SEATTLE, WA (MMD Newswire) July 20, 2009 -- Sharein officially launches a web browser tool that enables users to share links to their friends, family and customers extremely easily. Sharein is fast and simple. Users can save time by sharing links 60% faster via email. Twitter and Facebook sharing is as simple as two clicks.
Most Internet users dread the hassle of copying long web addresses (URL) so they can share interesting articles or videos. Long URLs are not email friendly as the link can be broken when it is re-shared. And long URLs dramatically increase the chance for typographical errors. Sharein addresses this by enabling automatic link sharing within a single click on any webpage.
Sharein saves time by automatically capturing a webpage's address (URL), title, and description. Sharein also creates a thumbnail image so your friends can preview the webpage before clicking on it. Sharein provides a huge convenience by saving your most commonly emailed friends, as well as your Twitter and Facebook profile for instant sharing.
"Discovering good content on the Internet has become an increasingly social activity. You are more likely to read an article that was shared to you from a good friend," says Colin Wong, CEO of Sharein. Before this, Colin worked in Google and was involved in the successful launch of Google's AdSense products.
"Link sharing is only one half of the story. What happens after you've shared a link? What is the impact of your share? How many people did you reach? How many people viewed it? How many people re-shared your link to their friends?" asked Colin. Knowing this information helps you understand how you influence others. Sharein gives social influencers a great tool to help them understand the impact of their shared links. Sharein provides reports and graphs to illustrate reach, clicks and re-shares across email, Facebook and Twitter.
For Sharein, it is about simplicity, easy-of-use and speed. Why share links the hard way when Sharein does all the work for you?
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According to telegraph, the world biggest network, Facebook, is seeking more revenue from its 150 million user database for the world's largest market research databases, hoping to receive $15bn (£10.4bn) value.
The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to some of the most influential business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook's global markets director and sister of founder Mark Zuckerberg, 24, said multinational companies had been bowled over by the ability to receive real-time feedback from the site's millions of users.
"I had tonnes of people saying 'this could be so incredible for our business'. It takes a very long time to do a focus group, and businesses often don't have the luxury of time. I think they liked the instant responses," she said.
At the conference, Facebook asked a range of questions to its users around the world, before feeding the answers back to delegates within minutes. It selectively-targeted users in Palestine and then Israel with the same question about global peace, before debating the results at a discussion forum. It also asked 120,000 US members whether US President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package would be enough to save the US economy. Almost 60pc said it would not.
"Davos is really a key place to launch an instant tool like this," Ms Zuckerberg said. "It's beneficial for everyone to see us as a global community of 150m users. The vast majority are not just college students in the US talking about things in their bedrooms. We are showing how we are a serious and insightful community."
Facebook's presence at the economic and business summit is a radical image change for the social network, which is stereotyped as a website used by students or schoolchildren. It now promotes Facebook users as "serious and insightful" adults in an attempt to advertise its members as a useful demographic for marketers.
Marketing experts have said the vast amount of personal information Facebook holds, together with the loyalty of its users, could be worth "untold millions" to companies engaged in market research.
The power of Facebook, and its members, in driving corporate decisions was illustrated last year, when a campaign on the site led to Cadbury reversing its decision to withdraw the popular Wispa chocolate bar. Cadbury has sold 70m Wispas since it reintroduced the bar in October after the Facebook campaign attracted 40,000 signatories.
Facebook has already sold the new polling system, called engagement ads, to CareerBuilder, a global graduate recruitment company, and AT&T, the US telecoms giant, is trialling the system. A Facebook spokesman said the company's advertising department is marketing the new service to thousands of companies worldwide and it hopes the polls will go live this spring.
All the company's previous attempts to monetise the site have failed after members railed against the site's invasion of their privacy. Mr Zuckerberg pulled Beacon, a service that notified users of their friends' purchases on external sites such as Amazon, after members launched a campaign in December 2007.
Mr Zuckerberg said the coming year will be "intense" for Facebook as advertising revenue dries up.
Facebook was valued at £10.4bn in 2007 when Microsoft paid £175m for a 1.6pc stake, but analysts have dismissed the valuation as "ridiculous" as the site has failed to find ways of exploiting its vast membership for commercial gain. Madan Sheina, at technology consultancy Ovum, said: "With the economy spiralling into a downturn, that figure might seem to be exaggerated right now."
The company has denied reports that it is so strapped for cash that it has been forced to approach Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds for emergency funding. It has also cancelled plans to allow employees to sell off their shares early because of the economic climate.
Market research company eMarketer recently cut its estimate of advertising spending on the social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, this year by £351m to £912m. It said US advertising spending on Facebook
will fall by 20pc to £147m.
Rival research company IDC said advertisers are turning their backs on social networking sites because they have a lower "click-through rate" than traditional online ads. Only 57pc of social network site users clicked on an advertisement and made a purchase last year, compared to 79pc on the internet at large.
Experts at Deloitte said Facebook is suffering from the double-whammy of collapsing advertising revenue and the soaring cost of electronic data storage. Deloitte estimates that the cost of storing photos and videos on sites like Facebook has increased by more than £70m a year.
"The book value of some social networks may be written down and some companies may fail altogether if funding dries up,'' said Paul Lee, Deloitte director of research for technology and telecommunications. "Average revenue per user for some of the largest new media sites is measured in just pennies per month, not pounds.
"This compares with a typical average revenue per user of tens of dollars for a cable subscriber, a regular newspaper reader or a movie fan.''
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