Buy.com Entering Social Networking Scene
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Online retailer Buy.com is inviting itself into the expanding social networking scene, acquiring a Web site that rewards members with checks or gift certificates if they persuade others to buy their favorite products.
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Social networks have made fortunes setting up Web sites that allow people to post profiles and trade messages. Now, the rank and file are getting the chance to make some cash from their contacts.
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The Motley Fool - Will "do you Yahoo" replace "what's your major" as the ultimate coed pickup line? Today's Wall Street Journal had a front page story on a quiet buyout battle brewing for the college-friendly social networking site Facebook.
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Social networks that tap the interests and buying power of traditionally reserved groups like the bookish are a small but growing force on the Web.
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Blog: A first look at Searchles: a new web app that seeks to combine social networking with web search functionalities.
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Nearly one-fourth of companies surveyed by ChangeWave Research are now using Web 2.0-social networking software in some form, and another 8 percent intend to do so within the next year.The study is the organization&#39;s first stab at tracking Web 2.0 in the enterprise, said Joshua Levine, editor of ChangeWave Investing, an advisory service from the Rockville, Maryland, firm.&quot;I think Web 2.0 has been simmering a lot for the last couple of years under the radar, at least in enterprises; 2008 looked as we were coming toward it that this stuff would be exploding,&quot; Levine said.Overall, 39 percent of respondents said their firms are very or somewhat willing to use social software. In addition, among respondents whose organizations are already using such software, 35 percent said spending on it will rise in the next 90 days and just two percent said it will fall.Twenty-six percent of companies currently using social software said they plan to invest most heavily in wikis, followed by blogs (15 percent), social networks (13 percent), mashups (5 percent), RSS feeds (5 percent) and collaborative tagging (3 percent).However, the trends were somewhat different among future Web 2.0 users. They said their companies intended to spend the most money on social networks and blogs, which scored 22 percent and 21 percent, respectively.While 79 percent of current Web 2.0 software users said it is being used to improve internal communication and collaboration, only 48 percent of future users said the same. Future users were more focused on external goals, such as better customer service, greater brand awareness and increased sales.&quot;That&#39;s something we really want to drill into next time, why that is,&quot; Levine said. The company plans to repeat the survey, possibly by as soon as midyear.ChangeWave&#39;s report also tracked which vendors are benefiting from the Web 2.0 trend. Microsoft ranked highest in each of the six software categories, followed by IBM in a number of categories.However, open-source and in-house-developed software both showed strength. Some 31 percent of respondents whose companies are using or will begin using wikis within the next year are doing so with open-source technology, and 28 percent of those using mashups developed them in-house, according to the study.ChangeWave surveyed 2,081 people in September.
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Dell Inc has started using the social bookmarking model popularized by Digg.com as a form of suggestion box for its customers.
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Belatedly recognizing the importance of social networking as an online service and advertising vehicle, Google this week will unleash its strongest response yet to the rising threat and skyrocketing popularity of MySpace and Facebook.On Thursday, Google will announce OpenSocial, an initiative with a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) at its core that is designed &quot;to spread social applications across the Web,&quot; the company said.These common APIs have been designed to let developers create social networking applications that will run on multiple Web sites, simplifying the making and distribution of these programs.Partners supporting OpenSocial include various well-known software developers and social networking sites: Oracle, Salesforce.com, Hi5, iLike, LinkedIn, Slide, Ning, Friendster, and Plaxo. Neither Facebook nor MySpace is on the list of partners at press time.The move is also no doubt intended to dilute the massive&#160;success Facebook has had in attracting external developers&#160;since it opened up its Web site platform to third-party applications in May.About 7,000 such applications have been built for Facebook so far, helping to make the social networking site more attractive to people and thus boosting its usage.&#160;MySpace recently announced it would follow Facebook&#39;s example.By allowing developers to write an application once and have it work in multiple social networking sites, the OpenSocial initiative could, in theory, water down the appeal of Facebook&#39;s ballooning applications catalogue.Once considered a fad of interest mostly to teens and young adults, social networks have significantly broadened their demographic appeal, attracting many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.Along the way, social networking sites have been created for other purposes beyond entertainment and staying in touch with friends. For example, there are social networks tailored for specific occupations, such as doctors, and interests, such as sports.Google has had a social networking site named Orkut for several years, but it doesn&#39;t seem to have merited much attention from the company until recently, and only after the popularity and potential of this type of site became evident.Google was reportedly locked in a battle with Microsoft&#160;over which one would be chosen by Facebook to buy a stake in the social networking company and earn a deal to provide advertising to it.Microsoft eventually won, buying a 1.6 percent stake that values Facebook at an eye-popping $15 billion, although the social networking company reportedly will have revenue of just $150 million this year.With about 300 employees now, Facebook expects to have about 700 a year from now, its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently said. About 250,000 new users register every day at Facebook, which was founded in 2004.In June, MySpace had 114.1 million unique visitors worldwide, ranking first among social networking sites, followed by Facebook with 52.2 million, according to comScore. Hi5 ranked third with 28.2 million, while Friendster was fourth with 24.7 million. Orkut rounded out the top 5 with 24.1 million.More information about OpenSocial and resources for developers will be available in this Web site later this week. There will also be a developer sandbox.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has approached FacebookÂ in recent weeks proposing an investment that would give Microsoft a stake of up to 5 percent in the popular social-networking company, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. With Microsoft willing to invest between $300 million and $500 million, the deal would value Facebook at $10 billion or more, the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources. Google has also expressed an interest in acquiring a Facebook stake recently, according to the Journal. Thus, Microsoft could find itself competing for Facebook's attention with Google. However, Facebook's discussions with Google and Microsoft are in the early stages and could end up with no agreement with either suitor, according to the Journal. IDG News Service's requests for comment from Facebook, Microsoft, and Google weren't immediately answered. Founded in February 2004, Facebook is one of the world's most popular social-networking sites with about 42 million active users. Facebook has been growing strongly in the past 12 months. In December, it had about 12 million active users. The site initially only admitted students, but last September it lifted that restriction. In May of this year, itÂ opened up to third-party developersÂ to create applications for the site, which has also added to its popularity with users. Along the way, it has caught the attention of big Internet playersÂ such asÂ Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. The latter reportedly tried to buy Facebook last year for $1 billion. Facebook's attractiveness is that it builds very strong and deep relationships with its users.Â More thanÂ half of its active members return to the site daily, and Facebook knows a lot about them, thanks to all the personal information people disclose on their site profiles and interactions with other members. This, in turn, offers a desirable audience to advertisers and to ad sellers and distributorsÂ such asÂ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. A little more than a year ago,Â Facebook chose Microsoft to display banner adsÂ on the site. Facebook would be interested in using the cash raised from selling a stake for buying other companies, increasing its staff of about 300, and beefing up its technical infrastructure, the Journal reported. Facebook is also weighing the option of raising funds from financial investors, the Journal said.
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StumbleUpon, a fast rising Web  search site bought by eBay Inc  in May, is moving  beyond automated Web discovery to offer a novel way to see what  friends find useful or interesting on the Web.
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Blog: The Internet statistics firm found that the social networking site experienced an 89% growth in traffic, mostly outside of the "collegiate" 18-24 age demographic, when it announced that the once-exclusive service now had open registration.
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New music sharing network allows users to amass points by referring buyers.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco Systems is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced Monday it has bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks, a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook, and News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco did not reveal the terms of the deal, which has already been completed, in a statement Monday. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net. The dominant networking vendor will integrate that software into its Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), and certain Utah Street employees will join that team to continue software development, according to Cisco. Cisco started moving into content infrastructure last year with the formation of the CMSG, which made its first acquisition last monthÂ when it bought social-networking software company Five Across. On Monday, Cisco announced that acquisition had been completed. The San Jose, Calif., company sees social networking as a key part of the way media companies and other enterprises will approach their customers. On Tribe.net, users can set up personal profiles, join interest groups, post blog entries and pictures, and review local businesses, among other things. Versions of the site exist for dozens of U.S. cities.
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Social networking site purchases tiny startup that had been developing software it bills as a Web-based operating system.
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NetSky Holdings, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NKYH) is pleased with the increased attention its social networking site, PetsPlaces.com (www.PetsPlaces.com), has received.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco Systems is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced Monday it has bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks, a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook, and News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco did not reveal the terms of the deal, which has already been completed, in a statement Monday. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net. The dominant networking vendor will integrate that software into its Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), and certain Utah Street employees will join that team to continue software development, according to Cisco. Cisco started moving into content infrastructure last year with the formation of the CMSG, which made its first acquisition last month when itÂ bought social-networking software company Five Across. On Monday, Cisco announced that acquisition had been completed. The San Jose, California, company sees social networking as a key part of the way media companies and other enterprises will approach their customers. On Tribe.net, users can set up personal profiles, join interest groups, post blog entries and pictures, and review local businesses, among other things. Versions of the site exist for dozens of U.S. cities. Utah Street brings unspecified capabilities to Cisco that Five Across -- and even well-known social networking sites -- don't have, said Eric Chan, strategy and marketing director for CMSG. "This is also a company that has been going through the wars of running a social networking site over the past few years," Chan said. Among other things, that real-world experience taught the company lessons about how people use such a site, he said. Cisco is finished buying social-networking companies, at least for now, Chan said. CMSG's mission extends beyond that technology to a range of other tools for enterprises to make closer connections with their customers, he said. Most enterprises haven't yet started using social-networking technologies, but they could prove great tools for communication even within companies, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Enterprise IT departments, which typically dictate what tools employees should use to communicate, should instead provide a variety of methods users understand and let them choose, Kerravala said. Cisco can pave the way for that change by combining several such tools in one package for enterprises to deploy. "I think it's very forward-looking by Cisco," Kerravala said. Demand for such consumer-style software will grow as today's young people enter the work force, he said. In fact, Kerravala thinks Cisco should go one step further into the future by buying Second Life creator Linden Research.
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Never mind your profile. Social networking sites are tracking what you do and buy, and the you they see may not be the you you really want everyone else to see. From Wired magazine.