The race to be the social network seems like it's been over for at least 6 months. Facebook has trumped MySpace, and MySpace is busy (finally) trying to refocus both their business model and what they offer users and brands.

Beyond the race for number 1, dozens of smaller social networks (such as CafeMom, Gather, LinkedIn, TeamSugar and more) work to differentiate themselves by either focusing on a particular target audience (i.e., moms) or specific functionality (i.e., business networking). That's still just the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 1,000,000 social networks hosted on Ning alone—the majority of which are useless, abandoned, or should be abandoned.

Does this mean there's no more room for social networks in 2009 and beyond? Surprisingly, the answer may be "no" for those who focus on semantic social media.

It’s no secret that online communication is a huge aspect of our lives, whether it be via IM, email, Skype, or any of the plethora of digital communicative services available now. Without IM, how would I chat with Olivia - she sits on the complete opposite side of the office! In fact, it seems like someone is more likely to ask for my Twitter name or my email address than they are to ask for my phone number. Sure, the Baby Boomer generation might frown upon the decline of more personal forms of communication, but before telephones and postal mail, there were stone tablets and chisels. It’s all in the name of convenience and accessibility.

MySpace seems to have finally recognized this well-established method of exchanging messages quickly and easily, as they’ve completely revamped MySpace Mail to now offer users a sleek new interface with greatly improved usability. So what exactly has the former King of Social Networks done to update its mail service? Could these changes help assert MySpace as a worthwhile outlet for brands to utilize to engage with consumers? Here’s a breakdown of some of the new features and what they could mean for the user experience.

New MySpace Mail Interface

Logging into my profile on Thursday, sorting through my MySpace messages was still a complete disaster. It was slow, clunky, aesthetically unappealing, and so on. Fast forward to Friday afternoon, I log in expecting to endure the same painful process of the past 6 years. Much to my surprise, I was greeted with something quite different:

As most fellow geeks are aware of Facebook announced the purchase of real time microblogging platform Friendfeed yesterday. Without any delay they then announced later that night that users will now be able to search across peoples profiles and wall postings, something that has never been possible before. This opens up a whole new can of worms and it remains to be seen how well this search feature is adopted and what changes Facebook continues to make to the underlying platform that they have now integrated from Friendfeed.

Now that there is a new live search entity on the block, things are really starting to heat up. Below you will find screenshots of two different queries inside of both Twitter and Facebook.

Before I get into each snapshot I would like to point out a few things. First, by default, Facebook does not show your activity to the public without you going in and selecting that option in your privacy settings. This certainly plays to the affect of Twitter having much more coverage for most queries when compared to Facebook.

It's only fitting that I start my social media nonprofit blog series with the Breast Cancer 3-Day--an organization that is very close to my heart. I'm a 3-Day walker and extremely passionate about raising money for Breast Cancer. I spend a lot of time posting on my personal breast cancer blog about my efforts to raise money and my excitement about the big event. The Breast Cancer 3-Day made a slam dunk when they contacted me and asked me if I would be an online ambassador. I happily agreed, accepted my badge with honor and posted a blog about my fundraising efforts right away. Within hours, my blog traffic shot up and I found they had linked to my blog on their Facebook page. This inspired me to continue writing creating a win-win scenario.

As I noted in my last article about the subtle shifts happening within MySpace, social network audience demographics are always on the move. Even still, there are skeptics who will still doubt that baby boomers are interacting on any network other than Eons.  The truth is that these target audiences are also beginning to utilize social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

The following chart by Nielsen shows that audiences above 25 have experienced a whopping 84% growth in Twitter adoption over the past 6 months. Also interesting is the 20% growth happening within the 55+ age range, compared to the 16% increase in 2-24 year olds.  This slight discrepancy in growth doesn't mean that younger audiences aren't interested in Twitter, but suggests that they have already adopted it.  (Also, after seeing the age ranges listed on this chart, I now want to see what a two-year old would tweet.)

It has been a long time coming, and now that Facebook has taken the clear gold medal among social networks, it is high time that the rest of the Internet bows down and recognizes this fact. All hail Facebook, our time sapping and all-friend encompassing overlord. It is with open arms that we welcome thee, as we have no other choice. Not that we would want to. Slowly but surely, there are ways that Facebook is becoming a part of everything else on the social web. And it is all thanks to Facebook Connect. Here are some of the ways I believe that Facebook Connect will be the one ring to bind us all.

In a nutshell, Facebook Connect is a way to utilize your already established Facebook account to authenticate and personalize your activity on third party sites. Makes sense, right? Good, let's see how it works.

Commenting Made Easy

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a second, then scroll back up. Ok, so you see that we use Disqus, right? Disqus is a great example of a service that uses Facebook Connect to its advantage. No need to sign up to another site. No need to create another password and username. (Seriously, how many freaking usernames and passwordses do we need?) Disqus uses the information you’ve already given Facebook to log you in, making it easy to leave comments on our blog. Also other blogs, too, if you happen to read those. For those blogs not using Disqus, Wordpress has a Facebook Connect plug in that seems to do essentially the same thing: make it easier to voice your opinion.

Also, sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are doing you, and themselves, a big favor by allowing you to sign in with your Facebook ID and immediately share your finds in your feed. On top of commenting, liking and sharing on Digg itself, you can also use the functionality of Facebook Connect to share things with your Facebook friends who aren’t familiar with Digg.

Last week, I spoke at the Social Media Breakfast in Toledo on social media and nonprofits. I was particularly excited about this topic because it was the nonprofit world that launched me from traditional advertising into the fun and constantly changing world of social media. I loved doing research for this talk and seeing how all sorts of nonprofits are engaging with their communities in the social sphere. Many have made decent entries into the world and some are making baby steps. Over the next few months, I'll share what these nonprofits are doing in my social media and nonprofit blog series. Here's a short clip from my talk followed by a list of the first 10 nonprofits I will highlight.

It’s interesting to me that people get so frightened by what is “lost” by having a strong virtual presence and engaging with social media on a daily basis. There are those who become anxiously aware of the lack of phone usage and eye contact, and much hand-wringing over the literal rewiring of our brains ensues. But what about everything that we gain?

I think there are valid points behind all of this fretting, especially as mounting evidence shows that a lot of users still lack social media savvy and couth. These are the people who haven’t worked out what is an appropriate status update (“I hate my boyfriend’s car!) and what isn’t (“I hate my boyfriend!”), or people that use social media as a crutch; a way to avoid face-to-face interaction or confrontation, rather than to supplement it.

As a social media marketing firm, I get the sense that people assume we sit around playing on Facebook all day. But the same ideas of networking and connectivity that inspire traditional marketing campaigns still apply in the social media spectrum. It’s just the avenues that are changing.

Its that time of the year again and I thought our readers would be curious how the different social networks have progressed over the last year. Without much surprise there has been significant movement within some of the social networks over the course of the last year. I have highlighted below some of the changes that have occureed. Remember all insight is gathered from Google Ad planner and Google Insights.

Quick Jump Below

Badoo.com
Bebo.com
Digg.com
Facebook.com
Fark.com
Flickr.com
Flixster.com
Friendster.com
Gather.com
Habbo.com
Hi5.com
Iambored.com
Identi.ca
IndianPad.com
Last.fm
Linkedin.com
Livejournal.com
Meetup.com
Metafilter.com
Mixx.com
Multiply.com
Myspace.com
Netlog.com
Newsvine.com
Ning.com
Plaxo.com
Plurk.com
Pownce.com
Propeller.com
Reddit.com
Reunion.com
Shoutwire.com
Skyrock.com
Stumbleupon.com
Teamsugar.com
Tribe.net
Tuenti.com
Twitter.com
Wayn.com
Xanga.com
Yelp.com
YouTube.com

We've all heard the predictions and discussions from those in the blogosphere around MySpace.  However, whether or not you believe that Facebook is going to overthrow MySpace, and Twitter is going to rule over all isn't really important.  What is crucial for a marketer to understand is the internal movements of these networks and the slight changes they undergo in their lifetime.  Successful communities will tailor to an audience need - and while MySpace may end up losing the masses to Facebook, it is clearly making movements within niche areas within the music and entertainment space from its introduction of "MySpace Music" in September 2008.