Mediaboss Marketing

Daniel Ionescu, TechHive

Daniel has been writing about smartphones, tablets and apps since 2008, and he enjoys pitting gadgets against each other. More by Daniel Ionescu

Facebook on Thursday announced that it now has more than 1 billion monthly active users, more than any other social network in the world. The social network also said that more than 600 million users are now accessing Facebook from their mobile devices.

In comparison, Twitters latest official update pegs it at 140 million active users (some estimate there are some 500 million total users), while would-be Facebook rival Google+ has 100 million monthly active users and 400 million signups.

Mark Zuckerberg celebrates Facebooks latest milestone.

Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the milestone on his Facebook profile on Thursday morning, saying: This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month. Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life. I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.

In a fact sheet released to mark the occasion, Facebook detailed that it reached 1 billion monthly active users on September 14 at 12:45 p.m. PT. The top five countries where people connected from at the time the milestone was reached were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States.

Facebook was launched in 2004, and by 2006, it had 23 million users. That number doubled by 2007, and again in 2008, when it reached 100 million users. By 2010, Facebook hit 500 million users, doubling that number two years later. Currently, Facebook says the average age of its users is around 22 years old, down from 26 in 2008.

Facebook says that more than 219 billion photos were uploaded on the social network, with some 140 billion friend connections. With people putting so much of their personal life on the social network, Facebooks growth has not been without privacy blunders, and legislators in Europe are still investigating Facebooks data mining techniques.

Facebook still has challenges ahead, though. Local social networks in China and Russia have a foothold on their market and Facebook has been slow to make forays in those countries. Then there is the financial aspect: Facebook had a shaky initial public offering earlier this year, and it is still looking at ways to make display advertisements for the mobile users who represent 60 percent of the social networks monthly traffic.

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Facebook rules the social networking world with 1 billion users

I saw Jesse Eisenberg on 114th the other day. I dont bring this up to brag, since as a New Yorker, I obviously dont give special attention to celebrities, but only because I was with my friend, who apparently confused Eisenberg with his Social Network counterpart Mark Zuckerberg (thus making it a far more interesting story to the people she told).

The faux Zuckerberg sighting got me thinking, mostly about how crazy it is that he was in our shoesan undergraduate at an elite universityas recently as 2004, which really doesnt seem like that long ago. The year is still vivid in my memory, mostly because the Sox broke the Curse, and its insane to consider that in that short time, the social world has completely changed.

It wasnt all him, either. Zuckerberg was a kind of Hegelian world-historical individualhe was just an agent of the world (networking) spirit (bam). In fact, one of Facebooks early rivals was created by a SEAS class president who was trying to invigorate Columbias school spiritso I suppose it was doomed from the start. The social revolution was inevitable.

Its hard to gain perspective on a revolution while its still happening, especially since we came of age right at the advent of social networking. Its pretty difficult for me to imagine the social world even pre-Myspace, although admittedly Ive mostly blocked 2003 out of my memory (Aaron fucking Boone).

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, recently deceased but once powerful sites such as Livejournal, Digg, and Flickr, even texting to some extent and smartphones to a large extentthese are all part of the social networking revolution. They control our lives more than we realize, or at least more than we would like to admit. Ive probably checked Facebook 10 times in the course of writing this, and my iPhone has buzzed with just as many notifications (to which I always have an intense Pavlovian reaction).

Facebook & Co. are more than a procrastination tool, though. Social networking has truly changed the way humans interact with each other. It has led to developments which have undoubtedly improved the worlds ability to connect with and organize larger groups of people, and the ability to share information.

Still, I wouldnt necessarily call social networking a net positive. Its no coincidence that Facebook was created by a man described by more reputable sources than Aaron Sorkin as socially awkward, overprogrammed, and robotic. Social networking truly seems like it was created by someone who hates human interaction, who reduced it to an algorithm and completely removed the human aspect. Popularity is measured in likes and followers, our moods are determined from our status updates, and every social action is methodically recorded and made public, to be judged by our friends.

Most of us have a core group of friends and family, and the way we interact with them will (hopefully) never change, but social networking has changed how we interact with everyone else. Its become immensely easier to maintain superficial friendships. In the past, you had to make an effort to maintain a relationship with someone you didnt see regularly. Now, we can decide who to consider a friend by noting who writes on our walls for our birthday or who has a cursory conversation with us on chat every other month.

Dunbars numberwhich says we can handle knowing and keeping contact with at most 150 peopleis seemingly being shattered, but our cognitive ability to maintain stable relationships with larger groups of people isnt necessarily improving. Were just having increasingly superficial and uniform relationships with larger groups of people.

Social networking goes deeper, though, since it appeals to our natural impulse to share. We crave validation, and nothing is more powerful than shared experiences. In the past, when we shared experiences with each other, it was much more personal and meaningfulmostly occurring face-to-face, or at least in the much more meaningful medium of letters or even phone calls.

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The social network

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --ICAP Patent Brokerage announces for auction one granted US patent and four pending applications covering social networking and internet privacy techniques. This lot will be included in the 17th ICAP Ocean Tomo IP Auction on November 29, 2012, at The Ritz Carlton in San Francisco, California.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100614/CG20517LOGO)

"We are excited to be offering an IP portfolio that combines the popularity of social media with the importance of internet privacy to our global base of buyers," says Dean Becker, CEO of ICAP Patent Brokerage. "This offering is relevant to social networking sites and virtual communities interested in protecting the privacy of their users."

Key Characteristics & BenefitsThe portfolio discloses techniques for protecting the personal information of a user on a website, and for encouraging users to securely share their personal information with a service provider in order to reduce the risk of unwanted offline encounters. Social networking website users want to maintain control over the information in their social profiles, but also want to communicate via instant message, blogs, and forums with other users. The techniques available for sale provide improved protection of a user's personal information to the precise extent desired over social networking websites.

Utilizing this technology, users and service providers can reach a mutually agreeable balance between complete anonymity and full online disclosure of users' offline identities. In some cases, a user's personal information is securely shared with a service provider but not with other users so the service provider can help the user avoid contact with specified groups online and/or offline, such as online advertisers. In other cases, a proposed online identifier, either an avatar or username, of a user is compared with personal information and is accepted only if it does not pose an excessive risk of revealing the offline identity of the user. Therefore, security of a user's personal information is increased, allowing the users to securely and beneficially disclose their offline activities, such as planned travel, interests, pictures, postings, or contact details, to providers of social networking websites.

For a technical description of this IP sales offering, click here.

To learn more about the assets available for sale in this portfolio: Contact Dean Becker of ICAP Patent Brokerage at (561) 309-0011 or via email at Dean.Becker@us.icap.com.

To register for the upcoming event or submit IP for consideration for the auction, click here.

Follow us on Twitter (@ICAP_Auction_IP) and join our LinkedIn group.

About ICAP Patent BrokerageICAP Patent Brokerage is a division of ICAP plc and the world's largest intellectual property brokerage and patent auction firm.

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ICAP Patent Brokerage Announces Social Networking and Internet Privacy Package for Auction

NEW YORK, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --The emergence of online networking through social media has opened the doors for small businesses to not only connect with their audiences more efficiently and frequently than through traditional offline networking events, but also to promote online visibility and increase their chances to be found by new customers online; making it an invaluable channel for the multi-tasking small business owner.

(Logo:http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110719/NY37427LOGO) (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110831/NY59180LOGO )

The fifth PR Newswire article in a six-part series from PR Newswire focused on social media for small businesses, "Which social media sites should I use for my strategy? Part Three: Networking," wraps up the discussion about mapping your small business social media strategy to the most suitable channel. The article offers tips for building a professional and impactful presence on LinkedIn so you can network like a pro and highlights the value of Twitter to start a dialogue with your audience and find new followers. Additionally, the article introduces some less familiar online sites that offer unique opportunities for small businesses to interact with like-minded business owners and leading business experts.

To read the complete article, visit http://bit.ly/QXXKmA. Stay tuned for next week's article, "What Should I Be Measuring within My Social Media Strategy," the last installment in our social media series for small businesses.

PR Newswire's PR Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that provides small businesses and entrepreneurs the tools to develop an affordable public relations & marketing plan that helps them increase search engine rankings, generate interest from potential customers, engage with key audiences and grow their businesses. The toolkit features relevant content such as informative white papers, interactive webinars and how-to articles and premium access to educational resources, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of special offers designed specifically for small businesses. To request information on how PR Newswire can help your small business, click here. You can receive updates on new PR Toolkit content by following @prnsmallbiz on Twitter.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire (www.prnewswire.com) is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms that enable marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers to leverage content to engage with all their key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry 58 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content from rich media to online video to multimedia and then distribute content and measure results across traditional, digital, mobile and social channels. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and is a UBM plc company.

Media Contacts: Rachel Meranus Vice President, Marketing and Communications PR Newswire +1.201.360.6776 Rachel.Meranus@prnewswire.com

Meryl Serouya Marketing and Communications Associate PR Newswire +1-201.360.6009 Meryl.Serouya@prnewswire.com

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Social media for small business: tackling online networking

CHICAGO, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --INXPO, the leading cloud platform for Social Business TV, Online Events and Webcasting, announces the availability of three new internal communications Social Widgets. With these Internal Communication Social Widgets, organizations can further foster conversation and community in their private Social Business TV programs, online events and webcasts.

The new internal communications social widgets are as follows:

All internal communications widgets can be useful for incorporating conversation around your internal communications broadcasts. The newly released Social Widgets for internal communications complement INXPO's pre-existing widgets for external communications:

"All of our Social Widgets are available to any Social Business TV, online event or webcasting customer. With the deepest level of integration in our space, we enable customers to connect their rich media events and live Social Business TV broadcasts to their ongoing activity streams," said Scott Kellner, INXPO CMO.

"This creates a complete content and conversation ecosystem, further enlivening private communities like Jive and Yammer, while promoting important external customer initiatives via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn," continued Kellner.

INXPO provides the most complete and easy-to-use widgets in the industry, and the widget architecture is extensible, allowing clients and partners to build their own widgets, social or otherwise, into online events, webcasts and Social Business TV broadcasts.

About INXPO

INXPO is changing the way businesses communicate with their constituents. With our industry-leading and award-winning Digital Communications Platform we deliver always on, Social Business TV, as well as episodic Online Events. To date, we have delivered more than 2,500 successful online events and Social Business TV experiences for global customers, including American Marketing Association (AMA), Autodesk, Cisco, Freeman, George P. Johnson, Hilton, HIMSS, P&G, PCMA, TechTarget, UBM and U.S. Department of State. We are headquartered in Chicago and on the Web. Visit us at http://www.INXPO.com and on Twitter at @INXPO.

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INXPO Announces Best in Class Social Networking Integration for Social Business TV, Online Events and Webcasting