November 13th, 2008

MySpace comes to Blackberry

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:57 am

Categories: Mobile, MySpace, Social Networks

Tags: RIM BlackBerry, MySpace, Smart Phones, Handhelds, Channel Management, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Hardware, Marketing, Steve O'Hear

It was only a few days ago that I noted how Facebook and social networking as a whole is fueling the mobile web. And news comes today that RIM have released a native MySpace client for its Blackberry line of smartphones. A move that also reinforces the company’s push to take the Blackberry brand beyond its enterprise roots to also target consumers.

Key features of the new MySpace client include the ability to:

• Send and receive MySpace mail
• Update your Status and Mood
• View and send Bulletins
• Add comments
• Post your photos

The new MySpace for Blackberry app is available at www.blackberry.com/myspace or m.myspace.com via the Blackberry’s web browser. Notably, RIM list ‘social networking‘ as a ‘device feature’ alongside email, organise, browser, media playback etc., with MySpace listed together with applications for Flickr and of course Facebook.

November 3rd, 2008

MTV and MySpace partner to monetize pirated content

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 7:20 am

Categories: MySpace, Video Sharing, YouTube

Tags: MySpace, MTV, Steve O'Hear, YouTube Inc., Viacom Inc., Games, Social Networking, Personal Technology, Online Communications, Marketing

Similar to YouTube’s most recent proposition to copyright holders, News Corp-owned MySpace is offering to identify pirated content uploaded by users, insert advertising and share the subsequent fruits with the content’s owner.

The first benefactor of the new offering, which leverages ‘finger printing’ technology from Auditude, is Viacom-owned MTV Networks, a noteworthy partner since Viacom is currently involved in a one billion dollar copyright lawsuit with MySpace Video rival, YouTube.

Under the arrangement, MTV Networks will be able to “pair advertising with clips from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Punk’d and other shows that MySpace users upload to the social network site, whether they have permission or not”, reports the LA Times.  YouTube launched a similar system last year that identifies clips so it can give copyright holders a choice between removing the content or letting YouTube place ads against it in exchange for a share of revenue. Read the rest of this entry »

October 27th, 2008

Social Web news: Twitter terrorism, YouTube ads, Social Networking on TV

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 11:01 am

Categories: MySpace, Social Networks, The Social Web weekly, Twitter, Video Sharing, YouTube

Tags: Social Networking, Advertisement, Network, YouTube Inc., Social Web, TV, Terrorism, Twitter, Homeland Security, Government

A few interesting links from today on news relating to the Social Web…

Twitter could be a tool for terrorists. From Wired.com: “Could Twitter become terrorists’ newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks.” (Wired)

YouTube hoping to attract advertisers through long form studio content. YouTube has begun running full-length episodes of TV shows, starting with a test of three CBS-owned shows: Star Trek, MacGyver and Beverly Hills, 90210. The move is being seen in part as a response to the success of Hulu, which as proved particularly attractive to advertisers. One analyst tells USA Today: “If you’re an advertiser, where will you put your money? In front of content you’re not sure about, or behind a series like 30 Rock, a known brand?” (USA Today)

Social networking through your television. Microsoft likes to boast that it has the biggest social network on television via its XBox Live service. Now others are hoping to emulate that success by bringing the ‘community features’ of the Web into the living room.  (WSJ)

MySpace sued. A woman was ‘consumed with anger’ after MySpace took down her profile on the social networking site and has decided to sue. However, there’s more to the story: her profile page was set up specifically to verify official celebrity MySpace pages, who upon verification could display the plaintiff’s badge on their page. (Tech Dirt)

October 17th, 2008

Yahoo wants to be your social web 'control panel' too

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 9:41 am

Categories: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, MySpace, Social Networks, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Control Panel, Social Web, Steve O'Hear, Web, Facebook, Channel Management, Marketing

Yahoo has begun rolling out a new profile page for its users as part of its ‘Yahoo! Open Strategy’, a major project to rewire the company’s web properties to make them more “open and social“.

Described by Jim Stoneham, the company’s Vice President Communities, as a “centralized control panel”, the new Yahoo! Profiles will let users manage their “identity, activities, interests, and connections across Yahoo! — and eventually the entire Web”. While a unified user profile and friends list across all of Yahoo’s offerings - Flickr, Yahoo Messenger, Mail etc. - seems like a no-brainer, Stoneham’s reference to a social ‘control panel’ for the entire Web is far more ambitious and sounds very similar to the thinking behind recent products from Facebook (Facebook Connect), MySpace (Data Availabiliy), Microsoft (Mesh) and Google (Friend Connect).

See also: Powering Facebook’s proverbial brain: your Identity, Social Graph, and Lifestream data

Although each company’s implementation differs, the broad concept (often disingenuously dressed up as data-portability) is the same. First, offer users a single place to maintain their profile and manage their social graph (friends list) that can then be synced with third-party sites through a publicly available and secure API. That way any update to your central profile or a new connection added, ripples through to those other social destinations that are linked, and at the same time conveniently locks users into the original source of that data.  Secondly, enable certain data to flow back in - any social activity elsewhere on the Web - so that the central profile also acts as a lifestream or social web aggregator. The end result is a kind of ’social control panel’ for the web OS, a term that Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft and Google don’t actually use, but which Yahoo is actively embracing.

October 13th, 2008

Why MySpace's MyAds won't be the next Google AdWords

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:22 am

Categories: Google, MySpace, Social Networks

Tags: Google Inc., Advertisement, Google AdWords, MySpace, Steve O'Hear

When it comes to online advertising everybody wants to be the next Google, and News Corp-owned MySpace is no exception. Today the company rolled out its latest advertising platform called MyAds, designed to service “individuals and small businesses” rather than the big name brands that the social networking site’s existing ad offerings cater for.

The new self-serve system enables anybody - “from local retailers to musicians and politicians” - to create customized Cost-Per-Click (CPC) banner ads that target specific demographics and interest groups using MySpace’s HyperTargeting technology. A technology that was previously only available to the company’s largest blue-chip brand advertisers.

Placing an ad comprises of “a few easy steps”:

1. Sign-up on advertise.myspace.com
2. Create a display ad using the MyAds Builder Tool
3. Select a variable ad spend anywhere from $25 to $10,000
4. HyperTarget to customers (based on self-expressed interests available on MySpace profiles, along with age, sex and geographical location)
5. Measure ad performance with MyAds analytics reporting

The end result, says MySpace, is to democratize online advertising. Or to borrow another phrase from the Web 2.0 bible, the company is attempting to monetize the Long Tail.

If that all sounds very Google-esque to you, you’re not alone. Read the rest of this entry »

September 25th, 2008

Madison Avenue to Facebook: you'll never be the next Google

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:15 am

Categories: Facebook, Google, MySpace, Social Networks

Tags: Google Inc., Facebook, Advertisement, Valleywag, Karp, Steve O'Hear

In a renewed attempt to woo Madison Avenue, Facebook is “making a huge push” at Advertising Week, an industry-wide series of events for media buyers and publishers, reports Valleywag. The social utility’s “push” includes a full-page ad in the events program, a number of sponsored sessions, and throwing a party tonight in which Ziggy Marley (son of Bob) will be performing.

The motivation: Facebook has yet to turn its 100+ million user-base into a fertile ground for advertisers, with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly estimating revenue in 2008 to be around the $300 million mark

An unnamed New York ad-executive (via Valleywag) offers Facebook some unsolicited advice: Read the rest of this entry »

September 9th, 2008

MySpace: 95% of ad revenue comes from 9 countries

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 6:06 am

Categories: MySpace, Social Networks

Tags: Advertisement, MySpace, Steve O'Hear

If you’re a burgeoning Internet startup, here’s two points worth remembering: Not all geographical markets are equal, and the World Wide Web is global (something Silicon Valley sometimes forgets). Case study: MySpace.

At the TechCrunch 50 conference, MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe explained:

“Our international strategy is different than our competitors. We look at advertising dollars, and 95% of all advertising revenues come form 9 countries… In those countries, we have 30% more unique users than our closest competitor in those 9 countries. So that is really our strategy.”

From this I’m interpreting that MySpace has more aggressively targeted countries that are further down the road in terms of how much brands have moved their ad spend online. And, where that’s the case, DeWolfe says they are winning.

But which nine countries are they? Please leave a comment with your own suggestions.

August 7th, 2008

Parents spy on underage social networkers

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 12:16 pm

Categories: Facebook, MySpace, Net culture, Social Networks

Tags: network, social networking, online communications, marketing, advertising & promotion, steve o'hear

Children regularly circumvent age verification systems on social networks such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, according to a new survey of young people’s online activities in the UK.

It’s not the first survey to come to the same conclusion - OFCOM, the UK government quango charged with regulating the telco and broadcasting industry, published similar results earlier this year. It’s also not surprising since all that most social networking sites require to verify your age is to tick the appropriate check box.

However, a second parallel survey carried out by the same company - online “identity experts” Garlik - reveals how net savvy parents are responding through monitoring their child’s underage social networking activities by spying on their accounts. Read the rest of this entry »

August 6th, 2008

MySpace lands official presidential debate gig

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 9:14 am

Categories: MySpace, Net culture, Politics 2.0, Social Networks

Tags: Network, MySpace, MyDebates.org, Social Networking, Networking, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Steve O'Hear

News Corp.-owned MySpace is continuing its push to become the online destination for U.S. politics amongst the social networking generation. Today, the site announced an official partnership with the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) in which it will create a dedicated portal to host and let users disseminate the upcoming series of Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates.

MyDebates.org will offer “interactive tools for viewers to virally engage in the political process”, and marks the first time that the CPD has partnered with an Internet property in addition to its traditional network television coverage.

As well as offering a live stream of the three Presidential debates and one Vice Presidential debate, which begin in September, online viewers will be polled on the fly, creating a real-time feedback loop on the issued being discussed.

MySpace will also offer a widget featuring live and on-demand streaming and other MyDebates functionality which can be embedded on a user’s website, blog or social networking profile. Another neat sounding feature is “issue-based tracking”, which will allow users to “track a candidate’s stance on issues they care about throughout the live stream”.

MyDebates.org solidifies MySpace’s role, and the Internet in general, as a powerful political vehicle and one that no candidate can afford to ignore. Partnerships like the one with CPD certainly adds to the social network’s credibility and should help to drive up page views, especially if the site can live up to its promise of providing unparalleled live coverage and the participatory tools to go with it.

Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, said in a written statement that the social network wants to create “higher levels of civic engagement”.

“We’re honored to be part of such an historic shift in how Americans engage in the Democratic process”, he says. This is from a company that shares the same parent as the partisan Fox News!

July 10th, 2008

Gallery: 25+ social networking apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:44 am

Categories: Facebook, Instant Messenger, Mobile, MySpace, Social Networks, Twitter

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, Network, Apple iPod Touch, Social Networking, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Steve O'Hear

At launch, there are over 25 social networking applications available for iPhone and iPod touch on the official App Store.

Bit hitters such as MySpace and Facebook are included, along with an AIM Instant Messenging client, as well as dedicated mobile social networks such as Loopt and Zintin. There is of course more than one Twitter client too!

CLICK HERE to visit the image gallery I created, which includes many screen shots and official application descriptions.