Mar 14 2009
News Round-up – Week Ending March 13, 2009
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- According to a new research study by Nielson Online, social sites like Facebook have surpassed e-mail as the number one online activity, with two-thirds of the world’s population visiting social networking or blogging sites. What’s more, the “stickiness” of these sites is expanding, with one of every 11 minutes spent online being devoted to social networking activities. And, in a finding to confirm the frustration and consternation of many teenagers, the fastest growing audience on Facebook is the 35-49 age group. Which may explain such Facebook groups as “Cool Parents Who Have Facebooks”, although we at digitalhhr can proudly say we have avoided joining that one.)
- In perhaps one more sign of the ubiquity of social networking sites, Citigroup is rolling out a MySpace-branded Visa credit card. Its marketing pitch is geared to fiscal responsibility-a bit of an ironic twist considering Citibank’s own (mis)adventures in that area. But Citibank is also trying to preach to its intended audience, providing bonus points to be used for concerts, movie premieres and music downloads, as well as the ability to earn points for donations and charitable deeds. Citi has also adopted a “manifesto” including such planks as “The environment, the economy, our very security …They’re the consequences of people not thinking about consequences.”
- In the coming weeks, members of the Online Publishers Association (OPA) such as ESPN, Forbes.com and iVillage plan to roll out new, flashier, in-your-face, ad display units aimed at grabbing visitor attention better than the average banner ad. While enabling advertisers to get more creative with their online ads, the new formats will hopefully help publishers make more money from fewer ads, since an abundance of ad inventory has been depressing revenue.
- Continuing the social networking news, Hulu quietly added a new social networking feature that allows users to add friends, recommend videos or shows to one another and leave messages for one another, a la Facebook. The site, which just celebrated its 1st birthday has even more reason to celebrate. In just one year, it has become the number two site among the top online video properties, with 9.5 million unique viewers in February viewing 308 million video streams.
- Google introduced its Google Voice integrated phone service, which was built on top of technology developed by GrandCentral, a company acquired by Google in 2007. With its host of features, Google seems to be aiming less at replacing any one telephone service-such as VoIP or voicemail transcription or conference calling-and more at insinuating itself in as many aspects of telecommunications services as possible.
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