Dear MySpace,

[With apologies in advance to Mike Macadaan, VP Product, who I believe is genuinely fighting the good fight, and who will no doubt end up with a great job at some fine Internet company.]

It’s over.  I can’t take it anymore.

I hereby inaugurate my MySpace Deathwatch, which will continue until my last friend has left the site. (including Tom)

Recent dispatches that are fit to print:

Jon Gibs, vice  president, media and agency insights, Nielsen Online, notes  “We have seen major growth in Facebook… and a subsequent  decline in MySpace.  Twitter… (is) perhaps  changing the outlook for the entire space… regardless of how fast a site is growing… it can quickly fall out of favor with consumers… (who) are willing to pick up their networks  and move them to another platform… at a moment’s notice.”

Source: Media Daily News.

Actually, that’s being nice, since it doesn’t mention specifics. The straight year-over-year performance:

“…once-hot MySpace couldn’t keep up its own torrid growth and has been one of the few social networking sites to see traffic fall, according to comScore. (MySpace had 64.2 million unique users in August, down from 75.5 million in August 2008.)”

So, we are dealing with a business that is losing 10+ million users a year.

Source: Forbes.

What does this translate to in terms of lost advertising revenue? Here is a quote from the most recent News Corp earnings call:

“Impairment charges in the fiscal fourth quarter were mainly tied to Fox Interactive Media, the unit that includes MySpace, and reduced earnings by 17 cents a share.  Advertising sales fell at MySpace, and the company had increased costs to introduce MySpace Music”

Source: Bloomberg.

Now, normally, beating up on someone like this isn’t very much fun, but we are talking about a company whose CEO doesn’t view Facebook as a competitor.

“I really don’t view Facebook as a competitor,” Van Natta said in an interview yesterday. “I personally have a Facebook account and I use it to communicate with my friends and my family. And I have a MySpace account that I use primarily to interact with other people in and around content.”

As they say, sometimes it’s darkest right before it goes pitch black.

Source: Bloomberg.

When you have an obsolete, irrelevant product that nobody wants in the Golden Age of social media, the appropriate strategy is clearly to pretend that you aren’t a social network.  MySpace has replaced 4 of its top executives in THIS YEAR ALONE and added at least 2 more.   They certainly have their work cut out for them.  Let’s meet the team.

• Tom Anderson — President and co-founder.  He is now a “strategic advisor” for MySpace, which pretty much means that he collects a paycheck and doesn’t have to show up for work.
• Owen Van Natta — CEO.  Facebook expert
• Marc Rosenbaum — CFO. BI and ERP system expert.
• Michael Jones — COO.  Founder of UserPlane, which was sold to AOL in 2006.  Maybe he can trick AOL into taking MySpace off News Corp’s hands?
• Alex Maghen — CTO
• Jason Hirschhorn - Chief Product Officer.  Former President of Sling Media Inc.’s entertainment group.  The Slingbox certainly is a great device.
• Mike Macadaan — VP Product.  TwiistUp founder.

Go team!  One thing that MySpace certainly IS GOOD AT is throwing parties.  Please send me an invite the next time you guys want to spend some of that News Corp. money at the Terranea Resort for an “executive retreat.”   We can party like its 1999 on a Tuesday night again…

The Hollywood Reporter released this list of the 50 most influential players in reality TV.   I cross-referenced each name on this list against Twitter to find out which members of the group had an account.  Not surprisingly, very few of the non-celebrities actively tweet or even have an account.  So, either these Hollywood players aren’t hip to Twitter yet, don’t think their personal brand is worth managing, or think they can still remain “behind the scenes.”

Two surprising omissions from this list are Oprah and Ellen.  With Oprah reaching over 1 million Twitter followers in less than one month and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” challenging Ashton Kutcher for the top Twitter spot, an argument can be made that the creators of these shows are the truly influential “reality” TV players.  So my advice for reality TV producers is to watch and learn from how “Oprah,” “Ellen,” or even “The View” engages their respective audiences using Twitter.  The most successful reality TV programs in the future will be the ones that allow the largest audience participation, preferably live and in real-time over the internet.  If FCC regulations are too great a barrier for this to happen, then first-run shows may have to air over the Internet.  (For advertising reasons, this may sound crazy, i know)  It is the producers themselves who need to become social media enthusiasts in order to understand how to best integrate social features into a particular show, including the on-air and online experience.

One of the key competitive advantages of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is its high level of audience participation, namely the “Phone-A-Friend” and “Ask the Audience” lifelines.  I realize that this show is coming back for a 10-year anniversary run.  However, it would be even easier to breathe new life into this franchise by adding new lifelines that utilize Twitter.  In addition, what if a game show, like the “Price is Right,” had contestants that played along on Twitter?  We will almost certainly continue to see social media and interactive technology further impact reality TV plot lines and allow characters to engage in two-way conversation with the audience before, during, and after production.

Therefore, I challenge the reality TV producers mentioned below to step up  in a traditionally tight-lipped industry and make your web presence more public.  There is no shortage of ideas for how social media can be incorporated into new or existing shows.  The technology is certainly no longer a limitation.  However, show producers will need strong web teams in place to help them execute their vision.

Here is the full list, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with their corresponding Twitter name.

1. Simon Cowell – Well, Simon has made it very clear what he thinks about Twitter
2. Mike Darnell
3. David Goldberg
4. Mark Burnett
5. Cecile Frot-Coutaz
6. Vicki Dummer & John Saade
7. Mike Fleiss
8. Simon Fuller
9. Paul Telegdy
10. Jennifer Bresnan – @JenBresnan
11. Howard Owens & Mark Koops
12. Chris Coelen
13. Tony DiSanto
14. Ryan Seacrest – @RyanSeacrest
15. Jeff Olde
16. Craig Piligian
17. Francis Berwick
18. Paul Buccieri
19. Cris Abrego
20. Arthur Smith
21. Jonathan Murray
22. Jane Lipsitz & Dan Cutforth
23. Kristen Connolly-Vadas (THR.com misspelled your name!)
24. Nancy Dubuc
25. Nick Emmerson
26. Thom Beers
27. Gena McCarthy
28. Rob Sharenow
29. Michael Davies
30. Gordon Ramsay
31. Jeanne Newman – @newwmanje
32. Ken Mok – @kenmok
33. Sally Ann Salsano
34. Eileen O’Neill
35. Bertram Van Munster
36. Ashton Kutcher & Jason Goldberg – @aplusk
37. Tyra Banks – @RealTyra
38. Allison Grodner
39. J.D. Roth & Todd Nelson
40. Conrad Green
41. Nigel Lythgoe – @dizzyfeet
42. Lisa Berger
43. Holly Jacobs
44. Diddy – @iamdiddy
45. John Irwin & Dr. Drew Pinsky – @drdrew
46. Matt Kunitz
47. Randy Jackson
48. Tom Forman
49. David Lyle
50. Jeff Tremaine

Before you begin this process, you will need to have a previously created and approved Google AdSense account.  If you don’t have one yet, go here to sign-up.

First, locate your Twitter RSS feed.  Everyone with a Twitter account has their own unique RSS feed.  Your Twitter RSS feed is located at the bottom of your UPDATES page (i.e. http://www.twitter.com/YourTwitterName) just above the footer.

You do not have to be logged-in to Twitter to subscribe to someone’s RSS feed.  In addition, you can subscribe to someone’s Twitter RSS feed without following that person.

Copy your Twitter RSS feed URL.  For example, mine is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14201151.rss

Go to http://feedburner.google.com and sign-in using your google account credentials.

After signing in you will want to “burn” your Twitter RSS feed.

Once you have finished “burning” your Twitter RSS feed, login to your Adsense account.  Under the “Adsense Setup” tab, you will want to click “AdSense for Feeds.”

Now you can create the ad unit for your feed.  You don’t have to create a separate channel, one will be created automatically for you.  To see how the ads are delivered, you can subscribe to my Twitter RSS feed by clicking here

Note:  If you have previously burned your Twitter feed using Feedburner, you will need to migrate your Feedburner feed to you Google account.

There has been a lot of buzz this week regarding the new Facebook Connect service.  After TechCrunch announced that they were “in a relationship” with the new service, I began to investigate the easiest way to add it to a couple of blogs that I run.  Not surprisingly, there is already one gentleman from Spain who has been working on a plugin for a couple of months.

If you aren’t familiar with Facebook Connect or how it can work with your blog, I suggest that you visit  a sample site called The Run Around.

Since the author of the Facebook Connect Plugin for WordPress is a native Spanish speaker, I am providing the translation of his blog posting.  Before you get started, you will need to have a Facebook Developer account and an existing blog using the WordPress platform.

Here is the link to download the Facebook Connect plugin for WordPress.  The newest version is 0.0.4.  If you need help using the plugin, there is a video tutorial for the configuration here

There appears to be a couple of errors with the plugin when you attempt to use a custom theme.  I am currently providing feedback to the plugin author to help him tweak it.  In addition, there may be interoperability issues with other plugins that I will list in a forthcoming post.

As a recently unemployed technology professional (and someone who has been laid-off multiple times), I have spent more than my fair share of time on employment websites. Like a majority of people in the 25- to 34-year-old demographic, I rely primarily on the Internet for job information.
In 2003, when I was initially searching for a full-time position, Monster and its sister site, MonsterTrak, were the go-to websites for job postings. Today, this is certainly no longer the case. While Monster has more postings and registered users overall, it seems that the most innovative and exciting companies are putting their openings on LinkedIn.

In fact, LinkedIn encourages and rewards hiring managers for posting jobs exclusively in its “Jobs” section. Positions that are available exclusively through LinkedIn (and not traditional job boards) receive special promotion at no additional cost. Companies like Hulu, Fox Interactive Media, and Sapient have all taken advantage of this LinkedIn feature. Aside from having more appealing job postings, LinkedIn also beats Monster in several other functionalities, including candidate referrals, peer recommendations, and ad targeting (DirectAds).

Previously, a blogger has argued that LinkedIn “was getting to be the monster.com of passive candidates.” In late 2006, I was not only a passive candidate, but also a passive user. I had originally created my LinkedIn profile sometime in 2003 and connected to a couple of people, but I didn’t use the site actively for several years. It wasn’t until a website redesign last year that the site began to find its true calling and revenue model.

According to this recent article in Network World, many recruiters would rather search LinkedIn or Facebook instead of Monster because they find “more active candidates and less stale information.” Therefore, from a technology-based job perspective and with apologies to Dice, LinkedIn is now the Monster.com for ACTIVE candidates, as well as passive candidates.

The management at LinkedIn should create more ways to help the passive candidates become more active website users. The site has evolved to the point where it could be described as a job board masquerading as a social network. This may be good enough to bury Monster, but what about competition from newer, web 2.0 challengers?

For those of us not blessed with a five-letter last name, choosing a good Twitter user name can be a daunting task. In fact, I was asked the following question by someone who already uses Twitter:

“Can you change your Twitter user name and still keep all of your followers?”

The answer is: Yes. You can change your Twitter name at any time under settings, assuming that the name is unique and still available. This will allow you to keep all your current followers, so you can seamlessly transition to your new name.

Here are a couple of hints when choosing/renaming a Twitter user name:

1. Use you middle name, instead of your last name. (i.e. JohnNoland instead of JohnMarchesini)
2. Due to the nature of the Twitter messaging syntax, I am suggesting a user name with a length of 10 or less characters. Therefore, when someone replies to your posts (i.e. @TechCeleb), they don’t have to type as many characters, especially if they are replying by SMS.
3. If possible, use your user name to say something about yourself (i.e. MrRealEstate or MrBig)
4. In case you were wondering, the character limit for a Twitter user name is 15.