14 Feb 10 Social Networking Battle – 2009, a Year of Facebook and Twitter

The field was all set. The army was standing on the either sides of an invisible dividing line staring eye to eye, horses rearing to run over the opposition, but the battle never took place, at least not in that battle ground, or any particular battle field. The war was on, and it was taking place on each of the personal computers hooked up to the Internet—the war of social networking. King MySpace was using all its might to protect its castle, whereas, Facebook, the young rebel, was attacking with all guns. And the third player, twitter, was silently embracing whatever came its way.

This was the year 2009, and before it touched half of its mark, Facebook already has defeated the king (MySpace) and taken over the thrown. In May 2009, Facebook became the number one social networking site in the world.

By the time, 2009 came to a close, Facebook already has 112 million visitors (in December 2009) which was a 105% growth on December 2008 number (55 million visitors). Twitter grew by 900% from 2 million visitors in December 2008 to 20 million visitors in December 2009. Twitter growth reached its pick between February and April 2009 when its user base grew from 4 million to 17 million. (See image for complete report).

MySpace may have lost the crown, but it is not out. It has just changed the battle field. MySpace has started to devote its time on building entertainment content which triggered the growth of MySpace Music by 92% in the last year.

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/dzone_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/blinklist_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/blogmarks_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/furl_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/magnolia_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/google_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/myspace_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_48.png

http://blog.gossimer.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_48.png

Tags: April, Army, Dividing Line, Eye To Eye, Facebook, Guns, Horses, Internet Networking, Music, Myspace, Opposition, Personal Computers, Social Networking Site, Young Rebel

Filed in Marketing with 0 Comments

10 Jan 10 3 WordPress Plugins That Will Help You Connect With Your Visitors

Blogging is fun not only because it gives you an opportunity to express yourself freely, but also because it helps you connect with the fellow users. In this article, I will tell you about 3 plug-ins that will not only allow you connect with like-minded people on the Internet but will also help promote your WordPress blog.

Sociable

No matter which social networking site your visitor use to broadcast the article he or she finds interesting, Sociable is going to help him. This is the best social media plugin for WordPress blogs. It has in-built support for 99 social bookmarking sites, and it is highly customizable. You can add, remove, and arrange various social networking buttons, in other words, you can control where which button will appear in the list that will typically appear at the bottom of every post once this plug-in is installed.

Tweet This

Twitter is amazing, and we all know that. We also know that no discussion on social media will be complete without talking about Twitter, and no discussion on social media plugin is complete if Tweet This is not mentioned.

Tweet This is the best twitter plugin for your WordPress that allows you to tweet your new posts. It can also be configured to tweet scheduled posts. To shorten the URL of the post, this plugin uses your favorite URL shorting service, which you can customize using your personal API for tracking. The new version of plugin also has support for Plurk, Delicious, Digg, Yahoo Buzz, Ping.fm, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, and StumbleUpon.

The WordPress Bar

What happens when a visitor clicks on the external link on your blog? He or she breaks all the connections and goes away to another website, but an external link is important, so this is kind of inevitable, isn’t it?

Well, there is a way out, and The WordPress Bar shows you that. Have you seen a Digg bar? The WordPress Bar functions similarly like a digg bar. A visitor remains connected to your blog through The WordPress Bar, even when he or she clicks on an external link. The bar performs many more functions. You need to check this out to know exactly what all it does.

Tags: Api, blogs, Digg, Facebook, Fellow Users, Fun, Myspace, Opportunity, People, personal, Plug Ins, Plugins, Reddit, Social Bookmarking Sites, Social Networking Site, Stumbleupon, Tweet, Twitter, yahoo, Yahoo Buzz

Filed in blogging with 0 Comments

25 Dec 09 Facebook Replaces MySpace to Become the Most Searched Term of 2009

According to a study conducted by Experian Hitwise, it was found that Facebook is the most searched term for 2009. The online research firm has made a list of the top 300 search terms from January 2009 to November 2009.

MySpace, which was at number on in 2008 has slipped to 2nd position, whereas, Facebook which was number 10th in the list in 2008 has climbed up to number one slot in 2009. This has been a big leap for this social networking site.

This may be taken as an indication of growing popularity of Facebook, and falling importance of MySpace. Facebook received 0.67 percent of total searches in 2009, whereas, social networking sites and related terms had 2.48 percent share of top 300 searched terms in 2009.

Another major change was with the search volume of eBay. In 2008, it was 3rd most searched term on the Internet, whereas it has fallen to 8tt position in 2009. YouTube at number 4th was the new entry in the top 10 list. (See figure)