Who do you nominate for mobile applications?
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YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Some examples of sports and fitness include (but are not limited to):

• Facebook Mobile
• Google Maps
• Twitter Mobile
• Jaiku Mobile
• Rabble Mobile

Who do you nominate for niche and miscellaneous social networks?

Write a comment in the format – “NOMINATE – COMPANY NAME”
YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Some examples of niche and miscellaneous social networks include (but are not limited to):

• Dogster
• itLinkz (NurseLinkup)
• Fuzzster
• Yub.com
• Mog
• Model Mayhem
• Gather.com

Microsoft signed a check to Facebook with a pen that was heard around the world.  The amount Microsoft gave to Facebook was an astounding $240 million for a mere 1.6% equity in the company. 

Li Ka-shing, a billionaire in Hong Kong decided that he wanted to ride the wave of Facebook’s success as well.  This is why Ka-shing invested $60 million (roughly 467,415,544.52 Hong Kong Dollars) in Facebook according to Kara Swisher.  Facebook now has nearly $340 million in capital.

Li Ka-shing is the chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa Limited.  The investment in Facebook was not made directly through company money, but from a different entity. 

Ka-shing is worth $23 billion and is considered the richest man in Asia (9th in the world).  “The deal with Ka-shing came through a Facebook investor, who introduced the company to Solina Chau, director of the Li Ka-shing Foundation [Kara Swisher].” 

In related news, the media was recently speculating whether or not Facebook was attemping to buy out Zhanzuo, a Chinese social network.  But then the rumor was later denied. 

Friendster and MySpace both have Chinese versions of their social networks.  This investment may give Facebook an incentive to expand their operations for the world’s largest and most populous country.

An official announcement has not been made yet.  Keep checking Pulse 2.0 for when the investment is confirmed.  This specific blog post will be updated.

“We’re sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans,” stated Facebook Customer Support Rep, Paul Janzer. “We are really trying to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends.” Janzer also acknowledged Beacon “can be kind of confusing.”

As the 1984 Twisted Sister song says, ‘We’re not gonna take it!’  Facebook has made concessions to attempt to alleviate protests over Facebook Beacon.  Facebook Beacon is a platform that allows more than 40 web sites to embed a beacon to track user activity within the social network.  Some of those web sites include Overstock.com, Blockbuster.com, and Fandango.com.  When a user consumes something from the aforementioned web sites, his or her friends would then be alerted via Facebook’s News Feed homepage.

Users have complained that their friends and family may have found out about gifts bought for them for Christmas and Hanukka after Beacon shared information on Overstock.com [Source: Associated Press via Yahoo! News]. 

The new Facebook Beacon will give users more of an opportunity to opt out of information-sharing.  When a user has activity that alerts a Beacon, a notification will ask the Facebook user whether sharing the transaction is permissible.  Users will also be able to customize which web sites are allowed to publish information via the External Websites privacy option:

This is why Facebook is successful.  The social network takes feedback from its users seriously.  And still manages to provide a platform that is still valued-added for marketers.  Adding privacy features after user revolt gives the perception that the social network puts its users first and revenue second. 

Coincidentally, this is the second time that Facebook stepped up their privacy options after adding a controversial feature.  When Facebook first introduced the News Feed and Mini-Feed, users got mad, but then the social network added advanced privacy features.  And now they’re doing it again.  Its like déjà vu and personally I get this feeling that they were planning to introduce the privacy options anyway, but want the good press.  But of course, thats just my thoughts so take it with a grain of salt.

Google recently was discovered to be testing out a Digg-like style of voting to determine relevant search results.  Last February, I suggested that Digg could directly compete against Google by making their own search engine and leveraging their users to vote the search engine results up or down [Pulse 2.0: How Digg Could Compete With Google].  The Google voting model will be tested within Google Labs for about 3 weeks.

However, there is a search engine that focuses on such a model and its called Sproose.  Sproose has been developing this model for about 2 years and went live in August 2007.  “Sproose allows users to vote up the search results, the more users vote a site the higher up in the results it will move. Sproose takes this model a step further also improving the results by the community and sharing the vote histories with others of like interest [source: press release sent to Pulse 2.0].”

Sproose was started by Bob Pack, a former VP of Sales for Scholastic Inc.  The company is based in Danville, Calif.

Who do you nominate for social shopping?
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YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Some examples of social shopping include (but are not limited to):

• Kaboodle
• Crowdstorm
• Etsy
• Zebo
• ThisNext
• Buzzillions
• Glimpse

Who do you nominate for places and events?
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YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Some examples of places and events include (but are not limited to):

• MyPunchBowl
• Upcoming.org
• Attendio.com
• Going.com
• Zvents
• evite
• Facebook Events

Who do you nominate for music?
Write a comment in the format – “NOMINATE – COMPANY NAME”
YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT

Some examples of music include (but are not limited to):

• Last.fm
• iLike
• imeem
• Shoutcast
• Yahoo! Music
• AOL Music
• Pandora
• MP3.com
• Seeqpod
• Sonific
• iTunes