YouTube something very interesting to the public today. This has been an argument I’ve raised before on another blog site questioning the real purpose or validity of the 5 star ratings system for user generated video content on YouTube.
Today marks a huge milestone for Facebook as the crossed over the 300 million user mark. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted this remarkable landmark on their blog around 1PM today. Mark also took the opportunity to point out the continued growth of the service. As a matter of face, Facebook is now in positive cash flow as of last quarter – one year ahead of schedule.
If you recall, Facebook announced the crossing of the 200 million mark just 5 months ago which means that Facebook is now growing faster than it’s competition. The combination of accelerated user growth and positive cash earnings could lead Facebook into a future IPO.
Mark Zuckerberg posted this on the Facebook blog:
Copying a feature right out of the Twitter playbook, Facebook today adds the @Mention feature to it’s social network. Facebook has termed the feature as ‘tagging’ because it will not only reference friends, but groups, pages and even events!
Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand just like you would on Twitter. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.
Tweetups are get togethers between people who use twitter. In the past, it’s been quite difficult to find tweetups with like minded individuals let alone a get together in your area. Sure there are sites such as Evite and Facebook, but the tweetups get lost in all of the other social events.
Now we hear of a new site dedicated solely to localized tweetups! Tweetvite let’s you easily create and find Tweetups in your area. You can customize the look and feel of the invitation, track tweets & re-tweets, and list your event for others to find. The site is extremely easy to use, very clean layout, and should become pretty popular IF people actually want to put together a tweetup.
Video social networking site Ustream.tv is doing something I believe is a great move for the company to connect directly with it’s users and partners. The Ustream founders are hosting a first-ever townhall meeting to answer the communities questions and concerns. Other social networks and video chat platforms should take notes!
The Ustream.tv townhall meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 10 starting at 4PM PST. The discussion will be hosted by founders John Ham and Bran Hunstable streaming live from their offices in Mountain View, California. This will be a great opportunity for you to get your questions answered and hear what others are concerned about regarding the platform. Even more, I’m sure we will find out some new improvements and future enhancements to the service as well.
BlogTV is a social networking site based completely on video ‘shows’ and community chat. The site has become more and more of a haven for ‘trolls’, someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages to disturb an online community. Typically, the person who has to deal with the consequences of a ‘trolls’ actions is the video broadcaster. BlogTV has added new features to help a broadcaster run a smoother broadcast and more enjoyment for the audience as a whole.
