The Inquisitr » social network

Twitter Userbase Skews Toward Older Crowd, Data Suggests

JR — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:33:35 +0000

We’re hearing a lot about the explosion of Twitter into mainstream culture these days. The site’s traffic has grown more than 700 percent worldwide in the past year. Some new data suggests the majority of Twitter’s users, though, aren’t in the demographic you might expect.

Users 18 to 24 years old, though typically portrayed as being among the “most connected” people, make up one of the lowest chunks of Twitter’s userbase, according to an analysis published by ComScore this week. It’s the 45 to 54 age group that takes up the biggest piece of the pie, ComScore finds, followed by the 25 to 34 group.

What explains the breakdown, then? ComScore points to the increasingly common corporate uses for social technology.

“With so many businesses using Twitter, along with the first generations of Internet users ‘growing up’ and comfortable with technology, this is a sign that the traditional early adopter model might need to be revisited,” says ComScore’s Sarah Radwanick.

“Not only teenagers and college students can be counted among the ‘technologically inclined,’ which means that trends are much more prone to take off in older age segments than they used to,” she contends.

Twitter

comScore

Environmental Social Network Launches With Lofty Goal

JR — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:00:06 +0000

A new social network is launching this morning with the goal of helping you reduce your carbon footprint.

Save The Planet And Win, opening publicly in beta mode today, lets you calculate the environmental damage you’re doing and find ways to cut it back. Billed as the “first voluntary personal carbon registry in the United States,” the site offers networking opportunities to compare your steps to others’ and discuss strategies for saving the Earth.

You can also accumulate “points” by watching the site’s sponsored videos about going green. Those points can then be used to buy carbon offsets, donate to environmental causes, or — if you just need the dough — you can trade them in for cash.

Save The Planet And Win is promising weekly sweepstakes to keep environmental friendliness fun and interesting, too.

So far, the site claims about 66,000 pounds of carbon reduced by its members prior to its public launch.

Teen Social Network To Get Label-Supported Streaming

JR — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:00:57 +0000

A major record label has struck a new social networking deal — with a teen-targeting twist. Universal Music Group (UMG) is partnering with teen-friendly site Kiwibox to create a new streaming service, the two companies will announce this morning.

The deal will make thousands of UMG artist videos available for free on Kiwibox.com. The media will be ad-supported, with artists getting a share of the revenue. (The specific percentages are not being released.) Current UMG artists include Jay-Z, The Killers, Snow Patrol, and Kanye West.

Kiwibox, purchased by Magnitude Information Systems in 2007, combines interactive social features with both professionally written and user-generated content, all in a magazine-style layout. The site saw a major makeover in August, which included the debut of an expanded internal video section. The new service — fittingly set to be titled “Kiwibox Music Videos” — will launch before the end of the year and will be integrated with the existing content.

Will the offering draw users over from existing streaming services such as Imeem and the recently launched MySpace Music? Probably not. But for its own devoted base of teen and pre-teen users, the option is sure to add a nice layer of functionality to an already robust site — not to mention the additional avenue of exposure it’ll provide for the artists always vying to reach that very demographic.

This Twitter Feed Brought To You By…

JR — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:40:15 +0000

Get ready for the professional Twitterer. A third-party advertising platform is opening the door to individual social network sponsorship — and, in doing so, signaling the start of the user-based monetization of Twitter.

TwittAd lets you implement “product placement and web site promotion” on your profile page. Once you sign up for the service, you set the price you want and the duration of the ad. From the looks of it, you get paid a flat fee — not a traffic- or click-based rate. TwittAd says it pays you for “every hour you serve the ad.”

Tweet For Profit

So will we really see the profit-savvy Twitterer? As of now, TwittAd’s ads go only on your Twitter home page, meaning users who receive your feed through any other medium (including their own Twitter pages) won’t see the spots. The limited scope may make it tough to pull in a whole lot of dough at the start, but once the technology expands and ads start being attached to every Tweet (which is, in all likelihood, just a matter of time), the potential will definitely be there.

A Growing Commodity

On the whole, the past calls of “Twitter is dead” couldn’t be further from the truth at the moment. Check out Australia this month: Usage of the site down under has shot up an unbelievable 512 percent over the past year, according to numbers released by HitWise this morning.

It only makes sense, then, that more marketing and advertising are on the horizon, and not just with TwittAd, either. Researchers are already matching up particular businesses that might be a strong fit with the Twitter crowd, so don’t be surprised to see more and more targeted Tweets coming your way over the coming months.

Interactive Action

The other, less invasive trend is the use of Twitter to gauge reader perception and reaction to a brand or product — basically, observing and interacting rather than force feeding. Some forward-thinking companies have already explored this path and with some success, too — including one airline that seems to suck a bit less than the others. Then there’s Zappos, a company quickly becoming as known for its Twitter use as for its products.

Evolutionary Challenge

The question, then, is how long it’ll take for the rest of the mainstream herd to catch on and start turning to Twitter for marketing and money-making purposes. My prediction: Don’t hold your breath. The old media-new media evolutionary challenge — the same one we’re seeing traditional media outlets slowly struggling to overcome — is far from over. Whether it’s in the media world or the general corporate world, there are still too many people high-up who either don’t get it, or who just choose not to acknowledge it (”it” being both the importance and the process of intelligently investing time and capital in interactive resources).

Think how long blogging was around before it became a corporate and money-making concept. Odds are, more execs and entrepreneurs will eventually learn to embrace the profit potential of Twitter — but whether it’s placing ads, placing purpose-driven users, or just placing themselves in a position to watch and learn, the revolution won’t be an instant one. Time will change things, of course…but nothing’s happening overnight.

In the meantime, though, get ready to see dollar signs lighting up in the eyes of hardcore users. Someone’s going to be trying to turn a quick buck or two — and it can’t be long before Twitter itself introduces its own user-oriented monetization options to claim its piece of the pie.

Twittad

Twitter

Will “Following” Give Blogger a Boost?

JR — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:47:06 +0000

Google’s hoping to pack more punch into its Blogger publishing platform with a soon-to-be-added ability to have FriendFeed-style “followers” on your blog.

The feature will look familiar. Anyone with a Google account, it seems, can opt to follow a blog. Then the site owner can add a widget with all the followers’ mugshots to the front page.

Where Google gains an advantage, though, is with its integration into other properties: Any blogs you, as a reader, opt to follow will appear in a special folder in your Google Reader — and you can also click on any blogs already in your Reader and subscribe to them as a follower from right there. Google is also working on building a tie-in with FriendConnect, its social tool introduced this past May, so Blogger sites can use it to add another set of social features to their blogs as well.

So will the add-ons drive the masses over to Blogger for hosting? Of course not. But for sites already hosted there, it’ll add a new layer of interaction and some extra room for social growth. For the casual blogger content hosting his or her site with Google, at least, it’ll be an interesting option to gain.

Google

Is Social Media Useful or just Ego-Boost?

Guest Poster — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:04:54 +0000

With the rise of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn comes a rise in a market designed to “teach” companies how to leverage social media sites for business purposes. But aside from marketing initiatives, are these sites really valuable for companies?

Of the various social media sites, the one I’ve seen used the most for non-marketing business uses is LinkedIn. While there are many people who see little to no value to the site, I’ve witnessed companies using the site for recruiting, locating service providers, and seeking business advice. I was hired at The Industry Standard based on working LinkedIn, and yet it’s the one social media site that always seems to be ignored or dismissed. It has the highest CPM rate for advertising of any social media site, and probably will be one left standing in the end.

Facebook and Twitter are probably on par in terms of usefulness for companies. Both can be used to build brand awareness, as well as pitch journalists, announce news in a less formal manner, and reach out to a different audience. Some people have had success with leveraging their contacts on the sites for jobs and partnerships, but the majority of the users seem to use the sites for their intent: socializing.

FriendFeed is the current darling of the tech set, and Duncan himself has been converted to a believer. The problem, however, is that there doesn’t seem to be a justifiable business case for using it, at least in its current incarnation. Those trying to woo the tech A-listers know it’s a necessity to keep up with the in-crowd gossip, but overall, the site has the feel of an upside-down high school cafeteria, with the nerds at the popular kid table and the cheerleaders left to their own devices over on MySpace and Facebook. The few companies or blogs who have set up rooms seem to use them only as one more way to publish a news feed, and even the site’s “recommended” users are, for the most part, empty profiles with newsfeeds but little participation.

Unfortunately, the sites with the most practical uses seem to be overlooked while those that prop up the flip-flopped social structure of tech geek supremacy seem to get the most appearances on the tech blogs. For any single post on the usefulness of LinkedIn, there are 100 about a new design at FriendFeed or an outage on Twitter. When it comes to being a viable site that can be used as a tool (and earn money to boot), odds are the sites that pump up your ego won’t be the ones that survive.

Lifehaps: The Social Networking Timeline

JR — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:04:24 +0000

A new startup is trying to take social networking up a notch by providing a graphical timeline of your life.

Lifehaps gives you the ability to plot out all your life’s events — ranging from your birth to that concert you’re seeing next month — and then share the data with friends. It’s kind of like a massive, lifelong calendar that’s open to your online community. In addition to the major life happenings, you can easily include random outings or upcoming weekend plans so your friends can coordinate and link up with you.

The site offers its services for free, though it does indicate certain “premium features” in the works for the future. These include customizable theme options, charting and graphing capabilities, and custom event categories.

We couldn’t find much about the creators or the company on the site. WhoIs records, though, show the domain pointing to Knowtes.com — an interactive online flashcard service for students, also in beta. The Lifehaps name is registered to Shaun Halberstadt, who holds the copyright for Knowtes — so it seems a likely conclusion that he’s the brain behind both operations.

Our vote: The idea behind Lifehaps is actually pretty cool and could be a nice graphical addition to social networking. The timeline format is fun to play around with, though the interface can be a bit slow and cumbersome at times. Lifehaps would have a lot more value as a feature within an existing social network. The technology and the concept are solid, but the likelihood of getting all your friends to create accounts and build timelines on an independent service — then continue to maintain them and interact with others — isn’t high. If Lifehaps were to eventually join forces or partner up with another service — say, Facebook or FriendFeed — it could see wider adoption and a stronger shot at success.

Online Social Networks Now Playground for Hackers

Dominic Rivera — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:24:04 +0000

Computer security researchers warned that social networking websites are playgrounds for hackers, AFP reports. The report added that hackers are taking advantage of people’s trust, especially with the open platform that social networks employ, a trend started by Facbook. With an open operating platform, outside developers can create their applications and feed it to the entire network. Hackers can obviously play around with this openness.

“I can’t necessarily attack Facebook or MySpace, but I can attack their users all day long,” Computer security specialist Shawn Moyer told AFP. The specialist added that not having a social networking page does not mean that you will not be vulnerable to trouble.

So, what then do we do now? I believe that the web, not just social networks, is a playground for hackers, prying on people with their malicious codes. That’s a given and we have to live it with, unless we stop using the web (but then you have to live with real-life malicious intentions).

To avoid it, I do not make the web as my life nor do I fill my online social network account with crappy applications or widgets. Poking is enough for me.

Friendster is (Still) Alive with $20 Million and New CEO

Dominic Rivera — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:22:17 +0000

Asia’s social network of choice Friendster, Inc. announced that it has closed $20 million in funding led by new investor IDG Ventures. The new lease of money will allow Friendster to extend its leadership in the Asia Pacific region and continue to grow and monetize its global user base.

Friendster also announced the appointment of Richard Kimber, formerly the regional managing director of Google at South Asia where he dramatically increased the search engine’s revenue in the Asia Pacific region.

“Utilizing the Internet to connect to your friends is one of its greatest benefits, and is changing the way relationships work globally. With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia,” Kimber said.

Friendster boasts of having 55 million registered users and 33 million monthly unique visitors from Asia alone, with the remaining 20 million from all over the globe.

Impressive numbers but they should try setting a stronghold in the US as well.

Friendster

Kiwibox Gets Long-Planned Makeover by Magnitude

JR — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:00:16 +0000

Teen social network Kiwibox is officially relaunching today — the culmination of a project in the works since the service was purchased by Magnitude Information Systems one year ago.

Kiwibox 2.0, as it’s being branded, features a new look along with expanded widget-enabled profiles and additional game options. The service also now offers a revamped video section and weekly magazine, both of which contain user-submitted news and celebrity reports.

“Members contribute content to Kiwibox, which goes through a collaborative editorial process before getting published to the site for the entire member base,” CEO Lin Dai told The Inquisitr, describing the configuration as “content meets social networking.”

Up next: Dai tells us Kiwibox will be getting integration tools that’ll let members interact with profiles on MySpace, Facebook, and other social network services.

Magnitude received $3 million in funding when it acquired Kiwibox last August. The social network has been around since 1999.

Our vote: The update is a significant improvement from the old, somewhat dated design carried over from before Magnitude’s purchase. The new look far more effectively showcases the service’s Web 2.0-style interactive approach and will no doubt be welcomed by Kiwibox’s young, web-savvy audience. The wealth of teen-targetted and teen-created content may be able to lure in some devoted MySpace users, particularly those in the younger teen/pre-teen years — and the closely controlled content, compared to the free-for-all alternatives, will certainly be of comfort to parents who are involved in their kids’ online activity. The upcoming social network interaction tools will only help the efforts to get MySpacers involved without forcing them to choose between the two.

Arzoola: A New Voice In Social Network Communication

JR — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:47:01 +0000

A startup just launched over the weekend is giving an added voice to the world of social networking.

Arzoola’s Social Call lets you make and receive free VOIP-powered calls through social network-specific apps. What sets it apart from other services is the fact that it lets you do so anonymously: Users give out their phone numbers only to Arzoola, which then masks them from public view.

“We simply act as an intermediary, shielding the phone numbers from each party,” CEO Roie Edery explained to The Inquisitr. “Instead of posting your phone number online, you substitute it with our ‘Call Me’ link.”

The first application, launched Saturday, is designed with Craigslist in mind. You just go to Arzoola’s web site, enter your phone number, zip code, and an expiration time (i.e. only accept calls for two days) — then it gives you code to post within your listing. The code lets anyone click to call you without ever gaining access to your phone number. While the tool is being marketed specifically for use on Craigslist, it could be used anywhere you can post HTML embed code — on a MySpace profile, for example, or on a blog where you wanted to receive calls for a limited period of time without divulging your digits.

Next up is an app for Facebook, which Edery tells us will be launching “very soon” — likely within the next week or two, pending the network’s approval. It will add a “Call Me” button directly below your profile picture and will let you specify what days and times to let calls be patched through.

All the applications use a business-grade VOIP carrier. As of now, the calls are totally ad-free. Edery says that could change in the future — but end users will always be able to use the service free-of-charge.

“Our focus is to provide this service for free,” he said. “Once adoption picks up, it is our intent to enable our audio advertising platform. Basically, while a user is on hold waiting for us to call the other party, they will hear an ad.”

Arzoola’s Social Call will also eventually offer premium services such as voicemail and number-free text messaging, Edery tells us.

Our vote: A smart service with strong potential. The Facebook/MySpace/Bebo apps could draw people in and provide a powerful and convenient social function without the typical privacy concerns. The HTML-driven function, though, is what strikes us as most intriguing about Social Call. It’d be a huge plus to be able to receive calls on a public posting for a limited window, without having to throw your actual number on the page for the world to see. The blogosphere could stand to benefit from its embeddable functionability — think of the easy-to-click “news tip hotlines” or “talk with me now” features that could be set up to let visitors dial a blogger’s cell phone during certain hours, without him having to publicly post the number.

AIM Offers New Social Aggregation Tool

JR — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:01:33 +0000

AIM is expanding its reach to include integration with other social-oriented services.

The options come as part of the newly launched BuddyUpdates feature for AOL’s instant messaging platform. The feature lets you link your buddy list to third-party sites including Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, del.icio.us, Mixx, StumbleUpon, and YouTube. There’s also an option to add an unlisted service, so you could theoretically connect almost anything — a non-Blogger blog or a FriendFeed page, for example.

Once linked up, friends can see your recent activity from the AIM sign-in page or right within the AIM window itself. The BuddyUpdates service is still under beta mode.

MySpace Slipping In UK Traffic

JR — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:38:39 +0000

Facebook is reaching new heights in the UK — and that means MySpace is slipping.

New analysis out from Hitwise today shows Facebook taking 45 percent of all social network traffic in the UK in June. Both Bebo — now in second place, with 25 percent — and MySpace — in third, with just under 15 percent — have lost significant numbers over the past several months.

Perhaps more intriguing, though, is the deeper analysis ranking all sites considered Web 2.0 — not just social networks. Facebook is still a strong first in the UK there, but YouTube is the next most visited service. Bebo came in third, Wikipedia was fourth, and MySpace was down to fifth for the month of June.

On the whole, HitWise says one out of every five URLs accessed in the UK belonged to one of those five services.

BuzzNet Gets Heavy With The Gauntlet

JR — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:46:58 +0000

Social media is getting a bit heavier. Music community BuzzNet has announced it’s teaming up with The Gauntlet, a hard rock and heavy metal news and review site.

BuzzNet will begin collaborating on new material and featuring Gauntlet content right away. Its management says the hope is to expose visitors to “a community and a whole new breed of bands they may not have found on their own.”

The site already carries some serious weight, getting a decent amount of original content and big name interviews — such as this one, in which Velvet Revolver (and former Guns ‘n Roses) drummer Matt Sorum talks about the possibility of reuniting with a certain Mr. Rose:

BuzzNet acquired music blog Idolator from Gawker Media back in April.

BuzzNet

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Webjam Raises Nearly $2 Million

JR — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:01:04 +0000

Social network publisher Webjam has $1.9 million in new funding.

Webjam gives users the ability to build custom social networks using a drag-and-drop-style interface. The new money, led by investor I-Source, will go toward furthering its Branded Services program, which gives businesses a more advanced fee-based option for development. The program is currently being pilot-tested with a small number of organizations and will become publicly available in September.

Webjam was founded two years ago in London.

No related posts.

Microsoft Develops Corporate Social Networking Tool

JR — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:32:13 +0000

Most companies discourage social networking at work, but Microsoft is testing a new product that could make it part of the job.

The Microsoft Office Labs team has developed an internal, business-oriented social networking tool called TownSquare. The utility is set to be revealed at tomorrow’s Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, according to information obtained by ComputerWorld.

The system is said to resemble Facebook, but with a slightly less entertaining intention. Its goal is to let employees stay up-to-date with industry news as well as their own colleagues’ work and progress. It even has a feature that can let you see when someone has created or updated a document — something that may give bosses an added way to monitor progress.

TownSquare is currently being used by numerous Microsoft employees and is also being tested at some other corporations, none of which has been named.

Sta.rtUp.Biz Shows Promise For Professionals

JR — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:43:18 +0000

A new Web 2.0 startup is aiming to create a complete network for small business professionals.

Sta.rtUp.biz tries to incorporate a unique mix of resources and social tools for businessmen and women seeking support. The site offers MySpace-style profiles as well as experts on-hand to help solve small business issues: a corporate lawyer to handle legal questions, a “search guru” to help with SEO techniques, and a “serial entrepreneur” to work with users on refining their business strategies. The front page is also packed with video and text content on topics ranging from launching a new company to outsourcing franchise sales.

Starting an account is a 30-second process — no major Q&A or background checks required — and from what I can tell, no hidden fees appear to be lurking around. My membership was only the 180th since the site’s launch, so it has a way to go in becoming a true social mecca. The groundwork, though, is definitely there.

On the whole, Sta.rtUp.biz has an interesting concept that could see success. It’s taken pieces from services like LinkedIn, MySpace, and CNNMoney and combined them in one convenient location, along with some nice additions like the free expert advice. If this site can overcome its nearly impossible to type name, it has the potential to tap into a lucrative market and make a real splash.