More than 24 million Britons access Social Networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
Bebo has the largest share with 11.2 million in the UK (out of 18million overall).
MySpace has 10million British users (out of 110million overall).
Facebook has 7million British users (out of 62million overall).
The British spend approximately 5.3 hours a month each on Social Networks.
Reports that the Samwer brothers have taken an undisclosed stake in Facebook have got the population of the entire world wondering what it is they know that the rest of us don’t. This may be a gross exaggeration on my part, maybe its just me wondering and everyone else can see it. But as a true non-believer - someone who just does not get Facebook - it looks like the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ to me - a duff investment following hot on the heels of Microsoft.
Some may argue that its a case of too much money on the part of Alexander, Oliver and Marc? Others may say that their investments in LinkedIn, HomeAway, ReachLocal and MFG.com doesn’t occupy enough of their time? Or maybe they are dabbling in a little spread betting? Or perhaps they are gathering knowledge for future investments? I guess we may never know what they were thinking. However one thing I am sure we could all agree on is that the brothers will have to wait a long, long time to get their money back - if they ever do. [Read more]
Why did MTV push Tila off the cliff? - Tequila!
The marketing hype with about as much sex appeal as a slightly attractive wooden horse and described as “the Paris Hilton of cyber-celebrities” (as if that’s an accolade!) will get a second chance at small-screen romance as MTV green-lighted a sophomore season of her series.
The network has ordered 10 more episodes of A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila from 495 Productions in which the bisexual MySpace.com pin-up queen will once again try to find the right man or woman among a batch of straight guys and lesbians. The rookie season of A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila was MTV’s top new series among its target 12-to-34 demographic in 2007, according to network officials.
Personally I would sooner scoop my brains out with a spoon than watch her performance, but hey, she has 1.7million MySpace ‘virtual’ friends. The online world is really, really sad!
Kevin Johnson, President of Microsoft’s Platforms and Services division, has revealed the company’s intent to grab the lion’s share of the $40 billion global online advertising industry. Speaking at a UBS investor conference in Seattle he described Microsoft’s “Top 2 with 10, 20, 30, 40″ targets, to be achieved over the next three to five years.
To get to these targets Microsoft made a value chain analysis of the online advertising landscape in 2006, identifying four key segments: Search (eg Google, Yahoo); Information Content (Yahoo, MSN, YouTube); Communications and Social Networking (Facebook, Hotmail, MySpace, Yahoo Mail); and Productivity Services (small segment on the watch list of Microsoft). They looked at the revenue and operating income of companies in each sector and then made a forecast for 2010 mapping it back across each sector.
So how easy is this going to be for Microsoft? Certainly an increase in page views and total minutes is not a stretch and so should be readily achievable. The test will be in winning a bigger share of online advertising dollars and of the search market.
The strategy on advertising seems to be based firmly on acquisition. In recent months Microsoft have dug deep into their pockets to buy into aQuantive [Ad marketing holding - $6billion cash], Screen Tonic [mobile ads], AdECN [ad trading exchange] and Massive [in-game advertising].
The strategy to win a greater share of the search market seems to be based solely on improvements in the Live search algorithm. Microsoft have the fundamentals in place and now claim that recent improvements in Live Search now return results with better relevance than Yahoo. However winning a three-fold increase in search share will talk all of the five years.
You can hear Kevin Johnson’s full speech here.
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