Social Media News Release 12-02-09

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The last 24hrs have been a whirlwind of changes in the social media marketing industry as the top search providers vie to gain control of an every evolving social media industry. With Facebook ranking second, only to Google in number of page views per day, it becomes critical that the search giants keep up. There is some data that suggests that as many as 1 of every 4 (25%) of all page views made are to Facebook today.

Perhaps more surprising is that Facebook is not a Google (or Yahoo… or Microsoft…) property. They have very much came into power under their own force without a search provider background. Google’s social forum, Orkut is considered by many to be the proverbial red-headed stepchild in social media because it has not been opened to the multitude of user tools and input methods many of the other social medias enjoy. For example, if you use ping.fm to update many of your social medias at once, you can not update Orkut (due to Google’s own wishes). Yahoo’s several fledgling attempts at social media have never so much as gotten more than a tad off the ground before being ignored.

All of that makes the news in the last couple days extremely interesting.

First, Yahoo teamed up with Facebook and announced that soon, “You will be able to see your Facebook friends’ activities on Yahoo! and share Yahoo! content – ratings, photos, article comments, and more – directly on your Facebook stream.” Yahoo will do this by using Facebook Connect to allow access to all Yahoo properties. The Yahoo Facebook connection could potentially be far reaching.

reference: http://ycorpblog.com/2009/12/02/facebook/

This really is yahoo admitting defeat in the social media arena and attempting to wrap its arms around as many loyal Facebook fans as it can. If this will serve to improve the Facebook inbox remains to be seen, but is considered unlikely. Another thing that remains to be seen is if this is if there is any exclusivity deal preventing Google from making a move to attain, assimilate or integrate the Facebook network in its search results and in to its other properties. This Yahoo Facebook melding will allow the search engine a much needed foothold into the social media arena.

Then in a move of their own, Google later today announced that they would further their connection with Twitter by integrating Twitter access across all of their Google Friend Connect Sites. This will give Twitter tighter integration with the blogging world and also should help promote the popularity of the Google Friend Connect. This Google Twitter deal presents, in my opinion, a gain for both Twitter and Google but only time will tell the outcome. A lot of users ask “can twitter tweets be discovered on Google search?” and this will will further drive the answer to a strong Yes.

reference: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2009/12/friend-connect-birds-of-feather-tweet.html

Now both search giants are poised with access to a strong social media tool. What comes next? Only time will tell…

Kimberly

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