Facebook collaborates with Adobe for a smoother Flash Experience

It has been reported that the creators of the social networking site Facebook, have hooked up with the creators at Adobe, to provide a coding, that when used within the Facebook interface, would provide users with a much smoother and simpler experience with its interactive applications. Currently there is $516 Million dollars being funded towards this project, with talk of even more funding and support. If all works out, applications as well as videos will stream very fluidly, making their use less choppy and static-esque.



http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/31/facebook-hooks-up-with-adobe-for-richer-social-applications-in-flash/

Facebook Friends

I always wondered if it was slightly weird that I enjoyed Social Networking even though I only limited it to people that I actually knew in real life. Apparently I’m not the only one out there, Stan Schroeder feels the same way, even if he practices this for slightly different reasons. Stan recognizes that having hundreds of Friends on Facebook will overload your page with status updates and news feed information. But then again, as he points out, Facebook now has ways to create custom friend lists where you can designate what information you want to see.

I just found it interesting how our outlooks towards Facebook and Twitter are similar.  (o^_^o)

Blog Post: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Combine Your Social Site Updates

Skimmer is a new visual desktop application for keeping track of all your social sites.  It allows you to to connect to your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger accounts and access them all from one application.  It's an easy way to get a stream-like view of  your friend's status updates as well as a quick way to post your own.  Posting pictures is said to be easier, and with their numerous custimizable options you can make the application fit your preference style.   I've actually been looking for a desktop application to connect my facebook and twitter accounts and make it easier for me to review updates as well as post pictures.  I think I might actually give Skimmer a try.

Blog Post: Skimmer: Visual Desktop App for Tracking Your Favorite Social Sites

If you're a fellow computer junkie who likes to be online and accessible, then you might appreciate this article.  Many people have different Instant Message (IM) programs that they prefer to use.   When everyone is using a different program, it makes it harder for people to keep in touch with everyone.  Thankfully, there are IM programs out there that will allow you to access and talk to people from multiple IMs. 

• Disby --> Windows 
  
• Adium -->MAC
  
• Meebo -->Web
  
• Trutap -->Mobile
  
• Nimbuzz -->iPhone
  

Keep in mind that these programs aren’t just for IMing.  You can also check your mail AND Social Networking sites.  Some will allow you to do Facebook chat, or get Facebook/MySpace updates and new tweets from Twitter.

 

Blog post:  5 Great Instant Messenger Aggregators Across Multiple Platforms

Some links re social networking

Facebook's New Terms of Service (TOS)

Social Networking Terms of Service: a comparison

Social Networking Trends: a Pew research report analyzed on Ars Technica

How Companies Can Use Social Media

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While teenagers and college students strive to remain connected to their friends 24/7 through the internet via blogging, micro blogging and social networking, companies are moving forward and trying to stay connected to consumers. This blog entry lists 10 companies/brands who have embraced the internet and various tools in order to market and/or address consumer problems. Burger King with their “Sacrifice ten friends” Facebook application, Starbuck’s consumer feedback site “My Starbucks Idea,” and CEO blogs and twitters from Comcast, Zappos and IBM. These brands were able to successfully take advantage of WEB 2.0 tools and not only help themselves, but were able to do it in an interesting or humorous way.

Blog: Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media

Facebook as a Marketing Tool

I think Facebook is one of the major aspects of our generation’s Internet experience. Most people have a Facebook profile and a large percentage of these people are active or overly active on the site. Since the social network is so large, vast and diverse, it’s no surprise that companies look to it as a potential marketing tool. Facebook has apparently given rights to large companies to poll Facebook users on "various details of their social life.” From my understanding, it means that companies can now target users [certain age groups, sexual orientation, location, education] and place a poll in their feed.

Although I don’t like the idea of companies obtaining information about me personally, I do think, that from a business perspective, this is a great marketing idea.

Blog entry: Facebook’s Monetization Plan? Polls. And Lots Of Them

.::Sasha::.