Since Friendster’s founding in 2002, social networking sites have changed quite a bit. Through the rise and development of more and more networks–MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and beyond–we have seen time and time again that social media is a constantly evolving entity, one that’s difficult to pin down easily. 2009 was no different. From the enormous valuations and market-changing acquisitions down to the small ways in which social networking is affecting our lives, 2009 rocked the social Web. Here we look at the ten biggest social media stories of the year.
1. Twitter valuation at $1 billion
In
case you missed it, Twitter blew up this year. It was just a small sign
of things to come when the site noted 5x normal tweets per second on Inauguration Day
on January 20th. For the first half of the year, the micro-blogging
service experienced a rocket-ship trajectory. Twitter received so much
media attention that in June it was calculated that the site had
received $48 million in free media coverage. Growth of the site reached
such incredible heights in the first six months that CEO Evan Williams
had to assure everybody that the growth plateau in the second half of 2009 was only temporary. The Twitter noise may have reached the peak of its crescendo in September,
w
hen, in anticipation of the startup’s closing of a $100 million Series D funding
round, rumors swirled that investors valued the company at $1 billion. On top of everything else, the Global Language Monitor named “Twitter” the top word of 2009:
“In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the
after effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop
icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words,” said a Global Language Monitor spokesperson.
2. Facebook buys FriendFeed
Facebook goes cash-flow positive (September). Facebook hits 300 million users (also September). Facebook shares rise 42% in four months (November). Facebook hits 350 million users
(December). There were a lot of notable Facebook stories this year and
most of them simply reiterated the same thing in different words:
“Facebook is still growing. A lot.” One story, however, underscores how
Facebook is becoming a notable and viable acquirer. In August, Facebook
made a combined $15 million cash
and $32.5 million stock purchase of microblogging site FriendFeed.
To the dismay of FriendFeed fans, Facebook was motivated simply to
purchase the staff behind the technology at FriendFeed, leaving the
service to see no future development.
Though we have not yet seen any tangible results from FriendFeed
developers moving over to Facebook, for now we can only assume that
they are working on something awesome.
3. EA acquires Playfish for $275 million
As
the Web continues 
to evolve, it seems like social media is changing the
way we do just about everything. The video game industry, which for
years has pushed towards the biggest, loudest, most powerful consoles
yet, got a bit of a wake-up call in early November when Electronic
Arts, one of the world’s largest third-party game publishers, paid $275 million in cash
for a little social gaming company called Playfish. If Playfish meets
certain criteria by the end of 2011, Playfish’s former owners could
receive another $100 million. That’s a lot of money for a company that
designs poker and restaurant games, free games that collect revenue via
the sale of virtual goods, solely for social networking sites like
Facebook. EA foresees mobile and online games will continue to make up
more and more of the gaming industry in 2010. In attracting one of the
most well-known game publishers and in reaching nearly 60 million monthly active users worldwide, Playfish is proving that social games like Pet Society, Restaurant City, and Country Story are here to stay.
4. Zynga worth $1 billion
A
couple of weeks after EA’s acquisition of Playfish, speculation arose
that Zynga – a Playfish competitor and the leading
social gaming
company today – was worth about $1 billion, since EA paid 3-4 times
the revenue generated by Playfish. With incredibly popular games like
Mafia Wars and FarmVille, Zynga sees 100 million monthly unique
visitors and has registered over 200 million active users. FarmVille,
the most popular social networking game ever with almost 75 million
monthly active users, has been expanded by Zynga to a stand-alone site,
where users sign in with Facebook Connect. Despite some controversy
over scam offers made via advertising in Zynga games, which the company
has since made efforts to diminish, Zynga is yet another example of
social gaming on the rise. [Note: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus is
presenting a keynote at Vator Splash on February, 4, 2010 in San
Francisco. Mark your calendars.]
5. MySpace acquires iLike for $20 million
ILike’s
sale to MySpace underscores that it’s a hit or miss world out there.
While iLike had significant traffic of some 55 million users, and had
grown to be one of the most popular social music discovery services
with applications on Facebook, Orkut, hi5 and Bebo, it only fetched $20
million in a buyout by MySpace. The sales price puts iLike in a stark
juxtaposition to Zynga – which is estimated to be worth $1 billion, and
underscores the uncertainty of a startup’s future and exit when there
is no monetization plan in sight. While iLike appeared to be on the
road to greatness with its 55 million users, its exit valuation clearly
signaled that unless a company knows how to monetize its users, the
market won’t pay up.
6. MOL acquires Friendster
Friendster,
the first mover and pioneer of social networks, made the last big
social media news of the year (unless something else happens in the
next two weeks) by being acquired by MOL Global,
a Malaysian online payments company. Though financial details have not
been disclosed, there are estimates that MOL paid up to $100 million in
the deal. Though you may have forgotten all about Friendster, the
2002-founded social network is still huge in Asia, where it has 75
million registered users–90% of the entire site’s membership. Having
raised just over $45 million since its founding as the original social
network, this Silicon Valley darling may have led us to expect more
from its exit. Nevertheless, MOL, already having implemented various
payment systems into Friendster, will certainly enjoy the benefits of
owning the actual network.
7. Citizen Journalism
When that US airways plane crash landed into the Hudson River in January, Twitter was the first one to let us know. And in June, when masses of demonstrators took to the streets of Tehran to express anger at a questionable presidential election
in Iran, we only heard the dissent’s oft-censored voice because its
community managed to find ways onto social networking sites like
Facebook and Twitter. We can only guess at how many people first heard
about Michael Jackson’s death through a status update. As social sites
grow in popularity, they become more powerful hubs of communication,
and so it is only natural that in 2009 we experienced the rise of a new
era of citizen journalism. YouTube even launched a Reporters’ Center
to teach the basics on reporting the news. While there have been some
less pretty side effects (like businesses jumping on trends for free advertising
or uninformed “reporters” kindling false rumors), citizen journalism
has the awesome potential to give a lot of power back to the people.
Why else would censorship-heavy countries like China be so preoccupied
with blocking social networking sites?
8. The Rise of Augmented Reality
Smartphones
are very powerful devices. So powerful, in fact, that the tech industry
has coined a phrase, “augmented reality,” to refer to an emerging form
of reality, made accessible, supplemented, and molded by mobile
applications. Aloqa, for example, notifies you through your mobile device of nearby hotspots, Facebook friends, or interesting events. Gowalla,
which raised $8.3 million this year, is another location-based social
networking service all about sharing and discovering new and
interesting places in the world. Similarly, Aha Mobile
informs users about traffic conditions in real-time. Another app called HearPlanet lets you discover what’s around you. Probably the most
popular augmented reality app is 
Foursquare, an application available for
iPhone, Android, and other devices that has slowly been building a
dedicated community of users obsessed with finding and sharing the
coolest locations within cities. These technologies, just now emerging,
signal the start of a new era of mobile social media.
9. Google + Bing go real-time
If
you still think Twitter and other social sharing sites are just noise,
then you’ll have to explain why Bing and Google are all about
incorporating real-time in search results. Bing went there first,
creating a branch off its main search engine called Bing Twitter,
where users can search the Web via Twitter’s real-time updates. But
Google took it one step further when it announced last week that
relevant real-time updates would be implemented directly into Google search results.
Not only that, but while the page remains open, the stream will
automatically update in real-time. Coupled with an October update which
includes forum posts in search results, these updates show just important user-generated content has become.
10. US Government 2.0
Partisan politics aside, we can probably all agree that the current administration’s ability to take full advantage of social media capabilities
is a good thing. From Facebook to Twitter, President Obama’s fleet of
advisers and assistants have created profiles to keep the public
constantly updated about the goings-on at the White House. Videos on
YouTube and Vimeo of presidential speeches, photos of meetings between
diplomats, and a constant stream of executive updates made available
across multiple sites may have made this administration the most
accessible that it has ever been. Similarly, the US Army
has gone to great lengths setting up multiple accounts across all the
most popular social networking sites in order to get the most direct
access with possible recruits. On the other hand, troops have had to
deal with mixed and confused orders over the use of social networking
while serving, as policies teetered constantly between full access and
an all-out ban. Still, the government’s embrace of social media is just
one more sign (as if we needed more) of the massively growing influence
of online networking.
Feel free to comment on what you think is the most interesting social media story of the year.
