February 2009 Archives

Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCOâCompete.com has crowned Facebook th e most popular social networking website, saying it racked-up nearly 1.2 billio n visits in January. The Internet-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that sho w MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the past year while micr o-blogging service Twitter catapulted to third place from 22nd. News Corp-owned MySpace saw approximately 810 million visits in January, while Twitter was visited 54.2 million times, according to Compete. "No surprise here," a Compete reader using the online name Bauer said in a comm ent viewable Wednesday at a chat forum at the US firm's website. "Facebook has evolved much better and always has something new to of fer. I donât get Twitter though, I donât think people care to read live updates on what percentage of my burger Iâve eaten." The number of visitors to social-networking websites and the amount of time the y dwell there are considered key indicators of how well Internet services are d oing. Facebook and Twitter have registered increases in both categories while visits and time spent at MySpace have stagnated or slid during the course of the past year, according to Compete. "MySpace is still the clear number two player in the big categories, but its tr ends in some key areas aren't quite so dominating," Andy Kazeniac of Compete wr ote in an online posting discussing the rankings. "At least in those areas, they could be looking up at more than Facebook soon." Flixster, Linkedin, and Tagged were ranked fourth through sixth places respecti vely, each gaining in popularity from January of 2008.

IN the spirit of the upcoming Valentine's Day, we're giving you a chance to say it out loud, why do you love to blog? What compelled you to blog? What keeps y ou from blogging? Declare your love for blogs. Fire away!

Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCO--A service that targets Twitter users for marketing messages is reining in spammers as adverti sers strive to take advantage of the popular micro-blogging network. TwitterHawk is limiting marketers to sending only a single message each to any particular Twitter user every six hours, according to a message at the firm's w ebsite on Monday. TwitterHawk runs a service that scours Twitter messages for key words and then fires off missives that are essentially advertisements targeted in a manner sim ilar to Google matching online ads to search queries. For example, the operators of a coffee shop could use TwitterHawk to pinpoint local Twitter users who mention coffee in "tweets" and then send them messages inviting them to try the cafe. "The system will spread out your replies so they look more natural, and rotate through your different responses so it doesn't appear repetitive when people vi ew your account," TwitterHawk promises. "We can even add the user we find as a friend on Twitter for you to give you th at extra little edge." TwitterHawk owner Chris Duell said in an online statement the service was not i ntended to be a weapon for spammers to bury Twitter users in hails of unwanted pitches. "We do not in any way condone using TwitterHawk for aggressive SPAM based marke ting tactics to harass or annoy people with advertising material on a regular b asis," Duell wrote. "We view this in the same way that Google Adwords provides non intrusive offers to users based on the keywords they told Google about -- but without this bein g forced upon them or annoying them." Backlash from Twitter users inspired TwitterHawk to restrict how often marketin g messages can be sent and promise that tougher controls will be implemented if the service causes "unwanted problems." "We did not expect such an explosion in use of the tool and considerably undere stimated its effect on the social medium," Duell wrote. Twitter has yet to start making money from the fast-growing service that encour ages users to share what they are doing at any given moment in the form of ters e haiku-style text messages on mobile phones. The California-based firm doggedly works to thwart spammers, marketers, frauds, and criminals from exploiting the service and its millions of users. Twitter vigilantly deletes accounts of suspected spammers or fraudsters. On Monday, it suspended an account said to have been set up the Tibetan spiritu al leader the Dalai Lama saying it had been created by an impostor.

Filipino bloggers are now p icking up Filipino songwriter Gary Granada's recorded complai nt against GMA Kapuso Foundation, which he accuses of allegedly using his s tudy without his permission. A blog called "Ang Kape Ni LaTt ex," says Granada's recorded complaint has been making the rounds via blogs, Plurk, Twitter and e-mail. The blog says:

In a nutshell, Mr. Granada, a noted Filipino singer-composer, voice d his sentiments against GMA Kapuso Foundation, regarding a jingle that he comp osed music for. According to Mr. Granada, GMA rejected his study for the jingle , but allegedly used his revisions for the lyrics (which was provided to him by GMA), and based the final tune on the musical structure of his study, all with out attribution or pay. It would be best that you listen to the audio cast and hear it in detail and come up with your own opinions regarding the issue. What makes this audiocast special, however, is the extent of Mr. Granadaâs use of New Media â or, âWeb two point ohâ â to detail his complaint, in a totally u nprecedented manner, and against Mainstream Media to boot!

Filipinovoices blog has also picked up on the issue.

Rarely do we ever write about the music industry here at FV, but th is specific case will be an exception, only because this is a case of an entire media company denying a wrong that it has done, especially to a very talented composer like Gary Granada. Songwriter and Composer, Gary Granada, was given lyrics which he was supposed t o translate into music. This music would ultimately be used by GMA for a Kapuso foundation media campaign. But, GMA ended up not using Gary Granada, but it se ems that they used his musical creation in the end, and basically ditched Gary and gave him nothing at all, not even a claim on the work itself, because as GM A says, Garyâs work was a âcollectiveâ work.

Ang Kape ni LatTex notes that Granada's complaint is "totally unprecedented" be cause of the use of the Internet to air his sentiments.

What makes this audiocast special, however, is the extent of Mr. Gr anadaâs use of New Media â or, âWeb two point ohâ â to detail his complaint, in a totally unprecedented manner, and against Mainstream Media to boot! In the audiocast, he included a clip of his original study, the final product, and a detailed explanation on the musical structure of both, including the musi cal theory behind his gripes and a re-rendered tune comprising of his accompani ment and the tune used in the final cut of the jingle. To say that Mr. Granada maximized new media to explain his side is an understatement â he clearly under stood that this is the best possible way to make people understand the situatio n in its fullest extent.