It seems I’ve been talking to people about nothing but Facebook lately. I have had so many inquiries from businesses or entrepreneurs who say something along the lines of “I want to do a site like Facebook, except ours will…” that talking about a new web project with us lately seems to center on little else.

Its exciting that Facebook gave us their Facebook Connect interface which allows us to build online communities that utilize your FB login, as well as all your profile information. So I would ask you: why try to start your own social network right now that just creates another ’silo’ of friends, photos, and infomration. People have too many silos as it is: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, the list goes on and on.  And, it should be mentioned, that people will ultimately grow tired of your silo when they decide not to keep up with so many accounts across so many sites. People are already tired of the silo effect- how many Facebook users do you know that converted from Myspace?  Yeah, that’s what I thought- a lot, and that’s pretty common right now.

Facebook gives us the answer by providing a single login that will work on any site that uses Facebook Connect. So now, instead of building your own social network, you just piggy-back on FB’s unbelievable success. (85% growth in 2008 is not too shabby)

We’ve signed several of these projects lately and that’s a trend that is going to continue, unless I miss my guess. What’s got me excited today is that the good people at the ‘book have continued their movement towards a more socially connected Web and provided Facebook Connect for iPhone. With 30 million iPhones sold, that means that we have another rich and engaging platform that we can now access and interact with using the social network that everyone seems to be a part of these days.

I was talking to the guys at Resolute Games about an idea that I had for an iPhone app that we could then offer to our customers. I’m just dying to find a project where we can develop an iPhone app that will somehow tie into our other Internet marketing efforts on some project or another. Talk about having some potential to engage your audience… iPhones and Facebook seem to be a match made in heaven for time-killing!

This is exciting news for web designers and e-marketers alike! Google has released a new method for using Google Analytics with Flash!

Yesterday, at the Adobe MAX Conference in San Francisco, a joint collaboration between Adobe and a some third party developers announced a simplified solution for tracking Flash content called Google

Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash. I have had the opportunity to work with many clients who have used the power of Google Analytics to identify and analyze trends on their web sites. But, one of the most common implementation challenges has been tracking Flash content on their pages. With this launch, tracking your Flash content has never been simpler.

What It’s All About
This feature is a translation of the current Google Analytics tracking code into the ActionScript 3 programming language that dramatically simplifies the ability to track Flash, Flex and AS3 content. This new Flash tracking code can be used to track Flash content such as embedded videos, branded microsites and distributed widgets, such as online games.Now it’s simple for Flash content developers to answer questions like: How many people have watched my video? Are we developing the right creative that attracts new users? How effective is my content at getting people to take action? The ability to answer these questions is now a reality, and the best thing is that they’re providing our entire AS3 code base under the Apache 2 License as Open Source! [From Want to track Adobe Flash? Now you can!]

I came across this article on A List Apart that deals with web copy and I think it is a great read for anyone who has website with copy that doesn’t further your brand or properly convey your message.

We consistently work with clients who have copy on their site that doesn’t properly convey their message. Understanding how narrow your window of opportunity is that you have to reach your target audience means that you need to have effective copy that gets right to the point and properly conveys your message. Check this article out:

Most web copy is still being written by people who aren’t writers and don’t have time. The good news? Anyone who touches copy can make a difference by insisting that every chunk of text on the site do something concrete. [From Writing Content that Works for a Living]