In the era of social business, FRIENDLY and ethical BUSINESSES will SKYROCKET. A charismatic leader not only TRANSFORMS THE SOCIETY but also provides a new meaning to human civilization. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Prabhupad – the founder of ISKCON, and Jesus Christ are some of the charismatic leaders who have flown AGAINST THE WIND and have brought radical changes to society. ~ Nathaniel Hansen

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Despite Facebook privacy changes and serious cases of Twitter Fail Whale, social media use has increased astronomically since this time last year: During December 2009, global users spent an average of five hours on social networking sites, up from three hours in December 2008. That’s an 82% increase.

Nielsen just released a report on its blog detailing increased social media use, and the results are impressive, while not exactly shocking. Some highlights:

- Social networking sites are the most popular online destinations globally (based on the amount of time people spent there in December), with games and instant messaging coming in second and third, respectively. (Side note: As gaming becomes more popular on sites like Facebook, it will be interesting to see how this affects time spent.) (read more)

Popularity: 4% [?]

FIVE journalists will lock themselves away in a French farmhouse with access only to Facebook and Twitter to test the quality of news from the social networking and micro-blogging sites.

http://bit.ly/social_is_best_news_source

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SmallBlue, an innovative expertise locator that helps those IN the IBM community find knowledgeable people or learn more about new acquaintances. SmallBlue is a suite of four tools:

•SmallBlue Find — to see a relevance-ranked list of people associated with any search term.

•Use SmallBlue Net — to get a view of the social network of the top 100 experts in any topic.

•Use SmallBlue Reach — for more information about a person, including a list of their latest blog entries, bookmarks or forum posts or to see which communities they belong to.

•Use SmallBlue Ego — to see your own connections, and through them, the number of other people you can reach.

…read more

Main SmallBlue site

SmallBlue demo movie at main SmallBlue portal

SmallBlue case study

Popularity: 4% [?]

Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, doesn’t have a Facebook profile. Nelson, who works seven days a week, has no time for chatting online with Facebook friends.

But Nelson is logged on to Facebook all the time. That’s because more than 70,000 people have declared themselves fans of Sprinkles’ Facebook page, which is at facebook.com/sprinkles.

Each day on the site, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as “ganache” or “bunny,” and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores around the country and whisper that word get a free cupcake.

“On Facebook, we can ask our customers what’s the next location they want,” Nelson said. “What do they think of our next flavor? It’s an amazing way to communicate with our fans.”

Facebook is not just for friends anymore. The free social networking site — blocked in some workplaces as a potential time-waster — is increasingly becoming an inexpensive marketing tool for small businesses.

Sprinkles is among a growing number of small businesses taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren’t on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing. …read more here–>

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Charlene Li quotes:

social technologies enable people to get what they need from each other.

people must be at the center of your search strategy and not keywords.

social networks will be like air

our social networks will follow us wherever we go

Popularity: 3% [?]