Open up your mind and say, ahh...

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Update 3:55 p.m. ET – Darkness and bad weather has hampered the search for the missing plane but more than 100 people on the ground are continuing to search the mountains where the airplane disappeared. Two helicopters had to end their search, but are expected to try again at daybreak.

A Sukhoi Superjet 100 is missing in Indonesia after departing Jakarta with 50 people on board. The Russian jet was carrying Indonesian airline representatives as well as other airline industry passengers on a demo flight during a tour of Asia organized by the Russian plane maker.

The Sukhoi jet is Russia’s most modern airliner and first flew in 2008. The narrow-body airliner is aimed at the regional airline sector and is designed to compete with the more popular airplanes from Bombardier and Embraer. The Russian company partnered with Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica on the Superjet 100 project and the engines are a French/Russian partnership.

Sukhoi hopes to sell the 68- to 103-seat jet throughout parts of Asia, Western Europe and North America, where Russian aircraft have yet to find any customers. The Superjet 100 is a modern design with fly-by-wire control systems. Sukhoi is hoping the airplane will help shake the troubled reputation Russian-made aircraft have for questionable quality and accident rates much higher than their Western competitors. Last year Sukohi announced plans for a longer-range, business jet version of the airplane.

The Indonesian demo flight was scheduled to last less than an hour, but air traffic controllers lost contact with the jet while it was descending in a mountainous area, according to the BBC.

Sukhoi has delivered eight of the regional airliners and says it has orders for 240 more, mostly to customers outside of Russia. Indonesia-based airlines had already ordered more than 30 of the airplanes.

Russian airplane maker Sukhoi is joining the business jet community with a VIP version of its SuperJet 100 regional airliner. The new Sukhoi business jet joins Boeing and Airbus, along with the Brazilian company Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier in converting airliners for private use.

The Sukhoi 100 that the SBJ is based on first flew in 2008. The regional jet has seating for up to 103 passengers. More than 300 have been sold, mostly to Russian airlines, though operators in Thailand, Indonesia, Italy and Mexico also have Sukhois on order.

The launch customer for the SBJ is the Swiss company Comlux. The new Russian business jet will be added to Comlux’s fleet of 19 charter aircraft that includes several Airbus Corporate Jets, business jets from Bombardier and a Boeing 767. Comlux placed an order for four of the $50 million jets and expects to take delivery of the first one in 2014.

The airframe of the Sukhoi is made in Russia where the airplane is assembled, though the engines and most of the systems are from the west. Russia has a long history of civil airplane manufacturing, though very few have been able to penetrate markets beyond the former iron curtain. Sukhoi is most famous for its history building fighter jets, including the SU-27.

Sukhoi is one of several companies currently entering the airline market through regional jets. Both Embraer and Bombardier successfully joined the global marketplace years ago filling in the smaller end of the jet market not covered by Boeing and Airbus. Companies in both China and India are also planning regional jets of their own.

The fly-by-wire Sukhoi business jet will have a 4,300 mile range, though with a limited passenger load. With a cruise speed of around 530 miles per hour, the SBJ offers performance similar to other jets of its size.

Image: SuperJet International

On July 22nd 2010, Facebook officially announced that it had surpassed 500 million users around the world. This significant achievement represents a significant milestone for Zuckerberg and Co. as well as for social networking and more importantly for global societies overall.

To celebrate this achievement, Facebook released Facebook Stories, a new service to spotlight users stories from around the world and the impact Facebook has had on their lives.

In Mark Zuckerberg’s words, “We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world.”

Highlights shared in Zuckerber’s blog post about the service include:

- Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.

- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who, during his time in office, would go jogging with 100 of his fans from Facebook.

- Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.

Facebook Around the World

Facebook is the leading social network in 111 out of 131 countries as recently analyzed by Vincenzo Cosenza.

If Facebook was a country, it would rank third, just behind the People’s Republic of China and India and roughly 190 million ahead of the United States, over 200 million greater than Indonesia, and 300 million greater than Brazil.

If we examine the breakdown of Facebook’s population, we’re presented with an interesting picture of worldwide adoption (source).

Top 15 Countries by Number of Users

1. United States – 125,881,220
2. United Kingdom – 26,543,600
3. Indonesia – 25,912,960
4. Turkey – 22,552,540
5. France – 18,942,220
6. Italy – 16,647,260
7. Canada – 15,497,900
8. Philippines – 15,284,460
9. Mexico – 12,978,440
10. Spain – 10,612,820
11. India – 10,547,240
12. Argentina – 10,452,040
13. Columbia – 10,226,920
14. Germany – 9,948,700
15. Australia – 9,151,280

To offer a bit of balance, at the end of the population list, Anguilla Facebook ambassadors rank at number 187 with 6,420 users.

When we examine worldwide Facebook activity however, we’re presented with a different picture. According to O’Reilly Research, Asia and Africa represent high growth regions.

O’Reilly also reports the age demographics of users in each country. The share of users age 18-25 is higher outside the U.S., but notice the representation of users of 35 and older.

The Human Network

Facebook’s mission is to help make the world more open and connected and indeed it is changing how people interact online. The “Facebook” stories shared through this new service highlight very human ways that social networking is changing people’s lives and I believe that is the bigger story here. Over time, I have borrowed Cisco’s tagline, “The Human Network” to demonstrate how digital social networks were contributing to a new era of society that transcends online and offline relationships and how we foster and interact with each.

The discussion as to whether or not Facebook is the largest social network in the world is no longer relevant. Facebook, along with other prominent and emerging networks such as Twitter, FourSquare, and hundreds of other networks, have forever changed the way individuals connect and share with one another, adapting cultures and customs, dissolving borders, and uniting disparate cultures. The world is indeed becoming a much smaller place.

From Dunbar’s Number to Social Graph Theory

Many experts continue to cite British anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s famous number of 150 (estimated). Dunbar’s number represents the maximum number of social relationships we as individuals can manage to a stable extent. If we look at Facebook data, the average person maintains a social graph of 130. However, I believe that we will eventually see a shift from relationships to relations as a result of social networking.

The average number will grow from 130 to at double over the next 1-2 years as individuals expand their social graph from those we know in first-degree relationships and those we care to know, second and third-degree relationships.

While we’ll still place greater emphasis on important offline and online relationships through active interaction, we will also consume, react to, and share thoughts, insights, and content with those individuals that move us intellectually and emotionally.

As a result, Facebook will eventually need to revisit its current friend limit of 5,000. For those individuals who hit that ceiling, their only option is to move from a profile to s a “brand” page. Doing so however, shifts the dynamics of the relationship and resulting interaction from a peer-to-peer or horizontal axis to a top-down or vertical grade of communication.

We will focus shifting attention on the sub-networks within our social graphs that separated by themes and context. These social “nicheworks” will result in higher engagement and participation as the core of these discussions, individuals are rewarded for their participation with intelligence, a platform to share their perspective as well as new requests for connection. Except to see Facebook create grouping functionality to draw lines between interaction within these nicheworks to ensure that we do not cross the streams within our main social graph.

By Brian Solis: www.briansolis.com

In March 2010, Facebook emerged as the top search term at Google, Bing, and Yahoo according to Experian Hitwise. Bing reported that 2.6% off all searches were dedicated to Facebook with Google at 1.17%.

To say that Facebook is capturing the minds and search boxes of people in the U.S. and around the world would be a gross under statement.

Facebook wasn’t only the top search term in America, again, according to Experian Hitwise, it was also the most visited website for a week in the days ending 2009 and beginning 2010. With an increase of 185% in the last year, Facebook accomplished something truly remarkable, if for only but a moment, it beat Google Search as the top destination online. It should also not go unsaid, that combined, Facebook and Google accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits during the week of March 8th, 2010.

However, as a denizen of a global online society, it would be prudent to examine how Facebook performs as a province in the worldwide Web.

In the State of Social Media Around the World published earlier this year, we learned that Facebook emerged as the dominant social network in 100 out of 127 countries measured. Italian new media observer Vincenzo Cosenza created the following graphic to offer a visual representation of Facebook’s rise to global prominence.

Facebook’s stature around the world is indeed remarkable. It is the first truly social media property to garner this prestigious status. Understanding its performance online as a destination rather than f a social network however, offers clearer perspective. With Facebook traffic soaring in the U.S., Pingdom recently analyzed how Facebook performs against other sites around the world using data from Alexa.

Of the top 20 countries sorted by the number of Internet users, Facebook.com earned the top spot in the Philippines and Indonesia, which equates to roughly 5%. Google, in its various flavors, surfaced on top in 14 countries, equaling 70%.

Facebook’s meteoric rise as a social network with over 400 million users has also proven to become a force in the Web overall. In the United States, Facebook is the number 2 site of course. Around the world, Facebook is also gaining ground within the UK (currently #2), Germany (#3), France, (#2), Italy (#2), Spain (#2) and Canada (#2). It’s worthy to note, in China, Facebook is absent from the top 500. With over 300 million users, QQ sits in the top spot as the prime social/mobile network and Baidu ranks number one as the top destination in the country.

Facebook is far from reaching its potential and as its new “Like” architecture hits the WWW with over 50,000 publishers already in place, its 400 million strong army of social curators will only increase its relevance around the world.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Brian Solis: www.briansolis.com