I have been anxiously waiting for his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” since he announced it almost about 12 months ago, the book was released on July 7th and I have been dying to get a copy in my hands (the problem, I am currently traveling overseas and cannot get it right away).

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But I have now been able to get the book not in my hands but in my ipod (all the details later on…), and I have been enjoying every bit of it.

One of the first concepts that I have clearly understood from Anderson’s new book is that
“Information wants to be free”

In this new book he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company’s survival, and I can testify to this, because in the travel / timeshare industry I have been involved with, the concept of Free is a very common business practice.

The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long.

“Information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law.

To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.”

To the newspaper industry, he would say the same thing. Newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business. “Out of the bloodbath will come a new role for professional journalists,” he predicts.

Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you’re trying to sell.

In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

“Information wants to be free”

Watch this great video where you can learn more about this book

Video – Free – The Future of a Radical Price  (Brightcove)

And last but not least

You can buy this great new book at Amazon.com

Amazon.com: Free – The Future of a Radical Price $16.19

BUT DON’T YOU THINK HE SHOULD GIVE THIS BOOK FOR FREE ?  (at least to support his case)

Well, he does

Here you can download an Unabridged Audio version of this great book

——– >>>>>>>>  ABSOLUTELY FREE !!!!!!!!

http://www.wired.com/images/multimedia/free/FREE_Audiobook_unabridged.zip

I am now very happy because even though I am out of the country and could not get a copy of this book the day it came out, I am not able to listen to it FOR FREE.

Get Anderson’s newest book “Free” for FREE.

There is a web hosting company called Squarespace who is doing an iPhone giveaway via Twitter.

They started giving away 30 iPhones in 30 days on June 8th, 2009

It is a very simple contest, all you need to do is send out a tweet with the #squarespace hashtag included and they will randomly choose one (1) winner per day who will get a brand new iPhone 3GS.  (In this case a $199.00 apple gift card that will help you buy a new iPhone 3GS, you will still have to sign up for AT&T two year committment account).

Now the catch is that users must enter a daily tweet every single day (with #squarespace in the tweets) for a new chance to win as they clearly explain on their blog.

They are announcing the winners via their website and via their Twitter @squarespace feed.

There is a lot of great positive buzz on twitter about this promotion

Now even though this is in concept a great idea, it can also generate some negative buzz by creating a lot of noise overload, especially for those Twitter users who follow a lot of people and can start  to turn people off.

I agree with some social media pundits who have been saying that we need to think of a contest or a promotion that encourages people to deliver some value, so, in order not to turn a good idea into a social media promotion failure, we need to make sure that 1) We engage the users, 2) We ask for some substance and affiliation with our brand, 3) Run the contest in a short time (ie, 7 days or so); that will make your promotion interactive and not just pushing out noise.

I think it is a pretty neat idea because as its creator Dan Zarella states, TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.

I’ve been enjoying analyzing most of my twitter friends accounts,
but  on the serious side of things, I also wonder if TweetPsych could be used in the hiring process?

There is a lot of buzz about how companies are checking the prospective employees feeds like their Twitter feeds or their FriendFeed to determine what are they up to in their off time, or even to see if they are using how are they effectively using their time during work hours.

I would like to know your opinion,

Would you do a TweetPsych profile on someone you’re thinking of hiring?

Not that you want to hire me, but just in case you want to know, and want to learn that I focus a lot on work, my Twitter user name is @ncienfuegos – My wife says she didn’t need that tool to know that….

So, here is what it says about my twitter feeds
http://www.tweetpsych.com/?name=ncienfuegos

Not having learned from its previous failure of turning the www.skittles.com home page into a Twitter search feed for Skittles, they have now forwarded their home page no more than to their YouTube page http://www.skittles.com

The Skittles Twitter Trick

When the Skittles Twitter campaign first launched, it was one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter.   Most of the social media bloggers were saying “SKITTLES GETS IT!” but all they did was turn their home page into a constantly revolving loop of people saying “OMG SKITTLES LOVES TWITTER.” It almost seemed to be an ad campaign for Twitter vs one to enhance the Skittles brand.

One of the problems was that it was an extremely passive strategy (just like the YouTube trick now), there was no real community outreach, and it came to be pretty self-centered in the first weeks.

Once again, Skittles is breaking one of the first cardinal rules of social media — it is leading with a tool without reaching into its community. The Skittles home page is now the YouTube Skittles page.

Do you think that by changing their home page from the Twitter feed into the YouTube page they are finding more community engagement ?  What do you think ?

In any case, I personally believe that is a very poor digital marketing strategy for Skittles.  I am 100% convinced that they can do better.

Talent is a process that “grows,” not a pre-determined set of skills

The question is: “What does great performance require?”

In this book, Colvin shares several insights generated by hundreds of research studies whose major conclusions offer what seem to be different perspectives on what is frequently referred to as “talent.”

In this context, I am reminded of Thomas Edison’s observation that “vision without execution is hallucination.” If Colvin were asked to paraphrase that to indicate his own purposes in this book, is that his response would be, “Talent without deliberate practice is latent” and agrees with Darrell Royal that “potential” means “you ain’t done it yet.” In other words, there would be no great performances in any field (e.g. business, theatre, dance, symphonic music, athletics, science, mathematics, entertainment, exploration) without those who have, through deliberate practice developed the requisite abilities.

Have you ever thought that, however different they may be in almost all other respects, athletes such as , Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Lorena Ochoa, Michael Phelps, Vijay Singh, and Tiger Woods “make it look so easy” in competition because their preparation is so focused, rigorous, and thorough. Obviously, they do not win every game, match, tournament, etc. Colvin’s point is that all great performers “make it look so easy” because of their commitment to deliberate practice, often for several years before their first victory. In fact, Colvin cites a “ten-year rule” widely endorsed in chess circles that “no one seemed to reach the top ranks of chess players without a decade or so of intensive study, and some required much more time.”

Tiger Woods became such a great golf player at an earlier age because he started his ‘deliberate practice’ when he was just two years old.  It took him more than ten years to win his first tournament.
Colvin duly acknowledges that deliberate practice “is a large concept, and to say that it explains everything would be simplistic and reductive.” Colvin goes on to say, “Critical questions immediately present themselves: What exactly needs to be practiced? Precisely how? Which specific skills or other assets must be acquired? The research has revealed answers that generalize quite well across a wide range of fields.” Even after committing all of my time and attention to several years of deliberate practice, under the direct supervision of the best instructor I probably could not reduce my handicap to zero but I could lower it under those conditions. Colvin’s insights offer a reassurance that almost anyone’s performance can be improved, sometimes substantially, even if it isn’t world-class. Talent is overrated if it is perceived to be the most important factor. It isn’t. In fact, talent does not exist unless and until it is developed…and the only way to develop it is with deliberate practice. When Ben Hogan was asked the “secret” to playing great golf, he replied, “It’s in the dirt.”

Colvin leaves no doubt that by understanding how a few become great, anyone can become better…

I am now convinced that talent is a process that “grows,” not a pre-determined set of skills. Also, that deliberate practice “hurts but it works.”

I have always loved Henry Ford famous quote: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Great performance is not reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.

It seems like everything on the internet is a fad, even in just a few weeks or months we would consider a great practice or theory “old news” because there is something newer that is more updated to the current social media technologies.  However, there is one book (or thesis I should say) that has remained true and current for almost a decade, this is the Cluetrain Manifesto, which was written in 1999 by four authors Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Christopher Locke, and Rick Levine. The Cluetrain Manifesto was written well before its time; it is a precursor to social media of today.  The Cluetrain Manifesto’s message is simple yet extremely powerful: Markets are Conversations and the Internet facilitates and empowers that communication.

Here is a great Powerpoint presentation about the highlights of the books, so if you don’t have time to read this great book, I hope you have the opportunity of browsing through the entire presentation, or you can buy the book in Amazon.com.

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In 2008 everyone is talking about social media, social networks and corporate blogging is considered essential.  Business are engaging and  talking to consumers in ways that were unimaginable before.

An even though there are a lot of businesses that are still skeptical about adopting some of these new social media technologies, the Cluetrain Manifesto’s point is so important. Customers talk and the audience listens.

Are you participating in the conversation ?  Is your company or your brand listening to the customers and paying attention to the conversation ?

If not, do it now, because the Cluetrain Manifesto has been saying this since 1999.

The internet has reshaped the process of running for President of the United States of America in the 21st Century.

Internet Campaigning was started in 2004 by Joe Trippi for the Howard Dean 2004 campaign.

The Internet has been helpful to raise money, identify supporters, mobilize volunteers and directly contact voters but most importantly it is also making easier for the voters to organize themselves outside of the control of the campaign managers creating great political grassroot movements.

Most of the OPO’s for the primaries and general elections were focusing in three major fronts: 1) fundraising 2) organizing and 3) communicating, but this also created something totally unexpected which was starting the conversation between supporters and person to person networking which was probably the most powerful effect of the internet on the 2008 political campaigns.

Here is a video of a GREAT panel that discussed this in June 2008 at Google

Ron Brownstein – Political Director – Atlantic Media

Joe Rospars – Director of New Media for Barack Obama and founder of Blue State Digital

Mindy Finn – eCampaign Strategist for Mitt Romney

Peter Daou – Internet and Online Activities for Hillary Clinton

Mark Soohoo – eCampaign Director McCain

As we all have learnt the US Auto Industry is under a major crisis and is on the brink of bankruptcy and a possible shutdown of Detroit’s big three auto companies.

So GM has decided to use the new digital marketing tools to take its story directly to the public  with a new website called GM Facts and Fiction and a YouTube video entitled “The U.S. Auto Industry and the Ripple Effect” and is asking the public to tell their U.S. Senators and Representatives that support for the U.S. auto industry is in America’s best economic interest and is a sound investment toward a more competitive future.

They are asking you to write and send a letter to Congress to tell them you support the American Auto Industry.

All you need to do is just review your letter, fill out the privacy-protected registration form, and then click the “Mobilize!” button to send this letter to your member of Congress. – This is what I call “Digital Activism” – I guess we all learnt from the recent results of the Obama Digital Activism.

On the video, the company tries to communicate with a lot of statistical facts, what will be the ripple effect of the Auto Industry going bankrupt.

And even though this is a good effort to use the Digital Marketing tools to communicate the company side of the story, I still believe that a big part of the problem is that GM “still doesn’t make cars that people want to buy.”

Taking a message straight to consumers can work. It’s also very cost effective. Websites are cheap. But until GM comes up with some stronger content, this one won’t change too many people’s minds.

They simply need to make better cars ! – Does Toyota ring a bell ?

What do you think ?  Should the government bail out the Auto Industry ?

But still a good use of Digital Marketing tools for Digital Activism.

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” - Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

Barack Obama has not only become the first African American President-Elect of the United States, but he was also able to lead the Democratic party to win states that were considered uphill battles, like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.  In my view Obama’s road to the White House was a major digital grassroot movement helped with a broad, diverse group of followers, including young people, people of color and disgruntled Republicans, thanks in part to his successful DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY, brillantly executed by the members of the “Triple O” the shortname for Obama’s Online Operations and lead by people like Joe Rospars founder of Blue State Digital, Chris Hughes (Facebook Founder), Macon Phillips, formerly of Blue State Digital, Jesse Lee the Online Rapid Response Manager for the DNC, and Mary Joyce (DigiActive.org Founder),

The Tripe O team has definitely shown that the Internet isn’t just a Tool, It’s a strategy, a whole new way of campaigning, a form of communication from blogs to Facebook and MySpace and YouTube, with far more potential than the old media of print and television.  Television is a passive one sided experience, and the Internet is all about interactivity, all about making a direct connection and organizing like-minded people in different groups but with a common purpose.

Obama’s team used the Internet for both fundraising and for growing a community of young and internet savyy like-minded voters who wanted to see the country go in a different direction than the one led by George W. Bush.

They created a set of online tools that made it easy for local organizing. All you had to do is to join My.BarackObama, the campaign’s online community with over a million members, and then you would get access to the tools you needed to effectively organize for Barack Obama by finding local events and groups, contacting undecided voters, creating your own blog and help build Obama’s movement for change.  Here is a video of how to use the my.barackobama.com tools:

The week before the election I happened to be on a business trip to Las Vegas, NV and met a group of young Barack Obama activists who had traveled from Southern California to Nevada to do some neighbor to neighbor canvassing.  When I asked them how they got involved all the way from San Diego to come and knock on doors in northern Las Vegas, they explained to me all about how they had connected and voluntereed through the internet using the my.barackobama.com online tools that even gave them a map of undecided voters where they needed to knock on different Las Vegas neighborhoods and request their vote for Barack Obama.  Here is a video that explains how this worked:

My friend Jim was also called several times from a group of Obama supporters who were asking for his vote, and he wondered how they had gotten his name and cell phone number, well, the Obama campaign also used Neighbor to Neighbor phone banking that was simply brilliant.  Here is how it worked:

But as you know, all of these tools require money and they also utilized the internet to raise Millions of Dollars, according to data from the Federal Election Commission, Obama raised over $470 million in individual contributions through October 15, compared to John McCain’s $200 million. Obama accomplished this by creating an easy online contribution process and by taking smaller donations from all of his supporters.  Here is a video on how they used the internet for Personal Fundraising:

The Obama Campaign was very clever in utilizing most of the new digital marketing tools available to them, and were able to get his supporters to get online and show their support for Obama on the various social networks, including a YouTube video called “Yes We Can” from the former Black Eyed Peas singer  Will.i.am

and this other viral video from the Obama Girl that got more than 11 Millions views

The Obama campaign also used a brilliant mobile marketing strategy that included text messaging to make a number of announcements during the campaign and to also request support in the major battle states, as well as a sleek Obama iPhone Application that  was able to request you to do grassroot phone calls to all of your contacts in your iPhone, here is a video that explains how the Obama iPhone application works:

The my.BarackObama.com Online Tools were used even to the last minute and were also heavily promoted through the traditional media by getting coverage on the major networks lke CNN

CNN also covered the Neighbor to Neighbor Online Tools which they launched just in time to fend off Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama being a Neighbor Organizer

The Online community rejoiced when he was finally announced as the winner of the 2008 election and most of the online supporters also came online to celebrate the victory via Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, and even in Kenya they celebrated the Obama ancestral past by declaring a National holiday.

The internet made it possible to share the celebration across the world

Everyone has said that there are a lot of similarities between John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, but one that has not been mentioned, is the one that both candidates took advantage of a new communication medium to get elected as President of the USA

In 1960 Kennedy debated Republican candidate and Vice President Richard Nixon in the first televised U.S. presidential debates in U.S. history. During these programs, Nixon, nursing an injured leg and sporting “five o’clock shadow“, looked tense and uncomfortable, while Kennedy appeared relaxed, leading the huge television audience to deem Kennedy the winner. Radio listeners, however, either thought Nixon had won or that the debates were a draw^. Nixon did not wear make-up during the initial debate, unlike Kennedy. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role in national politics. After the first debate Kennedy’s campaign gained momentum and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls.

In the case of Barack Obama and his OPO (Online Political Operations) they have demonstrated that the Internet has definitely matured to promote DIGITAL ACTIVISM and has been a major factor in winning the 2008 election against John McCain, just like JFK used Television against Richard Nixon

Navarrow Wright, President and CEO of GlobalGrind.com was recently interviewed where he said: “Take away elements regarding his race and all the hype around his candidacy and you find that he executed a sound online strategy to get his thoughts out to the people and address their issues,”  “This was not a fluke, it was true Internet strategy.”

And in the end he has used YouTube to quickly distribute his acceptance speech on Nov.4th

Congratulations to the New President-Elect Barack Obama !

Congratulations to “The Triple O” hands down The Best Political Digital Marketing Operations Team in the World !

Does your tradeshow booth standout ?

I normally travel between the East coast and the West coast, usually to Orlando, Las Vegas and San Francisco, and therefore I have a chance to attend a lot of conferences and tradeshows. I hardly ever see a booth that grabs my attention.

I attended Online Market World in San Francisco, where Doba had this very unique and attention grabbing booth.  Doba is an inventory middle-man that connects ebay sellers with companies with merchandise allowing for a marketplace where the sellers don’t have to store any inventories.

Just remember if you are attending a tradeshow where there are hundreds or thousands of vendors crowded in single tradeshow floor, make sure your tradeshow booth is so originally that if definitely stands out.

Is your company doing its social strategy backwards?

If you started by saying “we should do a blog” or “we should create a page on a social network” or “we should create a community” the answer is probably yes.

In any other business endeavor we start by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social technologies are not magic. They accomplish things, too. It’s time to stop doing social because it’s cool. It’s time to start doing it because it’s effective.

To help clients with this fundamental idea, Forrester Research has invented a little acronym called POST. It’s a great idea, even though it’s so simple.

P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don’t start without thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you’re done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

This may sound simple to the sophisticated readers of this blog. But it works. Try it. Think your strategy through. Even if you’re just clarifying your own strategy, this should help you explain it to your boss.

They started a local advertising campaign in the UK that says: “When was the last time you went to the theatre ?”, and created a very creative guerilla type of marketing for creating awareness about Lastminute.com 50% off theatre tickets.

I have always believed that guerrilla marketing should be both smart and surprising, and in my personal view, they have scored pretty high with this unexpected musical performance at the London Stansted Airport.

This was a great idea to catch the attention of bored passengers in the waiting room and a good idea to generate buzz around the new generation of Youtube users.

I am currently at Heathrow Airport in London on my way to Dubai and I can’t wait to get there to learn more about Digital Marketing in that exciting and booming part of the world.

I will try to post video and pictures at least everyday when I am there.

 So keep in touch with my blog to learn more about this trip.

This video shows what it’s like to manage a business’s tech needs when the people who provide the marching orders don’t understand tech at all.

Disclaimer: It’s an advertisement for CDW, which sells tech products. I’m not encouraging you to buy from them, just acknowledging that the video is pretty clever, sounds familiar ?

“Are you sure you don’t have any more unreasonable IT requests?”

Here is the chart

What do you think ?

When advertising on both Yahoo and Google, do you see a difference in your demographic profiles of your customers ?

Should other companies follow in Apple’s footsteps by making web access commonplace on their mobile handsets, Gundotra believes the number of mobile searches could outpace fixed internet search “within the next several years.”That of course means big increases in incremental advertising revenues for Google. Though its primary revenue driver remains online advertising, the company has never separated out its mobile revenues from those of traditional computer-based browsers.

Gundotra, however, also told the Financial Times that the mobile segment was growing “above expectations”, both in terms of usage and revenues.

“The world is changing. Users want an internet without fences. They know how to type in Google.com if they want to get to it,” he said. “Two years ago the operators were still playing the role of gate­keepers but that is no longer the role for them.”

The mobile boss also reiterated a long-running company position on the mobile handset market, which is that Google is unlikely to build its own mobile hardware despite widespread speculation to the contrary.

“We want every phone to be a Google phone,” he said. “We are ultimately talking about thousands of devices. The best way to do this would be to get Google’s mobile operating system, Android, deployed on as many types of handsets as possible.”

Google has the first Android-based mobile handsets from third-party manufacturers would begin shipping during the second half of 2008.

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Rapid changes on the way people plan, book and review their travel products requires hotels and resorts to adapt their marketing strategies to new social networking marketing methods, or die.

Whether you believe it or not, the new era of marketing relies heavily on the web and social networking. Additionally, the new marketing methods heavily rely on building relationships in new ways, specifically social network relationships. This requires a significant portion of hospitality companies’ resources to be put toward development of new socially effective marketing programs. Research indicates the web medium will continue to grow. For example, we now know that regardless of how prospective clients find us, at some point in the various stages of the buying process, more than 85% of those prospects use the web to make the booking or buying decision. This is a statistic that no hospitality company can afford to ignore. Most importantly, future generations who are natives to the web, will expect that any hotel or resort, regardless of its size be able to adapt to the new socially adept and reliant prospects.

If your hotel or resort is complaining about less bookings in this pre-recession, it probably has not fully explored and developed the new social marketing tactics:

For each hotel or resort which complains about a reduction in bookings, there are those hotels which have embraced the opening of new markets by the use of social networking media on the web. Just think, 10 years ago, only the national hotel brands were advertising on a national basis. Now, independent non branded and small hotels are able and are advertising on a national level on the net. If your marketing strategy has slowed, your hotel must rethink and develop new marketing strategies beyond its current ones.
Not a substitute:

Social networking on the is not a substitute for a plan or strategy, this is simply a newer method of marketing with a variety of tools which need to be mastered. So if you are already generating a lot of bookings through a very successful Pay Per Click campaign, don’t stop doing it, simply bring additional business with these new social media tools. A marketing strategist should first identify objectives, develop a plan only then choosing tools, and in that order.

Online Advertising:

Online ad spending was expected to reach 20 percent of the total U.S. ad spend in 2007. That’s according to an annual ad spending study for 2007 released by Outsell.

A survey of marketers found companies plan to increase their online spending 18 percent in 2007. The Internet channel is expected to reach 20 percent of total ad spend. Online will continue to chip away at print, which is expected to maintain 40 percent of ad spend. The share held by TV, radio, and movie ad spending is expected to slip 3.5 percent this year.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads will take a one percent hit this year due to concerns over click fraud and almost half of the advertisers surveyed (49 percent) have reduced or plan to reduce their PPC spending.

In my personal opinion as these new social media marketing tools start gaining traction and provide good results for advertisers, PPC ad spending will represent less and less of the total overall online advertising spending for most travel companies.

So start planning and budgeting for Social Media Advertising.

Conclusions

Markets are conversations, and in the travel industry, people are talking are commenting, and reviewing their travel experiences, we need to adapt all of your hotel web properties to be able to let your travelers participate in these conversations.

So please adapt and adopt all new social technologies ASAP or else, your marketing will die !!!

The question is: Is it Google ?

Google is the most logical buyer, basically because Bebo is clearly the second largest social network in the UK (Facebook is number one) and therefore there will be very little user overlap with Orkut that is number one in Brasil.

On the other hand it has been confirmed that the other potential buyers, including News Corp., Yahoo and others, have backed out due to price.

Microsoft is too busy trying to figure out how to go after Yahoo, so it is very unlikely they are the buyers.

In my opinion Bebo is a great acquisition target for Google.

Bebo factsheet
Bebo is a social network that allows users to create profiles, connect with other users, whilst also providing a platform to view and share photos, video and audio.

• Started in July 2005
• 34 million registered users
• Largest social networking site in Ireland and New Zealand, number 2 in the UK
• 3rd Largest in the US behind Facebook & MySpace