“Facebook only thinks about selling ad space”

Paranoid Fella

I had a conversation on the phone today with a friend/client, for whom I manage a small part of their social media, and advertising through social networking. They don’t spent a huge budget, but the demographic is quite specific. As we were chatting, he made the comment that “each time Facebook changes in some way, its purely to make more money” – the comment itself is partly true, but every company is looking to make more money. He meant the comment that Facebook only thinks about its advertisers, and not about the users.

The features and interface of your Facebook account are constantly changing to keep up with web development, new technologies, and the extended range of third party applications that can be an addition to your online experience. Yes, these give you less control over your privacy at times, but if you don’t like it, leave Facebook.

Zuckerberg & Co. aren’t in this game for the money… if they were, then they could’ve sold it for a few £bn a couple of years back. That’s not their aim… far from it! The aim of Zuckerberg, is to revolutionise the online experience, and social interaction through the development of his baby.

The decisions made at HQ are not to aid the financial status of their shares, but far more to increase and broaden the reach of Facebook to its dedicated users, and offer the best possible broadcasting platform, for centuries to come. Facebook advertising merely pays the wages of it’s staff.

We all know that Zuckerberg is a paranoid fella, and his 12 hours days and idea-spinning and aided development are purely because he feels a smaller competitor or newbie on the block, could sneak up behind him, and over take his site in hours! (I’m still working on it)

@ssshhPolly x

Hellotxt… Goodbyetxt

Toodles

Came across this new ‘mass network dashboard’ tool today, called ‘Hellotxt’. Effectively, it allows you to update your status across every single network you may be signed up to, and also allows the many feeds to roll into one. Great idea you might think? But, that’s just the surface.

There’s literally every single possibly system that you could connect to, even networks I’d never heard of like ‘Mexicodiario’, ‘Jiwai’ and and ‘Gozub’ (spellcheck did not like those). However, they all feed into one plan boring column, and there’s just nothing there to work with. I like HootSuite as I can panel then across the screen, and select different tabs to get to things more easily, as well being able to change my status on the networks that matter.

To top that, the system is really, really slow. I know Facebook often takes a couple of seconds to refresh, and Twitter has it’s issues, but for me HootSuite is automatic in it’s refresh and page changes. I waited nearly 8 seconds for one blank screen to load on Hellotxt.

I would imagine there are a lot of users out there that are going to like this, and that’s fair enough. However, Hellotxt use the ‘snap’ review that you can update all your status’ at once… if that’s what you’re looking for, then this is for you. But if you’re looking for a speedy service, that is friendly to the eye, and extremely good with the main social networks, then HootSuite comes out top.

The Social Civil Partnership: Facebook <3's Microsoft

David & Goliath, merge

As soon as I heard the announcement today, I knew Facebook were doing this to have a dig at Google, and try to knock them out of the online park. But I’m not 100% sure whether they’ve really thought this one through.

As the world’s largest online company, and possibly the most famous at the moment, why join forces with a search engine that only accounts for 4% of all searches, ahead of the near 70% that Google does?!

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, himself said that Bing are the ‘underdogs’ in the search world, and is using this as his quest to take the market share away from Google. This is all to do with Facebook’s new ‘Instant Personalisation’ service, which once again, questions your privacy.

For now, that means searches, where applicable, will feature a Facebook module that shows you what your friends have liked if it relates to that search.

I’m the kind of person who tends to see all additions to Facebook as positive, and for this, in some ways I really do. However, for someone who never uses Bing after their poor television ad campaigns, I’m not sure how my online experience will change.

I don’t think this will change my Facebook experience a great deal, but I feel Microsoft has come out on top here, teaming up with largest force in the world, to kick-start the search engine war, even though, I think this announcement has nothing to do with search!

A quick rant from the Director…

Shaun Measday's blog

Shaun Measday, the Director and co-Founder of i-Fluid Media, has some great opinions and great experience within internet marketing. I have some great chats with him every now and then, and the latest subject of his blog is something we both agree in.

Needless to say, it’s about social media.

Take a look but clicking here, and check out the i-Fluid website, and the rest of his blog too!

@ssshhPolly x

The hottest jobs at the moment: Social Media

Plenty of jobs around!

Every now and then, I have a little look at other jobs that are around. I can honestly say I’m happy with what I’m doing, but shifting across the pond is ever-so tempting. Here’s a list of a couple of positions in social media that have caught my eye lately. If you would like more info on then, then get in touch.

Social Media Evangelist – WonderHowTo (Santa Monica): “As a starting point you should have a blog and a bunch of twitter followers. You must be a true child of the internet: You participate in several web communities. You must be able to work your way around html, css, basic javascript tweaks, photoshop. RSS is your friend. Ideally you’ve customized wordpress/typepad & have messed around with php/.net/RoR/java or some other server-side language… You don’t have to be a coding expert, but we want someone who’s into tinkering with the nuts & bolts.” Salary at $40,000.

Social Media Manager – Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronz, New York): “The Department of Communications seeks an experienced, innovative and creative full-time social media manager with a demonstrated track record of engaging audiences through integrated social media strategies. The ideal candidate will understand how to move diverse external and internal audiences from information-gathering to active engagement and action through platforms such as Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, foursquare, YouTube, iTunes, Ning, WordPress, Flickr, and emerging platforms.” Salary undisclosed.

Social Media Manager – Confidential Travel Company (Location unknown, US): “The goals of the Social Media Manager are to: 1) design print publications, videos and websites and 2) ultimately engage online audiences, increase knowledge of our company, and encourage others to “spread the word.” This will be using a variety of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, etc, and tools such as blogging and community development. The Social Media Manager will build and guide a team, and drive company initiatives.” Salary undisclosed.

A new Club, so new opinions

The Egg

This Saturday, I’m heading out on the short trip down the M4 corridor to the big city. My reasoning: to party. That’s right, I’m spreading the wings and heading to the ‘Viva Voyagez Ibiza Workers UK Reunion‘ on the Thames. And no, before you ask, I didn’t work in Ibiza this year, but I’ve been invited along by some industry contacts, and a few friends are coming along too.

It’s weird how small this world is, as one of my friends who is coming along, actually worked in Ibiza this year, knows the guy well, appeared in their promo video, and already had a ticket.

It’s a boat party to begin with… seeing the lights and sights of the city for a few hours, with fairly inexpensive alcohol to fuel. Then, as we disembark, there will be luxury coaches awaiting us to take us to our own room in The Egg, Kings Cross where we’ll have a private party til 4am after which we’ll be able to go play in the rest of the club…. bear in mind that the club will be open right up until Sunday lunchtime, I cant see me getting much sleep this weekend!

The point of this post is that I’m slightly worried. Having marketed a nightclub, and worked in consultancy for nightclubs and event brads in the past, whenever I walk into a Club, I voice my opinions. It’s like tourettes! And I cant help it. If there’s something I don’t like, I’ll let people know. Atmosphere. Service. Pricing. Clientèle. Music. DJ’s. Décor. I just cant help myself…

A lot of my friends know about this, and are quite looking forward to taking me in there, on the other hand, a couple of the group aren’t, and are planning on getting me smashed on the boat… probably so I fall in and drown!