Social Networking Watch

Nasza-Klasa To Merge With Gadu Gadu?

THENEWS.PL - Feb 8 - Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment company which holds a 75% stake in Polish social network Nasza-Klasa.pl, is reported to be holding talks with Naspers, a South African company which owns the Polish Gadu Gadu internet messaging service, over the services’ possible merger. Both DST and Naspers declined to comment to Kommersant on the speculation, but it would bring two of Poland’s biggest internet ventures together. There are 27M registered users of Nasza-Klasa.pl and 7M Gadu Gadu users globally. FULL ARTICLE @ THENEWS.PL

See all posts on Nasza Klasa

WAYN To Launch Dating Product

TNOOZ - Feb 8 - WAYN, the travel social network, is planning to unveil a dating service on St Valentine’s Day. A new site – WAYNDating.com – is live but has limited functionality, pointing visitors to the launch via a countdown clock. The launch will be revealed at a glitzy party in London on Friday night ahead of the service being switched on this weekend. FULL ARTICLE @ TNOOZ

See all posts on WAYN

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

The Top Viral Video Ad Campaign, Updated Feb 1, 2010

Brand: Walmart
Campaign: Clown
Agency: Publicis / Hal Riney
Source: VisibleMeasures.com

Facebook Passes The 400 Million User Mark

MASHABLE - Feb 5 - Facebook is celebrating its 6th birthday in style, with yet another traffic milestone: 400M users served. Two months ago Facebook hit 350M. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

See all posts on Facebook

FarmVille Partners With MSN Games Partnership

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 4 - Zynga’s FarmVille will now be featured on MSN Games, Microsoft’s casual gaming portal. This marks the first time that a Zynga game will be featured on a full-fledged gaming site. Zynga says that more of its games will be appearing on MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger in the near future. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Zynga

Twitter's Now A Dating Tool

STRAIGHT - Feb 4 - Meeting a romantic partner on-line isn’t a new phenomenon, as dating sites like Lavalife and eHarmony have been around for years. However, social-media services like Twitter and Facebook are opening up new avenues through which people can make on-line connections. While profiles on dating sites may offer only select details, social media can enable people to gain more insight into other people’s personalities. The rise of social-media services doesn’t worry Kate Bilenki, the operations manager for PlentyOfFish. Bilenki told the Straight her company is confident that its service remains the best way for people to make a romantic connection on-line. Bilenki asserted that, for the purpose of looking for love, Twitter is inefficient, as it connects users with a vast number of people, of which only a small percentage are possible romantic partners. “A lot of people on social-networking sites are married, they’re in relationships, and they’re not looking to date,” Bilenki said. “On our site, they’re looking for a relationship.” FULL ARTICLE @ STRAIGHT.COM

See all posts on Twitter
See all posts on Facebook
See all posts on Plentyoffish

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Ning CEO Gina Bianchini Insists Facebook Isn’t A Competitor

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 3 - Gina Bianchini is the CEO of Ning. There are 41M registered users on Ning, and Gina says that 92M people a month worldwide visit Ning sites. Anyone can easily create a Ning social network, cobranded or white labelled. 2.5M of them have been created so far. In some ways Ning networks are competitive to Facebook Pages. Gina doesn’t see it this way. She notes that Facebook pages have limited features and are locked within Facebook itself. Ning allows for deep social experiences around brands and things. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Ning

Monster Buys HotJobs From Yahoo For $225M

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 3 - As part of the deal, Monster will continue to power Yahoo’s job listings for three years. Both Hotjobs and Monster have been lagging newer job search sites such as Indeed, which searches the entire Web for job listings. According to comScore, Indeed’s jog search reached 8.4M individuals in the U.S. in December, 2009, compared to only 5.4M for HotJobs and 6.1M for Monster. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Monster.com
See all posts on Yahoo!

YouTube Makes $10,709 From Movie Rental Trial Run

MASHABLE - Feb 3 - Last month YouTube made its first foray into movie rentals — five films from the Sundance Film Festival. The total revenue from those five films amounted to only $10,709.16. The films were available for 10 days, and YouTube said it collectively got 2,864 views at $3.99 a piece. YouTube has been talking with major TV studios and other independent filmmakers, pitching a deal that would let them decide how much they want to charge someone to view their films. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

See all posts on YouTube

News Corp Earnings Are In

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 2 - News Corporation announced financial results for the second quarter ended December 31, 2009. The earnings contributions from the Digital Media Group, which manages MySpace, IGN Entertainment, as well as the Hulu joint venture with NBC Universal, decreased by $32M from a year ago, principally due to lower search and advertising revenue. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on MySpace
See all posts on Hulu

MyHeritage Buys Germany’s OSN

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 2 - Israeli genealogy site MyHeritage has completed its third acquisition,  buying Germany’s OSN. OSN operates seven genealogy sites including Verwandt.de in Germany, Moikrewni.pl in Poland and Dynastree.com in the US. It was launched in 2007 just after LA-based Geni and grew twice as fast as Geni in the early days. The merger gives MyHeritage a lot of new features and 540M profiles, 47M active users and 13M family trees. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on MyHeritage

Meebo Makes It Easier To Start Using Its Chat Bar

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 1 - 2009 was a good year for Meebo, which saw its Meebo Bar spread to over 130 partner sites. The chat bar now reaches 110M unique visitors according to Quantcast. Starting later this week, you will no longer need to sign up for a Meebo account to access all of the Meebo Bar’s features. You’ll be able to enter your credentials for services like AIM, Google Talk, and Facebook Chat and use all of the functionality immediately. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Meebo

BadOnlineDates.com Expands The Online And Social Dating Experience

PR WEB - Feb 1 - Launching in public beta, BadOnlineDates.com is a vanguard social network that combines community and new technology with online dating. On BadOnlineDates.com, people can share their bad date experiences and connect with others that have similar values, turning negative experiences into positive ones. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Facebook COO: 175 Million People Log Into Facebook Every Day

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 1 - A year ago Facebook had 150M users, and ~200M people visited the site monthly. Facebook has more than doubled in size to 350M registered users in the last year. By this summer well over half of all Internet users will likely visit Facebook each month. Half of all registered users still log in to Facebook every day, says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. That’s 175M people. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Facebook

Boku Gets $25M In Spending Money

MOBILE BEAT - Jan 19 - Boku is a mobile payments company that bought two companies, combined them and launched its service, which lets people pay for online goods and games with their mobile phone accounts. Boku has raised $25M in a third round of funding. The service is available in 58 countries, and it has more than 1,000 online merchants, game publishers and others using its service. DAG Ventures led the round, and investors Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures also participated. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

Thanks To Our Sponsors

The Top Viral Video Ad Campaign, Updated Jan 25, 2010

Brand: Air New Zealand
Campaign: Grab a seat
Agency: -
Source: VisibleMeasures.com

Tagged.com Wins $201,975 In Default Judgment Against Spammer

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 29 - Tagged.com has been awarded more than $200,000 in a default judgment against Erik Vogeler, who spammed thousands of Tagged members by sending them unsolicited messages with links to an adult dating website. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Tagged

This post also appears at the SNC Forums.