Neilsen/Netrankings has released some figures which show a monthly decline in Facebook users for the first time since its launch, before it has even managed to fully leverage its traffic volumes into advertising sales.  Its unique audience dropped 5% from December to January prompting many people predicting the demise and claiming Facebook is a fad which will go away as quickly as it arrived.  Have people really already become Facebored?  Or is it simply inevitable that sooner or later there would be a dip in audience as the users who created an account “just to see what all the fuss is about” disappear back to their own world grumbling that it was a load of rubbish anyway?

Mark Ritson, in his article for Marketing, blames the decline on Facebook’s open door policy.  Since September 2006 Facebook has allowed anybody with a valid email address access to their network which was previously exclusive to US students (and before that just Harvard students).  This is where the influx began and over the last 18 months its user base has just grown and grown, until now!  Ritson uses the analogy of being in a hyper trendy bar with his friend, surrounded by beautiful people, drinking beautiful cocktails, listening to great music, before realising the only thing which spoilt the bar, was them!  Two middle aged blokes with expanding waistlines stood out like a sore thumb and somehow made the place less cool.  By opening its doors to anybody in the world, he argues, Facebook has made itself less cool and exclusive, and the seriously cool people, aren’t going to want to be sent a friend request from their mum or an old school teacher!  They want to hang out in a cool environment which similarly cool people, doing cool things and just generally being cool.

So has Facebook’s open door policy caused this dip and is it to be the demise of the worlds largest social networking site?  I don’t know, but I can say that my usage habits have changed slightly since I added my mum and dad as friends!  I am now a lot more careful about what I post and where I post it, although that doesn’t really change the experience too much.  Personally I would blame the 5% drop on the part time users departing, there had to be a dip at some point and I’m sure that’s how the guys at Facebook will see it. 

What it does say to me is that Facebook need to get their act in gear and make this thing profitable, they have an advertising model in place now should start to reap the rewards but it is still not the finished article.  I feel for them in that they are trying to be innovative and make their ads as unintrusive a possible and this is difficult to do but they must find a way.  They have already been chastised for their beacon system and they probably cant afford another mistake like that.  I just hope for their sake, that they don’t rue missing out on a  slice of their $15 Billion valuation which could start to decline a lot faster than their user base if next months figures aren’t more positive.

As the saying goes, the early bird catches the worm, and after last nights earthquake in lincolnshire the most search for keywords today are bound to be related to this event.  So I thought I’d have a look to see if anybody was on the ball and had already added the keywords to their PPC account.  A few searches later and it would appear most of the advertisers in the UK were still asleep or in shock from the quake as not many of them had woken up to the opportunity in front of them.  From all the searches I completed across various engines only one adveriser had specifically chosen to advertise based on the quake and they are a bean bag company! Brownie points for them or their agency but I cant really see how they are going to get any business out of it.  The people who should be on these terms are the news networks and papers, although you could argue their natural rankings should support them, the cost of clicks on these terms would be negligable, 1p-5p depending on the advertiser, and if you compare this to the fees they charge advertisers they would be quids in.  I wonder if anybody will wake up over the course of the day?

I have just come across the Yahoo! Buzzapplication which is currently in beta testing.  From what I can see this is very much like Digg and Sphinn in that users provide articles of interest which are then voted on by the users to push them up the listings. 

Stories are given a “buzz score” which is ”derived from search term popularity, the number of times a story is emailed from Buzz, and the number of votes a story receives.”  Which could add a slight element of mystery if it is more than simply a case of adding the sum of all these parts together.  If it is going to work much like the quality score system in PPC then it may change the game a little and avoid all the spamming which takes place in Digg.  There will apparently be a manual editorial team in place to prevent spamming from taking place but how many and how effective they will be remains to be seen.

The other major twist in the tale is the statement from the site “stories with the highest Buzz Scores may be published on the Yahoo! home page.”  this would make the reach of top performing articles massive and the potential of this new application greater than that of Digg and Sphinn as it goes beyond the user base of the programme itself.  Apparently the same editorial team which will monitor the spam will also be responsible for deciding which stories are worthy of the Yahoo homepage exposure.  It will be interested to see what prominence these articles are given as they are free content and so Yahoo! would potentially be losing out on revenue if they replaced any of the paid placements.

It will be interesting to see how this progresses and whether the exposure on the Yahoo! homepage can make it a bigger property than the more established players in social bookmarking.

I came across a site today which I found interesting.  Firstly if you are an i-phone user it is very interesting, offering all new plug ins and applications for you i-phone from wallpapers, games, icons and general accessories for the latest must have gadget from Apple.  The site offers a whole heap of options for the i-phone user and makes the customisation of your i-phone simple and easy to do as the sites includes instructions of how to install the applications and plug-ins it provides.

But secondly it got me thinking about how the development of technologies such as these create new opportunities for sharp entrepreneurs in a niche market.  For those quick enough to set themselves up as the “go to” provider for the latest gadget or gizmo there can be a very lucrative path ahead.  What this requires however is to be one step ahead of the rest of the marketplace and get a foothold before the competition.  Take the site in question planet-iphones.com, 12 months ago they wouldn’t have had a business.  The i-phone wasn’t released and even if you knew it was going to be it would be impossible to develop i-phone applications or iphone mods unless you had insider information on how the platform was going to be built.  Now, 8 months on from the launch you have sites such as planet-iphones offering a full spectrum of products for the handset.  In this case the early bird certainly does catch the worm and those that can react quickly enough to new phenomenon can reap the rewards.A search on Google for iphone wallpapersreveals a lot of sites who are attempting to do just this, and establish themselves in this market, but on research none are quite as extensive as planet-iphones.  So my advice? If you are an owner of an iphone, and are looking for an iphone wallpaper, pay them a visit and modify to you hearts content!  If you are an entrepreneur, get thinking about what could be the next big niche to exploit and it could just pay dividends.virtual sex  virtual adultery

It looks like Microsoft might be refusing to take no for an answer in their bid to buy out Yahoo! in a bid worth $40Bn.  After having their bid rejecting because the Yahoo! board believed it significantly undervalued their brand and investment in technology Microsoft are rumoured to be responding by attempting to ignite a proxy fight to take over the company.  Such a proxy fight would see Microsoft nominate a group of directors sympathetic to a deal for shareholders to vote on at Yahoo’s annual meeting.   According to Morningstar this is Microsoft using the carrot and the stick approach, just both at the same time! The carrot of the share price, 62% above trading price, and the stick which comes in the form of the threat of a proxy battle.  The drama continues and maybe Microsoft will get their way after all!

In a discussion a few days ago regarding mobile search marketing the stats were presented to me again about the top search phrases in mobile Internet I have mentioned in a previous post (when will mobile Internet take off?).  This obviously wasn’t news to me and I have documented my thoughts on it in the past but it did get me thinking, what is driving such a surge in people searching for porn on the mobile Internet?  What is motivating these people to search out explicit content on their 2”x3” mobile screen and are they liking what they find?

Is it simply that the mobile allows an element of privacy not necessarily afforded by the home PC? Are people using their mobiles to bypass any firewalls or tracking software which could uncover their dirty little secrets? I can’t imagine (and obviously wouldn’t know!) that the mobile device, no matter how advanced, is the best for digesting this content.  Is it just people experimenting to see whether the content is available on mobiles or are these people actually consuming large amounts of content via their mobile phones?

One thing which could be linked to the volumes of searches for adult content is the trend in mobile Internet usage by time of day.  Some of the busiest times in the week are Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings, post pub/night out.  It would be interesting to see if the searches for “sex” and “porn” which appear at the top of the most searched keywords list coincide with the activity at these times.  Intoxicated people either succumbing to their primal instincts or merry males having a joke whilst sat in the pub.  The digging I have done on this topic hasn’t managed to bring up any usage or sign up stats from the porn industry but it would be very interesting to see if these searches are resulting in business for the industry.

An application has been developed which allows you to view your Myspace page through Facebook.  The application, developed by Fuser, allows you to check your messages, bulletins and comments without ever leaving the Facebook site.  for the social hardcore this could be a god send and could also be a big dent to Myspace as it will enable users of both to monitor them through one single website, hence less visitors going to the Myspace site.  If users are beginning to migrate from Myspace to Facebook then this could be the final act which prompts a complete switch as they will be able to keep an eye on their lesser used Myspace page without having to visit it.

Additional information

Yahoo! are taking Universal Search mobile through their beta application Yahoo! One Search.  The mobile search application which must be downloaded to a compatible handset “practically reads your mind!” according to the pages on the Yahoo! mobile site.  Providing results from all Yahoo! properties including, answers, Yahoo Finance, Flickr along with Wikipedia and various news sources the application brings Universal Search to your mobile for the first time.  The categories are grouped and presented in a manageable format to make them easy to use.  I cant help but think that maybe they should concentrate on getting Universal Search right on the mainstream Internet before attempting it with mobile but I suppose maybe the simpler platform makes it easier to pull off and also the less sophisticated search terms being used means that the technology deciding what should be displayed also needs to be less intelligent.  in its present form with the need for download its usage will be limited, but I suppose it is still in beta anyway.  The main take up will come as Yahoo! starts to do deals with the networks to provide handsets with the application already built in which I’m sure will be their plan once it is out of beta and they are confident of its stability.

Mars this week launched a Facebook application which allows users to send their friends the gift of a real life Mars bar.  The “gift” will be in the form of a message which, once opened, asks the recipient to enter their mobile number and from this they will be send an SMS voucher which can be redeemed in a participating store.  Twix, Galaxy, Malteser’s and Mars will all be able to be sent with the sender paying via a Paypal account.  This is a bold venture by the guys at Mars but I cant help but think it is a desperate attempt to get involved in social media by a brand which doesn’t necessarily fit.  I am seeing all to often recently companies who know of the buzz around social networking and decide that “we need to be part of that!”  No thought given to whether their brand or product fits or whether the audience they are trying to engage with is part of the social environment they are considering.

To me, social media, social marketing, social networking or however else you want to term it is about engaging with your audience on a personal level, listening to what they are saying and bringing those learnings back into the business.  Too many people are deciding they want to be part of the social phenomenon without thinking whether it suits them, their audience and their product.  The first questions they should be asking are, what am I looking to achieve? Who am I trying to engage? where are these people interacting? Mars is a border line case and they have probably just about pulled it off but in many cases people are missing the mark by a long way just to be involved in the current craze.

The saga of who will buy/merge with Yahoo continues with the announcement they are in talks with AOL about a potential merger to take on the digital world.  It is difficult to see how two very similar operations could effectively pull together to take on the market as is pointed out by Mashable.  They are both a web portal offering search functionality, display advertising and personal email so what a merger would achieve is slightly confusing unless the both of them are willing to merge their systems for the greater good of taking on Google and Microsoft in their respective strong holds.  The only benefit I could see is if by merging their two media selling/buying operations they could aim to offer the advertiser greater reach through one point of call but this is a tenuous link at best.  Maybe they have something else up their sleeve whcih could surpries us all but for me there is little benefit in such a merger.