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Facebook Gives Itself a Face Lift

posted on March 5, 2009

Facebook has announced some major changes that have been called a response to the Twitter threat and just about facebook2everything else. Just like most things in this Web 2.0 social media whirlwind we live in the change is fast and furious and the opinions outpace the change by a considerable margin.

Erick Shonfeld over at TechCrunch does a great job of outlining the changes that Facebook has announced. The changes are for the homepage, profile pages and activity streams. The highlights are as follows:

  • No more distinction between private profiles and public pages
  • Real time updates of the news feed on everyone’s personal page. In essence, Facebook is looking to be more like Twitter.
  • There is also the implementation of a social graph which is a map of social connections between members

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Skittles Buzz Lasts as Long as a Sugar Rush

posted on March 4, 2009

The question was asked here yesterday by Joe Hall and there were as many opinions asskittles there are colors in a bag of Skittles but as of this morning the jury is in. Skittles has taken down its site redesign reports MediaPost.

Apparently putting the brand and its message in a vehicle driven by consumers brings out the good the bad and the ugly.

The good was the fact that yesterday a lot of people were talking about Skittles. I have to admit that unless I am forced to I am not thinking about Skittles or writing a post about them. So to that degree this experiment certainly worked. Buzz was created and people were talking about the crazy colors of the Skittles rainbow.

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Google Offers Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) Program

posted on March 4, 2009

Google has been making quite a few changes as of late. They have been halting development or simply analytics-scrren-shotending projects like Google Notebook, Google Video and Google Catalog Search to name a few. All of these moves are perceived as efforts to contain costs and be frugal with the pile of Google cash that they have been collecting for years now.

It’s hard to argue with the effort. While Google has given its employees plenty of company time to explore new ideas they may now be putting that brain power to work to strengthen the existing tool set. Evidence of this is the announcement of the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ). Analytics is one of the most popular and powerful offerings that the search leader offers to further put their hooks in their customers. It only makes sense that the better the understanding of this important tool would help Internet marketers and Google alike.

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Anonymity, the Courts and Protection

posted on March 3, 2009

The Maryland Court of Appeals has overturned a previous ruling that would have required a website that was beingrestroom-sign charged with defamation due to comments from anonymous ‘users’ to turn over their identities immediately.

All of this stems from a case where a Dunkin Donuts franchise received some non-complimentary anonymous comments about its bathroom cleanliness on the online forum NewsZap.com run by Independent Newspapers. The store is in Centreville, MD and having never been there I, Frank Reed, have no comment as to the cleanliness of their facilities. I will say though that I have encountered a few Dunkin’ Donut restrooms that could be introduced to some disinfectant and air freshener for sure but I digress.

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Copyrights and the Internet Make for a Very Odd Couple

posted on March 3, 2009

The Internet content economy is like the candy rack when you were a kid. You know what I mean. You content-thiefcovet that bag of Skittles but you’re caught a little short on funds that day. So to feed your candy habit you sneak a bag out of the store. You know you broke the law but it seemed so innocent and what the heck, every kid deserves a bag of Skittles now and then right?

Well, for all of the folks out there looking through the content that exists out on the Internet and then ‘borrow’ it for their own sites or blogs there may be more retribution than you are used to. The NY Times does a great job of sorting through this increasingly complex subject. Seems like one of the interesting offshoots of a crappy economy is that everyone suddenly gets protective and starts to clamp down so nothing can be done for free anymore. I believe this is good thing for people to protect their efforts but the reality it is also near impossible to do.

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Twitterbook? How Facebook’s Attempt at a Twitter Takeover Failed

posted on March 2, 2009

In a BusinessWeek article takes us on the journey of how one monster of social twitter-logomedia tried to swallow an up and comer but didn’t quite have what it takes.

One of Facebook’s directors and largest investors, Peter Thiel, tells the magazine about the apparent misadventures in trying to get a deal done with the folks and Twitter. We know the outcome on this one was a “No deal!” but because all of this was happening last fall during Twitter’s meteoric rise makes it pretty interesting.facebook2

This is the first time there has been a public recognition of these talks. Facebook is still looking to expand but Thiel shapes up the attempted union with Twitter as follows

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Papers Fold and People Distrust Blogs. What To Do?

posted on March 2, 2009

Last week was a rough one for the newspaper industry. The 150 year old Rocky Mountain News of Denver closed shop and rocky-mountain-newsNew York’s Newsday announced it was starting an online paid model despite the fact that the average person spend just 4 minutes and 25 seconds per month on the their website. Not the best news for the hard print news industry for sure.

Never fear though. Whenever there is bad news there’s always some research done that can put the paddles on a dying industry and this is no different. MediaPost tells of a survey by the Rosen Group that shows that the vast majority of US consumers

….still deem print editions of newspapers and magazines to be “indispensable” sources of news and entertainment.