Over the years, there have been more than a few arguments about whether online news sites are killing newspapers.  Now, due to some almost startling comments made by the president of CNN, it looks like the next round of old media-new media disputes might concern social networks and cable news organizations.

According to the AFP, Jonathan Klein’s remarks on this subject were in no way ambiguous.  He said at Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s 2010 Media Summit New York, "The competition I’m really afraid of are social networking sites.  That’s an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us."

Klein then explained, "The people you’re friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. . . .  Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news.  We don’t want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you. . . .  So I’m far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox."

That’s an interesting take on the power of social networks.  It implies – at the very least – that CNN anchors are going to spend a whole lot more time referencing Facebook and Twitter from now on.  An ad campaign and new apps could follow, too.

On a broader scale, Klein seems to be saying that social networks’ users can easily – even unwittingly – make or break major corporations.

At the first f8 conference, Facebook Platform was launched.  Facebook Connect was announced the second time around.  And now, as f8 2010 draws near, a report’s indicated that Facebook will finally unveil a feature having to do with users’ physical locations.

Consider the difference someone’s location can make.  Here’s one basic example: Many people would pass over the status update "Kate is warm," but something like "Kate is warm – Miami, Florida" might attract all sorts of attention from Kate’s friends (assuming Kate’s not a Miami native).  Plus it could mean a different set of ads would get shown.

It’s significant, then, that Nick Bilton reported this afternoon, "Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project."

Bilton also wrote, "The new location feature will have two aspects, according to the people familiar with Facebook’s plans.  One will be a service offered directly by Facebook that will allow users to share their location information with friends. . . .  The other will be a set of software tools, known as A.P.I.’s, that outside developers can use to offer their own location-based services to Facebook users."

As for how Facebook intends to deal with privacy issues, this should be an opt-in feature, effectively cutting off the sorts of protests with which some other changes and Google Buzz were greeted.

Now we just have to wait and see if Facebook actually follows through on these rumors.

Four months ago, Facebook launched something called the Preferred Developer Consultant Program in an effort to point companies and celebrities towards the best developers.  Now, the program’s taking an important leap forward as Facebook’s more than tripled the number of recommended developers.

Facebook started things off with just 14 developers, which seemed like an interesting choice.  Those dozen or so developers couldn’t possibly design too many Facebook pages and/or apps, after all, so was demand negligible?  Were great developers extremely rare?  Or did Facebook just feel like causing a crazy bidding war for people’s services?

Today, the social network granted 35 additional developers "preferred" status, making the situation look somewhat manageable.

Kristin Thayer, a member of the Facebook Developer Network team, also explained that the global community’s needs have been taken into consideration.  She wrote on the Facebook Developer Blog, "Over half of the new Preferred Developer Consultants have international operations and have already built campaigns, community portals, and other social applications in countries like Israel, Lithuania, and Czech Republic."

Thayer added, as well, "If you or your company builds high quality Facebook Connect implementations, Facebook applications, and/or Facebook Pages, and is interested in being included as a developer consultant in this program, please visit the Developer FAQ to learn more about submitting your company for consideration."

Yahoo Mail users should find it considerably more convenient to get in touch with their friends and acquaintances from now on.  Today, Yahoo and Facebook made it possible for those users to add their Facebook friends’ email addresses to their Yahoo Contacts lists.

The benefits should be obvious.  A post on the Yahoo Mail Blog pointed out, "So when you are on Yahoo! Sports and you want to email your old high school buddy that great article on the Winter Olympics, his email address is just a click away.  Or maybe you want to forward your cousin your airplane reservations on Yahoo! Mail . . . . [n]ow you can type the first few letters of his name in Yahoo! Mail and – presto! – his email address from his Facebook profile will appear in your email."

The import process is extremely simple, too.  Users just need to head to the "Import Contacts" page, click on Facebook’s logo, enter their Facebook login info, and wait a few moments for all of the data to transfer.

Whether this development will be enough to make Gmail or Hotmail users give Yahoo Mail a chance is hard to say, but this at least represents a significant step forward in terms of user-friendliness for existing Yahoo Mail fans.

More tie-ups between Yahoo and Facebook are on the way, too, according to Andrew Molyneux, a program manager over Yahoo Mail.

Google Buzz has captured a lot of the buzz around services with "Buzz" in the title (of which there are a few), but before Google Buzz was even announced, AT&T Interactive had already launched a beta version of its latest take on local business search at Buzz.com. Buzz.com has only been available on an invitation basis so far, and will remain that way until some bugs are ironed out, but you may find AT&T’s Buzz becoming a bigger part of your life than Google’s simply, because it will be coming at you from your Facebook friends.

We spent close to an hour talking to AT&T about the product, checking out a demo of the service, and getting a feel for just what AT&T plans to do with Buzz.com. Right off the bat, Charlie Hornberger, director of product development told WebProNews it’s not as much about getting in front of people on Buzz.com, but getting in front of them on Facebook. That’s just for now anyway, it’s already integrated with Facebook, and Twitter is next on the list, he says. Then they’ll figure out what other networks to integrate, whether that be Gmail contacts, instant messenger lists, or anything else.

Buzz.com is focused on only positive reactions to businesses. Users can "favorite" businesses and recommend them to their friends. So as far as reputation management goes, there shouldn’t be too many issues here from the standpoint of monitoring negative commentary. Although if your competitors are getting a lot of "buzz" and you’re not, that may be worth looking into.

Hornberger doesn’t appear too worried about any branding issues around the name Buzz. Jokingly, he said it seems like "if you don’t have Buzz then you have a problem." The very nature of Buzz.com shouldn’t make it much of an issue anyway, because it’s essentially coming at you right in your Facebook news feed. You don’t necessarily have to go to Buzz.com to feel its presence, although he views having buzz.com as a URL as a "great asset," because it "makes sense for this product."

Before you get all riled up with visions of Farmville-style Facebook updates, relax, because Buzz’s Facebook integration is set up to prevent feed-spamming. If a user shares a lot of businesses at a time, it will consolidate these into a single update on Facebook. Some Facebook users may still wish not to see such things, but they can adjust their settings in Facebook the same as with anything else. Frankly, this is adding more value to the user than learning about friends’ pseudo-farming practices, because if a friend recommends a dentist, for example, that might be useful to you at some point.

Businesses will want to make sure they’re listed in Buzz.com, because not only will they be listed in Buzz.com, they’ll be listed right in Facebook users’ news feeds anytime a Buzz.com user "favorites" their business, and shares that with their friends. Hornberger calls it a way to get on Facebook "in the best possible way."

Currently there is not a place on Buzz.com that businesses can go and get listed, but he says there will be soon. However, listings come from the same database that powers AT&T’s YellowPages.com. I’d advise making sure you have a listing there, complete with a link to your site. They are looking at other potential ways to expand listings as well, including potentially, a way for users to submit things besides businesses (like a public tennis court for example).

They will have a mobile web app available in a couple weeks for Buzz.com. Hornberger says they haven’t started on one for the App Store, but even if they do, it will be more for visibility purposes, and the web app will likely provide the better user experience (no mention of an Android app).

For now, you can use Buzz.com if you get an invite. Everyone that gets an invite can send out more invitations. There is a chance you are already seeing people post Buzz.com activity to Facebook. Until the kinks are worked out, it will continue to be on an invitation-only basis, but that will likely change in the not-too-distant future.

Buzz.com could play a significant role in the local search space as it grows, and is probably not something businesses want to ignore. On a side note, Buzz.com utilizes AT&T’s existing partnership with Microsoft by providing Bing Maps imagery, so this could be considered another factor in Bing usage.

Have you used Buzz.com? Share your thoughts.

It looks like Facebook will soon begin trying harder to bend the ears of our nation’s leaders.  Listings for a public policy manager and public policy associate have both been posted on the social network’s "Open Positions" page, and Facebook’s decided that these people will work in Washington, D.C.

This isn’t a simple matter of having a couple of folks sit around, answering questions and maybe defending the company when necessary.  Facebook wants the new hires to be quite active.

The public policy manager will be expected to "monitor legislative and regulatory matters at the state governmental level, participate in federal policy discussions, and lead company’s interactions with consumer organizations," according to the official listing.  He (or she) is supposed to "[b]uild coalitions to advance policy goals of Facebook," too.

As for the associate, this individual is meant to attend Congressional Committees, deal with nonprofits, and help with Facebook’s "election and voter action activities," whatever those may be.  Plus have a sense of humor that his or her boss isn’t required to possess.

Anyway, Cecilia Kang, who deserves a hat tip, noted, "Those jobs would bring Facebook’s staff in Washington to five.  It recently hired journalist Andrew Noyes for public policy communications and Tim Sparapani from the ACLU, who is now director of public policy.  Adam Conner began the office and deals with lobbying and policy issues including privacy."

Facebook and Twitter access via mobile browsers has grown by triple-digits in the past year, according to the latest research from comScore.

More than a quarter (30.8%) of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago.  Access to Facebook via mobile browser climbed 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter soared 347 percent.

"Social networking remains one of the most popular and fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile.

"Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser."

In January, 11.1 percent of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of the growth is due to smartphone owners accessing social networking sites on their mobile browsers. Just 6.8 percent of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.

Access to the most popular social networking sites via mobile browser continues to see significant growth.  In January, 25. 1 million mobile users accessed Facebook, up 112 percent from the previous year.  MySpace attracted 11.4 million users about half that of Facebook during the month.

Facebook’s mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009, three months earlier than the Facebook audience climbed past that of MySpace on the PC-based Internet in May 2009.

Twitter, which has experienced solid growth in both mobile and PC-based visitation, attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January, up 347 percent over the previous year.

Online analytics firm Omniture and Facebook said today they have partnered to offer marketers tools to improve Facebook as a marketing channel.

Initially the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement on Facebook. The partnership builds on Facebook analytics the companies introduced last year to help marketers join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers.

The partnership is aimed at helping companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in an effort to connect and have relevant conversations with Facebook’s more than 400 million users.

“Working with us, Omniture has been able to develop a rich and immersive set of tools that will help our clients better understand the value of their Facebook advertising campaigns,” said Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of business development and monetization.

“By creating a single dashboard to plan, deliver and measure campaigns, Omniture can make advertising on Facebook easier and ultimately increase ROI for clients.”

Omniture customers can now use the company’s SearchCenter Plus, a combination of its search engine marketing management application with added functionality for buying Facebook Ads.

In addition, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as pages and applications.
 

Update: I finally got word back from Facebook, who confirmed that the feature is indeed only a test. "The "Promote" feature is just a test and is unrelated to our Promotions Guidelines," the company says. They  did not give any specifics about a possible full launch.

Original Article: Facebook appears to either be rolling out or testing a feature that lets Facebook Page owners promote specific posts. When you make an update, a link that says, "Promote" can be found by the links for "Comment" and "Like".

Once you click that Promote link, it brings up a dialogue box, which asks you to create an ad, with targeting descriptions, the ad duration, and the maximum price of "Up to $50.00 USD".

Editor’s note: Feel free to become our fan on Facebook, by the way.

You can click on "Edit Ad" to go to the standard Facebook Advertising Page, or you can click "Create Ad" to go to this page:

Interestingly enough, this comes after talk last week about how you have to have promotions approved by a Facebook account representative, which would reportedly cost you about $10k. This would appear to eliminate that notion.

The feature appears to only be available for some admins of some pages. We’re not sure if they’re rolling out the feature or just testing it. I’ve contacted Facebook to learn more about the feature, and I’ll update when I receive a response. Any other Facebook Page admins getting this feature? Let us know.

Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others, and these real-time results are often featured prominently on the first page of search results for the hottest queries.

Apparently only updates from Facebook PAGES are indexed, and according to Danny Sullivan, that includes links, status updates, photos, videos shared by page owners (not comments made by the fans).  Any Facebook update (from regular user profiles) can be shared publicly, so I wonder why these aren’t being pulled. Results from Twitter and other places aren’t only from branded sources.

>>Become a fan of WebProNews on Facebook <<

This seems to indicate that brands should be getting a good amount of play for Facebook appearances in Google’s real-time search results, and possibly in the real-time search results in general (due to Facebook’s huge user-base). Right now, Facebook isn’t dominating the results, but that is bound to change with it being the largest (by far) social network on the web.

A lot of brands who don’t have Facebook pages in place are likely going to consider this a new reason to create one. Here are some tips for making a good one and promoting it.

This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook.

Now Google’s real-time search results include (as listed by Sullivan) Facebook, MySpace, Twiter, Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, TwitArmy, Google News links, Google Blog Search links, new web pages, and freshly updated pages. At this point, Google generally only shows the real-time results for newsy/trending topics. 

Note: At the Online Marketing Summit out in San Diego, WebProNews talked about a different kind of real-time search that involves local businesses, with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn. It’s not local search as you would traditionally think of it, but it involves location, which one might consider a new kind of query.

The Internet is now the third most-popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio, according to a new survey out today.

The survey of 2,259 U.S. adults, conducted jointly by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, found 59 percent of respondents gets news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.

The Internet and mobile technologies are at the center of how people’s relationship to news is changing. One-third (33%) of cell phone owners now access news on their mobile phones and more than a quarter (28%) of Internet users have customized their homepage to include news from sources and topics that are of interest to them.

Nearly forty percent (37%) of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or shared it via postings on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

In addition, people use their social networks to filter, assess, and react to news. They use traditional email and other tools to exchange stories and comment on them.  Among those who get news online, 75 percent get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52 percent share links to news the same way.

The survey also found the typical online news consumer routinely uses just a handful of news sites and does not have a particular favorite. Overall, Americans have mixed feelings about this "new" news environment. Over half (55%) say it is easier to keep up with news and information today than it was five years ago, but 70 percent feel the amount of news and information available from different sources is overwhelming.

"Americans have become news grazers both on and offline – but within limits," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"They generally don’t have one favorite website but also don’t search aimlessly. Most online news consumers regularly draw on just a handful of different sites."

A number of social networks may be in a significant amount of trouble.  Facebook has managed to patent the idea of "dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network."

This is no rumor or joke; the paperwork is all in order.  Facebook filed for what the United States Patent and Trademark Office has designated patent number 7,669,123 in August of 2006, and Mark Zuckerberg’s name appears eight times on the official document.

As for what, exactly, the patent covers, the abstract describes it as "[a] method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment . . . .  The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items."

So it’s possible that we’ll see Facebook sue every competitor with anything resembling a news feed.  These theoretical lawsuits could turn out in its favor, too.

There are a few reasons that Facebook might not get overly aggressive, though.  First is the simple fact that enforcing this patent and attacking the rest of the social media industry would upset people.  No company enjoys bad PR and protests.

Second, Facebook has been on something of an open source kick in recent months, and unleashing the lawyers would represent a significant turnaround.

Finally, it’s necessary to consider what Nick O’Neill, who first came across the patent, wrote: "It appears that this patent surrounds implicit actions.  This means status updates, which is what Twitter is based on, are not part of this patent.  Instead, this is about stories about the actions of a user’s friends.  While still significant, the implications for competing social networks may be less substantial."

A growing number of state transportation departments (DOTs) are communicating news and information to travelers using Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) survey of 32 state DOTs found 26 states or (82%) are now using Twitter to communicate with travelers when major traffic incidents or severe weather such as snow storms, hurricanes and tornadoes force roads to be closed or detours.

Almost half of the states surveyed (14) have an active Facebook page and 23 states use video on their website. Eighteen states also have an active YouTube channel.

"Using social media tools allows us to carry messages to constituents through the forums they already use rather than expecting them to seek us out," said Washington State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond.

"We have improved our agency’s credibility with the public, improved communication efficiency and saved taxpayers money."

Washington was one of the first state DOTs to use Twitter and now has 8,000 followers on its main WSDOT Twitter account and 3,000 followers on its Seattle area traffic account.  Washington, along with Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and California are among several states using multiple Twitter accounts to give travelers the ability to personalize their information based on specific highway routes or their geographic location.

Overall, state DOTs are finding that social media is more efficient in reaching the public with time-sensitive traffic and travel information, according to the survey. Among the various social media tools, respondents found Twitter (65%), RSS feeds (56%), podcasts (18%) and Facebook (13%) to be the most effective ways to reach their audiences.

Although it isn’t quite a done deal, Texas Governor Rick Perry seems to have more or less ensured that Facebook will open a sales and operations office in Austin.  Perry’s offered the company $1.4 million as an incentive to establish the branch and create some jobs.

Fittingly enough, Perry’s office announced the development with a Facebook note.  In it, he stated, "Facebook’s expansion in Austin will enhance the area’s robust technology industry, create 200 jobs for Texans, and strengthen the economy in Central Texas."

There were also a few figures implying that $1.4 million isn’t an insane bribe, as the Texas Enterprise Fund has already doled out more than $388 million to create another 52,000 jobs.

Finally, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said, "We’ve been exploring various options around the U.S. to establish an additional online sales and operations office and we’re grateful to the assistance we’ve received from the Governor’s office and the state’s leadership in discussing the possibilities in Austin. . . .  Austin, with its deep talent pool, would allow us to hire the high-caliber employees we need to properly serve the people, advertisers and developers that rely on our service."

Which all sounds very nice.  The one remaining step (aside from choosing a site and actually building and staffing the office) is to get the City of Austin’s okay.   A vote should take place in the near future to settle that matter.

Yahoo said early Wednesday it has entered into a partnership with Twitter that will integrate real-time tweets across the Yahoo network.

Users will be able to access their personal Twitter feeds on the Yahoo homepage, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Sports, and other areas. Yahoo users will also be able to update their Twitter status from Yahoo and share content in their Twitter feed.

"The information in one single tweet can travel light-years farther with this Yahoo! integration," said Twitter cofounder, Biz Stone. "Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most."

While Twitter seemingly wants to be everywhere on the Web as it has search deals with Microsoft’s Bing and Google, Yahoo is trying to dive deeper into the social realm and become the go-to property for all things social.

Yahoo reached a similar deal with Facebook in December that is expected to roll out in the first half of this year. Users will be able to connect with Facebook friends on Yahoo, view a feed of their friends’ activity, and share content such as photos from Flickr or comment on news stories.

The move by Yahoo is also part of its Open Strategy which Jim Stoneham, vice president of Communities for Yahoo said is "aimed at making experiences dramatically more open and personally relevant for the more than 600 million people that visit Yahoo each month."

"Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We’re turning the key to the online social universe – you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo!," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, consumer products group, Yahoo!.

"We’re also simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds – and the world — together for easy access."

Who do you think will see the most benefit from this partnership? Yahoo or Twitter?