While Facebook shares seem as volatile as anything, one is left questioning how valuable social networking really is. As the poet and philosopher George Santayana once said, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I think its time that we take a good look back at how social networking has developed on the internet since the days of yore. Email, IM and the UseNet Many people think that social networking is what defines web 2.0, but in reality ...

South African national newspaper City Press will reportedly take down photos of Brett Murray's "The Spear" from its website. Editor-in-chief Ferial Haffajee confirmed to the South African Press Association that City Press would remove images of the painting, saying "I just need a bit of time to do it." She said that the decision was made because of concerns for the safety of the newspaper's journalists -- some of whom she said have received death threats. City Press Editor @ferialhaffajee says ...

This week I take a look at OLX Classifieds, an app that brings the much publicised web classifieds' service to the iPad. Even though OLX only launched a few months back, it feels as if it has been around forever. Everyone has seen the ad (especially if you're a YouTube junkie); a slightly out of shape dad gets ridiculed by his honest, entrepreneurial daughter for holding onto an exercise machine that he's used once, until she tells him how much she ...

Many forward-looking companies are having huge success integrating YouTube into their social media strategy. Besides just engaging on the YouTube platform itself, brands can integrate other networks by creating conversations on Twitter or forming communities on Facebook, all tailored around the YouTube video. One example of this is Orabrush. The campaign's a couple of years old, but the lessons are still there. To start off with you have to watch the video: What started off as a bit of a dud ...

There are thousands of articles dissecting the reasons why things went bad for Facebook yet none have mentioned the role of secondary markets. In these private stock exchanges, Facebook was trading at around US$42 a share in the weeks before the IPO. Interestingly, Facebook set the opening price at US$38 hoping for about a 10% pop on the first day, which would bring it up to US$42 at close. Since secondary markets are the playground of accredited investors, it's "smart money," and ...

Facebook may be banned in China, but that's never stopped its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking time out to visit the Asian superpower. On his last visit, he and Priscilla Chan even managed to make a cameo appearance in a documentary about the Chinese Police Force aired on national TV station CCTV. The newly wed couple appears at (0:29) walking behind two members of the police force. According to The Next Web, the appearance came when the two ...

China's massively popular social network Sina Weibo's new user regulations come into effect today. The rules, which effectively censor free speech were announced a couple of weeks ago. They are largely thought to have been drawn up on the back of pressure from the Chinese government. Authorities have been cracking down on social media in recent months for spreading what they call "false rumours". The regulations mean that: Users have the right to publish information, but may ...

A group of Swedish startups won the first ever international 'city versus city' pitch battle on web TV series This Week in Startups, beating out a group of South African startups in doing so. The show, which is hosted by US angel investor Jason Calacanis and Skweal (a real-time customer review service) CEO Tyler Crowley lays claim to 100 000 viewers every episode. The show saw three top Swedish startups competing against three Cape Town-based South African startups. The three ...

South African citizens have taken to Twitter to support City Press after the ruling party called for a boycott of the newspaper. The name of the national paper, which published photographs of the controversial 'Spear' painting featuring president Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed, trended on Twitter today as users voiced their opinions on the saga. City Press's front page

Social media campaigns are big business. In fact, social research company Hubspot estimates that some US$3.08-billion was spent just on advertising on social networking sites in 2011. And although quite a bit has been made about General Motors (GM) pulling a chunk of their marketing budget from Facebook, the fact is the company is still committed to spending US$30-million a year just on Facebook campaigns. They work too. A recent study by research company Millward-Brown showed that there was a direct correlation ...