Over a million people have now voted against recent changes to social networking site, Facebook.

The changes, which have come into effect in the last few weeks, put more emphasis on status updates, relegating photos and videos to the background. Many believe the changes have come about due to the massive rise in popularity for rival site, Twitter.

However, 94% of users have voted against the new format in a recent poll with many asking the question that if it ain’t broke – why fix it?
Naturally Facebook have defended the changes claiming that the new homepage is “one step in the continued evolution of the site” and saying they take their users’ feedback very seriously.

Whether or not these results will be enough to reverse the changes is another matter. Despite their dominance of the social networking market with 175 million users worldwide it seems that the emergence of Twitter has unsettled the once unchallenged giant.

2009 promises to be an interesting year in the battle for social networking supremacy.

Read the full story at BBC Online (22/03/2009)

Predicting the next big online success isn’t always straightforward. True, some are easier to spot than others – back in August last year we reported on new micro-blogging concept Twitter, which has since gone from strength to strength.

However, knowing which horse to back isn’t always as obvious, which is where new investment company, YouNoodle, comes in.

YouNoodle uses a scoring system that plans to turn the business of investment into more of a science. Their software measures the “buzz” surrounding a company via blogs and media reports along with a variety of factors including website traffic. The scoring tool covers nearly 30,000 start-ups, ranging from biotechnology to gaming software.

So, if you want some advice on where to put your money why not check out YouNoodle?

Read the full story here (source: BBC Technology, 20/02/2009)

Last summer we ran an article on new micro-blogging website, Twitter, and its growth in its first two years of operation.

Well, since then it seems that Twitter has gone from strength to strength. The company have just recently turned down a half billion dollar acquisition offer from Facebook and are now looking at dipping back into the venture capital market.

They’ve signed a term sheet with at least one venture fund to raise a new round at a $250 million valuation. Whilst it is unclear how much they’re raising it is widely thought to be more than the $20 million in capital they’ve taken in over two previous rounds.

Twitter’s stock has increased further in the wake of new celebrity interest. British institution, Stephen Fry, chatted to reinstated BBC host Jonathan Ross about Twitter on his prime time Friday night show last week.

With luminaries and celebrities across the globe increasingly using Twitter to engage with their audience, it would seem that the sky’s the limit for this company that blossomed from a small San Fransisco R&D project.

You can follow the adventures of HeadRed through my own garbled tweets at http://twitter.com/adrianbevan

Wednesday 21st January 2009 marked a significant day in the history of the United States. It was the day Barack Obama became the first ever black US President as he was inaugurated in front of thousands of onlookers at Washington DC’s National Mall.

Whilst his election came as no surprise to many of us what was particularly interesting of his campaign was how he embraced the Internet and specifically Web 2.0.

Hope and Change
Unlike John McCain, Obama’s campaign made full use of the Internet to build his brand, deliver his message and build relationships with his voters and the wider world. With his team of experienced, innovative and progressive marketers he launched and executed what was to be a highly successful Internet marketing campaign.

Obama used a message of “Hope and Change” as the core of his campaign. This message was distributed across his entire Internet presence and formed the cornerstone of his web strategy. Furthermore, not only did Obama have a message of hope and change, but he positioned himself as the one to provide hope and deliver change. He branded himself as the agent for change and his message supported his brand.

Obama 2.0
Obama fully embraced the Internet and the power of Web 2.0. A large part of his Internet strategy focused on using social networks to communicate, engage and build relationships with people.

Obama had a presence on all of the top social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Eventful, and YouTube. He also participated on some niche social networking sites like BlackPlanet, Faithbase, MiGente, AsianAve, and MyBatanga. Not only that, but Obama also created his own social networking site to converse with and empower supporters.

The key to Obama’s online success was that he didn’t just have a presence on these social networking sites, but he actively participated in these online communities. He accepted friends, befriended others, added favorites, uploaded videos, and posted messages.

The Obama campaign also posted ads on Facebook, uploaded PDFs to Scribd, and shared photos on Flickr. They embraced all that Web 2.0 could offer their campaign.

The 44th President
New technology is shrinking the world we live in and Obama’s success can show us just how much of a difference utilising these technologies can make. Whilst his election can be attributed to many factors, Obama’s US Presidential Campaign leveraged the Internet, Web 2.0, and social networks to deliver his message, expose his brand, and drive traffic to his offers.

Entrepreneurs and Internet Marketers alike could learn a lot from his strategy.

Google has decided to abandon its advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid having a “protracted legal battle” with regulators.The deal, which was featured in last month’s SEO newsletter, involved Google providing some of the advertising around Yahoo’s search results and would have been worth $800m (£494m) a year to Yahoo.

It was originally announced in June but has faced anti-trust objections.

Yahoo said in a statement it was disappointed that Google had decided not to fight for the deal in court. However, Google said it would not allow the prospect of a legal battle to distract it from its core mission.

Now that the Google deal has fallen through, Yahoo may find itself having to try to do another deal with Microsoft, although Microsoft has publicly said it is no longer interested.

(Source: BBC Technology News, 5/11/2008)

Google’s grip on the search market shows no sign of slipping as they put the finishing touches to a controversial search advertising partnership with long-term rival Yahoo.

The deal was originally announced in June of this year and once finalised will allow Google to sell advertising for some of Yahoo’s online advertising space. Their coming together has been very unpopular with online advertisers who fear higher prices as a result.

For industry experts the deal is widely seen as an effort by Google to fend off Microsoft’s efforts to acquire Yahoo, by bringing Yahoo an additional $800 million in annual revenues. If successful the deal will further strengthen Google’s market position.

Indeed, recent research by comScore Inc has shown Google’s web-search market share widen to 63 percent in August, while Yahoo dropped to 19.6 percent and Microsoft slipped to 8.3 percent.

Whilst both companies have recently agreed to US regulators’ requests to look into the proposed contract this is not expected to delay the deal beyond the end of this month.