Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Feb 15, 2010

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Living in the modern era has evoked a wide selection of technological resources available for use. One of these resources available is social networking, such as MySpace, Facebook, andTwitter. Are social networks beneficial to the social lives of Americans? – Are Social Networks Good For Our Social Habits? (Lockergnome)

This article is written by a 9th grader, who I applaud for putting his opinion out there. It also gives us a bit of insight into the minds of the younger generation. I personally don’t think social networks are destroying our in person socialization – I tend to socialize more in-peron now that I’ve met more people through online social networks. And I’ve found that I’m able to continue building those relationships offline and on because we can stay in touch through social networks. I have found that places where people can be anonymous tend to have less “socialized” behavior – sometimes with people verbally attacking each other or just generally being jerks. That’s not something that’s unique to social networks and has been a problem since the first online bulletin board – and people seem to be less likely to do that if there’s an identity tied to them or if they’re in person.

Google’s Tuesday release of Buzz, a new social networking component to its ever-growing suite of web tools, has kept the internet busy with debate over how Buzz will compete with major social network players Twitter and Facebook for users’ correspondence with friends and contacts. While central discussion surrounds speculation over whether Buzz’s privacy flaws will scare away users or the new product will cut Facebook’s revenue in half, businesses have also been caught up in the conversation in trying to decide how to make Buzz work for them. – Understanding Buzz for Your Business (The Bivings Report)

The hot topic on the Internet this week was Google Buzz. Google announced the product on Tuesday and since then there has been a lot of feedback, both good and bad. I’ve messed around with Buzz a bit. It seems like it could be fairly powerful and useful, but I don’t think it was completely thought out. Buzz profiles are tied to gmail accounts and many people have multiple accounts with no way to link them. There are also privacy issues with followers/followees and email addresses out in the open before Google added a setting to allow people to decide. Google made decisions about who you should automatically follow based on your gmail contacts, which doesn’t necessarily make sense – those you email the most are not necessarily the ones you’d want to follow. And some Buzz content automatically ends up in your inbox (unless you use filters to remove it). I think Google Buzz could be an interesting extension to Google’s world of Apps – I just wish they’d do a bit more planning and strategizing before they release things.

Google has acquired Social Search provider Aardvark for $50 million, as reported minutes ago by TechCrunch. Aardvark is a service that connects people with questions with people with answers by utilizing instant messaging an email. It integrates quite intelligently with Google Chat, for instance, and the first time you sign up and ask a question, you’re immediately pinged with a friend request from the Aardvark chat bot. The fact that Google is picking them up says a lot about the type of social features they want to introduce into their products moving forward. – Google Acquires Social Search Provider Aardvark for $50 million (Social Times)

Google clearly is interested in being in the social media space – not just as a search provider. Which makes sense if you think about how much time people spend on social networks like Facebook (I think it’s something like an average of 20m per day). On Google.com, people spend a relatively short amount of time (because they’re actively looking for something), which is why Google also displays ads on content websites. Almost all of Google’s revenue is ad driven, so to stay competitive they need to increase the amount of time people spend on their sites. Buzz is another extension of this philosophy.

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