Stumbleupon Add-ons for Firefox

StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more. Visit the below page for some Stumbleupon Add-ons for Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/138

With StumbleUpon you can also connect with friends and share your discoveries, meet people that have similar interests, and check out what other people are discovering.

Digg Add-ons for Firefox

Digg This! 0.7

Digg This! 0.7 is Firefox add-on that Adds Digg This! to the right-click menu, Tools menu, and optionally the toolbar… The Digg This! extension speeds up the process of submitting stories to the news website digg.com

The best thing about it is that it lets you know of the story has been dugg. Otherwise there are better options out there. When you use it to “digg” a story you’re taken to the submission page but nothing is filled out four you. Unlike the “Digg This” extension (or various greasemonkey scripts) you have to fill out *everything* when submitting a link. But my biggest complaint is that you’re stuck with status bar placement. Right now I’ve got 7/8 of my statusbar filled with stuff from other extensions. I’d really like to be able to move this someplace else. Someplace that I could see it better. There is no option to do so. It’s statusbar or nothing. I’ve got so much on my statusbar right now that it’s original purpose is almost gone..

Digg Firefox Extension 0.7
The Digg Extension for Firefox provides a light and streamlined approach to staying connected to the latest popular content on Digg. Everything you need is placed under a Digg menu found at the top of the browser.

Current Page Details:

As you browse the Web, you can see whether or not the web page you are currently viewing has been submitted to Digg and, if not, it lets you submit it with just one click.

If the page has already been submitted to Digg, the extension displays:

* the current number of Diggs the page has
* the number of comments the story has
* the last 10 Diggers
* the 10 most popular comments
* the first sentence of the story description
* previous stories submitted to Digg from the same URL (if any exist)
* any other stories submitted to Digg from the same domain (if any exist).

Clicking any of these options opens the Digg story in a new tab.

Content Spotlight:

You’ll also find recent story submissions, recently popular stories, the top ten stories, and the hottest Upcoming stories. For each of these, the extension shows the Digg and comment count updated in real time. Clicking on any of these take you to the story in a new tab so you don’t lose track of your current page. Want to try something different? Click on the Random Story link to see a random story on Digg.

Follow Your Friends:

If you are logged into Digg when using the extension, the extension will show your friends latest Diggs, submissions, and comments.

Marketers Adopt Social Media for Consumer Insight and Internal Collaboration

In a recent survey from the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Social Media Council, in partnership with HeadMix, 60% of DMA members representing nearly 40% of the Fortune 100 said that social networking can influence their company’s brand awareness in a significant way. Roughly 15% acknowledged social networking platforms as a core part of their business, 35% verified that trials of social networking programs are underway at their companies, and 25% said that they are currently evaluating their social media strategies. At the same time, though, most respondents classified their knowledge of social media as either beginning or average, and less than 25% said that they are “actively engaged” in social media.

Social media can also capture consumer insights, more than 45% of respondents said. However, among those surveyed, social media was not a dominant means for soliciting feedback; rather, traditional methods such as online customer satisfaction surveys, direct feedback from employees, and online customer forums remained the chief sources of insight.

Interestingly, respondents also highlighted internal collaboration as a benefit of social media. More than 70% currently use external social networks for better teamwork among employees, and more than three-fourths claim that these tools, including blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds, and mobile applications, have internal value.

Despite the high interest in social media, however, some companies have been reluctant to fully embrace it for its lack of quantifiable business value and security and privacy concerns. Other barriers to adoption respondents identified include opportunity for abuse by employees.

-Amanda Richter

Internet Usage among Children on the Rise

A new survey by Nielsen Online highlights the importance of leveraging the online platform for marketing to children. According to Nielsen’s figures, the number of kids online has increased 18% in the past five years, while the total online population grew only 10% in that period. In May 2009, the number of children between the ages of two and 11 that logged onto the Internet reached 16 million, or 9.5% of the active online population at-large. The growth of kids online has even outpaced the overall population growth of children in the U.S., where kids under the age of 14 are projected to decrease one percent between 2004 and 2010, according to a U.S. Census Bureau statistic cited by Nielsen.

The amount of time spent online also increased in the last five years. In May 2004, the average time spent online was seven hours; in May 2009, that figure jumped 63% to more than 11 hours. Among the total Internet population, online time grew only 36% in the same period.

The rapid growth has been split almost evenly between boys and girls, but Nielsen Online found that each gender uses the Internet differently. On average, boys spent seven percent more time online than girls, yet girls viewed nine percent more web pages than boys in May 2009. Online video viewership was nearly equal, with 5.1 million boys and 5.2 million girls watching online videos in May. However, boys led girls in the number of video streams consumed (61%) and time spent watching videos (57%).

-Amanda Richter

Facebook Announces New Chief Financial Officer

Facebook has named David Ebersman, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer of the biotechnology company Genentech, its new chief financial officer (CFO). Ebersman will report to Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates,” said Zuckerberg. “We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook.”

Starting in September of this year Ebersman will be responsible for managing Facebook’s finances, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. Additionally, he will become a member of the company’s executive management team–a role that oversees all areas of company strategy, planning, and operations.

On being hired Ebersman said, “After meeting with Mark and the rest of the team, I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s drive and sense of purpose to help people connect and share.” He added, “Mark is constantly pushing the company forward and he’s assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I’m excited to join this effort and this new industry.”

Prior to getting hired at Facebook, Ebersman spent 15 years at Genentech, were he worked as the company’s executive vice president and CFO for nearly three years. Before that position, he was senior vice president of Product Operations.

-Melanie Saxe

Bing adds Real-Time Twitter to Search Results

As part of an effort to integrate real-time data into search results, Microsoft has announced that its one-month-old search engine Bing now includes the latest tweets of Twitter users. While Bing will not feature all of Twitter at this time, it will index a few thousand of the more prominent Twitterers based on their follower count and volume of Tweets. The list of Twitter users includes everyone from search technology journalist Danny Sullivan to people like Al Gore and Ashton Kutcher.

In a blog post about the announcement, general manager of Microsoft’s search technology center Sean Suchter wrote, “There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created primarily by Twitter. We’ve been watching this phenomenon with great interest, and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space.”

When Bing users search for people in association with Twitter, the search results will bring up their latest Tweets along with a quick link to more tweets. Users can type in queries such as “Ashton Kutcher Twitter” or “Ashton Kutcher tweets.”

This is a major step for Bing in terms of competing with search giant Google. The New York Times reported that while all major search engines index Twitter profiles and some older tweets, “Bing is the first major search engine that is integrating with Twitter in this way.”

-Melanie Saxe