Web Copywriting, SEO and the Web at Large

Thousands of applications and millions of downloads are driving Facebook’s economy. Who’s behind it? Hackers.

Unlike MySpace, Facebook has opened up its network to developers, making it easy for them to make money from applications. A full list of third-party applications, designed to allow Facebook users interact with friends and networks, can be found in the official site’s application directory. They range from tools to compare people to applications that allow you to adopt virtual pets.

To witness this economy’s escalation, one only needs to stop by Adonomics (formerly Appaholics). The website, conceived by San Francisco-based programmer Jesse Farmer, provides stock-market-style analyses of Facebook features. Programmers can analyze the value of their applications in advertising dollars, and how it correlates to their applications’ growth.

Once a social networking site exclusively for college students, Facebook opened registration to the general public last year and attracted vast groups of visitors from outside the 18-24 year old age segment.  In fact, comScore reported last month the website grew to 26.6 million unique visitors in the U.S. in May 2007, marking an 89 per cent increase versus the same month last year.

Editor’s note: see Facebook security post

Internet users are consuming more web content but communicating less, reveals a four-year study by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

The report, released Aug. 13, states Internet users are spending 47 per cent of their time online reading and watching content, compared with 34 per cent in 2003, representing a 37 per cent increase over four years.

The increase in the time spent on content has been steady; growing 10 per cent from 2003 to 2004, remaining even between 2004 and 2005, growing 13 per cent from 2005 to 2006, and growing 13 per cent from 2006 to 2007.

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The LA Times recently published an article, in which it compares Google to Osama bin Laden. It seems Google’s plans to let users comment on aggregated news has some editors and journalists edgy. But as long as they do their jobs and publish objective and complete articles, they have nothing to fear.

I wrote the following letter to the LA Times editor in response to the article:

Welcome to Web 2.0, LA Times, where consumers and the public at large get a say.

Surely, providing Google users forums to comment on news stories will result in some biased and uninformed viewpoints, but it’ll also keep editors and journalists on their toes.

For if you don’t do your job, and produce biased or incomplete articles, there will be a newly empowered body ready to call you on it.

Just minutes ago, I received an exciting note in my inbox from Rob Gabriel, Founder and Developer of MyLiveSearch, declaring he’s launching the Web’s first true real-time search engine on Wednesday, Aug. 29.

“I would have hoped to release the beta release earlier,” he stated, “but strongly believe that continued development has now made Mylivesearch even more advanced [than] ever before.”

“Once you try MyLiveSearch,” added Gabriel, “you will be able to explore the Internet like never before and see for yourself how this technology will have a profound impact on how you search the Internet.”

The Melbourne start-up originally planned to unleash the search engine that promises to give users power to scope the entire Web “live to the second” at the end of June.

Gabriel, 35, claims MyLiveSearch will provide users better results than existing search engines, including Google.

Despite Google’s vast resources, its spiders cannot track updates to the Web in real time. Moreover, it’s estimated that Google indexes less than a fifth of the Internet.

MyLiveSearch’s technology, which has been in development for the past eight years, works through a browser plug-in. The search terms are put through indexed search databases, including those of Google, Yahoo and MSN, as well as users’ bookmarks and other popular web hubs.

But those results are just starting points. The “live search” then kicks in, actively seeking out all connected web pages, apparently in just seconds.

Google, which has a history of acquiring technology that could aid its competitors, has reportedly met with the MyLiveSearch team on at least a couple of occasions.

Google is currently the number one search engine in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K. and the U.S.