Three-quarters of hiring managers check LinkedIn to research the credentials of job candidates, according to a Jump Start Social Media poll on how social media is being used in the hiring process. Of the hiring managers surveyed, 75% use LinkedIn, 48% use Facebook, and 26% use Twitter to research candidates before making a job offer.
“Social media is not only a great networking tool, it’s also a way for employers to perform reference checks on job candidates,” said Veronica Fielding, president of Digital Brand Expressions and its social media service for consumers, Jump Start Social Media. “Because LinkedIn is the most professionally oriented of the three, it tends to attract hiring managers who are doing due diligence.”
Have you been a victim of bad photo tagging on Facebook? Perhaps it was that old prom photo sporting your signature big 80’s hairdo? Or those pictures from the company holiday party you hoped would never resurface?
Now, you can have the last laugh, with the launch of the Staples I Shred U! Facebook application from Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS). I Shred U! allows Facebook users to tell their friends how they really feel about those bad photos, by shredding it to bits via a virtual shredder and sending it back with a personalized message. I Shred U! also lets users “trick” photos by giving friends and family a hilarious new look.
Facebook announced that Digital Sky Technologies (DST), one of the leading internet investment groups globally with significant stakes in Eastern European and Russian internet businesses, has made a $200 million investment in Facebook in exchange for preferred stock, representing a 1.96% equity stake at a $10 billion valuation.
In addition, DST has indicated that it is planning to offer to purchase at least $100 million of Facebook common stock from existing common stockholders that would facilitate liquidity for current and former employees’ vested shares in the company. The details of the plan are expected to be announced to eligible participants during the summer. Consistent with Facebook’s practice with other recent investors, DST will not be represented on the Facebook board or hold special observer rights.
From the Digital Hollywood conference, ffwd (pronounced “fast forward”), the company making the ever-expanding video web easier to navigate, today released an application for celebrities, companies, organizations and their fans to make relevant video content discoverable through their social networks.
Built on the Facebook Platform, ffwd’s new application continually imports an existing web video collection, no matter where it resides, to a Facebook Group or Page. The announcement reinforces ffwd’s support of the vision that web video must move toward a form of audience-driven social television.
Zynga, the world’s leading developer of fun and social games, is now the top application developer on Facebook according to AllFacebook and AppData. Zynga is the leader with 40,335,309 monthly active users on AllFacebook and 40,009,796 monthly active users on AppData followed by RockYou with 39,714,907 users on both sites.
Zynga continues to extend its leadership position as the #1 Facebook app developer and the #1 social game developer across all platforms. Zynga develops social games for a variety of platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Tagged and most recently the iPhone. With recent successes on the iPhone such as “Mafia Wars” and “Scramble,” Zynga is showing its ability to bring its games to new audiences.
Cooliris is a browser extension that allows users to browse photos, videos, games, and news stories from all of their favorite sites like Facebook on an interactive 3D wall for a much faster browsing experience.
In the past, Cooliris has allowed you to browse and search popular websites like Google Images and Youtube, as well scan images from the latest news headlines. Now, get the full Facebook album experience. View all Facebook photos more efficiently in Cooliris’ biggest release to date.
Set to revolutionize the college recruitment practice, MyBioFlick is a new application built on Facebook Platform that provides colleges with access to high school talent around the world that can help them meet their class recruitment objectives.
MyBioFlick, that enables colleges to recruit new students based upon online videos (‘bios’) that highlight their extracurricular activities. Replacing the conventional use of a high school ‘highlight’ tape, high school students can utilize the free online video service to showcase the skills and talents that make them more interesting candidates for admission.