300 Million and On

As of today, Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world. It's a large number, but the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.

Because we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for the world to connect, one of the things we think a lot about is how to make Facebook perform even faster and more efficiently as we grow. We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web.

It's My Jersey

What with its organ-selling rabbis, New Jersey's corrupt political culture might make the Garden State the perfect place for using social media to capture populist fed-upness and channel it into a political campaign. At least, that's the hope of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, challenging sitting governor Jon Corzine in a close race. Christie and running mate Kim Guadagno have just taken the wraps off of It's My NJ, a microsite separate and apart from their official, more traditional campaign site.

Text-Ed for Political Candidates

Last night, The Hill posted this little item, setting out some interesting tidbits about Louisiana Sen. David Vitter’s text/mobile/SMS program, on its website for all to see.  Per The Hill:

a political operative recently received a text message from the campaign of Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), he of Deborah Jeane Palfrey fame. Vitter’s camp went with a cheap service, and his message included an ad for ... what else? A dating service.

“Is it true love?” asks the ad. The accompanying link guides users to a website where they can find out if their “crush” feels the same way about them…

This is probably not what the Vitter campaign was banking on when it deployed what is seen as the cutting edge in the world of US political eCampaigns these days, and The Hill’s reporting on this has probably caused some poor campaign staffer a bit of a headache.  But the good news is, this little incident may in time be proven to have been an effective lesson where political use of new media tools is concerned. 

Sharing on Facebook Now More Popular than Sharing by Email

How do you know which social sites are most popular? Aside from looking at the raw traffic numbers, a good indicator is data about which sites are seeing the most content shared on them.

Among the companies with access to tons of this type of data is AddToAny, makers of one the most popular widgets that lets content sites provide their readers with an easy way to share stories across multiple social media sites.

According to AddToAny, Facebook now dominates sharing, with 24 percent of shares from the widget consisting of users posting items to the social network.

Contests and Giveaways Move to New, Fast Terrain of Twitter

While companies have used traditional contests for years to generate buzz, a Twitter contest is superior because "retweeting" spreads brand awareness even quicker, says Dan Zarrella, a social-media consultant based in Boston.

Does Congress Need it's Own Social Network?

Politicians have been taking to social media of late, from tweeting governators to YouTube Presidents. But for the thousands of staffers that work on Capitol Hill for members of Congress, social media is about a lot more than PR – they actually need to get things done. However, they’ve been fairly limited in this respect to-date, as there has been no “LinkedIn for Congress” per se.

That’s changing later this year though, as the influential National Journal plans to launch a social network of sorts exclusive to those with house.gov or senate.gov email addresses. The site aims to solve a few big needs of Capitol Hill employees, most notably establishing a secure online directory of staffers, giving them communication tools, and then letting them collaborate with each other.

Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will announce later tonight the launch of their social networking platform, "Team Rudy," which you can access now at my.joinrudy2008.com.

An excerpt from the queued email:

Team Rudy is an online volunteer network for Rudy where you can create a profile and earn points by signing up your friends, donating online, writing letters to the editor and volunteering at your local Rudy headquarters.

With much appreciation, I got a sneak-peek at the platform earlier today from the campaign.

Here's a screen cap of my profile:

My thoughts...

* Overall, it has a very nice look-and-feel. Clean. Simple. And importantly, it works. After tinkering around on my Mac using the Safari browser, I only encountered one bug when I went to upload my profile picture.

* Easy to navigate and has a familiar feel that social network users are becoming increasingly comfortable with.

* The point system for volunteers to rack up for performing volunteer operations, though not "new" by any means, is excellent and will encourage Rudy's hardcore supporters to get even more active. Given Rudy's love of baseball, supporters will be ranked accordingly:
- Rookie Team: At Sign-Up
- Farm Team: 50 Impact Points
- Double-A Team: 150 Impact Points
- Triple-A Team: 500 Impact Points
- Major League: 1,000 Impact Points
- Starter: 2,500 Impact Points
- Veteran: 5,000 Impact Points
- Hall of Fame: 10,000 Impact Points

* The platform will give the official volunteer campaign effort the control (and user data) they need to be able to assign directives where and when they need it, ensuring that important grassroots activities are accounted for and completed.

Regarding Team Rudy, it's a Java application based on Spring and Hibernate running on JBoss. And it's neat.