Facebook Hits 150 Million Users

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze CNET NEWS -- Jan 7 -- Facebook says it has hit the milestone of 150m active users, just over two months after reaching 120m and about four months after reaching 100m. The site hit 140 million in the middle of December. Nearly half of that 150m, Zuckerberg wrote, use Facebook every day. Facebook has made it clear that right now, it's focusing on growth over revenues. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Facebook Saw Record Traffic On Christmas Eve

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze CNET NEWS -- Jan 4 --  Facebook achieved its highest-ever traffic level, accounting for 2.18% compared with a 1.42% average for Nov, according to Hitwise. That's a 54% increase compared with the Nov average and a 53% increase year over year. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Facebook, MySpace Could Boost Location-Based Services

Kompas INFORMATIONWEEK -- Dec 24 -- The market for location-based services is expected to top more than $13 billion in the next five years, and ABI Research said social networks like Facebook and MySpace could be a major driver of adoption. The research firm estimates that more than 82m users will be connected to a social network on the go by 2013. FULL ARTICLE @ INFORMATION WEEK

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MySpace Vs. Facebook Advertising Showdown

Ryan hupfer TECH CRUNCH -- Dec 21 -- Ryan Hupfer at HubPages who advertises on both MySpace and Facebook, compared the two platforms. In a nutshell, he finds Facebook a much better experience. When it comes to the results, though, things are mixed. Ryan's test showed a lower cost per click on MySpace than Facebook ($.27 v. $.44). But the Facebook clicks were more productive: a new user cost just $5.11 on Facebook, v. $8.03 on MySpace. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Facebook Growth Explodes

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze READ WRITE WEB -- Dec 18 -- According to new reports on Inside Facebook, in recent weeks Facebook is growing at a rate of 600,000 users each day, up from 300,000 to 400,000 users per day earlier this quarter. The company is also reporting that, as of today, they have reached 140m active users. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Washington Post CEO Joins Facebook

Don graham washington post facebook CNET NEWS -- Dec 11 -- Don Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post, will join Facebook's board of directors in January. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Bebo Is Hottest Irish Web Search

Bebo logo BELFAST TELEGRAPH -- Dec 10 -- Bebo was the most popular web search this year, while Facebook was the fastest rising search. Nasza klasa, a polish social networking, was also a fast rising search in Ireland. FULL ARTICLE @ BELFAST TELEGRAPH

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Facebook Introduces Embeddable Videos

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze TECH CRUNCH -- Dec 5 -- Facebook is making some improvements to its video-sharing service. The quality will be bumped up to 720p, which is technically the low end of HD. Coincidentally, YouTube turned on an HD-quality option on Friday. The key change, though, is that the videos will now be embeddable on other sites. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Facebook Connect Is Here

Facebookconnect MASHABLE -- Dec 4 -- Facebook Connect is now open for business, allowing any developer to let users login to their websites using their Facebook credentials. Additionally, other key Facebook features, like your friends list, can now be integrated into third-party applications, which can in turn send data back into Facebook and the News Feed. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Emoze Pushes Facebook On Any Mobile Device

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze PR NEWSWIRE -- Dec 1 -- Emoze, free, mobile, push email service, now allows Symbian users to add their Facebook messaging in combination with any number of email messaging systems, to their mobile device. There is no need to purchase a Smartphone to tap into Facebook messages on-the-move. Users can simply add Facebook to their emoze portfolio on any handset. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WATCH

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Facebook Wins $873m Judgment Against Spammer

Facebooklogofresh dalsi verze LA TIMES -- Nov 25 -- Facebook has struck back against spammers, winning an $873m judgment against a Canadian man accused of sending millions of unsolicited messages about drugs and sex. Facebook called the judgment the largest ever under a federal anti-spam law. MySpace won a $230m default judgment against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace and a business partner. In June, it got a $6m settlement from Scott Richter, whose company, Media Breakaway, allegedly sent unwanted ads to users. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES

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Facebook Getting Serious About Classifieds

Classifieds obrazek TECH CRUNCH -- Nov 23 -- Facebook has been quietly searching for a partner to take over their year and a half old classified listings application, and may relaunch as early as the end of December. The obvious partner is Oodle, which began powering Walmart Classifieds earlier this year. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Mark Brooks: Oodle is doing well by aggregating ads. Sell.com may be another option for them.

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Kids Gain Valuable Skills From Time Online

Child on facebook SF CHRONICLE -- Nov 20 -- Children who gab on Facebook or play online games are gaining valuable social skills and learning some technology basics, according to a new study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation. The report,  contradicts the idea held by many educators, parents and policymakers that children should be blocked from online social networks and video games. Instead, children should be encouraged to use the technologies to gain a certain level of digital literacy, the study said. Mizuko Ito, a research scientist in UC Irvine's department of informatics who led the study, said that children who don't have access to some of today's most popular online diversions risk being social outsiders lacking some of the basic skills necessary to function in the Internet age. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE

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Iran Blocks Access To Over 5 Million Websites

Iranian women by computer AFP -- Nov 19 -- Iran has blocked access to more than five million Internet sites, whose content is mostly perceived as immoral and anti-social. With about 21m users, the Internet is widely popular in Iran, which ranks among the top 20 user countries. The ban has also targeted Facebook and YouTube, as well as news sites. FULL ARTICLE @ AFP

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Facebook Is Running A Protection Racket On App Developers

Facebooklogofresh_dalsi_verze TECH CRUNCH -- Nov 17 -- Application developers can apply to become a Verified App. If they pass they get a badge and special placement in the Application directory, plus increased communication limits with users, increased visibility in the news feed and some free advertising credits. If they don't pass, they get stuck into the unwashed masses of apps that aren't verified because they aren't "meaningful," "trustworthy," or "well designed". FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Facebook Mobile Sees 3X Growth

Facebook_on_mobile READWRITE WEB -- Nov 11 -- Facebook has seen users of its mobile site, m.facebook.com, jump from 5m to 15m this year. The most recent change made to the site, allowing comments to be posted on status messages from your phone, resulted in more than 1 million mobile posts in the first 24 hours. Facebook Mobile is now probably bigger than the entire userbase of Mixi, Japan's leading social network. Last week 6 leading Japanese social networks, including Mixi, MySpace Japan, Yahoo and others, announced that the companies are forming a mysterious alliance that could include content and widget sharing across their mobile sites. FULL ARTICLE @ READWRITE WEB

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Facebook Tries To Woo Marketers

Facebooklogofresh_dalsi_verze WSJ -- Nov 11 -- Facebook is rolling out a new ad format called "engagement ads". The new ads appear on the main screen when a person first logs in to Facebook. They prompt a user to take an action that affiliates themselves with a brand such as comment on a movie trailer or adding a TV show to a personal list of events. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ

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Facebook And MySpace Lock Horns For SN Future

Facebookmyspace GUARDIAN.CO.UK -- Nov 7 -- At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Mark Zuckerberg said he would continue the plan to expand aggressively around the world – while the head of MySpace suggested the company might bring out its own music player to rival the iPod. Over the past year the two websites have been jostling for top spot. Facebook has already seen remarkable growth in the last 12 months, growing from 50m users at the start of 2008 to around 125m today. Also Zuckerberg hinted that bringing Facebook to mobile phones could be a crucial next step for the company. Technology industry analysts ABI Research recently predicted that SN via mobile phones could be used by as many as 82m people within five years. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK

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Facebook Is Growing, But So Are Costs

Facebooklogofresh_dalsi_verze TECH CRUNCH -- Oct 31 -- A year ago, according to Comscore, they had just 74m unique monthly visitors and 35 billion page views. Today those numbers have grown by 118% and 74%, respectively, to 161m unique visitors and 61 billion page views per month. It costs a couple of hundred million dollars a year just to keep the lights on at Facebook. But the real problem is keeping up with growth, particularly storage needs. eMarketer estimates $265m in revenue for Facebook in 2008 but the company is still losing money. A big chunk, probably a majority, of the roughly $500m the company has raised is already gone. Facebook could be down to just a year's worth of cash at this point, with no IPO horizon in sight. Sources have told us that Facebook CFO Gideon Yu was in Dubai this week, possibly meeting with Dubai International Capital, exploring fundraising options. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Czechs Launch Hybrid Version Of Facebook And LinkedIn

SpoluzacilogoTHE PRAGUE POST -- Oct 22 -- With 62,158 users who claim residence in the Czech Republic, Facebook has managed to make as significant an impact here as it has in the U.S. and worldwide. Centrum, the Czech company that runs Atlas.cz, Centrum.cz and   Czech Republic, among other sites, has announced their own foray into social networking that will also combine elements of professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. Sitko.cz will be launched at the end of 2008. Sitko.cz will not be the first Czech-based networking site, as it follows the lead of rival Spolužáci.cz (Czech Classmates), a site operated by leading Web portal Seznam.czFULL ARTICLE @ THE PRAGUE POST

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