Google+ Pages for brands launched early today, with a select group of launch partners. Later in the day, G+ Pages were opened up to everyone. ReadWriteWeb, among others, immediately created a Page. I took point on developing RWW's one and afterwards I was curious to see what other brands had done. While it's very early days, it was clear to me what works and what doesn't in Google+ Pages for brands.
Today Google+ launched Pages for brands and organizations. We don't know yet how brands will use Google+ Pages. But it's a good bet that they will be conversational, given the traction that Google+ has shown with topic-based communities.
We've dived right in and created a Google+ Page for ReadWriteWeb. Our brand is for engaged technologists to discover and discuss what's next on the Web, so we hope to get to know our community better in Google+. Circle RWW to explore the future with us!
WordPress.com launched a new notification feature today for logged-in users. A box in the upper right corner of the toolbar now notifies WordPress bloggers when someone follows their blog or likes a post. It also allows the user to follow back those fans right from the toolbar.
This feature replicates the new, ubiquitous Google+ toolbar pretty audaciously. The only difference is that the WordPress notification badge is orange, whereas Google's is red. Is this formula really the best way to increase engagement, or whatever it is these free social services are trying to make us do?
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has a crack group of analysts tracking the Internet, including tweets and Facebook messages, that takes the pulse of the world. Located in McLean, Virginia analysts at the CIA Open Source Center are known as the "vengeful librarians" according to a report from the Associated Press. These librarians are tracking up to five million tweets a day from places like China, Pakistan and Egypt.
It is sometimes disconcerting to know what the U.S. intelligence complex is doing, right in your backyard. McLean is a beltway city in Northern Virginia that is best known for Tysons Corner, one of the shopping hubs of the East Coast. On the outskirts of the city limits there is also the George H.W. Bush CIA complex, on of the agency's main hubs in the D.C. region.
Today LinkedIn shared its Q3 financials in its second-ever earnings statement as a public company. Its user base has increased by over 60% this year, and unique visitors grew substantially as well. Revenue has more than doubled. For the first time, hiring solutions comprised more than half of LinkedIn's quarterly revenue. That became the company's biggest source of revenue in Q1 2010.
LinkedIn appears to have found a unique position as a place for jobs and and employees to find each other and is clearly pushing to cement that role. It's building new products, like Apply Through LinkedIn job applications, and recently launched Classmates, a new, data-driven tool targeted at students and recent graduates, which its biggest growing demographic.
Last week I questioned how many active, daily users Google+ really has. We know it has a huge user base - according to Google, it's over 40 million users. But Google won't talk about how many of those people are actually active on the service. All indications are that it's a small percentage of the total user base. My post was strongly challenged by Google+ power user Robert Scoble, who said that I was missing the point. "Google+ is for finding, and talking with, the people who are interested in the same thing you are," he wrote.
So how to find those interesting people? There are a few main ways to find groups of people in Google+. One is by using the search feature on Google+, which as you'd expect from the search giant is very good. Another is to subscribe to shared circles. The third is by hunting out lists created by the community.
Way back in December of last year, Facebook released its connections map. FlowingData.com recently released an inverse of the Facebook friendship map, showing where in the world people don't use the social network. Facebook has not been able to adequately penetrate the non-Western markets of China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.
3 key points you need to know about Facebook Timeline, gleaned from two previous "lifestreaming" products: FriendFeed and Memolane.
Facebook's new Timeline, currently in a limited developer release but set to be unveiled to its hundreds of millions of users any day now, is going to shake up the social networking landscape. It's going to bring lifestreaming - formally a geeky activity based around RSS feeds - to the mainstream. In my view, Timeline is the smartest and most significant thing Facebook has done since launching a developer platform in May 2007. I think it's that important.
So where did the inspiration for Timeline come from and why is it going to be such a big deal? We can see the future just by looking at two earlier lifestreaming products: FriendFeed and scrappy start Memolane.
There are now 800 million monthly active users on Facebook, according to Facebook's own statistics. More than 350 million of those people access Facebook through their mobile devices, nearly 44% of its total active user base. In terms of traffic, 33% of Facebook traffic comes from mobile devices - according to data revealed by Mary Meeker in her Web 2.0 Summit presentation this month.
Make no mistake, Facebook is getting serious about mobile. October 2011 was a big month for Facebook's mobile initiatives, with a new iPad app, an updated iPhone app and a revamped mobile browser site that closely mimics the functionality of its iOS apps. It also offers mobile versions for Android, Blackberry and other platforms. But Facebook is just getting started, there's a lot of upside to come.
Today Storify launched its new editor interface, featuring slicker, easier-to-use tools for fast content curation.
The new foundation flip-flops the search and editor sides of the interface, and places a higher priority on each content curator writing their own text for the story. Photo searches are big and bright, and the results are displayed in a handy gallery format that mimics a slick, white cube art space. The drag-and-drop functionality makes story curation more user-friendly. Previously, Storify didn't have a logo - now it does. Storify has its own login system now, too.
