Social media is amazingly powerful and social networking sites have been growing at unbelievably fast rates, and they are also starting to replace some mainstream news sources and even the search engines for some people. The fact of the matter is that many social networking sites, mainly Twitter and Facebook, are breaking many news stories before the news networks are. A perfect example was a couple weeks back when the news of the Jakarta bombings broke on Twitter because a user was staying in one of the hotels and tweeted right after the explosion. The power of the social web just keeps growing and is becoming a force that can overtake many traditional media outlets, it will also to continue to hurt the search engines. Here are some of the top stories of the week in the world social media.

Twitter

There has been some interesting news regarding Twitter, and one of the biggest things that is potentially very scary is the Twitter lawsuit. The Chicago woman had 20 followers on Twitter and she made a Tweet that Horizon Realty claims was damaging to their business. Horizon Realty has filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen for the Tweet that only a small group of people would have seen, that was until Horizon filed the lawsuit and now it is getting so much publicity that millions will hear about it and it will cause them a far bigger reputation problem that the tweet. If Horizon does win the lawsuit it will definitely change social media as we know it because people will start being scared of what they can and cannot say. Twitter also unveiled a new homepage this week, and the new homepage makes the site look and perform more like a search engine. This is just another reason that the search engines should start to worry or else they need to up their game if they want to stay around for the long haul. Real time search is the way of the future and Twitter plans on being right at the center of it all.

Charity in Social Media

This is an awesome story and shows how charitable the social media crowds can be, and this was all done by an amazing musician by the name of Josh Charles. Josh is from The New Orleans area and he was there when Katrina came through. He was evacuated like everyone else and when he returned he saw the devastation that Katrina left in one of the greatest cities in the country. It has been a few years and New Orleans is still in bad shape in many places, half of the population of the city is gone as well. So what Josh did is wrote a song about it that is called Healing Time. What makes this story even better is that Josh is selling the song for 99 cents via Amazon and every penny of that goes to charity to help rebuild New Orleans. Josh paid to record the song out of his own pocket and Amazon also agreed to not take a penny from the sale of the song through there site. This is one of the most amazing things a musician could do and I also gained a lot of respect for Amazon for being very cool about the whole thing as well. Kudos to both Josh and Amazon. Be sure to go download the song at Amazon – Healing Time by Josh Charles, every penny raised goes directly to a great cause. The Social Blade Show also played a part in giving this story more exposure on Thursday night by having Josh on and helping to bring more awareness to the cause socially.

MySpace Mail

MySpace is making the news again all over the web for their next move in trying to stay alive, this time it is in the form of an email service. MySpace decided to launch its own email service and this means you can now have your own myspace.com email address. Since the site has been losing so many users who are abandoning the social network they are doing everything in their power to stay relevant. They already plan on focusing on artists and gaming and this email service is their next offer to the community. The email service has a lot to offer since you will have unlimited file storage, one click embedding of pics and vids, and also an address book that automatically saves your contacts.

YouTube

Last week, the JK Wedding Entrance Video was an instant YouTube success generating over 13 million views in little more than a week.   Yesterday, the Official Google Blog showed how they “help[ed] rights holders [of Chris Brown's song: "Forever"] control their content on [youtube].” by placing “buy” links to itunes and amazon music stores.  The song is reported as “reaching as high as #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list.”  As of today it’s #23 on itunes, and #7 on Amazon….sadly, cracked.com’s Official: “Worst Song Ever” is #1.

The Lighter Side of the Social Web

Here are some of the funnier stories that were hot over the last week. One of my favorites was seeing the kid get owned by Mentos and Diet Coke. I am sure that he will think twice about doing that again, but we know there will always be plenty of other people doing stupid things. William Shatner has been one of the nations top actors and entertainers for years now, and this week he delivered once again for us on Conan O’Brien. If you have not seen it then be sure to check out Bill reciting Sarah Palins speech as a poem. Here are some unbelievable pieces of artwork that were drawn with ball point pens and measure up to 10 ft. tall, these are just awesome and I am sure creating them is very time consuming. This costume is an instant classic and had to have easily been the best costume at Comic Con.

This week was no different than any other week in the world of social media, so that means there was a lot going on and lots of big news. With so much going on every week it is impossible to list everything, so here is a list of some of the social media news that I feel is most important as well as some of the stuff that had people laughing throughout the week.  We all know how popular social communities and how powerful they can be when used properly, and this is exactly the reason many Universities are taking advantage of social media. Let’s face it, any company or large brand not taking advantage of it better start soon or else you will be left in the dust. People are realizing this though, as well as many companies large and small, now even popular content management systems are integrating social media, as is the case with Drupal.

Digg Hijacking Links?

This was a huge story this week in the social media world, and many people became very angry over the fact that Digg appeared to be stealing traffic, or pulling a bait and switch. The diggbar seemed to be a url shortener at first, and many people used it for this. The problem came earlierin the week when people noticed that if they were not logged into digg they got redircted to a digg landing page rather than the actual story. There was a large uproar over the change and Kevin Rose said he would look into it since he had been out of the country. Well he did and they said that they were keeping the diggbar the way it was now and it was not to be a url shortener anymore, but exclusive for digg. They did say that any old links would be reverted to the old way but anything from when the change went live going into the future would redirect to a digg landing page unless you were logged in.

A New Era for MySpace?

Last week I mentioned how MySpace has been losing followers left and right, mainly due to people switching to Facebook because of the cleaner design among other things. MySpace knows they need to do something, especially after being called the ghetto of social networking sites. MySpace is still popular with bands and musicians, so this is the main area they should focus more on in my opinion. They have also decided to embrace gamers and News Corp announced that they are going to try and expand into a stronger online videogame platform. This will be interesting and I will be watching closely to see how it works out for them.

Twitter Mania

The Twitter frenzy online continues to grow as more and more people are finding the benefits and fun that can be had with the microblogging service. Due to this, there are constantly new updates being made, one that many people may have noticed is that their follower/following counts may have dropped over the last few days. This is because Twitter has recently made some corrections to these numbers as well as did another spammer sweep. Twitter also released a guide for businesses that use Twitter in order to help them make the most out of the service, this is called Twitter 101 for Businesses and it can be a good read if you are a business just jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Another resource for brands using Twitter is the new Twitter management system from Buddy Media, just another reason for your company to climb on board the social media train.

This week Twitter also unveiled a live updating search widget, which will make real time search even more exciting and easy to keep track of. There has been so much news regarding Twitter recently so the last one I will bring up for anyone that may not have seen it is the new service which allows you to record a video to incorporate into your tweets. This service is called Twitvid and it should make Twitter a bit more interesting for the folks that love video.

Digsby Keeps on Growing

All of us at Essential are big fans of Digsby, Skip even had a nice humorous post explaining that he loves Digsby so much he wants to propose. It seems that the service just keeps on growing as more and more people discover all the benefits of using the program, and Digsby has just hit that 1 million user mark, so in addition to making that announcement they also announced the launch of an affiliate program. Congrats Digsby, we love you and wish you continued success and growth!

Facebook Changes Their Minds, Again….

Once again Facebook is reversing a decision they made, much like the decision they reversed a few weeks back regarding the vanity url’s being available only to users with so many followers. This time the change Facebook is reversing is the fixed usernames. Once you chose your username on Facebook you were stuck with it, at least that’s what everyone thought, including the staff at Facebook. Now they have decided that they will allow people to change their vanity url after all, if the one you want is even available anymore.

The Fun Stuff

Every week I plan on tossing in some of my favorites from the social media world, whether they are funny or just plain absurd this is where the fun stuff is. These will always be some of my favorite stuff that will either make you laugh or just wonder what is wrong with people. My favorite entertaining video this week was one from Digg, and this is sure to become the newest incarnate of the legendary Rick Roll. This time though we have a Teen Spirit style Rick Roll, or as some people have called it, The Kurt Roll. A great picture that I saw being bounced around the different social networks is one of my other favorites of the week and it has to be one of the smartest bums on the street,  I am alsowilling to bet he makes some pretty good coin doing this. To finish off the week I will leave you with the worst song ever written, as well as another awesome pic of the Fast Food Mafia.

Have a good weekend and we hope to see you coming back as we will be updating the blog regularly, and of course every Friday check ot the Social Media Wrap right here!

Social news sites and all of the other social networking sites are not going anywhere, in fact the communities are growing everyday and many of the top news stories worldwide first break in these social networking communities. Every week the social communities are buzzing with many big stories. Now, every Friday, we’ll bring you a weekly wrap-up of some of the biggest stories in the world of social media.

Breaking news from… Twitter?
Just yesterday, when the bombings in Jakarta happened, the first people to report on these bombing were Twitter users. This also goes to show how important social networking has become to society today, and it also enables anyone to bring breaking news to the web in real time. Real time reporting has been seen a lot in recent weeks and months via sites like Twitter and Facebook, another recent example were the Iran political protests and how the people caught up in them were able to update via social communities. That was important as well because it showed the power of the groundswell when many users turned their avatars green and also changed their time settings in Twitter to make it harder for the Iran government to try and block their citizens from reporting on Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter Hacked…again
That’s right, Twitter was hacked… again. This time, documents were stolen from an employee’s email and posted on numerous blogs around the web. Techcrunch has published some of the more interesting documents, while some of the other blogs held little back. Twitter has contacted lawyers, but they should know as well as anyone that when something catches on in the social world it is almost impossible to stop, this has been coined “The Streisand Effect” and it is something many people do not fully understand, but I would assume the folks at Twitter know about it all too well.

The fall of MySpace
Reports of MySpace showing a steady decline in it’s user base surfaced this week, as many people are running from MySpace and embracing Facebook. MySpace has recently been coined as the “ghetto” of social networking communities due to the unappealing layouts and rediculous page load times. Where MySpace has remained relevant is when it comes to a networking tool for musicians. Being a musician myself I have seen firsthand what is possible for bands networking and promoting themselves on MySpace. Perhaps MySpace should really target and focus on if they want to have a place in the future of social media. When bands and other entertainers embrace social networking amazing things can happen, and Myspace has helped launch a number of careers (for better or worse).

Real Time Search is still a hot topic
Real time search has been an increasingly hot topic and it is proof that the future of search will be geared more towards real time search results. Let’s face it, when you do a search you don’t want to find outdated information on the subject, most would prefer something that is totally fresh and relevant. Real time search has been revolutionized by Twitter and now many sites are implementing this concept, including Friendfeed, which is another popular networking site where you can integrate feeds from all of your different social profiles.

Integrating TV with Social Media
As more and more companies start embracing the social media phenomenon, we will see more technological advancements in the social world. One example of this is the new social network TV service Verizon is offering their FIOS customers. This application will enable users to watch TV together online and communicate with each other as they watch. The services will also be fully integrated with Twitter and Facebook as well as other user generated video sites on the web, such as Dailymotion and Blip.tv.

The lighter side of Social Media (this week)
Some of the more entertaining stories we have see in the social world this past week include a dancing bear that has been invading webcam chatrooms on Stickam and causing hilarity to ensue. The dancing bear prank was done by Ryan Perera, who thought it would be funny to invade random chatrooms for fun. The prank raised quite a few eyebrows in the social world because of how random and funny it truly was, and the folks in these chatrooms got a good laugh watching the dancing bear on cam.

We were also graced with some funny images that were a big hit on numerous social media websites and gave people some nice laughs, one being the man who cant afford beer and then we also had the humorous directions that involve a kayak. The Dairy Queen sign in this image is most definitely a huge fail on their part, but made many say WTF! Or was good for another chuckle to many others.

Here was an interesting image which shows 4 different Newsweek covers, and obviously you can see exactly why mainstream American media sucks (and the exact reason people are embracing social networks for unbiased news).

Last but not least in interesting social media stories we have the girl who was arrested for swearing during a 911 call. I’ll let the video do the talking.

Hope you enjoyed our wrap-up…until next week!

I’m a Firefox kind of guy. Long before IE7, I was in love with the functionality of multiple tabs in the same window. I was introduced to Firefox by Todd when we first started working together some years ago. I was lustful for all the add-ons, and I relished the rapidly vanishing programs cluttering my taskbar that inevitably accompanied any long day of using IE. My love affair with Firefox has lasted for quite some time. But as much as the functionality of multiple tabs has engrained itself into my psyche, there was a wonderful tool out there that had eluded my attention until recently. And having recently begun this labor of love of a company, I came to realize that this beautiful, buxom tool had seduced its way onto my computer; and into my heart. That tool, my friends, is Digsby. And like any true love, what started out as an infatuation has rapidly become a soul-mate. I’m starting to wonder how I ever lived and loved without it.

A few weeks back I was chatting on AIM with Shawn, our resident Social Media Manager. I don’t recall exactly how the conversation came about, but I was mentioning something about the confusion of having multiple chat windows open in multiple messengers. Shawn mentioned something about Digsby. Little did I know that this small conversation would be my introduction with the love of my life. Shawn went on to discuss what Digsby was essentially explaining that it was a one stop portal for each and nearly every e-mail, messenger and social media account that one could ask for. I began to salivate when thinking about just my hotmail accounts alone. I have one that I created nearly 15 years ago while in the Navy, one created by my College, one that I run various fantasy leagues on, one that I …. you get the point. For this reason alone, I was looking forward to not having to log in and then out to check multiple accounts. It was only after I downloaded and began running Digsby did I realize that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

I downloaded Digsby and began the set up process. I started adding my accounts. The process to me was reminiscent of a third date after you’ve had a great meal, enjoyed a nice film, and have gone back to her apartment for “coffee”… it was really starting to get hot and heavy. I was telling Digsby all my innermost personal secrets. I was letting her into all of my e-mail accounts, and my Social Media Profiles. She in turn undressed to reveal to me everything that she was made of. Within minutes, I was ready to propose. Short of packing me a lunch with a cute note for work the next day and rubbing my back after a tough day, Digsby appeared to be to be the perfect Soul-Mate.

A great visual interface aside, the true beauty of Digsby is the fact that I have everything in front of me in real time. One click. That’s it. One single click. With that lone solitary click, I had in front of me a real time view of every e-mail account, Social Media profile and instant messenger. I was flabbergasted. In real time, the virtual world of contact and Social Media was presenting itself to me in a number of innocuous pop up windows. Instant message from Shawn_Rosko about an upcoming presentation… check. @WebMasterRadio is now following me on Twitter… check, check!! I have an e-mail from my pop mail server from a perspective client… check, check, check!!! All of my accounts were right there, neatly displayed on a sidebar with great functionality. A simple mouseover showed me my message. A click allowed me to reply, or tweet. Now, I’m not going to lie here, I started to cry a little bit. The same kind of “triumph of the human spirit” victorious tears that one may find upon watching the final 10 minutes of “Rudy.” I was in love with a girl named Digsby and she was treating me right.

I tried to quantify what kind of tool Digsby really was, so I did some timing. Using a Dell Latitude D520 on a Cable DSL connection, I found that it took me 40 seconds or so to log in to one Hotmail account, browse my inbox, log out, and log back in to a 2^nd account. I had been doing this approximately 3 or 4 times a day for a total of 3 minutes. Logging into Twtter from the same tab and scanning that inbox added another 20 seconds. Moving over to LinkedIn took another… you know what, nevermind. I’m not going to bore you. The bottom line is that I was saving 10-15 minutes a day for simply logging in and logging out. That’s about 60-90 hours a year! Seriously, that’s between 2-4 days of your life every year spent logging in and out of accounts! I wondered what to do with that extra time that Digsby has afforded me. So I decided: I’m going to take a long weekend and go to Sandals and I’m going to propose to Digsby!