Part of the hype involved with the Facebook IPO this week is the vision of its founder to establish it as a platform for people to use when interacting on the internet.  To me, this means not simply linking from the S.N. to another site, but to actually complete commercial transactions on the social network [...]

Part of the hype involved with the Facebook IPO this week is the vision of its founder to establish it as a platform for people to use when interacting on the internet. To me, this means not simply linking from the S.N. to another site, but to actually complete commercial transactions on the social network [...]

With the Facebook IPO looming thoughts are returning to how social websites will actually generate money. Sure, Facebook is used globally, has an extraordinary number of users and is the top social network in a growing number of countries – but how is it likely to make revenue? Advertising revenue has always been the principle [...]

Perhaps it’s because I like technology, because I was born into an age of unprecedented technological advancement, because I’m curious or simply because I’m too lazy to keep in touch with folk but I have to say I love social networks. For me they’re a tool that allow me to keep folks up to date [...]

Anyone who has tried to resolve the wildly conflicting opinions found on Zagat or TripAdvisor or Ebay knows that feedback from strangers is of questionable value in determining the truth about goods or services.

I had a very interesting discussion with a claims investigator last Thursday at Celent’s industry networking event in London (New Rules of Engagement: How Digital and Social Innovation Challenge the Insurer Business Model – see Nicolas’ summary of the event on the Celent Blog). He went into some detail about how they were using social [...]

A recent conversation with a concerned aunt reminded me how location-aware and enabled our world has become. My aunt was worried that her teenage children were being a little too forthcoming about family movements on the social network sites. She knew her daughter had posted about an impending family holiday. She’s right to be worried. [...]

The story that Ben & Jerry’s are dropping email marketing in favour of social media hit something of a sweet spot with me. Not only do I not like trawling the ever increasing mass of emails each day but I also have a keen interest in how the Internet is evolving and a highly developed [...]

The story that Ben & Jerry’s are dropping email marketing in favour of social media hit something of a sweet spot with me. Not only do I not like trawling the ever increasing mass of emails each day but I also have a keen interest in how the Internet is evolving and a highly developed [...]

By whatever measure you choose, Facebook is growing up fast. The company reports 400 million active users spending 500 billion minutes per month. Over 70% of users are outside the United States. And all this in an unbelievable 6 years since the site was launched in a student dorm room. Such sudden growth does not [...]