901am

New Media News Every Morning

Facebook founder believes social networking is not a passing fad

By 1 Comment

901amDespite the increasing popularity of social networking sites nowadays, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes it will take decades before the inherent advantages of social networking will be very clear to the general online users. Guardian Unlimited has captured the gist of Zuckerberg’s speech at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

We’re talking about the set of connections that everyone has in real life. All we’re trying to do is take those connections and map it out. Once we have an accurate model, we can help people to share their information more effectively. But it’s going to take 30 years – or at least tens of years – before this becomes a really mature platform.

But why should we believe the forecast of this 23-year old founder? For one, he is the most influential person in the tech industry today, outranking big shots like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Originally posted on October 19, 2007 @ 4:14 am

Facebook to overhaul safety procedures

By Leave a Comment

901am Part of its initiatives to protect its 47 million users from online harassment and sex predators, popular social networking siteFacebook has reached an agreement with New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo to revamp its safety procedures.

Connected with this new agreement is the improved complaint process wherein Facebook must respond to all complaints related to pornography, nudity, or harassment within 24 hours and update the complainants within 72 hours.

Moreover, an Independent Safety and Security Examiner will oversee for 2 years if the social networking site complies with the agreement.

“I applaud Facebook for addressing my office’s concerns about the site’s representation that they provided a safe environment and an expeditious complaint review process. I believe our agreement will provide additional confidence to young people and parents alike and give Facebook a competitive advantage in the marketplace for setting a new standard for safety,” said Cuomo in a news release.

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 8:00 am

Mark Zuckerberg named most influential person in tech industry

By 2 Comments

facebook.jpg

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has today been named the most influential person in the high-tech industry by a panel of experts in the eighth annual Agenda Setter’s poll by silicon.com. The Agenda Setters Top 50 focuses on the people driving and shaping the tech industry in 2007 and is a barometer of success within the IT sector.

Mark Zuckerberg rocketed to the top spot above the likes of Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Rupert Murdoch, after failing to appear at all in last year’s rankings. Launched just three and a half years ago, Facebook’s popularity has exploded in 2007, with the social networking giant growing to more than 42 million active users across the world. In the UK alone, the site has tripled its reach from 2.7 million users to 9 million users in the past six months .

The Top 10 Agenda Setters for 2007 are:

1. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
2. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple
3. Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google
4. John Chambers, CEO, Cisco
5. Ashley Highfield, BBC technologist
6. Nicholas Negroponte, laptop creator
7. Niklas Zennström, former CEO, Skype
8. Diane Greene, VMware president
9. Jonathan Ive, Apple chief designer
10. Viviane Reding, Euro commissioner
11. Paul Coby, BA CIO
12. Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO
13. Emily Bell, Guardian Unlimited editor
14. Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO
15. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
16. Ben Verwaayen, BT CEO
17. Nandan Nilekani, Infosys
18. David Yu, Betfair CEO
19. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo CEO
20. Mark Hurd, HP CEO
21. Mo Ibrahim, ex-Celtel
22. James Murdoch, BSkyB
23. Rob Pardo, World of Warcraft
24. Michael Moritz, venture capitalist
25. Bill Maguire, Virgin America CIO
26. Rorie Devine, Betfair CTO
27. Meg Whitman, eBay CEO
28. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo writer
29. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp CEO
30. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Tech founder
31. Azim Premji, Wipro chairman
32. Daniel Rimer, venture capitalist
33. Kim Cameron, Microsoft ID chief
34. Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist
35. Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
36. Premal Shah, Kiva president
37. Lawrence Lessig, law professor
38. Paul Otellini, Intel CEO
39. Bruce Perens, open source advocate
40. Richard Stallman, GNU founder
41. Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
42. Charles Dunstone, Carphone CEO
43. Bruce Schneier, security expert
44. Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel initiator
45. Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 guy
46. Luis von Ahn, Captcha
47. Geelen and Pauwels, TomTom
48. JP Rangaswami, BT Global CIO
49. Blake Ross Firefox founder
50. Trevor Baylis, inventor

“Our annual poll continues to expose the latest trends and driving forces in the technology industry and it has been fascinating to watch the rapid changes that have taken place over the last 12 months. Up until 2004, CEOs, politicians and regulators topped the polls every year. Clearly, the tech industry has undergone a massive transformation since then, as now a 23 year old has taken the top slot as the CEO of one of the largest social networks in the world. Online communities are certainly the most talked-about tech trend this year,” Tony Hallett, editor and site director of silicon.com, said.

The full results and special report are available at www.siliconagendasetters.com.

Editor’s note: Can you please poke me.

Originally posted on October 16, 2007 @ 12:22 pm

Facebook traffic dips but…

By Leave a Comment

Based on the upcoming comScore September 2007 user engagement and page views data, GigaOM pointed out that Facebook’s unique visitors has declined by 9.3%, from 33.75 million in August 2007 to 30.6 million in September 2007. Moreover, page views also went down by almost 4%.

facebook.gif

But TechCrunch is quick to refute Om Malik’s analysis, saying there isn’t enough information yet to make any kind of definitive statement about Facebook traffic. Since comScore only tracks US traffic, it can be misleading because Facebook’s growth is propelled by non-US users over the last year.

These traffic statistics are very important these days in light of Facebook’s attempt to get additional funding.

Originally posted on October 11, 2007 @ 10:49 pm

babyTEL releases Telephone for Facebook

By Leave a Comment

babytel.pngSocial VoIP pioneer babyTEL announced today the launch of Telephone, its telephone service application integrated with the Facebook platform. The service allows Facebook members to call their friends or send voice messages with the “direct-to-mail” feature right from their Telephone phonebook, which is created automatically when their Facebook friends add the Telephone application. After adding the application, users can then invite their friends to add the application.

According to babyTEL CEO Stephen Dorsey, “We saw the astounding popularity of social networks and recognized that users lacked a means to have live conversations within their social network of choice. Telephone enhances the social experience within Facebook by adding two new ways to communicate– a direct telephone call or a direct message. The service allows for spontaneous reactions to friends’ postings in one’s own voice and is also available for regular calls. Our Social VoIP adds a new and exciting dimension to telephony in general and will soon connect seamlessly to the babyTEL VoIP network, cell phones and other landlines.”

Originally posted on October 9, 2007 @ 1:08 pm