Facebook follows Twitter some more
Facebook has added a follow feature as the networking behemoth becomes ever more Twitter. Facebook has also enabled uploading of photos via email which should make uploading photos to Facebook from mobile devices just that much easier.
Email no longer number one for sharing links
New research from Add-To-Any shows that Facebook is more popular than email for link sharing, backing up previous research from Nielson showing that member communities such as Facebook have surpassed email in popularity as an online activity. Twitter, despite having a smaller user base, already accounts for 10.8% of link sharing online, only 0.3% behind email.
Whilst there is focus on the battle of the big guys, it is interesting to note the wide breadth of services being used. Ten services share 42% of the link sharing market, showing a healthy 'second teir' social media space.
Companies looking to effectively leverage social media should take note that a more holistic approach to social media and viral marketing might pay dividends. Recent research looking at the 100 global brands found that engaging in social media helps the bottom line. The key message was engaging deeply in many social media channels correlates to increased revenue growth when compared to those who have little engagement.
Twitter users lose followers
Twitter cleaned out a lot of spammers on Friday causing many users to see a significant drop in their follower count. Underdtandably this bruised many a tweeter's ego but the social media upstart assured users that this "it's a good thing" as they were only dirty spam accounts were finally out of the equation. Think of it as a Twitter market correction.
Martha Stewart hates Facebook, loves Twitter
Ex-con and lifestyle superstar Martha Stewart has staked her claim for Twitter and against Facebook in an interview with The Daily Beast. character brigage Stewart said she loves Twitter "'so much more than Facebook. First of all, you don’t have to spend any time on it, and, second of all, you reach a lot more people. And I don’t have to ‘befriend’ and do all that other dippy stuff that they do on Facebook.”
On closer inspection the 1.1million followers Stewart has on Twitter might be swaying her. Especially when you consider that she only has a few thousand fans on Facebook. Is the all American mom serving up a dish of sour grapes?
Business case for twitter ramping up... maybe
Twitter kept the public relations hype machine running on overdrive, releasing an official Twitter 101 for business users. The resource outlines how to get started, learning the Twitter lingo and details a number of real world case studies for Twitter in yet another possible step towards monetisation. There was further talk that one method of revenue generation for Twitter might consider selling a 'hyperfeed' of tweets to search engines. However when it comes to making money, Twitter remains resilient to questions from all comers.
YouTube adds public analytics
If you don't want to just show how cool your YouTube videos are, you can now share deeper analytics with your audience in addition to user ratings, view count or the number of comments that are shown by default. There is no word from Google HQ if the feature will do anything to improve the quality of comments to be found on the video sharing website.
Digg 'hijacks' short links
The internet community was up in arms after Digg changed the functioning of their URL shortening service, taking users to the Digg rather than directly to the linked content. Digg founder Kevin Rose was apparently not happy with the decision which happened whilst he was on holidays. With the huge number of free URL shortening services available it is a little perplexing that so many people should be get so hung up by Digg's decision.
Google Wave looming upon our shores
The potentially disruptive email/IM mashup currently in development is a little closer with Google announcing 100,000 invites will be going out to potential beta testers on September 30th. After sitting through my my first (and probably last) hour and a bit long developer presentation, I hurried to register my application.
4Chan blocked by AT&T
Parts of popular internet forum site 4Chan has been blocked by US internet service provider AT&T. 4Chan is well known for its irreverent lack of moderation in many areas, leading to a wild-west style. Founder Moot confirmed the news on his blog:
"It's come to our attention that AT&T is filtering/blocking img.4chan.org (/b/ & /r9k/) for many of their customers. There is no remedy at this time. If you've been affected, I would advise you call or write customer support and corporate immediately."
4Chan is well known for it's ability to mobilise it's users, even hacking Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People list, managing to forcefully crowbar moot in at the top spot. Accordingly they have already set up 'Project AT&T' with associated Twitter account to fight for the Rickroll instigating site. However some comments on the Project AT&T hint that the block has already been lifted.
