Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

AOL Opens Up Site To Social Networks

ONLINE MEDIA DAILY -- Oct 30 --  As part of its open strategy, AOL today unveiled a new feature allowing users to access social networks including MySpace, Facebook and Bebo directly from the Web portal's redesigned home page. The "My Networks" feature lets AOL visitors post status updates to multiple social networks at once as well as provide profile activity information such as new friend requests and mail notifications from third-party social sites. The move follows AOL's step last month to offer direct access to outside e-mail services including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail via prominent links on its home page. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

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Meetup Seeks International Product Manager

MEETUP -- Oct 30 -- Meetup is looking for a "Champion of Everywhere" (a.k.a. Product Manager, International). The Goal of the CoE: More & more people at Meetups in more & more places (on-path to Everywhere) People currently pay for Meetups in 119 countries, but it's 90% US. We just launched our first non-English spin of the site (Italian) and we're gearing up to launch four new languages soon. READ THE DETAILS HERE

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Google Is Now An OpenID Provider

READ WRITE WEB -- Oct 29 -- Google will allow web services to join a limited test of an API based on the OpenID 2.0 protocol that will give Google Account users the option to sign in to websites with their Google credentials and without having to sign up for a new account at those sites. Among the launch partners for this new API are Zoho, Plaxo, and Buxfer. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Amex To Launch Social Network For Business Travel Managers

WSJ BLOG -- Oct 29 -- Amex's new site Businesstravelconnexion.com seeks to build a space where travel managers develop their own profiles, swap tips on travel management and find potential vendors. Businesstravelconnexion.com, will lean on users to supply roughly 60% of the content. The other 40%, a mix of editorial and "advertorial" fare, will be supplied by the site, which is free to use, and goes live Friday. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ BLOG

Entrepreneurs Need Social Networking

MSNBC -- Oct 29 -- I interviewed Dan Schawbel, a personal branding expert for Gen-Y and the author of the upcoming book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success. His Personal Branding Blog is ranked among the top 50 marketing blogs in the world by AdAge. Dan is currently a social media specialist for EMC Corp.

Q: Can you tell me about the trend that has employers hiring employees to take on SN duties?
A: It's a major trend that's been growing significantly. As companies grow and SN continues to expand, the entrepreneurial boss simply cannot devote all of the time needed for a successful effort. He or she needs to hire someone else dedicated to assume this responsibility. This person will be the internal community manager who will create, monitor and transfer information about the company between and among employees.

Q: What's the benefit of hiring an employee who manages the business's Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and other SN accounts?
A: This network employee will reach out and interactively communicate with various communities; the business owner simply will not have time to do this successfully.

Q: Can you list what social networking a small business should be doing now?
A: They should at least be involved in the largest social networks, belong to forums and have at least one blog.

Q: Do the different sites require one "community networking" employee to manage? Or does it also work to spread out such duties among many employees?
A: If you're Coca-Cola, then you need a team. If you're a sole practitioner, you have to do it yourself. However, whether you have five or 50 employees, delegate the responsibilities.

Q: What "bare bones" networking should small-business owners be doing on their own that will help them market their business?
A: They should get involved in social sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Friendfeed.

Q: Can you break down which SN are most popular?
A:  MySpace has over 185m users, split evenly between men and women14 to 34 years old. 25% of them are in the U.S. FaceBook has over 110m readers, more women than men. The majority of these users, 80%, are under 30 years old and half of all Facebookers are located in the U.S., Great Britain and Canada. LinkedIn has over 26m readers, with the average age being 41. Men make up 64% of the audience. Their average household income is $109,000. Twitter has 3m readers, two-thirds of whom are men 18 to 34 years old.
FULL ARTICLE @ MSNBC

Social Networking Conference - Fortune 100

NEWSWIRE -- Oct 28 -- The annual Social Networking Conference is scheduled for January 22-23, 2009 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The convention and expo discusses both business and enterprise social networking. Since its formation, it continues to discuss working business models and new technologies for the space. In addition to senior social networking executives, attendance also includes individuals from: venture capital, software, mobile, interactive marketing, widgets, mashups, payment processing, background search firms and others. FULL ARTICLE @ NEWSWIRE

 Mark Brooks: This years Miami conference will be populated by Fortune 100 companies, and the SNS that would like to meet them, and learn from them.

NuConomy Reinvents Web Analytics

MARKETWIRE -- Oct 28 -- NuConomy is launching NuConomy Studio, a web analytics and optimization platform that helps publishers, advertisers and users better understand and act on social marketing performance and community engagement. The tools are free to use and NuConomy has opened up registration to new customers. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETWIRE

Blogs Influence Purchases More Than Social Sites

CLICKZ -- Oct 28 -- Advertisements on blogs are an opportunity for marketers to reach consumers. A study conducted by JupiterResearch found that 40% of people reading blogs have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog. Blog play a greater role than social networks, likely because bloggers establish themselves as an authority on a topic, particularly in niche areas, and create a relationship with the consumer. FULL ARTICLE @ CLICKZ

Mark Brooks: Small is the new big, indeed.  In a world of faceless, nameless corporations, the personal touch and the personal referral are being delivered by bloggers. Corporations are non-entities by definition, and consumers have had enough. They want to deal with people at some point. I've done a lot of direct selling work and one of the first things I was ever told in my direct sales training is that 'People Buy From People'. Sounds funny, but think about it. Social networks are positioned very nicely to sit in the middle of a massive referral market as consumer advertising and branding enters a new age of existence.

Does Anyone Notice The Trend Here?

SNC -- Oct 24 -- The trend is obvious to me. SN is being taken over by Fortune 500 companies. They are moving into this market, as both customers of software and as providers. The impact, this will have on small SN software firms, can not be understated. These are the companies jumping in to speak in Miami:

- Ford
- Verizon
- SAP
- Citigroup
- Dow Jones
- IBM

Certainly the social networking market is changing. We will all have a better feel for where it stands in Miami at the next Social Networking Conference.
FULL ARTICLE @ SNC

myYearbook Overtakes Wikipedia And Amazon

MARKET WATCH -- Oct 28 -- myYearbook.com is now the 14th largest site in the US as measured by page views and the 19th largest site as measured by total minutes spent online according to comScore. Logging more than 1.5 billion page views and 792 million minutes spent online in September, myYearbook surpassed Amazon, ESPN, and Wikipedia. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

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Social Networks Gain Traction At Work

IDG -- Oct 27 -- Market research firm NewDiligence surveyed 527 end users and IT managers and found about 60% of respondents use social-networks at work, while 85% use IM and media, including streaming audio and video. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

Mark Brooks: Yammer is getting some traction. It's Twitter for companies. However, Twitter now has a similar service. See twitter.zappos.com.

U.S. Army Says Twitter Could Become Terrorist Tool

FOX NEWS -- Oct 27 -- The U.S. Army is flagging the popular blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool. "Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences," according to a report released by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion. "Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives," the Army report said. FULL ARTICLE @ FOX NEWS

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Lessons In E-commerce

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS -- Oct 27 -- Rich Barton founded Expedia.com in 1994 and Zillow.com in 2006 and learned a few lessons along the way. "If it can be known, it will be known. If it can be rated, it will be rated. If it can be free, it will be free." Those three are true now, Barton says. "There are only a couple words in marketing that work every time. Free is one of them." He pointed to plentyoffish.com a free dating site that is taking over the dating world. FULL ARTICLE @ ROCKY MOUNTAIN

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This posts also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

MySpace Gives Up On The Netherlands

TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 26 -- MySpace has decided to throw in the towel with regards to its expansion in The Netherlands. MySpace had opened up an Amsterdam office merely 9 months ago but has now announced it will shut it down and move the Benelux operations over to its Berlin office. According to country manager Derek Fehmers, the site did attract 250,000 extra users adding up to 650,000 in total since it launch, but apparently Hyves, a local SN which cites over 5 million registered users, representing about 33% of the nation's population, was much harder to beat on its own turf than anticipated. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Sling.com Launches On November 10

TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 26 -- SlingMedia's new video portal, Sling.com, is set to launch on November 10. The site, which is currently in private beta, brings in videos from Hulu, CBS and other sites, providing a very comprehensive group of TV shows and films. And users can also access their own home cable/satellite via their SlingBox. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Is Your Username Taken?

TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 26 -- Most people tend to register the same username when signing up for services and is becoming increasingly difficult to remembe which services you have signed up for exactly. Usernamecheck.com pings 68 services for the username you want to look up, and lets you know instantly if it is still available or not. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

MySpace Launches Profile 2.0 With Drag And Drop Interface

TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 26 -- MySpace continues to clean up the look and feel of its site with the launch of a new profile and editor. It's not ready for mainstream U.S. use yet, so they've unleashed it on Canadian users for testing. Instead of having to add html and Javascript to the site directly, or using third party profile editors like SnapLayout, users can simply view their profile in a Flash tool that lets them set a variety of templates, drag and drop modules, and customize the site. Users can also set each specific module's privacy so that only certain groups of friends see it, so work friends can see a different site than college buddies. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Yahoo's Developer Platform To Launch Next Week

IDG -- Oct 24 -- Yahoo will launch its platform for Web developers next week, part of an effort to drive more traffic to its sites by allowing people to share information about their interests and activities with friends. Like on Facebook, they'll be able to create a network of connections and send alerts to those people when they upload photos to Flickr or comment on a story at Yahoo News, for example. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

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