When a graph showing an increase of unique Facebook visitors (March ’08 to December ’09) crossed my desktop at StepForth, one nagging question immediately entered my mind: Why doesn’t the number of Facebook visits have exponential growth? By definition, isn’t social media supposed to facilitate ‘Exponential’ — ‘Viral’ marketing, and shouldn’t the adoption of Facebook be a perfect illustration of this?

One conclusion: While Facebook may be ‘crushing’ the competition, market saturation may be close at hand (i.e. a growth plateau). Read more about Facebook's virility issues »

Yesterday Google unveiled real-time search which has brought with it a great many new marketing techniques and possibilities for web traffic. Want to learn more? Here is how to see real-time search in action and a few important questions and answers to follow it up.

#1) What is Real-Time Search?

Real time search is a type of search query that can be done on Google (and other real-time search sites) that provides the latest discussions/news from all over the Internet based on the query.

Real-time search has come about as a result of the often useful real-time news that is available within social networking feeds from sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.  When all of these real-time social networking sites started there were very few people that believed they would go anywhere (who would have the time after all?!); and you can count me as one of them at the beginning. That said, disbelievers were proven wrong and sites like Twitter have become popular world wide. Twitter, in fact, has made multiple world headlines as a platform for national protests (i.e. Moldova’s Twitter Revolution“) and has often broken news far before the mainstream media reported it. What was worse (to Google anyway) was this timely (valuable) news was often nowhere to be found within search results because Google was not indexing news that quickly.  Well Google was going to have none of that and they spent a long time creating a whole new set of algorithms and systems to filter real-time results while providing them within seconds of being posted online. Yesterday, Google announced that  we will start seeing real-time search appearing in search results within the next few days across all English-speaking portals of Google.

Below is an example of how the results look in regular (organic/natural) Top 10 search rankings. Discover more on real-time search »

Sillicon Alley Insider just released this insightful set of charts illustrating the “horrendous” drop in user engagement MySpace has experienced in the last 12 months.

Average Stay per Visit (in minutes, rounded up)

• MySpace: May 2008 = 20 min, May 2009 = 10 min!
• Facebook: May 2008 = 14 min, May 2009 = 16 min

Average Visits per Person:

• MySpace: May 2008 = 14,  May 2009 = 12
• Facebook: May 2008 = 11,  May 2009 = 16

Read more…

When it comes to operating a successful online business these days the key is traffic to your website. In order to generate traffic there are a number of sources one can tackle. The first and most obvious is an increase in your search rankings over at Google. But what about all those social media websites floating around out there – are they worth your attention? Read more…

The following are some social media newsmakers I came across today:

Digg Joins the Twitter and Facebook Party

Digg jumped on the bandwagon and added the ability for visitors to easily share stories on Digg.com with Twitter and Facebook; a sign that even the competition can no longer ignore the success of Twitter and Facebook. In addition, Digg removed the controversial “Shouts” feature that Digg users were none to happy about.

Stories with additional detail:

• Digg Adds Twitter and Facebook Sharing Options
• Shouts on Digg Are Now Gone – Replaced With Email, Facebook and Twitter

The New York Times Hires its First Ever Social Media Editor

Today I expect the New York Times has elevated the legitimacy of social media for many skeptics by hiring its first ever Social Media Editor – Jennifer Preston (on Twitter @NYT_JenPreston). So what will Jennifer be doing exactly? Well here is an excerpt from a leaked email at the New York Times I found via Mashable: Read more…

Whether it is for spreading propaganda to a nation’s populous – or suppressing it – governments have always sought to control new forms of media. From the printing press to the radio and the television, there has been the presence of political powers.

Today’s new media is, of course, the internet. And, it is the most potent form of media yet. However, though the internet’s power to broadly and immediately reach an audience is unparalleled, it is far too large and complex a system to be controlled exclusively by just one group or entity.

Nevertheless, world governments still try to manipulate what they can; however they can. Read more…

Including features that are commonly found on other networks like Facebook and MySpace, Yahoo Mash was Yahoo’s beta attempt at the Social Networking scene.

I have to ask the question “where have I been?” It was not long ago that I reported on the demise of Windows Live Expo, a classified ad platform that I had never heard of until its doors were closed. Now, I hear of the loss of Yahoo Mash, another entity that, well, I didn’t know existed until I read a twitter post from Lee Odden noting that its shutting down. Read more…

Virtual gifts may be nice but Facebook is putting actual goodies behind the way to spread cheer on their social platform in the UK. A UK company is behind the application to allow easy purchasing and sharing of Mars related products on Facebook. Once being sent a real chocolate bar on Facebook you can redeem it at local UK grocers.

Business Week explains why Social Media is a great business and market research tool. Social media is essential for advertising and building your on-line presence. New technologies gather and analyse data on products and services from throughout the blogosphere, news media sources, and on-line communities. They stress the importance of monitoring your online presence and the influence of social networks. They point to Google’s “growing ability to incorporate blog posts within Web search” to show the influence of social media content on the web.

Here are ten tools that should help any company keep track of whats going on within the social media world in relation to their business. These tools help you find out who’s saying what about you and your company.

Google is cashing in on video popularity as it is testing adding video to their search results page. Google is trying to draw your eye towards video images and provide interactive advertising to their search results.

Ever wondered how social media helps already established individuals build their image. NBA all-star Steve Nash is trying his hand at LiveVideo.com, a social networking and video sharing site. It fun to watch celebs like Steve Nash and Will Ferrel build their audience through social media channels.

Things I found interesting while on the web today…..

• Jeff Quipp’s article on passive and aggressive approaches to attaining friend’s within social media.

• Andrew Goodman shows us the makeup of a good web site in relation to how the Google’s “adsbot” views it.

• Want to know why Social Media is so important to advertisers? It is because Social Networks have the information that allows “behavioral targeting” of us as the consumer. Being able to target the individual creates a “trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers.”

• CBS and Facebook have created the NCAA Basketball Championship March Madness brackets application. Not only are they providing this service but they have free, live, online coverage of the whole tournament.

• Ever wanted to know what it’s like to work at Google? Here’s your inside guide.

If you have ever used Facebook then this video by the geniuses over at Train of Thought (a comedy sketch group) will surely give you a chuckle: