I’ve long believed that neighborhoods represent a key ingredient in how local search and media evolves. Back around 1995, Brad Inman held a brainstorming retreat for online real estate people at his redwood forest home. I still remember Brad’s passion about the importance of neighborhoods in the fabric of online real estate - and community in general; as a former real estate newspaper writer Brad used to love doing neighborhood profiles. While the concept has stuck with me, the content gap made it an impractical pipe dream.

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local social, local shopping, strategy, OpenSocial, facebook | 2 Comments »

Ah the prose of British editorial…

The European Internet analyst for Neilsen Online, commenting on a 5% January decline in Facebook UK users (as counted by Neilsen*), reported in this BBC article …

“Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, so one month of falling audiences doesn’t spell the decline of Facebook or social networking,” Mr Burmaster said.

Before we cry fowl, the article does remark that the year over year growth was tracked at 712%. While it’s far too early to pull from this trend, it is a notable shift in the rate of growth, topping out at 8.9 million registered users as counted by Neilsen.

Interesting.

*Neilsen does not count sources other than home and office usage, so school/cafe users are notably excluded.

facebook | No Comments »

The concept behind Facebook’s recently announced “Beacon” is really quite brilliant. Extend the reach of newsfeeds - Facebook’s single most strategic feature - so that your friends can see what you reserve, what you buy, what you do, all over the web.

Direct from the Facebook description, here’s the pitch to website owners: “add 3 lines of code and reach millions of users”

Simply determine which user actions you would like publish to Facebook and add a few lines of code to your web page. Facebook Beacon actions include purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more. When a user performs the action, they will be alerted that your website is sending a story to their profile and have a chance to opt out. No additional user action is needed for the story to be published on Facebook, and users remain in control of their information.

Strategically, this is a BIG IDEA. (more…)

social, OpenSocial, facebook | No Comments »

A lot is beginning to be written about the new Facebook “fan-sumer” opportunity. For the uninitiated, it’s basically the way for a business to get inside the Facebook network, create a page, and have consumers “fan” you. Aside from rolling my eyes over an ad concept based on the annoyingly ubiquitous “I (heart) you”, this is a serious move by Facebook to reach out to businesses and brands, and invite them into the conversation.

As Jerimiah Oywayang of Forrester describes it:

Using Facebook, consumers will publicly endorse brands, resulting in the birth of the “Fan-Sumer”, resulting in efficient word-of-mouth marketing in their trusted network. (more…)

social, local social, facebook | 1 Comment »