Last week Yahoo! Movies released the first full-length trailer for The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher.

The film is an adaptation of the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich. The Social Network is about the early days of Facebook, and addresses some of the issues facing the company today. The film also draws parallels from the fictionalized account of its start in The Accidental Billionaires.

Mezrich recreates the foundation and rise of the Facebook phenomenon, although loosely connected to real events, which tells the story of two Harvard undergrads who revolutionized how we connect to others. The road to the initial Facebook concept was paved with betrayal, vast amounts of cash and two friends who wanted nothing more than to be cool. It’s juicy, fast-paced and if the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see!

What do you think of the trailer? Are you going to see the film in theaters this October?

For all you iPhone users in the event industry, here is a list of handy apps you should add to your event planning tool belt:

• AccuWeather- AccuWeather offers a GPS application to provide worldwide forecasting to “weatherproof” your event.

• Evernote- Create an electronic ideas scrapbook containing notes, photos and voice memos using Evernote, accessible at any time from your iPhone, computer, or the web.

• Foursquare- Keep tabs on your clients’ locations using the geolocation social networking site, and explore your city in new ways with the Foursquare application.

• Skype- The Skype download connects you to contacts anywhere in the world, which is perfect for destination events or long distance clients.

• LinkedIn – LinkedIn for iPhone allows users to access and share their professional profile with clients at the touch of a button, and connect with over 70 million professionals worldwide.

• Twitterific- Twitterific lets you update clients about the event planning process, and allows easy access to your business and social networks.

• Facebook- To keep track of and check in with clients and staff, Facebook quickly connects you to all of your networks.

• Alarm Clock- Though it seems simple, every event planner knows the importance of being on time, so ensure your punctuality with the Alarm Clock application.

How have these apps contributed to your event planning? Are there any other downloads every event planner should use?

The Facebook fan page is one of the most useful social media outlets for companies to promote and market services and information. A recent blog by the Social Media Examiner discussed 21 creative ways to increase your Facebook fan base. Of these 21, there are a few tips that every fan page should follow!

#1. Include a Link to Your Fan Page to Your E-mail Signature
• Add a link to your fan page in every e-mail you send.
• Use an application like Wisestamp to automatically include a link in your e-mail signature.

#2. Add a Badge or Button to Your Profile
• Create an interactive visual that links your personal profile to your fan page, as shown below.

#3. Link to Twitter
• Link your Twitter account to your fan page to automatically post Facebook content to your Twitter profile.

#4. Create an Attractive Welcome Video
• An appealing welcome video should explain what the fan page is about, who your audience is and an incentive to join.
• Feel free to incorporate a the message to “Click the Like button now,” as seen in a video for Steve Spangler, the Science guy.

While this next tip isn’t for everyone, it’s certainly useful for fellow event planners.

#5. Get Fans to Tag Photos
• If you host live events, be sure to take plenty of photos and later post them to the fan page, encouraging fans to tag themselves.
• This activity will be pushed out into their wall and News Feeds, providing exposure and visibility of your fan page and event to their friends.

These are just a few of the ideas floating around about how to increase your Facebook fan base, but we want to know, how you have you built your fan page following?

Over the past six years Facebook has grown into the world’s largest social network. Each month over 500 million users post and share 25 billion pieces of content, including links, news and blog posts, which generates traffic to other social media platforms. That means, for all of you that have not yet integrated Facebook into your social media repertoire, now would be a good time to start.

The ultimate goal of any social media platform is to create traffic and increase readership of a site. Recent Facebook page upgrades, such as the like and share buttons, circulate information posted from news streams and profiles. This information has the chance to be seen by hundreds of friends and in turn passed on to their friends. As a site receives more likes and increases the number of people within your Facebook community, the more traffic will ultimately end up back on your own site.

Facebook is no longer just a social network, but a platform for users to market and promote their sites and increase views. Statistics show that 90% of Internet users engage in at least one social network, so if you want to increase your site traffic, Facebook is the place to go. How are you using Facebook to market or promote your business?

In this video, five simple rules are exampled on how to build trust, use the tools you already have to build and grow, as well as communicating and using feedback in a positive light.  There are many tips explained in this video, some are literally spelt out for you, while others are more “read between the lines.” It’s a short clip, but the abilities to help you are endless!

Today’s TV on Tuesday is a TED Talk by James Surowiecki, finance writer for the New Yorker and author of The Wisdom of the Crowds. He pinpoints the moments that social media became as relevant and informational as traditional news (such as the 2005 tsunami or the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes) and how it may even trump traditional media in its ability to preserve personal stories in their most direct form.  How do you get your news these days? Is it from social media (tweets, Facebook updates, and the like) or more traditional sources (such as the New York Times)?

Just how many of us have a Facebook account in the world? To even think about it you know the number is going to be astronomical; the question is “who doesn’t have a Facebook account?”  By December 2009, Facebook single handedly attracted 469 million visitors, putting them at the No.4 most viewed website in the world.  Sound like just a number to you?  More than 31 million people signed onto Facebook in December 2009 then in November – Yahoo had 31 million viewers in the entire year of 2009.  That’s right, Facebook had that many hits in just thirty-one days.  The social networking site is quickly climbing the ladder to becoming the third largest Web property in the world (booting out Yahoo as number three, and closely behind Google (No.1) and Microsoft (No. 2)).

All in all, Facebook has grown by almost 250 million viewers in 2009.  If Facebook continues to attract this number of people, it will surely pass Yahoo as the third most viewed website in the world by the end of 2010.  But how many viewers does it need to take on the No.2 and No.1 websites? To pass Microsoft, Facebook would need well over 727 million hits worldwide, and Google of 899 million viewers, which may take more time then the 11 months left to 2010.

On the other hand, Facebook surpasses both Yahoo and Microsoft in many other aspects.  For example, Facebook’s page views grew an estimated 141% last year to 193 billion in December, Yahoo only received 100 billion while Microsoft pulled in 109 billion.  Although Facebook passed these two head honchos, Google still holds the top spot for 274 billion a month. When all’s said and done, Facebook is making exceptional growth in today’s market of most viewed websites. So keep checking out your friends, updating your status and pictures, and let’s move Facebook to the number three spot!

We’ve all heard of Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, and Twitter.  Maybe you have an account on one or the other, or even all four.  You, with millions of other users, are along the ride of being available 24/7 to have friends, family members, and other networks to see your information, profile, and pictures.  Now being able to share posts on your daily life exercises and thoughts, we- as a social networking obsessed world- are now officially spend 82% more time on these sites compared to the amount of time we put just a year earlier.

So much time that some of us are putting in the number of hours equivalent to a full-time job – a full-time job that doesn’t take a break on weekends. If the average person spends around five and a half hours a day, seven days a week, that leads one to a little shy of forty hours. Didn’t think you spent that much time each week, did you?

And it’s not just the United States that is infatuated with social networking. Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, Japan, Italy, Spain, and the entire U.K is shortly behind us. In Fact, the US may have the most people belonging to these groups, but Australians have the lead for times-per-day visits. Around the globe, people are interested in having people follow them and have people interested in what they are doing; all day, everyday.  Are we in a self-obsessed world, or just a world that loves to communicate with each other? With social networking up by 82% from last year, how much longer will it be before all of our time is spent on the computer?