Facebook Fanpages Get ‘Professional’ Treatment

Fan Appz launched a platform yesterday to help Facebook page administrators create and distribute brand-specific polls, quizzes and promotions that fans can share with friends to extend brand awareness and drive traffic.

The platform, called Professional, provides built-in social marketing tools for businesses at a monthly subscription fee of about $50. Each time a fan takes a quiz or participates in a poll, responses can publish to their Facebook stream.

Brands that are already using the platform include Hulu and the National Basketball Association.

-Maria

Facebook Addiction Has No Effect on Grades

Log into Facebook and you’re bound to be inundated with (mostly unwanted) updates about how Jenny bought 3 trillion more acres of tillable land or how Tommy is now a made man and wants to recruit you. And you wonder to yourself how these people get any work done, given the amount of time and energy they spend on this social networking site. You might assume these students’ grades must suffer, much like the unfortunate stories of teenagers whose lives have been put on hold because of role-playing games like World of Warcraft.

Well, you know what they say about people who assume (Oh you don’t? Don’t worry, neither did this person)… A new study from the University of New Hampshire has revealed that heavy users (defined as those logged on for more than 61 minutes a day) do not do fare worse academically than the light users (those logged on for less than 31 minutes a day) do.

Surprising, no? Especially when you also subscribe to Lamebook’s RSS feed and see gems like this. (These kids are our future, people!)

-Kelly

BUZZ…Google Buzz

During yesterday’s snow day, it felt like my Twitter feed was taken over by Google Buzz mentions and discussions.

Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter Group does a fantastic job of breaking down Google Buzz vs. Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Twitter in his post this morning. His matrix is a well-thought-out comparison.

—Josh

Facebook ‘Friending’ With Benefits Is Benefiting Divorce Lawyers

Who’s really getting the most benefit out of Facebook?  Divorce lawyers.

Because of fresh connections created with old flames and introductions to new people, it makes sense that social media, specifically Facebook, is conducive to “e-philandering,” the term for online cheating.

According to the article on DailyFinance.com, one lawyer stated that almost one in every five divorce petitions his company processes involves a mention of Facebook.

Even better (for the lawyers) is that much of the inappropriate information shared by guilty parties is traceable and public (make sure you set those privacy settings!).

-Maria

Facebook Judges You By Your Surname

Last night, the Facebook Data Team posted some new information about the diversity of its user base. The note describes the roundabout way in which the team determined the ethnicity of Facebook users — they used Census Bureau data about the typical ethnicity of the most common American surnames.

Many commenters have pointed out the possible errors in this method, although the researchers themselves also addressed them in the post. I have a few additional questions of my own. For instance, what would they make of Whoopi Goldberg? Or people whose last names are so rare that they don’t even rank on the Census Bureau’s chart (coughGalellacough)?

Obviously any sort of demographic data is useful to brands, but Facebook could have collected much more accurate stats if they had just asked. Several commenters suggested that Facebook have an “Ethnicity” field in profiles that could be hidden if desired (like how Facebook allows you to hide your birth year). Sure, there’s the possibility not everyone would want to answer, but it seems like a more accurate — and easier — solution than the current one, right?

—Alyssa

2010 - The Year of Profile Burnout?

I recently attended Jaunted’s “Travel Gets Social: The New World of Travel Media” event at the 92Y Tribeca. If you didn’t hear about it (*cough* then get out from under your rock *cough*) the panel line-up included The New York Times‘ Matt Gross (a.k.a. the Frugal Traveler), Virgin America’s Manager of Online and Digital Marketing Bowen Payson, New Media Director for Roger Smith Hotel Adam Wallace and Jaunted/HotelChatter/VegasChatter founder Mark G. Johnson.

Jaunted already did us the favor of recapping the evening’s topics of discussion (as you’ll see, the panelists provided commentary on their social media experiences past and present (from Friendster to Facebook) and raved about the greatness of up-and-comer Foursquare). Many people in the room seemed to already know about Foursquare but had never taken the time to sign up and explore it thoroughly (frankly, because free time is scarce for everyone these days). Which brings me to my point. Jaunted somehow neglected to note an important question that arose that night:

Are we approaching “profile burnout”? Will 2010 be the year that people streamline their social media presences? (FYI - I vote yes.)

In this, the first decade of the new millennium, we have been forced to “evolve or die,” that is, subscribe to every social media network deemed “on trend” or risk sinking into the world of the unknown. The allure of these outlets are powerful (anyone else need a Twitter exorcism? Because I sure do!), yet managing them all effectively is terribly time-consuming. Too often, user accounts become neglected (think of all those who have Twitter accounts with 0 followers and 2 tweets, but are highly active on Facebook). There is simply not enough time for the average person, company or brand to effectively establish a presence across more than a couple of social media outlets within a given time-frame.

One panelist at Jaunted’s event suggested that 2010 might be the year that we begin to streamline our social media presence. That is, identify those outlets that are most relevant for our personal or business/brand message and do away with the others. Personally, I can’t remember my MySpace login details and don’t intend to try to. With all the advances Facebook has made over the last few years, particularly video-sharing and fan pages, I find MySpace to be quite pointless (anyone who wants to argue otherwise is welcome to do so). I’d like to give this Foursquare thing a try though, if my twaddiction will allow.

So, what do you think, reader? Do you plan to edit your collection of social media profiles in 2010? What are your social media resolutions for the New Year?

Discuss…

-Andréa S.

Where’s My Pancakes? Not In Jail…

I bet Rodney Bradford (no relation to M Booth’s Bradford Rodney) never thought a grammatically-incorrect request for breakfast would keep him out of jail. However, the Brooklyn district attorney accepted his Facebook status update, “Where’s my pancakes,” as an alibi that proved he didn’t commit a robbery, because apparently he was at home playing on Facebook. (My favorite part of this story is that the New York Times blogger says the update was “written in indecipherable street slang.” I think it’s pretty clear: Rodney wants his pancakes, and he doesn’t know where they are.)

If you just thought, “Hey, wait a minute…what if Rodney had someone else update his Facebook status at his house, while he was out robbing people?” then apparently you are on par with the greatest criminal masterminds. “This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil,” Rodney’s defense lawyer said, when presented with that obvious possibility.

Whether Rodney was really innocent or not, this case certainly sets an interesting precedent. Meanwhile, I’m sure Law & Order’s writers are already scrambling to work it into the next episode.

—Alyssa

Track Me in the Air with Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus

By the time you read this, I should be boarding my plane and kicking off my vacation to Prague and Budapest! I recently heard about Lufthansa’s new MySkyStatus tool, which tracks your airplane’s journey and posts your flight status to Twitter and Facebook automatically, so I figured I’d try it out. (I’m flying Delta, but Lufthansa will track your flight on any airline, not just its own.) I know this will give my worried mom some peace of mind while I’m traveling. Check out my Twitter page to see if Lufthansa is mentioning the places I’m flying over — hope it works!

—Alyssa