Today my HootSuite client was offline for a while, which was a big surprise. In general Hootsuite is a very reliable service. Fortunately, I was informed this was due to a remarkable update. Some time late I noticed significant changes to the social media dashboard beginning with a completely refreshed HTML5 user interface, plus geo-located search, native Twitter ReTweets, and integrated Google Analytics.

For me Hootsuite was already the best Social Media dashboard for both personal and team based social media management. Today’s improvements prove Hootsuite continuously keeps improving its service.

Two weeks ago Facebook launched a new social plugin (”like” button) that works with the Open Graph protocol as part of the strategy to make the Web more social and personalized. The button spreads across the internet and it’s clear that websites’ owners quickly embraced the new social plugin.

There is already a lot of controversy around the plugin. Some people wonder how it will influence the privacy on the net? Many people feel Facebook will soon dominate most of our online experience. Some don’t like that FB is selling user’s private information to marketing companies. Will it affect Twitter or Digg? How will it change advertising and marketing strategies? Time will tell.

The adoption of social media is increasing at high speed. You only have to watch the impressive increase of Twitter and Facebook accounts. They offer both new opportunities and challenges to stand above the crowd. If you listen to all the advice there is hardly any way to escape from it. On the other hand the group of users is still rather small. Besides many accounts are hardly used and there is a big group of very passive users. Depending on your type of business this means you have to analyze carefully where you can meet your potential clients. Because there is still a big chance you have to meet them offline! The social media area might still be a geek domain.

A few days ago (6th of November) the third version of .Net SDK for Facebook was released. This release has major new features like Silverlight and ASP.MVC support. What this means to Silverlight community?  Below you will find my first impressions and remarks.

Today TweetDeck has released v0.30 of their very successful Twitter desktop client. They claim that this release brings your friends even closer than before. From today you can fully manage your Facebook wall and pages and MySpace integration is available as well. But does this bring your friends closer? Let’s give it a try!

If you don’t know what to do with your time register for every available social network. But for me keeping all my social network accounts up to date is taking too much time. It’s possible to use all kind of tools to link all different networks, but what’s use in it? Is that social? Couldn’t we just all together agree to use just one or two social networks? Which one would win? Please vote on our poll!

Last week I mentioned many people were waiting for the Facebook 3.0 update on the iPhone. Honestly, I wasn’t. I used not to be such an intensive user of the previous version. The interface didn’t satisfy me, besides hardly any of my European friends were using Facebook and Twitter took most of my “free” time. Curious as I am I decided to install this new version to give it a try. Some days later I have to admit that I am still positively surprised about the major change of the usability of the application. But I have a major remark as well.

Many people have been waiting for the Facebook 3.0 update on the iPhone. Its available in the App Store now and therefore the major question that has to be answered is: What’s new? Will it improve the Facebook experience when using the iPhone? The bottom line answer is yes. Facebook 3.0 offers you a completely new Facebook experience on the iPhone. I will describe some of the main new features.

If you follow the latest trends, you’ve probably heard about a new fashion that has started in advertising – it’s called Social Network Marketing. It’s a new way to promote your products using conversation rather than traditional advertising. It gives you an opportunity to show your company’s human side, strengthen your brand and get new customers. In the face of growing popularity of social network sites, this kind of promotion will probably become a core of all campaigns and business strategies. The race has begun and it’s up to you, whether you make use of social network sites or just stand aside and watch.

Quite a Big Bang, that is a pretty good expression about a growing phenomenon of social networking. The popularity of sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is increasing at astonishing rates, especially this last one. Although Twitter still has a long way to go, I am really amazed by its growth rate. Along with the one-millionth word in English language – Web 2.0 – we obtained a decent tool, which can be used in a number of ways. But they also pose new challenges!