Celebrity Agent by TheInsider.com is a social game with a rewarding way of comparing your celebrity knowledge against your friends, but ultimately suffers from lack of depth.

Overall Score: 6.0 (Just Above Mediocrity)

Celebrity Agent by TheInsider.com

Pros

• Effective tutorial screens make it easy to get started
• Core gameplay is simple, yet entertaining
• Ties in with TheInsider.com well

Cons

• Limited depth of gameplay beyond badges
• Community of players is small
• Almost impossible to play without friends

Gameplay:

From the get-go, Celebrity Agent presents itself as a very basic game in which users can easily play with minimal time investment.  While this is an effective method of getting users interested, it ultimately becomes their downfall as the game lacks any serious long term replay value.  Despite its lack of depth, the core game is actually pretty fun.  The goal of the game is to collect money and badges (achievements) by selecting a team of 6 celebrities for your roster.  You gain money when your celebrities make news on TheInsider.com, as well as a bonus money when you gain a new badge.  Badges are gained when you have certain combinations of celebrities on your roster.  For example if you have both Barack and Michelle Obama, you receive the “Obama” badge.  In order to get a new celebrity on your roster, you must swap one of yours with a friend.

Gameplay is divided into 2 separate purposes: getting badges and getting money.  Its up to the user to decide which aspect of the game they prefer at first as it is impossible to keep a steady roster while collecting badges.  Personally I found getting badges to be more entertaining, as it is the more active portion of the game.  Finding that rare celebrity to complete your badge that you have been working on for days is highly rewarding.  For me it was finding “Spencer Pratt” for the “Reality Show Villains” badge.  I never thought I would be so happy to see that idiots face.  However, I can also see the appeal of trying to just obtain the best roster and play the game more passively as it is less time intense and you can actually make more money that way.

Social Gameplay:

The game has many of the common social elements that has become be the standard today.  The leaderboard is prominently displayed and other than its standard application of showing your friends scores, you can also click on each friend to access their rosters.  From here you can steal their celebrities.   The social elements are limited, yet effective for the game.  Because the game relies solely on stealing celebrities from your friends in order to change your roster, having friends (more importantly, active friends) who play the game is imperative to its success.  While this model is the breeding ground for social game success, it places too much emphasis on having active friends playing the game to the point where you literally can’t play the game unless you have friends. The game does address this problem by adding 4 computer generated “friends” to your initial leaderboard, but it does come off a bit impersonal once you realize they aren’t real people.

Graphics & Aesthetics:

The pages were well organized, especially by social game standards, and there weren’t too many times where I couldn’t find the function I wanted.  As you can see in the above screenshot, the celebrities’ images themselves were big and recent, as they’re imported from The Insider, and that made the game feel current.  The strongest aesthetic element of the game was the introductory screen, which clearly explains how to play the game in three easy steps.

Monetization:

The game does not monetize in any way.  The game is completely free to users, and we guess that the goal of the site is to bring traffic into theinsider.com.

Community

Seeing as only 1 other person I knew was playing the game, I needed to find more players and went to the official Facebook page.  There are 6 to 7 posts a day from eager players looking to trade celebrities or just discuss some of the latest information.  For example:

Among other values, Celebrity Agent promotes a healthy dose of obsession.

Analysis

The game peaked in mid-September, and has been s lowly losing MAUs from its peak of 45,000 to around 33,000 today.  Seeing as it has no revenue, it would be hard to call this a smashing success.  However, given the probably low cost, and the goal to drive users to use theinsider.com, it may have served its purpose.  Our guess was that this game was developed by a small games team on a contract for TheInsider.com.  The problem with using small third party teams for small limited scope contracts are that the games always go half the way: if they had further developed the game, and incorporated virtual currencies, teams and more, this could have been a fantastic social game.

This also ties into the fact that social games like these ’start’ once they are launched.  The time most critical to success is the first few months post-launch, when the game must be improved and tuned based on the users’ feedback.  Unfortunately, with contract games like this, the game doesn’t evolve as much as it should.  A few new badges won’t cause any viral sensations.

The game itself has a very interesting hook, and takes an admirable shot at combining the market of celebrity fans with facebook fans, but suffers from long term appeal and over-reliance on your friends involvement.  I would have liked to see an alternate method for obtaining celebrities, as well as a use for the money you gain other than just getting new celebrities.

Overall, you’ll probably have a few days of enjoyment with this, especially if you love celebs, but unless your friends are playing, you’ll probably drop it after a week.

Try Celebrity Agent here.

Tags: Applications, Facebook, Social Network by Ryan
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Arrr, Facebook recently launched the hottest new language – English (Pirate).  Go into your Settings and select Language to change it up.  A vast amount of standard headings have been pirate-icized, which definitely spices things up.

A tip o’ me bottle o’ rum for them hearty Facebook marketing group on this great publicity stunt!

Tags: Facebook, Marketing, Social Network by Tim McKillican
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Google Press Center: News Announcement

As is normal in the social networking space, an announcement with massive implications has snuck up on us overnight, and seeing as mainstream media has not the sense nor foresight to understand its implications, the big news drifts innocently along the formal news stream of the day.

Google Friend Connect, simply, allows any site to implement users, friend lists and third-party applications using Google’s OpenSocial. So let’s say you made a great Facebook Application, and want to spread the idea: whip it into a full blown web page, implement Google OpenSocial’s FriendConnect, and now you’ve got completely control over your destiny AND a full-sized web site to boot.

While it will take a long time, my preliminary analysis is that Google will continue to improve support for FriendConnect, and continue to woo bigger and bigger companies and websites to use it, and over the course of the next few years, it will be an important part of any site that desires to be ‘connected’.

That said, Facebook just recently moved forward with their own similarly named Facebook Connect, which allows any site on the web to provide its users with a simply “Connect to Facebook” button, which will then port in all of FB’s friend and user information, and allow for the use of applications.

What’s the conclusion here? These two companies are going to war over the areas outside Facebook’s walled garden, and the next year is going to be absolutely critical to determine whether people truly value the amount of photos, friend connections and wall posts they’ve already put into their Facebook. Because Google’s FriendConnect is going to operate as most Google products do: silently. You’ll use a feature here or there, then maybe sign up one time (if you’re not already), and one day you’ll realize all your friends are on there as well, and one guy will throw up a photo on there, and a rush will occur, where everyone heads over to make their second important Social account…

Just like when MySpacians migrated to FB.

Only time will tell.

Tags: Applications, Facebook, Google, MySpace, Social Network by Neil
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So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, Facebook launched it’s chat application to the masses, maintaining it’s rapid rollout of new features and enhancements that solidify Facebook’s place at the forefront of the social web.

What will be interesting to see, however, is how big an impact this launch will have on the usage of Windows Live Messenger, AIM, and other IM applications. Back in the old days when Instant Messaging was the hot web application, keeping in touch with new acquaintances was done through exchanging IM addresses (around the time when you thought you were cool if you had a 6-digit ICQ number). But as social networks have become the medium of choice for maintaining and creating new connections (ignoring Twitter for now), it remains to be seen whether MSN/AIM can hold on, given that their core functionality is now being built into the Facebook platform. I’d surmise that until Facebook launches a standalone IM client, there will still be a role for traditional IM applications, but their day in the spotlight will soon fade as Facebook IM begins to flourish (for the average consumer, at least).

Which brings me to my next point – where is Facebook headed next? Well, their Messaging system is pretty laughable right now and as many are saying, is completely due for a major overhaul. By leveraging your social graph, Facebook has the capability to come up with an innovative email platform that will have the potential to completely disrupt Google/Microsoft/Yahoo’s grip on email. Since Facebook knows your social relationships and who you frequently communicate with, it can begin to automatically prioritize messages and enable you to more efficiently manage the increasing amount of emails and other electronic messages that we see on a daily basis. Top this off by then integrating your existing Facebook account and features into the Email application (ie. Event Calendar), and allowing 3rd-party developers to create applications that extend your email functionality even more, and you have an email platform leaps and bounds above the ever-stagnant Hotmail’s of the world.

Tags: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Social Network, messenger by Tim McKillican
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To celebrate the coming of Facebook’s Instant Messenger, which some refer to as the “Messenger Killer”, I thought we could reminisce about the bloody history of Instant Messaging, and the current state of affairs.

Some of you may remember a simpler time of instant messaging, when ‘uh-oh’ sounds and crudely drawn happy faces reigned supreme. ICQ, the first massively popular instant messaging program on the web, attracted users with multicoloured chat rooms and basic user profiling.  However, ICQ isn’t a term we hear round these parts too often anymore. That’s because circa 1998, King Microsoft ventured into IM land with their mandatory installs and predatory practices, stomping it out with its simple (but elegant) Windows Messenger. Despite cries from dedicated ICQ’ers about the inefficiencies of the software, it was only a matter of time, and MSN Messenger’s advantage of being built in to Windows eventually powered its way to victory (not before Mirabilis, the makers of ICQ, sold to AOL in 1998 for a cool $287 Million).

Fast forward a few years or ten, and we’re all using Microsoft’s latest incarnation: Windows Live Messenger. It’s a sure fire way of getting in touch with friends. And it sucks. Year after year another useless feature is piled on, and now we’ve got software which takes minutes to load despite the fact that at its core, it is relaying text messages between computers.

What follows is a list of “What were you thinking?” additions. Sit back and take the time to enjoy this, because I know we’re going to feel some camaraderie on how terrible we’ve been treated for the last few years as users of Messenger. Incidentally, if anybody’s listening at Microsoft: please take these features out before a competitor beats you at the relatively simple game of instant messaging. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1) Tabs
Is it really necessary for my instant messaging client to “Sizzle”, as the Kiwee tab in this screenshot intends? I just want to talk to my friends. This tab is obviously ignored 99% of the time, but let’s say I’ve just hit the most mind-numbing day of boredom ever conceived, and I decide to give KiWee tabbing a shot. My first impression of the service would be what you see in the screenshot: one quarter of a page where about half of a ‘tool bar’ (?) is visible. I am asked to ‘log in’. Aren’t I already logged in? Simply put: What the hell does this tab mean?  Fail.

2) Pay-for-use Emoticons
… Are you actually serious? I always have to wonder if there are actually people out there that will pay for a small yellow face that has a slightly deformed smile as compared to the default emoticons given with Messenger. If you enjoy this and are reading this (almost impossible, as we have intelligence restrictions by IP address), please, let me know that I’m “out of the loop” and “all the cool kids are doing it”. Another great element of this feature is that it now takes twice as long to load the emoticon selection window.

3) The Customer Improvement Program

Everytime I start Live Messenger (and wait a few minutes for it to load) I am rewarded with the space under my name asking me to “Learn More About the Customer Improvement Program”. Despite the fact that most of Messenger’s glaring oversights should have been handled by the designers eons ago, I decide I’ll do them the favour (without pay) of letting them know what to fix, by clicking through… Hold on a second! This pop-up isn’t saying “Please enter your feedback”: It says “let us collect statistics about your Messenger usage”.  Well I’m not signing up for that.  Where is the option to remove this ‘customer service’ notice from my limited-space on Messenger?  Nowhere?  Shouldn’t this message have some sort of option to disappear? It’s been there for two years! If I didn’t click it the first time, I’m not going to do it now. Isn’t it kind of mandatory that good software allow me to remove things like this? Then again… is this good software?

4) Winks
I know exactly what you thought of this, because it’s exactly what I thought of this. “Wow, that was pretty cool.” Probably, that was the first and last time you ever used “Winks”. I’m not sure where lies the fun-factor in letting other people have the power to slap minute long animations with terrible sound across your conversation window, and probably on top of your music. But even if that sounded like roses to me, couldn’t they come up with something better than a kid throwing a balloon? After all, this is a product of the richest, brightest, most influential technology corporation in the world. Or is that Google now? Bonus: this feature also takes a sweet minute to load. Are you seeing a pattern here Microsoft? These ‘cool new upgrades’ are slowing down my life.

5) Live Spaces
Get over it. It’s not going to work, even if all of a sudden you guys label it a “social network”. It’s just another page for me to submit photos and write information about myself. But since my actual friend list is only barely integrated into the Spaces page, I guess I’m just posting for myself. You want this feature to make some impact? Let me tag the photos, let me have circles of friends, enable bulletin boards that automatically save conversations between my best friends. There’s so much you could do, but seeing as you’re not doing anything, drop it. Did I mention relabeling Spaces as a social network is like calling MySpace user-friendly?  Check out my earlier post about this, where I have a screenshot of my Spaces news feed: (unknown name) has added (unknown name).

6) Sharing Folders
I’ve tried this three times, because I actually like the idea of having a web folder between me and my friend.  Each of the three times I’ve tried, however, it has failed to connect, and not only that, each consecutive time I boot up Live Messenger, I’m now asked to resume these connections that failed in the first place. It is a P2P technology system (think BitTorrent) and I applaud MS for getting into that game, but don’t slap this button all over the place until you can have better guarantees of functionality. It doesn’t help that there is no longer a “Send File” option in my chat window, because it has been replaced with the broken “Sharing Folders”.

7) Windows Live Onecare Scanning Software
I’m sure any regular Messenger user saw this gripe coming back in section 2. It’s what prompted the article. The ‘last straw’, or so they say.

About a year back, I received a file from my brother. “This file may potentially be harmful” appeared to me in an anciently styled grey box.  Considering the only option was to click “OK”, I did.  Heading over and checking my “My Received Files” folder, I noticed the file was deleted without notice. It had taken an hour to transfer. This now happens daily with users and files of all types, and it’s gone so far as to condition us to avoid clicking the download link from within our Messenger window… for no good reason. I’ve virus-scanned and  tested files that have been blocked, and there was nothing wrong with the file.  If you ever get this error, please ignore it, then open the file in a separate window, and try scanning it: 9 times out of 10 it’s fine. What an absurd, unacceptable user experience. If software like this was released by a new startup technology company, it wouldn’t just fail, the company would get purposely and systematically refused funding for ever launching another project again.

This gets better though. A few months ago, Microsoft released Windows Live OneCare Scanner. My first impression was that it took literally 10 minutes to load while some obscure and frankly unofficial looking window loaded the software the first time a file was transferred. The second time, the window hung up and never disappeared. The third time? See image.

Windows Live OneCare informs me the file has been scanned and is fine. I click the link, the first time in a long time that I felt safe to click without my transfer being deleted… And that pop up appears again!  “There seems to be a potential problem with the file”!? That’s impossible. OneCare just said that it was fine… I give up.

In closing, Microsoft, this scathing catharticism is not an attempt to ‘beat on the big guy’ as has been done to you so many times before. It’s not any sort of Damocles’-esque suggestion to switch to open source software. Heck, I’m not even harping on the constant, rotating banner ads (remove them). This piece is a request from a legitimate, long-term user who has put up with annoyance after annoyance and simply has come to a point of exhaustion. I’m not going to stop using Messenger, nor are all my friends. We’ve grown together using Messenger. But please, for the love of money, pay attention to your users… or else!

Rant.End();

Tags: Facebook, Google, Usability, messenger by Neil
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TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook is opening up their mini-feed to third party services. What does this mean?

Let’s say you’re a Del.ico.us user, and you just added a new bookmark. If you choose to, that news will now show up in your news feed and your friends will be able to see it. The web just got a whole lot smaller.

This also marks Facebook’s first move outside of Facebook, and it could even have been urged forward by new COO Sheryl Sandberg (read Fortune’s report on her moves to make Facebook profitable here).

More on the move soon.

Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network, Usability by Neil
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The article is a year old, but senior editor David Kirkpatrick hits all the right notes in trying to understand the significance of Facebook as a communication and business tool.

“It’s not all rosy for business, though. You think we’ve had transparency on the Internet so far? The ramifications for marketers could be frightening if someone builds tools that enable Facebook users to get more efficient at communicating among themselves about products and services they use. It could become just as easy to learn if someone you know was overcharged by a credit card as to find out what concerts they are attending. Up until now most online sources of product information have been unreliable. But if it’s your friend telling you not to buy that shampoo, you’re likely to listen.”

Full article here: Facebook’s plan to hook up the world – May. 24, 2007

Tags: Advertising, Applications, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network, Usability by Neil
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If you’re a Facebook developer, user, or even an avid reader of this site, you probably know that Facebook is gearing up to revamp the visual and functional design of the basic Facebook profile. I evangelize about it daily, but this post isn’t about how widespread of an effect it’s going to have (it will be watercooler talk for days). Rather, it’s about how Facebook’s approach to this change demonstrates the pioneering of the next generation of large web companies.

Just take a look at their latest post: An Update on the State of the Profile Redesign. In short, it’s saying one thing: We’re listening to you. How? They held a few ’roundtables’, where developers and users of all types were able to get together and talk about what they like/don’t like about the upcoming changes. Then, they’ve been posting weekly updates on their design process, and keenly scouring the comments left by the 39,011 fans that have joined the Profile Redesign Fan Page. Finally, they also mention that there will be ample time for application developers to modify their applications before they release the profile to the public.

Say what you will about some of their Beacon moves and default privacy policies, but from the perspective of a user of the Facebook tool, I trust Facebook to make the right decision to enable me to communicate with my friends easiest. From the perspective of a developer, they have been smart and quick to upgrade as long as they’ve had the Platform available.

IMHO, it’s the use of a company’s ears that will enable a company to succeed in Web 2.0, 3.0 and beyond, and Facebook is definitely on the right path. While people are constantly extolling the virtues of a social web, in truth there are only a handful of companies (Digg is another great example) that truly leverage their social feedback. Even the prolific Google doesn’t make it this simple to let them know how you feel about their interfaces. And we won’t start into MySpace.

This goes farther than web businesses. It’s rare for even an individual to listen, but if you look carefully, the ability to consume and utilize feedback is the hallmark of any true success story. And when a service-provider of any type and size can hear and understand the thousands of users that truly love their offerings, they have the key to keep people smiling.

This clearly should have happened long ago, as a capitalist system would dictate. If a company isn’t listening to their consumers, then a company who does have the ears will open up, and produce a better product. However, the resources necessary to support these vast lines of communication feedback are a recent phenomenon, and we’ll feel the effects of this business style more over the next half-decade. While older corporations will stumble to understand the importance of having their ears to the web, young dynamic startups will spark a trend of iterative, evolving creations based on user feedback. Just like any modern day Engineering design must incorporate feedback, any web business expecting to succeed in the future is going to need to structure a social feedback system for their web presence.

Rant over.

Tags: Advertising, Applications, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network, Usability by Neil
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One of my favourite tools on the web is StumbleUpon. In short, SU is a toolbar which allows you to easily give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to any site on the web. As long as it has a web address, you can give it your approval. These lists of your favourite sites/movies/mp3s are aggregated into a page at the StumbleUpon.com website, where you can share with 4,493,158 other websurfers, according to the SU site.  I believe that SU’s structure as an entertainment-driven social network may enable it to compete with traditional Social Networks in the years to come.

The basic elements of SU aren’t exactly revolutionary for the web (see Digg or Del.ico.us). However, what really separates StumbleUpon from the bunch is its “Stumble!” button, which, based on your likes and dislikes, presents you with a targeted-but-random web page from its massive archives of over 12 million pages.  Looking through your preferred categories, ‘liked’ sites, and combining that with user-based content tags and reviews, SU provides you with something you probably like: an mp3, a blog, a mainstream news article or a short video.  And it often hits the right note.  It seems as if the algorithm is very sensitive to your tastes, and also looks to your friends to detect their tastes too.

The idea may or may not be intriguing on paper, but it’s in that moment of boredom where this tool comes to life. Instead of hanging around my favourite blogs for the 15th time today, Stumble! takes me to the University of East Tennesse’s Philosophy Games club, where I can engage in their newest hit, battleground God.  I believe that the market of people seeking this brand of alternative entertainment will grow wildly in the coming years, as a new generation of young folk grow up completely ensconced in web culture. These users may prefer a social network which focuses on its open collection of “fun stuff”.

SU is growing.  StumbleUpon has had a steady growth from 600,000 users in 2005 to 4.5 million users today.  According to Phil Butler, its slowly mounting success is due to “the methodology and ease with which content is collected and displayed”. This, I feel is the essential long-term benefit of SU over traditional social networks:

As opposed to Facebook or MySpace, where we connect to our friends, SU is a site which prioritizes our friends’ interests above their relationship to us.

So while it may still be a bit clunky for people to get used to the interface, eventually, SU holds a database of what people have enjoyed the most on the web, and a fantastic way of delivering that content for small hits of fun. And by connecting people together based on that information, SU has the potential to bloom into a social network that will facilitate conversations of the most pertinent entertainment to people, and this could make a big impact on social networking and perhaps, social living.

–

Ramblings:

The image to my left is SU’s initial forays into friend recommendations, and I found that a few of these people had interests so similar to me, we could likely talk for hours.

This isn’t unlike what Last.FM ventures to do, or what Facebook does when it tries to match you with content, but the point I’m really making,  is that it isn’t the interface or number of users that’s really going to determine our social future, but rather, an algorithm that can understand us.

Another point is that if there is a social networking shakeup, and an OpenID begins to surface, the entire web will become social (see Tim’s pontifications on Web 3.0).  At that point, people will need a strong reason to devote their social time to a given site.  Free, plentiful entertainment is always a good reason.

Miguel Helft from the New York Times referred to SU’s activity as “channel-surfing the Internet”, and the guys at SU label this paradigm of web interaction as “Web Discovery”.

Tags: Applications, Facebook, Social Network, Usability, stumbleupon by Neil
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I just ran across one of the most interesting blog posts I’ve read lately speculating on Web 3.0 over at Master of 500 Hats.

Not to steal Dave’s thunder, but there are a couple points I want to highlight.  The Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo is primarily to shore up it’s dominance in the Email/Instant Messaging online sectors.  Sure there are side benefits like buying up Yahoo’s advertising, search and traffic, but the winner of the Internet will be he who controls the user.

But with the battle to own the user comes the battle to own the user’s social graph, currently controlled by Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/hi5/could continue to list ad nauseum.  I keep referring to it, but all future web advertising will be contextually driven by your social graph, where brands are providing social relevance to users.  Ie. “Your friend Katie just saw (insert cookie-cutter Will Ferrell movie) and rated it 5 stars!” (ok I kid, it will be impossible for a Will Ferrell movie to be rated as excellent again… the days of Old School and Anchorman are over).

I think it’s also highly important to note the fact that we as users on the Internet now have hundreds of logins/passwords for every individual site on the net.  This is a problem that needs to be solved, and while attempts have been made (Microsoft Passport or the community driven OpenID), nothing will happen until one company owns enough of the user’s Internet life to make it beneficial for the user (really, what’s the difference in consolidating your logins from 60 to 50?).  Alternatively, if the smaller communities can build enough momentum around the OpenID concept, it could be viable, but whether that is a possibility remains to be seen.

The final piece of the puzzle are the e-commerce/payment conglomerates.  Look for the Microsoft/Google duopoly to put pressure on eBay (and their very valuable PayPal) and Amazon for merger/acquisitions in the next few years.

Where do the small players stand in this heated battle?  Well, I sort of compare it to the open source community who has not only weathered giants like Microsoft’s attempts to push them out, but actually blossomed in the modern Internet era.  If the small guys can provide real value to users, by churning out innovations while being completely flexible to quickly capitalize on new ideas, they will have a direct line to sink their (small) teeth into the necks of Google and Microsoft.  And instead of a one-sided parasitic relationship, Microsoft and Google will leverage these small-time players to come up with new innovations and either partner or swallow them up for big money when it makes sense.  And sometimes these guys will have such momentum that they will swim past these sharks to potentially become a shark themselves (could Facebook be this shark?  That question requires an entirely new post) (and one more side point – I’m not sure whether I should perhaps be calling Microsoft and Google ‘whales’ instead).

The Internet and Web 2.0 is a playground for innovation due to the extremely low barriers to entry and it’s massive channel to instantly reach all users around the globe.  It’s an exciting time to see all the fish in the sea battle (and work symbiotically) to control the Internet.

Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Google, Marketing, MySpace, Social Network by Tim McKillican
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