Facebook Patents The News Feed

According to a report by AllFacebook, the Facebook patent for its News Feed (submitted in 2006) has been approved. This could hold serious implications for all other social networking sites using this functionality. Twitter however, is not to fear as the patent covers “implicit actions” and not status updates which is what Twitter is based on. The patent covers stories about the actions of a user’s friends and so perhaps not as substantial as first thought, but it may still affect local social networks if the patent is applicable outside the US – watch this space!

Social Media Triumphs during Obama Inauguration

Hello and a belated Happy New Year to you all. What better way to kick off the blog in ‘09 than with what is surely already one of the biggest news stories of the year, the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president.

Social media played its own leading role as Obama was sworn in, with extensive internet coverage via live video streams, blogs, social networks such as Facebook and micro blogging sites such as Twitter. The latter surpassed fellow social media site Digg for the first time since its launch, with five times the average number of Twitter messages, or “tweets,” per second.

Over 7.7m people watched video streams simultaneously, according to the Associated Press, in what is potentially the most widely covered breaking news event on the internet in history.

See below for a round-up of activity on key social media sites:

The offical inauguration blog, www.pic2009.org, contained real-time updates from staff throughout the day. US citizens could also submit photos, videos, quotes, links and blogs to the site, with the chance to appear in the official inauguration book.
Microblogging site Twitter set up the official presidential Twitter stream @obamainaugural.Current TV, the user-generated TV network co-founded by Al Gore, combined a live-stream of the event with "tweets." Messages from viewers played at the bottom of both Current's broadcast and webcast.

Photo sharing site Flickr created a special Inauguration 2009 group with members adding their photos throughout the day.

Meanwhile on Facebook users could friend "Barack Obama Inauguration" and send a glass of champagne to friends in the US using the Real Drinks application. The social networking site also partnered with CNN to allow members watching the event on CNN.com to sign in and update their status alongside the video stream, all in all resulting in over one million inauguration-related status updates.

- Sam

Yahoo! Mail – the Social Inbox

Yahoo! Mail has launched a newly designed Welcome page with a much heavier focus on social activity and less on news and messages, i.e. why you might traditionally access your inbox.

New feature “My Connections” contains messages from your most regular contacts, with the option to keep updated with their activities. Yahoo! properties such as Flickr will become an integrated part of the page, while the space will soon be opened up to third party applications.

Expect to see an influx of new applications once Yahoo! opens up their new smarter inbox in early 2009.

Check out the four minute video at the bottom of the article for a walk through of the changes.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081215-yahoo-begins-rolling-out-social-extensible-e-mail-inbox.html

- Sam

Social network launches for chronic disease sufferers

A new niche social network has been launched by independent research agency Healthcare Landscape for sufferers of acute and chronic medical conditions.

The online community, called icarecafe, provides a completely confidential environment in which sufferers can discuss any medical issues with a global audience. The website also acts a platform for blogs and interactive media in order to promote research.

Adam Gac, strategy director at Healthcare Landscape, said: "Icarecafe differs from other social networks because it takes a holistic approach to the patient experience. "It allows learning and sharing not just with people who suffer from one specific ailment or illness but also from family members and carers."

Revenues for the site are now being generated by advertising and sponsorships from healthcare agencies.

- Sam

LinkedIn Looks For Fresh Revenue in Research

LinkedIn, the global social network with 30 million professionals across 150 industries, has unveiled plans to open up its global network to test market research as a potential new revenue model.

The announcement demonstrates attempts by key social networks to generate revenue within social media outside of simple advertising or sponsorship. One thing is for sure, the surveys should be highly targetable due to the transparency and trustworthy nature of the site, as well as its ability to select groups according to specialised sectors, including experience, seniority and geography.

Trials have been taking place for six months and already have a participation rate of up to 20%, suggesting LinkedIn could take a strong hold in the market against its competitors.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=132003

- Sam

Yahoo! Launches New Look User Profile for Yahoo! Open Strategy.

As it inches more towards its evolution into one big social network, Yahoo! has launched its new look user profile; the first proper product release for the social part of YOS (Yahoo! Open Strategy).

It’s been a long haul for the company, which first talked about the new strategy almost a year ago. More details, and a few conceptual screenshots, were announced at CES in January. A newcomer to Yahoo, VP Communities Jim Stoneham, is leading the team that’s creating new social features.

So here’s exactly what Yahoo is launching: a new look for the user profile, and the ability to create “connections,” which are mutual friendships. That’s it for the front end. Yahoo has also created what they’re calling a “vitality system to share updates” on the back end, which is an engine to run activity stream-like content for future releases.

Over the next few months, they say, Yahoo properties will begin to integrate with the new profile. So if you answer a question at Yahoo Answers, for example, the activity will show up in your feed update. Eventually the front page of Yahoo Mail will show what your friends are up to as well. Emails from your connections will also be highlighted, so you can read them first.
If you have a Yahoo account, you can see your profile at profiles.yahoo.com/[username] . The other half of Yahoo’s YOS strategy centres on an open strategy, particularly around search - see TechCrunch’s update from April where some of those features were discussed and released.

Time will tell if this ends up having an impact on targeting, Yahoo’s performance as a media choice, and user stickiness on the site. For the full article, click here.

- Rick

50% of Social Media Campaigns Fail

I think that we can all relate to the fact that there is a Facebook craze going on with our clients right now. The link below refers to new research from Gartner coming out next week that highlights the failure rate for social media campaigns by Fortune 1000 companies.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058509-36.html

If you haven't seen the main goals of social media campaigns which Ali Little has been presenting within the Wave 3 decks, please ask him for them. The article touches on the need for a 'mutual purpose' where the community is benefitting from the marketing activity as well as the client. This is part of the overall list which we have been presenting and a simple requirement that is often overlooked.

Please check with Gartner to get this research when it is released and use it as fodder for properly guiding your clients' budgets.

Report on Social Network Marketing

Check out this interesting report by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) which provides a detailed analysis on social network marketing on Facebook and MySpace in the UK.
It specifically looks at engagement marketing techniques used by brands and suggests brands need to work much harder to engage their public than just looking for users to become a 'fan' of the brand.

The report is free after inputting your details.

http://www.socialnetworkmarketinguk.com/

- Sam

MySpace Music Now Live

After concluding deals with all four major music labels, MySpace has confirmed that its music offering, MySpace Music, is now live.

An eagerly anticipated competitor to iTunes, MyMusic allows users to browse artists, stream complete audio tracks for free, create playlists and purchase DRM-free MP3s (via the soon to launch Amazon digital music store). The new platform is ad-supported, enabling MySpace’s 5m major, independent and unsigned artists to monetise their content. The MyMusic personal music management tool in turn gives its 120m global users access to unlimited streamed music, all for free.

http://www.music.myspace.com/

-Sam

Social Networking Project Crosses Over to Become a TV Show

“A Message From Earth,” Bebo’s communication mission whereby its online community creates and then votes on messages to be sent into space, has been so successful (10m online video views in the first month), it is being made into a TV show. Opportunities will exist to integrate brands in the Bebo project.
Following on from the news that the story of Facebook is being made into a feature film, is the true measure of success making the transition from online to the small or large screen?

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Digital/News/847150/Bebo-Message-Earth-project-become-TV-show/?DCMP=EMC-Digital-Bulletin

- Sam

How Search will Revolutionalise Social Networking

This is the future!

Check out this interesting article on the impact of search on social networks, looking at how social networks are in effect the search engines of the future, hence the significance of the Microsoft Live Search deal with Facebook.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/09/how-search-will.html

- Sam

Great Article on Social Graphs and OpenSocial

Please click on the link below for an interesting article on social graphs, i.e. our online peer network, how this influences user behaviour within social networks and the broader web, and the significant impact this is having on marketing and advertising.

The article also talks about how OpenSocial is going to make people’s social graph more portable, exploring the possibility of bringing consumers' social graphs to a brand website.

Happy reading!

http://www.goingsocialnow.com/2008/08/a-new-frontier-of-social-influ.html

- Sam

Social Radio Listening from the BBC

More news from the BBC this week, as it launches Radio Pop, a social networking website specifically for radio listeners.

Users can listen to their choice of stations through the Radio Pop player, create a personal record of their preferred programs, see what their friends are listening to and make recommendations to users within the network.

Favourite stations and shows can be tagged, or “popped,” thereby providing user data which is made visible to everyone within the network. This online behaviour is then displayed by graphs and lists showing listeners' favourite and recommended stations and shows.

The idea is to track user behaviour to allow the broadcaster to send targeted promotions to users as well as analyse their listening habits, which can currently only be done via radio industry measurement organisations like Rajar.

The service currently only supports live, rather than on demand listening. There is also no integration with the iPlayer – yet – but it is another example of a major player experimenting in the social networking arena.

http://www.radiopop.co.uk/

- Sam

Virgin Mobile provides Location Based Services

From TechCrunch, we have learned that Virgin Mobile has signed a deal with location based city guide slash social network, Buzzd.

The deal will allow users to obtain local entertainment information (events, concerts, restaurant reviews/ratings) to be broadcast and shared among users in the same proximity.

While several other companies are now offering LBS to their users, this is another example of why we should be externalizing our clients' data to these services and thinking about marketing opportunities to the early adopters.



Here is the link to the original post:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/02/virgin-mobile-gets-buzzd-on-location-based-entertainment/

Rick

Facebook……the film?!

Some latest news surrounding Facebook is that a feature film is to be made about the social networking site by Hollywood writer Aaron Sorkin.
Sorkin, who wrote “The West Wing” and “A Few Good Men” and who is famously something of a technophobe, agreed to write the film for Sony Pictures studio Columbia and has started a Facebook group talking about the project. Even though a Facebook spokesperson has denied the deal, it seems a story of the Harvard graduates who went on to found the global phenomenon which is Facebook is inevitable..

Facebook's new ad format

Latest news from the Facebook camp is that they are trialling a new advertising format called ‘engagement ads,’ dovetailing off three of the network’s common user features, ‘commenting,’ becoming a ‘fan’ and giving ‘gifts.’

Dubbed an ‘engagement ad,’ Facebook is hoping that these ads will prove to be more interactive for users than those in the standard format. The idea is that advertisers will become part of the community, interacting with users in the same way users interact with each other.

Engagement ads can be broken down into 3 categories:

Comments:
For example if a new movie is advertised, users will be able to comment in the space beneath the video, and when the ad is then served to the user’s friends, they can see the comment and add to it; also their news feed will show that their friend has commented on the ad.

Fan:
While it’s nothing new to be able to visit a brand page and become a fan, this simply allows the brand to go out across Facebook in order to draw in fans.

Gifts:
Facebook is differentiating between offering standard gifts (such as a teddy bear) and those created by advertisers. The ad-created gifts will only be distributed through the engagement ad format and will be charged on a CPM basis, plus additional fees for the level of targeting required by the advertiser.

Our initial reaction is a positive one, especially to the ‘comments’ option, as we see advertisers and publishers working harder to deliver relevant advertising to the target audience and encouraging user interaction. It will be interesting to see how advertisers choose to incentivise users to leave comments, thereby personalising future impressions.

Initial beta tests are being carried out with a select number of advertisers during September so we’ll keep an eye out for timing and development updates.

- Sam