Social Networking Watch

SNS Use Impact Effectiveness Of Email Marketing

INTOMOBILE -- Aug 11 -- JupiterResearch has found that rising popularity of SNS and other forms of communication including text messaging and mobile phone use are beginning to impact the effectiveness of email marketing, particularly the numbers of consumers that say promotional messages inspired purchases. 22% of email users said they use SNS instead of e-mail. In 2007, 51% of users said email inspired at least one online purchase, and 47% said the same for off-line purchases. However, in 2008, the share of email users fell to 44% for online purchases and 41% for off-line purchases. FULL ARTICLE @ INTOMOBILE

Mark Brooks: SNS is the new email for many people.  It would just be nice to see SNS email that’s more feature rich, or more integrated into the likes of Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Hotmail.

Women Outnumber Men On Most Social Networks

READ WRITE WEB -- July 29 -- Online reputation company Rapleaf has released a new study of 49 million people, revealing gender and age data about social network users. On most of the main social networks - including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 - women outnumber men by a considerable amount. On Facebook, the 18-24 age group is largest, with 1,685,029 women in that age group compared to 977,753 men. In MySpace, the same age group dominates, with 7,091,214 women and 5,226,788 men. The only social networks studied that didn't have more women than men in the 18-24 year old group were LinkedIn and Perfspot. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Social Networking Reports

SNW -- July 27 -- Here's a few reports I came across from Research And Markets that might be of interest to you... - Mark Brooks

• US Mobile Social Networking and the Millennial Generation
• An Insight into U.S. Mobile Social Networking Markets
• Online Social Networking
• Social Networking Goes Mobile

Facebook Dominates UK Social Networking

BRAND REPUBLIC -- July 23 -- Facebook dominates UK social networking with 45% of the market. According to Hitwise this is an 188% increase compared with a year ago. Bebo.com is ranked second by Hitwise with a market share of 25%. In the US it is ranked 5th with just over 1% of market share down 41% on last year. MySpace.com is ranked third with a market share of 15%. Together, the big three social networks account for just over 85% of the UK SN market leaving only scraps for smaller rivals. FULL ARTICLE @ BRAND REPUBLIC

Mark Brooks: Will the market fragment, or will the big boys continue to own and build market share? The short answer is both! Users will use the majors, and niche sites, in unison. As they become more sophisticated, and as other niche sites come into existence they will be lured into using niche sites in combination with the likes of MySpace, I think. What do you think? Your comments please?

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Manhunt.net Leads Brazil Gay Market

SNW -- July 19 -- Manhunt.net is taking the #1 position for gay social networking sites in Brazil according to Alexa. Manhunt.net has more than 150,000 subscribers in Brazil, which recently surpassed the number of subscribers in Mexico, now their #3 market after the U. S. and Brazil. Manhunt.net's biggest competitor in Brazil is Disponivel.com followed by Trocatroca.com. - Mark Brooks

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ComScore: Facebook Still Has The Mojo

BUSINESS WEEK -- July 15 -- In June, Facebook claimed 37.4m unique visitors, up from 35.6m in May. Year over year, Facebook saw its uniques rise 34%, up from 27.9m last June. By contrast, the total number of Americans visiting SNS grew 6% over the previous June to 189.9m. Meanwhile, MySpace only saw 3% annual growth in its visitors, rising to 72.8m from 70.5m. Among the other top social networking sites, LinkedIn and Orkut are seeing the highest growth rates. LinkedIn more than doubled its U.S. audience, hitting 4.1m users in June, up from 1.7m the previous June. And Orkut also doubled in size, reaching 1.2m users, up from 588 thousand the previous June. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

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Social Networking Among Legal Professionals

BUSINESS WIRE -- July 10 -- According to the 2008 Networks for Counsel Survey 50% of attorneys are members of social networks and over 40% believe professional networking has the potential to change the business and practice of law over the next five years. The survey of 650 attorneys also reveals the high degree of interest - more than 40% - among lawyers in joining an online professional network designed specifically for their profession. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

Brand Marketing Guide Via Video Social Networking Sites

RESEARCH AND MARKETS -- July '07 -- This 90 page report provides a comprehensive and innovative guide for brand marketing via video social networking sites. 

Key questions answered:
- What are the opportunities for brand marketing via video social networking sites?
- Why not just upload existing television commercials?
- What commercial models are video SNS operators using?
- How to align a campaign with the members' motivations so it engages them?

- What's the key learning from innovative campaigns by major brands?
- What are the essential steps in launching and managing a campaign?
- Which of the 80 video SNS have other brands used?
FULL ARTICLE @ RESEARCH AND MARKETS

YouTube Continues To Destroy All Competitors

READ WRITE WEB -- June 26 -- YouTube's huge lead in market share over other online video sites continues to get bigger, even as the over all video viewing market continues a decline. According to traffic analysts Hitwise, YouTube now sees 75.43% of traffic to the online video category; that's up 26% from it's May 2007 marketshare of 59.95%. The nearest competitor is still MySpaceTV, which was down a whopping 44% to 9% marketshare.

FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Mobile Web Usage Prompts Development

DM NEWS -- June 23 -- Mobile media measure­ment firm M:Metrics, recently acquired by ComScore, states that mobile browsing has increased 89% year over year, and page views have increased 127%. The mobile Opera browser has more than 44m users and is designed to operate on even low-resource handsets. Mozilla's new mobile browser, code named Fennec is expected to launch this fall and will provide a richer mobile Web experience. FULL ARTICLE @ DM NEWS

Mark Brooks: The mobile browser Skyfire is available now and can even handle flash, and YouTube videos.