jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Brands On Facebook And Twitter Favored By Consumers

People who are Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to buy the brand’s product or recommend it to a friend, according to a new study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies. The study of 1,500 consumers found that 60 percent of Facebook fans and 79 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. More...

Yahoo Buys Citizens Sports

Yahoo said today it is acquiring social sports site Citizen Sports in an effort to strengthen its strategy of aggregating and distributing social content online. Terms of the acquisition were not released. "Yahoo! is in a unique position to combine our deep expertise in content and aggregation technology to offer a highly personalized social experience," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president,...

Facebook Tweaks Search Suggestions For Relevancy

Facebook’s search suggestions are about to get significantly better.  Rather than just suggest the names of people, events, groups, and Pages a person’s already connected with, suggestions are going to draw from users’ networks of friends and the entire site. It is, of course, nice not to have to type out your closest pal’s 17-letter last name multiple times a day. ...

Facebook Unseats Google As Most-Visited Site

Although the "thud" wasn’t verified until this afternoon, it seems that an online giant fell a couple of days ago.  According to new data from Hitwise, Facebook managed to beat Google in terms of visits between March 7th and March 13th, becoming the most visited website in the U.S. for the week. The graph visible below makes the changeup pretty clear (blame the sloppy enlarged...

CNN President “Really Afraid Of” Social Networks

Over the years, there have been more than a few arguments about whether online news sites are killing newspapers.  Now, due to some almost startling comments made by the president of CNN, it looks like the next round of old media-new media disputes might concern social networks and cable news organizations. According to the AFP, Jonathan Klein’s remarks on this subject were in no way ambiguous. ...

Nielsen: Online Video Usage Significantly Up YOY

Glass-half-full and glass-half-empty types, prepare to be split.  New stats from Nielsen indicate that February of 2010 was a great month for the online video industry compared to February of 2009.  Last month was a little bit rotten compared to January of 2010, however. The chart below shows how the big-picture data categories played out.  "Unique Viewers" and "Total...

Facebook Makes Austin Expansion Official

Austin, Texas – which already plays home to tech companies Freescale Semiconductor and Dell – will soon boast a Facebook office, too.  A $1.4 million incentive package we reported on in late February has been approved, and Facebook’s decided to establish a team in Austin as a result. Grady Burnett, Director of Global Online Sales and Operations at Facebook, said in a statement,...

Facebook Provides Insight Into D.C. Employees’ Jobs

Last week, we reported that Facebook wanted to hire two people in Washington, D.C., and then dissected the official descriptions of the positions as best we could.  Still, the bullet points left a lot unclear, so it’s noteworthy that Facebook provided some clarifying paragraphs today. Adam Conner was the first member of Facebook’s D.C. team, and a post he wrote for the company’s...

Report: Facebook Location Feature To Bow At f8

At the first f8 conference, Facebook Platform was launched.  Facebook Connect was announced the second time around.  And now, as f8 2010 draws near, a report’s indicated that Facebook will finally unveil a feature having to do with users’ physical locations. Consider the difference someone’s location can make.  Here’s one basic example: Many people would pass...

Facebook Expands Preferred Developer Program

Four months ago, Facebook launched something called the Preferred Developer Consultant Program in an effort to point companies and celebrities towards the best developers.  Now, the program’s taking an important leap forward as Facebook’s more than tripled the number of recommended developers. Facebook started things off with just 14 developers, which seemed like an interesting choice. ...

Yahoo Adds Facebook Contact Import Ability

Yahoo Mail users should find it considerably more convenient to get in touch with their friends and acquaintances from now on.  Today, Yahoo and Facebook made it possible for those users to add their Facebook friends’ email addresses to their Yahoo Contacts lists. The benefits should be obvious.  A post on the Yahoo Mail Blog pointed out, "So when you are on Yahoo! Sports and you...

AT&T: Buzz the “Best Way” to Get Your Business in Front of Facebook Users

Google Buzz has captured a lot of the buzz around services with "Buzz" in the title (of which there are a few), but before Google Buzz was even announced, AT&T Interactive had already launched a beta version of its latest take on local business search at Buzz.com. Buzz.com has only been available on an invitation basis so far, and will remain that way until some bugs are ironed out, but...

Facebook To Position Public Policy Experts In D.C.

It looks like Facebook will soon begin trying harder to bend the ears of our nation’s leaders.  Listings for a public policy manager and public policy associate have both been posted on the social network’s "Open Positions" page, and Facebook’s decided that these people will work in Washington, D.C. This isn’t a simple matter of having a couple of folks sit around,...

Facebook And Twitter See Big Mobile Gains

Facebook and Twitter access via mobile browsers has grown by triple-digits in the past year, according to the latest research from comScore. More than a quarter (30.8%) of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago.  Access to Facebook via mobile browser climbed 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter...

Omniture And Facebook Partner On Add Data

Online analytics firm Omniture and Facebook said today they have partnered to offer marketers tools to improve Facebook as a marketing channel. Initially the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement on Facebook. The partnership builds on Facebook analytics the companies introduced last year to help marketers join...