Seppukoo offers a way for Facebook users to cancel their Facebook account and "commit virtual suicide.  You can actually create a memorial of your Facebook account and send it a proper goodbye, if you want.  Facebook lawyers are not sure how to deal with this. Will Seppukoo be the end of Facebook?  What makes Seppukoo so confident that they would want to take on a huge giant social networking site like Facebook?

Read the article here.

Ochman has found that there are approximately 4,500 supposed social media experts on twitter. The most interesting fact to come out of this is that about every 6 months "social media experts" grows by 3.5. This means by the year 2012 their will be approximately 30 million social media experts on twitter. What people are finding funny about these supposed social media experts is who decides they are experts. How do you describe an expert: one who tweets every day or puts on 100's of facebooks messages, or someone who studied it in college?


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This article talks about the 5 things that people have done on social media that have made them look silly. It talks about people who follows everyone who follows them (even porn), people that talk about how much they hate their jobs online, those who accidentally hit "reply to all" on e-mails, and a few other flubs. To read the rest of the article click here.

The Super Bowl has always been known for its commercials, with companies pulling out all the stops to make their ads bigger and better than the next. However, with the advent of social media, this trend may be beginning to change. Pepsi announced that it will forgo this years Super Bowl, breaking its 23 year tradition of airing commercials during the game, in favor of its $20 million social media campaign, The Pepsi Refresh Project. This campaign will give users the chance to submit ideas on ways to "refresh" their communities and the winning ideas will be funded by Pepsi.

It has been said that television commercials are becoming a thing of the past, but I think that Pepsi opting out of the biggest advertising day of the year really says that things are indeed changing in the advertising industry. Social media is no longer a medium that companies can overlook as a fad. I think that this is a bold move by Pepsi because the buzz factor that social media is so good at spreading is not so easy to create. However if executed correctly, this project could pay off much more than any commercial.

Read more here.

Implementing a social media business strategy is key for any business to be successful today, and is a part of a successful marketing plan. But oftentimes (and especially for small business with limited resources) it is difficult to know how to go about executing an effective plan. In the article "HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy," written by Sharlyn Lauby, it talks about some step-by-step ways to create and follow a social media plan.

A unique facebook application that allows a user to check out their brand value based on their usage of facebook, networks joined, and number of friends. It allows user's to determine the value of their online brand. How much power do you, as a facebook user, have based on profile traffic ? Can you influence others through facebook? Are you a trendsetter? These are just some of the questions answered by this online application. Check it out! http://apps.facebook.com/virall

By Marisol G. Martinez

Different search engines have modified their logos to make them look and reflect the holiday spirit. Google has included different pictures and graphics showing winter and christmas icons, yahoo animated its logo and included a snowman, Bing's background was changed to a christmas background etc.

I landed across this article (Look under "Help the Terrorist") by accident, but it is really quite interesting.  Terrorist are using Twitter tweets to get real-time information to plan their attacks.  There also is evidence that terrorist use World of Warcraft (WOW) and  Second Life to recruit members or just to spread their message.  The article asks the reader to calm down before you begin to freak out.  Information actually reduces fear, and if we were to cancel Twitter, WOW, and Second Life because of terrorist, it might actually cause more fear, and perhaps more death rates. 

Maybe this article comes to no surprise for some people, especially since terrorist have been using technology to the fullest in order to achieve their ill-fated goals.  Will this slow down the production of other social media sites designed to help millions of people connect with the click of a button?

With all the talk about a revenue stream for Twitter the microblogging service going on in class it is worth nothing that Twitter will actually turn a profit in 2009. The deals with Bing and Google have netted Twitter something to the tune of 25 million ( this information is an estinate, actual numbers were never revealed ). Tweets will now appear on both Google and Bing search results as part of the deals. It is also interesting to note that Microsoft's Bing search engine was the first to sign the deal with Twitter, perhaps as a move to gain some strategic advantage over Google. Google followed shortly thereafter and signed a similar deal.


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Social Media sites such as Facebook started off by targeting college students, then it moved to high school students now more and more moms are starting to join the multiple social media sites. Moms started off following friends and family but now more celebrities such as Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres who both have shows that target women have social media pages that women are now following. There are also a number of companies such as Huggies who teamed with circle of moms and created a Facebook page where moms could go and get parenting tips, give advice, and have offers from Huggies. many PR agencies are having moms try out new products and then blog about their experiences.
Now that moms are joining the social media sites a whole new way to target these women has been created. It's no longer just advertisements on the websites now moms can be more hands on , give their opinion and also get more than just a product from these companies.

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From CNET News

It was reported a few days ago that Google was in talks to acquire Yelp for $500 million dollars. It would seem that the sum was not sufficient enough to entice Yelp's executives to complete the deal.

Yelp is a social networking site that provides local business searches as well as ratings and reviews from the community. There was the perception from Yelp's user base that an acquisition by Google would degrade the site. Previous social network acquisitions by Google have fizzled out according to the article. Orkut (once popular in Brazil) was decimated by the rise of Facebook and Knol has failed to make any inroads into Wikipedia's popularity despite having the massive resources of Google at hand. Youtube lacks a significant coherent community that substantively interacts--it is more of a bulletin board than a social network at this point.

There are no other known interested parties at this point, so it would seem that Yelp's executives were interested in protecting their company and their work. The article provides some conjecture that the executives didn't believe that Google would be able to provide value to the relationship through an acquisition. Maybe Google can't do it all.

Apparently Google, the leading provider of online advertising broker, has no problems over the increasing popularity of ad-blocking extensions on its own web browser, Chrome. During a browser-centered conference in Mountain View, Califorinia Google Engineering Director Linus Upson discussed how online ads - while blocked by many users - are ultimately useful to people when searching for relevant subjects. "It's unlikely that ad blockers will get to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of the population wants to block it, then advertising needs to get less annoying." Upson said that there is an equilibrium between the online ad market and consumers, thus if blockers become an issue, advertisers will rethink their strategies and aggressiveness.

A Christmas gift for the Grandparents?

The technological boundaries that may have once stopped the elderly from jumping on the Twitter bandwagon have now been removed with this fax-to-Twitter service, known as Celery. The service allows users to write short handwritten notes that are then faxed, using their 'celery' machine, which electronically converts and posts them to the users Twitter page. Users can even print off their own Twitter pages to see who has responded to their tweets. The Celery can also be used to send emails. This video shows the Celery at work, and profiles one user who says that the Celery has helped her stay in touch with her grandchildren.

Connecting the elderly to the latest social media website using a device that many of us on Twitter probably wouldn't even know how to use. Now that's what I call irony. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!

There is much skepticism in regards to Google coming out with their own phone as early as 2010. Analysts are confused by this decision because they will become direct competitors with cell phone manufacturers that are using Google's Android operating system. Google would be entering into an industry which is extremely competitive and with lack of experience. Some analysts believe that this could end up being a multbillion-dollar mistake. Thus far, Google has had much success with having phone makers adopt its Android software. However, if Google goes through with their decision to develop its own Google-branded Android phone to be sold directly to consumers, then their support will decline. Signal Hill Group analyst Todd Greenwald said, "Google... may figure it is big enough that it can risk upsetting certain partners."

Facebook has released for the first time, the demographics of its users. What is even more interesting is the technique which was used to identify the race and ethnicity of its users. While Facebook has a lot of information but it does not ask you to disclose your race when you sign up but the researchers used a technique combining census data with their information to find trends. This is a great example of how information from primary and secondary sources are combined together.




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Following the success they had with the Windows 7 Launch party, Microsoft is now in the process of recruiting college students to blog about Microsoft products. The criteria is simple, students with established blogs are being asked to talk and act as the peer influencer to introduce the benefits of MS products to others. Sound famliar! Students will be reimbursed with free training on MS products and free trips to conferences in great locations.

Read more here.

The Google Toilet: Supernews!

Facebook recently announced the new privacy settings that they are offering to the public. It encourages Facebook users to share the content you post on your profile, including status updates and photos. The goal was to make Facebook more of an open forum, especially since Twitter, blogs, and MySpace are open to all.  Marshall Kirkpatrick provides a negative argument when arguing with Barry Schnitt, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook in his article(Click on his name to read it).

How do you feel about being encouraged to become less private and more public for all to see? Was the primary reason you joined Facebook to expose yourself to the world?

PR newswire is a public relations website that posts the latest news releases and updates them frequently. I was browsing the website when I came across this news release about how Mark, the beauty and fashion brand of Avon Products is launching a Facebook application that will connect sales representatives and their customers online. While I know that you can buy pretty much anything online, it is the point that you can talk to representatives and representatives can network and build their customer base through the social networking site and not a website that makes this a unique opportunity.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/door-to-door-selling-moves-wall-to-wall-79068592.html

I stumbled across this website while doing homework (or more like not doing homework?) and proceeded to waste a good 30 minutes being entertained by the site. Trendistic.com functions much like Google Trends does for all Google searches. It tracks the tweets that are posted, removes any recurring ones, and then creates graphs based upon a one-hour time period. This is fantastic because it allows us to see what is (or is not) popular and being tweeted about today, all compiled on a nice graph.

Facebook's recent privacy changes are not quite as nice as they sound. Facebook recently began asking users to refine their settings using a new tool, however the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a privacy watchdog, argues that the general push is for members to expose information and not hide it from others. The sheer complexity of the decisions may not be the right direction for the members of Facebook as it appears that Facebook wants to put much more information out there for the public eye to see, much more than just your name and the network you belong to today. Is this a move in the right direction or is this merely being taken out of content? Read more here and decide.