I came across a report tonight from ChannelWeb.com, based on Nielson Web analysis, that 60 percent of Twitter users quit the site after one month. After the recent hype from Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey, it remains to be seen if Twitter will have the long-term benefit from the recent surge of new users.

In the next few months, it will be interesting to see if the site retention for Twitter improves.

Earlier this week I was stuck on the Metro rail due to a train malfunction one stop away from my destination. After ten minutes of just sitting there looking at the ground trying not to make eye contract with strangers, I decided to pull out the “old spare time killer”, my cell phone. Currently I am caring around the HTC mogul my provider is Sprint and I go with the unlimited data plan, it doesn’t make much since to me to have a smart phone and have to worry about data charges. But anyway the mobile version of the online video site, YouTube has never worked on my phone; however I hadn’t tried for awhile so I returned to the site via my Windows Mobile phone to check to see if YouTube mobile had been updated. I had no luck viewing YouTube videos from its mobile website, but I was pleasantly surprised with a download link for a YouTube application for Windows Mobile users. Read more »

Over the past couple of weeks, I have come across a number of articles suggesting that YouTube and Facebook are not making as much money as people would expect.

First, Credit Suisse reported that YouTube will lose an estimated $470 million in 2009. Half of YouTube’s expenses ($711 million) are towards the high bandwidth costs. Google is hoping that online advertising will eventually turn the site into a profit, but one has to wonder if they will ever reach that goal.

On a similar topic, last month Business Week reported that Facebook was looking for an estimated $100 million in credit financing to help pay for the rising server costs. Currently, Facebook has an estimated 275 million users and is registering close to 1 million users per day. Last year, Facebook was estimated to be worth $15 billion, but with the company looking for credit financing, the estimate is probably slightly inflated.

It appears that some of the popular web 2.0 sites are having some issues with the high IT operations costs. In the late 90’s, the popular business model for upstart websites was online advertising, but after 10 years, is it still an effective business model as the main source of revenue? Evidence seems to suggest no.

Last week, it was reported that a 14-year-old girl who posted nude pictures on MySpace was charged with Child Pornography, even though she is a minor.

Last Year, a 17-year-old boy posted nude pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend.

Because of the increased popularity of social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace), a small number of teens are using this medium for posting inappropriate content, mainly nude pictures.

Read more »