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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.

TokBox, the web-based video chat tool is bringing video chat to Facebook via their TokBox Facebook application. TokBox’s current app is just like any other chat facility, but their new functionality takes them into a new league - enabling users to have a video chat within their Facebook chat.

TokBox’s web-based platform is a Flash-enabled browser plugin. It makes the video chat process really easy to use - there are not downloads or any difficult setups - as long as you have a working webcam or computer microphone, you are ready to go…

You just need to install the TokBox plugin for Facebook (which is only supported for Firefox at the moment). Underneath each of your friends’ names there will be a link which will give you the option to start a video chat with them. Then you just need to tell the app that you allow access to the webcam, and you’re off. As with all TokBox video chat conversations, you’ll see your screen on the left, and the screen of your friend on the right (so it will look like below…)

TokBox also allows you hold multiple video chats at once, with each chat in its own window (like standards chats).

Once arguably the best-known “social networking” site in the UK, even before the term social-network was widely used, Friends Reunited recently been redesigned to give it a new “contemporary” feel. According to Airlock, the London-based agency responsible for the facelift, there has been a “dramatic” improvement in activity since the launch. But is it all too little too late?

It is interesting reading the history of Friends Reunited to see just how dramatic the rise of the school-friend catch-up site was. Launched officially in July 2000, by the end of the year it had 3,000 members, a number that had increased to 2.5 million a year later. By 2005, Friends Reunited had been the centre of a TV show (The curse of Friends Reunited), resulted in libel payouts and attracted 15 million of us to the site. Looking back, it seems crazy how a site that demanded payment to actually contact anyone could become so popular.

When ITV bought the site at the end of 2005, there was every reason to believe that the site would continue to grow in popularity. Facebook was, at the time, a high school network, only opening up to key companies in 2006. However many of the features which have come to define modern social networking sites, including the ability to make friends and communicate with these friends for free, were not a part of Friends Reunited. It seems that over the next year or two social networks moved on whilst Friends Reunited stood very much still.

My experience of the new Friends Reunited site was generally positive, albeit this was when I recently deleted my profile (having not been able to unsubscribe from emails without logging into my profile, I thought that having gone to the effort of figuring out my username and password that I may as well just go the whole hog and delete my entire profile). The new design is very much in the “web 2.0” mould; stripes, gradient-background titles, uncluttered.

The new features also go some of the way towards replicating the key features of modern social networks. It seems that it is now possible to join up with friends, and all monetary barriers have been removed (it’s free!). From the new-look homepage it looks like there’s a news feed feature and more of a focus on sharing pictures.

But do people need another social network? I personally don’t know a single person who uses Friends Reunited regularly, and this is going to be a huge barrier to wanting to use the site. Whereas most people I know do use Facebook. Now I don’t even like Facebook (I’ll save that for another day) but I think the key thing here is that if I do want to contact one of my friends, Facebook is currently the place to do it – simply because of the number of people who do use it.

I think another problem with Friends Reunited is that it’s lost much of the original purpose and focus. The original idea was simple – log in and find out what your friends are doing. Right now I’ve been there and done that. I don’t actually care anymore what everyone from school is up to; and the people I am vaguely interested in are all on Facebook.

In place of the focus of the original site, Friends Reunited now offers an expanded set of features, including Genealogy (Genes Reunited of course!) and dating.

So has the horse already bolted? Alexa traffic graphs seem to suggest that interest in Friends Reunited did increase markedly after the new launch (June 2008), although shown over a ten month period traffic is still definitely decreasing.

Compare this traffic with Facebook and Bebo and you start to get the impression that the founders of Friends Reunited got a good deal, and maybe ITV should have kept their money in their pocket! (Hint: Friends Reunited is the blue line that runs at a parallel to, and infinitesimal above, the x axis).

It will be interesting to see if the redesign can have a long term impact on Friends Reunited, or if the horse really has well and truly bolted.

LinkedIn, the social network for business and professional networking has just raised $53m of new funding from investors, taking its total funding raised to over $80m.  Bain Capital Ventures led their latest round of funding giving investors a 5% stake.

Venture capitalists now value LinkedIn at $1bn, which following on from Facebook’s recent $15bn valuation, once again shows the confidence that VC’s have in social networking sites.

LinkedIn now has 23 million members worldwide with around 1.2 million new members joining every month. They plan to use their new funds to add features to the site and expand their service in other languages.

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/

There are many factors that make up the value of a social network: users, time on site, open development are just a few, but surely one the most overlooked must be PR. Let’s look at Bebo, which is just about to be bought by AOL for £417m ($850m) in cash. A lot of money indeed, especially as most will be going in the pocket of Michael Birch, the British entrepreneur, who founded Bebo and still owns a big stake in the business - so will make a great deal from the sale.

Bebo is the third-biggest social networking site in the US, behind MySpace and Facebook. Whilst also being the second-biggest in the UK it sits at a lowly ninth on the global leader board. But is it worth £417m? Or did they sell too cheap?

Only last year, Facebook sold a 1.6% share to Microsoft for $240m. Is Facebook really worth 62.5 times the value of Bebo? Applying the same value calculation to key sales points we end up with some interesting results:

62.5 x 40m users (Bebo) = 2.5bn users!
62.5 x 78 page impressions (Bebo) = 4875 page impressions, per user, per day!

Now Facebook (despite what they may want us to believe) does not serve 2.5bn users or 4875 pages/ user. What Facebook does have is the ‘darling’ effect. It is the darling of the valley and has a brilliant PR team (and determined investors) who spin everything. Bebo meanwhile sat in the corner just getting on with things. Bebo does them really well too, but it just does not make a song and dance about everything it does. And that failure to project itself as the next big thing - or at least the thing big enough for everyone to talk about - has potentially cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.

Today was the launch of Quark’s global campaign site www.ilovedesign.com, which was devised and implemented by yours truly.

We developed the site around an interactive and accessible community concept that was inspired by both neoco and Quark’s love for design. The content of the site will be largely user generated with the aim being to create a platform where designers from all over the world can join the community, showcase their work, be inspired by the work of others, and discuss their love of design. Users can search, view, and rate designs uploaded by other members and even contact them in a secure way.

The site features the work and video testimonials of leading industry designers including David Carson, Peter Saville and Chip Kidd, providing inspiration for users, as they can watch and listen to their heroes tell their own stories, debate the relevance of design in today’s world, and contemplate its future. Designers can also learn how leading global brands, such as the Salvation Army, Metro International, Design Week , and many others, are using QuarkXPress 7 and view samples of some of their work.

The site is part of an overall campaign that we created, with the focus on harnessing the creativity of today’s designers. It comprises of a design of the week competition, seminars with leading designers, e-mail marketing, online and offline media, and a fun Facebook application called “What font are you?” - why not find out which font you are by clicking the link below:

(http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=22841955173)

straight from Mashable:

If you think LinkedIn is for kids and Facebook is for grandkids, perhaps you should consider Financial Times’ new social network, aimed at top level execs who can afford 1700 pounds (3,340 dollars) per year, because that’s how much (at the very least) membership costs.

The details about the network itself are sparse; it’s being described as a forum with a ‘user-friendly, simple, efficient and secure system’ for online networking. I’m guessing that the high price point will mostly relate to the exclusivity of the club and much less to the actual technical and other accomplishments offered within the network (see bottom of this article for proof). However, it’s partially redeemed with the fact that membership in the forum includes free attendance to one of Financial Times‘ Global Conferences and Events, as well as a 20% discount on other events in the series, as well as 12-month subscription to the newspaper itself. Not bad, but 3,3k bucks? Ouch.

This particular forum is aimed at professionals in the digital, new media, mobile and telecoms sectors, but Financial Times plans to launch several more exclusive forums later this year, aimed at execs who deal with luxury goods and property.

The actual site, located at www.ftexecutiveforums.com, is completely garbled in Firefox. Thus, it’s obvious that $3,300 can’t even buy you basic browser compatibility. I’ll stick with LinkedIn, thank you.

Make sure you don’t miss Benn at Revolution’s ‘Create Positive Buzz Through Your Loyal Brand Advocates For Peer-To-Peer Marketing’ conference. This all-day event is being held at The Selfridge on Tuesday 27th November. Neoco are sponsors of this conference, which aims to optimise social networking, WOM, customer-to-customer recommendation and user-generated content – our specialities! Other brands speaking include John Lewis, Bebo, Sony BMG, Sky, BT and Renault.