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Executive Shake Up at LinkedIn Puts Founder Back in Charge Posted: 17 Dec 2008 04:08 PM PST In a time of uncertainty for social networks’ steady revenue, LinkedIn is undergoing an executive shake-up with Chief Executive Dan Nye stepping down. Company founder Reid Hoffman will eventually be taking the company in the direction he sees as the best for LinkedIn, with former Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner acting as interim president for LinkedIn’s day-to-day operations, reports the L.A. Times. It’s uncertain how long Weiner will be at LinkedIn as the interim president, but Nye will remain with LinkedIn until January to ease the transition. Weiner will also remain in his current position as an executive in residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, the latter of which is a LinkedIn investor. As Weiner will be reporting to Hoffman, the question remains whether or not he is being considered for a permanent placement with LinkedIn. Since Weiner was reportedly mentioned to replace Jerry Yang as CEO at Yahoo, there is a seemingly good chance that Weiner would in fact be considered for permanent placement at LinkedIn. The reasons for Nye’s departure, however, remain unknown. Having been with LinkedIn for the past two years, he has helped LinkedIn grow significantly. While many other social networks rely on advertising for a source of revenue, LinkedIn’s professional networking capabilities offered a service that millions of its users are willing to pay for. So even as social networks like Facebook modify their advertising options and bring in new positions to handle risk management (directly tied to advertising revenue), LinkedIn has been moving from a premium service-based network to one that supports a user-driven market place in order to leverage its size and platform. Not to mention, my own LinkedIn connections have skyrocketed in the past few weeks with people seeking job opportunities and referrals. No word on whether or not Hoffman has any drastic changes that would shift from Nye’s implemented features, but it doesn’t look as though much needs to be changed at LinkedIn.

Have You Accepted Twitter Yet? Here’s 5 Steps. Posted: 17 Dec 2008 12:41 PM PST How many of you have ever thought that Twitter was a pretty stupid tool (or still think this is the case)? And if you’ve finally come to accept Twitter as the useful branding tool that it could be, then you’ve probably gone through the following steps of Twitter Acceptance. Blogger Rohit Bhargava has finally come to love Twitter, and as a marketing and PR professional he’s also discovered all the great ways Twitter can be used for nearly every type of branding. Bhargava has even gone so far as to write the 5 Steps to Twitter Acceptance. As if we needed additional proof that Twitter has established itself as a great tool for both entertainment and marketing purposes. Yes, Twitter is great for getting a message out to the masses that matter. And it can, in fact, be used for more than just writing updates about stuff you don’t care to blog about, as Bhargava used to do. One of the most important take aways from Bhargava’s Steps to Twitter Acceptance is the evolution Bhargava noted, from thinking of Twitter as a fleeting update service to a powerful marketing tool that can help direct traffic and build up brands through the direct and community-driven interactions amongst Twitter users. It’s reflective of not only the evolution of Twitter users’ acceptance, but of Twitter itself. So what do you use Twitter for?

JS-Kit Adds Facebook Connect and YouTube Videos for Comments Platform Posted: 17 Dec 2008 10:45 AM PST In a move that makes perfect common sense, JS Kit has added full Facebook Connect support and YouTube videos in comments support as well. The company that offers a handful of services for site enhancement, from integrated cross-site comments to reviews and analytics, JS-Kit has had a year full of new feature implementations. As a result, JS-Kit is probably more well known for its integrated comments capabilities than most of its other services, JS-Kit is contending with the likes of Disqus for prime placement in the cross-network comments space. While Disqus has also launched support for Facebook Connect recently, the ongoing addition of more companies like JS-Kit supporting Facebook Connect says a lot about the platform and how it can be used for a truly connected online experience. If a publisher is apprehensive or unaware of the ways in which they can add Facebook Connect directly, taking advantage of a service like JS-Kit may be in their best interest. And given JS-Kit’s own cross-site approach to comments, both publishers and end users are only encouraged to use JS-Kit’s service as a result. In many ways, third party companies that have platforms in a certain sense are looking to Facebook’s own platforms for their expansion. But let’s not forget that JS-Kit has also added support for YouTube videos in comments. Though it’s not the same affect of recording your own video directly from your webcam, it does add to the robustness of a multimedia approach to its comments solution. The YouTube clips will play directly in the comment thread without a reader having to leave the page. Other new updates for JS-Kit include a new “smooth grey” skin option as well as a safe HTML option for comments. Keyword search within a comment roll has also been added, which can be an extremely important benefit for site publishers. JS-Kit already supports OpenID, and will be adding support for more standards in the near future.

Announcing the AllFacebook Demographic Stats Posted: 17 Dec 2008 10:38 AM PST Today I released a pretty easy to use widget which enables users to track Facebook demographic statistics. You can read more about it in today’s Techcrunch article. I’ll be rolling out some more features in the coming weeks for all of our statistics tracking tools. Facebook currently provides some basic information for users and there are a number of other sites as well but I figured that users would like more robust tools for tracking the activity on Facebook. This is just the beginning of some of the data that we’re looking to track so please let us know if there are any other statistics that you would like access to. I’ve included a sample chart below which is the growth of Serbian Facebook users. These statistics are also off by a small amount as Facebook doesn’t give 100 percent accurate reporting via their advertising service. I’m considering enabling users to enter their own adjustment factor into the charts but for now this should be a pretty good start. Let us know if you find any interesting information via our demographics tool and we might post about it. We are also looking to track some additional information outside of Facebook in the near future so let us know if there’s anything that you’d like to see from us.

StockTwits Tweets and Raises First Round Posted: 17 Dec 2008 09:37 AM PST In a prime example of how a third party can create a niche community around interest-based Twitter users, StockTwits has raised its first round of funding two months after launching, reports VentureBeat. The round was led by IA Capital Partners, LLC. The amount of StockTwits’ first round has not been disclosed.  If you’re at all familiar with Twitter, then you’ll recognize its ability to get you news and useful information quickly.  Get the right group of people together, and the result is a trusted source of highly relevant data.  StockTwits has capitalized on Twitter’s popularity and others’ addiction for prompt news, providing an integrated service that forms an entire community around users sharing their knowledge and predictions on the market.  Instead of asking “What are you doing right now?” StockTwits asks “What are you trading?”  Since your StockTwits account is tied in to your Twitter account (just use your Twitter credentials to log into StockTwits), updating on StockTwits will update your Twitter account as well.  On the flip side, a regular tweet that includes a “$” and a stock symbol will be displayed on StockTwits.  The most valuable aspect of StockTwits, however, is the leaderboards that highlight the most influential StockTwits users.  There’s also a short list of recommended users to help you get started–connecting you with the StockTwits users that may be of great assistance.  There are a handful of other features for StockTwits that allow you to see things like the biggest gainers and losers within the stock market, but it wouldn’t hurt to build out the community capabilities for StockTwits from here.  While its simplicity is part of what makes StockTwits work so well, perhaps the recent round of funding will go towards providing more information on both users and stocks.

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