Social Media Minute: Facebook Rings Up $1 Billion, Yammer Drops the Domain

By Jason Harris (@harrisja) Mar 3, 2010

Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:

Social Nets Changing News Consumption Patterns
HootSuite Mobile Apps Make Twitter Business Friendly
Facebook To Bring In $1 Billion in Revenue
Yammer Opens Up To Communities

Social Nets Changing News Consumption Patterns

How do you get your news nowadays? Chances are, with the Internet and the various means of collecting information, it is different today than it was 10 years ago. Pew, an research firm, sought out to find out how social networking has changed news consumption in today's networked world.

In polling more than 2,000 American adults, Pew recently released a report that showed 75% of Americans receive and that 52% of folks distribute news via the same channels. Glued to your TV when news breaks? Then you are in good company with 78% of Americans saying they use local news as one avenue for getting news and information. Only 6% of folks say they only utilize one method for becoming informed about news and events.

The lesson: if you are a media operator, online, print or broadcast, you must think about harnessing multiple mediums if you are trying to gain eyeballs and attention. The American public, according to Pew, is one that seeks to gain information and insight from multiple channels, perhaps at the same time. This means some folks are online via their laptops while watching local news. Obviously, the old model of mass media, one-way distribution is dead…long live personal media!

HootSuite Mobile Apps Make Twitter Business Friendly

Many business users who utilize Twitter for brand management, community building and conversation tracking desire a Twitter client that is different than your 'typical' Twitter user. Online Twitter apps such as CoTweet and Hootsuite allow multiple users to utilize a singular Twitter account, track conversations and search terms and utilize many accounts at one time. HootSuite is a very popular professional Twitter client, and a new mobile application brings the great functionality to your nearest iPhone or Android device.

Newly released Hootsuite 1.2 for the iPhone adds Facebook functionality and a new landscape view for a very affordable US$ 1.99 price tag. Hootsuite for iPhone has long supported multiple Twitter account access, TwitPic availability, message scheduling and trending topic display. Hootsuite has also released a free version that lacks unlimited account support and click through rate.

Joining the iPhone app is a new Android app. Hootsuite for Android supports all the above features, but adds background processing and alerts. Thanks to Android's multi-tasking ability, Hootsuite can add these background abilities to an already robust mobile application.

For those looking for a professional Twitter tool on either the iPhone or Android platforms, Hootsuite might be worth a look. In the least, it's worth downloading the free version to get a feel for what Hootsuite may have to offer for your professional tweeting on the go.

Facebook To Bring In $1 Billion in Revenue

According to a Facebook focused weblog Inside Facebook, the popular social networking site generated about US$ 700 million in the year 2009. So far for 2010, Facebook is on track to generate about US$ 1 billion in revenue — which is a very dramatic figure, pointing to the site's ability to generate and maintain a viable business model. Since 2007, Facebook's revenue has doubled year over year, enabling it to reach the magical $1 billion mark (so far) this year.