AllFacebook.com posts that Facebook’s new SocialAds service may not be that revolutionary. Click-through rates have been awful and many individuals and small businesses have had their ads rejected without explanation. Also, bands pages are starting off slow. Dave Matthews Band’s FB page has 56k fans, compared to 300k friends on MySpace. Only time will tell if this number will grow or stagnate.
Google is reportedly working on a web-based file storage service that would allow people to store all of their word documents, music, videos and pictures on the company’s servers. Baseline service would likely be ad-supported/free with an additional fee for premium options.
Sports Business News’ Howard Bloom writes that the death of Redskins safety Sean Taylor was “tragic but sadly predictable.” This is definitely an interesting read about Taylor’s past, the culture of the Miami football program, and how it can sometimes be hard to escape the past, even when a person is trying to change for the better.
To branch out from sports and social networking…a friend of mine recently released a website containing hundreds of drink recipes. While all the drink names on PartyExpert might not be politically correct, they definitely look interesting.
And last but not least, here’s Axe’s newest spot for your viewing pleasure. Chocolate, anyone?
I had the opportunity to attend the US Open on Saturday to see some great tennis. I’ll put together a quick recap of my thoughts at some point, but for now here’s some recent news regarding Facebook.
Facebook banned in Iran? - “The ban reportedly coincides with the existence of a Facebook group aimed at ending censorship in Iran, but there appears to be no correlation between the two events…”
Don’t Ban Facebook at Work, Researchers Advise - Britain’s Trade Union Congress recently issued a statement saying that businesses who ban Facebook are probably overreacting. Instead, businesses should cut employees some slack and let them use Facebook and other social networking sites, for a few minutes each day…
A Book Launch by Way of Facebook - A Canadian author uses Facebook to reveal snippets of his upcoming book and build community around the book before it launches…
I’ve never been a MySpace fan due to a few things:
It’s annoying when songs and videos often start playing when you open a MySpace page (sometimes both at the same time)
Profile pages are often cluttered and unorganized
I am a Facebook user. Most of my friends are Facebookers, too. I’ve just never had a real need for MySpace.
That said, MySpace is still a great place to be for certain brands and people, especially artists who are trying to promote their music. So for a look at some recent MySpace buzz, check out the following links.
MySpace the Place for Targeted Ads - MySpace is beta-testing a new behavioral targeting ad system. John Gartner makes a good point that while this will lead to better placements for advertisers and more relevant ads for users, there should be some kind of opt-out policy, so people can control what information is shared about them. However, I’m not sure we’ll see this as Google does similar targeting with the content-relevant ads it shows above and beside messages in Gmail.
MySpace is Safe After All - A National School Boards Association (NSBA) study has concluded that social networking sites like MySpace and Bebo are far more harmless than most parents (and the government) currently think. Only 7% of kids and teens surveyed have been the victims of cyberbullying (yes, apparently there is such a thing). However, the study was partly funded by MySpace’s parent company, News Corp. Is Big Brother News Corp cyberbullying researchers now?
MySpace Revenue to top $800 Million in Fiscal 2008 - MySpace expected to benefit from it’s deal with Google to monetize search results, in addition to the fact that more companies continue to jump on the social networking bandwagon.
MySpace Ads Onion to Website Recipe - Yesterday, MySpace announced a partnership to deliver the Onion’s tongue-in-cheek stories online at http://myspace.com/onionnews. Now that MySpace has joined forces with the internet’s most credible, most reliable news source, I might just have to check it out…
If you’ve got any other interesting links to recent MySpace news, feel free to post them in the comments.
Here’s what’s buzzing about the world of social networking:
Social Networks = AOL’s of Web 2.0 - Just as AOL has a bunch of shortcuts for connectictivity, networks like Facebook are providing shortcuts to everything, and trying to keep you from leaving. But how do you judge if this is a feasible for long-term sustainability?
Step One: Cut Off Nose. Step Two: Spite Facebook- Facebook should offer advertisers an option to exclude ads from specific pages of the site, categories of pages or both…or else brands may continue pulling ads from Facebook, for fear of being associated with the wrong page.
Hackers: Social Networking Sites Flawed - There are security flaws in social networking sites that could allow for sensitive personal information to be exposed…
The Global Face of Social Networking - Recent figures released by comScore reveal huge rises in the number of visitors to the largest of the social networks. I know you know this, but the numbers are interesting.
