Twitter « Social Networking and New Markets

Facebook results show social user volumes | Advantage social

June 21, 2010 Leave a comment

Attacking Google – Pt. I

While the Facebook crowd has developed its own fangs, social business is here to stay with Facebook users celebrating Facebook’s mega results with great aplomb. Ahead of our own estimates at $500m and even more optimistic estimate at $650 million, Reuters reports Facebook as having completed the first round of its internet conquest with $800 million in revenue, tons in profit nd fallen faces and fuming engines at Google. The social web has declared war on the Google dominated ARPANET and life is new and rosy for users with minutage on Facebook increasing significantly every month without any dent in the pocket. We are still looking for turning points that bring out collaborative marketing as a commercial success having rejected subscription models and advertising based models. Zynga however estimates year 2 will not be as rosy enough for it. Shares of Facebook are trading at select online portals featured here earlier.

(Reuters) – Facebook’s financial performance is stronger than previously believed, as the Internet social network’s explosive growth in users and advertisers boosted 2009 revenue to as much as $800 million, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

MEDIA

The company also earned a solid net profit, in the tens of millions of dollars last year, one of the sources said.

That growth in profit and revenue underscores how Facebook is increasingly making money off its 6-year-old service, which ranks as the world’s largest Web social network with nearly half a billion users.

That sort of performance is likely to whet the appetites of investors keen for a public share float, despite the company’s insistence that an IPO is not a near-term priority.

HOLY KAW!

Filed under Lifestyle Brands, Social Media Tagged with Digital, digital web, Facebook, social, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0

The magic of Cloning and me-toos | Advantage social

May 31, 2010 1 Comment

Are they indeed paying you a complement

Pioneers please clear up the trail. The bionic era is finally upon us and today we would be delivering our first few instant cloning products in a year or two for us early adopters to enjoy and ready for global consumption. The serious discussion on artificially creating/replicating life dna in a test tube aside, the social internet and China are also doing their bit to make seemingly complicated delivery channels a non issue by in your face copy cat products and close parallels..While the iPad already has iPed, a thinner Kindle, Android, iPhone 4g and AppleTv and Google Tv are reinventing almost simultaneously, not to mention distributed alliances making the same brand of goods while earning comparable profits for the same / different corporations. Nokia is soon crossing the rubicon into computing, Vaccines are reaching many more in the third world..there is that magic in the air that probably even says Apple will thank many more people from the stage when it produces the next innovation..

Somewhere out there next to faxed blueprints of iPhones and A5s there might also be a single copy of my brain/my genome ready to be mass produced much like Model T, the North korean nuclear deterrent and Ariel or any other P&G brand. The question is however not the thieving of that idea or iPad blueprint much though the Corporation might believe so. Man by nature gives more resources to what is already successful, and similarily that which has sold will likely sell as many copies as can be produced, commoditising its brand as much as we keep producing derivative markets for anything that sells. Even in a marketing sense, there are bound to be more uses for something that has already seen a customer.

What social and convergence technologies are also doing is enabling a quicker, more comprehensive first look; engineering a second chance for failed prototypes, failed markets and failed customers; and envisioning better and quicker ‘procreation’ rather than evolution and / or even [tbd] If someone is a Fritjof Kapra fan, one might even consider the crisis as a sure sign of an age where the limitations of currency and money are obvious, but even in the hard real world creation cycles are much shorter and carrying the same idea as another’s might no longer even matter for a complement let alone a book of metaphysics..is this really that wondrous first step for a whole new species..

There’s more to convergence..

and Chris Andersen has already fit too much of it to the new tail.. and a hey, a ho and our favorite FREEMIUM..coming later on how we see this social revolution..

Filed under Digital Media, Financial Services, Marketing Tagged with Facebook, iPad, Marketing, Products, Twitter

And the winner is – digital! | Advantage Social

April 26, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, pioneers will say we are late in the gainsaying. No we were not the naysayers. No it is not a holy jehad. No, Pope Benedict has no request to bless this revolution. No it is not the Book of Judas. No selling religion hasn’t gone digital. Phew, that’s another billion. Close. As April draws to a close, statistics say Twitter would have added 1 more billion to its 16 billion kitty from SMS alone.

Yes. And that news on the twitter blog is a good one, a great one and one that makes me wish I was a Cloudhopper. Twitter has finally started using the cash in the vain hope that it is ahead of the monetization of internet curve and thus people wil eventuually pay it in enough premium to cover now the third year of back breaking costs. The Cloudhopper purchase closely follows Tweetie and makes its Third party developers an integral part of Twitter.

We have said it before and we will say it again. It is time that all the tweeting , now available in the Library of Congress archives are a blessed source of will and wisdom that are sure to turn the world of digital media, social media and advertising in a tizzy.

Online advertising has also scored a neat $23 billion in advertising in 2009 according to a hat tip from the New York Times. 47% growth in Display ads, 38% in Video ads and search is still around. Well next year hopefully it will be Twitter’s promoted tweets there with a meaningful percentage and from our personal predictions, the search category would have mrphed into other pieces., incl the Apple iPad platform and maybe once Tweets count someone would have a percentage for Facebook as well.

Why am I rambling about that? Because a lot of people incl Accenture and Mckinsey have employed pioneers, our valley has gone down hooking them up and they all wanted to see a little more digital in our life. And that’s all Marketing, right! All those solo moments without advertising would also be sponsored by your refrigerator maybe. But the point is that magazine advertising scored less than $20 billion in the same year in the US. And that is where we plan to use everyone’s common decision. We think Marketing Budgets will be at least 30% Digital in a few years. And for the World’s Top 100 brands, more of that would be social and of course meaningful sponsorships would be most of the other stuff. See?

Filed under Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Digital, Digital Media, Facebook, Online Advertising, Social Media, Twitter

Promoted Tweets | Advantage social

April 13, 2010 1 Comment

Sorry Twitter, we’ll be a little hard nosed when we’re on the button

Well, just this weekend everything was fine with the @anywhere announcement on your dinner table and everyone was going to Chirp. But then one of the VC blogs exploded with Twitter criticism over the weekend and @ anywhere is suddenly not the topic, Chirp is looking not too friendly on the blogs and the Atebits acquisition ( yes dear, we were just watching and the great first priced Tweetie got gobbled up as bird seed.) was not even given a round of applause, let alone the kind of standing ovation Facebook got for eating up Friendfeed!!

A lot of shocking drama without the tweets and Twitter defense probably continues when Chirp convenes tomorrow and into next week as well when a lot of these pre Chirp tweet seminars will come useful for @ev and @biz. Tweetie will now be the official Twitter Twitter app for iPhone. Twitter Twitter for Blackberry was also rolled out this week. What a rush..but we need something bigger you little bird..

What is ‘Promoted Tweets’?

Well for one, I am giving you a sample of some quality campaigns with the Magpie network on @zyakaira with Heineken pushing its iPhone apps apart from a lot of Freelance wunderkind promoting their ware on Twitter..But Promoted Tweets is now an offering from the birdhouse directly. Twitter is rolling it out tonight marrying search results from their earlier acquisition for the Twitter ecosystem with an Ad engine that pushes intelligent ads on to the search page. Atebits may also be used later for marrying new elements of their API and Twitter continues to marry its own offering with that of its ecosystem, while good for us, confounding a lot of its developers ahead of Chirp whence it can do the soft sell. Wow Twitter! Your business model is sounding like a loud episode/pilot of a Saturday Night Live/Showbiz with lot of shallow screaming ( tweeting) and very less substance.

Search advertising on Twitter today will probably some of the left-over, hungover, Google crowd, but we think the party is moving on. We need something richer like Twitter with Sports or Twitter being used to oracle Hollywood successes at the box office and @anywhere, fast.

The Tweet ad would be something like the Sponsored Tweets on Tweetmeme or those from Heineken in our @zyakaira feed, making their debut as the Top tweet on the search page and making their way everywhere in the Tweet apps, lists, tweet feeds and timelines.

Filed under Digital Media, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Advertising, Facebook, Facebook vs Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Advertising

It’s Facebook F8 vs Twitter Chirp | Advantage social

April 2, 2010 2 Comments

Facebook vs Twitter series 31/800

Facebook Developer Garage and probably many others would soon be targeted by marketing vuffs for the events they are. When the F8 is held later this month followed by Chirp on Twitter, the Location and Like arguments of Facebook will hit another crescendo and Twitter ‘s @anywhere will go gaga about the liking of all that you browse with the Like button from Facebook vs the social knit experience of @anywhere. What can we say – It’s a wonderful life. It actually could also make for more than a few lighthearted moments on the social boards, esp. if they start calling in landed celebrities and not so busy political movements to these dias’ or platforms. We have decided to call Social browsing, the time spent on Facebook Twitter and any remaining social networks, soon to include significantly your time on Amazon and the newspaper sites as @anywhere goes live and iPad gets more user friendly.

This social browsing, may perhaps not spearhead anything more commercial than its current state in the discernible future as some stronger brands start taking their social visibility more seriously with Cash approved during FB and twitter’s Celebrations last festive season ( The period Oct 2009 – Dec 2009 was the hottest for both the surviving networks) The next layer of recommendation engines incl. Foursquare may well be significant players on the iPad and maybe even a new reinvented Kindle, but the dollars would come from the brands and not the cognoscenti and the twenty somethings browsing their working time away.

It’s tiring really. Without its commercial value, any invention is only useful to its inventor and the social web would have to do more than press F8 to sing all the way to the bank.

Filed under Digital Media, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Chirp, F8, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter

Tweeting means meeting up | The Twitter Difference

March 23, 2010 Leave a comment

India’s status as no. 2 in number of Twitter users, also means a unique Twitter ecosystem. ‘Long wedded’ tweeters went to town with the concept of Twitter bang up for a big splash in seven cities together on the coming weekend. Sadly, for me, it seems to be dominated by the large population of TED attendees. Here’s hoping some non Technical types would be able to partake the coffee with me too! All the listed cities have their own IPL teams so the tweet up will be hot but not muggy by any means..except Goa fof course, who can get visitors from Pune now..

Filed under Digital Media, IPL, Twitter Tagged with Twestival, Twitter

Twitter, anyone | Advantage social

March 18, 2010 Leave a comment

Well SXSW, WP Barbeque and Twitter Ev keynote. Hoo boy! Sad it doesn’t sound half as exciting as the new Audi sales figures. It is a statement of the times that one should temper one’s social enhusiasm with some hard hitting nos. Well the numbers go east and west, north and south every minute, SO i believe it’s fair for you to know these. All due references would be avl elsewhere on this portal

I am in Top 0.1% of active Twitter users that is 19% of all registrations not deleted. Upto 8% twitter accounts are deleted every month, reasons ( i’m extrapolating, inferentiating and instancing for all of you) ranging from don’t know what this is to why me? to what am i doing here to more germaine.. geez, why did I choose that name

Being in the Top 0.1% means being in fair demand and actually fulfilling all those ideas you had when you came to sign on twitter – namely,

- someone would be reading you all the time, outside of your universe of friends, family and even twitter followers.
- you will be able to talk about yourself and your work ( it is not very easy till you have a sizable following for either of the two factors/ideas/aspirations)

Well, only 6 million of Twitter’s 25 million users are active and probably 25000 have more than 500 followers But with @anywhere this might change. As you need your twitter account to login to digg, maybe yahoo mail after a few months and whenever schools raise their fees, you’d want to login to sledge. This is other than the sports events, brand trails and the twitterlympics on any random topics that you might want to indulge in. Thierre Henry is a good topic as we pen this.

From 6 billion tweets in November 2009 we have already covered 10 billion in February 2010 and now we can add location, manage lists and look for it to discover any news and url we might be looking for. Apart from the 40% babble it engenders, twitter is quite a repository of social news and with us you get defined seminars on any and every subject that is of value on a day.

@anywhere actually envisions as a social journey rather than just a destination you park your browser on..that essential difference is the gamechanger. However much like its analytics which is more tweet count and follower counts than engagement, the users may be interested in not making their web a dynamic fluid experience everytime they log on..then the mountain must go to he/she.

That is an enormous challenge. But today I can reach my users and followers from anywhere on the web, just because i tweet when i have something to say. Isn’t that a new history?

Filed under Social Media, Twitter Tagged with Social Media, Twitter

The world is going @twitter

March 15, 2010 Leave a comment

At the SXSW pre-launch announcement that was Ev’s keynote:

“Discovery is one of the hardest challenges,” Williams said. “It’s putting these in context where you’re already aware of them…Twitter is a very easy way to keep in touch.” The company has 13 launch partners, including Digg, The New York Times, MSNBC.com, eBay, Amazon, and Bing. As Williams describes it, “it’s not an ad platform, it’s an ‘@’ platform,” referring to the syntax of using the ‘@’ symbol to denote communication between individual Twitter users.

Twitter goes live with business

Twitter will thus roll out as an essential part of amazon.com, bing.com and NYtimes among others, going beyond Facebook connect. It is not clear whether any f the partners have kept changes to their front pages in tow, and we mean the UI for you and me. The tweeting will be available directly though, Ev making some cute assertions at his SXSW keynote and simul-published for effect at blog.twitter.com:

Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo! home page—and that’s just the beginning.

These are pioneers in their own right and all Twitter is saying of itself right now is that because of Twitter, “companies started interacting with customers, celebrities connected with fans, governments became more transparent, and people started discovering and sharing information in a new, participatory manner.”

I am looking forward to the Amazon experience and the news experience with my New York Times. It’s gong to be a hard test, Twitter! I wouldn’t say tweet fest unlike the Twitter founders because that I am already getting now. It has to be a new socially interactive experience to make any commercial impact for Twitter. If it does work, Facebook Connect would by faar be inadequate to describe my interaction limitations.

Filed under Digital Media, Social Media Tagged with Social Media, SXSW, Twitter

A small step for Twitter, a giant leap for Tweetmeme | ToyotaConversations.com

March 13, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, Tweetmeme try some British ‘hands’ at Ldy Gaga on thei rblog, singing a song and tweeting merrily on their first sweet success.

They have the troubled carmaker luckily in time trying out their new “Conversations Engine” by Tweetmeme (no pun on Pokerface) and social media esp. the deserving Twitter getting a leg up marketing & communications strategy. As I said earlier, myself, I would have budgeted 25% of my Marketing cash or Twitter out of the 30% for Digital for the corporation, not the 2010 average of 7%…

That still doesn’t mean Toyota know how to handle social media, but now it will be more visible to the Marketing frat and the digital world if they actually make sense. They have to be careful, forthright and innovative to maximise their win from the tweet-portal and they will not get a second chance in this medium.

Great work Tweetmeme. It is off to a good English Sunday start and I can only hope that you do get your coffee on time..every waking hour..I just got this carry from another social bob, If you can carry the retweet button in video, then why does the Video page carry tweets? I think it is more than a technical hitch if I go to a dashboard and cannot find the play button for Video news.

Hootsuite and Postrank have even more Corporate partners as of now, and among these 3, we do cover significant ground in the Top 100 brands. Will Twitter monetise this on a royalty basis? After all, for us who share their IP on Twitter, it is Twitter who should win too.

Anyhow, while those terms eventually get on the Tweetboard, I am sure Tweetmeme is also looking at enhancing their first generation product. Chirp should throw up some good plans in April next, this one probably just going into what great plans Twitter has for them.

Also it will take more than Pepsi, Toyota, Coke and P&G to bring this hi speed project into ready cash..