Facebook For iPhone 3.0 Is Almost Here

The Facebook for iPhone 3.0 will be available for download (probably via the App Store) very soon. The new version of Facebook for iPhone will obviously bring many improvements and additions.

Some of new features include Homescreen, News Feed, Notes, Pages, Events (with the ability to RSVP) and enhanced notifications.

This application also allows you to create photo albums, upload photos, easily tag photos, zoom into photos, and add favorite profiles/pages to the homescreen. Stay tuned for more updates. [UnWiredView]

Facebook’s U.S. Numbers Still Under MySpace’s, Gap Narrowing

Although it was ranked the No. 1 social network worldwide in terms of unique visitors, Facebook has yet to surpass MySpace’s numbers in the U.S. But, according to some recent numbers, Facebook could be passing MySpace in the next few months.

According to TechCrunch, comScore’s data from March 2009 shows that 61.2 million people visited Facebook in the U.S., compared to 70.2 million for MySpace. Facebook’s numbers grew by 6.7 percent in March, with 3.8 million visitors. MySpace, on the other hand, gained 160,000 less visitors than in February of 2009, and attracted 5.8 million less than they had in January.

Facebook is now about 9 million unique U.S. visitors away from passing MySpace. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. MySpace does have the music thing going for it though, which Facebook is lacking. Although, with Facebook’s fairly new “fan pages,” MySpace’s music pages might see fewer visitors. Unless MySpace changes something soon, they might have to get used to being No. 2 in the U.S.

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Is Twitter Killing RSS?

Jeff Nolan wrote an interesting article title “Is Twitter Killing RSS?” I want to respond and decided to respond here on The RSS Weblog, rather than in Jeff’s comments, as I’d like everybody to read this follow-up.

http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2009/04/01/is-twitter-killing-rss/

RSS is a protocol and Twitter is an application. Many publishers are using RSS-to-Twitter gateways to update their Twitter account when new items are publiched on their blog. The protocol and application are not competitive at all. In fact, they are complimentary. Twitter is not an RSS-killer, but rather a use-case for RSS.

Further, Twitter not only can import RSS, but it exposes an RSS feed so that you can inject your Twitter data into other applications. Many social websites are trying to import your Twitter updates. That RSS feed is likely the easiest way to do exactly that. Hmmm! Must play.

Last, could Twitter replace RSS for audience acquisition (as Jeff suggests)? Of course it could for some publishers, but it’d be a bad idea. Remember that Twitter is mostly used by us geeks. Most people are not trying to target geeks, but rather are targeting people like my wife, kids, parents, brothers and sisters. Not one of them have any clue what Twitter is and obviously don’t use it. On the other hand, many of them are using RSS even though they really don’t know what RSS is. That’s because RSS is a protocol (under the hood). Twitter is just an application. Someday, the geeks will get bored with Twitter and move on. RSS is a protocol of the Web and it’s not going anywhere.

Google Might Acquire Twitter? Maybe?

Google and Twitter may be in late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.  Or it is early-stage and the two are simply talking about working on a real-time search engine.

Regardless, Tech Crunch quotes multiple sources that Google wants Twitter. If a deal goes down, it would likely be cash and/or stock and some number north of a rumored valuation of $250 million. Facebook offered $500 mil, but that was an all-stock deal, so Twitter took a pass.

Twitter’s value is in real-time search and its huge community of users and brands. The collection and analysis of information embedded in all of those Tweets in real time is big bucks; skip ads and proceed directly to time-sensitive data mining.

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Facebook Traffic More Than Doubles in One Year

Internet users are spending a lot of time on social-networking Web sites, and as a result Facebook has shot up in popularity and has everyone from groups of moms to priests talking about it. The number of users flocking to the site to communicate with friends, check event invites, and post photos has soared.

Social-networking sites in general saw an increase in visitors, claiming 6.13 percent of U.S. Internet traffic, up four percent year over year, according to tracking company Hitwise. Facebook’s share of that traffic more than doubled, to 36 percent from 14 percent.

“I think what is really interesting about the growth is how Facebook has continued to grow and Web-site traffic to Facebook has had an upright trajectory,” said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise.

Demographics Are Changing

Moms aren’t spending their nights out talking about their children spending time on Facebook — they are talking about their own experience on the Web site. Tracking results show the site is not only attracting teens, but visitors aged 35 and older, a group that grew 23 percent from February 2008 through last month.

The older demographic may also be switching from MySpace to Facebook, since MySpace saw a two percent decline in that age group during the same time.

“When you look at the ages of visitors on Facebook, the biggest share is still aged 18 to 24,” Dougherty said. In fact, 29 percent of traffic to Facebook last month was from that age group, 17 percent were 45 to 54, and nine percent were 55 and older.

Still, there is a clear shift away from Facebook being visited by just the 18-to-24 group. Traffic from all age groups — except the 18-to-24 category — increased from February 2008 to February 2009, according to Dougherty.

“It has become far more mainstreamed than…

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Hulu Hops on the Social Networking Bandwagon

Television network, meet social network. Hulu, the online video lovechild of Fox and NBC, announced Thursday the addition of Hulu Friends, which gives users the opportunity to set up profiles, share favorite episodes of hit shows like “24″ or “The Office” and leave Facebook-style updates on each other’s pages.

In fact, Hulu Friends allows integration with Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Del.icio.us, along with Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, as the major media content providers working with Hulu look to pull more community-building opportunities within its own borders.

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Social Networking Leaves Email in the Dust - Sort Of

Social networking and blogging are now more popular online activities than using email, according to a new report by the Nielsen Co. The member community category — which includes both social networks and blogs — is growing as fast as the four other online sectors in the top five: search, portals, PC software and email.

Visitors to these communities comprise two-thirds of the global online population, Nielsen said. One of the reasons for the medium’s popularity is its efficiency in communication.

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