Yesterday morning I woke up early. Was sitting in the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. trying to check email when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Mark Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Facebook, which now has 68 million active users (people who’ve signed on in the past 30 days).
Facebook Focus Of UK Inquiry
Facebook is being investigated by the UK government over how it manages user’s personal information.
A Facebook user complained that they closed their account but were not able to fully delete their profile has led to the government investigation. The social networking site is being questioned by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Google & Facebook See European Trouble
Google and Facebook, sweethearts of the Internet who would never face legal challenges on this
Facebook Group About Police Crashes Falls Apart
A group focused on British police car crashes has existed on Facebook for quite some time, and a number of the wall posts don’t make it look so bad – the original members (self-proclaimed officers themselves) just seemed to commiserate with one another. Others created a sort of game about injuries and property damage, however, and not all onlookers are amused.
Facebook’s Scrabulous Isn’t Fabulous To Toy Makers
Another day, another Facebook controversy. At this point, as long as Facebook’s not directly responsible or in legal harm’s way, it’s just good publicity. Hasbro and Mattel have a beef with a Facebook application called Scrabulous, an online application knockoff of the classic game Scrabble.And they want it taken down.Of course, Facebookers are plenty upset about that, and are rallying behind the game.
Despite Facebook Rise, MySpace Still King
All the press and the industry observers talked about last year was Facebook, which made it seem like MySpace was soooo 2006. Social networkers, though, must not have been paying too much attention.According to data from Hitwise, MySpace pulled in 76 percent of US visits to social networking websites in 2007, and 95 percent of them were return visitors in December. This can be interpreted that not only is MySpace commanding the vast majority of the social networking market, but also inspires some pretty fierce loyalty.
Facebook News Feed To Treat Apps Differently
To be honest, I’m not all that interested in how well my friends scored on some sort of Disney princess quiz. Yet Facebook still seems as likely to show me this as any other piece of news. Until now, anyway – the social networking site is altering its News Feed evaluation process.
Rumor: Facebook Acquiring Plaxo?
Facebook is “one hundred percent” buying Plaxo, we’ve just heard from a source. Wow, starting your story with that sentence certainly grabs your attention, doesn’t it? VentureBeat’s managed to make a statement of "fact" without actually saying that it has confirmed the story. Nice!
Facebook Marketing Opportunities
I’m listening to a playback of Jeremiah Owyang’s (of Forrester Research) Webinar on marketing opportunities at Facebook that was put on by MarketingProfs. If you want to watch it it’s free to members or it costs $129 straight up.
Facebook To Create Profile Cleanup Tool
The economy’s plunge, famine, war – they’ve all got to stop. Facebook’s more immediate concern is its ongoing MySpace-ification, though, and so the company plans to introduce a tool that will help users clean up their profiles.