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Being on the frontline of a digital marketing agency means I’m often the first person a client asks when they have a digital-related question. There seems to be a theme lately, as clients ask me to pinpoint the day that Facebook is going to die and what is going to come next. The opinion I’ve held for the last 18 months is quite simple… Facebook is going to be around for a long time and there is nothing coming to replace it any time soon.

For the foreseeable future, Facebook is only going to increase in size, strength and exposure. A few people have been distracted by how fast Facebook caught up with MySpace and presumed (logically?) that the same was going to quickly happen to Facebook. People were touting the same thing back in the early 00’s when that upstart company called Google surged over Microsoft and Yahoo! search. Many people subscribed to “it won’t last”, “there will be another one soon”, etc. Seven years later (Google was technically set up in ‘98 but it took a few years to really take over) and Google is a powerhouse online. Yahoo! and Microsoft fight over a measly 10% (depending on sources) slice of the Search Marketing pie. The reason is simple. Google took the lead, invested, acquired, innovated and never sat still. As long as Facebook maintain the same ethos there is no reason why in 3-4 years time, they will not be the de facto ‘address & social network’ of nearly all adults. I’ve already seen the little ‘F’ logo appearing on biz cards of ‘new media’ folk.

The problem is that as Facebook growth is a double-edged sword. It is great for me as a user as more of my contacts get a Facebook account because it enables me to stay in touch with more people. The down side is that I have been selective when accepting Facebook friends and already have 300+ (I know someone with 1,300+). In real life it is impossible to maintain meaningful relationships with 100+ people. Why should ‘virtual’ life be any different? It’s not. People are fooling themselves if they think they can be a real ‘friend’ to this many people.

The power of Facebook is realising this and using it as a social tool to empower your ‘real’ life. This is where brands can really enrich user experiences and connect with their audience. Facebook applications (games/ functionality/ etc) are more numerous than friend requests. I stopped deleting them a few months back and currently have about 900+. Just like my Facebook friends, I do not have the time to engage with everyone. I cherry pick. Often this is based on my existing relationship outside of Facebook. Do I know the brand? does it tie-in with an existing ATL (TV, radio, etc) campaign? Is the application productive to my real life beyond Facebook? These are a few of the questions that identify if an application is likely to gain traction with users. A big successful brand and ad campaign is no guarantee that the application will be a success but it means there is likely to be a higher install rate than a total unknown - check out the Indy campaign. Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule (see a recent blog post about big brand/ big bucks applications that sit around with only 4 daily users).

So, the conclusion for Brand/ Marketing/ Account Directors and Managers looking at Facebook is that for the next 18 months, it is a safe bet to invest in to reach a mainstream adult audience. However, Facebook (like MySpace, Bebo and the other networks) campaigns are most effective when they are not the entirety of the campaign. It is rare that you see an application succeed and deliver campaign goals without any additional support outside of Facebook.

New data published by ComScore shows that Facebook has overtaken MySpace in terms of global unique users.

In May 2008, Facebook had 123.9m unique users, compared to MySpace’s 114.6m. Over the past year, Facebook’s unique users grew by 162%, whereas MySpace only grew by 5% during the same period.

The top 5 social networks in the UK (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Flickr and Hi5) had a combined total of 38.84 million monthly unique users in April, according to research firm comScore. Yet they have struggled to turn their user popularity into pounds, and recent research by eMarketer has revealed that advertisers will only spend £115m on social networks this year - which is a tiny figure when compared to the overall ad spend online.

However, although they are not reaching their full potential, there has been a healthy 77% growth in ad spend on social networks in the UK since last year, which saw it reach £65m. Advertisers forecast that the growth in ad spend will remain high over the next couple of years at around 52%, but they estimate that this growth rate will slow to 28.6% in 2010, 15.6% in 2011 and 9.6% by 2012.

The main reason suggested for the low ad spend numbers is due to the companies behind the social networks being so young that they have not had time to work out a business model to monetise users.  Looks like they better get a move on…

For more info on the research, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/05/advertising.digitalmedia

New research by the Press Complaints Commission has revealed that nine out of ten people in the UK think there should be tighter regulation of information on social networking sites.

The vast majority of participants said they would like sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to follow specific rules and regulations to help prevent the abuse of personal information such as private photos, instead of them each having their own set of t’s & c’s.

For many, the potential for abuse of private information is an increasing concern, not just because of the threat of criminal activity, but also because information is increasingly being used by the media. Many media companies were criticised last year for the “digital doorstepping” of victims of the Virginia Tech shooting spree.

Of course, the other side to this argument is that people shouldn’t really be uploading any personal information or photos that they wouldn’t want others to have access to in the first place. As Charlie Beckett, the Director of Polis (a journalism thinktank at the London School of Economics) says “If you take pictures and put them on Facebook, you’ve deliberately surrendered your privacy.”

Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of the PCC, said that there is an “unprecedented scale” of information being put on to social networks, and suggested that “there is a need for public awareness about what can happen to information once it is voluntarily put into the public domain.”

For more info on this research, visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/privacy.socialnetworking

MySpace was up 3% in April compared to April 2007, with a commanding 58.8 million users, according to data from WOMMA member company Nielsen Online. Facebook grew 56% over the same period and now boasts 22.5 million users. LinkedIn’s audience was up an enormous 361%, leaping from 1.9 million to 8.7 million users. Google’s Blogger was once again ranked the top-visited blog site with 38.4 million users, up 40% from last year.

For the full article, visit: http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-us-social-network-and-blog-site-rankings-issued-for-april-4658/

MySpace has signed a deal, to air it’s shows such as Quarterlife, Roommates and Special Delivery on screens outside the US. The deal covers DVDs and merchandise but MySpace will retain all net rights to its programmes.  Despite bad figures for NBC’s broadcast of MySpace’s “Quarterlife” in February, MySpace are clearly having another attempt at finding an audience for its programmes beyond the internet.

As expected, they’ve also just entered a partnership with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group, which will offer music services on MySpace, a site that’s been known as a music community ever since all the sensible people fled to Facebook in 2007. Enhancing the MySpace Music platform already in place, they’ll offer DRM-free digital downloads, ad-supported audio and video streaming, a mobile store plus plenty of other knick knacks…

Users will be given tools to personalise their profiles even more (uh oh…) by creating playlists and easy-music searches. Artists signed up to MySpace Music can offer the users digital downloads, mobile ringtones, wallpapers and text messages regarding tours and the like, plus sell concert tickets and other merchandise.

For a full article on the MySpace TV deal, go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7339983.stm

As Microsoft and Yahoo! look to merge, this is turning in to a real soap opera…

Microsoft & Google actually fancy each other; Microsoft loves Googles youthful energy and dynamic rise to wealth and Google loves the established, ‘old school’ power of Microsoft… but it’s a forbidden love. They can never be together, which drives them crazy and makes them want to constantly hurt and out do each other.

In the latest ’series’ of their forbidden love, they pull Yahoo! in to their destructive love-hate relationship…

Microsoft has a one night stand with Yahoo! and then proposes, though not because Microsoft actually fancies Yahoo! - it’s more to get Google’s attention! Something about hurting the ones you love.

Ironically, Yahoo! doesn’t want to marry Microsoft either, but she realises that she’s at a stage in her life where her looks have long faded and her living expenses are a bit higher than her income. Whilst popular, she may not get the chance to bag another rich suitor like Microsoft… but she could hold out to find someone who loves her for who she is. Dilemma.

Yahoo! is unsure about Microsoft’s proposal and decides to think about it, but Microsoft is used to getting any girl he wants and this ‘playing hard to get act’ is something he’s seen many times before. Normally Microsoft would just flash some more bling and the girl would get in the car, but this time, Microsoft feels he’s already flashed enough to Yahoo! so he just goes for the affirmative act of ordering Yahoo! to get in the car. Yahoo! runs crying in to the night…

Confused and upset, Yahoo! seeks solace in the arms of other men. The first to hear about her vulnerability is MySpace who decides to take the opportunity to have a quickie with her (because he’s that kind of guy), but in the morning Yahoo! is back out in the cold. Now she’s feeling really dirty, who should come along but Google. Google knows the situation and wants to get back at Microsoft for hurting him with the initial Yahoo! proposal. Google tells Yahoo! what she wants to hear. Google will love her for who she is and promises to share everything with her - unlike Microsoft. But Google wants to take things slowly, one step at a time. This way Google can really get back at Microsoft without never really needing to commit to Yahoo! (as soon as Microsoft has had enough and the proposal is withdrawn, Google will drop Yahoo! like a sack of potatoes).

Poor Yahoo!. She may be desperate but she’s not stupid. She knows she can’t marry Microsoft or Google as her parents would never approve. So Yahoo! agrees to Google’s ’slowly, slowly’ relationship as rumours surface of stolen kisses with other lovers, notably AOL…

Will Yahoo! actually marry anyone?
Will Yahoo! come home from work early to find Microsoft and Google in bed together?
Does anyone still care who AOL sleeps with?
Will MySpace ever clean up it’s act?

Tune in next week (at this rate) for the next thrilling installment of the MicroHoo! soap opera.

A new survey carried out by Ofcom has revealed that more than a quarter of eight to eleven year olds who are online in the UK have a social networking profile - despite sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook having older age limitations. Ofcom says that parents need to keep an eye on what their children do online.

The research also shows that 19% of all UK youngsters have a presence on an online social network, with James Thickett, director of marketing research at Ofcom stating that “social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives”.

The Home Office has been working with social networking sites, and is expected to publish a set of guidelines this Friday around best practice, security and privacy. The report is expected to recommend that profiles created by children are set to private by default, or are only viewable by friends nominated by the user. It also suggests that social sites maintain a distinct contact page listing contact numbers, such as 999, children can use to get help.

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children. For the full research, visit BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7325019.stm

I think it’s safe to say that it is now officially Facebook vs. everyone else when it comes to OpenSocial!

Yahoo has just announced it’s support for Google’s OpenSocial initiative, and it has now joined forces with MySpace and Google to form the non-profit OpenSocial Foundation. The idea behind the foundation is to “ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web.”

Others who are also in on the foundation include: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. So, basically, out of all the social networks and web giants on the web, Facebook is the only one that’s out of the loop - for now.

In the OpenSocial camp there is, of course, a lot of hand shaking, back patting and congratulating. Yahoo says they believe “in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users;” MySpace is “setting new industry specifications for social web application development,” while Google is reassuring us that “OpenSocial will be forever free and open..” All three companies will work on OpenSocial, everything will, of course, stay under the Creative Commons copyright license, and they’ve created an open source reference implementation called Shindig, available at incubator.apache.org/shindig/.

The official web site for the Foundation is opensocial.org, while the technical bits are still over at code.google.com/apis/opensocial/.

As a response to my earlier post, just thought I’d show you this post taken from Mashable:

In one of the biggest deals yet in the social networking space, AOL announced earlier today that it has acquired Bebo for $850 million. That’s actually more money than News Corp paid to acquire the much larger MySpace, though only about half of what Google shelled out to buy YouTube.

As Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm notes, AOL is acquiring Bebo for $21.25 per user, which is actually a bit less than the $27.62 per user (at the time) that News Corp paid for MySpace, and paltry compared to the $300 per user Facebook is theoretically valued at.

According to AOL, they see the deal as an opportunity to marry IM with social networking – something they have already been trying to do to little fanfare with AIMPages. However, I’ve long been intrigued by the possibilities of doing so, which is one of the reasons I was so bullish on AOL’s Open AIM platform announcement last week. Nonetheless, it’s a lot of money to shell out for a social network with very little traction in the US – MySpace is a whopping 67x bigger than Bebo in the states according to some numbers that Hitwise shared with us.

So, let’s put it to a vote: