Agriya

For success in the world of social networking, exactly how aggressive do the marketing strategies employed have to be? Get this, the hub that seemingly captures the most news on every kind of medium, Twitter, gets less than 2% of all social network traffic today from US residents, according to statistics published on Experia. Twitter does grow with remarkable tenacity, posting a ten-fold growth this year; but where does that take it – to a grand total of less than 2%. So what does the scoreboard look like among the social network giants? Surely no one could have beaten Facebook and Twitter?

As it turns out, Facebook is unbeaten in what is almost 60% of the market. We have all been regaled with news reports of the death knell of MySpace for about a year now – how they departed from their roots in music in attempting to become a major social networking hub, and were snubbed by users for turning their backs on their musical origins. MySpace actually is not doing badly at all; it finishes second with about a third of the market, though it’s user base has shrunk considerably. The surprise bronze medalist in the race is the relatively low-profile Tagged.

“Why Tagged?” one may ask. What have they done? How could they have beaten Twitter? Twitter gets such glowing press and the best that Tagged got to do all year was to get negative press for an e-mail scam earlier this year and their hard sell tactics in getting memberships up. Perhaps all the hard-edged tactics have worked. Not only is this company getting sign-ups, it is also retaining those members with great page view statistics, time spent statistics, and financial profitability.

Twitter finishes last in the top four. Has there been a data error totaling up the numbers? How does all the great press Twitter receives about addictive tweeting not get it better rankings? It is possible, in fact that Twitter is merely a master at working the press.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The problem of being haunted by a tune must be a really bothersome one for people, judging by the number of applications there are out there that will help ease your mind in the matter. Midomi is one of the star performers in this area; this search engine is so powerful that it can pick up on the tune you have in mind if you will just sing it over into your computer. All you need is a modicum of singing skill and nothing stops you from placing that bothersome tune. Midomi happens to be a self-refining algorithm too. When enough people sing in for a particular song, the algorithm learns better and better.

Midomi and the competing product Shazam, both work on the iPhone and other smartphones too. Perhaps the best part of Midomi is the way it can tie in with the Twitter and Facebook experience. There is a Facebook app that Midomi has that can help you share all your musical discoveries in this way with your friends on the network. Once you have that song nailed, the program will also let you go over to your favorite YouTube clone site to watch a video or take you to an online music store to buy it.

In collaboration with LyricsFly and IMDB, a new service called ScreenTunes helps you search for movie soundtracks too. The Midomi concept can certainly help push a popular segment in social networking, one that is devoted to obscure music in a shared experience of discovering it. Perhaps the best part of these applications is hearing how they were created by enterprising young people, some barely out of school.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Facebook has made an astounding announcement this week: in a statement, the company says that it isn’t of primary importance to them that Facebook members actually log in into the website at all once they have signed up for their service; the announcement stated that it was all the same to the company that its members should visit the site for their updates or find the updates at any startup Facebook service at all. What is more, Facebook promises to release a set of developer tools for startup companies to look into Facebook with, to provide you with your Facebook updates and notifications outside of Facebook.

But why would Facebook do this – give away access to the core of its business to other commercial players? For one thing, Facebook believes that it is being overwhelmed by demand for its service; there are so many different kinds of gadgets out there to view content on that to expect one company to provide for all of them seems impractical. Actually, as counterintuitive as this sounds, it’s been done before – by none other than Twitter. That service has allowed third-party programs right from the start, that bring to people the ability to look at Twitter updates from outside of the website.

So how goes the third-party application situation so far? Consider SocialScope, a startup that aims to bring Facebook to your Blackberry. It lets you tap into multiple social networking sites, and is better even than Facebook’s app for that smartphone. Seesmic is another noteworthy service; when you install their software on your desktop, it allows you to use Facebook right from your desktop without going to that website. Seesmic just hopes to return Facebook the favor by basically making the Facebook idea more successful, giving their users convenience.

Facebook and Twitter are not really profitable enterprises yet, even with all their massive popularity. When people find out that they don’t need to actually go to those websites to check their information, won’t the websites lose whatever little chance they have at making a profitable venture of it? Only time will tell how this unconventional idea pans out.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The thing about the Internet is that in sitting in your home, putting your thoughts and personal information out, you are tricked into believing you have privacy; and in a password-protected Internet life how easy it is to take for granted how vulnerable we become without it.

Everyone has elderly relatives who need to be in on all that happens in the lives of the children in the family – birthday parties, school events; often, to help the technically uninitiated elderly relative, people just post their children’s pictures and videos on a place like Facebook without password protection or even on a YouTube clone website. They figure that their video is lost in the crowd of millions of others; what predator is really going to find it?

People only wake up to how easy it is for people to find it, when things get out of hand; people anywhere on earth roam the Internet, put together freely available media files and use them for anything – for a school project, for plastering all over the walls of a city a thousand miles away to advertise a baby show, or merely to share among friends. It can be very easy to let one mistake get out of hand.

Even where personal views on the subject tend to the liberal, there is always the serious consideration of how other people might react to your media-posting activities. Birthday party pictures, school event videos and the like, usually include images of other people’s children too. People take a dim view of having decisions about their children taken without their consent. If the parent of a friend of your child’s finds a picture of his child at your child’s birthday at a recognizable restaurant or park, they can right away worry about how a sick predator out there can find their child if they wish to. There’s also the matter of setting a good example for your child in online safety; if you go about posting personal pictures at random on the Internet, how will you ever tell your child to exercise caution himself?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Lu.ly ….. now that’s a funny random sound; but it is also a really great idea that all Facebook and Twitter devotees need to know about. Lu.ly basically, is a toolbar for all the major browsers that allows you to watch a crawl of all the relevant tweets and Facebook notifications out there, in real time, right there on your Lu.ly browser toolbar. There might be some people who might not find this useful, but to watch a crawl of all your chosen tweets like it was a news channel or something has to be fun.

Twitter add-ons for Firefox are nothing new; but this one takes the idea a step along, and makes it possible on all major browsers, and lets you watch your Facebook and Twitter updates in the same place. The design of the toolbar is tasteful and restrained, you can even hit pause if you want to concentrate on something else.

What does feel like to use Lu.ly then? New status messages constantly crawl into view; you can travel back and forth with the messages of the tweeter of your choice, right from within the toolbar too. There is a search bar on the toolbar in addition, that allows you to search within Twitter. The functionality offered by Lu.ly is right at par with the ones offered in competing Firefox extensions, like TwitterNotifier or Tweetbar; the implementation and the cross-platform compatibility is what sets Lu.ly apart. Of course, Lu.ly is now one more competitor for your already crowded toolbar space. Perhaps things could go the Ludicrous way; the Ludicrous Firefox add-on allows you to work in Twitter from your Firefox browser window using no other interface for its purposes other than Firefox’s own search box. Mac users should be able to use Lu.ly presently: a version is in the works.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Facebook and other networks are asking the question of privacy and safety. How many friends have you added even if you have never met or spoken to them? Are you sure of some of your “friends”?

All your information is recorded and can be found. Some users discover the bad side of Facebook. For instance, some members of Facebook notice an event and go to disturb the party and to devastate flats. Some friends aren’t friends that we thought.

Even if Facebook and Twitter have recently improved the security rules to protect members and in particular the younger generation, you are always free to share as much as you want about yourself. In the process, you might be compromising on safety. Moreover the principle of social networks is that you share as much as you can. So it’s difficult to prevent people from doing it.

However the aftermaths can be very serious. You never know who might be stalking you or using your private information for notorious uses.

An opportunity of job can you be refused to you if you display information like your sexual orientation. Some people can be highly prejudiced and judgemental. The danger is the illusion that Internet is always safe. The link between people is dehumanized and it leads to an impression of freedom. So don’t leave your common sense at home when you get onto social networks. Watch who you add as friends. Freedom needs to be used carefully.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The increase of social networks in the world like Facebook or Myspace was, at the beginning of success, unverifiable. Now we can stand back and see the bad effects of these world networks. Some private information that is disclosed is not really protected. When we know that members of Facebook are estimated to be 45 millions in 2007, we can suppose the stake is sizable. More than 2 billion pictures are available on it.

A lot of young people are regular members and aren’t aware of the possible danger. Some rules need to be edited and respected for the security of all users.

That’s why the European Union tries to create a legal framework. The goal is to avoid use of some private information like: “prohibits collection of personal information without consumers’ permission, forbids employers to read workers’ private e-mail, and doesn’t allow companies to share personal information on users without their permission.” Facebook is a big mine of information for sellers.

This initiative is a good beginning but terms of the chart are always vague and offer a lot of provision for flaws. It isn’t sure that users will be protected any better for the moment. However Facebook, MySpace and the like have to take interest to take notice this and regulate failures of their system.

So be careful, your life could be interesting to people other than just your friends, and that is not always a good thing.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Facebook, the most successful social network today, allows its adherents to create very different groups. However Facebook has to protect its system and that’s why some rules have to be respected.

It seems to be evident that a group like “Rogue Facebook Apps Early Warning Group” appears as a dangerous threat, even more when one knows that they spread unsafe information. But nevertheless, appearances could be misleading. Actually this group was created to warn its members about attacks happening on the social network and the risky information was divulged by mistake. But the Facebook team disabled the account of the group’s administrator. This decision appears like an unfair punishment.

The red line between knowing to attack and to protect isn’t often easy to determine.
In fact the real stake of “protecting Facebook” is not really to care for the application, but to protect the personal information and data of its numerous members who trust it and its security. We know that Facebook is not just a network of private life but also a job network. Therefore the dangers and stakes are greater.

So is it really a shame to form a group which can help adherents to be sure of their privacy and confidentiality? Having to opt between the network system’s survival and our own information, the choice should be quick!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When MySpace hit the market in 2003, it was immensely popular and reached people all over the world.  Seeing its popularity and market value, many other giants introduced their social networking sites with special features. As time passed, only social networks that offer special, user-friendly networking features have managed to stay alive.

Even with the highly competitive social networking world, MySpace managed to retain its first place. But last year Facebook became the world’s largest social networking site pushing MySpace to the second place despite it being the best-monetized social network. The number of Facebook users across the globe is now a mind boggling 110 million, and that of MySpace is 83 million.

It is not a sudden downfall for MySpace; just a setback. For the past few years, after the introduction of Facebook in 2004, Myspace has been facing drops in existing user accounts and new user registration count. The main reason for this setback is lack of R&D, and other notable problems faced by users, such as accessibility, phishing spam, child safety and censorship.

The MySpace pages are designed by individuals with little HTML experience, and most of the pages do not satisfy the W3C standards. It hence causes accessibility problems when software like screen readers are used.
MySpace is considered the hotbed for spyware. Even though MySpace is taking necessary steps for safety, it is not fully safe. This is the major reason for the migration of users to other networking sites. It doesn’t have any censorship to control posting or viewing of pornographic content either.

MySpace makes revenue through advertisement. As the number of members reduces, the possibility of advertisers moving to other popular social network is more. Hence, it is the high time for the MySpace professionals to facilitate 2-way communication with their users and rework their site to meet market demands.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The power of networking sites like MySpace, digg, facebook, Friendster, etc is spreading all over the Internet, as it helps to develop a close relationship with people who want to share interests with like-minded people. Today social networking sites can also be used as a marketing tool to promote products or services without spending money. They can send tons of traffic to specific website; in an added bonus they also improve search engine rankings.

Some business networking sites enable webmasters to join specific communities and discussion groups, post blogs and participate in forums, through which webmasters can expose their business to the world. By allowing members to comment, rate and review stuff, webmaster can get feedbacks, responses and credibility for their products/services. Webmasters can take advantage of such sites for advertising their products and services through clear videos and pictures. Healthy participation in networking sites will create a very good impression among customers.

Consumers have lost trust in traditional sales, marketing and services. They need to build relationships and communities with people they trust. Online social networks allow a prospective customer to easily facilitate a real connection with individuals within an organization.

Here are some instructions that will help you in promoting your business through social media:

• Once you’ve selected a network, begin by filling out your profile page with pertinent information about yourself, your company, and your contacts.

• Make sure to include your site link.

• When you maintain a blog on social networking sites, don’t make your posts sound like advertisements, make them more like a casual conversation. Don’t forget to provide informative stuff.

• Don’t spam. Avoid sending constant messages to your online friends about your products all the time. It will annoy them and they will ignore you.

• Post clear photos and videos related to your products and/or services.

• Make as many friends as possible because it will increase your exposure on social networking websites.

• If you have colleagues or clients who are members of a network, ask them to write a recommendation for you.

• Social networking sites such as YouTube are visited by millions of users daily so make videos related to your business using a high quality camera and post them on site.

Social networking sites are free to join and all you need to do is add your profile, photos, videos, and more. If your site makes it to the front page of any social networking site, then get ready for a mind blowing amount of traffic.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites