Amanda+Livaudais

=**__Amanda Livaudais__**=

Posted- November 15, 2010
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[|Facebook Announces New Messaging System: "It's Not E-mail"]

Mark Zuckerberg announced the new messaging system for Facebook. He says this will not be email, although they will be giving out facebook.com email addresses. He says that this “modern messaging system” will be seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple and minimal. The messages are modeled more after chat; they will not include a subject, no cc or bcc, and sending the message will e as easy as hitting the enter key. He is not trying to create a competitor to gmail or yahoo mail, he simply is making what he feels will be the future of email.

This new type of messaging is meant to be simple, younger people have complained that email takes to long and Facebook is just easier because they are already on it and this will be in real time. It will have three parts: seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history and the social inbox.

Posted- November 4, 2010
[|A Glimpse at the Future of Foursquare]

CEO of Foursquare Dennis Crowley spoke at an ad:tech conference on Wednesday about the future of Foursquare. He spoke about the Foursquare we know now, which is you check in and they send you options that may give you ideas on what to order for dinner at that restaurant. Foursquare has been coming up with many innovations for the future and he spoke of the changes that are coming.
 * 1) Customized Recommendations: Foursquare would tailor recommendations to check-ins you have made in the past. It could recommend a similar bar to one you've been to before or give you ideas during your travels to tailor what you would be interested in during your stay in a different city. The more you check-in to places the closer the recommendations would be to what you enjoy.
 * 2) Instant Check-in: Currently the user has to think about Foursquare and check themselves in; on the other end of the spectrum would be that Foursquare always knows where you are which people wouldn't be to comfortable with. They are currently working on a system that would send you a message asking if you want to check-in to the place they are currently visiting.
 * 3) Brand Discovery: This would be similar to the custom recommendations, it would recommend a type of beer or even clothing based on the place you check-in to. They still need to build up their brand recognition on the site.
 * 4) Better Deals and Specials: They are working on a system that if you check-in to a place a certain amount of times then you will get a deal sent to you.

I feel that these new additions to Foursquare will definitely improve what the site is supposed to help you with, but I wonder if a few are going to far. The instant check-in would seem fishy to me because I feel that the system knows where you are whether you are checked-in or not it still know where you are. These changes may hinder the site if users do not react well to the new additions. It seems that Foursquare is still trying to improve what they have and making it more user friendly and these changes will definitely make it easier.

Posted- October 28, 2010
[|**The New MySpace: Screenshots and Videos**]

MySpace has launched its completely new interface. The site which was once a social network geared as "a place for friends" is transforming into a "social entertainment destination". They have reduced the number of templates and button designs to cut down on design "bloat", and they are recreating everything from the homepage to profiles. The company is also designing a new mobile "experience" to be released next month. I feel this shows how Facebook become the leading social network for friends, which pushed MySpace out of the market. MySpace is now putting a new spin on their site to change how people view them and possibly bounce back from the ghost town this social site has become.

**[|Gap Reverts to Original Logo After Social Media Backlash]**
Social media is now affecting decisions at major companies. Gap decided to change its logo design last to week to one that was "a more contemporary, modern expression". After Twitter and Facebook users saw this they were less than enthralled, so Gap decided to ask users for new designs for the company's logo. Later Gap also reversed this decision and decided to "bring back the Blue Box". There were thousands of tweets and status updates protesting the new logo, but a fake Twitter account was also created that gathered thousands of followers.

This shows how users are starting to effect decisions that are higher up. In Star Wars George Lucas brought back the scene where Han shot first, but today Gap had to revert to its Blue Box.

**[|Facebook Now Worth More Than Dell, eBay, Yahoo or Starbucks… on Paper]**
Facebook is now worth more than many top companies in the world. Facebook according to //Forbes// is worth $23 billion and //The Financial Times// ranks it higher as a $33 billion company. Facebook valued itself at $3.7 billion in February 2009, at $9.5 billion in November 2009, so it is worth ten times as much after little over a year and a half. Facebook hasn't quite caught up to moguls like Google, Microsoft, or Apple but it is worth more than eBay, Costco, and Starbucks. One of the great things about Facebook that also beats these companies is that there are only around 1,500 employees compared to eBay with 15,000 and Starbucks with over 120,000. Although Facebook is worth billions, they bring in less than half the revenue eBay does, and it is still privately owned so their worth will not completely be know until they go public.

Posted- September 16, 2010

 * [|Google Adding Social Networking Layers]**

Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed that Google is going to try competing with social network Facebook. Google Me is a social networking project developed to directly rival Facebook. Google Me is going to incorporate sharing tools with Google products like YouTube, while they are also trying to use Facebook data. Earlier this year Google released Google Buzz which competes with Twitter and it now has over 3million active users. This is very significant to social networking because Google could be creating the next big social site.