Welcome to my back yard...

Facebook is turning 5 and we are getting a free token, someone said boorrriiinnnnggg?...

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg writes, “To express our appreciation, we’ve created a “Thank You” gift, which will be available tomorrow in the Facebook Gift Shop for you to to give freely to others. In the spirit of celebrating connections between people, we encourage you to use this gift to give thanks to your friends, colleagues and family members with whom you are connected on Facebook.”

The gesture is appreciated and part of the “mutual faith strategy” towards the loyal users of facebook. I would of expect a more exciting way to celebrate the occasion that involves maybe an interactive program/activity, surprising design and features or even an interesting web campaign. but who knows, they might surprise us after all.

Social networking and web mobile usage

Social networking has been a driving user to be upwardly mobile. Facebook's mobile website grew from 5 million users at the beginning of 2008 to 15 million by November. The downside is that it does not support operators all over the world.

According to tech analysts eMarketer, more than 800 million people will access social networks worldwide on their mobile devices by 2012, compared with 82 million in 2007! It’s time for mobile social applications…

Some figures (http://www.news.com.au/) - Mobile web surfers go online looking for music (43 per cent), games (33 per cent) or sports news and results (32 per cent). Other users shared photographs (70 per cent), ringtones (46 per cent) and music (46 per cent).

Introducing smarta.com – LinkedIn watch out

Clean updated design with the slogan of “Think Create Growth” characterizes the new business networking site for entrepreneurs - smarta. Attractive look and feel, which implies that a serious though and strategy is behind this site for entrepreneurs. Yes I definitely feel comfortable at smarta.com…

The site is more than just a networking place it’s got interesting case studies, video diaries and business oriented content and tools. The real value is the ability to set a new business in 30 minutes and feature short video and advices on varies sides of starting and growing the business.

Users will be able to interact and communicate with different business owners and entrepreneurs, create events, groups, access Q&A forums and review case studies.

The entrepreneur of smarta is Shaa Wasmund that is backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Vodafone and commercial law firm Mishcon de Reya. Even Bebo founder Michael Birch has decided to invest in it as well.