Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the Fast Company list illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.
The top spot is taken by Facebook which has around 200 million active users to date. Most notable in the top five and new on the ranking is Huawei, the Chinese Telecom equipment manufacturer. You can find the complete list here.
For years Google has stayed on the fringes of the social-networking industry, leaving the field largely to the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Now, however, it is making a determined foray into online friendships. On February 9th the search giant unveiled Buzz, a networking service that will be closely integrated with the firm’s e-mail offering, Gmail. Google no doubt hopes Buzz will help it catch up with the leaders of the networking world—but the chances are slim. Mashable made a comparison here. [Source 1] [Source 2].
That’s how big Google’s vision is for its Wave social-networking/search service, which will have apps created by independent developers who sell them at a Google app store.
Google has big plans for Google Wave, its new online communication service—and they won’t all come from Google.
Combining instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration, Wave is an early form of so-called real-time communication designed to make it easier for people to work together or interact socially over the Internet. Google started letting developers tinker with Wave at midyear and then introduced the tool on a trial basis to about 100,000 invited users starting on Sept. 30. Invitations were such a hot commodity that they were being sold on eBay (EBAY). For Google the hope is that Wave, once it’s more widely available, will replace competing communications services such as e-mail, instant messaging, and possibly even social networks such as Facebook [Source].
The world’s largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe [Source] and [Source].
On August 10, Facebook said it had acquired FriendFeed, the Mountain View (California) social aggregation service founded by Google alumni Bret Taylor and Jim Norris in 2008.
The deal, which The Wall Street Journal reported to be valued at nearly US$50 million in cash and stock, gives Facebook top talent and advanced technology in an area many see as the next great frontier on the Web: real-time search.
This month also a book released on the popular social networking site titled “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal“.
Marketing has changed. We’re in the age of one-to-one marketing, where the customer actually has a role in shaping the messaging for your brand. Social Media–blogs, Twitter, Facebook, wikis, user-generated tools–have given her all she needs to effect whether your products and services do well in the marketplace.
Long gone are the 4Ps of marketing, these are the days of the 4Cs, a customer centric approach that includes the customer’s wants and needs; the cost to satisfy the customer; the convenience; and communication.
A key driving force in this new way of marketing is social media. An article on marketing with social media can be found here.
No one knows how the microblogging site and similar online social networks will make money, but investors see a new Web revolution: (the real-time Web).
When entrepreneurs and investors get excited about what they’re calling the real-time Web, they’re talking about services that combine immediacy and social connections in a way that makes them easy and even addictive (amongst others are twitter and facebook).
Real-time Web startups are providing everything from basic utilities and business applications to search and e-commerce. Here’s a look at this new generation. And at this webpage you can find an introduction to the real-time web.
When most company bosses think about Facebook, Twitter and all those other oh-so-fashionable darlings of the social world, it is usually about how they stop their employees wasting their valuable time on those sites.
Yet a small but growing number of chief executives are coming to realise that social networks offer significant opportunities for marketing and selling their products, for engaging with their customers at a deep level and for using them to guide new product development. Read more.
Facebook, the popular social network, has found a deep-pocketed friend in Russia.
Digital Sky Technologies, an Internet investment company based in Moscow, said Tuesday it has invested $200 million in Facebook in exchange for a 1.96 percent stake in the company, and would eventually offer to buy at least $100 million in Facebook’s common stock. Facebook said the deal values the entire company — which Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, founded in his Harvard dorm room in 2004 — at $10 billion.
More details about the deal can be found here. A backgrounder on this story can be found here.
Facebook is quickly expanding into many world regions and this internationalisation strategy seems to pay off. According to figures released by comScore (SCOR) on Aug. 12. Facebook has overtaken Myspace and now counts 132 million users, nearly 63% are outside North America. The site, which had been translated into 20 languages including French, Spanish, and Mandarin, has recently added 69 more. “Now, through translations, we are seeing a lot of growth in international countries,” says Javier Olivan, international manager at Facebook in a recent interview. Read more.
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