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

Neighborhood America Named Best SN Solution For Enterprises

PRWEB -- Feb 26 -- Neighborhood America has been named a 2009 CODiE Award finalist for 'Best Social Networking Solution' by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). The annual CODiE Awards are among the most esteemed in the software industry, honoring achievement and vision in software, digital information and education technology industries. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

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Advertising To Social Networkers Tricky

RESEARCH BRIEF -- Feb 26 -- A recent study by InsightExpress found that  43% of the online population is using a social networks. Similar study by Netpop found that social networkers spend an average of $101 online per month. This compares with non-contributors to social networks, who spend $80/month. Social networkers claim that they are less willing to view marketing messages on sites where it is currently most obvious. Opt-in ads seem to be the best route for advertisers. FULL ARTICLE @ CENTER FOR MEDIA RESEARCH

Moshi Monsters Breaks 1.5 Million Players

REALWIRE -- Feb 26 -- Moshi Monsters, the free-to-play online children’s game with an educational twist, announced that over 1.5m Monsters have now been adopted. The company also revealed a number of new updates to the game recently including “Moshlings”, collectable pet Monsters that vary in rarity and style. FULL ARTICLE @ REALWIRE

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SNS Are 'Most Popular Places To Find Love'

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK -- Feb 25 -- One in four British people are dating or have dated someone they met through online community websites according to a poll by OnePoll.com. The poll of 3,000 20 to 40 year olds revealed that ~46% believe it's now easier to meet someone through social networks than in the flesh. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

FamilyLink Raised $3M

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE -- Feb 25 -- FamilyLink has raised $2.9m in a second round of VC financing. Investors included vSpring Capital, a Salt Lake City-based venture capital fund, and TTP Capital Advisors of Japan. Both companies had invested in FamilyLink.com's first round of financing in August '07. FamilyLink.com is the developer of "We're Related," a Facebook application. FULL ARTICLE @ SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Datopia Goes Social

PR WEB -- Feb 25 -- Revamped Datopia integrates social networking and web services, including text, video and e-mail chat.  Users can access Facebook, Twitter, AIM and Flickr in their Datopia profile and very soon be able to add Facebook and MySpace widgets, Youtube and iTunes feeds, and iPhone applications as well. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Social Websites Harm Children's Brains

DAILY MAIL -- Feb 24 -- Social networks are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred. Computer games and fast-paced TV shows were also a factor, said Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist. 'These technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.' FULL ARTICLE @ DAILY MAIL

Is China’s Social Network QZone The Biggest?

TECH CRUNCH -- Feb 24 -- Tencent, China’s largest Internet portal mostly known to us for its hugely popular instant messenger product QQ, published an updated report on the user numbers of its social network QZone last week. the report claims more than 200m registered users out of which 150m are active. (Facebook has 175m registered users). QQ has more social networks targeting various markets besides QZone. QQ Xiaoyou, a service targeting students in universities and high schools, has over 20m registered users and it only officially launched in January '09. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Reunion.com And Wink Merge

CNET NEWS -- Feb 24 -- People-search sites Reunion.com and Wink have rebranded as MyLife, which can search over 60 social-networks and other information resources on the Web. MyLife will still make money primarily through Reunion.com's business model of paid subscriptions but there are more free services as well. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Mobile Internet Predicted Up in '09, But Not Ads

RESEARCH BRIEF -- Feb 23 -- According to MEF's recently released report "Top Ten 2009 Mobile Entertainment trends" mobile advertising will not "take off." 2009 will be the year that mobile video really takes off. Nielsen estimates that 10.3m mobile phone subscribers, 5% of the cell phone population, access video via their phone each month. M:Metrics' most recent survey shows that just 7.5 million users watched video in a given month. FULL ARTICLE @ CENTER FOR MEDIA RESEARCH

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

The Rise And Fall Of Friends Reunited

THE INDEPENDENT -- Feb 21 -- ITV might sell Friends Reunited after just three years of ownership. It was hamstrung by its revenue model and is accused of not providing enough applications and services to attract new members and keep the existing ones happy. ITV paid £175m for the site in Dec '05. Estimates of Friends Reunited's value have fallen to ~ £20m. FULL ARTICLE @ INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

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Did Last.fm Hand Over User Listening Data To The RIAA?

TECH CRUNCH -- Feb 20 -- According to a tip we received from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks. Last.fm says: "To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA." FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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David Sacks, Founder And CEO Of Yammer

Social Networking Now Show from Jan 28th includes interview with the CEO of Yammer. Listen at WebmasterRadio.fm  or  Download Radio Show

SNW INTERVIEW -- Feb 21 -- Yammer is Twitter for companies. Here’s my interview with the CEO, David Sacks.

What is your background, and what inspired you to start Yammer?
I was COO of PayPal and helped create it. Yammer arose from a need with another start-up I created called Geni.com, a family social network where you build your family tree collaboratively. Once Geni got to be 25-30 employees, we created Yammer to help our employees connect with each other inside our organization. After six months, we launched it to the world.

How would you explain Yammer’s functionality? How is it positioned against the likes of Twitter?
Yammer is explicitly for companies and organizations; Twitter is not optimized for intra-company communication. Yammer creates a private network for your company, for those with a company email address. We create more security and privacy around the communication, and also more relevancy and exclusivity.

Twitter doesn’t have groups or networks based on company email addresses. Within company networks they haven’t created admin tools. Yammer has security features that companies can pay for, such as restricting who can access your network to a specific IP range, and other admin features that Twitter hasn’t delved into.

There would be some significant trade-offs if Twitter wanted to go in a corporate direction. On Yammer there is no 140 character limit on messages. We want messages to be as compatible with email as possible; you can post messages to Yammer by email and receive them by email. Twitter has a 140 character limit. If they were to drop that to better serve corporate customers, you would see a backlash from their consumer side. I’m not sure it’s possible for one company to serve everybody. I think there is a market for a site that is focused on delivering value to enterprises.

Have you seen any companies using Yammer in unusual ways?
We can’t see the messages being created inside these networks. We have this privacy guarantee that messages won’t be shared outside a company’s network, even with our employees. We have procedures in place to restrict production databases, so we don’t know all the ways Yammer is being used. We have general metrics on how frequently and how intensively it’s being used. Our primary source of information comes from blogs, and people are Twittering about how they’re using Yammer.

Email obviously works well but people are suffering from email overload, yet they feel like they’re not getting all the information they need and they’re in effect left off many emails. With Yammer, you don’t have to figure out who the recipients are. If you’ve got information that would be valuable to the company, you just publish it on Yammer and people find it on their own and don’t have to worry about their inboxes being cluttered. That information could be discovered by people you wouldn’t have thought to address in your email, and new employees can use it to get up to speed. It’s a more efficient way of sharing information and having conversations in a company. We’re making email more productive as well because now email just becomes about things that require an active response.

What company uses Yammer the most?
We don’t name the companies who use us, but we’ve got Fortune 500 companies, Hollywood studios, major casino companies, major farm equipment suppliers. We also have a large number of small to mid-sized companies, Internet companies and PR agencies.

Any employee can go to the Yammer homepage, sign up and start inviting co-workers, and it’s free for employees to use. When the company wants to claim its network and exercise control over it, they can pay for optional admin tools. We don’t need a conventional sales force; the employees themselves are our sales force.

What do you have in the pipeline? Are there any new features you can let us know about?
We recently rolled out the ability to create groups within a company so you can communicate with different teams inside your organization and don’t have to broadcast to everybody. Also we have announced a new version of our software that companies can host themselves inside their corporate firewall. Previously, Yammer was provided exclusively through the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, whereby the service was hosted by Yammer and accessed by users via the Internet.

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Facebook Has Removed 5,500 Sex Offenders

NEWSWEEK -- Feb 19 -- 5,585 convicted sex offenders were found on the Web site and removed between May 1, 2008, and Jan. 31, 2009. Earlier this month, MySpace announced it had removed 90,000 sex offenders in a two-year period. FULL ARTICLE @ NEWSWEEK

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Facebook Gets Into The Widget Business

TECH CRUNCH -- Feb 19 -- Facebook launched its first widget for Facebook Connect, its recently-introduced platform that allows users to authenticate themselves using their Facebook logins. Dubbed 'Comments Box', the new widget allows site owners to integrate a comments section into their webpage. Comments left in Comments Box will be relayed back to the users' Facebook profiles, where the conversation can continue. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Yelp And The Business Of Extortion 2.0

EAST BAY EXPRESS -- Feb 18 -- Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer reviews of their businesses on its web site for a price - $299 a month. Several business owners likened Yelp to the Mafia, and one said she feared its retaliation. "Every time I had a sales person call me and I said, 'Sorry, it doesn't make sense for me to do this,' ... then all of a sudden reviews start disappearing." Such tactics may be legal, but they clearly raise ethical concerns. Yelp draws more than 16m unique visitors. More than 4.5m reviews have been written so far, and the company has raised $31m in funding to date. FULL ARTICLE @ EAST BAY EXPRESS

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Hulu Withdraws Its Content From TV.com

WSJ -- Feb 19 -- Hulu, which features television programming from NBC, Fox, and others, has pulled its videos from CBS Corp.'s TV.com. In addition, Hulu plans to take its video down from Boxee, a software firm that makes Internet video suitable for viewing on a large screen. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ   

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Easier To Mess Up Love Life On Social Networks

CNN -- Feb 18 -- 35%+ of U.S. adult Internet users have a profile on a social networking site according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. A search on both networks turns up a handful of groups dedicated to lost loves and first loves. MySpace spokeswoman Jamie Schumacher says it's common for users to meet on the site and fall in love and end up together. Experts argue that what we are doing on social networks is a lot like "primate grooming." We are building "social solidarity" by publicly flirting and socializing online. In the Pew survey, of the adults who had removed their profile from a social networks, 3% said they did it because their spouse or partner wanted it removed. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN

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