Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

In response to continuous growth, Facebook has borrowed another $100 million, this time from TriplePoint, a venture capital firm.

While the social networking site claims to have about 70 million monthly unique or active worldwide users, comScore pegs the number of monthly users much higher, at around 109.2 million.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in early 2008 that the company would spend over $200 million in capital expeditures, while also more than doubling the workforce at that time of 450. Now it seems that number may be more like 700 to 800 new workers. Most of the money will be targeted to new servers.

The recurring theme of looking back to the "good old days" by media executives continues on, as many still struggle to find ways to monetize their digital efforts.

On Wednesday at the Argyle Executive Forum on Leadership in Media in New York, this message was reiterated again, as most of those in attendance were executives from old media companies, and they complained of the inability to make the transition at this time.

This is the same old problem of looking at the big profits of the 1980s through the 1990s, and lamenting the loss of those days. The problem is that time period was unique to the industry, and those profits won't be coming back. The 1960s and 1970s were also unique as the habits of consumers changed, and many afternoon papers were shuttered. This also resulted in earnings soaring for the industry.

Within about a month, MySpace (NYSE:NWS-A) users will be able to share their profiles or and personal information on any Web site. As traffic on the site slows down, this would give the social networking site a chance to expand beyond a sole destination on the Web.

"Today, MySpace no longer operates as an autonomous island on the Internet," said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive and co-founder of the site. "We're hoping to create a significantly more social experience across the Web."

In April traffic to the site dropped by 16 percent over the same month a year ago, according to Hitwise, although it still accounts for close to three-quarters of all social networking traffic in the U.S.

How it will work is MySpace users will be able to use a central privacy control panel, where they will be able to decide which information they're willing to share with others and which specific sites they want to share it with.

Admitting that he knew the pornography he sent and received over the Internet involved minors, former San Francisco radio talk show host Bernie Ward pleaded guilty today to one count of distributing child pornography.

Ward admitted, "I engaged in exchanging an image of a minor engaging in sexually explicit activity."

His lawyer asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to "defer the acceptance of the plea until the issue of whether Ward will be required to be imprisoned immediately is answered. That question won't be answered until the sentencing hearing on August 28."

A report on one of the most visited independent news sites on the Web, World Net Daily, revealed the increasing amount of porn on the popular Wikipedia Web site, which is highly visited by children.

One Wikipedia representative, Mark Pelligrini, responded to the story saying, "Wikipedia's goal is to provide an encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge. To that end, Wikipedia does not censor objectionable material.

"[I]f someone goes to the articles on 'sex,' 'penis' or any graphic topic, we do provide frank descriptions and images. For images, we aim for clinical pictures of the sort you would find in an anatomy or medical textbook."

Pelligrini needs to look at the Web site he says aims for "clinical pictures" before he makes these assertions. There's a lot of filth and rot on the site that is nothing other than hard-core porn.

A number of Yahoo (Nasdaq:YHOO) shareholders (as expected) are so angry with how CEO Jerry Yang and the board of directors handled the offer from Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), they're working stridently behind the scenes to get support to get rid of Jerry Yang and the board of directors in a proxy fight. Their purpose is to bring Microsoft back to the bargaining table.

Much of the action was taken by several huge Yahoo shareholders, who contact Microsoft and independent members of Yahoo's board in order to reconsider the offer.

Larry Haverty, portfolio manager with Gamco Investors Inc., which owns shares in both companies, said putting an opposing board in place would get "'overwhelming' support from shareholders."

"If Jerry's smart, he will reopen negotiations," Haverty said. "He is fighting a losing battle."

While Bill Gates talked about the second ten years of the Internet being completely different than the first ten to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, he didn't offer up any specifics as to what he had in mind.

He did say that at the July shareholders' meeting for Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), he will "really go through and explain why the work by Microsoft research makes us feel that in that online area where we're going to do some breakthrough work."

Concerning Steve Ballmer's role in the attempted acquisition of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) and other Internet initiatives, Gates said Ballmer is the one who is making, or will continue to make, the major decisions in these areas.

South Korean Deals

A survey from Accenture (NYSE:ACN) called "2008 Global Media Content Survey," found that 52 percent of executives in the media industry from Brazil, North America and Europe, say content supported by advertising will continue to lead the way over the next five years.

They added that digital advertising will surpass traditional advertising during that same time period.

For advertising-based models, when asked to project out where things will be in five years, percentages went up to 62 percent of respondents believing that's where things will end up.

Other models like subscriptions and pay-per-play services didn't fare as well, with 25 percent saying subscriptions would lead the way, and only 11 percent saying pay-per-play would.

After adding $5 billion to their original offer for Yahoo (Nasdaq:YHOO), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) decided to drop its bid for the company, not willing to increase the offer. The final bid valued Yahoo at $47.5 billion: $33 a share. The first offer was for $31 billion.

Yahoo and co-founder CEO Jerry Yang were delusional in their assertion the company was worth $40 a share; the amount they said they would only do the deal with. Even the $37 a share they probably would have accepted is far more than the company is or will be worth anytime soon.

The rejection of the Microsoft offer by not accepting a value that is more than the company is worth, will end up with a flurry of lawsuits Monday, which will have a strong chance of succeeding. The legal responsibility of the management and board of a publicly held company is to its shareholders first.

The racing of the 134th Kentucky Derby today, where the post time is 6:04 PM EST, is a great look at a product branded and marketed in a highly efficient and successful way.

It takes in numerous variables, which when added together, make it such a successful event and brand.

What's amazing about it to me, is the race isn't the real event, it's the experience of the entire process and involvement for those participating as fans that is so valuable.

Now that doesn't mean the race is parenthetical, just that the race alone could never be what makes this an event - and so popular.