Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 18, 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
There were several announcements at SXSW, primarily highlighting new apps, and connectivity between the iPhone and Facebook. Simple ads appear on Twitter, and security pros are ever concerned about social networks as they connect to each other.

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SXSW launches: Facebook, Tweetdeck
Facebook made a series of announcements extending Facebook connect with the iPhone, and there are several other announcements from this Techcrunch roster. Tweetdeck allows users to publish to both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. Best Buy launched an API that extends their corporate website, my thoughts.

Advertising: ‘House’ Ads on Twitter spotted
This screenshot shows some “house” ads (promoting the features and fuctions) on Twitter’s right hand column, this could be a potential placement for other types of ads.

Security: Social Networks post Threats
This interesting article suggests that as social networks continue to share data across multiple platforms that security risks are likely to be exposed. For example, information that you share cross network could be seen by friends that are connected to competitors –causing potential leakages. Expect more risks to surface as the social web continues to proliferate.

Best Practices: Streamlining Community
Social media scientists will appreciate the heavy recommendations in this article, which suggests the following: User anonymity should be forced, Barriers to participation should be as low as possible, Moderation should not focus on users or on comments in isolation, but on the relational quality of comments. Read more in attacked from within

Fandom: Coke’s Unexpected Facebook Community
Adage highlights the Coke community within Facebook that has grown –yet it’s not from it’s own marketing team, but instead from fans.

Deals: Pluck wins Batanga
Integrating with it’s Sitelife product, Pluck powers the Batanga Latin music portal and claims to have 38% increase in registrations since the deployment.

Strategy: MySpace continues to focus on hypertargeting
In this article based on interview with MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe, MySpace is critiqued for having slower growth yet maintains a large community. They plan to focus on hypertargetted ads which are customized to users.

Redesign: Facebook’s redesign leaves some wanting
Facebook’s redesign last week has indicated how the web is moving real time, however with every change comes drawbacks, RWW suggests that the profile pages are limited, access with twitter, and confusion between pages and profiles. Ugh, now I need to take a closer look to make sure I can tell the difference.

OpenStack: Twitter now oAuth compliant
Twitter has now announced compliance with oAuth, which will allow third party developers to access the data–without exposing your personal info and login info. Ya’ know all those twitter clients that require you to fully login with your user name and password? Now it could authenticate, keeping your password just to yourself.

Data: Twitter growth, small, but quickly growing
Comscore data shows that “In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.”

Culture: Cell Phones Cameras + Teens = “Sexting”
A recent trend among teens is apparently to share photos of themselves in suggestive and inappropriate situations. This has led some contributors and receivers to be considered to be participating in illegal activities.

Submit: I’m listening. 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 but first, read how to score your announcements.

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.