Google turns whole web into social network December 9, 2008

Google turns whole web into social network

By: Vincent Maher

It was just a matter of time before Google started to leverage the massive base of Google accounts to connect everyone together. As usual, this new Google project is ambitious – instead of creating a new social network as a destination site, the new Friend Connect service takes the network to where the people already are – on blogs and websites.

Friend Connect (www.google.com/friendconnect) comes in the form of a sidebar for websites and blogs that has a powerful viral invitation tool for getting people to join and become part of a community that centres around the content of the site. Website creators and bloggers can invite new community members from a list of Gmail contacts or share the site inside other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace etc.

The genius of it is its simplicity – much like the paradigm-shift brought about by Google’s Adsense – Friend Connect explodes the notion of social networking completely and enables any website to be a component of a global social network.

How does it work? Website creators log in to FriendConnect using their Gmail accounts, download some code and put it on the site. Once this is done, there are several gadgets that can be embedded into the site to enhance the community aspect once people have joined your network:

• a wall gadget so people can post videos, comments and other bits of social lint onto your site;
• a review gadget so people can discuss how cool or lame you are depending on their mood, and,
• most importantly, an OpenSocial gadget that allows you to embed OpenSocial applications inside your site.

The scale of it is grand, like the Israelites toppling the walls of Jericho with their trumpets, or the rumble of elephants and infantry descending upon the Rhône.

Forget the social network as a walled garden, forget social networks as destination sites – FriendConnect turns the whole web into a social network.

Jeff Palumbo—

The great social network debate is unified profiles -vs- singular social networks. Googles friendconnect is a giant leap for the unified profile. Under the unified profile we will see profiles connected to one another in a more conventional life fashion with out or with little reprensentation of where the profile was created. Under the social network side we have a community for bikers, schools, charities, etc. as one community that you and your profile are a part of. This is a great method for many community types such as an independent private school, a church or a charity where belonging to that community means more than belonging to a website like bed bath and beyond.

This relates to many businesses. How can I leverage my social initivitave with in this great debate. If your company is seeking the relestate of the profile you need to be an application or widget. If you company seeks the verticle community you need your own social network. Which is better? They both serve their purpose and hold value to the respective business that uses them. The unified profile allows the profile owner to dictate the content on their profile. The community allows an enclosed colaboration between people under a percieved community.

Friendster Receives Patent on Compatibility Scoring of Online Social Network Users December 9, 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec 09, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Friendster, Inc., a top 20 global website based on traffic and the #1 social network in Asia, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the social networking pioneer a new U.S. Patent, titled “Compatibility Scoring of Users in a Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,451,161). Friendster has been granted four patents since July 2006, validating the company’s early and continuous innovation in online social networking.

Friendster’s latest patent, granted on November 11, 2008, describes a unique methodology used to calculate compatibility based on expressed interests between users of a social network. This includes scoring the compatibility between two members of a social network based on their interests and scoring the correlation between two interests for a given member of a social network.

“In just six years, social networking has become both an industry — since 8 of the top 20 largest websites in the world are social networks — and a critical platform for over half a billion Internet users globally to share, communicate, connect and be entertained with existing and new friends, family and colleagues,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer of Friendster. “A core component of the evolution of social networks is the ability of the online ’social graph’ to represent our real social life. Understanding the common interests between people establishes common ground to build and enhance relationships.”

Prior to this most recent fourth patent, Friendster was granted three social networking patents in 2006 and 2007:

— In July 2006, Friendster was awarded its first U.S. patent describing how people are connected in the context of an online social network, titled “A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks” (U.S. Patent No. 7,069,308).

— Friendster was granted a second U.S. patent in October 2006, which discloses the process of enriching other users’ profiles with text, video, pictures and additional content, titled “Method of Inducing Content Uploads in a Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,117,254).

— In March 2007, Friendster added another patent to its portfolio, titled “System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,188,153 B2), which describes a technology that allows members of a social network to manage their connections by, for example, adding friends; personalizing their network through arranging, ordering and classifying connections made in an online community; and managing these connections at will.

“Since launching the first social network in 2002, Friendster has continued to build and own a significant patent portfolio. Friendster’s four patents address many fundamentals of social networking — establishing connections, distributing and sharing content, managing connections over time and assessing compatibility between users. Friendster’s patent portfolio is one of several assets of the company. Friendster anticipates receiving more patents, and we will continue to focus on growing our large global business into an even larger one,” said Kimber.

Friendster Leads in Asia and is a Top 20 Global Website

Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, with over 65 million registered users and over 50 million monthly unique visitors from Asia.* In Asia, Friendster has more monthly unique visitors than any other social network. Plus, Asia is the largest market of Internet users (Asia has 41% of the world’s Internet users while the U.S. has only 19%), and Asia is the fastest growing region in the world.** Friendster has a loyal and growing user base throughout Asia in the following top 10 countries for Friendster: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea.

Friendster is a top 20 global website in the world in terms of traffic, serving over 18 billion page views a month.** Friendster is 1st in “user engagement” among the top five global social networks, with users spending an average of 187 minutes per visitor per month on http://www.friendster.com.**

About Friendster

With more than 90 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, social groups, activities and interests. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world via http://www.friendster.com or m.friendster.com from any Internet-ready mobile device. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit: http://www.friendster.com.

*Google Analytics and Friendster Internal Data, September 2008

**comScore Media Metrix, Asia Pacific and Worldwide Data, September 2008

SOURCE Friendster, Inc.

 http://www.friendster.com

Social Media ad Spending decline, demands inproved results November 24, 2008

 The global financial crisis and drastically lower consumer spending, as indicated by Friday’s Commerce Department report of a 2.8% drop in October retail sales, has forced marketers to slash budgets and seek better performing alternatives.

The consumer spending recession is quickly “trickling-down” to cause a traditional media depression. Research from Jack Myers Media Business Reports indicates up to double-digit declines for newspapers, magazines, broadcast radio and television in 2008. And there appears to be no good news in sight, as sales are projected to decline further in each of these media sectors in 2009.

The future of marketing is results driven advertising. Pay-For-Performance models stand to dominate in down market trends.

Greenwood High School is a web 2.0 innovator… November 24, 2008

  A high school as an innovator. It has happened. GHS or Greenwood highschool has taken myspace into their own hands, by rolling out their own schools’ social network. This in my opinion is an innovation that every school, religous orginization and charity in the country should follow. With the small cost (under $100 usd) of starting and operating a social network on ning, kickapps or boonex there is a million resoans to do this.

Social netowrk brings a tremendious and relitivly simple system to bring like minded audiances together in a managable enviroment. With a social network people of your like minded group are able to share, communicate, colaborate, in a safe enviroment that you can eaisly manage and market to.

The GHS Social Network, http://greenwoodhs.ning.com continues to grow. Our site is less than 2 years old and has more GHS students, alumni and faculty than MySpace. At over 2,600 members we have groups for each class year so you can pass around reunion plans; we have many forums, ranging from Wines and Spirits to Movie and Restaurant reviews to Missing Classmate searches. Our groups include the GHS Memorial Group – a place to remember those who had passed on; our Prayer Circle for those who are sick or grieving and know the benefit of prayers from others; Parents of AD/HD group; our Southside Rebel and Northside Knight groups and many more.   You can post photos – we currently have over 20,000 posted by the members. There is live chat with your friends, a place to list member owned or run businesses; create your own blog and personal page and so much more. This site is for GHS alumni, current students, faculty and staff. It is family friendly – so your kids can look over your shoulder as you surf the site. It is run by a GHS alumni who verifies all members before they are approved and closely monitors the content to ensure that the site never has any offensive material on it.   Best of all – IT IS FREE. So come and join the 2600+ who are already here at: http://greenwoodhs.ning.com The original GHS alumni site! To learn more about how you can get a free social network started for your educational facility, church orginization or charity please call Jeff Palumbo at United Media Partners 734-652-1846.

Facebook’s Beacon Will Shine Again November 20, 2008

We haven’t seen the last of Facebook’s hotly debated “Beacon” peer-recommendations application. Hardly. This story is just beginning.

Social networks will not be overrun with Facebook refugees searching for a virtual home that better safeguards their privacy. And another network isn’t likely to take over Facebook’s momentum because they made an initial awkward misstep. Instead, consumers will do what we have always done: We’ll forgive an earnest apology.

As the media focuses its spotlight on another company or cause, Facebook will unveil a retooled privacy-friendly application that harnesses the power of viral recommendations shared among friends. The reconfigured platform will ensure people share their passions with others only when they want to, and only with those subsets of their social network that would be interested. And when that happens, watch out: this service could meet Facebook’s claims that Beacon can change everything you know about advertising, let alone social network advertising.

We have to remember that the harshest critics of Beacon were business veterans, such as analysts, reporters, advocacy leaders. Privacy for these individuals has an entirely different meaning than it does for the twenty-something Facebook demographic that has been raised on Internet cookies and unshakable spyware. Facebook’s high profile position has made it a perfect target for criticism, but at the same time, it has now become the underdog those very critics can now root for. Mark Zuckerberg and company are just too competitive to be counted out after one PR knockdown. As quick as you can say Second Generation Zune, these guys will be back.