The Problem with Facebook [Video]
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Revenue, Social Media, Social Networks,
The problem is the only way Facebook has found to make money is by treating all entities on the site as advertisers and charging them to share their content.
This business plan backfires because 1) not all entities ARE advertisers and 2) it was the content from these people, specifically friends, family, and creators that made the site worth visiting in the first place.
Now the incentives are misaligned:
- Individuals want to see great content, but they are now seeing more paid content and organically shared content which appeals to the lowest common denominator (babies, weddings, and banal memes)
- Creators want to reach fans but their posts are being throttled to force them to pay to be seen
- Brands and advertisers have to pay once to advertise their page on Facebook, and then pay again to reach the people who have already liked their page. Plus Facebook is not a place where people generally go to buy things.
Facebook stands in contrast to other social media like Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram where all content is shared with all followers.
Gallery: The Problem with Facebook [Video]
Advertisement
LinkedIn introduces social news, skills, ‘maps’ pages
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, Social Networks,
Business social networking site LinkedIn launched a number of new products for its users on Thursday, including a customized news aggregation site.
In total, LinkedIn launched the LinkedIn Today news site, LinkedIn Skills, LinkedIn Maps, and updated its LinkedIn iOS app with the new news focus. The company also said that its LinkedIn Signal product would be opened up to all users.
According to Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn's chief executive, the site's historical mission has been about connecting users and new jobs, as they move down their career path. Now, he said, the site's purpose is to "connect talent and opportunity on a massive scale". LinkedIn counts 90 million members, all of which can be connected at either a primary, secondary, or tertiary level of interaction.
Weiner said that LinkedIn has three objectives: to be the professional profile of record, to ensure that users are connected to essential sources of professional insights, and to work wherever members work - reference to the company's mobile apps.
Deep Nishar, LinkedIn's senior vice president of products and user experience, related an anecdote where his teenage daughter applied to an won an internship at Johns Hopkins in 2008. Suddenly, as the opportunity approached, he was faced with checking out the program. Nishar said that he posted a message to LinkedIn, looking for responses, and found them. Searching for facts on a search engine wasn't enough.
"Suddenly it ht me that when we make important life decisions, you just don't rely on facts," he said.
Click to continue reading LinkedIn introduces social news, skills, ‘maps’ pages
Gallery: LinkedIn introduces social news, skills, ‘maps’ pages
Fact.me: An Oversharing Minds Dream
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Social Networks, Startups,
Do you spam your lovely friends with "ASK ME ANYTHING! NOW! PLEASE! BEFORE I DIE!" posts on your Facebook and Twitter linking to your Formspring? Are you dying to tell the world all the awesomeness that is held within that social network profile picture? Well, I might just become your favorite person as of right now. Facto.me is a new site that allows you to post anything about yourself. Yes, anything. Do you hate pizza? Have you done unspeakable things at one of your college parties? It's time to let the world know. No more waiting for people ask you the right question -- you are in control. It also gives you the option to automatically share your facts on Facebook and Twitter, so your reach can be even larger! So, go; run free my little over sharing child and give us all the random facts about you, we probably didn't want to know.
Gallery: Fact.me: An Oversharing Minds Dream
Be Your Own Facebook Guru
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Business Tools, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks,
Many companies feel managing a Facebook fan page is a task that requires a lot of resources and time. This is why you can find hundreds of self-proclaimed Facebook Gurus and experts all around the globe, usually charging a lot of money to help you come up with strategies leading to a successful Facebook fan page. Hey--it really isn't as hard as it looks!
Soap Creative, who has created and managed pages for Unilever, Activision, 20th Century Fox and others, is sharing some of their best practices and strategies they have used. These are strategies have been field tested and have returned with great results. Live, learn, and get to Facebooking!
Gallery: Be Your Own Facebook Guru
Will Facebook and Google still be relevant in 10 years?
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Features, Social Media,
As the last decade ends and a new one begins, it may be interesting to look at what has happened so far on the web, and what it means for the next 10 years. In a time when Facebook is everywhere, now reported to be valued at $50 billion, having raised $500 million recently and being expected to raise another $1.5 billion in the coming months, it's hard to remember what it was like in the year 2000. The tech bubble had just burst, a lot of web sites had gone down in flames, the Y2K bug proved to be nothing, and Windows 98 was still the dominant operating system. Google was something few people knew about, using instead Altavista and Yahoo. Social media was a mostly unknown concept. Just think of what the world was without smartphones and connectivity everywhere. In just 10 years, technology changed so fast, especially online, that it's hard to wrap our heads around it. Let's take it one domain at a time.
Click to continue reading Will Facebook and Google still be relevant in 10 years?
Gallery: Will Facebook and Google still be relevant in 10 years?
How to Land a Job at Twitter
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Social Networks, Startups,
Are you Twitter obsessed? Ever fantasize about working for the microblogging giant? Mashable has put together a how-to guide on how to land a job at Twitter. They give insight on whatit's like to work at Twitter, what kind of jobs you can find, and other tips.
Click to continue reading How to Land a Job at Twitter
Read More 
| Yahoo!
Gallery: How to Land a Job at Twitter
Judy Shapiro’s Social Media Predictions for 2011
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks,
It is that time of year where everyone has a list or supposed inside knowledge as to what next year will bring. AdAge columnist Judy Shapiro is no different, and offers the marketing industry her predictions on social media for 2011. With actual predictions coming true last year, such as social media becoming mainstream, I don’t see why not pay a little extra attention to this list.
Click to continue reading Judy Shapiro’s Social Media Predictions for 2011
Read More | AdAge
Gallery: Judy Shapiro’s Social Media Predictions for 2011
Mark Zuckerberg: TIME Magazine Person of the Year
Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: News, Social Media, Social Networks,
TIME Magazine can’t stress enough the fact that their Person of the Year award “is not an honor”. In 1938, Adolf Hitler was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. Unlike Hitler, however, Mark Zuckerberg fast tracked the world to complete connectivity through a global social network. And at a baby-ish 26 years of age, billionaire college dropout Zuckerberg is responsible for leading 550 million (or 1 out of every 12 people) into the social network at an astounding rate of 700,000 a day. If 700,000 is too big a number to comprehend, imagine that if you lived for 700,000 days you’d be 1,918 years old; which by that time Facebook would have added over 490 billion members, or about 72 times the Earth’s current population. Starting to get the picture? There’s no doubt that Facebook is a social revolution that won’t go the way of the dinosaur - *cough* MySpace *cough*. But the bigger question is where will it go?
Click to continue reading Mark Zuckerberg: TIME Magazine Person of the Year
Read More | Time
Gallery: Mark Zuckerberg: TIME Magazine Person of the Year
Twitter adds support for more embedded third-party services
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Partnerships, Social Networks,
When Twitter launched NewTwitter, their revamped web site, one of the improvements they added was the ability to embed pictures, music and videos in tweets. Anytime someone would link to a YouTube video for example, instead of appearing as a link on the Twitter site, the video contest would appear embedded in the Twitter app. Yesterday, Twitter announced that many more services are now supported by their embedding feature. Now, anytime a user links to Blip.TV, Instagr.am, Rdio, SlideShare and DipDive, the content will appear embedded right on Twitter. This is good news for users of the Twitter site, and something a lot of stand alone clients would benefit from. The company also says that they will keep adding more services in the coming months. It's interesting to see all the different ways Twitter can extend what 140 characters can contain.
Oh and remember, you can follow Gear Live on Twitter as well!
Read More | Twitter Blog
Gallery: Twitter adds support for more embedded third-party services
LinkedIn now offers sharing widgets to publishers
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Business Tools, Social Networks,
When people speak of social networks, a lot of the conversation these days is focused on Facebook and Twitter, but in the business world, LinkedIn is where the action is. Today, the business social networking site has started offering a "Share" button to web publishers, very similar to the one already available from Facebook. The new button allows readers to share content from sites they visit with their LinkedIn connections. Several button sizes and options are available for publishers to choose from. Competition in the sharing area is of course very high, with many sites already offering Facebook, Digg, and Twitter buttons. It's unclear if many sites will jump in and add LinkedIn sharing links, or if those will remain confined to the business world.
Read More | LinkedIn
Gallery: LinkedIn now offers sharing widgets to publishers
Recent Galleries
Advertisement
© Gear Live Media, LLC. 2007 – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.