WebProNews

Category: SocialMediaNews

SocialMediaNews

  • Hitwise: Facebook Beat Google On New Year’s Day

    As Facebook employees went back to work this week, they may have been smiling more (or at least less frowning less) than most other people returning from vacation.  Their site performed admirably over the holidays, actually attracting record-breaking amounts of traffic.

    On Tuesday, we documented the fact that Facebook received more traffic than Google on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  That made it the most visited U.S. site for the first time ever.

    This afternoon, Hitwise’s Bill Tancer provided some more data.  He wrote, "Facebook was able, albeit by a slighter margin, to recapture the #1 position on Friday, New Year’s Day."  Tancer also created the graph you see below.

    Obviously, it doesn’t look like Facebook’s destined to attract more individuals than Google on a permanent basis.  Still, the social network’s done quite well over the last couple of weeks, closing the gap that somehow opened up during the first half of December.

    This repeat occurrence of Facebook beating Google on a holiday also creates the question of how often it’ll do so in the future.  Will a switcheroo occur on Valentine’s Day?  St. Patrick’s Day?  No Housework Day?  We’ll see.

    Related Articles:

    > Misleading Ad: Twitter is Hiring

    > Twitter Adds New Exec Talent

    > Twitter Obtains Lead Lawyer From Google

  • Flixster Buys Film Rating Site

    Flixster Buys Film Rating Site

    Movie social networking site, Flixster, said today it has acquired movie review site Rotten Tomatoes from IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corp.

    News Corp will receive a minority equity stake in Flixster as part of the deal, financial terms were not disclosed.

    Both Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will continue to be available to Internet users as individual properties. The combination of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes reaches a global audience of 30 million monthly visitors across a number of platforms, including their websites, social networks and via apps for mobile devices.

    "Rotten Tomatoes has built a fantastically well-known brand that moviegoers trust when making their decisions," said Steve Polsky, Flixster president and COO.
    Steve-Polsky
    "Combined with Flixster’s social networking and word-of-mouth, we’re creating the leading movie destination on the Internet."

    Together the companies will have a database of more than 250,000 movies, 2.3 billion user reviews, 500,000 critic reviews, and more than 20,000 trailers and videos.

    The deal follows a series of moves by IGN Entertainment to refocus its efforts on building out its suite of game-related and men’s-lifestyle offerings.

    "Joining Rotten Tomatoes with Flixster creates a company that can dominate the online movie category," said Roy Bahat, president of IGN Entertainment, who will join Flixster’s board of directors as an observer.

    "This also enables IGN to focus on serving the male 18-to-34 audience – especially videogamers – and the advertisers looking to reach them."
     

    Related Articles:

    >Netflix Opens Application Gallery

    >MySpace May Be After Flixster

    >The Year In Online Video

  • Ping.fm Acquired by Seesmic

    Seesmic announced today that it has acquired Ping.fm. This is a service that has half a million active users posting daily from various devices by sending email, text messages, and chat.

    "Ping.fm is compatible with every single Internet device in the world, which why it has become so successful among thousands of users," says Seesmic. "Try using chat to update Twitter, and you’ll find it direct and seamless as you can post updates from gtalk, aim or skype through Ping.fm. It’s so simple and amazing, and it’s always on."

    Social Networks that Ping.fm supports:

    Ping.fm Supported Social Networks

    "Thanks to its powerful and simple API, more than a hundred applications already use Ping.fm to update all the main social networks and Seesmic commits to maintaining and improving the Ping.fm platform," says Seesmic. "Not only has Twhirl supported Ping.fm for about a year, but we are also preparing to open Seesmic apps with our own plug-in architecture so we understand and care about the developer community."

    A list of apps that support Ping.fm can be found here.

    Seesmic says that Seesmic applications on Blackberry, Android, Web, Windows and OSX via Air will all have advanced Ping.fm integration "very shortly," and will instantly support 50 social networks. Users will be able to update not only with the apps they are used to, but also with Ping.fm’s email, sms and chat gateways, the company says. 

    Seesmic applications have been downloaded over three and a half million times. Financial details about the acquisition have not been made public.

    Related Articles:

    > Seesmic’s Acquisition of Twhirl

    > Seesmic Befriends (And Buys) Twitter Client Twhirl

    > Update Your Status Across Dozens of Social Media Sites

  • Some Facebook Users Get New Design

    Some Facebook Users Get New Design

    Update: Some Facebook users are reportedly now seeing a new Facebook design that looks like the screenshots here. The design is similiar to the one below, with some slight differences.

    Original Article: Reports and screenshots have surfaced indicating possible further design changes to the Facebook home page. These changes would include an altered header with drop-down menus for things like chat, messages, and notifications (Via SAI).

    There would also be greater emphasis placed on the search box. It would be moved further to the left, and more into the center of the page. Such emphasis on search would make sense, as Facebook has greater real-time search functionality these days than what it once had (particularly since its acquisition of FriendFeed).

    Facebook Design tweaks

    Screenshot from French publication PCInpact.com (they have several more).

    Let’s not get too carried away though. These changes are only tests at this point, and may or may not ever see the light of day for Facebook users at the mainstream level.

    A Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews, "We are continually experimenting with new designs on the site that are meant to simplify and improve the user experience. These are just a couple of the many changes we’re testing."

    Whenever Facebook makes design changes, there is usually some amount of backlash from users. That doesn’t stop them from continuing to make tweaks, however. In the end, users are likely to get used to or accept the changes either way. I don’t think the world is ready to abandon Facebook for the next big thing just yet.

    Do you like what Facebook has been doing with its design so far? Share your thoughts.


    Related Articles:

    > Facebook Makes Some Changes

    > Facebook Redesign Emerges

    > Facebook Responds To Users Complaints

  • Unplugging From Social Media and Getting Social (And Original)

    (more…)