We’ve decided to start a Friday routine, for our own and our readers benefit, in which we discuss the main social media movements that drew our attention, impressed us or we simply consider worth mentioning and sharing. We welcome all sort of comments and discussions since we would want to hear further opinions from people interested in the same fields as we are.

Facebook

This week was all about Facebook. Our CEO, Markku Nummila attended the Facebook event in San Francisco, so we are definitely going to feature a more detailed article with his conclusions and opinion about the presentation. Facebook introduced a series of changes and strategic partnerships that are meant to assure their leadership on the social networks hierarchy. Whether we are talking about the fact that Facebook tots up 41% of all the traffic on social media or that they are planning on killing Facebook Connect, Facebook got a lot of press this week. What mostly attracted our attention were their new rules regarding privacy settings. In our opinion, these changes fall a little short of expectations and Facebook might soon face another round of accusations due to continued privacy issues.

We also regard as valid Pete Cashmore’s opinion, featured on CNN, about how Facebook plans to win the web. Although the future looks brighter than ever for Facebook, the social network shouldn’t forget their main advantage, an impressive 400 million users. Users don’t like switching social networks, but time has proven that this happens if their current social network doesn’t meet their needs. Two relevant examples are those of MySpace and Bebo. Facebook users have created a whole social environment based on their Facebook profile, but at some point they might decide to abandon their current “home”, and start all over on another platform. Facebook enriches user experience, but we wonder how many users actually want their whole life to depend on Facebook?

Foursquare acquisition

Even though Facebook stole the spotlight on the social media scene, there was another social network that raised questions and comments this week. Yahoo’s intention of acquiring Foursquare for the impressive sum of $125 million raised a lot of questions whether this is the right move for the blooming social network. Foursquare’s CEO, Dennis Crowley has declared in various interviews that he sees a great future for Foursquare. We tend to believe the same thing, that, selling Foursquare is not the best move for the social network right now. The reason is not because most social networks that were bought like Flickr, Delicious or Bebo stopped evolving or were shut down after the acquisition, it is more due to the fact that such a great idea as Foursquare should receive the type of dedication that only the founder can invest. A large company will invest money if it foresees the financial potential of the company, but the founder will invest that and much more.

Brand Butlers trend

This is the trend featured by trendwatching.com in their latest brief, and though it wasn’t launched this week it attracted our attention. It discusses the importance for brands of exceeding consumer expectations. Consumers are now expecting that brands guess and preview their needs. We consider this a very important topic in an era where consumer’s loyalty is more difficult to achieve, as competition is growing every day. This trend is related to social media because we consider it a relevant channel that could help companies to become these “brand butlers” that consumers are going to expect companies to be in the future. Social media is definitely a way to add value to a product or a service, and used correctly it can help companies to forecast the needs of their clients and be omnipresent where the consumer might need them.

We look forward in hearing your opinion about the subjects discussed this week. Share your thoughts in the comment section.