I found this short video on the web and thought it was a great way to illustrate how social networking can be helpful in a business scenario. The publishers, I am sure, didn’t intend to explicitly describe a business case for using social media, but have accidentally given a good example of why business tools are the next horizon for social networks.

Linking Universe provides business tools in a social networking environment to help you sell your ice cream more effectively. Watch the video and I think you will understand…

Our thanks to the guys at Common Craft for putting together this helpful illustration.

We have posted a new Tour of Linking Universe that provides an informative overview of the sections, features, and uses of each business tool in the Facebook application.

You can access the tour by visiting: http://facebook.linkinguniverse.com/Tour.php

The tour is a self-guided slideshow with screenshots of each section and explanations for key fields and features.

The tour is also available from withing the Linking Universe application on Facebook; just click on ‘Tour’ in the upper right corner.

Please share this latest news with your friends.

Linking Universe, our new business networking application, was launched today on the Facebook Platform. We are very excited to bring you this news, and anxious to get you an invitation.

The application is currently released as an ‘invitation only’ event. The invitation only status will be lifted soon. Until then, if you are interested, please complete our Contact Us form and let us know you would like an invitation and we’ll make sure you get one.

We are inviting people as fast as we can. We will begin with our close circle of business friends who have been watching the development, add the many of you who have requested to be included in the initial beta, and then begin to branch out to the masses.

Facebook recently constricted their invitation limits, which effectively halts our ability to invite more than just a handful each day. However, each of you who receive an invitation can also send to your groups of friends, so we anticipate the snowball will gather some volume in the days and weeks to come as more and more people receive invitations.

Please join us in celebrating our launch of a new, more mature Facebook application. As you know, we call it ‘Linking Universe’: Finally, a reason to use Facebook at work!

Don’t forget to request an invitation, and invite your business friends when you get on board.

Thank you for your support! We really appreciate the overwhelming positive comments we have received from those of you who have seen or heard of Linking Universe.

I attended the Facebook Strategy Lunch yesterday and found it to be extremely informative. I am looking forward to the next one.

If you want to be informed of any coming events, join the group titled Utah CEOs With A Facebook Strategy in Facebook.

The luncheon was hosted by Paul Allen and his team at FamilyLink.com including Jason McGowan and Mike Jensen, each of whom presented during the 1.5 hour meet. About 40 people attended.

Paul Allen was first up, and presented some very exciting insights into the Facebook opportunity. I felt like I was watching Rocky for the first time, and left even more excited about the future of Linking Universe. Among the highlights I gleaned from Paul’s presentation:

• Facebook is gaining momentum (currently out pacing all other social networks in growth);
• The Facebook Platform is the first social environment to go ‘open‘, which is spurring unprecedented growth (the development community is jumping on the Facebook coattails faster than you can say ‘new applications’);
• Social networking, and Facebook in particular, is more than a ‘fad’ (not only is it here to stay, but new applications are adding functions and features that make it evermore valuable. Consider Linking Universe, for instance…).

Jason McGowan took over and led us through some incredible stats. He forwarded his presentation to me after the event (thank you, Jason). Here are a handful of interesting highlights:

• Facebook has over 62 million active users;
  • An active user is someone who logs in at least once each day;
  • More than half of active users return again each day;
• Facebook has an average of 250,000 new registrations per day, a remarkably huge audience of new customers that effectively stave off a saturation point for any application;
• So far, the number of active users has doubled every six months;
• More than half of Facebook users are outside of college;
• The fastest growing age demographic in Facebook is 25 years and older;
• Facebook maintains a marketshare of 85 percent among U.S 4-year universities;
• More than 95 percent of Facebook users have added at least one application to their account, or about 60 million.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that 34 percent of Facebook users are professionals, executives, and/or in sales, education, or technical fields. I quickly calculated the potential low-hanging-fruit for Linking Universe at over 20 million. Wow.

Jason wrapped up with a review of the Facebook interface and some tips about how to build applications more effectively, taking advantage of built-in features, and some marketing tips.

Mike Jensen spent some time discussing performance optimization and scalability. Among his advice:

• Go with Amazon’s EC2 platform;
• Plan ahead for scalability (he recalled the scaling nightmare they endured after going live and achieving overwhelming success);
• Loadbalancing techniques, memory optimization, and common practices regarding backups.

The meeting was informative, well informed, and well attended. The who’s who of our local Facebook community were in attendance, too, which made for a terrific networking opportunity.

Lunch was pretty good, too.

Our ‘Thanks‘ and appreciation go to the Utah CEOs With A Facebook Strategy for organizing a worthwhile event.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Linking Universe announces a new business application for the Facebook© platform that allows users to take advantage of professional connections

Application calculates the value of a business network and automates communications and
collaboration with professional contacts.

Salt Lake City, UT (January 22, 2008) Linking Universe announced today a business relationship management application for Facebook that uses network analytics to assess the business value of a social network. Linking Universe offers opportunity management capabilities that allow users to exchange business referrals, and track opportunities through a sales or hiring process. The Linking Universe solution is the first add-on applications for Facebook to combine social networking with the completion of business processes.

With the availability of this product, Linking Universe leads the way in transitioning Facebook, the leading social networking utility platform, into a platform for business productivity. “Up until now, Facebook business applications have been simple versions of standard software like messaging or word processing,” says Coleman Barney, Linking Universe President and CEO. “Our product is the first application that let’s business people actively use a social network to get work done.”

Linking Universe is scheduled to debut in beta by January 31, 2008. It will be available for general release by the end of February 2008. Users will need a Facebook account and can access the beta free of charge from the Facebook applications directory. Interested parties can sign-up to be included in the beta at www.linkinguniverse.com/contact-us.

“The Linking Universe solution was created based on the realization that as college and university students move into the work force they will expect to use social networking skills in their professional lives,” said Cary Snowden, Vice President of Products. “Integrating social networking with sales-force automation and CRM is a natural evolution.”

About Linking Universe
Linking Universe is the first business relationship management application that allows you to unlock the value of your professional social network. The solution allows users to set-up a professional network of social contacts, and then manage and improve the network through the automation of business processes such as sharing referrals, sales-force automation and hiring. In addition, the company offers powerful analytics that help users understand and improve the value of their network. For more detail, visit www.linkinguniverse.com.

Press Contact
Cary Snowden
VP, Product Management and Marketing
csnowden@linkinguniverse.com
801.938.3466

Download a PDF of this release here: Linking Universe Announces Facebook Application

I just received a pre-release copy of Jesse Stay’s forthcoming book titled “I’m On Facebook, Now What?”, and I think it is fantastic.

For more information about the book, including availability, keep an eye on Jesse’s blog at http://www.jessestay.com/

Jesse Stay is co-author of the book with Jason Alba. They plan to release it by the end of January 2008.

The book is designed to help you figure out ‘how to derive professional, business and career benefits from participating in Facebook’. This, of course, appeals to Linking Universe because we, too, are concerned about bringing professional business applications to the Facebook environment, and to helping you better understand your social business network so that you can leverage it more effectively.

Jesse Stay has provided consulting services to our Linking Universe project and has been helpful in building our understanding of the expanding opportunities in Facebook applications. He is a Facebook expert and has successfully launched his own Facebook applications. His co-author, Jason Alba, wrote the book titled I’m on LinkedIn - Now What?.

In his introduction, Jesse Stay discloses that he has specifically written about Facebook because of the ‘tremendous growth and flexible development platform it provides’. We couldn’t agree more; these are the reasons we choose to launch our Linking Universe business applications into the Facebook environment. Jesse goes on to state that Facebook is ‘a very exciting social network that allows businesses and professionals an opportunity to promote their message, offering, and brand to a professional audience’. We are very excited about this, too.

The book gives good instruction and advice about starting a page in Facebook, taking advantage of applications, and incorporating Facebook into business practices. The book provides great advice about privacy, addresses Facebook do’s and don’ts, and offers some enlightening strategies for building and optimizing your social network.

Linking Universe gets a mention in the book as one of Jesse’s favorite Facebook applications. Jesse has been watching our development process as a consultant and has provided great advice along the way.

We are excited to see this book come to light, and wish Jesse and Jason the best of luck. I’m On Facebook - Now What? will be available as an eBook and in hard copy.