Facebook and Twitter have both been proven to be valuable sources of traffic to many sites, but another potential source that you might be overlooking is StumbleUpon. It is true that in the past, StumbleUpon has been presented as a traffic tool, but the results weren’t always what webmasters and marketers had hoped for.

StumbleUpon has been changing though. Last year, the company’s founders bought it back from eBay and have been busy ever since. They’ve been listening to users and playing catch up to the rest of the social media world and are now doing more for sites’ traffic than ever before. Have you seen much traffic from StumbleUpon in the past? How about more recently? Tell WebProNews readers.

At the recent SMX Advanced show in Seattle, WebProNews had a discussion on this very topic with Internet Marketing consultant Brent Csutoras. You can watch the entire conversation in the following clip.

More WebProNews Videos

In the past, Brent says you would get maybe three to five thousand visitors from StumbleUpon. "It was interesting, but it was just a little bit of traffic. It wasn’t enough to really drive a lot of time spent within the site," says Csutoras. Users were only getting random content, and it wasn’t all that great for links and targeted traffic, although it was always easy to see the potential of the technology.

Now since StumbleUpon has become more web-based this year with features like a web-based toolbar, a navigational section with popular & related content, StumlbeUpon buttons for webmasters to add to their sites, etc., the company has been driving people to participate and interact with other users more.  

According to Csutoras, StumlbeUpon went from 5 million users last year to 8 million this year, and they are now drawing a more social userbase that is prone to sharing content.

So What Does This Mean for Your Traffic?

Well, Csutoras says StumbleUpon is now capable of sending anywhere from thirty to two hundred thousand unique visitors over a period of a week. He knows this because he’s seen it (the example is mentioned in the interview).

Fortunately for webmasters and marketers, it doesn’t end there either. When StumbleUpon users are stumbling through content and they come across your content and like it, they are apt to share it through another network like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. That’s the beauty of the social web (and also a good reason to include as many sharing options on your content as possible).

If you weren’t already getting enough links from StumbleUpon, this opens the door for many more links as your content is spread from network to network – from reader to reader. This is basically (at least partially) where social media fits into the SEO equation.

Get Users to Stumble Through Your Content

StumbleUpon also has a partnership program, which Csutoras says is likely to expand (and apparently requires you to have 3,000 indexed pages within StumbleUpon). What this program does is allow you to place StumbleUpon’s technology on your site, so that readers can go through more of your content without actually being directed back to StumbleUpon at all. That means more time spent on your site.

Interesting Social Advertising Opportunities

StumlbeUpon also has a program where you can directly advertise through stumbles. Earlier this year, I interviewed the company’s VP of Business Development, John Bryan about this. Advertising through stumbles, means people get to vote ads up and down just like any other content. Not a bad way to gauge how effective an ad is.

Wrapping Up

So the moral of the story is, StumbleUpon has the potential to send some good traffic your way. It’s probably not going to happen all by itself though. You’re going to have to push it a little bit, and I don’t mean by spamming StumbleUpon. Create good content that people want to share. It’s the same principal that applies to every other facet of social media (and search engine) marketing. People will share what they like. Give them something to like. Also make stumbling a clear option on your content. Give them that button.

How have you encouraged users to stumble your content? Tell us what has or hasn’t worked for you.

Facebook has announced it has named David Ebersman, as its new chief financial officer.

Ebersman is the former executive vice president and chief financial officer of biotechnology firm Genentech. He replaces Facebook’s former financial chief, Gideon Yu, who left the company in March.

Ebersman will report to Chief Executive and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will be in charge of Facebook’s finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company’s executive management team, which runs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will officially start in September.

David Ebersman

"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark 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."

In March after the departure of Yu, Facebook said it was working towards its "next stage of growth," which led many to speculate about a possible IPO.

Facebook also said it was "looking for someone with public company experience," which it gets with Ebersman. He worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years and was the firm’s executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when the Roche Group purchased the company.

The way of the web has become very social, as you are more than likely aware. Fortunately, this makes for more widespread conversations about any and all issues that are deemed worthy of discussion by anyone on the Internet.

Unfortunately, it also opens up many pathways for abuse including spam, which can quickly turn a positive user experience into an ugly one.

As the web continues to become a more social animal, more and more webmasters find ways to make their own sites more social. Essentially, this makes for a web full of little social networks. A webmaster that is going this route may run into some of those spam issues right in the profile pages of his/her so-called users.

Jason Morrison of Google’s Search Quality Team has posted an interesting article on the company’s Webmaster Central Blog. Within this article are 8 tips for dealing with this social profile spam.

The tips are:

1. Make sure you have standard security features in place

2. Use a blacklist to prevent repetitive spamming attempts

3. Watch out for cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities

4. Consider nofollowing the links on untrusted user profile pages

5. Consider noindexing profile pages

6. Add a "report spam" feature to user profiles and friend invitations

7. Monitor your site for spammy pages

8. Watch for spikes in traffic from suspicious queries

Morrison elaborates on each of these, but I think you get the gist of it. "Google is constantly under attack by spammers trying to create fake accounts and generate spam profiles on our sites, and despite all of our efforts some have managed to slip through," he says, citing the tips as ways to make spammers’ lives more difficult.

It would appear that spam (in any form) just isn’t going to go away.  All you can do is use the tools and strategies that are at your disposal to minimize it and try to maintain a positive user experience. That’s what Google does.

When we think of Google’s competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft often come immediately to mind. We think of other search engines. There’s no question that Google is (by far) dominating this space. What do you think Google’s greatest source of competition is? Share your thoughts.

We all know that Google has its hands in many other projects beyond search, but even in search itself, it is not impossible that another could come along and win people over. Microsoft’s trying with Bing, and it could succeed. I’m not saying it will or that it is probable, but it is not impossible.

The rise of social media has put an interesting spin on the whole web dominance game, and has given Google even more to worry about. The company’s co-founder Larry Page has acknowledged publicly that Google has to get on board with real-time search, because Twitter search came along and highlighted a need that most people never saw coming, even just a couple years ago.

Facebook is much bigger than Twitter (so far), and it is getting more Twitter-like as time goes on. People can now make their Facebook status updates public (like Twitter). This means that real-time search is a need here too. Real-time search is only a piece of the puzzle though. Twitter search or Facebook search won’t replace the need for what Google search offers, but it’s part of the big picture.

Another part of the big picture is the government. The New York Times ran a piece, over the weekend looking at this, noting that some analysts say that government opposition could pose the biggest threat to Google.

"The Justice Department is examining the hiring practices at Google and other technology companies, and it is investigating a class-action settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers," explains the NYT’s’ Miguel Helft. "The Federal Trade Commission is looking into ties between the boards of Google and Apple."

You probably also remember the infamous Google-Yahoo deal that never was. You might say that Google’s greatest competition comes from Washington. Helft also brings up the negative impact such issues could have on the company’s reputation among users who have otherwise viewed Google in a positive light.

According to Helft, Google also says it’s competing with sites like Amazon, WebMD and Wikipedia, and in terms of ad dollars, Google is competing with "television, radio, print publications, bus stop benches and milk cartons." If you want to break down every aspect of Google’s offerings, you will be able to name a lot more competitors.

Google’s Senior Competition Counsel, Dana Wagner tells the NYT that Google could be dethroned if it stops innovating. I would agree with that to an extent, but you would have to throw some other elements into the mix, such as acquisitions and marketing.

Microsoft is throwing tons of money into the marketing of Bing, and so far it has managed to generate quite a bit of interest – perhaps more than the company has ever managed to do in the search industry. The consumer response has been mixed, but much of it has been positive. And Bing isn’t the only thing Google has to worry about.

The point to all of this is, Google has a lot of competition from all sides. So far, Google is doing a good job of staying on top of its game, but that doesn’t mean it is not vulnerable. It could take a perfect storm of occurrences, offerings, and marketing from other companies, the government, and consumer response to put a significant dent in Google’s dominance on the web, but to think of it as impossible, is naive. Google knows this, and has acknowledged it.

Do you agree that Google is vulnerable to competition? Tell WebProNews readers what you think.

Social networking has increasingly become more visible in the workplace, and its functionality is being leveraged by companies globally, according to a new survey from Frost & Sullivan.

A majority (80%) of respondents said they personally use Web 2.0 technologies to connect and share with friends and family while at work. More than half  (54%) said they use social media for professional purposes such as connecting with colleagues, generating leads, and working on projects.

Vanessa Alvarez

"However, despite the current hype of social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, social networking platforms are still perceived as being used only for social purposes," said Vanessa Alvarez, Industry Analyst with Frost & Sullivan’s Unified Communications practice.

"Enterprises, both big and small, are still just beginning to understand the potential of Web 2.0 tools and public and private social networking platforms. The next level of productivity will occur when enterprises can use these tools to go beyond the social aspect, and harness the unlimited potential of these tools to more effectively manage workflows and drive business."

Social networking sites are the most used Web 2.0 tool. Nearly three-fourths of respondents report using social networking sites for personal use within an organization. Besides social networking sites, other tools used include, blogs, wikis, and teamspaces.

The majority of respondents indicated that their organizations have written policies concerning the use and access of social networking sites. Among those individuals working at companies without a written policy, 80 percent work in organizations that allow access to such sites, despite no formal policies.

The survey also found client relations, advertising, marketing, and other business communications are not part of most organizations’ use of social media. The majority of respondents said their organizations use social media primarily for internal use, staff relations and training.

"Social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies are literally changing the way people think about collaboration, and how willing they are to share information," says Melanie Turek, Industry Principal with Frost & Sullivan’s Unified Communications practice.

"Organizations have always looked for ways to make their employees more collaborative; today, they need to look for ways to make their collaborative employees more effective."

Facebook is already the big boy of social networks, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the company really feels threatened by Twitter. Just look at some of the things they’ve done in recent memory.

Obviously, there was the move to the real-time news feed. Then they started highlighting the ability to receive SMS updates when your friends post status updates. This has long been one of the most appealing parts about Twitter to many people.

The other day, Facebook announced new settings for the publisher box, which allow users to control who gets to see their updates – including everybody – kind of like Twitter. Now, as Nick O’Neill at All Facebook has pointed out, if you look at your email notification settings, you will see a new option to receive a notification every time a user "connects to me as a fan." Keep in mind, this is separate from "adds me as a friend."

O’Neill connects this to the merging of Pages and profiles. "The combination of profile fans and the new granular publisher controls will help complete the twitterfication of Facebook."

It’s understandable that Facebook would worry about Twitter invading its market share. It kind of did the same thing to MySpace. Facebook does have a movie on the way, which should keep the social network fresh in people’s minds when its released. Meanwhile, you can’t turn on the TV without someone mentioning Twitter followed by a light-hearted chuckle. You can’t turn on the radio without hearing what somebody has tweeted. Then there’s the online world.

Should Facebook worry about Twitter? Should it continue to expand upon its own "twitterfication?" Comment here.

YouTube has launched a new page devoted solely to movie trailers. Question is, why are they just now adding it?

Are you surprised that YouTube just added this page. Let us know.

The page allows viewers to sort trailers by four tabs: popular, latest, in theaters and opening soon.

Below is what YouTube has to say about the new page…

"Summer is in full swing and that means summer movie season is right around the corner. Get a sneak peek at upcoming blockbusters by checking out our new Trailers page in the Movies section of our site. We have previews for some of the season’s most anticipated films, like "Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince" and the new Twilight movie, "New Moon." We’re adding new trailers frequently, so check back often."

Currently the most popular trailer on the page, with nearly 91,000 views, is "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" – shocking, I know.

What other sites do you visit to view movie trailers? Tell us.

Google said today that the number of videos filmed on mobile phones and uploaded to YouTube has increased 400 percent since the release of Apple’s iPhone 3GS last Friday.

The new device allows users to film video clips and upload them wirelessly to YouTube.

The increase is part of an overall trend with mobile uploads to YouTube surging by 1,700 percent in the last six months.

"This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements that make it easier to post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows people’s videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through social networks," Google said in an announcement.

"It takes just a minute to connect a YouTube account to Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts. People can complete a simple, one-time connection on the upload page to allow all their friends and followers to get a real-time stream of their uploads to YouTube."

In the video below, one iPhone 3GS user tests his new phone out in a swimming pool with surprising results.
 

Update: YouTube has made an official blog post saying they’re ready to start rolling out the new channels design. Here’s a new video about the redesign.
 

YouTube also says that all existing channels will change over to the new design on July 15.

Original Article: Earlier this year, it was discovered that YouTube was "secretly" testing a new design for channels. While there is no official date yet for when this will launch for all users, YouTube says the time is getting closer.

Since the cat escaped the bag, hundreds of thousands of users have managed to find their way to using the new design, the company says. That of course means tons of feedback.

Tons of feedback means that there have been quite a few features added and/or changed. Here is a big list of those features:

- You can now have the full range of ads on your channel

- Sort controls – sort by most viewed, date added, or highest rated

- Ratings stars can now be clicked

- Counts for the number of videos in each section (when in "all" view)

- When playing a video, the video title now links to the non-channel video watch page

- View a small number of video comments as well as leave a quick comment – just click the comments tab when watching any video

- Font size is now larger when browsing through videos

- You can make the list of your playlists your features content set (like the new White House Channel)

- New share controls underneath the video

- Endless loading circles should now be gone

- No more channels with messed up layouts

- Search box when looking at uploads

- Honors are back

- Video thumbnails are now larger

- More interaction options under the video player

- You can now feature a video by URL

- The subscribe button is yellow again

- You can choose a featured video

- You can link directly to a specific video and a specific playlist on your channel

- You can rearrange boxes on your channel with little arrows

- You can message users

- You can delete recent activity items

- Subscribe button appears when you’re looking at your own channel

- UI improvements

- Tons of bug fixes

These are most of the updates that have been made since April. There are still more to go though. A few things YouTube says they’re still looking at include:

- The ability to reorder your uploads, or your lists of playlists

- Making URL autolink (in both the video description, plus the channel profile area)

- Showing the upload date in the video description

- More bug fixes

- And more

There seems to be plenty of feedback flowing, and YouTube is clearly taking it all into consideration and applying changes, where it sees fit. They’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the last couple months, and from the sound of it, it won’t be long until all YouTube users will get to experience the new channels redesign without having to go out of their way to do so.

 What are your thoughts on the new YouTube Channels design? Share.

Google is traditionally the main area of focus when it comes to search engine optimization. With the search engine giant so far ahead of the game in terms of search market share, it’s not hard to understand why.

Search is changing though, and there are always new elements coming into play. Since social media has come into its own, more opportunities and questions have come along with it. Now Microsoft is going for Google’s throat with a new search engine and an aggressive marketing campaign. What this means for the future of search market share is yet to be determined, but there’s no denying Bing is capturing some attention, and that means there are people searching with it. Altered your SEO strategy for Bing? Tell us why.

SEO for Bing

Microsoft’s stance on search engine optimization really doesn’t appear to be all that different from Google’s. You’re not going to get the same results on both Google and Bing in many cases, but that is after all why the two can co-exist. The real difference is in how the results are presented, and not as much in how the two determine quality and relevancy.

Bing and Google have separate algorithms, but both like quality, relevant links and good content, as opposed to deception and spam. Bing in fact, hasn’t really changed much (from Live Search) in terms of crawling.

"There have been no major changes to the MSNBot crawler during the upgrade to Bing," Microsoft says in a Bing white paper for webmasters (pdf). "However, the Bing team is continuously refining and improving our crawling and indexing abilities. Note that the bot name hasn’t changed. It will still show up in the web server access logs as MSNBog."

Sidenote: Webmasters will want to acknowledge that Microsoft has increased the size limit of sitemaps from 10,000 URLs to 50,000. Google is also now supporting up to 50,000 "child sitemaps" of sitemaps index files.

Like I was saying, the biggest difference between the two search engines is in the presentation. Bing of course separates (some) results into categories. This has worried some search marketers, but Microsoft says good SEO will work just as well with this set up. Bing also has the explore pane (navigational menu on the left-hand side of search results), which corresponds with the categories in the SERPs. In some ways, this is similar to Google’s recent addition of "search options."

I discussed what Google’s search options would mean for SEO here. Basically, I just broke it down section by section, and you could do the same thing with Bing I think. Look at the keyword phrases you want to rank for, and see how Bing breaks it up. Let’s say "cell phones" for example. Bing gives you categories like shopping, brands, buying guide, providers, accessories, images, videos, and local.

This tells me that you want to play up the appropriate categories on your site, so that it shows up in the relevant categories on Bing. If you sell accessories, place emphasize that, and you’ll probably have a better shot ending up in that category. With Bing, it’s not about getting to the top of the SERP. It’s about getting to the top of the right part of the SERP. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Having quality and relevant (to that part of the SERP) content is the best thing you can do. Incidentally, this will probably help your cause in Google (and other search engines) at the same time.

"Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn’t change that. Bing’s new user interface design simply adds new opportunities to searchers to find what the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design," says Microsoft.

Curious About What Bing Looks for in Links?

Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently posted a pair of blog posts looking at what makes some links good and some bad. You may find some of these things familiar:

- "If you don’t feel you can endorse the quality of the content at another site, you shouldn’t be linking to them."

- Don’t seek links from sites whose content isn’t worthy of your endorsement.

- Links to and from your site should be relevant to your site (or at least the page you’re linking from/to)

- Focus on quality, not quantity. Few highly relevant links are better than a bunch of crap links

- Avoid "bad neighborhoods" like dedicated domains or IP ranges that do nothing but set up meaningless link exchanges.

- Avoid hidden text

You can’t stop bad links coming to your site. "We take the approach that bad inbound links won’t adversely affect your site ranking unless most or all of your inbound links are from bad sites," explains DeJarnette.

But in a nutshell, that’s essentially where Microsoft stands on SEO practices, or at least what they are giving to the public.

Social media Really Is Important to SEO

Social media definitely enters the SEO equation. "Effective social media management can be a tremendous source for generating buzz, those all-important inbound links and just plain direct referral traffic," says Mike McDonald of WebProNews, as he discusses a recent interview he did with SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin.

More WebProNews Videos

Facebook

Copyblogger has an interesting article about how Facebook is "killing SEO." I think that’s a bit sensationalist, but the points made by author Mike Wasylik are valid, nonetheless.

"The rise of Facebook creates a growing segment of the web that’s completely invisible to search engines – most of which, Facebook blocks – and can be seen only by logged-in Facebook users," he says. "So as Facebook becomes ever larger, and keeps more users inside its walled garden, your web site will need to appear in Facebook’s feeds and searches or you will miss out on an important source of web traffic."

"What’s the best way to keep your links in front of Facebook users?" asks Wasylik. "The ever-more-important linkbait strategy."

The term linkbait sometimes carries a negative connotation, but generally, again, it’s just good solid content that people want to link to.

Twitter

Twitter has gone from a confusing (to many) communication tool/social network, to that plus a way to  find information in real time. This means that it is a good idea to tweet regularly. When someone performs a search on Twitter, they are searching right now. The fresher the tweet, the more likely they are to see it.

But Twitter’s search implications are not limited to its own search. "Although Twitter is a social media tool meant to create community and relationships, it does have an SEO value," says Mihaela Lica at Sitepoint. "For example, Twitter can affect positively your Alexa rankings by sending visitors to your pages. Usage data is a sign of quality for Google and all the other search engines. If you can make people come to your site via Twitter, then this is an SEO advantage you cannot afford to miss."

With both Twitter and Facebook, good content that you create will be shared. The links within the social networks may not boost your rankings, but they can lead to more links outside of them. Either way, it is added exposure.

Wrapping Up

The roots of search engine optimization really haven’t changed that much. Creating great and fresh content is still your best bet. That’s what people will share, and that’s what will be considered relevant for searches it pertains to. For some great SEO tips and items of note, check out these recent articles:

What’s the Future of Search?

SEO Checklist with Vanessa Fox

SEO Ranking Factors for 2009

Could Comments Hurt Your Search Engine Rankings?

Google Improves Flash Indexing Capabilities

Google Changes to No-Follow on the Horizon?

Are SEOs the "Bad Guys?"

Google vs. Bing – Side by Side

What changes have you made to your SEO practices as a result of Bing’s release? Twitter? Facebook? Tell us what tweaks you’ve made.

I am a strong believer in the idea that comments increase the value of articles. This holds true on small blogs as well as large news sites. Comments expand the conversation, and can provide insight into the original subject matter that was lacking from the piece to begin with.

It is my opinion that the more discussion there is around any given topic, the more informed the reader is likely to be once they finish reading. That said, there are certainly plenty of useless comments out there as well. I’m referring specifically to spammy ones, and they can do more than just damage the reader’s experience, but in some cases, they may even affect search engine rankings.

Google Search Quality Analyst Fili Wiese recently tweeted about (hat tip to Barry Schwartz) an article from Richard Baxter at SEOgadget, which details how some spam comments appear to have affected the ranking of a specific page of his in Google’s search results.

Breaking out some Google Analytics data, Baxter shows us that one of his most popular keywords for driving traffic to his site had him ranking high in a search for that keyword until a few spammy comments about things like "hairy asian men naked," "nude female superheroes," and "large nipple galleries" were left on the page. Shortly after that, the page fell out of the rankings, but was re-included within 24 hours once the comments were finally deleted. See Baxter’s article for a graphical analysis of how all of this went down.

The moral of the story here is that while encouraging comments on your articles/blog posts is a good thing, it is also in your best interest to keep spam at a minimum. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but if you know that your rankings might be affected, you will have a little more motivation.

"Comment spam, missed by Akismet," says Baxter. "Don’t get me wrong, I think Akismet is amazing, but it can miss some types of comment spam. It’s probably my fault for not adding a verification or a CAPTCHA to my comments are but I don’t enjoy the experience on other blogs personally, so I choose to leave that off."

To be clear, Google has not come out and said that these spammy comments directly lead to a penalty. Even Wiese simply said the article was an interesting read. I would hardly call this confirmation. Baxter’s analysis is quite intriguing nonetheless.

Two recent reports illustrate the power of Twitter in two important metrics—driving visits and purchasing power. Hitwise analyzes overall downstream traffic for Twitter, while NPD Group takes a look at downstream purchases generated by Twitter.

Hitwise took a look at the most popular categories of downstream traffic for Twitter, comparing them with Facebook, Google UK and Hotmail. Nearly a quarter of Twitter’s downstream traffic goes to entertainment sites, and another ~15% went to social networks:

Source: Hitwise

Interestingly, Twitter also leads in downstream traffic to news & media sites, lifestyle sites and music sites—and, taken with a new study from NPD Group, that’s good news for the music industry. As Reuters reports:

active Twitter users buy 77 percent more digital music downloads on average than non-users. Additionally, 12 percent of those who have bought music in the last three months also report having used Twitter, versus 8 percent of overall Web users.

And that’s not all the good news for the music industry. NPD also found that:

• A third of Twitter users listened to music on a social network
• 41% of Twitter users listened to online radio—compared to 22% of all Internet users
• 39% of Tweeple watched a music video online—compared to 25% of all Internet users.
• Twitterers were more than twice as likely as average Internet users to visit MySpace Music or Pandora.

But is all that translating into revenue for record companies? Oh yeah:

• 33% of Twitter users bought a CD in the last three months—compared to 23% of all web users
• 34% purchased a digital download—compared to 16% of all Internet users
• On average, Tweeple purchased 77% more digital downloads—obviously, Twitterers spent more money when purchasing music.

Clearly, Twitter users are likely to click on music-related links and translate that action into purchases. What do you think—what should the music industry do to get more mentions on Twitter?

Comments

Friendfeed announced today that it has added a feature, which allows users to share files. Previously, users were able to upload photos, but now other documents like PDFs and spreadsheets can be shared.

"This has been an especially popular request from organizations and companies that collaborate using FriendFeed groups," says Dan Hsiao on the FriendFeed Blog. "We’ve certainly been using this feature internally and have found it extremely useful. We hope it’ll help make you and your collaborators even more productive, and a little more attached to FriendFeed."

To use the feature, just click the "files" link underneath the post box and select the fiels you want to include. Another convenient way to use the feature is to include files as attachments on emails sent to share@friendfeed.com, which posts to your feed right from your email program.

In addition, FriendFeed allows you to post to a group by emailing groupname@friendfeed.com or direct message somebody by emailing username@friendfeed.com.

The new file-sharing capabilities are sure to be much appreciated by the FriendFeed user base. I wonder if the feature will get abused.

Facebook launched the Live Stream Box today, which is a feature that lets website owners and developers enable Facebook users to connect, share, and post updates in real-time as they witness events online. Think CNN’s Facebook integration from the Presidential Inauguration.

"The first self-service Facebook Connect widget, the Comments Box, was released earlier this year, and is now used by hundreds of blogs, news, reviews and photo sites," a Facebook representative tells WebProNews. "They benefit from one click commenting and the ability to offer users a way to share their comments on the site and back on Facebook as a Feed story — both on that user’s Wall and in the user’s friends’ streams. Where the Live Stream Box is great for real-time events and live streaming, the Comments Box is for asynchronous commenting over time that can be archived and searched as a log for activity around a specific piece of content."

The Live Stream Box is intended for use with events like:

- concerts
- speeches
- sporting events
- webcasts
- TV Shows
- presentations
- webinars

The box can also be used with multi-player games, or anything else that has a bunch of people visiting your site at the same time. Facebook says the box is "built for scale," and can handle millions of viewers updating in real time.

For those interested in putting the Live Stream Box on their Facebook Page, a post at Facebook’s Developer Blog highlights an offering from Ustream, which recently featured a series of Jonas Brothers webcasts.

To use the Live Stream Box on your site, users just log-in via Facebook Connect and share their updates, which appear in the box as well as on their profiles and in their friends’ streams.

One part that webmasters and marketers will particularly like is the fact that updates will automatically include links back to the box on your site. This creates an opportunity to bring more people to your site.