Social Media Update – March 7, 2011

Good morning. Twitter is benefiting from the same trading madness as it’s big brother Facebook. The frenzy to own shares in the company have driven it’s price to $7.7 billion. That’s nearly double what the company was valued at in January of this year. Facebook is spreading it’s reach even further by offering up a comment stream application for 3rd party sites. Sites with a sloppy user experience will be able to use the Facebook comment stream to replace their current system. Once sites add the feature, users are able to log in via Yahoo or Facebook and comment. It’s a win for Facebook because they are able to extend their market share to new sites, and the new sites win by cleaning up their current streams and tapping into the Facebook members for content. A cool infographic about QR codes shows us who’s using them, what devices are the most popular, and the growth in the marketplace since July, 2010. Enjoy.

I. Private Trading Raises Twitter Valuation to $7.7 Billion, mashable.com, March 8, 2011
II. Singel-Minded: Facebook Comments Are Another ‘Good News, Bad News’ Proposition, wired.com, March 4, 2011
III. Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes?, mashable.com, March 5, 2011

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I. Private Trading Raises Twitter Valuation to $7.7 Billion, mashable.com, March 8, 2011
http://mashable.com/2011/03/07/twitter-valuation-7-7-billion/
The latest auction of Twitter shares on Sharespost valued the company at $7.7 billion, which is almost twice as high than Twitter’s valuation after a round of funding in January this year. According to Sharespost, a secondary market that lets investors trade with otherwise illiquid assets, investors have agreed to buy 35,000 shares of Twitter’s Series B preferred stock at $34.50 per share. Multiplying that figure with the 223.7 million fully diluted Twitter shares listed by Sharespost one gets a staggering $7.718 billion.

II. Singel-Minded: Facebook Comments Are Another ‘Good News, Bad News’ Proposition, wired.com, March 4, 2011
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/singel-facebook-empire/
Facebook unleashed a new commenting system this week that promises to help online publications clean up their commenting cesspools, while simultaneously extending Facebook’s tentacles further into the web outside its walls. Unfortunately for those with visions of a non-Facebook dominated web, this initiative has the potential to dramatically expand the ginormous social network’s already imperial reach. The new system lets website owners replace their current commenting system with Facebook’s simply by dropping in a few lines of Javascript. Then, commenters have to sign in using either their Facebook or Yahoo IDs, an attempt to ensure a commenter is a real person. Commenters can opt to have their comment posted as an update, along with a link to the original story, which spreads the story link inside Facebook’s walls.

III. Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes?, mashable.com, March 5, 2011
http://mashable.com/2011/03/04/qr-codes-infographic/
QR codes are everywhere these days — in fine art exhibits, some cities’ building permits, wrapping paper and every imaginable kind of marketing campaign. QR code-focused startup JumpScan was kind enough to send along a graphically organized representation of some data they’ve gathered about QR codes — who’s scanning them, what kinds of devices they’re using and what brands are running QR code campaigns.