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Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Facebook consolidates with acquisition of FriendFeed

August 11th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Social media

One loss making company acquired another on Monday when Facebook shelled out $50m in cash and stock for the sharing service and social network, FriendFeed. Facebook is valued at $6.5bn.

Facebook announcement.

FriendFeed has made little impact on the mainstream but it does appeal to the geek audience, including myself. In my mind, FriendFeed works best as an aggregator as opposed to a destination for content – its closer to the failed Facebook acqusition target, Twitter. The FriendFeed interface is very simplistic unlike the increasingly congested and hectic Facebook.

The user bases are very different, which suggests primary motivation is to absorb talent and expertise (particularly in the area of real-time services) rather than eliminate a competitor – FriendFeed traffic has stagnated for most of the year. The co-founders of FriendFeed and staff will join Facebook’s engineering team.

I think its unlikely that Facebook will continue to support FriendFeed as a separate entity given the fact that both sites are burning rather than generating cash at this point in time. It makes sense for Facebook to consolidate but expect a lot of user angst from one or both communities when the integration process begins.

This is very early days for the social networking sector as a whole. Will Facebook still hold the lead when the industry begins to mature (whenever that might be but a fair few years from now)? Who knows? It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, not least in relation to the monetization and data privacy issues – the elephants in the room for this industry sector. This space won’t stand still for long as evidenced by a wide range of social networking services out there nipping at the heels of Facebook.

Check out Twine, FourSquare, Posterous, Yahoo Mosh and MySpace (just joking).

Tags: facebook, FourSquare, FriendFeed, Mosh, myspace, Posterous, SocialNetworking, Twine, twitter

Is the social networking star waning?

July 14th, 2009 by Daniel Young | 3 Comments | Filed in Social media

Is the social networking star waning?

This graph shows the Traffic Rank for the three biggest international social networks since mid-2007, courtsey of Alexa.

Traffic Rank compares all websites and ranks them from number 1 up in terms of traffic figures. Facebook has been the fourth most Trafficked website on average over the last 3 months.

MySpace has gone from 6 in mid-2007 to 11 today. Twitter has enjoyed a steep ascent from around the 3,000 mark in mid-2007 to 15 today.

Google.com is number 1, at the time of writing. The number 1 spot rotates between Google and Yahoo.

This graph shows that total social networking activity peaked in Q308. It shows the percentage of total daily page views for each of the three sites. MySpace has been on a steady decline since then.

The MySpace experience suggests that social networks have a limited lifespan or that they need continual re-invention to motivate their members. The challenge lies in making changes and re-inventing without alienating users, as Facebook has found to its cost.

News Limited is about to embark on a new strategy for the loss-making site . The site will re-cast itself as an “entertainment portal” following a spate of redundancies and cut backs.

In 2008, U.S. ad spending on MySpace was $585 million, up 15% from 2007, and on Facebook was $210 million, up 50%, according to eMarketer. Facebook generated $210 million in ad revenues in the same period.

Ad spending on Facebook is expected to surpass that of MySpace in 2011. This will be a good indicator of the overall health of the social networking market.

Twitter has dominated the headlines in 2009 thus far. Facebook – which was today valued at $6.5billion – continues to be the star of social networking but I feel that there are signs that it’s star is waning.

Anecdotal feedback from friends suggest that the novelty factor has worn off. Photo sharing seems to be the primary function of the site for most users who tend to interact inside Facebook with the close circle of friends that they hang out with in real life. The re-design hid many applications and services behind tabs meaning that users have to go and look for content rather than have it come to them.

There are signs of an emergence of editorial ruminating about the future and usefulness of Facebook. In this article for Mac World, Hillary Rhodes asks: Is Facebook past its prime? Hillary makes the point that ‘the quality of the content that people share at Facebook may contribute to the longevity of the site far more than the sheer number of people who connect with each other’.

Negative editorial can only serve to speed the deterioration of the Facebook brand as a cool go to place. We always knew it was geeky but perceptions of the site seem to be edging into ‘un-cool’ or at least ‘old-hat’.

A recent study covered by The Australian identified a reaction to digital lifestyles. It found that the younger demographic longs for simpler times, it interested in retro and vintage (comes as no surprise if you live in Surry Hills) and has a desire for more authentic real-world relationships. The study found declines in the time spent on the Internet amongst 1,600 young adults (16-30 years old).

My view is that Twitter has a relatively sustainable lifespan because of its simplicity and its diversity. Twitter seems to have m0re potential due to the fact that it connects people that don’t know one another creating many more opportunities for users to refresh, grow and evolve their networks, exposing them to new sources of information and opinion.

It seems inevitable to me that the traditional / new media pendulum would swing back towards the reality of physical offline media. Like the dotcom bust, this process will redress the balance and bring a sense of reality to what has been a massively over-hyped area. I’d be a nut to argue that social media has had its day. We’re still in the formative phase of social networking and the chances are that Facebook will be superseded by something else in the short to medium term, in the same way that it has overtaken MySpace.

What does this mean for marketers?

Firstly, for online campaigns leveraging social networks and the Web. Marketers must ensure they have a presence within all major social network. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. It must be possible for the customer to engage with the brand and participate in the campaign within the social network of their chosing. This ensures maximum reach. Post campaign analysis will provide some interesting insights as to where your audience participates, which can be weaved into future campaigns.

Secondly, social networks will come and go. What’s important is that brands interact with their target audiences online in an authentic and credible voice. Its not about Facebook, MySpace or any other social network per se, its about understanding your customers and engaging them via the Internet and other forms of media in meaningful and valued interactions and conversations.

Tags: Bebo, facebook, myspace, Socia, social, Social media, social networks, twitter, Web

Twitter still talk of the town

June 2nd, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Public Relations, Social media

We held a digital workshop for a client today, which was very enjoyable. It was a 101 session that looked at best in class case studies across various facets of digital PR – social media releases, Twitter (covering hashtagging, wefollow and various add-on applications), social networking, virals, corporate blogging, integrated campaigns and so on. We also profiled some high ranking Australian bloggers, discussed social media policy and presented a high level strategic approach. Looking forward to next steps…

Elsewhere in the B-M world, we (not me) launched TweetElect09 – a real-time European election monitor and dashboard that is tracking – you guessed it – the European elections.

Tags: Burson, digital, facebook, Media, monitor, PR, real-time, social, twitter, virals

Twitter may peak but only while Jo Bloggs takes a quick peek

March 20th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Social media

This post is prompted by discussions related to Twitter and in particular, this post by Steve Rubel.

If you don’t know what Twitter is by now then I’d argue you don’t need to know.

The only people that will get value out of Twitter today are people that use the Internet as a core part of their professional or personal lives (or some combination of the two). Rubel refers to the lack of organisation and this is going to be a major turn off to your average users who is happy with the way Facebook and other networks serve everything on a plate in a personalised fashion.

Twitter will need to evolve considerably to appeal to a mass-user audience. I remember reading about a lot of very switched on social media experts who questioned the value of Twitter when it first came on the scene.

Twitter has hit the mainstream media as the latest social media phenomenon but it’s not new – its been around since 2006. It’s being positioned by the mainstream media as the latest hot thing on the Web and there has been much discussion around its lifespan, future, viability, business model. The geek chic Twitterati feel discovered and are looking for their next big thing as the general population flocks to Twitter to check it out. Nielsen has reported a 1,000+ percent growth rate.

I spend loads of time online

Twitter started to become uncool when Britney and a raft of celebs signed up but surely the fact that it has taken three years to ‘go mainstream’ provides some indication of its relevance to the general population.

I’d say that talk of Twitter’s demise is premature – not withstanding the questions around its business model, which is surely the real issue here. I’d bet that the vast majority of new Twitter registrations that come as a result of this publicity fade and die very quickly – having zero impact on the activity that’s going on right now and minimal impact on the protective community of active Twitter users today.

Forrester’s Technographics research found that only 13% of (US) online consumers are Creators.

It takes a lot of time to identify and build your community on Twitter. It works for:

The digerati – the population that spends a lot of time online
Thought leaders and those that have something interesting to say
Individuals promoting their own commercial interest or reputation
People who want to promote their own content
People who want to receive randomised news items from ‘authorities’ and experts in their field
Chat in real-time at real-life events #hashtags
Those that are generally interested in social media and how it works

You have to invest a fair amount of time in Twitter to generate returns, simply by virtue of the fact that messages don’t hang around for long – apart from anything else. As Rubel points out, it is disorganised and this will be the networks biggest challenge if it wants to retain the mainstream user.

My sense is that large swathes of the general population will quickly migrate back to the familiarity of Facebook and other multi-function social networks. The press coverage will undoubtedly drive a ton of people toward Twitter but I doubt that many will become very active.

The general population would be better advised going to Yahoo Answers! or a specialised social network if they want to tap the opinions of a mixed collection of people on an ad-hoc basis.

The attention paid to Twitter will be a positive thing for the service in the long run – it will also increase its attractiveness of potential acquirers. If Twitter can couple the increased user population with a workable business model then Twitter will remain relevant for a long time to come.

Does the mainstream’s media sudden obsession with Twitter reflect the growing importance of social media OR does it reflect the fact that social media is maturing and there are fewer new things to get excited about? What do you think?

Tags: Blogging, Creators, Forrester, micro, social, twitter

It’s OK, I’m back…

January 19th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Blogging, Music

St. Malo, France (unrelated to the post)

Velvet Blues recently blogged on the trend towards shorter posts in the blogosphere. I can relate to this trend having not written a jot for more than a month. I just know that my legions of fans have been waiting with baited breath for the next installment – AND HERE IT IS.

I had a month off over Xmas and New Year, which included a week camping, a week in Byron and some quality time with my brother who was visiting from the UK.

I am keen to get the blog up and running and maybe shorted observational posts is the way forward. I often think about posts but struggle to find the time to extract them from my head. It didn’t help that the iBurst network went down (as a result of Commander’s bankruptcy), taking my Chilli Internet access with it. The offered me a discounted 24 month contract with 3 but my instincts told me that that would be pretty lame. So I moved over to ADSL with Telstra, which I am happy with so far.

I just learnt that Telstra acquired the iBurst’s wireless spectrum. Telstra is expected to wrap it up in cotton wool and hide it away to prevent any competitive activity – nice.

So here are some of the random thoughts that I thought would make nice topics for blog posts:

Music habits are changing – bands are coming and going very quickly as a result of the Web and iPOD phenomenon. Mass audience band loyalty/ affinity is a thing of the past (no ‘r’). The big mega bands are in decline, the future of music will be dominated by fly by nights – one hit wonders if you like that can pick up a small niche audience quickly and then fade from view for the next hot thing. This story tends to contradict my synopsis however…
‘My following is bigger than yours’ discussions are boring! I’ve been witness to almost relentless toing and froing from prominent personalities on Twitter about the size of their followings. It’s what you do with it guys.
I think it would be interesting to have a blog in Australia on the topic of the media landscape.
Its interesting to see celebrities jumping on to Twitter (Stephen Fry, Jonathon Woss, Paris, Britney (yes we are on first name terms)). I get a lot of value from Twitter. I think my follows have reached a critical mass.
I thought a lot about a post on potential business models for Twitter. That one might actually happen.
Social media monitoring tools have come a long way in the last 12 months (we’ve trialled loads) but there are still some big holes. This is an exciting area.

So there you go – some very succint posts. Watch this space.

Oh, and this blog needs a re-vamp. A friend described it as ‘cluttered’ – it’s been bugging me because he’s right. I work in PR so its all about style over substance *joke.

Tags: Blogging, facebook, iPOD, Music, twitter

Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

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