Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Feb 5, 2009

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

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Web Strategy Summary
With Facebook half a decade old, it moves through adolescence and prepares to mature, secondly, LinkedIn takes a stab at the coveted German market, it’s noteworthy that MySpace purged an incredible amount of sex offenders, the question remains, where are they going now?

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Localization: LinkedIn aims at Xing by launching in German
Xing (6.5 million users), which has had a foothold in Germany as the business social network in that area now has a competitor to take on. LinkedIn is now in German and will expand it’s existing foothold of over 40 translated versions.

Revenue: iMeem charges for service
Perhaps due to a depressed economy, or pressure from the board, or increased server costs or a little of all, iMeem starts charging for it’s upload and storage services. Thanks to colleague Peter Burris for the link

Milestone: Facebook turns Five
Mark Zuckerberg announces that after 5 years, things are going well for this skyrocketing social network, read my thoughts on what this means in this MediaPost article.

Science: Genetics Influences Social Behavior
Article based on research suggests that popularity and other social behaviors of individuals may be deep rooted in genetics. Could the children on Generation Y take on the traits of their parents?

Crime: 90,000 Sex Offenders Removed from MySpace
How come all these guys mug shots are so, well arch typical of that crazy man with the van with no windows? MySpace has booted off over 90,000 sex offenders off their social network. The question remains: Where do they hang out instead?

Finance: LinkedIn ready to go public anytime
Profitable social network LinkedIn has been known to be successful generating revenues in a variety of economies and markets, CEO Reid Hoffman suggests that the company can go public anytime.

Developers: Fragile Community Aches after Redesign
While some suggest it’s risky to build your business off someone else’s platform, Developers that are hooked into Facebook must be ready for changes and quickly adopt, in this case, some are still reeling from the pains of the last Facebook redesign.

Deployment: Social Network For Davos WEF Attendees
Davos’s World Economic Forum launched WELCOM a social network for the attendees, watch this video of the premise of the project. Let’s hope these influentials (who I doubt have the time) to try to fix the global economic challenges. Screenshots are available for you here.

Challenges: Why your Community Efforts may Fail
Good reminder of some of the key challenges of why your efforts may be failing.

Community: Jive launches Community for Customers
In my recent Wave report, I judged companies on eating their own dog food, whether or not they had a community for their own customer base. Jive has offered a community site for support, developers, and product. With 67,000 members, I have to ask, where is the community for the business folks? (Update: see comments below from Sam Lawrence)

Case Study: Lithium launches
Lithium, who was also in the wave, touts a recent case study with a community called ACT: “In the 12 months since its launch, the ACT! community has had over 8.9 million page views and 266,000 searches, far surpassing Sage’s expectations.”

Mobile: Mobile social networks
Match2Blue which offers a social network for mobile phones provides some interesting features, but with Google’s launch of latitude this week, quick innovation and marketing will be key.

If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.