The brilliant people at Morse, an IT services company in the UK, released the results of a survey today that claims the time employees spend on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter is costing businesses about $2.2 Billion (USD) each year in lost productivity.

This is not the first study to put a number on the cost of social networks to businesses.  Studies like this have prompted many large companies to block social networks or update their employee manuals to forbid their use.  Companies with large HR departments often have to fight to prove reasoning for their existence, and ridiculous studies like this are what they feed on.

“The popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook has grown considerably over the last couple of years, however with it has come the temptation to visit such sites during office hours. When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole,” commented Philip Wicks, consultant at Morse.

What the study fails to calculate is the revenue brought about from increased creativity, collaboration, inspiration, innovation and employee morale. When employees are happier they work harder and come up with better ideas.  And employees are happy when they aren’t governed by big brother policies.  The Morse study showed that on average the employees surveyed spent 40 minutes per week using social networks for personal use.  Apparently they are assuming that without social networks those employees would spend that 40 minutes working at 100% productivity.  With or without social networks, are any employees 100% productive?

Social Networks connect employees with the rest of the world – and that’s a good thing! Sometimes it means they get an update from their favorite tech blog, or business journal.  Sometimes it means connecting with a colleague or lost friend who becomes a new vendor or client.  And yes, sometimes it means they get to flip through pictures of their kids at the park.  One of those things helps them stay up to date with industry news, feeds them ideas and may help them work harder.  One helps bring new business to the company, possibly an account worth $2.2 Billion.  The other thing helps them realize there is a world outside their cube and reminds them why they even work in the first place.  How on earth can any of this be a bad thing for employers?

Unfortunately, companies like Morse will never get it.  And as long as employers keep listening to idiots like Philip Wicks, the employer war on social networking is going to get worse before it gets better.

What the Flock?  A new Web browser?  That’s right – the folks at a new company called Flock have developed a new Web browser built on Mozilla (the guys behind the beloved Firefox Web browser).  Flock is a new browser made especially for bloggers and social networking freaks like me (and probably you).

Flock is a powerful Web browser built on the Firefox architecture.  It has everything Firefox has (including extensions), but it also has everything a social network power user could want – including a built in sidebar they call the “People Sidebar” that connects you to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more, a “MediaBar” that lets you subscribe to your friends photos, videos and more and alerts you when they upload new media anywhere on the Web, and probably coolest of all – the Facebook SocialBar stays active at the bottom of the browser, alerting you of new IMs and Facebook updates, even when you visit other sites besides Facebook.

Don’t worry, you can use your Firefox Extensions in Flock!
Admitedly, I first ran into Flock a couple months ago and didn’t even give it a chance.  I’m so dependant on my Firefox extensions that I can’t live without them.  But what I didn’t realize the first time is that any Firefox extension works with Flock.  In fact, to add them to Flock you visit the same Add-ons page on the Mozilla Website and install them the same way as Firefox.  Everything from Shareaholic, Better Gmail, PingFire, PowerTwitter, and more work perfectly for me in Flock just as they do in Firefox.

The list of integrated features goes on and on – from Webmail, to RSS feeds, and more.  If you use Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking sites – or if you’re a blogger – then try Flock and you’ll quickly realize how easier it makes using the Internet.  Bloggers will especially love the way it connects with your blog (whether that be Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, etc).  In fact, this blog post was created using the Flock Blog Editor.

Go to http://www.flock.com to download Flock and try it out.

Even when Chrome comes out with Extensions its going to be hard to pull me away from Flock – we’ll just have to wait and see.  Try it out and let me know in the comments how you like it.

Dunkin’ Donuts has released a new interactive Website and iPhone App aimed at making your group coffee and donut runs more efficient and automated.  Using the App or the Website you can send out an alert to your friends and coworkers letting them know you are going on a run to Dunkin Donuts.  They can reply to the request via their iPhone or from the Website and put in an order for what they would like.  Everything from frozen latte’s to donut holes is on the interactive menu.  Once all the data is collected you can check the App on your iPhone, or print it and present it to the staff at Dunkin to place your order.

From the www.DunkinRun.com Website:

The Dunkin’ Run is the easiest way to grab that delicious pick-me-up for you and your friends. Here’s how it works:

• INVITE: Start a run at DunkinRun.com from your computer, mobile device, or our iPhone application . You are now “the runner”, and pick which friends you’d like to invite by providing their email or mobile phone number (no spaces or dashes e.g. 1234567890).
• ORDER: Select what you want from the menu, and we’ll contact your friends and tell them to do the same.
• RUN: Go get the goods. We’ll compile all orders for you, and you can print it out or have it sent to your mobile device (if you print it, just hand the print out to the Dunkin’ crew member at the shop and they’ll take it from there).
• ENJOY! Bring the goodies back, and enjoy the deliciousness, along with the hero worship from your friends.

It also includes tie-ins to Facebook to update your coworkers on the status of your run, as well as let’s you save past runs and favorites.

What would make this even more awesome?  If it sent the order directly to Dunkin so that it was waiting for you when you get there.  A step further would be to let each individual pay for their order via the App or Website – making collecting money from everyone less of a hassle.

This is a brilliant and very well executed marketing campaign that will last for years.  I know I will use it.  What we need is something similar for Starbucks.

It’s now easier than ever to sign into TalkAboutAds.com and make comments on our posts and news updates.  Use your existing Facebook or Twitter account to login, and everytime you comment you can choose for us to automatically update your status.  There’s no need to create a seperate TalkAboutAds.com user account or profile.

Try it out today and see how easy it is to participate.

Facebook engineers…. working overtime, stuffing their faces, kicking back some beers and trying their best to keep the site up while everyone in the world visits the site to snag facebook.com/bigdaddy before anyone else.

Digg, like many destination Web sites, has always struggled to maintain high profits from a revenue model based almost entirely on advertising.  I would estimate that the site gets at least 100 million banner ad impressions a month, based off their traffic data reported on Quantcast.  That might seem like a lot, but it’s not.  Calculate an average banner CPM of $15.00 and you’re only talking $18 Million in gross revenue a year from banner ads.  Compare to Facebook.com that easily gets 25 Billion ad impressions per month, and makes anywhere from $100 to $170 Million per month in gross revenue from their ads.

A single 300×250 banner, and a 160×600 skyscraper banner isn’t going to cut it anymore for Digg.  Publishers are being forced to come up with innovative and different ways to help marketers reach their audience.  Ad buying is down, and marketers who are spending money want to make sure they are getting the biggest bang for their buck.  Traditional banners that get ignored by users aren’t giving them a big enough bang, and more and more ad impressions are being given to low paying ad networks instead.  Facebook is solving this problem by allowing advertisers to target specific users by a handful of targeting criteria that no other site can offer.  Digg’s answer is a new ad spot that is integrated within the site’s content, and where users can choose which ads to display.

They’re calling them “Digg Ads” and according to the Digg Corporate blog, they “will give you more control over which advertisements are displayed on Digg. The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system.”

The ads will look just like regular diggs and will be displayed in the same stream where you see all the other links, photos, and videos, although they’ll be clearly marked as sponsored content.  Users can “digg” the ad or “bury” it, just like they do for the regular posts.  Popular ads are less expensive for the advertiser, and are thus displayed more throughout the site.  Ads that get buried cost more and are eventually taken off the site.  Digg says the goal here “is to create a better experience by giving you more control over advertising content that appears on Digg.”

Digg will be rolling out this ad format over the next few months and is hoping that they’ll see a lot more traction with these ads than their traditional banners.

The idea of allowing users to give a site feedback about the ads that are displayed is not new.  Facebook has been doing this for awhile (look for the little thumbs up/down icons under each ad), but it’s unclear how Facebook uses the data or if they remove ads that users have marked as unwanted.  It’s also unclear if anyone but me actually takes the time to click the icons and give their feedback.

At least on Digg, if you really don’t like an ad you know you can get rid of it as long as other users in the Digg community feel the same way.  It’s going to make marketers spend time creating really awesome ads, and not waste money buying mediocre ads that are going to get ‘buried.’  The question is, how will Digg protect against people abusing the system?

People always come to me for help when they need advice on promoting their new online business.  They have a great idea, produce a great product and put an awesome site together, but then they get stuck on the biggest obstacle of running an online business – trying to get people to know about you and come to your site.  If advertising is the answer for your business, and your budget is small, you have little room for risk.  So you want to make sure you are spending your ad dollars wisely.

The easy answer used to be Google Adwords.  For a small chunk of change you could run some text ads targeted to keywords that pertained to your business, and if done right you could get pretty high click throughs to your Web site.  Converting those clicks into sales is a whole different blog post.

Today, the advice I’m giving out to most new Website owners is “Facebook!”  Advertising on Facebook is cheap, easy and very effective.  They take the Google keyword targeting approach to the extreme, and ensure that your ad is only seen by your specific target audience.  A local pizza restaurant in Atlanta, for example, could target a Facebook ad to women, ages 25 to 45, who are not employed, married, have children, and who live within 10 miles of the restaurant (basically stay-at-home mom’s).  They could even include only those women who have shown that they like pizza.  The ad copy could say something like “Hey Mom, why cook tonight?  Click here to order Tony’s Pizza!”

On any other site that ad copy would have to be more generic, and it could only be targeted by a large geo-demographic, such as Atlanta, GA.  Males and females alike, mom’s and single women with no children, those who live too far away from the restaurant’s location, as well as those who hate pizza would all see the ad on a normal Website – and the majority of the paid impressions from the campaign would be lost on visitor’s that are never going to buy anything from the advertiser.  With Facebook targeting you have a much better chance at getting people to click on your ad.

You don’t need a lot of money to buy an ad on Facebook either.  You can set daily thresholds as low as $5 or $5,000.  The more you spend the more times your ad will be seen.  You can even choose to pay by click instead of impressions, that way you are only paying for the ad when someone actually visits your site.

Starting today Facebook has taken their ads a step further, and have included a way for viewers of your ad to interact with your brand and share their love of your product.  With Facebook Ads for Pages and Events you can offer a way for visitors to engage with your ads in the same way they interact with other content on Facebook, and without leaving the page they’re viewing.

Visitors can “Become a Fan” of your company, or RSVP for an Event that you are sponsoring.  Everytime they interact with your ad, it posts a message to their profile telling their friends.  People who visit their profile may see that their friend likes “Tony’s Pizza” and might click to check it out – never did that person ever even see your ad.

Viewers can always click the ad to be taken to a page with more information on your product, or directly to your Web site.  With a Facebook Page for your business users can discuss your products, share with friends, and receive updates from you on specials, promotions, news, etc.

To get started with Facebook Ads – click here.

To start a free Facebook Page for your business – click here.

Also, while you are there – Check out the TalkAboutAds.com Facebook Page.

In what appears to be an effort by the Chinese government to avoid online comments and photos about the upcoming 20th anniversary of the “June 4th Incident,” access to most major social networking Web sites, blogs and photo sharing services have been blocked in mainland China.  This includes Twitter, Flickr, Wordpress (Sorry China TAA readers!), Bing, Live, Hotmail, and likely more to come.

Chinese Bloggers and other users living in China are finding ways to post to these services through applications like TweetDeck and proxy servers, but it may only be a matter of time before the Chinese government blocks access to these routes as well.  Most blockages like this in China happen in different stages.

The “June 4th Incident” was a large scale protest and riot in Tiananmen Square, Beijing that lasted about 3 months, ending on June 4th, 1989.  The protests resulted in many deaths and injuries and was finally stopped by Chinese military who charged the square with tanks.  Following the incident the government issued bans on foreign press and strictly controlled coverage of the events – which they are apparently still trying to do with today’s ban of social networks.

God bless America and our right to tweet!

We might be a little late in reporting this, but Facebook has implemented a cool secret feature into their Website in the spirit of an old NES cheat code.

Try this (we promise, it’s not a scam or a virus):

1. Go to Facebook and login.

2. Click anywhere on the white background.

3. Then Press these keys on your keyboard: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, then Enter.

4. Then click or scroll the page and you’ll see nifty little sun spots that follow your cursor.

Any hardcore geek will tell you that what you just entered is the famous Konami Cheat Code that was made popular in old Nintendo (NES) games.  Entering the code using the Nintendo controller would usually give you free lives, super powers or secret weapons – depending on which game you were playing.

Facebook isn’t the first to build this code into their Website.  Log into your Google Reader account and try the exact sequence and you’ll see a cool little ninja appear on the Web page.

Play a prank on your friends: The next time they leave their computer unattended and still logged into Facebook, instead of updating their status to say how gay they are – perform this cheat code and walk away.  They’ll never figure out what happened!

Getting annoyed with the sun spots and ninja’s already? Log out of Facebook or close your browser and things will reset back to normal.  In Reader, you may have to enter the sequence again to get rid of the ninja.

Want to have more fun on Facebook? Change your Facebook’s language to Pirate!  (Or play a prank on your friends)

1. Log into Facebook, then go to your language settings.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the language list and choose English (Pirate).

All the text on Faebook will turn to Pirate language.  Rrrrr!

Know of any other cool tricks?  Tell us in the comments, or on Twitter @TalkAboutAds