Digital Marketing and Technological Insight

In a story that was first reporting on by TechCrunch - Newsweek as officially confirmed that Tom Anderson, co-founder and everyone’s first friend on social networking leader MySpace lied about his age! He is actually about to turn 37, not 33 like his profile says. Read the full horrific article below for all the sketchy details: 

"Whether you’re a MySpace addict or a Luddite who logged on once to see what all the fuss was about, you’ve likely met Tom. As the public face of MySpace, cofounder Tom Anderson has become a celebrity since the site launched in 2003 because he’s every user’s first "friend": when you join MySpace, your profile is automatically linked to his. But it turns out that Tom, who, along with cofounder Chris DeWolfe, made a fortune when News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005, may have a secret: his real age. According to public documents obtained by NEWSWEEK—including professional license information, voter registration and utility and telephone service applications—Anderson is five years older than he claims. His online profile currently lists his age as 32, but it appears he was actually born on Nov. 8, 1970, meaning he’ll turn 37 next week, not 33. (Happy birthday, Tom!)

Rumors about Anderson’s age began to spread last week, when the blog TechCrunch suggested that he was 36 or 37. Anderson and MySpace declined multiple requests for comment, and the company would not confirm his birth date. "I’m pretty bummed out about it," says 25-year-old Andrew Haynes, a Seattle comedian. "I’ve always taken MySpace with a grain of salt, but Tom was my first friend. It’s kind of messed up that he lied to me." Either way, he’s laughing all the way to the bank."

I received an email over the weekend that talked about the Facebook / Microsoft deal, since this topic has been talked about forever I ignored most of it. However, the article did include a chart that I found to be very interesting (but not really surprising). We all knew Yahoo and MySpace ruled worldwide traffic scene in terms of pure page views. But what surprised me was not who topped the chart or that Google controls 3 of the top 8, it is that Orkut, Google’s social networking platform ranks just behind Facebook. How did Orkut, which does not have a stake in the US social networking market, get so big without anyone noticing? I know that they are huge in countries like Brazil and India but still, to be ranked just behind Facebook without the US market is amazing. Makes you wonder what will happen when Google decide to open Orkut, or whatever social networking platform they are developing, to everyone. One thing is for certain, once that happens this list will change - its obvious Orkut will jump up but will MySpace and / or Facebook drop down?

MySpace, the leading online social network, will soon be announcing their plans to launch a games section sometime in Janauary 2008. The new MySpace Games will be powered by online game distributer Oberon and feature hundreds of free, easy to play, casual games. “This was a very clear area for us that answered a need for enhancing the fun factor on MySpace,” said Amit Kapur, MySpace’s vice president of business development. Both MySpace and Oberon plan on adding features to games that allow MySpace users to invite friends to play multi-player games.

I have always wondered why MySpace didn’t but more focus on keeping users on their site. As we all know MySpace has million upon millions of profiles - but the average time spent on MySpace is dropping fast. MySpace games will help keep their loyal users on their site (and keep them away from other social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook) and drive more repeat visits overall.

Facebook, the social networking giant,  announced today on their developers website that they are opening their Application Directory and App pages to people who are not logged in…and allow search engines to index the pages. Yup, you know all of those applications that you see on Facebook, well now everyone can find them - not just registered users. This is a huge deal for all of those developers out there who are trying to get their application to be the next big thing for Facebook users.

The information that will be available for search engines will include reviews and the app discussion board. Akhil Wable, a leader developer at Facebook, had this to say about the announcement: "The goal of this change is to increase visibility for your applications, so users can find applications that they love using, and you can have more potential users trying your applications. You should start seeing your application about pages in web search results in a few days."

So expect to see more articles on "Facebook SEO" in the next few days, because as we all know nothing drives SEO like money.  

Jaiku, the social media company based out of Finland, announced today on their website that Google is acquiring the small startup. Jaiku, which has been competing for the past few months with Twitter and Pownce for global attention, is not commenting on the terms of the deal or specific plans. Jaiku posted a vague and bland Q&A about the purchase on their website. I was one of Jaiku’s first beta users and have wrote about them on numerous occasions. I am a little stunned by the purchase since I was never floored by Jaiku’s features or technology. In fact I was hoping that Google would have bought Twitter since I have been a huge fan (and user) for some time. But, hey my stock isn’t in the hundreds so I will trust Google knows what they are doing. ***10.10.2007 update*** Got an email from Jaiku this morning announcing the deal: Wonderful Jaiku users, Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google! While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

In what was the hottest rumor the past week or so, MSNBC announced today that they have bought social news service Newsvine for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition by MSNBC was the first in its 11 year history and one of the few times a major news site has bought a social media player. MSNBC plans on keeping the Newsvine brand and website separate from MSNBC.com. But, obviously expect to see certain components of each website integrated into the other.

Newsvine is one of the better sources for new - both regional and international - and has always been viewed as a “grown-up” version of Digg / Reddit / Stumbleupon, etc. Newsvine also allows its visitors to write articles, comment and post links - all of which make it more of a community than a news aggregator. The acquisition will also give MSNBC.com some much needed traction in their competition with leading news sites CNN.com, USAToday.com, Yahoo News, etc.

Adweek put out an article yesterday that hits home for most social networking services - how do we go global? For social networking behemoths like Facebook, one of their biggest challenges is to expand beyond the English speaking market. In fact Facebook Founder / CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last week that “global expansion and being able to handle it” is his companies biggest challenge. As you can tell from my post from July 31st (world map of social networking) most major social networking services have a global presence, but there is not one true global dominate force. Outside of North America each country has its own favorite - whether well known like Orkut in Brazil or unknowns like Skyrock Network in France.

“Social networking sites are founded on their ability to allow Internet users to communicate quickly and informally with one another,” said Delphine Gatignol, comScore’s business development manager for France. “The dominance of Skyrock Networks in France is a strong indication that language is a key factor.”

So all a company has to do to gain traction in another country is translate the site? Not quite. Social networking means different things to different people all over the world. What might work for Facebook in the US might not work in countires in Asia. Every aspect of a Social Networking site, features, “widgets” and even design has to be targeted to the demographic and have a true understanding of what is going on in that country. Of course that is where things get difficult. Does a company open up shop in every country they want to enter? Probably not, but they do need to work with local developers / marketers in defining what should and shouldn’t be done.

The Wall Street Journal has a great article that discusses the challenges the current Internet infrastructure faces as it continues to grow exponentially. The article talks with such online luminaries like Larry Roberts and Len Bosack about how we are currently using “last-generation” technology that has gone virtually unchanged for over 40 years and how the explosion in broadband content could slow down or even cripple the Internet as we know it. A definite must read…

ZenithOptimedia released a forecast Monday stating that online video and local search will drive 30% growth in online ad spending this year. ZenithOptimedia had this to say in their report: “We have revised our forecasts for Internet advertising upwards yet again, we now forecast 29.9% growth this year (up from 28.6% three months ago) and 85% growth between 2006 and 2009 (up from 82%). Online video and local search are the new, fast-growing segments, but display, classified and the rest of search are still growing rapidly as well.” The forecast goes on to point out that the share of worldwide ad spending for newspapers will decline, again

This report is only the latest I have read that predicts continuous growth in interactive ad spending. In fact I think that this report is conservative in its estimates. We are only starting to see the possibilities online video brings to advertisers with new technologies and ad opportunities popping up every month. Just think of all of the syndicated content that has yet to reach the public. User generated content has created the interest but professional shows will be the true driving force behind the innovation and growth that we will see in the future.

The good folks at on-demand IPTV service Joost announced today that they are coming out of their “private beta” and now allowing anyone to download their application and enjoy over 15,000 shows. Now of course for anyone that is familiar with Joost, you know that their “private beta” wasn’t that private - over 1,000,000 users signed up during this period. In what is becoming a crowded field, Joost stands out due to their quantity and quality of content, including deals with media giants CBS, Major League Baseball, MTV, Turner and Comedy Central.

I am a huge fan and you should be as well…so download it now!