Facebook is expected to reach the very impressive 500 million user milestone this week. Putting this half billion member mark in perspective, The Washington Post reports that, “the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil.”

Facebook reached 400 million users five months ago. This time last year, it had just reached 200 million, and eight months before that it was at 100 million. Facebook has certainly come a long way since its launch in February 2004 and has become the most popular social site on the web. It poses the question, how on earth did we communicate with our friend’s before Facebook? Did we actually pick up the phone and speak to them?!

Plus it’s not only consumers reaping the rewards of this social networking phenomenon, but it’s clear that brands can also benefit. Many use Facebook as a channel for developing direct relationships with customers and as a platform for sharing and discovering rich content.

But I digress….

In light of this impending milestone, one of the Facebook marketing gurus said that the site plans to celebrate it  with ‘Facebook Stories’, a collection of real-life memories from Facebook users about how the social networking site has impacted their lives. She said that while previous announcements of this nature have been about the numbers, this time the company wants it to be all about the users.

Users could submit their yarn in 420 characters or less. The stories will then be organised into a ‘visual memorial’ by geographical location and by themes such as “finding love,” “coping with grief” and “natural disasters.”

Facebook has already posted a form through which you can submit your own story. If your story becomes popular — that is, if it gets more “Likes” than most — it could be featured among other popular stories.

Got any memories to share…?

Never mix business with pleasure. That’s what they used to say. Perhaps they just meant don’t get caught in flagrante with your secretary, but let’s just say it was a belief that our corporate and social lives belonged in two separate spheres. But ‘they’ didn’t know that Web 2.0 was coming. ‘They’ didn’t have the foresight to see the two worlds were on a collision course that would form a whole new dimension: the corporate social sphere.

Business has become social. CRM – much to the Daily Mail’s horror – has become a social media interaction. Jason Lewis calls it ‘spying’ for a company to monitor and react to online sentiment. For the customer in question, it means passively receiving customer service. Rather than waiting in a call centre queue, the customer simply has a rant on Facebook and waits for a customer services representative to actively come straight to them.

Business has become personal. As recently reported by Cleveland Ohio Business News, the early days of social networking sites led to embarrassing blows for companies, when employees failed to realise that their personal social networking accounts were very much in the ‘public’ domain. We’re all a little older and wiser now. We know how to set those drug-fuelled orgy photos to private.

But in the corporate social sphere the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Social networking pages become resources for building more personal relationships with colleagues and clients. ‘Following’ industry peers on Twitter and LinkedIn becomes a constant and unlimited reach to new contacts and news.

You can look at the corporate social sphere in two ways. You can argue that the business world has invaded our personal lives and in doing so, ultimately infringed on our privacy. Or, you can look at it the other way. Our personal lives have invaded the business world. We’re not starchy, formal cogs in a machine, we’re an interwoven web of relationships – and the better those relationships are, the easier it makes it to get up on Monday morning.

Facebook is a huge success, we all know that. But are major brands being blinded by the sheer volume of people using the channel?

First it was Levis who started using Facebook’s latest “like” functionality to allow people to share the type of jeans they are buying, or wearing. The style of jean would be sent out to all that person’s friends letting them know what jeans that person is likely to be wearing out down the youth club (do these still exist for the Facebook generation?) that evening.

Now, maybe it is just me, but I would take this as a “don’t buy these jeans” alert. The last thing I want to do, and sharing my metrosexual side here, is turn up on a night out with my friends where we are all wearing the same clothes. Maybe it is just a British thing?

The latest of the major global brands to look to Facebook to steal a march on the competition is McDonalds. The social media giant’s highly anticipated location updates, which are just round the corner, look likely to be the cornerstone of a new way for people to interact with the burger giant.

Sorry, but again maybe it is a cultural thing, but to go around sharing with your friends and family that you are in McDonalds again would fill me with dread. It is one location that, no matter how strong a guilty pleasure a quarter pounder with cheese is, I would not want to share across Facebook, not even for 50p off.

Brands such as the two I have singled out above need to be sure to think carefully about how they roll out campaigns internationally. There will always be cultural stereotypes and idiosyncrasies that will make it difficult to ensure a global social media campaign is successful in all countries. Local teams with local knowledge are important in avoiding the brand becoming a local laughing stock. One answer is to create country specific Facebook pages that will enable these individualities to be a positive and not an opportunity to poke fun.

As we all know, for some time now, media-savvy companies have been taking full advantage of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, for a combination of brand-building, direct sales, customer service and PR. This has left us all wondering what will be the next big ‘thing’.

Could it be the controversial Chatroulette? For those of you that have had your head in the sand for the past few months, this is a video dating/exhibitionism site, started at the end of last year, which randomly connects users from around the world, enabling them to communicate using webcam, text and images. On closer inspection, users share webcam footage with each other and much of it is of a rather dubious nature – and that’s putting it mildly!

Despite what its critics say, the site is growing massively by the day and according to comScore, Chatroulette drew 960,000 U.S. visitors in February, up from 109,000 in January.

So, how can brands benefit from such a strange, sometimes obscene, phenomenon?

With the general user-base being made up of people who want to expose themselves, people looking for nudity, and curious/new users, there aren’t a lot of brands that would knowingly market themselves to digital exhibitionists, but its growing attention does present an opportunity for brands. In light of this, surely brands should ask themselves a question before trying out any new medium — especially one with a shady reputation. What do they hope to get out of it?

One brand has bitten the marketing bullet and dipped its toes in the murky waters of Chatroulette. French Connection is currently using the site to run a competition where men are being asked to set up a real date with a girl on the site. The bloke not only gets a date but also £250 worth of French Connection vouchers. The competition is part of French Connection’s The Man, The Woman campaign launched in February, which aims to draw more attention to its men’s range of clothing.

Personally, I’m not entirely convinced. Is this merely a case of social media bandwagon hopping? Brands who want to be perceived as edgy simply jumping on to the hot new thing in social media? And do we really want to see the naked truth?

Times they are a changin’, or so it seems. The powerhouse of the internet that is Google has a pretender to its crown. Facebook has managed to gain a level of momentum that could well see it take over as the most influential company on the web.

It is the strength of the relationship that Facebook has with its 450 million plus users that puts it in such a strong position. Add to that the announcements from its f8 developer conference and the writing could well be on the wall for a number of the most promising businesses currently laying claim to their own piece of our web based life.

In a way that seems contrary to the normal scheme of things, the greater Facebook’s success the more it has continued to attract new users. It is now a platform that circles the world and brings together groups of friends in a way that no other site has managed.

Adding new features and functions, such as “Presence”, could well make it the largest provider of these services at the click of a mouse. Location based services are just one possibility. Foursquare has a great proposition and has gathered a significant number of users and momentum of its own. But, and it really is a huge but for the guys at Foursquare, a Facebook location update service will automatically have millions of users an catapult it to number one in a second.

Another example of how Facebook is capturing more of our online time is its instant messenger service. With more of my friends on the site more often, I have found myself using this over more established services such as Microsoft’s Live Messenger, it is right there, quick and easy. Another significant move is Facebook connect. This service shows how Facebook is working closer and closer with other sites. The technology enables web sites to remove the need for their own registration process by giving access to services and information through a users’ Facebook login.

The really clever thing about all this is that with Facebook, registration and creation of an account is accepted absolutely by users. This automatically provides a huge, already accepting, market for any new services it bolts on. Google on the other hand, came from the opposite point of view. It was created as an open, free to all, search engine and as a result has struggled to change its proposition to a registration based model. Just look at the slow uptake of Buzz.

Twitter’s habit of falling foul to phishing attacks may have come to an end this week as the company announced that it’s stepping up its efforts to eliminate malicious attacks with some new features, described as being able to “detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links before they reach an intended victim.”

According to net security firm Sophos, social networking spam and malware attacks rose 70 per cent last year, with Facebook and Twitter in particular becoming prime targets for Web 2.0 spammers.

More recently, bogus direct messages have invited users to log into counterfeit Twitter sites, and hand over login credentials in the process. Hacked accounts have subsequently sent spam messages, much to the embarrassment of the victims of the attack, including cabinet minister Ed Miliband, online bank First Direct and BBC correspondent Nick Higham.

In news that will be welcomed by the thousands of Twitter users who have fallen prey to such an attack, the popular micro blogging site has decided to fight back.

How does it work? Quite simply, even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, Twitter will be able to keep that user safe. The system is similar to current Gmail security, which automatically checks link destinations, and works by all submitted links being routed to this new service.

Aside from the obvious benefits these new measures bring for the celebrity user and average Twitter fan, businesses will undoubtedly benefit from this extra level of protection. A vast majority of companies are signed-up to the service because on the plus side, Twitter is an effective tool in which to market their brand, giving them the ability to continually and repeatedly promote their products and services to a large audience. On the negative side, if a business falls prey to an embarrassing, or in some cases, damaging phishing attack, a company has left itself open and vulnerable for the masses to see. But is this really the last we will see of Twitter spam attacks?

You may have heard about the new US start-up that’s been making the headlines recently. Of course, it’s yet another social network. But this is a social network with a very different twist.

Backed by a Twitter co-founder, the site is called Blippy. Much of the design, functionality and user experience mirrors Twitter. It requires you to share your debit/credit card numbers with it, as well as your bank account details and other online accounts such as eBay or iTunes. Every purchase made on these accounts is displayed, in real time, to other Blippy users online.

What did you buy today?

To many, this may seem like the most outrageous sacrifice of privacy and security. Yet the Blippy founders think it holds the key to learn more about deals, new products and consumer spending habits. Surprisingly, quite a few have signed up. 5,000 volunteered to try it during private testing, sharing information equating to $5million worth of purchases. Since launching publicly in January, Blippy has persuaded more than 13,000 consumers to sign up and has even piqued the interest of a number of US investors.

Another key element is the data that Blippy offers, which details where you shopped and the money spent per purchase. It even prints a description on occasion and in the same window your friends are invited to comment on each transaction. So if I saw a DVD a friend of mine purchased, I could ask them if they liked it.

Living this publicly online could be a step too far for many. Especially given the concerns raised recently over location-based and social network sites making it easier for criminals to ascertain when you’re not at home. Despite this, I’ll draw on what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg said recently, which is that ‘living publicly is now the social norm.’ Blippy, therefore, could be the one to watch this year.

This week the Guardian online posted a blog on the rise of social media as a relevant source of information for journalists, as revealed by a recent US survey which claimed that 56% of reporters view it as an important tool for producing stories. The research carried out by Cision and The George Washington University, showed that over 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research, with two thirds turning to social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

But, is this a good thing? Are journalism standards slipping?

There is certainly a strong advantage to using social media as part of journalistic research. Its global reach and speed means that stories can be documented and sourced as they are taking place – the New York Hudson River plane crash is a great example. Ferry passengers were able to tweet about the accident before TV crews even got to the scene.

However, social media shouldn’t be used as the sole source for stories, but rather it should sit alongside public relations – providing interviews and access to sources and experts to help paint a fuller picture. It still begs the question as to why the media is so obsessed with social networking?

Phenomenon! Everyone loves to be in the middle of a newly discovered craze and social media is currently it! Flick through the national papers and there will undoubtedly be a story relating to social media. As a PR professional, I have been told by numerous news desks and news agencies that stories relating to Facebook or Twitter stand a much higher chance of being selected than those that don’t.

Why? Because social networking provides that much needed human interest angle that the media loves, especially tabloid papers. The fashion designer, Alexander McQueen died tragically last week but rather than lament on the fashion world’s loss guess what the papers chose to write about…the string of ‘weird’ Twitter posts that he had left during the run up to his death.

So, celebrities and politicians be afraid. It’s no longer what’s lurking behind your closet that matters but what’s lurking on your Facebook and Twitter page!

Image via Wikipedia

Last week Google announced its new social networking feature, ‘Buzz’, which gives its Gmail service similar features to those found by social networking giants, Facebook and Twitter.  Google executives describe it as the “poster child” for Google’s future: ‘a social networking structure that automatically finds people to connect with you.’

The new Buzz module will allow all 176 million users of Google’s Gmail service to see their friends’ live status updates, and share photos and videos.

Sound familiar? Been there, done that, got the Facebook/Twitter account already?

With social media success stories like Facebook claiming 400 million active users and Twitter recently reaching 75 million users, do we really need another social networking tool? Buzz is unlikely to usurp either of these services ; it doesn’t seem to add anything significant to what they already do and it certainly doesn’t attempt to do them any better.

To add to this, Google also faces competition from Yahoo and Microsoft, which have already added social networking features to their web mail products: Microsoft’s Hotmail and IM products between them claim close to 500 million users.

Also, what are the benefits for businesses? As we know, Facebook and Twitter have both been useful tools for building and maintaining brands, but what does Buzz offer? The answer is nothing at the moment as the service has not yet been rolled out to those using Gmail within organisations – this is due to arrive in March 2010. However, if it is a success, brands would be foolish to ignore the service, as experts predict that, if it was adopted by all of Gmail’s existing users, it would slingshot past News Corporation’s MySpace to become the world’s second-largest social network – behind Facebook.

Despite the cynicism and doubt surrounding this new service (and the growing privacy concerns), we must not cast aside the fact that Buzz has access to a large talent pool of engineers and it stands on top of existing Gmail, mobile devices, and a dominant search portal. Indeed, if Buzz grew, users could integrate with all Google apps and aggregate the entire internet. So, at this stage, I’m going to sit on the fence and say let’s watch this space.

February marks a milestone in the social networking calendar as Facebook celebrates its birthday.

The site turned six last week and is showing impressive figures of late, with double the amount of users (now standing at 400 million worldwide), compared to this time last year.  Econsultancy statistics also say that 50 per cent of active users log into the site each day – effectively 200m people every 24 hours!

With such huge traffic statistics and progression over 12 months, it’s no wonder Facebook continues to be a big deal for brands.  Many still regard Facebook as a great way to reach their audience.  Others who have been slower on the uptake are now starting to catch on.

BMW UK and Volvo have recently launched Facebook campaigns – BMW with an official fanpage, Volvo with an application to promote their new clean diesel C30 DRive car.  Volvo’s app increased their number of fans from 60,000 to 400,000.

Whilst speculation remains over how Facebook can monetise the site and cash in on 400 million users, you can’t dispute how far the site has come in six years.  Figures released last week from the GSMA also show that Facebook is dominating the lives of mobile internet users in the UK, with around 2.2bn minutes spent browsing the social network during December alone.

Facebook has certainly changed the game for consumer-facing companies, and those wanting to reach and influence everyday people need to understand it.

Happy birthday Facebook!