“Apple hates personality stuff and press intrusion. ‘We want to discourage profiles’. Strong words from an Apple PR. Apparently Apple didn’t want the Sunday Times to publish the 4000 word plus profile for the fact that it may reveal more about jobs past, present, and future than the company is willing to disclose.

I think Transparency is overwhelmingly important in a day when most of American’s financial powerhouses (GM, FORD, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT) are proving to be less and less trustworthy with the future of our economy. Apple is no exception. Like the former mentioned, Apple has a ton of money, and therefore a ton of power in America. I think every good organization can attribute much of its success to good leadership. That said, Jobs has an obligation, by my standings, to show that he is an honest, trustworthy, ethical, real person, capable of sustaining the influential role he plays in the worlds technology society.

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Here are a few fast Facts from the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Report: Out of organizations who have began there social media endevors, 46% have spent $10,000 or less, 35% have spent between $10,000 and $100,00; and 19% have spent $100,000 or more.

Remember these numbers represent organizations of all sizes. The sample found that 61% have more than 1,000 employees; 32% have 6,000 or more employees; 39% have less than 1000 employees.

So what do these number tell us? Many of the large organizations have still managed to implement with a small financial investment to date.

Good Stuff!

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This is a 2009 must have!

Ok I realize that maybe, just maybe, I’m a little over excited about 1 simple Slideshare presentation yet again covering the topic of social media. But this one is really good. It’s not so much about impressive numbers (although it does contain a number of them) but more about why social media works, why it is important, and ultimately why people are investing there hard earned money into it. It’s here. It’s the future. It’s Communications at its best. What is it? Social Media.

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Turns out, I’m a Twitter Wallflower. Seeing that, as stated before, I don’t invest nearly as much time into my twitter as Facebook, this is no surprise.
According to Mojo, their proven “scientific method” shows that, though I don’t tweet much, I do show the potential to be the life of the party!

See this Wallflower in action!

As Facebook balloons to over 250 million users, many voice their appreciation for Facebook’s small social network feel.  Unlike its so-last-year counterpart, MySpace, Facebook has successfully maintained a very personal feel, finding hundreds of ways to link the most relevant people, in the most relevant ways.

Even so, because Facebook has so many interesting people, useful content, and relevant apps available, many users would appreciate a broader search option that would enable the to quickly search ALL of Facebook’s content. Thus, Face says: “your wish is my command”. And so it is. Facebook has now announced that it will soon make the change allowing users to search the entire site, not to mention, do new things like share status updates with everyone, rather than just confirmed friends.

Expect to see these changes in full effect some time within the next two months.

So Facebook has ‘accidentally’ disclosed that it has plans for a new site, dubbed Facebook lite. Unlike the current Facebook site, Facebook lite offers users a simplified, no-frills Facebook experience – eerily similar to Twitter, Facebooks biggest competitor.

But Facebook claims that its new chip-off-the-old-block is merely the manifestation of a solution to many worldwide users’ biggest problem with Facebook. Bandwidth. Because of the news sites nature, Facebook says load times are much quicker, even on machines running slower than broadband speeds, and much of the unneeded content typically see on a given Facebook page is conveniently absent.

The interesting thing is, this new site was releases, get this, on accident! Thats right, the message was sent out to select international Facebook users before the company had initially planed. Even so, I think it may have just been Facebook’way of saying “look, we wont be the next Myspace – we see you twitter, but we are just over the horizon – not going anywhere”!

This is a topic that has been in rotation for quite a while now. And you know what, I think it’s kinda true. I’ll be honest, I’m 19, an avid Facebook user, college student, middle-class background, and yet, Twitter doesn’t enthrall me – or even marginally retain my attention. And the thing is, I’m not the only one. You see, I love Facebook – for more reasons than one. Yes, Facebook is a wonderfully powerful networking tool. I’ve met more people from my own school on Facebook than walking to class. And yes, Facebook is a wonderful way to stay in touch with everyone – family, friends, Co-workers. But aside from Facebook’s generic selling points, I love it simply because of the people. For a 19 y/o undergrad student, I’d say my life is modestly interesting. Even so, the conversation surrounding my Facebook page is enough to write a sitcom over. That’s why I love Facebook. One the bus, at the office, walking from one lecture to the next, Facebook always has something interesting to tune in on. I just don’t find that with Twitter. Maybe it’s because I have less than 60 Followers and limited number of friends who take a corpulent interest in Twitter, but to me, Twitter is so blahh. It’s nice to know what people are doing, and why Kim from work (and her cat) is going vegan, but where’s the substance. For example, since Facebook redesigned its dashboard, it offers a section know as highlights, where you can see some of the bigger, more relevant changes that have occurred on your friends pages. For example, this past 4th of July, I had to work and missed out on the family Gathering at my uncles – until I checked my Facebook that is! Well…not quite, but you get the point. I got to see a bunch of pictures from the event and because my uncle tagged my family, I was able to follow the link back to an aunts page, an aunt that I hadn’t seen in years.

Last time I checked, Twitter doesn’t have any cool little quarks. It’s a Wall – that’s it. I guess Avid Twitterers are operation out of the “less is more” mentality. This is America! Less has NEVER been more. We want choices, options, and…more choices – enough so that we have so many that we can’t pick.

I’ve asked some of my friends if they Twitter. Most either love it or hate it. They either love its simplicity, or more often, hate its lack of features.

It’s all perception and mentality. I like Facebook for all its worth. Even when you have no clear cut reason to visit Facebook, it always has something funny, interesting, or at the very least, engaging to offer. Twitter, Idk – not so much.

So why are more 25+ plus users catching on to the Twitter revolution? I think it has to do with the learning curve. Older users didn’t grow up around the technological sophistication that the younger of us have. Therefore, understandably, they may not catch on to the idea of complex social networking, and it’s ins and outs as quick. But Twitter, they can get. It’s easy, it’s simple, and your really can’t mess any thing up. You follow. Get followed. Post tweets. And receive replies. Simple enough. And that’s the key phrase….”Simple enough” – for anyone to use. Not just the Social Media savvy.

But for the more technologically enlightened, those of use more accustomed to the Bentley’s of Social Media, why would we switch to a Prius just to follow the masses? I like my heated and cooled nubuck seats – I can give up push start and a half electric engine that can’t move out of its own way.

That’s my take on why Twitter’s grown is more attributed to 25+ users rather thank teens. What do you guys think?

The campaign asks sites to include code that detects IE6 visitors and encourages them to upgrade to Firefox, IE8, or Google Chrome. On Tuesday the movement composed of around a dozen sites, today that number exceeds 70 participants.

The sites jumping on board are by no means insignificant: they include established internet startups, consulting firms and (of course) design blogs. As the sites creator, David Rusenko,stated on Tuesday, that the aim is to target both personal users who are behind the times and put pressure on corporate IT departments. Ultimately the aim of this campaign is to try and push the outdated IE6 out for new, more compatible browsers.

Google, on Wednesday, anounced that it has agreed to buy On2 Technologies, which sells video compression software, in a stock deal valued at about $106 million. The per-share price was 57 percent above On2’s closing stock price on Tuesday, and On2’s shares soared on the news.

Similar to Google’s 2006 acquisition of YouTube at a reported $1.6 Billion, the deal with give Google a much needed pull in the world of online videos. Even so, Many question the ROI and justification of Google’s purchase of not only On2, but YouTube alike.

No ambitious young person wants to wait until graduation to start working on projects, developing ideas, and building teams. As a case in point, consider how many success stories from the dotcom and Web 2.0 eras have begun with brilliant twenty-somethings dropping out of college to pursue their passions.

Speaking directly to this concern (or phenomenon, depending on your perspective), two students at the New York University Stern School of Business and a former MySpace IT director have started FledgeWing, a new social network that aims to connect aspiring student entrepreneurs with one another as well as with mentors, investors, and industry professionals.

My personal opinion is that FledgeWing is prospering because of its unique student to mentor structure. When an individual signs up for Fledgewing, he or she must identify as either a student or mentor for one of the 175 supported universities.

On the other hand, although FledgeWing developers are on the right track, I think supporting only 175 universities may prove to limit the potential that this innovative niche in the social networking work.