Social Networking Watch

Facebook Tops, But Social Networkers Fickle

RESEARCH BRIEF -- July 3 -- According to Nielsen, total minutes spent on social networking sites in the U.S has increased 83% YOY. Total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700% YOY making it the No. 1 social network for the month. Myspace has been winning in online video with 120.8m video streams. Myspace visitors spent 384m minutes viewing video on the site, with an average of 38.8 minutes per viewer. In comparison, Facebook visitors spent only 113.5m minutes viewing video in April, with an average of 11.2 minutes per video viewer. FULL ARTICLE @ CENTER FOR MEDIA RESEARCH

See all posts on Facebook
See all posts on MySpace

XING Launches App For BlackBerry

XING -- July 2 -- XING, Europe’s leading business network, has launched a new app for BlackBerry smartphones.  The app keeps track of all the user's contacts - phone numbers and email addresses. The app can be downloaded for free directly to the user's BlackBerry smartphone by visiting the XING mobile website. FULL ARTICLE @ XING

See all posts on Xing

Russians Spend More Time On Social Networks Than The Rest Of World

TECH CRUNCH -- July 2 -- Comscore study found visitors in Russia spend 6.6 hours and view 1,307 pages per visitor per month on average. Brazil ranked closest to Russia at 6.3 hours, followed by Canada (5.6 hours), Puerto Rico (5.3 hours) and Spain (5.3 hours). The United States is ranked number 9, with 4.2 hours and 477 pages per visitor per month. 65% of the worldwide Internet audience engages in social networking activities. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Facebook Gaining On Orkut

ONLINE MEDIA DAILY -- July 2 -- Facebook is making inroads in Brazil and India -- countries where Orkut is the leading social network. The number of Facebook users in the two countries has doubled in the last two months. Facebook now has more than 1m users in Brazil and 3.2m in India. Orkut has 22.5m users in Brazil and 14.5m in India as of May, according to comScore. But unlike Facebook, Orkut has seen its growth slow in those countries in recent months so it could just be a matter of time before Facebook catches up. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

See all posts on Facebook
See all posts on Orkut

Baby Boomer Social Network TeeBeeDee Closes

PAID CONTENT -- June 30 -- In a note to members, founder Robin Wolaner said that the company had lacked the resources to continue developing the site: “Our business opportunity proved disappointing.” The site had raised more than $9m. TBD.com had only 70,000 unique visitors last month. FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS

See all posts on TeeBeeDee

Social Networking Phishing Attacks Up More Than 240%

DARK READING -- June 29 -- Social networks are increasingly becoming a favorite method of attack for phishers according to a newly released report by MarkMonitor. Overall, phishing attacks rose 36 % in the Q1 '09 compared to the same period in 2008. Phishing attacks on social networks increased more than 240% compared to the same time last year. The good news, however, is that social networks are relatively quick to shut down phishing attacks on their sites. FULL ARTICLE @ DARK READING

Translators Wanted At LinkedIn. The Pay? $0 An Hour

NY TIMES -- June 28 -- LinkedIn hopes to be translated into more than its current four languages — English, Spanish, French and German. But when LinkedIn asked thousands of its translator members to complete a survey this month that asked whether they would consider volunteering to translate the site into other languages, many said “nyet.” Nico Posner, the LinkedIn product manager who circulated the survey, wrote that the survey was not asking translators to volunteer per se. He said he was trying to find out whether they would consider “crowd sourcing,” borrowing the term applied to companies like Wikipedia that rely on volunteers’ collective wisdom. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

See all posts on LinkedIn

LoopDesk: Another Social Network For Businesses

SNW TIP -- June 28 -- LoopDesk is a new social network formed to connect businesses. Members sign up as a Business; therefore they use their brand to gain awareness, create business relationships, partnerships, find customers, and interact with other business owners through discussions, events and articles.

Marketers Like Social Media For Direct Marketing

RESEARCH BRIEF -- June 24 -- StrongMail Systems, released new survey data that points to the emergence of social media as a direct marketing channel and a significant planned investment in email marketing and social media programs in the second half of 2009. The survey revealed that social media is a hot initiative with email marketers, with 66% planning to integrate the two channels in 2009, and 48% who have already formulated a strategy for achieving this initiative. Of marketers planning to increase budgets in 2009, 83% will increase spend in email marketing, followed by social media at 62%. FULL ARTICLE @ CENTER FOR MEDIA RESEARCH

Startups Smell Userplane Blood

TECH CRUNCH -- June 29 -- There has been no shortage of talk about the apparent demise of Userplane, the text, voice and video chat software provider that was acquired by AOL in August 2006 for around $40m. Darin Ohlandt, General Manager of Userplane, responded to the rumors saying they are definitely not shutting down. A recent thread on OnlinePersonalsWatch suggested that the site would be deadpooled by its owner soon. A developer commented on the thread claiming he had tried to contact Userplane for weeks through e-mails, voice calls and social networks and received no response.  Many startups with competing solutions are taking advantage of the rumors about Userplane's impending shut-down. Toksta is the most outspoken one, having set up a special page for Userplane clients who are looking to switch to an alternative provider. Other competitors include Meebo and ekkoTV. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

Mark Brooks: I had two high trust sources that I've known for several years confirm that Userplane was to be retired. Not sold, just quietly retired. Userplane is having life breathed back into it.  Good.  It would be a shame to lose the company to the deadpool.   

See all posts on Userplane

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.