According to research conducted by ZenithOptimedia in 2010 over $64 Billion was spent in 2010 on online advertising. Over 64% of this revenue went to only five companies; Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, and AOL. You can see the graph below for the full breakdown showing the percentage that each controls.

With such a large percentage of the market being cornered by a small number of businesses where should smaller businesses be putting their online advertising budget? Marketing via social media seems to be a popular choice as businesses are starting to allocate more of their marketing budget in to this portion of online advertising. Facebook is already #4 on this list, how much and how quickly will they be taking over market share in online ad spending?

A handful of airlines including AirTran Airways, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines, U.S. Airways and Virgin America have teamed up to free in flights Facebook access during the month of February. Gogo Wi-Fi network and Ford will be making it possible to logon and update your current status while in the air this month. Additional internet access other than Facebook with start at $4.95.

Facebook has again made adjustments to things, hopefully this time making life easier to see what you care about rather than smaller or more confusing! The news feed is now easier to sort through with filters that allow you to choose only status updates, photos, links, pages and games – depending on what you want to see ( thank goodness I don’t have to see updates on Farmville anymore!) You may also choose to sort by specific friends only. The only downfall – these settings are not permanent and they must be reset each time you login.

You may read about details for each setting and new filters here: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/12/21/design-news-feed-filters/

If social networking hasn’t already dominated the news enough lately, it now has some more NEW news. Time Magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg as their PERSON OF THE YEAR! Interesting enough Facebook is being run by Zuckerberg and other management in a way that seems to be a little unique (and catching the attention of the outside world) from every other business. For instance, the Facebook office is one big space with no cubicles, no offices and no walls. All management and even Zuckerberg, do not have an office. This brilliant concept called Facebook was started in a dorm room back in 2004, and now look at what impact it is having on businesses and people around the world!
Some of the past recipients that have been named the Time Magazine person of the year were presidents, royalty and other prestigious individuals that had accomplished something very large in society. Therefore, Zuckerberg receiving this award brings not only attention to him and his brilliance, but also the award brings some more attention to social networking sites. I would like to know…. where will social networking sites and other internet related platforms be in 5 years… how about in 10 years?

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has introduced a new site named Jumo, which will work much like Facebook only this site is to help a project or issue of your choice. As Facebook has become a very common social network, Jumo aims to be a social network that also gives back to your community. With Jumo, issues such as cancer, public schools, poverty and 3,500 other organizations are brought to light.

Each individual one has their own page with information on the cause like how to help, locations of these places, and who you would need to contact. Providing information or “likes” about yourself can connect you to issues that you personally are interested in or local areas that may need your help.

While Facebook is concentrated on things like friends and social gatherings, Jumo offers a place for people to gather to share or explore issues that others are also concentrated on. Although many focus on the Holiday season to give back, this new site is an outlet to bestow charity all year long.

Monday will mark another step forward for Facebook.  The social network giant is looking to expand its communication hub even further by offering an email platform.  Expectations are that this could have a very large impact on Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and other email systems.  The impact on email marketers has yet to be addressed, but it will certainly have an impact on the display marketing in current webmail providers as consumers make a switch to the Facebook platform.

With Facebook’s functionality already replacing traditional email services, it is likely the use of Facebook will grow as it offers an email platform. It will likely put its own twist on the typical webmail platform, however details remain to be seen.  A large concern over the privacy capabilities and policies of the company may hinder the popularity of such a service.

Stay tuned to see what the big announcement on Monday entails and how usable this email client is.

Facebook has become number 1 in serving display ad impressions. Not only are they number 1 but they served more then double of Yahoo who came in second place. What is even more remarkable is the growth Facebook saw. Facebook’s market share has grown from 9.2% in Q3 to 23.1% this year. ComScore also reports the Top 10 online Brand Advertisers and their display market share.

Scottrade: 1.9%
AT&T: 1.7%
Experian: 1.2%
Verizon: 1.1%
Progressive: 1.0%
Netflix: 1.0%
GM: .8%
Disney: .8%
Toyota .7%
Procter & Gamble .6%

It seems the creator of the Facebook is not a fan of the recently released movie “The Social Network”. Many were curious to know if the new social network movie was in fact reality, or “Hollywood”? According to the Yahoo movie blog, Mark Zuckerburg, does not agree with a lot of what the movie depicts about his famous social networking site. One major thing that seems to be depicted wrong was the fact that the movie inferred that Facebook was created out of anger for being dumped by a girl, and that was not in fact the case.
Seen the movie??? What do you think? Thumbs up, or thumbs down?

Facebook did a 5-for-1 stock on Friday marking the third split in the company’s history.  It’s true market value is still unknown until the company goes public.  Expectations for an IPO isn’t expected until 2012 at the earliest. Currently, Facebook shares can be sold on SecondMarket which puts Facebook’s current valuation at around $30 billion.  Nearly $150 million Facebook stock sales have been recorded since April 2009.

While a stock split will not increase a shareholder’s equity, increasing the number of company shares can increase liquidity and make the company’s shares easier and less expensive to trade.

An interesting note, Google’s stock split several times prior to going public back in 2004.

Just before the release of the movie “The Social Network”, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced he was donating $100 million for education that will go toward improving public schools in Newark, New Jersey. A new foundation named Startup: Education will focus on improving education in the United States. The mayor will be working with the education plan to strategize this reform.

Zuckerberg is hoping that his donation being public will help to influence others to do the same thing. This is the first donation that he has decided to do with his $6.9 billion fortune, making him one of the youngest billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

Despite some skepticism over the timing of the donation being so near to the movie release,  the donation is nonetheless valuable. With over 500 million users to Facebook, it is good to see that the social network is giving back to the community in such a large way. Hopefully, this is the beginning of more donations to come and not just for good press to surround the movie.

Social networking sites are a part of most people’s daily lives. Unfortunately, telling too much information seems to be something that people aren’t paying enough attention to. For instance, Facebook users consistently update their status and what they are doing at any given time during the day. However, people are updating their status telling the “world” they are going out of town. How about do you have your full birth date and/or address listed on your profile? None of these items would create any security issues if you have a limited number of Facebook friends that you personally trust, AND you have your privacy settings set that those that are not “friends” with you can not see profile information. If these two items are the case, then this information might not apply to you.
Yahoo Finance pointed out some great things that you should be conscious of with your Facebook accounts.

Things you should never reveal on Facebook:
1. Your birth date and birth place
2. Vacation plans
3. Home address
4. Confessionals
5. Password hints
6. Risky behaviors

Not only are these items above revealing more information then you should be sharing with a total stranger, this information could be potentially viewed by your future employers, insurance company, lenders etc.
Bottom line: limit what you put on your Facebook account because you don’t want just anyone to know everything and anything you are doing in all hours of the day.

Twitter recently announced some of their biggest news all year offering video and pictures for tweet posts. This new feature will show a sidebar on the twitter screen that will allow the user to post a picture or video relating to their tweet as opposed to a link or a separate website. Before this, users were limited to 140 characters to share their tweet without visuals.

The new Twitter is also expected to include better advertisements and a way to scroll to the bottom of the page without clicking on a “more” button. They believe these moves will help make them more “user friendly”.Twitter partnered with several media providers including YouTube and Google in order to make this move possible. With Facebook continuing to gather people all over world, Twitter may be thinking of ways to keep with their social media users. Will you be switching to Twitter to share pictures or videos or continue to post them on outlets such as Facebook?