United Media Partners News

Social Media Predictions 2009

Lori — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:54:41 +0000

Some interesting predictions!

Now with connective technologies like Facebook Connect, Google FriendConnect, and OpenID, consumers will now be able to see reviews, experiences, and critiques from people they actually know and trust. As a result, expect to see eCommerce widgets and applications appear in popular social networks, as well as when visiting existing eCommerce sites the ability to login with your Facebook or Google identity. As an example,next time I’m shopping for a laptop, not only will I see reviews from editors and consumers, I will now know which one of my friends uses an Apple computer, and what they think of it.

Read the full article at scribd.com

Facebook Stats

jeffpalumbo — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:03:13 +0000

* 13 million users update their statuses at least once each day
* 2.5 million users become fans of Pages each day
* 700 million photos are uploaded to the site each month
* 4 million videos are uploaded each month
* 15 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared each month
* 2 million events created each month
* 19 million active groups exist on the site

Facebook Revenue, My Space Revenue- 2009 Estimates Decline/ Social Network Revenues Down: Here’s Why

jeffpalumbo — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:25:58 +0000

MySpace

Because MySpace is part of News Corp., a public company, more is known about its revenues than about other social networks. In News Corp.’s fiscal 2008 (which ended June 30, 2008), Fox Interactive Media (FIM), MySpace’s parent unit, generated $856 million in total revenues.

In fiscal Q1 2009 (ended September 30, 2008), FIM generated $220 million in revenues according to News Corp. financial documents. That means that in the first three quarters of calendar 2008, FIM’s revenues were $655 million.

Why is eMarketer’s current forecast for MySpace US ad spending in 2008 ($585 million) so much lower than the May 2008 forecast ($755 million)? Lackluster revenue growth is one reason. As can be seen in the chart above, revenue growth at FIM has slowed significantly.

Another factor is a change in eMarketer’s model. Previously, we had estimated that MySpace accounted for 80% of FIM revenues. But based on discussions with several industry executives and estimates from Goldman Sachs, eMarketer believes that MySpace now represents 70% of FIM.

Applying that percentage to FIM’s $655 million revenue figure, MySpace’s total revenues through September 2008 were approximately $458 million. Factoring out nonadvertising revenues (which are minimal) and international revenues, eMarketer estimates that US ad spending on MySpace through September 2008 was $425 million. In calendar Q4 2008, eMarketer projects MySpace will garner $160 million in US advertising spending.

Further affecting MySpace in the next few years will be the end of a $900-million deal with search provider Google in 2010. Though the company will likely sign a new search partner, the terms of that deal will be nowhere near as sweet.

In the meantime, MySpace has opened up several new ad revenue streams, including HyperTargeting ads based on members’ profile data and a self-serve targeted ad system aimed at small businesses. Starting in 2009 it will add e-commerce revenues from MySpace Music downloads and other potential e-commerce initiatives.

Facebook

Facebook’s estimated $210 million in US ad spending in 2008 represents a growth rate of 45% over 2007. In a January 2008 conference call with employees, described by the All Things Digital blog, CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook generated $150 million in total revenues in 2007. eMarketer estimates that nearly all of that revenue came from advertising, and from the US.

In 2008, Facebook had hoped to generate $300 million to $350 million in revenues, a figure that has since been lowered to $250 million to $300 million, according to information published by BusinessWeek in December.

More is becoming known about Facebook’s nonadvertising revenues. For example, the Silicon Alley Insider blog estimated that Facebook’s revenues from virtual gifts (icons and graphic images that members can buy to “send” to a friend) would reach as high as $50 million to $60 million in 2008. Lightspeed Venture Partners, meanwhile, estimated virtual gift revenues at $35 million in 2008.

eMarketer estimates that advertising represents about 85% of Facebook’s total revenues.

Like MySpace, Facebook has continued to expand and rethink its ad offerings, most recently launching video ads that users can leave comments on, as well as branded virtual gifts.

Social Networking on Steroids . . .

david — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:51:43 +0000

So here we are entering into 2009. We have an economic disaster upon us. We are witnessing a financial crisis, the likes of which the World has not seen since the Great Depression, and yet for those of us in the Social Networking World, the outlook is SPECTACULAR. . . .

You see, Social Networks are not susceptible to market upswings and downswings. In fact, most social networks have not yet even figured out how to make money so they virtually can’t be susceptible to any swing at all. Instead, these incredible places for socializing, sharing, networking and communicating are continuing to grow at alarming rates. So this brings us to that SPECTACULAR outlook I was talking about:

In 2009 the industry of Social Media is going to take its biggest “JUMP” ever. The world is about to be introduced to new technologies and platforms that will forever change how online marketing exists, and transform the way people connect to businesses and organizations.

Social Networks are going to finally connect to ways of monetizing their networks and leveraging marketing potential of their sites.

Businesses are going to learn about the benefits of marketing through social networks and begin to understand what true “Targeted Marketing” looks like.

Non-Profits and Philanthropic organizations are going to learn how to quickly and easily leverage their memberships marketing power into millions of dollars in economic support.

My prediction is that the world of social media is in for a major change and that current economic circumstances will only help to fuel the growth of online environments designed to support, share, and help one another.

Hold on everyone, this roller coaster is still climbing . . .

Charity Cases: Social-networking phenomenon makes it easy for donors to promote their favorite causes online

Nelson — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:02:42 +0000

For most people, networking on the Web means keeping up with friends or building business contacts. Now a number of charities — and thousands of ordinary people — are starting to use online networks to reshape the world of philanthropy.

Read the full article at wsj.com

Worldwide Spending on Internet Advertising Will Soar Past $106 Billion in 2011, According to IDC

Nelson — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:45:10 +0000

Worldwide spending on Internet advertising will total $65.2 billion in 2008, which represents nearly 10% of all ad spending across all media. With IDC’s Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast projecting 15-20% annual growth throughout the forecast period, this share will reach 13.6% by 2011 as Internet ad spending grows to $106.6 billion worldwide.

Read the full article at imediaconnection.com

Social advertising: a plan for viral success

Nelson — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:39:27 +0000

This is an interesting article about advertising in the social media space.

You may not be able to anticipate which campaigns will be a hit with consumers, but there are ways to optimize your brand’s chances of being accepted in their digital gathering spots.

Read the full article at imediaconnection.com

Google turns whole web into social network

jeffpalumbo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:11:54 +0000

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.

Read the full article at bizcommunity.com

Friendster Expands Its Portfolio With Fourth Social Networking Patent

jeffpalumbo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:30:54 +0000

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

A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy

jeffpalumbo — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:29:13 +0000

Young donors and volunteers, snubbing traditional appeals such as direct mail and phone calls, are satisfying their philanthropic urges on the Internet. They’re increasingly turning to blogs and social-networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, to spread the word about — and raise funds for — their favorite nonprofits and causes. They’re sending Web-based fund-raising pitches to their friends and families, encouraging them, in turn, to forward the appeals to their own contacts.

Read the full article at wsj.com