(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

1. Mainstream and Large Scale Networks

Our Choice: MySpace

People’s Choice: Multiply

Hot for 2007: Bebo, Vox, Facebook, Facebox

View Nominees

You can say what you like about MySpace - horrible code, ugly design, a failure to embrace outside developers - but the users don’t seem to care. With over 140 million accounts (not all active, admittedly), MySpace has become a cultural phenomenon. The site’s standout feature is the freedom it provides to users - you can add slideshows, pictures, custom designs and much more. MySpace is also the number one destination online for upcoming bands, and their plan to sell music from these bands next year is surely set to reshape the music industry. We see MySpace as the new MTV, with one crucial difference: the users are the stars. With a MySpace page, anyone can be a celebrity, creating an online image that’s sometimes an alter-ego to their true personality. In the coming year, MySpace plans to expand to the massive Chinese market (see MySpace China). We’re not convinced that they can stand up to local competition, but we’re keen to find out.

Meanwhile, we think Bebo is the most “exciting” social network right now. With a massive user base and a site that actually works, we think they’ll grow rapidly in 2007.

We like Multiply, and so do Multiply’s dedicated users. A small post about the Social Networking Awards on the Multiply blog resulted in a landslide win for the social network, which emphasizes networking with real friends. We’ve expressed concerns in the past that this “closed” model may slow their growth, but we also feel that it differentiates Multiply from the hordes of MySpace clones. That said, Multiply now has a major competitor. Vox, which came second in terms of votes despite the lack of coaxing by the Vox team, is an outstanding blog platform. We were bowled over by it when it launched in October, and if we had a “hosted blogs” category, we would have chosen Vox.

So how about the other nominees? Facebook might not be the most popular among our readership, but the majority of college students consider it to be an essential tool. However, we’re a little less optimistic about Facebook than we were at the start of the year: now that acquisition talks with Yahoo are off the cards, they may need to go it alone, while the Facebook news feed and the decision to open up the site were risky choices that may or may not pay off. Some are saying that Facebook is set for exponential growth now they allow everybody to join. Others, meanwhile, think they may be the next Friendster - overconfident, and unwilling to listen to their users. That said, Facebook users have no alternative site to defect to - we think that Facebook will continue to grow strongly in 2007.

We also noticed a tongue-in-cheek vote for Walmart’s “School Your Way” site (technically called “The Hub”), which we found hilarious - Walmart’s failed attempt at social networking was a classic example of how to do everything wrong.

2. Widgets and Add-Ons

Our Choice: Slide.com

People’s Choice: Zwinky

Hot for 2007: RockYou, Stickam, Snocap, Zingfu, MyBlogLog

View Nominees

Slide.com and RockYou have been the most talked-about widgets this year, with Slide.com gaining a little more traction with the MySpace set. Both are impressive products which give users the freedom to express themselves. Even the launch of MySpace’s own service, MySpace slideshows, didn’t put a dent in the popularity of these two slideshow tools. Zingfu, another one of our favorites this year, has also achieved success by allowing users to create funny images of themselves and their friends. Meanwhile, we think Stickam’s live webcams are a killer idea, and the service will be a big success. We’re also hopeful that MyBlogLog, a service that helps communities to form around blogs, will successfully expand to the mainstream in 2007 - they added support for MySpace only a few weeks ago, and we think that could be crucial.

The popular vote, meanwhile, went to Zwinky. The avatar service has a huge, dedicated user base consisting largely of teens. In our original review, we said that Zwinky “will probably be a massive viral success despite a lack of interest from the geek elite”. We stand by that claim going into 2007.

3. Social News and Social Bookmarking

Our Choice: Digg

People’s Choice: Trailfire

Hot for 2007: Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Blinklist

View Nominees

As the site that defined social news as we know it, we had no hesitation in choosing Digg as our pick in this category. Digg’s ability to send massive amounts of traffic to any site became legendary, while it has largely eclipsed Slashdot as the hot hangout for tech addicts. We’ve yet to see whether the site’s expansion beyond technology will succeed, but we still feel that Digg’s contribution to the social space has been vital. Meanwhile del.icio.us, the undisputed leader of social bookmarking, has continued its unstoppable momentum this year, and will probably do so in 2007. But we also love StumbleUpon: the 4 year-old site shows us that not all successful startups were an instant hit. Even so, the enthusiasm for StumbleUpon is almost universal, and we like their new StumbleVideo service.

Your choice was Trailfire, a service that lets you create “trails” of pages and share them with others. We gave the service a cautiously positive review when it launched, and we’d still love the ability to create new trails without downloading the browser plugin.

4. Sports and Fitness

Our Choice: FanNation

People’s Choice: Takkle

Hot for 2007: SportsVite, Ultrafan

View Nominees

This category had some very strong contenders. The People’s Choice went to the high school sports site Takkle (we like it too), while we picked FanNation. As we’ve said in the past, FanNation’s interface can be a little bamboozling at first, but we think overall the site’s design and feature set is strong. We feel the same way about Takkle, which has improved dramatically with the recent addition of video. However, SportsVite and Ultrafan were also very strong, and new to us. We hope to have more coverage of all these sites in the New Year. Our testing also suggested that none of these sites has established a large user base yet - there’s still plenty of opportunity for newcomers in this market.

5. Photo Sharing

Our Choice: Flickr

People’s Choice: Twango

Hot for 2007: Zooomr, Webshots, ImageShack, Tabblo, Pickle, BubbleShare

View Nominees

Our choice in this category is probably fairly predictable: Flickr was one of the early innovators in the photo-sharing space, to the extent that other new photo-sharing sites began to be labeled “Flickr clones”. Perhaps one of the biggest innovators this year has been Zooomr, which has added features at a tremendous pace - they lost out narrowly in the voting to the media-sharing site Twango (we also gave that one a fairly positive review this year), but we think Zooomr might be one of the hottest players as we go into 2007. We’re also excited about BubbleShare, a startup that hasn’t gained much coverage here, but seems to have some innovative ideas. And let’s not forget about Webshots, which was massively improved by a redesign and the addition of many new features this year.

6. Video Sharing

Our Choice: YouTube

People’s Choice: Gotuit

Hot for 2007: Metacafe, Motionbox, Revver, vSocial, StupidVideos, Blip.tv, iFilm, Eyespot

View Nominees

How could we fail to choose YouTube for this category? Almost certainly the hottest startup this year, YouTube not only outpaced the competition, but provided a genuine threat to existing media companies. Their acquisition by Google showed just how far the service had come, and the appearance of a YouTube video player on the front page of Time Magazine ended the year on a high. Your pick, meanwhile, was Gotuit, which recently took social tagging a step further with the launch of its SceneMaker tool.

But frankly, there were a lot of interesting video startups this year. We also loved Jumpcut, Grouper, Eyespot, Motionbox, Veoh, Metacafe, Revver, vSocial, vPod.tv, StupidVideos, Blip.tv and iFilm - in fact, all the nominees provide hours of entertainment (or time wasting!), and all have innovated at a fast pace. And let’s not forget about MySpace Video: it might not be a hot startup, but MySpace members seem to be making good use of the video section. In fact, MySpace Video versus YouTube will probably be the hardest fought battle in the video space next year.

7. Startpages

Our Choice: Netvibes

People’s Choice: Pageflakes

Hot for 2007: YourMinis, Protopage, Webwag

View Nominees

There’s little doubt that Pageflakes and Netvibes are considered the top of their class. Having joined late in the game, when Netvibes was already leading the pack, we doubted that Pageflakes could make much headway - they proved us wrong, and Pageflakes is now considered to be one of the strongest contenders in this market. Netvibes also performed well in the voting, while YourMinis attracted a good amount of grassroots support - we gave them a positive review back in November. We think Webwag is also a strong contender, but once again we’re wondering whether the newcomers can make progress in this market.

8. Places and Events

Our Choice: Yelp

People’s Choice: CollegeTonight

Hot for 2007: MingleNow, HeyLetsGo, Planypus, ILCU (and others)

View Nominees

Although neither service has gained must coverage on Mashable this year, largely due to a lack of announcements, we still feel that Yelp and Upcoming.org are among the leading players in this market. Meetup is also an established community that deserves props. The People’s Choice, meanwhile, went to CollegeTonight, which successfully rallied its user base to score a high number of votes.

However, the other nominees were all strong - HeyLetsGo, Vibely, MingleNow, Planypus, ILCU, OnMyCity, Do512, eVelvetRope, Eventful, TripTie, TripAdvisor, Gusto, Travelistic and the rest. We feel, however, that this market is still getting established, and that makes it hard to tell which of the newcomers will make gains. We hope to return to these sites throughout 2007.

9. Music

Our Choice: Last.fm

People’s Choice: ReverbNation, MOG

Hot for 2007: Pandora, YourSpins, Rapspace, ProjectOpus, iLike, Splice, MusicHawk and More

View Nominees

When it came to choosing our favorite musical site, it really came down to two choices: Last.fm and Pandora. The clincher: Last.fm has always been inherently social, while Pandora has only added social features very recently, and we’ve yet to see how users react to them. The People’s Choice, meanwhile, was neck and neck - when we closed the voting, the number of votes for ReverbNation and MOG was so close that we’re declaring both as the winners. We don’t strongly disagree with your choice: we gave positive reviews to both sites earlier this year. However, we’d also like to say that ProjectOpus, YourSpins, Qloud, iLike, Jamendo, Splice, Bandwagon, Finetune, MusicHawk and - quite frankly - all the suggestions we received for this category have been great. Generally speaking, musical social networks seem to be of a very high caliber. Although it launched in pre-Mashable days, we’re also big fans of PureVolume, which is considered to be the leading musical social network by many, many users.

10. Social Shopping

Our Choice: Etsy

People’s Choice: ThisNext

Hot for 2007: Crowdstorm, Kaboodle, ShopWiki, StyleFeeder

View Nominees

Kaboodle is probably one of the first startups that come to mind when you think of social shopping, but we decided to pick a startup that we think has been a great innovator: Etsy. Etsy doesn’t compete directly with the other contenders - it’s more like eBay than a shopping directory - but we like their “shop by color” tools, their “Time Machine” and their “GeoLocator”. That said, we’re also big fans of UK startup Crowdstorm and your choice, ThisNext. StyleFeeder is new to the scene, and has a strong offering - we think it could get traction in 2007. Likewise, ShopWiki and Hawkee get credit for creating strong products this year.

11. Mobile

Our Choice: Twitter

People’s Choice: Wadja

Hot for 2007: Friendstribe, JuiceCaster, Zingku, Moblabber, Zemble, Veeker, Treemo

View Nominees

The mobile space is just getting started: in fact, we don’t think anyone will know the true winners here until mid 2007. Call us geeky, but we liked Twitter’s lightweight mobile blogging service this year, while the People’s Vote went to Wadja, which offers mobile social networking via text message. That said, we simply don’t know how this market will shake out, and for most of these startups, it’s just too early to judge. At the start of the year, it seemed that Dodgeball, which was acquired by Google in 2005, would be a hot favorite. But the service seems to have been less buzzworthy this year, and we’re not really sure why.

12. Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

Our Choice: Flixster

People’s Choice: Dogster, LibraryThing

Hot for 2007: SneakerPlay, MothersClick, Motortopia, Minti, ComicSpace, Curbly, MyChurch, Ziki, VeryLiberating, ITtoolbox, Fanpop, ShareYourLook, FamilyThrive, Blubrry, innerTee, Listal, ConnectingMoms, FirstGiving, RealityAllStarz, CafeMom, BeGreen, AdFemme, Dianovo, eLifeList, CampusBug, SnehaH, HumanOpinion, MerchantCircle, Barrio305, GenevaOnline, MDJunction (list too long to post images!)

View Nominees

We’ve said before that Dogster, the social network that lets dogs connect (or more accurately, their adoring owners), is the premier example of serving a niche. We also received lots of positive feedback on LibraryThing when we covered them in the past - maybe it’s unsurprising, then, that these two sites were almost perfectly tied when it came to the voting. So we did the fair thing and awarded both sites top ranking. Our choice, meanwhile, was Flixster - we feel that Flixster has a product that will appeal strongly to mainstream users (and if their claimed stats are true, it already is), but that it will go under the radar for the geek elite.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jon Peck and friends take a Nintendo Wii to a movie theater to see just how big of a "wii-diculous" experience they can have. Check out the video for some mega-screen Wii Sports action.

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(* Source: Charlie Zicari *)

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(* Source: Daniel Turman *)

Last Saturday Justin Timberlake hosted Saturday Night Live. The previous Tuesday, Lorne Michaels had summoned Andy Samberg (Berkeley High represent!) to his office. Michaels asked if Samberg could come up with a sketch to showcase Timberlake’s vocal chops.  By Thursday, he had and presented a rough draft of the song to JT. They recorded it that night and shot the videos on Friday and Saturday. Then came the fun part: in a television first, the producers lobbied NBC execs to release an uncensored version of the digital short. Not having seen it yet, they then had what must have been one of the oddest successions of executive-level meetings in history. The final piece was played first for the NBC executive responsible for late-night programming Rick Ludwin. He brought along someone from legal. Ludwin bounced it upstairs for the final final, which came from Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, and Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal Television Group. Holy crap! The mere thought of these fine gentlemen of broadcasting sitting down to earnestly consider a video of Justin Timberlake singing about regifting a particular part of his anatomy makes me laugh almost as hard as the video did.

In an unprecedented move, the execs green lit the sketch and approved a second, uncensored version for release on YouTube. A “director’s cut” as it were. This version is currently burning up YouTube and closing in on three million views. Countless others have watched the original, censored version. This is in sharp contrast to the volatile exchange that occurred a little less than a year ago when NBC issued a cease-and-desist order to YouTube over the web rebroadcast of “Lazy Sunday,” another Samberg effort.

For any HR-type folk that punch through to JT and Samberg’s little ditty, I can only offer in my defense that this—the censored version—already appeared on network TV.

As for the other, more noteworthy version, you can see the NSFW clip here if you must.

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(* Source: Dan Sicko *)

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(* Source: David Feldt *)

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(* Source: Angela Di Pietro *)

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(* Source: David Feldt *)

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(* Source: Ross Dawson *) 

Given it’s festive season now, it’s probably time for a bit of fun. Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have collaborated in producing a map of major trends for 2007 and beyond, across ten segments: society & culture, government & politics, work & business, media & communications, science & technology, food & drink, medicine & well-being, financial services, retail & leisure, and transport & automotive. Click on the map below to get the full pdf.

Trend Blend 2007+ map

Posted by brian tiong at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: DMW *) 

 
News Corp.'s websites, which include the MySpace social network, overtook the Yahoo network as the most-visited sites by U.S. users during November, according to audience data from comScore Media Metrix. Total visits to Fox Interactive Media websites in November totaled 39.5 million, up from 38.7 million in October, while Yahoo's page view tally fell from 41.6 million in October to 38.1 million in November. Yahoo told Reuters that a transition to more "Web 2.0" technologies eliminated the need for as many page views, causing the downturn. The company also argued that it still has a larger audience and serves far more ads on its sites than does News Corp. Fox Interactive Media said its rise in page view totals could be attributed to the 200% growth in MySpace traffic over the past year, as well as to users seeking information on new video game consoles from its IGN.com destination.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

#10 Tagging
Descriptive words, aka metadata, assigned to content like blog postings, photos or videos to facilitate in-site searching and sharing.

• Leaders: Flickr Del.icio.us Digg Shadows
• Opportunity: 100 bricks of gold to the company that combines this well with SEO

#9 PodCasts
Audio and/or Video content downloadable to a device like an iPod for playback. PodCast is a fancy term for content on demand.

• Leaders: Podcast Alley, Odeo, PodShow, Juice, itunes
• Opportunity: Content is still king in this medium. Find the right programing that will appeal to the 24% of online North Americans interested podcasting but don’t do it, and it’ll rain pennies from heaven.

#8 C2C eCommerce
Sites that enable Consumers to sell to Consumers with web properties often skimming a facilitation fee.

• Leaders: eBay, Amazon, etsy, craigslist
• Opportunity: About a quarter of online North Americans and just over a fifth of online Europeans buy and/or sell online. The biggest drag (and always has been) is delivery charges. Couriers should get into this business.

#7 Comparison Shopping Sites
Head to head comparison sites where consumers write and review the content.

• Leaders: PriceGrabber, Froogle, Shopzilla
• Opportunity: Corporate transparency is quickly becoming a reality in modern business. If you make a good product and don’t lie in your marketing, you will win. This is true of every product and service in every industry. If you don’t follow this advice, your company will fail within 10 years. Radical Trust me.

#6 P2P File Sharing
Here the users act as both client and host, exchanging audio, video, photos, software, etc, over a decentralized server network.

• Leaders: BitTorrent Kazaa eDonkey
• Opportunity: The music business should stop fighting and start feeding it. Provide your content on these networks, and make your money in concerts and royalties from other sources. Simple enough eh?

#5 Wikis
Shared web publishing software that allows users to edit content.

• Leaders: Wikipedia, Socialtext, Basecamp, jotspot
• Opportunity: Accolades to the Dr. who puts this type of social media into scientific research. Think of the wiki application to track bird migrations in ornithology. This is also the ultimate democratic tool. Unite “the left” with agreements on environmental, social and economical issues with a wiki-policy tool.

#4 Search Engines
Web searches based on user specified terms.

• Leaders: Google, Yahoo! MSN AOL Technorati Ask
• Opportunity: Almost 80% of American surfers use search engines weekly. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your content is the most important thing you can do to raise your profile online. If I had it to do all over again, I would make myself an expert SEO’r.

#3 RSS
Call it Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, or whatever you want, RSS is quickly becoming the new norm in content collection. Why go to a each site via bookmarks when you can bring the site to you?

• Leaders: Bloglines, Newsfire, FeedBurner Pluck, NewsGater
• Opportunity: 6% of online North American’s use RSS feeds weekly, this number is growing rapidly. The OS that integrates RSS tightly into the UXP will be the winner of this race for sure. Marketers take heed. “Design, build and post” may not cut it in the future. What you need is post and feed.

#2 Blogs
Online journals with content management systems allowing for rapid publication. Blogs often include text, photos, video and other media.

• Leading Blog Enablers: TypePad, WordPress, Blogger, Weblogs, Windows Live Spaces
  
• Leading Blogs: Boing Boing, Autoblog, Gawker Network, LifeHacker
• Opportunity: This is the new journalism. Blogs will eventually replace newspapers as 10% of online North Americans already go to them weekly.

#1 Social Networks
Destinations that enable users to customize, maintain and control their own personal network of contacts.

• Leaders: MySpace FaceBook Friendster Linkedin YouTube
• Opportunity: This rapidly growing segment has increased by 50% from 2004 and the trend is expected to continue. Marketers should stop trying to build and start partnering with these guys. The people that can truly crack social networks with sustainable relationships will literally change the face of marketing.

So there it is on a silver platter. A quick cheat sheet of the best Social Media Tools, each complete with description, best practices and the business opportunities they present. You have no excuse not to succeed!

Posted by brian tiong at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jake Bennett *)

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You know you’re on a roll when you strike up a partnership with one of the world’s biggest brands. Today, YouTube and Coca Cola are launching Holiday WishCast, a promotion that lets users send video greetings to their friends and family, and also features messages from the growing number of YouTube stars like Renetto (this makes you wonder whether these personalities are now getting paid as a result of their celebrity status - note that a few are actually gaming their stats). WishCast is being promoted on both YouTube and Coca-Cola.com, and presumably YouTube are making a decent amount of cash from the sponsorship, as they did with the sponsored contest YouTube Underground.

In short, they’re combining the email greetings market with online video: select one of your existing videos, upload a new one or choose from the ready-made “celebrity” clips from the likes of Geriatric1927, Boh3m3, TerraNaomi, Renetto, TheWineKone and LisaNova, adding your own personal message. Being a Coke promotion, you can also share famous holiday-themed Coke ads.

Clearly, this is a neat idea that helps to build both brands. And once again, YouTube proves that online video can indeed be monetized.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kelvin Beecroft *)

As the end of 2006 approaches, it’s clear that MySpace has spawned a cottage industry of sites supplying add-on content or media sharing services for profile owners. Many of these sites have seen phenomenal growth this year while at the same time questions loom around how to monetize. It’s interesting now to look at the top sites to see how they’re embracing such questions because for them this market is becoming big business.

This post is a look at the top add-on sites using a simple metric – reach. This is our measure of the number of profiles containing content from any of nearly 300 sites we’re tracking. We’re going to eliminate MySpace’s own widgets because we’re only interested in third party sites here. If we had included MySpace then their MySpace music player would certainly be in this list. We’re also going to look at sites as aggregate rather than individual widgets.

So, who’s in the top 10 for 2006? The table to the right shows Photobucket way out in the lead as the top add-on site by hosting content (photos, videos and slideshows) for nearly 17 million MySpace pages. But there’s more to this statistic than meets the eye. The number three site, Freeweblayouts.net, interestingly uses Photobucket for hosting of their layout graphics such as backgrounds. The same thing is going on with ImageShack and other layout sites. These are mutually beneficial relationships because they indirectly increase the user base for photo sharing sites (thus increasing hits) while providing reliable image hosting for layout sites. This demonstrates the value of establishing good partners in fast growing markets and being able to identify who good potential partners might be.

YouTube needs no introduction after their $1.65B deal.

But not everyone’s heard of Kwiz.biz, which came in at eighth place. They let you write survey questions such as “What do you dream about?” and then share those on MySpace or other social networking sites. This is a bright idea because it’s entirely user generated content which means lots of visitors to the Kwiz.biz website. They report over 30 million “kwizzes” taken. Since the site is monetized by AdSense those visitors translate into lots of clicks. This brings us to the mother of all AdSense sites – MySpace layouts sites.

All remaining sites in the top 10 are in some way involved with layouts. Be it pre-made layouts, or editors or glitter text. These sites are almost entirely monetized with heavy AdSense advertising. Sometimes the ads are so thick it’s difficult to distinguish content from ads. This list includes Freeweblayouts.net, Freecodesource, Blinkyou, Coolmyspacecomments, Mynicespace and Hotfreelayouts.

In this top 10 list we find two different financial models. First are the sites with venture-capital millions which try to get big and then figure out how to make money, e.g. YouTube. Second are ad-monetized sites with no aspirations of becoming the next YouTube. They are satisfied with getting rich 5 cents a click. I expect this list to look dramatically different one year for now because this time one year ago these sites were unheard of by most of us.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul MacGregor *) 

So Mrs. Murdoch is going back to her motherland to launch MySpace China. News Corp has long battled (with varying success) to get a foothold in the world's most populous market, however getting the wife involved certainly shows that Rupert is taking this one seriously. The question remains, will they succeed?

Let's look at the facts: MySpace is not the number one social networking site in Asia. Friendster still rules across South East Asia, matrimonial sites are revolutionising relationships in India, Bebo is number one in New Zealand and Cyworld is the undisputed king of Korea.

As far as China is concerned, the competition is stiff, local networking sites like Mop, Tianya and Qihu all have the headstart in awareness and usage (would you join a network which none of your friends are on?). Even baidu.com (China's largest search engine) has announced it's launching networking capabilities. Google, Yahoo and Ebay have all found China difficult as it seems that as far as media is concerned, people prefer local brands.

The key for MySpace is that they know China is not some internet backwater, with an estimated online population of 140m and the world's second largest broadband penetration, it offers a scale unimaginable anywhere else in the world. One awesome fact from Marlin & Associates states that China's population spend a cumulative 1.8 billion hours online each week, 14 times more than the U.S.

Young Chinese love the freedom the internet delivers. Tight family units mean that whilst parents or grandparents rule the television, young people own the internet. Whether it be surfing, IM, gaming or homework, the internet has been revolutionary in their lives.

More than anything, the internet offers the best opportunity for personal expression. Tying the little emperor syndrome with the "This Is Me!" DNA of social networking delivers huge potential. Young people have a voice, they want to use it and the internet delivers a relatively unregulated opportunity to deliver it. One great example is the phenomenon of hate walls and how they are acting as an outlet for emotional baggage.

There is no doubt that the opportunity is huge for MySpace China and as long as Mrs. Murdoch can secure a great business partnership, all News Corp would have to do is deliver a product which resonates with Chinese consumers as well as it has done elsewhere in the world.

AOL launched a neat service for AIM users today: AIM Share allows you to share a URL or message with all your buddies at once by entering it on the site. The message appears in the Buddy Updates section of their IM client (presumably they need to be using AIM 6.0, and those using Trillian or Meebo won’t get the message). Better still, there’s a browser bookmarklet that lets you submit the page you’re viewing, similar to those on del.icio.us or Digg. You’ll need to sign in to AIM to use the service, of course. It’s also worth mentioning that Facebook’s bookmarking service is called Share, too.

The service is part of AIM’s Buddy Updates system, which lets your buddies subscribe to your AIM feed in the AIM client, AIM Pages or any RSS reader and receive updates when you submit content to sites of your choice. These include Blogger, Webshots, MySpace, YouTube, Xanga and more, as I mentioned when AIM 6.0 launched.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: DMW *) 

Glasgow, Scotland - Scoopt, a citizen journalism picture agency, has offered users of photo-sharing site Flickr the ability to syndicate their photos for sale to news agencies through its service. Flickr members who tag their images with the keyword "scoopt" will have their images pushed to the Scotland-based company's media buyers. Sales revenue will be split 50/50 between Scoopt and the photographer, with the photographer retaining full copyrights on their photos.

More here.

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(* Source: Link via Fimoculous *)

Amazon has launched a new site, "Unspun", that's essentially like "Digg" for lists. You can view lists such as "Top Beers" or "Best Movies That Have Come Out in 2006", where "best" means the most user votes. Unspun of course allows you to create your own list, as well as showing you localized lists for things such as "Top Sushi Restaurants in Dallas, TX." Worth checking out.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you’ve been following the MySpace Layouts trend, you might already be familiar with Zwinky, a brand that seems to appear frequently on those sites. Yesterday, Zwinky launched officially and claimed more than 2 million unique users - not bad going when you consider that the service only began its beta in June. Zwinky is owned by IAC, most famous for its Ask.com property.

Like WeeMee/WeeWorld and Meez, Zwinky provides portable avatars to post on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks - changing your avatar on the service automatically updates it elsewhere. Unlike rival services, avatars are created using a toolbar that bundles a bunch of other IAC services: Smiley Central, Cursor Mania, Popular Screensavers, the MyWebSearch search box and Search Assistant. Experienced users should be dubious about downloading this stuff - although not malicious, the toolbar adds a large number of features that you might not want. Once downloaded, the toolbar lets you choose from a selection of hairstyles, eye colors, skin tones, outfits, makeup, accessories and backgrounds. What’s more, Zwinky provides MySpace-style profile pages that are totally customizable: drop in a MySpace layout, add YouTube videos, send “Znotes” to other Zwinkies and more.

I’m not overjoyed at the fact that they’ve bundled Zwinky with the MyWebSearch toolbar, but neither was I particularly crazy about the fact that Gigya has its roots in Hotbar. The simple fact is that these two sites are much more tuned in to the MySpace generation than many well-funded Silicon Valley startups, and will probably be massive viral successes despite a lack of interest from the geek elite. Zwinky seems to be doing everything right when it comes to marketing through the network of MySpace add-on sites, and I expect they’ll see great results.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

Social networks are moving into the mobile space so fast that it’s hard to keep up. Montreal-based wireless messaging company Oz is announcing today that they’re taking a range of social networks mobile - Flickr, Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Blogger and others. The launch is really aimed at cellphone companies and handset makers, and it’s an extension of their existing services: offering mobile email and IM from MSN, AOL and Yahoo. Existing customers include Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, with around 70 million instances deployed in North America. The client will start appearing on mobile phones in early 2007, they say, allowing users to browse, post comments, upload photos and video clips, join discussions and receive alerts when their friends update their profiles and blogs.

MySpace users can already access the site on mobiles using specific phones from Helio, and MySpace now has a mobile division. YouTube Mobile is on the way for Verizon phones, and there are scores of third party services that will put social networks on your phone (Orb, for one). We can expect social networking to become a key feature on handsets in 2007.

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(* Source: Daniel Modell *)

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(* Source: Angela DiPietro *)

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 (* Source: Marketing Vox *)

Ad spending on U.S. social-networking sites in 2007 is expected to reach $865 million, up from $350 million in 2006, and will surpass $2 billion in 2010, according to eMarketer.

Ad spending on social-networking sites will reach $2.15 billion in 2010, according to a new eMarketer report, "Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending Update." MySpace will continue to dominate, accounting for 60 percent of total U.S. online social-network ad spend in 2007. MySpace will account for $525 million in 2007 ad spend, up from $180 million in 2006.

Worldwide, social-network ad spending will reach $1.1 billion in 2007, up from $445 million in 2006 - and by 2010 spending is forecast to $2.8 billion worldwide.

Social networks must put adequate ROI measures in place if the flow of ad dollars is to continue, says Debra Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report.

"The longer existing social networks take to develop adequate ROI metrics, the bigger the opening for a next generation of networks that are built from the ground up to accommodate advertising," she says.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Fred Guillet *) 

Universal McCann, ZenithOptimedia and GroupM all came out with their outlooks for 2007 ad spending, and all indicate generally optimistic growth.

The average of the forecasts issued by the three during UBS's weeklong media conference in New York was about a 4.3 percent growth rate in the U.S., and a 5.3 percent rate for worldwide ad spending in 2007, writes MediaPost (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Universal McCann projects a 4.8 percent rise in U.S. spending, whereas ZenithOptimedia predicts a 4.1 percent growth and GroupM expects only 2.0 percent growth. Global predictions from the three were within a tenth of a point of each other.

Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine calls those estimates optimistic. Merrill Lynch expects 2.9 percent growth in 2007 in the U.S, and a 3.6 percent growth globally.

Despite stronger than expected local and regional political ad spending in 2006, it was a relatively soft year for ad spending, mainly because big marketers were reluctant to free up dollars, even in the face of strong and lasting corporate profits.

Nationally, advertisers in the top advertising categories - which represent about half of all U.S. ad spending - were especially loath to boost spending, according to Bob Coen, Universal McCann director of forecasting. That group increased spending by only 2 percent during the first nine months of the year.

Secondary product categories such as telecommunications, computers and insurance have been soaring at a rate of 15 percent during the same period.

Universal McCann expects growth of 3 percent for the four TV networks, 6.5 percent growth for cable TV, and no change in spot TV. Radio should see a 4 percent growth, magazines 5 percent, and newspapers only 1 percent. Direct mail should see a growth of 7.5 percent, while the internet should fly 15 percent. Total local spend should grow by 2.7 percent.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: DMW *) 

Hong Kong - Outblaze on Tuesday introduced OutblazeVideo, a Web-based multimedia editing and sharing application for telcos and portals. The white label service features a customizable interface, search capability, sharing tools and multilevel metadata indexing. Hong Kong-based Outblaze said the first deployment of the service is on the official website of Hello Kitty, SanrioTown.com.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

CNN have launched a service today that’s predictably being referred to as YouTube for news - you can submit your own newsworthy videos, audio clips and articles and perhaps see them on the site and TV. The new service is called CNN Exchange and it’s powered by Blip.tv, which also has its own video-sharing site. This is similar to citizen-journalism sites like SpyMedia, which let you submit your images for inclusion in newpapers, magazines and online.

Late in the game, CNN has realized that YouTube, Grouper, MySpace Video, Google Video, Veoh and other video sharing sites often deliver compelling videos, and they want a piece of the action. In fact, they even used YouTube clips for CNN’s coverage of the fighting in Lebanon.

The problem, of course, is that CNN will try to control the whole experience. While YouTube lets you upload a video and see it on the site straight away, CNN plans to moderate all the submissions and pick out the best ones. It’s also unclear what rights CNN will demand to your content - and it certainly doesn’t look like they plan to pay anyone for their valuable submissions. Suffice to say, it doesn’t sound like a great deal for users.

In related news (Time Warner owns both companies), AOL is set to launch an expanded video sharing site on Friday that combines user-submitted videos with premium content. It’s not clear whether this is related to Uncut Video, AOL’s YouTube clone that appeared in May.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Katie Fehrenbacher *)

(* Source: Richard MacManus and Om Malik *)

I’m mildly whelmed by Yahoo Tech. Taking a more than a little inspiration from existing social software and Web 2.0 design, it’s a fairly attractive site (although admittedly a little cluttered - changing the screen width makes it far more managable). It comes complete with tagging, rating, saved items and - yes! - rounded corners.

The site aggregates content from Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Answers and content providers like Consumer Reports. They’re also employing a team of “advisors” to write blogs on tech topics. Unfortunately, the content isn’t that great. Engadget and Gizmodo provide much more depth and insight, even if they’re not so accessible to the mainstream. Personally, I think there’s an edge model that could work here.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Max Zabramny *)

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(* Source: Reuters *) 

SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - Every year, a new online service seems to creep out of nowhere to capture the public's imagination, causing at once havoc and opportunity for the entertainment industry.

Two years ago it was MySpace. This year it was YouTube.

For next year, the music biz seems to be betting on Second Life.

Simply put, Second Life -- created by San Francisco tech company Linden Labs -- is a virtual world where members navigate through 3-D environments using digital replicas of themselves called avatars. Members chat, play various types of virtual games and spend real money to buy fake goods such as clothes, weapons and houses.

Its popularity is skyrocketing -- growing from 100,000 members at the beginning of 2005 to 400,000 earlier this year to more than 1.5 million members now, with an average of 10,000 members online at any given time. The growth rate now stands at 10 percent-12 percent a month, but analysts predict Second Life could explode to 9 million members by next June.

And then there is the virtual economy. Second Life members spend an average of $350,000 a day buying and selling goods and services using a virtual currency known as Linden Dollars, which can be exchanged for real cash at the rate of about 271 Linden dollars to one U.S. dollar. In the month of October, $9 million of real money was spent within the game.

More here

Posted by brian tiong at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Not content with building some very successful MySpace music players through his company Snocap, Napster founder Shawn Fanning is about to launch another new project in the social networking space: Rupture is a social site for online gamers that has already raised seed money from investors including Joi Ito and Ron Conway. More specifically, the plan is to focus on building a social network around World of Warcraft.

Mashable has already reported on the launch of one World of Warcraft social network, and many more are filling up my inbox. These include MMO Guildsites, a social network for users of MMOGs built on Ruby on Rails (it launched this week) and GuildCafe (launches on Monday). The comments on that original post express mixed opinions: some Warcraft users are interested in connecting with other players through a social network, while others feel that WoW is social enough already.

According to BusinessWeek, which first mentioned the launch, Fanning is a big WoW fan - he’s been climbing the ranks for the past 18 months. He found it frustratingly hard to connect with other plays and organize game play together - hence, Rupture was born. Rupture automatically pulls game data from WoW and posts it to your profile - details like your name and rank. It’s not clear, however, how WoW’s creators Blizzard Entertainment will react to that.

Rupture is in closed beta until launch.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: NYT *) 

If you want a glimpse of the future of advertising, you can hire a consultant — or you can travel to Britain.

The New York Times

Online advertising is racing ahead in Britain, growing at a roughly 40 percent annual rate, and is expected to account for as much as 14 percent of overall ad spending this year, according to media buying agencies. That is the highest level in the world, and more than double the percentage in the United States.

There are big differences between the advertising markets in Britain and the Unites States. In Britain, much of the advertising is national, while there are strong local and regional ad markets in America. Still, some believe that online advertising in Britain provides somewhat of a roadmap for where online ads in the United States and elsewhere may be heading. “The U.S. is so behind,” said Terry S. Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo, in a recent speech in London. “It’s certainly lagging the U.K. by at least a year or two.”

More than their American counterparts, British marketers seem to have bought into the oft-touted benefits of Internet advertising: that it is easy to track, enormously effective and a relative bargain. In Britain, as Internet ad spending surges, the overall advertising pie is not growing much at all, and traditional media are the ones losing out.

However, British media are nearly all aimed nationwide in contrast to the United States newspaper and television markets, where local and regional markets are big players. These local markets in the United States have, so far, been slow to move ad money online.

As recently as 2002, many British advertisers were reluctant to go online, too. That year, British advertising online was 1.4 percent compared with 2.5 percent in the United States, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau in Britain and the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the United States. Each bureau tracks online ad spending in their respective countries.

In the following year, Britain overtook the United States, and it has not looked back. In 2005, nearly 8 percent of British ad dollars went online, compared with 4.6 percent in the United States. And, this year, the two bureaus say, the Internet will account for 10.5 percent of British ad spending compared with 5.6 percent in the United States.

More here. 

Posted by brian tiong at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hoping to turn the millions of people with digital cameras and camera phones into photojournalists, Yahoo and Reuters are introducing a new effort to showcase photographs and video of news events submitted by the public.

Starting tomorrow, the photos and videos submitted will be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News, the most popular news Web site in the United States, according to comScore MediaMetrix. Reuters said that it would also start to distribute some of the submissions next year to the thousands of print, online and broadcast media outlets that subscribe to its news service. Reuters said it hoped to develop a service devoted entirely to user-submitted photographs and video.

More here. 

Posted by brian tiong at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: DMW *) 

More here 

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(* Source: Yahoo News *) 

Broadcasters' and advertisers' efforts to send TV viewers to websites are yielding success, as more than one-third of adults have watched a TV show then engaged in some type of Web activity related to that programming, according to a report from the American Marketing Association. Younger demographics were even more likely to visit sites promoted on TV, as 56% of 18-24 year-olds had done so in the last month; women (25%) were also more likely than men (17%) to have visited a TV-related site.

Adults visiting TV-related websites most often went online to submit a vote or participate in a sweepstakes or contest (21%); watch a previously aired episode (12%); or watch some kind of behind-the-scenes or exclusive video (10%).

"We are seeing the landscape expand where the television experience is being enhanced by other media channels. Broadband is breathing new life into broadcast," said American Marketing Association CEO Dennis Dunlap. "Consumers are embracing the ways that marketers are blending traditional and non-traditional media channels."  

More here. 

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