Thanks to Sandra Hanchard at Hitwise for the report

The growth of twitter has been aided by the surge in mobile internet devices such as the iPhone, allowing users to tweet on the run! and now even geo tag their posts starting conversations with fellow micro bloggers in their vicinity..

Twitter still has quite a niche geek/uber cool advertising type following, and is definately a great distance from being mainstream. (Im getting a bit bored of explaining what the “Twinkle” app on my iPhone does..). Corporations are catching on, and realising that twitter is being heavily used by this “in the know” crowd, which provides a great oppurtunity for marketing and conversations to be had between these companies and their potential customers. I personally follow @VirginBlue, @forrester, @SBS not to mention i also have being enjoy news updates from the likes of @news_com_au and @macdailynews and enjoyed getting all my olympic updates from @AussieOlympics

“Seduce At Vbar” added me as a friend on facebook..

Because i’m aware to this type of SPAM, i naturally assumed from the name, that a place called Vbar is trying to promote a event or “night” called seduce..

At seeing this friend request, i see that a have 4 mutual friends.. this might of given me a very small additional bit of interest.. but i was 1 second away from ignoring and blocking this “person”..

I clicked on the link to check it out.. (just because im interested in how they are promoting).

I get the to the page and its blank…

I visit the profile page and there is no information about the bar or the event… all i see is a blank picture, someone writing “whaaaa???”  (which is similar to my reaction), and a post saying that i have one month to “GET READY TO GET SEXY AND SEDUCTIVE…….”

Firstly spamming people adding them to facebook is annoying.. Secondly they dont have any content, anything engaging or sticky to make this spamming useful..

Why not create a Fan Page… some content (information, upcoming DJs, Photos, even Videos!) and use facebook ads to target exactly the demographic you want!..That would be cheap… it would be MUCH less time consuming and much more effective!

So Facebook have suspended the “Top Friends” Application..
This being the 3rd most popular application on the Social Networking Platform…

The Application vanished on the 26th of June… and its Application page is being directed to the Facebook main page…

Facebook said:

We have suspended the Top Friends application while we investigate violations of our Terms of Service. We recognize this is a popular application and don’t take this action lightly.

Inside Facebook in their article: Top Friends Vanishes From Facebook Platform said:

Apparently, Top Friends was allowing access to non-friends’ personal information in a way that violated the TOS. This is a pretty siginificant disciplinary action by Facebook.

I think this great that facebook are taking action towards this type of misconduct, especially against a app with such a large following.. Im sure that this is not the only App that breaches privacy, and would be expecting other applications to face the same penalty…

Just keep in mind when using any social networking platform, they do NOT gurantee your privacy!

[W]e cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site.

Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other items , this information may become publicly available.

Facebook Terms and Conditions

Smoking is a very social activity, people pick up smoking from their friends, they use it as an excuse to socialise at work.. And quiting smoking will depend largely on people around you quitting aswell..

A study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that online social networks can play a prominent part in people quitting smoking. A person’s desicion to quit is affected by people in their social network and even people they do not know.

Sucessfulness of quitting smoking is often deterimed by social pressures, people tend to quit smoking in groups.

If a spouse quit smoking, the other spouse was 67% less likely to smoke.

If a friend quit, a person was 36% less likely to still light up.

Siblings who quit made it 25% less likely that their brothers and sisters would still smoke.

Co workers were also quite influential especially if the individual works at a small firm.

But people were influenced even when individuals saw other people they don’t even know were quitting, This is were social networks come in..

People who are trying to quit smoking should try to socialise with others who are quitting smoking, and social networks can be an platform for this. Facebook Groups, Forums etc..

UPDATE:

WOMMA Word Blog Covers how social networks change smoking behaviour aswell.

Here are the interesting parts:

* Over the course of 30 years, the number of smokers in the network dropped from 45% to 21%
* Closer relationships (family, co-workers in small companies, etc..) had more influence and impact
* Yet a single person’s quitting seemed to have an effect at least through 3 degrees of separation

Using Social Networks for Social Marketing

The implications of the study on social marketers’ use of social media and social networks is great. Can behavior change experts embrace the use of new digital networks to accelerate the spread of social norms and word of mouth? They will need to let go of some control – a lot of control – to do so but we may just find a way to produce behavior change in something under thirty years.

The report confirms the usefulness of engaging influential groups within a network:

“Moreover, medical and public health interventions to encourage people to quit smoking might be more cost-effective than initially supposed, since health improvements in one person might spread to others. Finally, the isolation of smokers within social networks suggests that blanket policy approaches (e.g., advertising and taxation) may be usefully supplemented by interventions targeting small groups.”