Social networking

Morgan Stanley has just revealed last month’s Internet Trends Report which has some very intriguing statistics regarding Social Networking sites.

Here are some of the highlights from the 72 page document:

• 6 out of the TOP 10 Most visited sites on the Internet ARE Social Networking sites. YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Live.com, MySpace and Wikipedia all made the list.
• 5 out of the 6 didn’t even make the list in 2005. Within 3 years our internet experience has been drastically changed by the introduction of social media, networking and sharing sites.
• in 2008 YouTube has surpassed Google and Yahoo in number of Page Views
• Facebook has grown by 305% - largely in part to it’s ’stickiness’, open application platform, and recent open invitation strategy.
• Top 5 Facebook Applications are: Superwall, Top Friends, FunWall, SuperPoke and Movies.
• Top 5 Searches according to Google Zeitegist: iPhone, Badoo, Facebook, Daily Motion & Webkinz.
• Amazon.com is still the Largest Online Retailer
• Internet Advertising spend is up 26% making it the biggest advertising mover.
• 80% of Internet Users deem the internet as an important source of information, where as radio and newspaper only received 63% importance.

View the full Morgan Stanley Internet Trend Report:

| View | Upload your own

Last week, I wrote a blog post about Twitter, the fast growing microblogging platform that allows users to blog 140 character ‘tweets’ to their closest friends, followers and yes, even strangers. Twitter, although, originally created to keep up with what your friends are up to, has quickly become an easy way for companies to monitor their reputation online.

Zappos.com, one of the largest online shoe merchants, known for its outstanding customer service and amazingly large selection of shoes (personal experience) has recently taken to Twitter. They have set up a Twitter feed page on their site which follows online mentions about the company and ‘tweets’ made by their employees.

Zappos.com has been the online sweetheart of many bloggers.  With amazing customer service stories like, I Heart Zappos, this one and one more, it’s hard to NOT love them.  Zappos.com did not set out to win over bloggers, they set out to win over their customers…and some of them just so happened to be bloggers. With one flower bouquet, Zappos.com managed to win over thousands of bloggers and fans.  According to Yahoo Site Explorerr the “I Heart Zappos” post currently has close to 2,000 inbound links! Talk about free publicity!

As a company committed to customer service, it is a smart move for Zappos to embrace Twitter. Following their company’s brand online will help them pro-actively remedy any negative mentions online and humanize the company by  following their employee’s tweets.

Zillow, Trulia, Facebook, LinkedIn? These are all just passing fads, right? What could they POSSIBLY mean to an old school business like mine?

Find out why you should ditch the skepticism and start using social media to your business’ advantage in this week’s edition of SEO Audio.

SEO Audio: Episode 19

As the end of 2007 approaches it seems like a perfect time to recap our most popular and commented blog posts:
7. More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Linking

How much are certain links worth? Are directories valid? Should you pay for links? How do you measure your linking success?

6. Microsoft Jumps in the Ad Company Buyer’s Club

Now Microsoft jumps to prove they’re not out of the online advertising game with a whopping $6 billion purchase of aQuantive in a move to expand their breadth of paid opportunities on web sites, Internet television, video on demand, and other places online.

5. The Human Element of Search

Take a look at your homepage. What does it say? Does it give you a clear sense of personality… say, clean-cut professional, serious business or funky casual?

4. What Happened to my Google Page Rank - SEO Audio

Were you one of the thousands of web site owners crying foul this week? Or maybe you hardly know what a PageRank is, but want to know the kind of thing that gets bloggers from coast-to-coast, time zone to time zone gossiping and ganging up on Google

3. Blogging your way to The Top of the Search Engines in Minutes

Although Google’s search ranking methods are usually shrouded in mystery, we can assume from these two examples, that Google may be using its Blog Search feature in collaboration with its general search to retrieve the most up-to-date information on any given topic.

2. Is Your Website Ready for Cyber-Monday?

With online holiday sales expected to hit 39 Billion dollars, it is essential to make sure your e-commerce site is in tip top shape.

1. Thinking about Buying or Selling Paid Links? Think Again…

Webmasters have been aggravated for weeks because of Google’s more aggressive policy, with most of the drops in PageRank a few weeks ago blamed on a penalty to sites perceived as buying or selling paid links.