It’s official; companies are finally recognising that outlawing social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook in the office is unlikely to work. Moreover, not only is it a futile task, but it also represents a massively missed opportunity to improve the efficiency of an organisation - and the quality of employee experience.
For many years the office watercooler has been the focal point for social encounters in the office. Now, in the age of Web 2.0, we are seeing a steady revolution in our corporate social lives. Degrees of connectivity within organisations are on the up - and not across traditional lines of the corporate communication structure. Instead we are forming links between points previously left unconnected, all thanks to…
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This week has seen some interesting developments concerning two of Web 2.0’s biggest stars; YouTube and MySpace. While MySpace unveiled its rival to Facebook’s Platform system (more on this later), YouTube announced the launch of its Partner Programme in the UK. The scheme will enable users to earn money from their videos by becoming ‘YouTube Partners’, qualifying them for a share of revenue generated from advertising that runs alongside their videos, proportional to the popularity of their clips.
Initially tested in the US, the programme promises to consolidate YouTube’s superiority as the number one video-sharing website, despite the huge success of Facebook’s own video application (which does not operate a similar feature). The significance lies in the fact that YouTube now…
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This week brings bad news indeed for one of Facebook’s most high profile third-party developed applications; the popular Scrabulous app. Designed by two Indian brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla in 2006, Scrabulous has now become Facebook’s ninth most popular application, with 2.3 million total users, 500,000 of whom play daily. Its addictive and simple version of the popular board game Scrabble offers users the chance to compete with friends and colleagues, and earns the brothers approximately $25,000 per month from advertising revenue.
However this success has not gone unnoticed by the toy-making giants Hasbro and Mattel, who both own rights to the Scrabble game format and now, rather predictably, are keen to capitalise on the financial potential of Scrabulous. A deal…
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