HU- Budapest From My Room
Facebook Friend
Since I had my Facebook account i never wrote or updated my status, not one single time, then few days back while on my Facebook homepage, I take a look at the right upper side and read: “Dave Duarte is brainstorming for a new name for his company”. I take few seconds and send Dave a message telling him that I ready to help is likes me too and he answers back, yes sure.
I have Dave as my friend on Facebook from a group that I don’t even remember. I am in Lebanon and Dave is in South Africa, I need to fly “good few hours” to reach that destination where I have never been, despite the distance, you feel you are close and all this because of Facebook.
Dave is Chief Marketing Geek (CMG) of Cerebra, a social-media consultancy. The company launched in late 2006.
He is responsible for a lot of the primary research that Cerebra conducts, and so as a result, he has gotten involved in writing, teaching and speaking at conferences. Most of this culminates in a programme which he directs at the UCT Graduate School of Business, called Nomadic Marketing. He also lecture there from time to time, on the MBA programme and executive education courses.
It’s his mission to speed the South African web scene into global prominence so that they get recognized for the hub of diversity, creativity and ubuntu that they are.
Stop Begging !
Invitopia.com will make you stop begging for your invitations. All you need is to visit and post a comment to the website you want to have an invitation to, people carrying those invitations will be nice enough to send you one.
FR: Lidl With Coke & Pepsi
Whereas Pepsi had the monopoly of the cola market at the hard discounter LIDL in France, now it will have to divide its shares with its competitor Coca-Cola. Already present in other hard discounters shelves of this type (ED and Norma), the leader of cola indeed comes to make his entry at LIDL. What to maintain the war with the markets shares between the hypermarkets and the hard discount.
Do You Love Skype and Hate Facebook!
Nowadays Facebook is everywhere, facebookists are around the corner, facebookism is in the air and Facebook applications are by thousands now. I even launched the blog www.facebookism.com to cover anything related to this phenomenon.
The more I am digging around this new social network, the more I am discovering people rejecting it without reason.
Then this morning while turning my laptop on in the office, my Skype was signing in and I wondered why some people who reject Facebook, do use Skype?
Skype has many features that are similar to Facebook and Skype was there way before Facebook. I will not count the option of both of them, but your profile on Skype have many identical fields as Facebook, you can have your picture attached, you add friends from anywhere in the world, you can have voice chat, you can have video chat, you can even search for people by very small details (age, gender, country, etc…)
Lots of people are having social networks on Skype or MSN or Gtalk or other messengers without even noticing it, but I don’t really understand why they reject Facebook in an era where the internet will move soon from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.
If some people are afraid about their privacy, they should know that everything is controllable and that on September 8, 2006 Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) apologized from many upset Facebook members who responded with outrage and he offered many privacy options.
My small conclusion, Skype and Facebook are almost the same in many issues and different in others but at the end, you can make your networks on both.
US: Catalog Of Web Applications
New York based Simple Spark aims to make finding web applications easy through an extensive catalog of online application sites.
Over 3000 web applications are tracked and categorized with screenshots, icons, feeds, reviews and concise summaries. Applications are indexed in over 70 categories including Spreadsheets, Workspace & Wikis, Education, Fashion, Green Living and Family & Kids
The Simple Spark search facility is also language friendly, a search for delicious or Flicker delivers the correct results of del.icio.us and Flickr; we’ve all misspelled Web 2.0 application names before.
Each competitive space can be tracked by RSS feeds based on individual categories, searches or the newest additions to the catalog.
Keeping up with the numerous competitors in each space can be difficult for even people working in the industry, let alone an outside observer. I find myself impressed with Simple Spark, as the name suggests it’s a simple idea that I can definitely see myself using in the future when researching a product category.
Source: techcrunch.com
DE: Xing Reaches 2 Million Users
Xing, the German-based social networking platform, has reached 2 million users.
Xing has attributed their milestone to growth in an International market. With their recent acquisition of eConozco, the Spanish-based social networking site for business professionals, Xing’s global reach is expanding. A steady growth rate has been seen across the board for Xing’s online properties, and they aim to connect the US and Europe to create a very global business network.
Xing also plans to launch several new features including an API, which began its closed test phase in March. The release of their Marketplace will occur in the coming months. Xing is also looking to add an improved search feature, an Address Book 2.0, as well as optimized member profiles this year as well. With the growing global market, a professional network such as Xing may be placing themselves in an ideal position to take business networking to the next level.
Source: Mashable.com