Colbert Group breaks 1,000,000 - Why should we care?

It is 8 am EDT and the Steven Colbert Group broke 1,000,000 members....As I sit here and write about this, I am not sure what this means.

I am writing a blog about a "faux" candidate with a group of people, many who may not be of voting age or even from the United States.

What this really shows is that traditional television still drives traffic. Steve Colbert has his own Television show and has appeared on other talk shows in the last week further reaching a national audience.

As with all things viral, newspapers are picking up on this as are bloggers, so even a small blog such as this can contribute to even more members. What will be interesting to watch is the rate at which this may approach the next million.

Is there another 1,000,000 currently on facebook or will we see a great increase in the new members of Facebook itself.

The long term impact on facebook is that it has placed itself squarely in the middle of the campaign debate.

Your thoughts?

1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert is about to be reached

Stephen T. Colbert entered the Presidential race as the "satire" candidate. On Facebook a group was created called '1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert'.

It was launched on October 17th and it has now grown to 950,000 members as of 9 pm tonight and should be breaking 1,000,000 members sometime tomorrow (if not sooner)...

5,000 Members at 4:59 PM (EST) 10/17/2007
10,000 Members at 10:22 PM (EST) 10/17/2007
20,000 Members at 5:26 AM (EST) 10/18/2007
30,000 Members at 12:41 PM (EST) 10/18/2007
50,000 Members at 4:48 PM (EST) 10/18/2007
75,000 Members at 7:30 PM (EST) 10/18/2007
100,000 Members at 12:54 AM (EST) 10/19/2007
170,000 Members at 4:58 PM (EST) 10/19/2007
200,000 Members at 9:43 PM (EST) 10/19/2007
250,000 Members at 11:58 AM (EST) 10/20/2007
300,000 Members at 7:44 PM (EST) 10/20/2007
350,000 Members at 4:43 AM (EST) 10/21/2007
400,000 members at 5:11 PM (EST) 10/21/2007
450,000 Members at 12:16 PM (EST) 10/22/2007
500,000 Members at 5:11 AM (EST) 10/23/2007
550,000 Members at 3:59 PM (EST) 10/23/2007
600,000 Members at 8:06 PM (EST) 10/23/2007
650,000 Members at 11:24 PM (EST) 10/23/2007
700,000 Members at 11:34 AM (EST) 10/24/2007
750,000 Members at 5:31 PM (EST) 10/24/2007
800,000 Members at 9:40 PM (EST) 10/24/2007
850,000 members at 4:22 AM (EST) 10/25/2007
900,000 Members at 3:24 PM (EST) 10/25/2007
950,000 Members at 9:11 PM (EST) 10/25/2007

To give some perspective, most serious Presidential candidates have less than of that total and many of those groups have been around for months.

Here is his group.


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7406420086


Note: At the same time the Federal Election Commission is looking to see if real campaign finance laws are being broken as (meaning that he went from a "fake" candidate to someone who may be on the ballots in South Carolina.

Facebook and Blackberry - Social Mobility

Facebook is moving to a more open platform through its new alliance with Research in Motion (RIM) for the Blackberry. According to PC World,

"T-Mobile USA Inc. will be the first carrier to build a Facebook application into the BlackBerries it sells, but BlackBerry users on any network will be able to download the application starting later Wednesday, Facebook Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering Dustin Moskovitz said in a keynote address at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show in San Francisco.

In the keynote, Moskovitz demonstrated taking a photo with a BlackBerry Curve device, adding tags to it and posting it to Facebook without even starting up the Facebook application. Other features include the ability to set special ringtones for Facebook events and invite friends to join Facebook through BlackBerry e-mail. But it's the open nature of Facebook's platform, which allows third parties to add new applications, that sets the company apart, Moskovitz said."

For the full article read:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/138921/facebook_teams_up_with_rim.html

Microsoft and Facebook - Here to Serve You

Microsoft and facebook just announced an enhanced alliance to offer global advertising on facebook via Microsoft's Digital Advertising group. This will allow advertisers to reach a portion of the more then 40 million facebook users. Originally Microsoft entered into a partnership with facebook in August 2006). At that time, Owen Van Natta, chief operating officer of Facebook said

“We’re excited to be innovating with Microsoft to build a world-class advertising solution that allows Facebook to deliver the best advertising experience in social media,” “We chose Microsoft because it, like Facebook, is a technology company at its core and is committed to taking a fresh approach to targeting advertising to social media. We’re committed to providing a great user and advertiser experience together.”

Microsoft according to media sources is investing $240 million into facebook for a 1.6% stake valuing facebook now at $15 billion dollars.

Here are the demographics of the facebook world today according the Microsoft's Partner profile for facebook.
General Audience Stats:

* 41 million active users1
* 55,858 work, college, high school, and geographic networks1
* 6th most trafficked site in the U.S.2
* 2nd most trafficked social networking site2
* 50% female / 50% male2
* 36% have college as their primary network
* 16% have high school as their primary network
* 20% have work or geographic region as primary network
* Ages 18-34 (37.7%)2


Engagement Stats:

* 19 average visits per month2
* 178.6 average minutes per month2
* 50% of active users log on daily1
* 2.3 average visits per usage day2
* 21.7 average minutes per usage day2


1. Internal data, August 2007.
2. ComScore, August 2007



* Some of the more interesting stats are that there are 55,000+ networks in facebook.

* 50% of active users log in daily

* Only 37% of users are in the 18 - 34 age range. This shows the demographic shift since facebook opened up its platform

* The average user is here about twenty minutes a day Given a large % of users are on for a much longer time than twenty minutes, does that mean there is a large group which is hardly on at all.

Now, here are some of the questions which would be of interest:
1) Are these advertisements going to be shown to facebook users based upon their behaviors or just based upon their demographics.
2) Will this allow larger advertisers to become more interested in marketing into facebook?
3) Since Google was the primary ad network for small to mid-size business, will those businesses abandon google's ad network to advertise via Microsoft? I ask this question due to limited resources of smaller advertisers.

Again there may be some risk inherent in this strategy to align with Microsoft versus Google. However, it seems that the cash that Microsoft is investing up to $250 million to compensate for the ad network.

In the end, these two companies may just need each other. This alliance prepares them for longer battle with Google in the social media space.