Twitter Search has become the definitive real time social search engine since it was launched by Twitter and despite attempts by Google to create a more real time search function, it is still the best way to find out who is talking about what right now.

Facebook search, as Ben Parr at Mashable notes, is not the most impressive of tools and is long overdue an overhaul. The new search function lets you search what is being said about a certain keyword in the news feeds of your friends, pages that you’re a fan of and any news feed that has been made public by the owner.

Although Facebook search will be resticted to people you’re friends with and public facebook profiles, it looks like it could begin to rival Twitter Search as the top real time search tool.

Facebook search could also be an invaluable search tool for brands wanting to monitor what is being said about them amongst their fans. Although, there will be no way for them to see conversation amongst people that are not fans; the people who are most likely to be saying negative things.

Facebook will be expanding the search feature to more people over the coming weeks.

A Facebook software engineer, Ari Steinberg commented that “We’re certainly not opposed to enabling you to export your own content (in fact, we’re always trying to work on ways to make that easier), but exporting all your friends’ content to a totally public place without their permission isn’t cool.”

This is an interesting development as it shows that Facebook clearly saw it as a serious breach of their privacy controls. How they didn’t see this happening when they opened up the feed in the first place is curious.

RWW comment that “The wall that keeps Facebook user data in and private by default feels too contrary to the fundamental nature of the internet for it to last”, but I believe this case was different. Most Facebook users would have no idea that their data was being exported and it could have caused a serious trust issue between Facebook and the user.

What do you think? Were Facebook right to shut down the NewsFeed application?

What does this mean? Well it provides a number of new opportunities for what can be done with your data in Facebook. Firstly, it has spawned the creation of a new Facebook desktop app which is a similar application to TweetDeck or Twhirl and lets you recieve and post Facebook updates from your desktop. Lovely.

However, one particular developer has been a bit more innovative with what can now be done with your data. Teck Chia has built an application called Newsfeed RSS. What this application does is convert your Facebook newsfeed into an RSS feed – this can then be subscribed to in an RSS reader. By anyone.

ReadWriteWeb point out a number of things that could be done with this RSS feed; put it into a reader; filter it with Yahoo Pipes to display updates from people you care about and, and it’s a big and: publish it to a Twitter account.

Basically, you could create a Twitter account, pump that Newsfeed RSS feed into it, and hey presto: all your friends’ updates, which they think are only going to their immediate closed network, are now being published on the web. Now obviously, I don’t recommend you do this without telling all your contacts, but I’m sure you can see this raises a few privacy and trust issues.

The key here, is that no one would know that this could be happening. People think Facebook is a closed network, but it no longer is. It just goes to show you should be so very careful about what you are posting up on Facebook, and assume that anyone could be reading it.

You may not have heard of it, but according to Tencent who recently published a report on the subject, MySpace following a little bit behind.

Tencent says that of the 200 million or so accounts, around 150 million of these are regularly active. On a daily basis around there are around 60 million photo uploads and around 9.5 million blog entries.

Although none of the data has been confirmed by a third party yet, QZone does have a very high success rate in attracting large numbers of users. Just last month they launched a university focused version of the social networking site and records suggest it attracted between 10 and 20 million people within the first six weeks.

As the three major social networking sites compete to be the biggest, there is one factor that Facebook and MySpace possess that QZone doesn’t; Facebook and MySpace are both huge worldwide sites and are receiving daily international signups at a rapid rate.

QZone on the other hand has stuck within China and although that strategy is working fine at the moment, if the other two players were to enter the Chinese market, QZone could come under a lot of pressure.

The popularity of Twitter has grown significantly in recent times, particularly among businesses and bloggers alike. The function of Twitter is quite simple really: it operates by allowing users to post short blog posts of up to 140 characters in length in response to the question “What are you doing?”

In addition, once you have registered with Twitter, you can then receive updates from other users via the Twitter website, whilst also being able to follow any member who should post information that is of interest to you.

Apparently one of the main reasons for the breakdown in a deal was that Twitter’s executives and investors would like to continue in their own attempts to build up revenue, rather than receive help from such an established business. But, some feel that the acquisition would have been a good move for Twitter; similarly, others believe that Twitter are not as important to Facebook as perhaps what Facebook could have been to Yahoo.

It was also revealed that Twitter are not ready to sell their little innovation, maintaining a strong belief that their business will continue to grow in popularity, benefiting them in the long run. This is in addition to the fact that Facebook were offering $500 million of its stock at the $15 million valuation, with concerns being raised whether the amount offered in stock was actually worth $500 million. As such, Twitter felt the deal was slightly undervalued.

But considering Facebook and Twitter both maintain such a mutual respect for each other, it may be a case of never say never between these two growing faces in social networking.

Following this belief, Facebook has now taken the latest step in its online advertising with the introduction of ‘engagement ads’. The ads focus on brand interaction and growth, allowing users to give ‘branded’ gifts, make comments or become a fan of a brand. Users are also able to give a thumbs up or down next to an advert and give a reason why.

Traditionally social media sites and most internet websites focus on display advertising such as banner adverts and pay per click marketing. Facebook’s latest move focuses more on traditional marketing aspects such as brand awareness and interaction, making the social network more of a focus group than an advertising platform.

It is well known that Facebook has had dismal success with online advertising. The social network which generates the majority of its revenues through advertising sees clickthrough rates of around 0.04% according to one report, which in reality is 400 in a million. Of course most of the users are penniless students as the report states, and have more of an interest in chatting with friends than responding to advertising messages.

All of this information is being highlighted right as Facebook brings their application development contest to a close. Some of the more interesting applications include BarTab where you can send a drink to a friend’s phone for $1. The drink can be redeemed at participating restaurants and bars. Partybuzz is another interesting application which focuses on the offline parties that are being organised online by friends. The application gives an overview of the average age, girl/guy ratio and number of singles.

While all of Facebook’s new engagement advertising is very interesting, everything will depend on the bottom line. In a recession display advertising and brand awareness budgets are always decreased in favour of measurable methods, which are going to be PPC and SEO. While great fun, if the engagement advertising campaign doesn’t meet the needs of advertisers, Zuckenberg will have more trouble engaging advertisers than he will users.

Enter Vivaty Scenes brought to a desktop near you via Facebook or AIM. Vivaty Scenes as described by Greg’s Mind launched yesterday in beta promising to bring the virtual world to you in a new way.

The application will allow users to create their own virtual rooms which in essence will be like a 3D version of your homepage, rather than a true virtual world as Brent states. Others are heralding the public beta as a good thing, encouraging people to get involved and put Vivaty through its paces. Users will however, be able to customise the room to their own tastes adding decorations, themes, pictures imported from other applications and videos as well. Avatars representing people can be created in the same fashion as other virtual world programs.

But where is the money? Apps nowadays have to meet the bottom line. How will these virtual spaces pack in the revenue? Advertising is the obvious route but Target and Coke Zero have partnered up with the virtual gurus to cash in branding their rooms to be used by users.

Hi,

Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use.
Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last
names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account
for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

Aubrey
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

Whoops! Needless to say, Jon blogged about this and attracted the attention of Robert Scoble, Dennis Howlett and Steve Rubel to name but a few.

It worked. The next email he had from Facebook reads as follows

Hi Jon,
Upon further review, we have decided to reactivate your account. Our Terms of Use, to which all users agree when they first sign up for the site, stipulate that you must not “impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity.” However, since others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don’t appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these Terms. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.
Thanks for your understanding,
Jerry
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

Remember Friendster? Over at WebProNews yesterday Robert Scoble asked Will Facebook Get “Friendstered”? and notes the following similarities between the two sites.

1. They didn’t take care of PR and didn’t take care of bloggers. Hmmm, Facebook is doing exactly the same thing. Several people at the dinner tonight noted that Facebook hasn’t responded to claims that Facebook’s employees are spying on data that the public doesn’t have access to. And that’s just one PR complaint.

2. They kicked people out that they didn’t like. Hmmm, Facebook is doing exactly the same thing.

3. They didn’t respond to new competitors who took away their coolness. Facebook? They are about to meet their biggest competition yet.

Facebook faces a mountain of expectation now. Could that be its undoing?