Odds and Ends

1. Steve Petersen, "Blogging Goodwill Fashion."

2. Geoff Livingston, "Facebook’s Lost Way."

3. Potomac Flacks notes the cardinal rule of flacking: Call reporters back promptly and answer their questions.

Odds and Ends

1. Jesse Thomas, "Facebook Profiles Redesign Sneak Peek."

2. Ari Melber, "McCain's Unfiltered Blog."

3. Heather Timmons, "Online Scrabble Craze Leaves Game Sellers at Loss for Words."

4. Todd Zeigler, "Does Good Design Matter?"

5. Peter S. Goodman, "Facebook Is Extending Its Network to Blood Donations."

How LinkedIn Compares to Facebook Compares to MySpace, Etc.

LinkedIn: 15 million users. 4,000 new users a day (10/07).

Facebook: 55 million active users, who, on average spend 22 minutes a day on the site. 200,000 new users a day (11/07; 10/07; 10/07).

MySpace: 110 million active users (2/08).

Twitter: 340,000 users. 2,000 new users a day (7/07).

YouTube:

Why Your Nonprofit Organization Should Embrace Social Networking

If only because all 501(c)3s can avail themselves of these free programs:

1. YouTube.

2. MySpace.

3. Facebook.

4. Google. Google Grants provides free Google AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations. This program is designed to help organizations extend their public service messages to a global audience in an effort to make a greater impact on the world.

84% of Facebook Users Are Between the Ages of 14 - 26

According to its official "Statistics" Web page, Facebook boasts "more than 64 million active users." But the devil, as always, is in the details.

As Facebook itself reveals in its process for creating an advertisement, of these 64 million people, only 24 million of them are in the United States:
















Moreover, 84% of these 24 million are between the ages of 14 and 26:

















Hat tip: Marketing Hub.

Is Advertising on Facebook Worthwhile?

For the past two weeks I've been running a Facebook ad for one of our clients. The ad has been viewed 370,000 times and clicked on 200 times, all of which has cost $330. Here are the data:


This makes for a poor click-through rate, but research confirms that this is not uncommon on Facebook. As the Unofficial Facebook Blog has documented, “While [Facebook’s] targeting is phenomenal, Facebook users are more engaged by the content within the site rather than the advertisements.” "What's more," Time's Anita Hamilton adds, "Facebook may not be able to keep up the momentum of its rapid-fire growth because social-networking aficionados are notoriously fickle. Remember Friendster?"

Nonetheless, there are good reasons to stick with FB. First, every person who viewed and clicked on the ad was highly targeted, so we’re not paying for anything extraneous.

Second, $1.65 a click is reasonable, especially compared with the rates on big sites.

Finally, unlike traditional ads, the best of which are animated and typically require a professional both to design and to resize according to site-specific dimensions, FB ads are limited to (135?) characters and one tiny picture.

In short, I think advertising on Facebook which is just getting its feet wet in this field, is well-worth your time and resources.

Who Accepts Online PSAs?

1. Facebook does not accept PSAs. As Ryann from Facebook explained via e-mail (10/28/07), “[W]e receive an overwhelming number of requests for discounted or free advertising from charitable causes and nonprofit organizations. Due to the fact that we are unable to honor all of these requests, it is our current policy not to honor any of them.”

2. Google does not accept PSAs (it's unclear how the one to the right got into the system). As Eileen D. from the Google AdWords Team explained via e-mail (10/31/07), "To find out more information on the public service announcements you referenced, I checked with a Google Grants specialist ... She told me that this program is not currently available, and that we are currently still researching opportunities. However, as it develops, it will only be available to Google Grants accounts."

3. Blogads does not accept PSAs. As Megan Mitzel wrote via e-mail (10/29/07), "No we do not accept public service announcements."

4. Pajamas Media never returned my phone call or responded to my e-mail.

5. AOL accepts PSAs. As Rachel Gross, director of corporate events and community relations, wrote via e-mail (10/31/07), "We do from time-to-time offer PSAs to the community."

Odds and Ends

1. According to Nielsen NetRatings NetView, 20% of nytimes.com readers are also on Facebook. Accordingly, Facebook has given the Times its own Facebook URL: www.facebook.com/nytimes.

2. Need to start an online petition? Try GoPetition.

Odds and Ends

1. MySpace joins OpenSocial, a Google-led initiative that promotes a common set of standard for software developers to write programs for social networks. According to the NYT, Google says it invited Facebook to participate, but a Facebook spokeswoman says Facebook has not yet been fully briefed on the initiative, though it has scheduled a meeting with Google engineers soon.

Randall Stross draws the appropriate conclusion: "A long, long time ago—last Monday, that is—Facebook ... was celebrating its ability to command a generous $15 billion valuation while pocketing a $240 million investment from Microsoft ... If Facebook chooses to remain a holdout [from OpenSocial], it will not be as the head of a countercoalition but as a cranky recluse."

2. Todd Zeigler points to another use of Google AdWords: As a "cheap and real-time focus group."

3. The NYT reports on the power of Twitter.

The Genius of Facebook

A recent college grad, Alice Mathias (Dartmouth '07), puts her finger on it:

Facebook did not become popular because it was a functional tool—after all, most college students live in close quarters with the majority of their Facebook friends and have no need for social networking. Instead, we log into the Web site because it’s entertaining to watch a constantly evolving narrative starring the other people in the library.

I’ve always thought of Facebook as online community theater. In costumes we customize in a backstage makeup room—the Edit Profile page, where we can add a few Favorite Books or touch up our About Me section—we deliver our lines on the very public stage of friends’ walls or photo albums. And because every time we join a network, post a link or make another friend it’s immediately made visible to others via the News Feed, every Facebook act is a soliloquy to our anonymous audience.

Monetizing Facebook

Patrick Ruffini asks, "Could Facebook be the greatest microtargeting engine ever built?" In short, most definitely.

As the NYT observes in an editorial today,

To its users, Facebook is a way to keep up with friends, promulgate a relatively nonfictional online identity, do research, and waste fantastic amounts of time. But to advertisers, it is a universe of self-created focus groups that link more or less virally to other groups.

Specifically, the Times is referring to Facebook's advertising program, Flyers, an updated version of which the company released earlier this week. Like Google AdWords, Flyers allows ad buyers to microtarget their audience by various demographics.

But what makes Flyers so revolutionary is the extraordinary precision it wields. For instance, say you want to target women living in London, age 18-35, who are engaged and like painting. Instead of bothering the 6.5 million Facebookers in the United Kingdom—or even the 1.5 million in London—Flyers allows you to cater to the 140 who meet these exact criteria. Here's the relevant screen shot:



The cost of the ads is entirely up to the buyer: you can pre-set both a maximum price per click and a maximum daily budget.