Facebook recently announced that users had uploaded 10 billion photos on the network. Considering that Facebook’s not a flickr or picasa, this gives an indication of the quantity and quality of users’ relationship with the social networking service. Facebook also recently announced its Fb fund recipients. Read about this effort to help seed innovation here. For those who want to check out Facebook as a desktop app, check out Visual Sage. (via Startup meme) Facebook Connect has also been in the news recently. It is scheduled to launch on Nov 30. You can check out CNN’s Facebook Connect implementation – for the post presidential debate discussions, here. There are also links to the implementations of CBS, Red Bull etc. And the last ‘collateral’ links to a wonderful take on Facebook friendship, and this on social networks, revenues, and brands’ expectations from them. Meanwhile, Facebook can draw solace from the fact that it was the social network of choice of 1/3 of the  US online retailers interviewed. (from a study by Internet Retailer and Vovici via WildBlueSkies)

As far as advertising goes, the inclusion of Microsoft Live Search into the social network is quite a significant development. Goes without saying that along with the search results, a few ads would also be thrown in. Looks like win-win, for both Microsoft and Facebook. (with their revenue/cost concerns).

And now, whether Facebook Ads are social media. I’d say (technically)any advertising on a social network would automatically qualify for social media marketing, since advertising is a way of marketing. Now, with specific reference to Facebook, as part of its redesign earlier, Facebook had also categorised the different kinds of ads that can be purchased. Out of the 6 categories mentioned, #5 is akin to a first generation banner ad.  I’d written about some unique features of Facebook Ads earlier. Like I’d mentioned in that post, this normal banner ad has been given a cool social twist by allowing users to give it a thumbs up/down and give their reasons for doing this. Let me go a step down and ignore the rating. Connecting my profile and actions to the kind of ads served, it gives the ads at least some contextual connection, and hence appeal.  So, in practise too, I’d consider banner advertising on Facebook a part of social media marketing. On Magpie, over on Twitter, however, I’m still in two minds.

until next time, social soul searching

There have been several Twitter based services that have been launched since my last twitter post. We’ll start with Twittad. (via Mashable) If you have a not-so-bad twitter following, you can just sign up on the site, give your number of followers, and auction your twitter page to an interested advertiser. Check out the left side of this profile, he got $15 for a month’s display of that ad. Now, the background in Twitter is not clickable, so its just like say, a virtual non-interactive billboard. My bigger concern is that this is visible only to those who use the web interface. If you use say, Twitterfox, a browser plugin, or a desktop client, you may not even see this ad.

That’s not the only advertising model available on Twitter. Another option I came across is Twitterise. This seems a more robust tool, and allows marketeers to use twitter as a platform. With a twitter account, you can schedule communication to go out to consumers, and more importantly track it in terms of response. Read more about it here. Its a nifty lil tool, and once users can get more detailing in terms of the clicks (who, when etc) generated, its a do-it-yourself kit for any brand manager to test out twitter. I’m going to give it a spin very soon, for my brand.   But the real story is Cherp, which is an entire agency that’s “dedicated to finding brilliant ways to leverage the Twitter platform and network”. I’m lost for words, even 140 characters!! On a sidenote, I read an interesting suggestion for Twitter to get some revenue.

There are some interesting stuff for regular users too. For those who are also active on Digg, there’s a new tool Twiggit, which allows you to let your followers know everytime you Digg an article. Two great services, and one awesome mashup, i think!! The other tool I came across is Lazy Tweet, which works on crowd sourcing your answers. While I already use Twitter to get lots of answers, the next time I want a question answered, all I’ve to do is start the tweet with lazytweet (or a few other options), and I’ll get access to a bigger crowd than just my followers. Read more about it here. If you’re the video kind, Viddler has launched a new service called 15s, which lets you share your 15 secs or lesser video with your twitter friends (via Center Networks). There’s already a player in this market – 12seconds. And lastly, if you’re the textual kind, check out this post on literary experiments on twitter.

I read a post on how a tweet does not make a brand. I agree, one does not, but the idea is of conversation, of engaging with consumers in real time. The objective is to involve the consumer in the idea of the brand and thus make the brand more than a soulless entity that caters to one specific need in their life. Many brands are making an attempt at this conversation, take a look at the stories here. And of all the efforts, I’d rate CNN as the best. In spite of the Olympics argument, it still experiments with the medium. I read a few days back that it was promoting Twitter heavily on air, now that’s what I call great integration. And it’s not just one anchor, the engagement on Twitter is being taken to different levels, including a Twitter show. Really awesome stuff. I hope we get to see more more activity, and from more organisations.

until next time, go tweet

PS. If you use twitter on your blog, and are okay with handling code, you could check out TweetRemote, which allows some level of customisation.