Downside to Social Network Expansion, UGC Sites Growing & Engaging & Got a New Home

As you can see, I finally got off my lazy toukis and moved this blog off of that social networking, blogging, err…. thing called Yahoo! 360. Now I love Yahoo, but what is the deal with that, are they even still developing it? No way to edit the code, no way to add a real tracking system, no way to make real post titles without Yahoo branding, and those ugly URLs…. I’m just sorry that the site I created on it to test the platform, became one that I used on a regular basis. I still love ya Yahoo… but I’m loving Wordpress, all this functionality for free, I honestly can’t believe it…. and I need to make a donation.

So a few “shout outs” are necessary: To Stuntdubl, for sending me the email, that eventually got me to follow through with the move to Wordpress and to Graywolf for the awesome SEO Plugins for Wordpress post, which includes so many great plugins…. now just to finish moving all of my posts over… and find a better template… any suggestions?

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Losing Their Cool: The Downside of Expanding Hot Social Networking Sites- “It’s debatable whether broadly expanding is a good idea. A lot of businesses start small and expand, but when you are dealing with affinity groups that hope to foster a sense of community, [the decision] is more complicated. Is it better to focus on a successful niche or make a play for world domination?” – See also: Yahoo! Said in Facebook Talks
• UK User Generated Content Sites Growing Fast, Engaging More – “A recent analysis, by comScore World Metrix, of UK Internet users’ activity at user-generated content sites (UGC) showed significant traffic growth. Wikipedia was up 253 percent versus year ago, MySpace.com, up 467 percent, and Piczo.com, up 393 percent. Collectively, the leading UGC sites draw more frequent visits than non-UGC sites (4.2 vs. 3.5 average usage days per month), longer periods of engagement (79.9 vs. 33.2 average minutes per visitor), and more pages viewed (217 vs. 52 average pages per visitor). Users of the top social networking sites demonstrate particularly high levels of engagement, with visitors to MySpace.com and Bebo.com averaging at least 5 usage days, 2 hours of use, and 300 pages viewed per visitor during July.” See also: User-Generated Content is This Year’s Product Placement

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Zappos, the SEO/SEM Business
• Bully Marketing
• Have Your Company Listed Free in Google Maps
• How To Create Your Own Wikipedia Page See also: Search Wikipedia Weblinks

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson