In truth, the speech wasn’t phenomenally exciting - but then again, Facebook is no longer a novelty. It’s now a technology entrenched in our online lives (latest stats say it’s reached a record 45% share of the social networking market in the UK) and this was more about that technology maturing than wowing the world.

First off, Facebook gets a long-awaited redesign - for too long the design has reconciled the old pre-application Facebook with the slew of innovations and applications since. Gone is the one-page look in favour of a tabbed layout. The primary tab is now about telling a story - combining information generated by a person, with information generated by others about that person, interleaving the two in the timeline. I like this idea - the concept of storytelling works so well - but it will take time to show whether it will generate a story worth telling.

Those stories will get more meat on their bones with the main theme of the event - decentralising Facebook across the web. Spearheading this will be the launch of Facebook Connect, which aims to do for the rest of the web what the applications Platform does for Facebook. In short, it will allow participating sites to use Facebook logins as a means of authentication, and activity on that site will show up on Facebook. If this second party sounds familiar then you’re right - the technology is similar to the highly controversial Facebook Beacon, which did things such as log your purchases from Amazon (and thus allegedly ruining Christmas). Only this time they’ve done what they should have done in the first place - targeting social media sites such as Digg, Six Apart, and Citysearch (all beta testers) and worrying about monetization and e-commerce later.

More details in this press release. In a way it’s combining social media aggregation services such as FriendFeed and MyBlogLog with pervasive ID services such as Disqus or OpenID. Not only is it an attempt to muscle in on those services, but the use of Facebook for authentification rather than email could be Facebook’s attention on usurping email as a tool of communication.

At the heart of it is a good idea - making web experiences more social and coherent - and it will be interesting to see how this pans out when it goes ahead this autumn. Edd, one of our developers who was with me at the event, expressed doubts that people such as himself, who like to keep their online identities across different sites separate, would be willing to tie together their different profiles; I on the other hand, using the same ID across all sites, would probably find it OK (I already import my blog, Twitter and del.icio.us into my Facebook profile). The privacy aspects were touched on but not really expounded (will Connect report what YouTube videos you’ve been watching, or if you log into, say, a dating site? Both could damage rather than enhance one’s social relations) and that’s the biggest obstacle for me - convincing people this data sharing will be benign and helpful, after the Beacon fiasco.

One final thought - there wasn’t much talk about mobile, although there were brief mentions of an iPhone API for Connect coming out as well. From a UK perspective, given the explosion in mobile internet use and cool stuff that’s out like the Facebook application for iPhone, to me that seems an oversight on their part.

I for one think there is room for everyone, seasoned pro’s can reference their many experiences for a balanced view but a novice may provide a more personal opinion that will sit more naturally with the man on  the  street…  

Finally - our good friends at Jam have also added in to the debate so now its time to make up your own mind. 

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Via Social PRobiotic

It’s rather punchy message aside, the presentation is also very slickly done and excellent selection of the most relevant and hard-hitting statistics about social media today: 14% of people trust adverts while 78% trust word of mouth. Millennials spend 16 hours a week online. And I especially love the “social > media” slide. Give it a go.

Speaking of presentations, Slideshare is currently featuring “PR 2.0” as its topic of the day, and our congratulations to Paul Fabretti for having his presentation from last week (which talks about some of our work for LG) featured on the front page.

KMP chief Bill Daring kicked off proceedings with an introduction to the digital landscape, which while it may be meat and drink to seasoned digital professionals, taking stock of what’s out there - from MySpace to Flickr to Twitter to Wikipedia - you forget how much of it is is out there. To the uninitiated it can be daunting entering the field for the first time and to me it emphasised that taking it gently and step by step

Neville Hobson followed up next and he gave a highly informative talk on the modern web-savvy consumer, how they distrust company-speak, and the problem with press releases and one-way messaging. The full video of his presentation is well worth watching (and you can also check it out on Slideshare) but I would like to highlight particular his “Eight Rules of Engagement” - all of which are spot-on and well worth keeping at the forefront of your mind when planning a social media campaign:

Neville Hobson - The 8 rules of social media engagement from paul Fabretti on Vimeo.

Bill and Neville’s general overviews quite nicely set up the second half of the seminar and two talks about specific case studies. First Ronnie talked about our work with LG, which included not just setting up blogs for LG in several languages, but also updating them with content and engaging with what other bloggers have been talking about. This was supported with events for bloggers to attend and making sure they get included in reviewing LG’s products, such as the LG Viewty. We both then contribute to a Q&A where I talked about getting tone and approach right are essential parts. Both Paul and Neville have posted about our talk and are well worth checking out for an independent analysis of our work.

Finally Paul himself wrapped up the seminar with further case studies of corporate blogging (in which LG Blog got a mention, thanks Paul!) - including Dell’s Direct2Dell and GM’s FastLane, and showed how just blogging isn’t the end, but the start, and can lead to many more exciting and engaging projects.

It was a really interesting day and our thanks go to Paul and everyone else at KMP for inviting us and making the arrangements, as well as Bill and Neville for two very engaging talks. There is a second Marketing 2.0 seminar in London pencilled in for September 30th, which we’ll be at as well, so if this has interested you then do check it out and come along to chat with us.

Greg, our studio director and Nick, our account manager for the site, picked up the award at the ceremony last night in London:

More details of the night can be found over at NMA.co.uk - we’re delighted with the award and our congratulations go to all the other winners as well!

One of the most innovative and exciting things we’re working on right now is Beck’s Fusions, a unique art and music fusion project that runs throughout this summer, as part of Beck’s longstanding support of contemporary arts and music. We’re working on a digital venture called Live Studio, open to anyone willing and able to display their artistic talents and express their individuality.

The challenge is to create a work of art to a specific music track. Film yourself creating a work of art to the music and upload the video to the Beck’s channel page on MySpace. The competition goes live on July 7 but we thought we’d let you know now so any budding creative can get started now in preparation. All the entries will be judged by a panel comprising of Fabienne Nicholas of the Contemporary Arts Society, along with John Squire, Peter Saville and Francesca Gavin.

The winning artists will be picked at the Beck’s Fusions event in Manchester in September, and will take part in the main Live Studio event later that month. So get thinking now, and as the project progresses we’ll showcase some of the entries here as well!

Yesterday, the owners of Faceparty, the clubbing & party-centric social networking site, decided it was the last straw. After promising to give away “cool tools” (the site’s paid services) for free in exchange for posting a picture of yourself in fancy dress, they found themselves inundated with requests. While they were still dealing with the backlog, users became impatient and abusive, and so the admins have decided enough is enough:

Sowwy dudes, but some of you have pissed us off so much today that we’ve shut the whole site down and fucked off to the zoo.

We’ve all had bad days dealing with running communities and dealing with objectionable members, so their course of action is understandable. They’re not the first social networking site to have such problems; an interesting contrast is Kevin Rose’s rallying cry to abide by the members of Digg’s wishes during last year’s HD-DVD key controversy; having initially deleted posts that might get them sued, after consideration he changed his mind, said sorry and promised to “go down fighting” if need be. A year on, Digg is still around, while HD-DVD is not.

So what’s best? Getting rid of troublesome users is a sensible business decision - they can waste a disproportionate amount of your time and land you in unnecessary hot water. But in social networks, the community is your business. Where does making life easier for yourself end, and a duty to your consumer base begin? Drawing a line is a very tricky business.

The less effective they are, the more jarring and interfering they have become to try and wring every last drop of attention out of their audience, so thanks to Scott Monty for highlighting this tongue-in-cheek look from current.tv at just how bad banner advertising has become:

We’ve been working with Berocca and their agency i-level recently, working to help the Berocca brand get more engaged with the UK blogosphere. We have helped arrange their sponsorship of last month’s London bloggers’ meetup, which was really successful. Buoyed by this, we’re pleased to announce Berocca’s latest blogger venture, which is Blogger Relief. Anyone in the UK with a blog can take part - just fill in your details and you can get a special bloggers’ relief pack, including free pack of Berocca (naturally), a stress ball, bubble wrap keyring and penholder.

If you’re interested in getting your free bloggers’ relief pack then just head over to berocca.co.uk/bloggerrelief and sign up!

This week I’ve been enjoying the Eco Zoo. Eco Zoo is a beautiful, playful and engaging site aimed to teach more about energy usage through characters such as Mrs. Angkor “Watt” (pictured above). The site uses 3D impressively - if you like, have a try clicking and dragging anywhere to see the world from any angle, and climbing up the tree into the ecosystem. You can also explore further by clicking on character and flicking through some slickly-rendered pop-up books. It’s brilliant in its combining of a intuitive interface with a worthy message. Go try it out!