Americans spent more time on social networks while online than any other online activity in 2012:

Read the original article on Mashable

The question on everyone’s mind: Instagram Video vs Vine, who’s going to Win?

Image from Image from http://tech2.in.com/

Vine has finally gathered enough momentum to even divert pervs from Instagram to it’s superior image… (Nope, click on the image)… it’s superior mobile video sharing platform. And in spectacular Silicon Valley fashion: Facebook’s mobile photo-sharing giant struck back!!

With Instagram’s video feature being launched last week to rival the former “Instagram for video”; the blogospere started crying from http to http with some comments that were for and many that were against this change from the gem that Facebook picked up for $1 billion in cash and stock in 2012. Voices were professing the doom of Instagram and how this was just another one of Facebook’s many attempts at courting attention away from Twitter (Twitter acquired Vine in 2012 for a reported $30 million).

Well, the naysayers were proven wrong… once again. Facebook’s photo/video sharing application courted shares on Twitter surpassing those of Vine’s within its first hours post-inception. Vine’s shares, consequently, decreased by more than 50%! From reaching a peak of 2.9 million shares on June 15 to a “mere” 1.35 million on June 21.

Which just happened to be the day after Instagram Video was launched.

And it looks like the Billion-User Social Network wins again… for now.
Stay tuned for the Epic Vine Pivot!Follow us @ZooLooConcepts

What Would Peter Thiel Do?

Peter Thiel is a very well known name in Silicon Valley for his major contribution to the current internet-revolution. He co-founded the giant online payment service PayPal in 1998 and got thoroughly immersed inside the tech-business world that is Silicon Valley. Immediately after selling PayPal to eBay for $1.5-Billion he started a global macro hedge fund, Clarium Capital.

In 2004, he became the first outside investor for Facebook- investing $500 000 into the company for a 10.2% share and a seat on the board of directors. In 2012, he managed to sell over 16-million of his shares totaling in a sale of more than $1 billion in shares.

But other than just Facebook, he’s made various early-stage investments in companies/startups such as: Asana, Big Think, Friendster, LinkedIn, Quora and many others.  Most of these companies have played their own individual and significant roles within the greater startup -ecosystem that currently exist: “From” Friendster spawned Myspace which was then superseded by Facebook. Also “from” Friendster spawned a new kind of social networking website, aimed at professionals : LinkedIn.  And from Facebook came… well everything else! I guess it’s safe to say that Mr. Thiel has or has had his finger in almost every pivotal-startup-pie.

So I’ve given you a brief introduction as to who Mr. Theil is- but why mention him today?

I have recently started to read a collection of class notes in the form of “startup essays” taken from his StartUp Classes. I found that Judicata, the blogger/student delivers his lessons in an easy, comprehensible and vivid “study-guide”  manner that makes learning from these paraphrased essays a breeze .

If you go on to Blake Masters you’ll be introduced and directed to the first of these notes and essays from the StartUp classes.

He also offers some great insight on:

• Secrets
• War and Peace
• “Thiel’s Law”
• The Mechanics of Mafia
• Founder as Victim, Founder as God

Check out this light, startup-friendly learning base on Blake Masters

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Verified Accounts on Facebook… What took so long?

Image taken from TechCrunch Article

Hey LOOK! Facebook finally caught up with the “Verified” hype!!!

That took a while though, right? I mean, how many times have you heard someone saying: “Dude, I’m so cool. I have David Beckham as a friend on Facebook”. And you just knew that this naivety was the result of a fake celebrity account.

Personally, I’ve been hearing people speak like that ever since I started abusing using Facebook. Once I started using Twitter, I wondered why Facebook couldn’t also “authenticate” celebrity accounts?

But I guess good things come to those who wait? Who knows, maybe they’ve found a way to not only add but maybe even improve the feature? Only time will tell… Again.

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Facebook Notes vs Tumblr – Do Bloggers want this?

From TechCrunch Article:”Expect Facebook To Turbocharge ‘Notes’ Into A True Tumblr Competitor”

Would a blogging feature on Facebook that actually competes with Tumblr be appreciated in the Blogging Community?

Most might be thinking: why would it not be? Well, if we take a look at how the ‘blogosphere’ operates right now; we’ll see that there are a few ways that Facebook Notes could cause a series pf continental faults:

• Most bloggers are known by their user names, whereas Facebook only accommodates your authentic Personal Information… because the point of Facebook is to be found.
  The point of Tumblr is to be heard.
• The comment button on a Facebook post: both a gift and a curse. The good thing about it is that you are now able to see what your readers thought about your work. But that goes both ways though. You know those mean individuals who always scowl at the sight of good things and talk negatively about everything? Well, they exist online as well. Except here, their voices are heard from far and wide. By HUNDREDS of people. And Facebook users are famous for starting week long conversations on posts about things that aren’t even related to the post.
• People go to Facebook to socialize, not read an in-depth review of a new this or that or your 500-word opinion on the current mandate of the Cabinet.

The question is, why would we need this?

Okay, we know why Facebook would need to revamp “Notes”. Over the years, sharing on social media has developed two tiers:

• Twitter- which offers little micro-blog posts that users manage to share at an alarmingly rapid and continuous rate! These micro-blog-posts give us snippets of insights of the “Tweebs'” life- in the moment.
• Facebook, however, offers a second tier of sharing. It gives the user a platform to post up “updates” from the user’s life that are longer than 140-characters… Not only that- but you can also attach photos, videos and links to your posts. This further extended your insight into the user’s life and gave the user a space to truly share (something meaningful) to the masses. Facebook updates are normally a lot less frequent and we assume that the users on our timelines actually think through the relevance of every post before they “Send” it

This is all fair and well but blogs are about more than just giving people updates about how your day was or what you saw yesterday and who did this and that to you. Blogs are places for writers to develop their writing skills and at the same time share those well-thought-of and well edited pieces of literature to the masses. No one “skims” a blog.

Facebook is different, you just read/listen/watch/look at what caught your attention; marvel at it and perhaps even actually have a genuine “LOL moment” but then it’s on to the next one. Now…  bringing that culture of content consumption to our 21st Century “Globe Theatre”  could, over time, hurt the whole culture dramatically.

Soon, we’ll have “blog posts” looking like this:

I don’t know if this is what online publication needs right now.

Follow us on Twitter @ZooLooConcepts and tell us what you think or Just tell us on the comment box