Although he delayed it as long as he could, on Wednesday 1st February 2012, Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerburg filed their S-1 Documents[1] disclosing the company’s plans to seek $5 Billion ahead of an I.P.O.(Initial Public Offering) which will beat Google’s 2004 offering to become the world’s largest initial public offering of an Internet company. Facebook stocks, & those of companies with even miniscule associations to Facebook went, “soaring in trading”[2].

The release of their S-1 Documents revealed interesting information about Facebook’s business operations. Most of the Social Network’s revenue is generated from advertising & associated fees, their payment infrastructure enables users to buy virtual and digital goods from their Platform developers. Of the $3.71 Billion[1] revenue generated in 2011, $445 million was made through virtual goods sold by Zynga Games who account for approximately 12% of Facebook’s revenue with Facebook taking 30% of all Virtual Goods sold by Zynga Games, such as FarmVille and CityVille.

Facebook’s public offering will make it a public company, enabling anyone to buy shares in the company. Though this means huge amounts of cashflow for the company to further their visions, it also means monetising the company which could compromise Mark Zucherburg’s idealistic & user based approach to running the pioneer social network. Just as Apple challenged Microsoft for Software supremacy, Facebook now challenges Google for Internet supremacy. To strengthen this challenge, they will have to begin to split focus as their users, who have always been at the fore of their business and who form the basis of the business value proposition will now become the product of their business, firstly, and secondly the shareholders will now also need to see returns on their investments.

The company is expected to be listed on New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq in a few months and investors from around the world will be watching eagerly to see how this long awaited listing performs. Internet advertisers will be looking to see what this does to the performance of their ads, especially in comparison to long dominant Google.

References:
[1]: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm
[2]: http://mashable.com/2012/02/02/facebook-ipo-tech-stocks/

During the last month, I have been keeping a keen eye on Google’s new approach to search. In my previous article, The Impact of Personalized Search on SEO, I mentioned that the decision to include Google+ social content in search results might not be welcomed by everyone. This especially stems from the fact that it seems as if Google places priority to Google+ information in its search results. One can argue that Google is entitled to include Google+ content, since they own the search engine. Also, Google mentioned that they would index data from Facebook and Twitter if they made their platforms open. One thing that is certainly sure however, is that Google has received significant backlash because of the decision.

Google’s social rival, the massively popular micro blogging site Twitter, are on the forefront of the accusing camp. After the new search algorithm was launched by Google, Twitter accused Google of trying to drive traffic to their social network by manipulating search results. A Twitter representative made the following statement: “For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter, as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users”.

Personally, I think Twitter has a point. Twitter has had a massive social impact over the last few years (the “Twitter Revolutions” for example) and breaking news can often be found first on Twitter. If results from Twitter (or any other site for that matter) is the most relevant, the information should be available first in Google search results. This also ties in with the aforementioned Search Engine Optimisation. If you have to compete with only slightly relevant data from Google itself, you’re in for a losing battle. One option is to embrace the change from a social marketing perspective. But is this really best for the user?

In conclusion, it seems that many are worried that relevant results get pushed down in favour of Google + content. Fundamentally, relevancy is what it all boils down to. Google might not be in the wrong here, they are certainly entitled to promote their social network, but they should not compromise the quality of their search results in the process.

Twitter/Facebook - image credit - www.cbsnews.com

Facebook launched a new app, the Timeline Movie Maker yesterday.  Built by the Marketing Agency, Definition6, this new application is fun, user-friendly and easy to use (and add to your profile).

All you need do is sign in to your Facebook account, type ‘Timeline Movie Maker’ into the Search bar at the top, “Like” the page and go to the app.

When the light blue block appears on your screen with a small green block at the bottom saying “Make your movie”, it will start doing just that – make your very own movie!

After this process, you will be able to watch your Timeline Movie and make changes to it by adding or deleting photos at the bottom of the screen in your gallery. On top of the gallery you can even add music to complete a real ‘Timeline Music Video’ of your chosen range of photos.

http://www.timelinemoviemaker.com/

This is fun and so easy!  If you haven’t switched to Facebook Timeline…now is the time to do it!

Can you believe it’s already the end of January 2012. In this article I will quickly recap on some highlights of 2011 and what we can expect in 2012 when it comes to technology world-wide and in South Africa.

2011

One of the most exciting launches in 2011 was the launch of the iPhone 4S, officially launched in South Africa December 16th 2011. The new member of the iPhone family has a dual core processor, improved camera (8 megapixels) and improved video capturing capabilities. With this Apple set a new standard for the development of Super Phones.

After months of speculation Google launched their new attempt at Social Media. Google Plus (Google+) was launched in mid 2011. The platform seems to be a combination of features from existing social media platforms and is visually very plain and simple to understand. It remains to be seen if Google+ will play a big role in Social Media or will it come to an end like its predecessor Google Wave.

YouTube got a little renovation. In 2011 YouTube improved the user experience of their website. They changed the layout to make navigation and finding channels easier and also made it visually more appealing.
Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5B, a dedicated Android partner, which will enable Google to supercharge the android ecosystem.

2012

Mobile! I think a lot of tech companies will be focusing on building better and more functional mobile applications as the market for smart and super phones is exploding. Mobile penetration in Africa especially is higher than some European countries. I think we’ll see a lot of innovation in the mobile application sector especially in terms of location based services, social networking, mobile commerce and mobile banking. I think we’ll also see advances when it comes to mobile hardware especially battery life.

Social media should have a large impact on search engines delivering more personalized search results than ever before. I also think Google and other large search engines will take social media more in account when it comes to delivering organic search results using user generated information to establish whether a website is a good resource or not. See Marcel’s article: The Impact of Personalized Search on SEO

Android will probably increase their market share in mobile device operating systems with the purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Whatever is in store for us for the year 2012 – it will be an exciting year for technology. I am sure we’ll see great innovation in technology in general and especially in mobile devices.

Is your Facebook page secure?  Before you answer that, let me rephrase: Is your virtual home locked up, safe and secure? The importance of this lies in the fact that, while we don’t always perceive it as such, your Facebook page quite literally represents a virtual home. It is thus very important to keep your Facebook page locked against intruders, and it needs to be a safe place for your fans to visit.

So how do we ensure the safety of our Facebook pages?

While there might be hundreds of ways out there, let’s look at some of the ways we have found to work:

• Moderate your page admins:
  It is very important to remember to delete your page admins if they are not working on your Facebook page. This will prevent people having access to your Facebook profile who no longer should.

• Do research about your third party application:
  Today there is a bunch full of applications on Facebook which help you promote your company better and to interact better with your fans. It is very important to do research about the application before you download it on your Facebook page. You need to be sure of what information the application will access and if the developing company of the application is committed to security as you are. This is only to protect yourself, because if the developing company gets hacked, the chances are very good that your information will also be hacked.

• Change your password and protect it:
  Remember to change your password on a regular basis to prevent from being hacked. Also, try not to use the same password for your entire social media platforms it will make it easier to hack all your profiles at once. If you are not good with passwords it’s a good idea to make use of Passpack. Passpack is an online Password Manage Website which help  store personal, work and client logins in one master list, then choose what to share with whom and when.

• Moderate your wall:
  You might wonder what this has to do with page security. Well, hackers can monitor and see if there is activity or not on your wall. If there is no activity, they can put links on your wall for your fans to click on and you definitely don’t want to lose your fans by clicking on those links. Moderate your page and be interactive with your fans.

Remember the golden rule: Your Facebook page is your virtual home, keep it locked and make it a safe “place” for your fans to visit.

Happy Facebooking!