What seems like a bizarre move, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, told The Telegraph, a British newspaper that Facebook and MySpace are in talks about teaming up and letting users share videos and music content.  This would also mean, that users could sign into their MySpace using their Facebook account information. 

Sandburg said to The Telegraph, “Facebook is focusing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focusing on more a content-led strategy. We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users.” (more…)

A recent survey came of the UK and has estimated that the use of social networking sites by office workers during office hours is costing over $2,250,000,000 a year in England alone.  1,460 office workers who work for Morse, an IT services and technology company, were surveyed and found out that over half  used social networking sites for personal use during the working day.  Those that admitted to using those sites during the work day, also confessed that they spent an average of 40-50 minutes a week surfing the web during work time. 

If you break it down and said that one worker took 9-10 minutes everyday to check social networking sites while on the clock, by the end of the year, they would accumulated more or less than about a free week of paid vacation.  (more…)

Last week, we told you about some of the new changes coming to Facebook and now a new feature, which opened today, may be appealing to businesses who have profiles on the popular social networking site.  Facebook has said that nearly 2 billion items are shared each week through the site and the newly expanded share option will  include a live counter and analytics for shared items.  This means that when a user clicks the new share feature, they will be able to look at the number of views, shares, likes, and clicks to from that site. 

An unidentified spokesperson for Facebook, who spoke with Web Pro News said, “Share analytics bring new opportunities to show how content is being shared on Facebook, such as Techmeme for selecting top stories and bit.ly for analyzing URL traffic.  The new Share button is among the easiest Facebook Connect widgets to install and can be added to any website with just a few lines of code.” (more…)

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

-The Web 2.0 Summit took place this week in San Francisco. Some of the biggest news from the event came out on Wednesday.  Both Microsoft and Google announced they would be teaming up with Twitterto bring real-time search updates to the search engines.  Microsoft’s Qi Lu first announced that Bing.comwould be getting get the real time twitter searchs updates, up on their site, which happened just minutes after the announcement.  Twitter’s blog said that they want to make twitter a search tool to help find people what they need in current time. Surprisingly, just a few hours after Microsoft’s big announcement, Google announced they would also be teaming up with Twitter to bring real-time search.  Neither of the companies would release the financial terms of their deals but are expected to bring more traffic to the search engine sites. There are also rumors the sites are trying to team up with Facebook as well. To watch the announcement’s in their entirety, visit Web 2.0 Summit’s website. (more…)

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released a survey this morning which stated that more online retailers are gearing up for the upcoming holiday season, and will be using social media too attract consumers.  This comes after the NRF reported on Tuesday, that they anticipate holiday shoppers to spend about 3.2% less than they spent last year, averaging about $682 a person.

The new survey said that over 47% of online retailers who were polled stated they would be increasing the use of their social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, realizing that shoppers are continuously on those sites, and that using these tools could be more effective.  Just over 60% said they have created or beefed up the companies Facebook page, while 59% have done that with Twitter.  And 66% of online retailers have added and improved on their company blog. (more…)

Qi Lu, Microsoft’s Online Services President, announced at the Web 2.0 Summit today, that Microsoft’s new engine, Bing, has stuck a non-exclusive deal with Twitter.  The deal is an important one because it will be the first search engine to bring in real-time updates.  It is also important because there have been reports that Google, Bing’s biggest competitor, has been in talks with the social networking site, and hasn’t been able to come up with a contract.  Many Internet users are saying that this is a “big-blow” for Google.

Twitter updates have been available for search on Bing for quite awhile now, but today will be the first time, Bing users will be able search keywords and watch real-time tweets from Bing’s website.  Lu also said that this will open up many opportunities for future business deals among business’s world wide.    (more…)

Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of Twitter, was one of highlighted opening sessions at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Fransisco, Tuesday.  And Williams, revealed that he believes Twitter’s future will be bright with some of the new changes coming to the site.  

John Battelle, from Federated Media Publishing, hosted the chat and tried to get Williams to spill Twitter’s marketing revenue model to see if the site would eventually turn into a revenue-churning business.  Although Williams wouldn’t really answer the question, he did go onto say, “It’s not like we are spending our days looking under couch cushions for the elusive revenue model. Obviously, we are thinking about it.” (more…)

Turn Here, an Online Video Production, Advertising and Distribution company, released the results of a recent survey about companies using Online Video’s for marketing.  The company surveyed 116 companies, which ranged from Fortune 500 companies, to PR and digital agencies, and traditional regional based companies.

Overall the report states that video through the web is increasingly becoming an important online marketing tool to reach out to clients.  83.5% of those surveyed have said they are already using some sort of online video marketing.  Companies however were split when it came to what type videos they produce.  Roughly 57.3% said they have created branded videos, content produced for companies to showcase their products or services, while 38.7% have created editorial content for their website.  (more…)

One of the biggest band’s in the world announced via their YouTube Channel on Monday that they would be offering fans a live online concert .  U2, which will be ending their 360 World Tour next week in Vancouver, will broadcast their concert live from Los Angeles on YouTube Sunday night for fans around in the globe in 16 countries.  The concert has been sold out for quite some time but tickets on Craigslist are going for up to $1000 for those hoping to get a chance to see the band first hand. 

The band has apparently been wanting to reach out to their fans through social media according to U2′s manager Paul McGuinness. “The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time,” said McGuinness. “As we’re filming the LA show, it’s the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2 – this time U2 can go to them, globally.” (more…)

Just last year, Facebook users were up in arms about the new layout on their favorite social networking site.  Close to a million people signed a petition to bring back the old layout and now after a year of finally settling down and adjusted to the layout, Facebook has leaked out information that there are some new changes coming to their website.

One change that has already taken place within the past 24 hours, is the layout of Group pages.  For the longest time Group pages were a mirror image of one of the original Facebook profiles, just with different information.  Group pages now look like the current profile layout and fan pages.  According to Facebook’s blog this ultimately means ‘that groups will now have a Wall that summarizes all the recent activities of people within the group and a Publisher that enables members to share their content.’  It also means that group activities and what’s being posted on the group wall will now be posted to your news feed.  However, instead of getting posts from everyone from your groups, you will only be shown posts from your friends in the same group.  (more…)