The SNW/SNC Industry Insider is the weekly news summary for the social networking industry
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:~ SOCIAL NETWORKING CONFERENCE & STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE ~:
Next social networking conference will be held in Moscow and is scheduled for September 29-30 2011.
Speakers include Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru, Moneybookers, Kiwi, Megaphone, professionali.ru, livejournal.com, erTelecom.ru, IQMan.ru...and others.
http://www.socialnetworkingconference.com/form-1-la.php
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:~ TWITTER ~:
Get the Social Networking Watch newsfeed delivered straight to your Twitter account: http://twitter.com/social_news
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:~ THE DAILY DEALS OBSERVER ~:
Daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social are storming along. We thought it would be nice if there was a news illumination blog for the daily deals industry. So we created The Daily Deals Observer. We hope you like it, and it's useful for you.
http://www.dailydealsobserver.com
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:~ TOP SOCIAL NETWORKING WATCH NEWS ITEMS ~:
The Top Viral Video Campaign, Updated June 23, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/adcampaign112
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Russian Social Network VKontakte Said to Consider IPO in U.S.
BLOOMBERG - June 23 - VKontakte, the largest Russian social network, is in early discussions with investment banks about a potential IPO. The company has discussed selling shares in New York as early as next year. VKontakte’s current shareholders include Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group, which also owns a stake in Facebook. VKontakte, based in Moscow, had ~28M users last year.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/russian-social-network-vkontakte-said-to-consider-ipo-in-us.html
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Facebook Now Has 750 Million Users
TECH CRUNCH - June 24 - Facebook now has 750M monthly active users. The company hasn’t officially released an updated user count since it reached 500M users a year ago. Facebook has obviously been growing since then. The last semi-official update came from a leaked Goldman Sachs report for potential Facebook investors that pegged the number at 600M in January.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/facebook-now-has-750-million-users.html
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iTelebill is offering mobile recurring billing which leads to higher conversions at no additional cost to site. Perfect for members where credit cards are not possible. Visit www.itelebill.com.
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Social Games Developer Social Point Raises €2.4 Million
TECH CRUNCH - June 23 - Nauta Capital has invested €2.4M (~$3.4M) in Spanish social games studio Social Point. Social Point was founded in Barcelona in 2008 and is the company behind the successful Facebook game Social Empires (and 25 other social games).
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/social-games-developer-social-point-raises-24-million.html
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Website Hulu Considers Sale
WSJ - June 22 - Web-video site Hulu is weighing whether to sell itself. Hulu's board is considering the move after a potential buyer for the company approached it with an unsolicited offer. Hulu is owned by Walt Disney Co., News Corp., media-focused buyout firm Providence Equity Partners and Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal, with employees also having a stake.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/website-hulu-considers-sale-.html
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Don't make your registrants wait for their photos to be manually reviewed. OculusAI uses machine vision technology to automatically scan photos in seconds. This will save you human review costs, improve site quality and boost your registrant to paying member conversions. For more information visit www.oculusai.com.
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Foursquare Now Officially at 10 Million Users
TECH CRUNCH - June 21 - Two years old Foursquare has announced an important milestone today, 10M user accounts. The company will pass 750M check-ins later this week, with users are now averaging ~3M check-ins a day.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/foursquare-now-officially-at-10-million-users.html
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Spotify Raises $100 Million; U.S. Launch Imminent?
READ WRITE WEB - June 17 - European music streaming service Spotify has closed a $100M round of funding in anticipation of a launch in North America. The round comes from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel. The funding values Spotify at $1 billion. Free U.S. music streaming service Pandora, which has been going through the IPO tumult this week, is valued at $2 billion.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/spotify-raises-100-million-us-launch-imminent.html
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Halve your customer service team costs! Procall knows internet dating, and is ready to help you offshore your customer service center, and compete!
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U.S. Trade Commission Gives the Green Light to Microsoft’s Takeover of Skype
TECH CRUNCH - Jun 17 - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion cash takeover of Skype. Microsoft officially announced its intent to acquire Skype back on May 10 and, since then, users have been taking to Twitter to blame Microsoft for Skype’s intermittent service.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/us-trade-commission-gives-the-green-light-to-microsofts-takeover-of-skype.html
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Zynga Sues Brazilian Clone Vostu
TECH CRUNCH - June 17 - It is one thing to be inspired by Zynga games, but it is entirely different to copy all of our key product features, product strategy and branding. Zynga just filed a lawsuit against a well funded Brazilian startup – Vostu – for copyright infringement. Vostu has raised $45.9M from Intel Capital, General Catalyst, Accel and others. According to the lawsuit, they exist almost solely to copy Zynga games. Not just the idea, but nearly every game mechanic, virtual item, and storyline. Zynga even included a side by side video comparison of a number of the games in the lawsuit as an exhibit.
http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/2011/06/zynga-sues-brazilian-clone-vostu.html
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Social Networking Conference
The business conference for the social networking industry @ SocialNetworkingConference.com
Industry Message Boards @ mb.socialnetworkingonference.com
Conference Organiser
Marc Lesnick,
marc@lesnick.net,
212-722-1744
Media Relations
Press, please contact Mark Brooks
mark@socialnetworkingwatch.com,
212-444-1636
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Social Networking Watch
www.socialnetworkingwatch.com or snw1.com
Editor: Mark Brooks,
mark@socialnetworkingwatch.com,
212-444-1636
