Will Facebook take over the mobile world ??

There has been endless articles and complaints surrounding the fact that Facebook does not have its own native iPad app. The truth is, no one really knows why the social marketing giant does not recognize the iPad for what it is, an industry pioneer. However, the latest news about Zuckerberg's plans might shed some light on the cold shoulder he has shown Apple for the past few years.

Of course, this is not confirmed by anyone, but maybe the reason Zuckerberg has not released an iPad app on the App Store is because he wants to release one on his own app store, a Facebook branded app distribution channel. Sound unrealistic? Keep reading.

Based on various TechCrunch reports in the last few days, Facebook knows all too well just how big the mobile space is and how crucial it is for the company's future to bring its Web dominance to the mobile phone.

Facebook's shift of strategy from a Web company to a mobile entity is starting to show its face. Of course, Facebook is not alone and just this week we witnessed how Google now launches new features on mobile phones, and only then pushes it to the desktop.

Facebook's jump into the mobile ring is composed of several steps, two of which became apparent to us this week.

Facebook Photo Sharing Platform

By now, we are all very familiar with the booming trend of mobile apps that enable photo editing and sharing. Instagram leads the way with over 5 million users, 100 million photos, and a 100,000 new users who joined the service last weekend alone.

The newest development is that Facebook itself, with its 100 billion hosted photos, 6 billion photos uploaded monthly, and 700 million active users will be launching its own app for photo sharing.

Here is the thing with Facebook's mobile development skills. Historically speaking, they rock, and based on initial photos of the app, this app is no different. The Facebook native app is the most downloaded iPhone app ever and this new photo app, whether integrated into the Facebook app or as a standalone, will really give other photo sharing apps a run for their money.

The secret to the success of a Facebook photo app is in its numbers. In fact, whether Facebook launches a photo app, a video sharing app, or any other app that involves sharing with your friends and contacts, the fact that the company brings 700 million users means the app will almost automatically become an overnight success.

Facebook App Distribution Channel

OK, as big as the photo sharing trend might be, that is not how the company intends to leave its mark on the mobile space. The next piece of news, also coming from TechCrunch implies that Facebook is entering the mobile game on the distribution front, which as far as apps are concerned, is the most crucial component of the development process.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook has elaborate plans to create its own app store, which will be HTML5-based and will run on top of the popular iOS browser, Safari.

That's right. Facebook knows it cannot compete with Apple from within the App Store given Apple's tight grip on the whole iOS ecosystem, but the Web is an open space and Safari is the vessel Facebook is going to use to its advantage.

This new Web-based app store is part of a new mobile platform code-named Project Spartan and its initial goal is to reach 100 million mobile users via Safari.

Supposedly, there are already more than 80 developers working with Facebook on Project Spartan, including big names like Zynga and Huffington Post, which will surely help the new app store take off upon launch.

The basic concept of how this new app distribution channel will work is as follows. A user opens Safari, accesses Facebook, and is presented with a dropdown displaying apps to download. Once downloaded, the app will appear within a Facebook wrapper that will have some basic Facebook functionality, including payments and most likely social sharing.

Of course, all this is hot off the press so many questions remain unanswered, but one thing is for sure, if this is even partly accurate, and TechCrunch has apparently seen the new project first hand, then this may symbolize a true reversal in app distribution and monetization, as far as the industry is concerned.

Many experts claim they do not see this Facebook HTML5 app store taking off and users will always prefer the native app experience with Apple's tight integration over a Web app experience, even if it is Facebook-branded.

Of course the other side to that coin is that an HTML5 Web based app environment will offer true cross-platform distribution, as well as a significant decrease in app development time and resources. Develop once, deploy for all platforms. This can mean a heck of a lot more revenue for developers, whether they charge per download or use other models of app monetization, such as in-app advertising. Of course, that would require Project Spartan to be available on other mobile browsers, but that is the next logical step with Android numbers continuing to explode.

The one point that is undisputable here is that Facebook, like others before it, now clearly recognizes the explosive potential of the mobile phone and its surrounding ecosystem. Why is there no Facebook iPad app? You can be sure it is not because Facebook does not intend on entering the space, it might be because it wants to make a grand entrance on its own terms.

This post has been written by Hillel Fuld. Hillel  is a tech blogger who manages multiple sites such as Technmarketing, Appboy, and inneractive. In addition, Hillel has written on many leading online publications such as Mashable, Gigaom, and others. In addition to his blogger hat, Hillel is an active Twitter personality who defines himself as a "Social media addict". When Hillel is not blogging or tweeting, he is the Head of Marketing for inneractive, a mobile startup that deals with app monetization across all mobile platforms.

Jackson - Amazing

Should all your staff be engaging in social media?

Many brands are nervous about letting people engage on their behalf in social media; and their nervousness is often well-founded.

They think of cases such as the Nestle Facebook page, where the person managing the page on behalf of the brand lost control of the situation; generally they fear that people will say the wrong thing, to the wrong people at the wrong time.

This leads to policies that are about controlling and restricting use of social media, whereas the ideal would be the exact opposite.

The truth is that many brands have traditionally made it difficult for their staff to engage in social media; they block access to social sites on the work network and they have policies that are about what employees shouldn't do and how they shouldn't behave.

This has often grown out of a very traditional understanding of social media as something that distracts people from work. Most brands no longer believe this, but these restrictions are still in place.

For most brands, social media is seen as a channel (just as press is a traditional communications channel), and so only specific people are allowed to engage.

Just as you have a specific people who are allowed to talk on behalf of your brand to the press, so you have a small set of people who are allowed to engage in social media. The restrictions and policies remain in place, but a small number of people are exceptions to this.

For brands with a more developed understanding of the value of social media, it has stopped being just another channel in this way and started being something that is changing the way parts of the business function ('social business').

For these brands, restricting access to social media to just a limited number of employees is counter-intuitive. They need people to be using social media not as a separate channel but just as part of their job.

For these brands this raises the question of whether all employees should be engaging on Twitter or Facebook, forums or blogs.

There are some notable examples (such as Zappos or Best Buy) where large proportions of an employee group are encouraged to Tweet or engage on social media, and there are strong reasons for a social business to encourage this:

1. Encouraging all your staff to be using social media can help deal with a large volume of engagements in social media. 

   If every single employee had an hour or two each week to engage with customers, you could very quickly deal with a large volume of issues without any one individual employee feeling that they are adding a lot to their workload.

2. Getting staff from departments other than the communications team (where traditionally this channel might be run) allows customers to talk directly to people who know best how to use a product.
3. Allowing staff to build their own communities of people they engage with provides them with an ability to learn from, share and test ideas with people who are working on similar issues, in similar areas or use similar tools.
4. Finally, and perhaps most transformational, there is nothing more powerful that letting the people who work for a brand to have a direct channel with the people who pay money to buy that brand.

And this would seem to argue that getting your staff to tweet, use Facebook, and engage in forums or on blogs makes sense. And perhaps it does. Sometimes. But actually what this means is not that they should necessarily be engaging for you in social media, but that they should be finding the right way to use social media as part of their job. And this does not necessarily mean engaging.

The true social business encourages all employees to be using social media. For many this may mean interacting directly with customers online, however for some this will mean monitoring discussions on topics or brands of interest, or engaging in niche communities of likeminded individuals, or just engaging and interacting so that they understand how social media works.

Some of the best examples I've seen include plasma screens next to a CEO's desk that show the latest discussions of a brand online, or sales people who join groups and discussions about them and their competitors so that they can learn what people say about each, or programmes to get large proportions of staff across the business answering questions online that are in their area of expertise.

A true social business is about finding how and where social media should best be used by each and every employee.

But one thing is clear, we need to stop having policies that restrict use of social media, and start having policies that encourage it

Super Article Posted 13 June 2011 11:33am by Matt Rhodes 

Job seekers urged to network

Job seekers urged to network

Bill Silverfarb/Daily Journal Job hunters lined up at the Pacific Gas and Electric table at the College of San Mateo yesterday in an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo. It takes more than filling out an application or sending in a resume to land a job these days. In the down economy, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier has made it a mission to give those out of work the tools they need to find success. Yesterday, Speier, D-San Mateo, hosted her sixth local Job Hunters Boot Camp on the campus of the College of San Mateo with about 700 attending. Her first was back in January 2010 and she intends to keep putting on the events until they are no longer needed. Her message to job hunters yesterday was to take advantage of the resources available to them and to make at least one meaningful contact with a prospective employer before the day ended. More than 20 companies were represented at the event with several other resource tables set up to give job seekers advice on how to improve interview skills or how to land a job right out of college. Finding jobs for recent graduates, veterans and mature workers was the focus of yesterday’s workshop. Making connections and learning to network are the keys to finding work, Speier said. Recent college graduate Mitch Uzunoglu attended yesterday’s event in hopes of landing a writing job. Uzunoglu attended CSM and graduated from San Francisco State University last year with an undergraduate degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Uzunoglu was encouraged by comments Speier made yesterday to the crowd of job seekers. “She spoke to everyone. Not just one group but to all of us,” he said. He is not nervous, however, about his prospects in finding a job. “If I don’t get a job today I will keep trying. I don’t think the job market is as bad as people think it is,” he said. Another job hunter who did not want to give his name, however, said tools and networking are fine but the real problem is a lack of jobs. “No matter how many lectures I hear about updating my resume or upgrading my interview skills it does not change the fact that there aren’t any jobs,” said the retired civil engineer. Lines were long at some employer tables, including the Pacific Gas and Electric table. Burlingame-based Virgin America also attended the event. Virgin America plans to hire about 800 people in the coming year, with many of them being hired locally, said company representative Frank Tizedes. Jobs will be available for in-flight services, finance and information technology, he said. Virgin America has now participated in four of Speier’s boot camps, Tizedes said. “We look to hire people with that entrepreneurial spirit, those who are upbeat with lots of energy,” he said. The CSM Cosmetology Department offered free makeovers to attendees yesterday and a student-driven initiative called Project Smile offered free photo services to job hunters for their LinkedIn profiles. “Many people do not post photos on their LinkedIn profiles and I wondered if it was because of a psychological barrier or some other issue,” said CSM student Alisha Willis. LinkedIn was a big topic at yesterday’s event with a workshop set up to teach people how to use the professional social networking website. “LinkedIn is a priceless tool. Recruiters use it and if you do not use it you are at a severe handicap,” said Jenny Kahn, who conducted a workshop yesterday on how to use LinkedIn. Speier encouraged those who have been out of work for a long while and have become frustrated in the job hunt to “not give up” yesterday. Bill Silverfarb can be reached by email: silverfarb@smdalyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.

Facebook most popular technology tool for churches

A recent study completed concluded that nearly half (47 percent) of churches these days use social media and social networking as tools of engagement and interaction. The survey of 1003 Protestant congregations was ...Whether by Skype, YouTube, email or other form of social media, churches are increasingly using technology to reach current or prospective members.

A recent study completed concluded that nearly half (47 percent) of churches these days use social media and social networking as tools of engagement and interaction.

Pastor Edwin Ford of Crossroads for Life Ministries said his church uses different kinds of technology to reach the public.

"Most everybody is going paperless," he said. Instead of an actual printed magazine,  members and others can access its online magazine, Then there's email, where they send out blasts on different topics, Ten-minute clips of church services are posted on YouTube.

AMAZING 

Is your Organisation engaging social media Tools effectively ??

India Inc rely on social media for marketing

Increasing number of Indian companies are using social media as an effective business tool with 83 per cent firms in the country agreeing that without social media activity, marketing strategies cannot be successful, according to a survey. 

The rising awareness among business internationally has seen social networking evolve from a nice-to-have to a necessity. 

According to a new global survey from leading office-space solutions provider, Regus, the last year has seen a rise in Indian companies using social networks, blogs, microblogs and forums to win new business. 

Nevertheless, Indian (66 per cent) and global firms (61 per cent) are also emphasising the need for a balance of marketing media, confirming their belief that without a combination of traditional and digital techniques marketing campaigns would not work. 

While 83 per cent of Indian firms feel they cannot do without social media activity, the global figure for the same finds 74 per cent of companies around the world in agreement with it. 

In 2010, Regus found that 52 per cent of Indian firms were successfully winning new customers through business social networking activity. A year later, the proportion has risen nine percentage points to 61 per cent. 

Two fifths (39 per cent) of firms globally and almost half in India (49 per cent) devote up to 20 per cent of their marketing budget to business social networking activity, the survey said. 

Fifty two per cent of businesses globally and 64 per cent in India use websites such as Twitter and Weibo to engage, connect with and inform existing customers, it said. 

In India, 67 per cent of firms encourage their employees to join social networks such as Linkedin, Xing and Video, compared to 53 per cent globally, it said. 

The global Regus survey findings are based on the responses of over 17,000 managers and business owners across 80 countries.

As reported by Economic Times 

Amazing Statistics

Some statistics regarding the spread of social media:

* Facebook now has over a half billion users worldwide; if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous behind China and India,   ahead of  USA  At least half of these users check Facebook every 24 hours and approximately 200 million are using their Mobiles or Mobile device to check their account.

* There are 175 million registered Twitter users, and over 95 million "tweets" are posted each day. That is almost 4 million tweets per hour.

* There are more than 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube  every minute and there are more than 2 billion videos viewed on YouTube every day.

* LinkedIn, the professional networking site, now has over 100 million registered users and there are more than 1 million companies with LinkedIn  pages. Nearly 2 billion people searches were conducted through LinkedIn  in 2010.

Amazing numbers to get to understand but it does mean more and more customers are using social media as their way to communicate and get their information. One must be aware .