DECEMBER 11, 2008

Social Media Summary - 12/11/08

Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect were both recently opened up to the public, spurring some discussion about the future of net IDs and profile portability. At the heart of this discussion is the idea that people can use a single profile for different kinds of net activity. Facebook Connect will allow users to send news about their activity on other sites to their Facebook newsfeed. Google Friend Connect is a more open service that allows users to access their info and any networking site that uses Google’s OpenID. As social networking and online services have exploded in popularity in recent years, services that help organize the clutter have been in fairly high demand. The Connect services approach the organization challenge in a new way: they make profile information more mobile so that users can feel like they have personalized information on tap wherever they go online.

As Facebook continues to dominate the social network world, and with the latest announcement about Facebook Connect, it is interesting to consider how Facebook is expanding and what model of growth would work best for the community. In this TechCrunch interview, Mark Zuckerberg talks about the “ecosystem” of developers that has grown around the Facebook platform and how his company tries not to compete with developers in order to encourage good growth in the ecosystem. Since Connect will draw in more and more developers, Facebook’s situation is a great example of how, in the technology sector, companies are now focused on fostering a community of developers who actually create services and experiences for consumers.  This accelerates innovation because the community of developers creates a constant stream of products for the regular user community.

More than 40% of surveyed women in their 40’s participate in social networks, says a study by SheSpeaks. Other results from the survey show that over 70% of women with children ages 13 to 17 had reviewed products on social networks. Targeted social media advertising has had mixed results, and the debate on how to measure ROI in general for social media advertising still rages on. However, these poll results seem to reaffirm the value of marketing towards mothers with teenaged kids, a powerful consumer group.

During the Mumbai attacks, Twitter and Flickr bustled with activity as users posted firsthand accounts and images. Both services were very useful during times of crisis, as people use the sites to find breaking news and first-hand accounts. Flickr user Vinukumar Ranganathan posted over two hundred photos of the attacks as they were going on, drawing hundreds of thousands of views on his Flickr account. Citizen reporting has proven to be a very compelling source of information, especially at times when the world is thirsty for any small bit of information about a crisis.