Detailed Look at Reasons People Visit Various Social Sites
March 19, 2010
As with traditional media, it’s different strokes for different folks on social media sites. And knowing your audience’s needs and preferences is just as valid in PR today as it ever was.
According to an analysis of social sites by online advertising network Chikita published by Mashable, people go to Twitter for news, MySpace for games and entertainment, Facebook for news and community and digg has a mixed bag.
Another post from Chikita shows that Facebook is far and away the best source of loyal visitors – over 20% of all visitors from Facebook visited the referred site four or more times per week. Digg came in second place with slightly over 16%.
Yahoo Buys Citizens Sports
March 18, 2010
Yahoo said today it is acquiring social sports site Citizen Sports in an effort to strengthen its strategy of aggregating and distributing social content online. Terms of the acquisition were not released.
"Yahoo! is in a unique position to combine our deep expertise in content and aggregation technology to offer a highly personalized social experience," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, Consumer Products Group, Yahoo!.
"Sports has been among the earliest online categories to experience rapid social proliferation, and the combination of Citizen Sports leading products with our world-class sports experience on Yahoo! Sports is a win-win for sports fans globally."
Citizens Sports offers users social and mobile applications to play fantasy sports, fill out brackets, check live scores and read news on sports including football, hockey, soccer, baseball, racing, ruby, hockey and cricket.
Yahoo Sports content will be integrated into Citizen Sports, creating a consistent experience for sports fans. On Yahoo Sports, users will be able to create or join a conversation with other fans and root for their teams via Citizen Sports' applications.
Yahoo Sports is the most popular online sports destination with more than 39 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. according to comScore. Citizen Sports' network of popular applications for Facebook, MySpace, hi5, iPhone and Android, includes professional, college and high sports.
Citizen Sports was founded by Mike Kerns and Jeff Ma in 2004. Yahoo said its set to close the deal in the second quarter of 2010.
MySpace Launches New Games Site
March 11, 2010
MySpace launched a new gaming experience at myspace.com/games today. The company says it empowers developers with new tools, analytics, and opportunities for driving usage and revenue.
"Gaming is core to the overall entertainment value of MySpace; we are replicating our success from MySpace Music for this next round of platform improvements," a representative for MySpace tells WebProNews. "Nearly a third of MySpace users engage daily in games and there are more than 28 million active app users on the site." She says the site "offers users discovery and sharing of games in a simpler and cleaner experience."
"Nearly one-third of MySpace users engage daily with games. We believe the new experience will empower even more of the MySpace audience to discover, share, and showcase games, which along with music and movies, are core to our content strategy," said MySpace Co-President Mike Jones. "We've been working with our developer partners to understand where they’d like to see MySpace go; based on that feedback we started rebuilding MySpace Games. These are the first steps in offering robust tools for developers to help their businesses thrive."
MySpace says developers can now:
- Review application-specific analytics via a new API, including invitation conversions, active users, notification responses and demographics.
- Build games in rich, 3D-like quality with Unity's powerful 3D engine and allow MySpace users to access the games with a new plug-in. For example, Paradise Paintball utilizes this technology.
- Encourage cross-platform competition with Scoreloop, which allows games on different platforms to share the same high scores, achievements, challenges and buddy lists.
- Utilize GroovyCortex, which is a cloud-based solution for onsite application developers, to provide low latency push data for multiplayer games.
- Track the source of application invitations and utilization to learn how users are finding and choosing specific games.
Along with the new MySpace Games site, MySpace announced a MySpace Games iPhone app, nine new social games, and a Gallery. Earlier this week, MySpace announced that it has the most popular social app on Android.
It appears that the new MySpace Games experience hasn't fully rolled out yet.
Actor Corey Haim Reported Dead
March 10, 2010
Actor Corey Haim, best known for roles in movies like the Lost Boys, License to Drive, and many others (a number of which also featured Corey Feldman), has reportedly been found dead of an apparent drug overdose.
>>> You can leave your condolences on FamousDead.com.
The LA Times reports:
The Los Angeles Police Department said Haim, 38, was pronounced dead after 3 a.m. at a Burbank hospital. He had been living in the San Fernando Valley.
Details of his death were not immediately available. The L.A. coroner's office was investigating. A police spokesman said more details would be available later.
Haim connected with his fans through social media, specifically a MySpace page, which currently has 4,253 friends.
The "about me" section reads:
The real Corey Haimster here! I asked Jenny J to set this up for me, so here it is. I'll be checking in to read all your shout outs & when I get the time, I'll leave a message for you all. Thanks for hitting my MySpace page!
Love & peace out,
Corey
"Actor Corey Haim" and "Lost Boys" are currently both trending topics on Twitter.
Haim's latest movie American Sunset premiered in Las Vegas in January. He had also been seen in the realty TV show The Two Coreys with Feldman. More on Haim here.
