applications across the Internet, and Facebook it’s not going to try to centralize all that; even better, Facebook will represent the entire platform that any user will need as for identification, business, relationship, etc. etc.

Here’s the interview with the whole concept that Mark gave it to Robert Scoble:

facebook.com/me get ready!

Augusto Alvarez — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:33:33 +0000

Facebook, the largest social network in the planet, has just announced that they are introducing a very cool feature for all users: including your name/nickname to the Facebook URL.

Meaning that whenever you want someone to visit your Facebook profile you don’t need to copy/paste that awful undescriptive URL, you will only need to choose an available name for you and your profile will be http://www.facebook.com/john.smith

This sounds like an option that could be published earlier, other important social networks already has this feature available (like Hi5). But anyway, it would represent a huge change for the network, making your profile easier to share; or even including the URL in your mail signature.

Spiral Frog (Ad-supported music service) In Trouble and Heading Towards Deadpool

Steven Finch — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:40:12 +0000

There is another music streaming service that we didn’t mention in our Top 10 free music streaming services and that is Spiral Frog. Spiral Frog is an ad-supported music download service which has had a huge amount of hype since launch.

Today it has been reported that Spiral Frog might be in a bit of trouble and heading towards the deadpool. These reports come from executives within the struggling company. Why is Spiral Frog in trouble? When launching Spiral Frog was in a growing advertising market in which was still yielding good CPM (cost per 1000 ads) rates, however now in the economic downturn these rates are quickly dropping. Therefore, companies need to keep increasing pageviews and presence to stay ahead of the curve. Spiral Frog has been losing a lot of traffic of late and this combined with the big licensing fees they had to pay upfront for major label catalogues means their in a lot of trouble.

There are only a couple of options that will save Spiral Frog. Firstly, a miracle could happen and they could turn around the traffic and the revenues, but that’s not going to happen. Secondly, they could get more funding and sell part of the shares, but they are running out of shares so I don’t think this would happen either. Finally, the only real option is for someone to step in and purchase the company just before they run out of money and get a bargain basement price.

To be fair in the past Spiral Frog has had a lot of issues and they have been in trouble a couple of times. This is probably what has lead to Spiral Frog getting a lot of media attention. I think Spiral Frog will be acquired by the end of 2009, its the only decent option of the company.

Adult Friend Finder Is Going Public

Steven Finch — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:41:54 +0000

US based FriendFinder Networks (formerly Penthouse Media Group) has filed a registration statement with the SEC to go public. The story was broken by Techcrunch and this seems like a huge leap for the adult network.

Little known Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is representing them in the deal. The company hopes to raise $460 million in the IPO.

Penthouse acquired Adult FriendFinder in December 2007 for approximately $400 million. Currently the network has $244 million in revenues from the first three quarters of 2008.

This seems like a very interesting move by FriendFinder Networks. It shows that there is simply just so much money in the adult industry online and now they are looking to move public and grow the services even faster, while cashing out at the same time.

Twitter Is Leading The Top 10 Fastest Growing Social Networks In The USA

Steven Finch — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:34:04 +0000

According to Nielsen’s report, Twitter is the fastest growing social network site for the 12 months. It grew more than 300% in traffic, followed by Tagged on second place and Ning on third. Ning is a service for creating community sites. (see top 10 sites below)

You Could Be Britney Spears New Boyfriend!

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:07:50 +0000

Okay, it’s a long shot, but with her track record, you actually might have a chance. I’m not saying anything is wrong with her, she just likes to meet a lot of people.

Well watch out world, Britney is online in the social media world. Where? You can connect with Britney on Twitter…or with her “people” at least. To coincide with the launch of her new blog site, fans can follow her on the Twitter stream and even reply to her. I wouldn’t hold your breath for direct answers, but stranger things have happened.

Any way you look at this, whether you like Britney or not, enough “mainstream” artists, performers, and other entertainers jump on Twitter, it will be hard to ignore its dominance in the market.

How To Get Your Content To The Top Of Social Networking Sites

Steven Finch — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:53:44 +0000

I came across a really great post today over at PingPongPie that helped to explain what you need to achieve with certain social networks, and how much traffic you can expect from them. I have added the exact numbers below.

Name of Network: Digg
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 60 – 300+ on average
Consequence of Negative Vote: Requires more Diggs to become popular. NOTE: One Bury does not cause your story to be removed! You can have a significant amount of “buries” and the story could still go popular.
Expected Traffic: 10,000 to 100,000 UVs
Type of Network: Social News

Name of Network: Stumble
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 30 – 40 typically, Reviews and Tags are also important
Consequence of Negative Vote: -1 to overall points
Expected Traffic: 2,000 – 50,000 UVs and the cycle can come again weeks to months later.
Type of Network: Toolbar – random

Name of Network: Propeller
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 35+ on average
Consequence of Negative Vote: -1 to overall points
Expected Traffic: 1,000 – 20,000 UVs – Can go to 100,000 if the story goes to news.aol.com
Type of Network: Social News

Name of Network: del.icio.us
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: More than 120 bookmarks (as fast as you can)
Consequence of Negative Vote: -1 Vote
Expected Traffic: Up to 20,000
Type of Network: Techy, Internet based info, guides

Name of Network: Mixx
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 30 – 60
Consequence of Negative Vote: -1 to overall points
Expected Traffic: Less than 100 UVs
Type of Network: Social News

Name of Network: Reddit
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 3 – 300+
Consequence of Negative Vote: -1 total points
Expected Traffic: 3,000 – 30,000 UVs
Type of Network: Social News

Name of Network: Yahoo! Buzz
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: N/A. Popular is Yahoo.com and that is manually selected.
Consequence of Negative Vote: Unknown
Expected Traffic: 1-3 million UVs
Type of Network: Social News

Name of Network: Fark
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: Admin manually select for Popular
Consequence of Negative Vote: unknown
Expected Traffic: 5,000 to 15,000 UVs
Type of Network: Humor

Name of Network: Ebaumsworld
Number of Votes Needed to go Popular: 30
Expected Traffic: 500-20,000+
Type of Network: Weird, Wacky Stuff, Interesting and Funny Pictures work really well.

Attack Of The Music Communities: Part 2

Steven Finch — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:31:06 +0000

After the great response I received from my articles a couple days ago titled, Attack Of The Music Communities, I thought I would write a quick note about some of the communities I left of who deserve a mention. These two music communities were mentioned in the comments of the previous post, so if you do want to have your say then Crenk is the place to get heard.

Reverb Nation – Reverbnation is a social network mixed with widgets. Depending if your an artist, label, manager, fan or venue, Reverbnation has options to help you achieve your goals. Artists can promote themselves in a similar way as they can on myspace, but artists can also receive 50% of the revenues generate from advertising on their own Reverb pages.

Jango – Jango is a mixture between social networking and customising your own online radio station. Just type in an artist and your first station starts playing right away. The service is a little like Last.fm in the way you can customise your own online station, but it lacks the feature of allow you to find new artists. Still the interface is nice and sexy.

If there are still any music sites I have left out, then please let me know and I might even produce a Part 3, to this ever growing Attack Of The Music Communities series.

I also just wanted to thank everyone who either Stumbled or Dugg our last post. Participation and help to spread the word of Crenk actually existing it really appreciated.