Fascinating report plotting the market value of the main social networking sites. Facebook comes out tops.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/03

A fascinating, factoid-filled article: "Facebook, which has more than 200 million active members and has become so mainstream it now hosts Pope Benedict and a list of world leaders." Makes the point, however, that sites can fall out of fashion just as quickly as they become fashionable in the first place.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/02

It may be called "New Media", but the same old rules apply. The smart way in essence is to survey what your key customers think it important, focus on that, and measure the results.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/s

There's a body of opinion that if you are using a service for free, you can't expect to be treated like a paying customer. That's wrong. There is plenty of debate around about why that's so, but all I wish to say here is that if you have some service you offer for free and you treat those who use it as anything less than valued customers, they never will become paying customers. If it carries your brand name, it should live up to everything that your brand stands for.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/k

There are still those who dismiss the potential impact of social media and refuse to consider how to use it for their businesses. It's impact can be very powerful indeed, as this story about a Guatemala lawyer and his YouTube video shows. Facebook is being used to organise widespread protests against his murder. It is very real; the Guatamala government cannot ignore it, and nor can anyone else.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/g

This is a good example of how careful you have to be with some of the data you post to an online profile, not just Facebook. Anyone you have enabled as a friend on Facebook, either casually or seriously, will see when you change your relationship status, and it may cause problems if you go from "In a relationship" to "single" and interested parties have not been informed! And while it may seem appropriate in good times to add a few colleagues and clients you get along well with, it can cause complications later on. I was put on the spot recently with two friends of mine who I knew were in a relationship together when the guy joined a dating group. The whole issue regarding statuses needs careful thought.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/a

I have watched the latest developments in on-line advertising with some concern. The chief culprit, in my view, is the Flash movie. It is technically very clever and some of the things that creative people can do on this tiny pallet are breathtaking, they really should qualify for some sort of award at the Oscars.

And therein lies the problem. When you visit a web site it is because you are in search of something, a piece of information, some news, whatever. It is not likely to be because you want to watch the adverts on it. However good they are, however clever or entertaining, they are still a distraction from the real purpose of your visit. The same applies to television. Advertisers don't seem to have got the message, ironically enough since messages are what they seek to communicate: the viewing public hate adverts. We want to watch our favourite programmes and so advertising breaks are an annoyance and a distraction, even though we all know that the very entertainment we enjoy is "ad-supported". So why am I concerned?

Back in the Seventies, Monty Python lampooned the Special Branch in a well-know sketch in which Inspector Harry "Snapper" Organs announces that he keeps track of the whereabouts of notorious criminal "Spiny Norman" by reading the colour supplements (in the Sunday newspapers). That is the inevitable image conjured up in my mind by a tiny item of news buried away in today's Daily Telegraph. Investigators are using Facebook to track the whereabouts of suspected war criminals in Darfur after they had been indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Leaving aside the comic overtones of the leader of the Janjaweed having Facebook Friends, and his profile featuring "Which Dictator are You?" along with all his favourite songs, holiday photos, humorous videos posted to his wall, etc., there is a serious side. That is, how much can anybody find out about you? The answer should worry you and explains why investigators are looking on Facebook in the first place.

Viral marketing is the old-fashioned "word of mouth" concept, wired-up and electrified for the Internet Age. Compare a Mexican Wave with the old game of Chinese Whispers and you'll see the difference. It's not a message being passed down the line one person at a time, it's a tidal wave that spreads and rushes across a crowd. Think of all those emails you see from friends and colleagues passing around the latest joke or outrageous video. Have you ever forwarded one? They spread like a virus, and when they are deliberately created to promote a product, that's when they become viral marketing. How can you do that for your business?

A new approach to standard email phishing scams has been reported targeting senior executives in California, coining a new term in the process - whaling. Whaling, then, is for phishing scams that target big fish. This particular email appears to come from a court in California and includes the target's name, company, and phone number to give it an air of authenticity. There are some useful lessons we can all pick up from this.

For an object lesson in how to exploit the Internet to maximum effect, you can't do better than this small hotel on the island of Corfu. On the face of it, it has every obstacle to overcome. It is only a two star hotel, it has no restaurant, no swimming pool, no car parking, it is in a small town twenty minutes to the south of Corfu town itself, it is on the "wrong" side of the island so far as the beaches are concerned, while the bigger hotels on Corfu are slashing their rates and sucking all the business away from the smaller hotels.

Mark founded Cyberpoint back in March 1995 when he realised how important the Internet was to become, and he has been fully vindicated in that confidence.