When Facebook was founded in 2004, it was meant to be a way for college students to connect with the friends that they had left who had gone to other colleges, however it has become an insane social tool that everyone (including my parents) have subscribed to.

Facebook may be looking into becoming an operating system for communications as far as personal computers are concerned. This means that Facebook wants to become as much as a part of your life as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, or other companies that have become household names.

Last week Facebook let its users see a version of its search software that allows members to search news links as well as other topics that users have updated in real time. This feature is not just limited to friends, but to the network of over 250 million users. I can’t forget to mention that the social networking site has acquired FriendFeed. FriendFeed is similar to the rival social site Twitter. It allows users to bring together all their favorite content from other websites or blogs as well as services to one place so all their other friends can see it.

Once upon a time, Facebook was started as a group of Harvard students sitting in a room together who had a great idea. It was meant for people who were in college and had college email addresses to sign up. Now the site is open to anyone over the age of 13. This, of course, has brought in some heat from previous users who didn’t want to be friends with their younger siblings, but it has since grown to them not wanting to be friends with their parents, or worse yet…grandparents.

Facebook has also seen its fair share of criticism with the implementation of the news feed, which was seen by many as a “stalker feed” type of thing where anyone who you were friends with (or sometimes not) could see what you were doing on Facebook. However, over time, this made Facebook an application that many people sought out the site for, and it eventually made the site much more relevant.

Facebook has had plenty of opposition from other social networking sites. MySpace was supposed to be the greatest social networking site on the internet, but is now seen (by many) as a dirty place that many people don’t go anymore. Twitter serves a single purpose, and not much more than that.

I think that Facebook is already a social networking superpower and over time it will be seen if the company can keep it up or let it slip away from them.

A year or so ago I couldn’t see the point in using Twitter. I often called it stupid and pointless, now I update my Twitter at least 5 times a week with pointless things about how my day went. I have downloaded programs just so I can update my Twitter and also installed plugins for my Firefox browser to update my Twitter, it’s not an obsession just yet, but I’m trying to get into it.

Twitter has actually become kind of useful to those who are trying to save some money also. Companies like Sears, Fiji Water, and Gold’s Gym are looking to be your friend on popular social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. They are even offering discounts and side deals for those who follow them on Twitter or add them as a friend on Facebook.

Last week, for example, Fiji Water used its Twitter feed to tell followers about a 40%-off sale on bottled water purchased through the brand’s web site. Subsequent updates dropped the discount by a few percentage points until the promotion expired. Meanwhile, The Melting Pot chain is offering a free chocolate fondue — worth $16 — to Facebook users who try the company’s free application to match up their friends. (For more current deals, see charts below.)

Fifty nine of the top 100 online retailers have accounts on the social networking websites.

“There’s definitely a business advantage to having a presence there,” says Tim Ross, principal of Kendall Ross, a Seattle-based retail branding firm. “It’s free, targeted advertising.”

If you want to add a company as a friend think about this before you do; you’re giving the company access to your profile so you need to make sure you’re aware of the privacy settings that the site offers so you can limit how much personal information the company can see.

You can track coupons that are posted on Twitter at CouponTweet.com and CheapTweet.com

I think that using Twitter as a marketing tool for a company right now is pretty valuable. I can definitely see where it comes in handy for some companies that might be hurting right now for business or who just want to get their name out. I like the idea of getting coupons and deals from being friends with companies on the social networking sites.

Some companies I don’t quite understand why they would have a Twitter and use it frequently is places like my bank, which updates its Twitter account with birth announcements and promotion announcements. It’s a regional bank and I don’t know one person who works there, so why would I want to follow them just to see who is getting a promotion or having a baby?

I am not a huge fan of Offerpal, it likely has something to do with the fact that I, at one point in time, enjoyed playing Farmville. In order to earn “farm cash” you had to either fill out surveys or give the game money. The last time I tried to fill out the surveys (no, I never gave them my cell phone number or anything except for an email address I use for spam anyway) I waited and waited and never got the “farm cash” I was promised. Since that day, I haven’t played Farmville.

This practice has made a lot of people on the site angry, including editor at TechCrunch Michael Arrington, who has gone after the CEO of Offerpal to get some explanation about the company’s ethics.

Facebook posted in its blog about its ad policies and how it polices ads on the site.

The blog said, “Our policies are clear. If you’re an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease. The underlying issues here are bigger than ads. They’re about building an experience that users will want to come back to …no spam, no surprises.”

I completely agree with Facebook here, but I do believe that it should do something to keep spammy ad networks off the site (otherwise it will begin to look less like Facebook and start getting a reputation more along the lines of Myspace). Myspace is full of spammy ads that Facebook, so far, has steered clear of for the most part.

The ad networks used to get the “premiums” in the games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. are all pretty spammy and unless someone really knows what they’re doing when they “sign up” for an “offer” or fill out some kind of quiz, then they could end up being charged for the premium services on their cell phones or other ways.

Marketing is so much fun. When you try to keep ahead of the game in marketing you really have to pay attention to where the people are. Facebook is where the people are and it is really showing.

Over the summer the gap between users of Facebook and users of Twitter increased by 25 million people. There are roughly 21 million people using Twitter and close to 96 million people using Facebook according to comScore’s records.

The only problem with comScore’s number is that it doesn’t take into account the people who use Twitter without logging into the site. It is expected that nearly half of its users get into Twitter this way; through programs on their phones or programs on their computers like TweetDeck.

I think that Facebook just has the better business plan for the long run. Then again, most of you who have been reading this site for awhile know how I feel about Facebook. I feel as though people like Facebook on a more personal level because they really enjoy being able to connect with people who they have lost touch with; or they are simply nosy and want to know what is going on in the lives of acquaintances (or those same people they have lost touch with).

Twitter is being used to market things through promotions and customer service more than anything else it seems. While on Facebook, a company can create a page where people can become a “fan” of (kind of like following on Twitter). The difference is, on Facebook, the people who are friends with someone who is “a fan” of a company will see that company in their “suggestions” box from time to time. When someone becomes a fan of something, their friends are typically notified through the news feed.

It’s a great marketing tool if you can get enough people interested and to become a fan.

Most employers (if not all) enjoy watching their employees be productive and make money for the company. Anytime there is a lot of anti-productive behavior coming from an employee, that employee will likely find him or herself as a pretty good candidate for unemployment.

This is why it is important to note exactly what NOT to do if you want to keep your job. Right now, just flying under the radar is not enough to keep a job that is in demand.

One thing, and probably the most important is never, EVER do anything to reduce your productivity.

Some people think that it is really cool to update their Twitter page every time they change positions in their office chair. First of all, your boss isn’t stupid and is likely catching on to how much time is being spent on the social networking site rather than filling out TPS reports. If you are one of the people who update your Twitter a lot then you really need to ask yourself this question: Is the next 140 characters worth my job?

Worse yet, people are Tweeting about things like getting job offers! Say that they aren’t even using Twitter at work; how hard is it for their current boss to see that? Not only that, but people tweet about some really random and embarassing things sometimes as well. How does it look to always be talking about your party habits or your drunken hookup over the internet?

I will say, sometimes I get really caught up in other people’s drama on social networking sites if I know who they are. I even feel embarrassed for them from time to time but then I have to realize that they are the ones who decided to post all of their personal business for everyone to see.

So, a couple of things to remember if you are going to use Twitter (even at work) is to never talk about office drama. Sally in HR is not going to be happy about your decision to talk about how she picks her teeth or something such as that.

Only update your Twitter or Facebook or whatever on YOUR time. If you’re off the clock for lunch or something, then go nuts! That’s your time. You just really need to make sure that you’re not talking about anything that may put your job in jeopardy.

Another thing, there are websites devoted to embarrassing things that people say from time to time. Even in a text message, you can still end up with your words for everyone to see.

Facebook has been operating in the red since the beginning of the company just a handful of years ago. Today it was reported that the company is finally beginning to have profitable operations and that according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company is now cash flow positive and has been since the second quarter.

From the Facebook Blog as posted by Zuckerberg:

“We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

Over time, Facebook will continue to be as strong as all of the connections you make. We’ll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible. We thank all of you for helping us reach the point where we are connecting 300 million people, and we hope to serve you and many more people in increasingly deep and innovative ways in the months and years ahead.”

In a previous release from Facebook, the company was not expected to be cash flow positive until sometime in 2010, so seeing profits in the second quarter 2009 is a welcomed surprise.

Facebook also boasts more than 300 million users all across the world.

The newest thing that some of my friends on Facebook have been doing is going to sites like PicJoke and making funny pictures of themselves in situations where they would not otherwise be.

Have you ever wanted your picture plastered on a billboard? Done. You don’t even need online photoshop or an offline program either. This can all be done online through the website.These sites are pretty popular. The sites where you can make funny photos of yourself are definitely fun to play with and draw a little bit extra to your profile.

The best part about the site PicJoke is that they really do put a new effect on the website daily. There are other sites that give you a limited number of effects and they rarely update the site, but on this site you can get anything as mild as a picture with Wall-E to as crude as strategically placed pictures of your face.

While the social networking site MySpace has begun to see its numbers slip and users go on “extended vacations” from the site, Facebook is seeing a spike in users and is now looking to hire 50% more employees sometime in the near future.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that there is a surplus of engineers and that it’s a great environment for the company right now.

The website currently has 1,000 employees and plans on building its workforce, but at a much slower pace than other start-ups. When you compare Facebook to Google, Facebook has barely grown its workforce at all. Google has nearly doubled its staff every year for the three years following the year it went public.

This move could prove to be smart for the site because it is definitely a good way to keep costs down. The site wishes to reach a positive cash flow next year and having fewer employees is a good way to make that happen.

The problem that the site is having with advertisers is that a study showed that people who use social networking sites like Facebook are much less likely to click on ads or purchase anything from the ads on the sites. Currently, Facebook makes its money from advertising and little extras around the site like the “gifts” system where users pay for “gifts” to post on friends’ walls.

I’m sure if you’ve been paying attention to what I say when I talk about social networking sites, Facebook is very obviously my favorite. I rarely log into MySpace anymore and Twitter is something I only use if I’m bored and can’t play on Facebook on my phone. Twitter will likely not even be a blip on my radar once the Pre comes out with a Facebook application.

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the extremely popular social networking site Facebook became a place where you could also buy things and also set up shop if you so wished. Facebook has had the “marketplace” for awhile now and the next step was coming.

Flower and gift store 1800Flowers.com has announced plans to open a retail store and let people buy from them directly through Facebook. The company, which went online in 1991, was also the first merchant on AOL. It has also been an online pioneer by being successful and using 1800 in its name.

The majority of people who order from 1800 Flowers are online buyers and the company is trying to evolve into using social networking sites and mobile applications as a way for people to get their flower fix. Perhaps using a mobile phone’s internet browser or application to order flowers isn’t such a bad idea. After all, it only takes one phone call for my husband to realize how bad he’s messed up when he has forgotten our anniversary. Now, just as quickly he can pretend to rectify the situation by purchasing flowers on his phone.

1800Flowers is having a few issues with Facebook and its search abilities right now because unless you put in the hyphens in 1-800-Flowers and the .com you won’t be able to find the company by using the search feature. To fix the problem, Facebook actually has to tweak the search capabilities, as it is out of the flower company’s control.

There are approximately 300,000 active fan pages on Facebook.

I can really see this being the next step in online retailing. It would be more like a one stop shop thing simply because the one site, even with numerous stores in it, could have everything you needed. Imagine it like a shopping mall; yes, you still have to go to separate stores, but they are all within walking distance of each other, you don’t have to get in your car and drive miles down the road.

Of course, there’s always the Tweets that end up looking very unprofessional anyway like about how awful your hangover is or a “legendary” one night stand. If your Twitter is open for everyone to read, please don’t Tweet this.

People have lost job offers as well as jobs they currently have due to sharing too much information on the site. This just proves, while you may think that no one really reads your Tweets, someone might end up reading it all.

Alexandra Levit, author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College warns about Twitter usage, “Always assume that there are work people looking at your posts.”

Here are some of her tips to social-networking that may end up helping you keep your job (this includes you, Facebook power-user!)

Keep your politics private.
Ah. Politicking on the internet where everyone can see exactly how you feel about each politician can end up making you alienated from your boss and other co workers. It may seem innocent when you talk about favorite political platforms, but you may end up insulting the wrong person.

Never dish about work (i.e. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all)
This is particularly important if you often talk about how much you dislike your work. I’m not sure it’s as bad if you’re saying good things about how much you love what you do. I have a friend on Facebook who constantly updates about what he does, but he always has great things to say.

Update only at lunch.
Yea, status updates are time stamped and your boss and coworkers can definitely tell exactly when you’re updating your status, so try to leave the pressing issues until lunch (but remember to follow the second rule).

There are a few steps that employees can do to make themselves known to employers to hopefully be promoted one day. Those same tactics are now being implemented by the workforce to not be fired when the next line of lay offs comes their way.

So what’s the secret?

According to BusinessWeek here are a few of the tips from the magazine:

1) Focus on the company’s success rather than your own. Most employers don’t have the time (or money) to deal with any potential problems you may have. When you’re at work, you are there to work and not create drag for you or your team.

2) You have to be more than willing to change. I don’t just mean use blue pens instead of black pens, you have to be ready and willing to change direction at the drop of a dime and be ready for it. If the company is looking to mix up the product lines or create a new mission statement for the company, its time to be the “yes man” and learn how to cooperate with the change.

3) Be great at your job and be useful in every aspect of the company. While this is a lot of work, it shows your employer that you have a commitment to the company by going above and beyond your own responsibilities.

4) Social hour should be after work, not during. The last thing a company needs is for its employees to be negative and do a lot of gossiping while on the clock. “No complaining, no blaming!”

5) You have to follow the rules, even the ones that may not have been written down. An example is to be at work early and be at least willing to stay late. When looking at this tip, now would be a good time to quit smoking and start bringing your lunch to work with you to avoid smoke breaks and long lunches.

6) You need to solve problems before they happen. If there’s a way to make the company more efficient (or make it more money), tell your supervisor. Of course, this means there will be some time away from the workplace and in your home where you may have to do some research about competitors and what they’re doing. Doing this ensures that you are seen as an asset to the company

7) Get to know people outside your department, especially those in human resources.

8 ) Social networking is important, if not crucial in today’s workplace. On the BusinessWeek article this tip is titled “Start Tweeting or Start Packing.” I think that this tip is more important to those in the marketing field than those in, say, the accounting department. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are easy to set up and use. Here’s a warning: Don’t “Facebook” too much at work.

It looks like the giant social networking site MySpace is gearing up for some serious layoffs. It is expecting to have to lay off as many as 500 of the 1,600 it currently has working at their headquarters.

The company, owned by News Corp, is trying to cut costs to help in the fight with arch rival Facebook.

MySpace currently had committed to a 12 year lease on a Playa Vista building near Los Angeles, CA. The lease would have cost the company roughly $350 million. Now, because of financial hardships faced by the company, it has backed out of the lease. The building was a 420,000 square foot office space in Play Vista, California.

The market share for MySpace has been declining steadily since it was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2005. It has been losing visitors and advertisers to Facebook, and more recently, Twitter.

In my own opinion, as well as the opinion of many of my friends, is that MySpace is a second rate Facebook. Even though many of us have been using MySpace for longer, the overall sight design as well as some of the more unsavory clientele have made the site really come in second place to Facebook, but still well above the Xuqa. Now, even though Twitter isn’t my favorite social networking thing, I find myself on it more than I am on MySpace…perhaps its because it is one of the only social networking applications on my new phone.

So it appears that Tom will be losing nearly a third of his coworker friends on MySpace. I hope that those developers and programmers find work, but not at Facebook because I like Facebook the way it is, even if all the applications and quizzes are really annoying at times.

After being the COO of Facebook Owen Van Natta has accepted the job as chief executive of MySpace, Facebook’s bitter rival.

arlier this week, the Wall Street Journal that MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe would be leaving the company after News Corp (NYSE: NWS), MySpace’s parent company, approached Van Natta about filling vacant executive positions. The company is in talks with co-founder Tom Anderson, currently president, about him taking a different role.

Van Natta left Palo Alto-based Facebook in early 2008 to become CEO of a music startup called Project Playlist. That company has named John Sykes, a co-founder of MTV and a Project Playlist board member, as CEO.

Facebook is still higher ranked in Alexa than MySpace and from what I can tell, more popular among college students. Since 2004, Facebook has allowed non-college students and others to join the social networking website and it has led to some frustration and anger, but with privacy policies and settings, I actually prefer Facebook.

Source

Well, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the bumper stickers had given my main laptop a very angry virus.

So cut to now, I’ve had to completely format my computer and lose a week’s worth of work. I’m mad at Facebook and even with my spyware and virus scanning programs, I wasn’t able to save my computer.

I just wanted to share the bad news and my disappointment with Facebook and the application’s creator.

I have to say, though, I don’t quite understand the appeal of Twitter. Around the internet people are saying that they use Twitter to “network” and it’s “like an instant messaging/Myspace.” But, with Myspace and Facebook both having update boxes now where you can keep “tabs” on your friends, Twitter seems obsolete.

So my question is, do you use it? If so, why?

The problem is that showing breasts, in any way, is obscene and is against the terms of use policy. The members of the group, angered recently because of Facebook threatening to cancel an account of a 23 year old mother with pictures of her breastfeeding her infant, want breastfeeding to be an exception and added to the terms of use policy.

I think this is a touchy subject. There are over 80,000 members in that group currently. This kind of reminds me of an episode of “Married With Children” where Al doesn’t want the women breastfeeding their babies in the shoe store, so they protest by doing it. If a woman is comfortable with herself enough for the world to see her breastfeeding her baby, then go for it. No one is forcing anyone to look…HOWEVER, if an exception is made, it MUST be worded well so no loopholes can be made.

Let’s take a look back at a couple of the “improvements” from the past:

- News Feed a.k.a. “Stalker Feed” : Upon logging into Facebook you can see all your “friends” recent activity on Facebook. Thankfully Facebook decided that it was in their best interests to let users choose their own privacy settings, so not EVERYTHING you did would show up on someone else’s “stalker feed.”

- Applications : Ok, maybe this one isn’t so bad…but some of the applications in the past have been able to sneak their way around their privacy settings (see: Top Friends).

So what have they done this time to anger people enough to start the “Petition Against the New Facebook” group with 991,000 members as of 1:26 pm on 9-11-08??

Well, they’ve moved all those cute little applications to tabbed format at the top of the profile… Over the past year or so I’ve been moving around my applications on my profile to make my profile look cute and have everyone see the bumper stickers my friends send me.

Moving the applications takes a lot of the “personality” out of the profiles…I looked at the new Facebook and really didn’t even know where to start as far as re-organizing everything.

On the first tab of a profile page…the mini feed (a stalker feed just for the profile selected) and that person’s wall are the same thing. It gets confusing between wall posts and status updates.

And my least favorite change of all: Friends are no longer split into networks… Once upon a time Facebook was only for college students with a valid .edu email address. Then they added high school students…then everyone. It is becoming less and less personal and more like Myspace, where people go by screen names… I really liked being able to find someone in my class by their name incase I needed to get an assignment or something.

R i p old Facebook. I’ll miss you.