Is Facebook Advertising Effective? General Motors Doesn’t Think So
General Motors, the world’s biggest car maker, no longer wants to advertise on Facebook, as the social network prepares for an initial public offering. GM said this week that while it will continue to use the free Facebook services but not use of paid advertising on the site. GM executives thought Facebook ads had little effect on consumers’ car purchases.
One of the main problems advertising on Facebook and other social media platforms is that there are no clear set of tools that show return on investment. If GM is doing this, others might be thinking the same thing too.
Microsoft Go Social With Bing And Leave Out Google+
Microsoft is boosting Bing Search with more social networking features to truly take on Google’s dominant search engine. Bing will drill deeper into Facebook’s social network and Twitter’s messaging service but leave out Google+.
Here are the new features of Bing Search:
- Core Search loses many of the social annotations that Bing has added over the years
- Snapshot provides additional information about a particular search listing, without having to leave Bing
- Sidebar serves as a new home for social integration with search
Facebook Messenger Updated With Add Locations And Read Receipts
The Facebook chat app, Facebook Messenger has been updated with read receipts where a user can view which friends have viewed a message and the exact time the message was viewed. Facebook also added locations to the app which shows the name of the town or city originates as well as a small Google Maps graphic to visually specify the location.
Facebook Messenger is a free download on Apple iOS and Android mobile devices. IPad and video chat feature coming soon.
Facebook Closing In On 1 Billion Users
Facebook has reported that the popular social media platform has more than 901 million monthly active users, up from 845 million in the last quarter. The Facebook user base has surged 33%, from 680 million monthly average users, from March 2011 to March 2012. Facebook is fast approaching 1 billion users.
This week Facebook paid $550 million to buy 650 patents from Microsoft, which acquired those patents in an April 5 deal with AOL.
Facebook Spent $1 Billion For Instagram
Facebook has purchased Instagram popular photo-sharing app for $1 billion.
From Mark Zuckerberg’s post:
This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.
Facebook Launches Messenger For Windows
Facebook launches its first, non-browser-or-app-based messenger service today for Microsoft Windows 7. The Mac version will be out later.
From Facebook:
You can see the latest updates from your friends in Ticker on Messenger so you will see the items you would see in Ticker — tags, comments and more. The notifications you see are the same you would see when access Facebook.com and are based on your notification settings.
Facebook Timeline Rolling Out To All Users
Facebook is rolling out Timeline over the next few weeks to all 800 million users and there is no escaping it. Once you get timeline, you’ll have 7 days to preview what’s there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the F8 developers’conference the revamped profile page called Timeline. He described it has timeline being the story of your life. The profile page will have a new layout that organizes your life in reverse chronological order based on the content you’ve shared on your Facebook profile.
US Lawmakers Abandoning Anti-Privacy Bills
Eight U.S. lawmakers (Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Orrin Hatch of Utah, as well as Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland. Republican Representatives Ben Quayle of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska and Dennis Ross of Florida, and Democratic Representative Tim Holden of Pennsylvania) will not support Hollywood-backed anti-piracy legislation as Wikipedia, Google, Facebook. and other websites protested the measures.
Wikipedia shut down their site for 24 hours to protest this bills. While Google replace their logo with a black box on their search site.
Facebook To Sue Fake Mark Zuckerberg
An Israeli entrepreneur born Rotem Guez who recently took the name of Facebook CEO has setup a website, MarkZuckerbergOfficial.com. His website states that he first filed a lawsuit against Facebook in January, after the social network refused to give him access to his profile, which it had shut down.
The real Mark Zuckerberg is going to go after the fake Rotem Guez with a lawsuit.
Google Take Aim At Facebook With Google+ Real Life Ads
Google has ramped up their campaign to educate the public on the myriad of social tools they have created. Google launches the first Google+ advertisement during Thanksgiving. The ad focused on the features that the platform has that Facebook does not such as circles, multiple person video chats and simple ways to organize connections.
