Easily enable stalking by anyone your network. Just kidding. (Sort of)
Sharing your location is all the rage these days. MapQuest is getting in on the game by introducing a Facebook sharing feature.
When you have a map of a location pulled up on MapQuest, click the Share link with the Facebook symbol next to it.
You’ll be prompted to connect with your Facebook account to get permission for sharing. Then you’ll get a box where you can put a note along with the map you’re sharing.
February is always a weird month for search data.
It’s a short month. Query volume is always down. And this year was particularly odd with all the snowstorms. Were people on the Internet more or less as a result?
An interesting note in comScore’s rankings for last month is that Facebook search query was actually UP. So, there’s one thing people like to do when it snows. (I think we all knew that already by the sheer number of snow pictures uploaded by people in our network.)
Measuring the world’s most popular social network is taking the web analytics industry by storm.
Last week, Webtrends unveiled its Facebook measurement capabilities and this week another web analytics company is jumping in the social media measurement game. Coremetrics has announced the availability of Facebook analytics in its web analytics solution.
“Given consumers’ extensive adoption and deep engagement with Facebook, it is critical for marketers to have a clearly measurable understanding of how their customers are engaging on Facebook in the context of their total online presence,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, Coremetrics.
Measuring the world’s most popular social network is taking the web analytics industry by storm.
Last week, Webtrends unveiled its Facebook measurement capabilities and this week another web analytics company is jumping in the social media measurement game. Coremetrics has announced the availability of Facebook analytics in its web analytics solution.
“Given consumers’ extensive adoption and deep engagement with Facebook, it is critical for marketers to have a clearly measurable understanding of how their customers are engaging on Facebook in the context of their total online presence,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, Coremetrics.
Analytics solution now gives even broader view of total online marketing strategy by including major social network.
Social media measurement is one of the holy grails of web analytics. Webtrends is donning its Indiana Jones hat by integrating a new Facebook measurement feature into their analytics solution. Here’s what it measures:
- Custom applications, Facebook page tabs, and Facebook ad click performance
- Facebook Fan page activity overlaid with corporate blog posts
- Twitter activity driving to Facebook Fan pages
- Conversion performance if it happens in Facebook
Facebook joins Twitter and MySpace in Google’s Social Update Search.
Over at Mashable, Ben Parr noticed that Facebook updates have been added to Google’s real-time results. Twitter and MySpace are already featured in the real-time results, which are generally treated as a universal feature. In other words, you know how sometimes yousee sections for news results or image results? Real-time results appear in a similar fashion.
Actually finding an example of a Facebook update in Google results on your own can be challenging. Use Google’s “Search Options” feature and then click on “Updates” and search away until you find one. After many searches, I finally found a Facebook update for Olympic hockey:
App harnesses crowd-sourcing, a departure from their text-based service.
You may know ChaCha as a text messaging-based search service. ChaCha also answers questions on Twitter, so it is fitting that they’ve launched a Facebook app.
Basically, you ask a question and then you can direct it to specific people in your network, post it to your wall, or open it up to anyone.
This type of Q&A search relies on the power of the crowd. Kind of reminds me of Aardvark, which was acquired by Google last week.
Check out the screenshots below and then check out the ChaCha Facebook app for yourself here.
The other day I reported on how Google and Bing are competing for attention when it comes to querying the Winter Olympics, which begin TODAY in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Since then, we’ve gotten word about other search and social efforts related to the Games.
Yahoo! is providing a Shortcut to info on Winter Olympics events and athletes.
Facebook has fan pages, an official minigame, and a photo sharing effort.
MapQuest’s Business Locator has decorated the hometowns of Winter Olympics athletes with symbol of the Olympic Torch.
Will Google’s version give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money?
As rumored yesterday, Google launched a new social effort today called Google Buzz. If you’re immediate reaction is, “Wait, doesn’t Yahoo! already have a product named Buzz?” Then you’d be correct. But Google didn’t acquire Yahoo! Buzz. Nor has Yahoo! Buzz gone defunct and Google felt ok about picking it up as a name.
The two products are alike in name and the fact that they’re social. But that’s about it.
Google Buzz lets you be social from Gmail. You can update your status there and share photos. (Yahoo! Buzz is more akin to social bookmarking and trending topics.)
Get ready for the “Bring Back the Old Facebook” groups.
There’s a flurry of changes going on at Facebook and they should be quite noticeable to even the most casual observer.
First of all, Facebook has changed their navigation. Again. Yes, it’s like changing your underwear. Assuming that you change your underwear regularly.
The new navigation updates are rolling out, so you may not have them yet – but you’ll get them soon. It basically involves a new, comprehensive dashboard along the left sidebar. Plus, notifications are easily accessed across a new top bar. Here are screenshots per the Facebook blog:
