Twitter to Unveil Advertising Platform Today?
Today, Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab will interview Twitter CEO Evan Williams at SxSW. TechCrunch is poised to report—especially since they expect Twitter to unveil its advertising platform in the interview.
That’s not for certain, of course, but TC points to Twitter head of monetization Anamitra Banerji’s comment on Feb 27 that they’d have the platform ready “in a month or so.” (Two and a half weeks is apparently close enough.) They’ve put 2 and 2 together with GigaOM’s Matthew Ingram’s (Feb 23) report that Twitter is lining up major partners for a launch.
Twitter has long been excited over its coming ad offering. Back in November, founder Biz Stone insisted that “Everyone is going to love” their new advertising system. “It’s going to be amazing.”
A digital advertising format everyone will love? I’d certainly love to see that. Of course, I’m sure the guy who stands to make money off the ads thinks “everyone” will agree with him, since he loves the idea 
. On the other hand, however, Business Week speculated back in December that 2009 might have actually seen a profit for Twitter, with its deals with Bing and Google—so maybe Twitter will focus on getting this right instead of just getting the next buck (I’m looking at you, Facebook).
What do you think? Will Twitter unveil its long-awaited ad platform today? And if so, what will it look like?
AOL Launches Stand-Alone Lifestream
AOL unveiled its social aggregator and publisher, Lifestream, as part of its instant messenger platform last Fall. Now they’re launching a stand-alone site at lifestream.aol.com. After it appears they’ve failed with Bebo, this social venture may have a chance of success, in the opinion of TechCrunch at least—they’re saying, “This is what Google Buzz should have been.”
Like most social aggregators, Lifestream gathers content from several social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Foursquare, Delicious, Digg, Flickr, YouTube. Lifestream uses existing friend lists on those social networks, so users don’t have to recompile their friend lists. Users can also cancel updates from entire networks, users or users on networks (i.e. ignore your friend’s Twitter stream but keep following his Facebook). It’s also integrated with Facebook Connect, so there’s no separate login, and users can publish back to social networks from the platform.
Lifestream also has a network of its own, and plans integration with Google Buzz in the future. TechCrunch doesn’t mention whether the service automatically hides duplicate messages—for example, your friends who have their Twitter statuses automatically publish to Facebook, too.
And then there’s the mobile platform: the website is compatible with mobiles, but Lifestream also has AIR, iPhone and Android apps. The mobile apps auto-note location, and you can use them to post pictures.
TechCrunch concludes:
The Lifestream product is simple, intuitive and really, really useful. Frankly it’s what Google Buzz should have been – both an independent social network on its own, but very deep integration into all of the other social networks you are likely to use daily. It’s nice to see actual innovation coming out of Aol.
In a time of more and more fragmentation, I think many people are looking for a product like this. If Lifestream is really as easy and seamless as TechCrunch says, and if it can gain acceptance, it could be the product AOL needs to turn its social fortunes around.
What do you think? Will you give it a shot?
Toyota Turns to Twitter for ORM Issues
Toyota is now turning to Twitter to help stem the tide of negativity that has been heaped upon it during the “Recall Free For All” (that one’s mine). I guess someone at Toyota HQ has been studying up on this Twitter thing and decided that it was the way to go. Of course, just going headlong into a potentially hostile environment would be foolish so they have found a way to “manage” just what is being seen and heard in this attempt to make things better again with the top selling automaker in the world.
TechCrunch reports
The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota.
Called Toyota Conversations the site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, which are Tweetmeme’s retweetable ads for Toyota.
Risky business for sure unless, of course, you can somehow “manage” just what is shown in the tweets that are part of this effort.
You may notice after taking a look at all of the top stories that are being aggregated on the site, that most of the news is positive. That doesn’t seem to match the general tone of the media writing about Toyota, which has been quick to criticize the car company for its manufacturing mistakes. If you take a look at Twitter sentiment app Tweetfeel, the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Toyota lean more negative. Tweetmeme channels can be set up to pick up only certain news sources. It looks like Toyota picked the friendlier ones.
Well, when I took a look this morning at the Toyota Conversations Tweetmeme site they may have not caught everything.
Take note of the logo used in Toyota’s tweets as well. It makes the company look like some kind of evil empire. Using black as your primary color to help people warm up to you again is not very effective but hey, what do I know?
So will this effort by Toyota help the cause? Jeremiah Owyang is quoted in the LA Times blog about this very subject as saying
“In the social sphere, it’s often best to be proactive during a crisis, to let the market know you’re listening, and centralize the discussion around your brand, giving the brand more opportunity to guide the conversation,” Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang said. “Yet don’t be fooled, on the social sphere the illusion of power is quickly dispelled, as everyone can have a say.”
Is this the right time for Toyota to do this? Wouldn’t it have been more genuine if this was underway from the very start because now it appears to be a contrived effort to stop the flow of negative press rather than a sincere attempt to “make nice” with a buying public that may not ever trust this brand like it used to.
Apple Takes HTC to Court, At Least That’s What the Documents Say
The battle between Google and Apple is heating up and how it shakes out is likely to influence how a lot of online business is done both now and in the future. You know things are serious when one of the partners, in this case Google’s partner HTC, gets hauled into court by Apple for alleged patent infringement and Google, who is not even named in the suit, comes to support HTC.
TechCrunch provides some intel
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Apple has filed a lawsuit against device-maker HTC over 20 patents they control. As you might imagine, Google has something to say about it too.
“We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it,” a Google spokesperson emailed us.
A little odd that Google would proactively send us a statement for something they’re not technically involved in. But, as we’re all well aware, this suit is much more about Google’s Android operating system than HTC. And it seems that Google is well aware of that too.
The territorial lines being drawn and the results in the marketplace are going to be significant because these battles are only going to intensify. As they get worse they will affect how these companies run and eventually how regular people can do business through them. As a result, these things, which seem like a “That’s their problem” scenario are really everyone’s potential problem.
What do you think about the Google v. Apple stance that is being more and more solidified on a daily basis? How will it impact your ability to do business? Will it even matter? Are you taking sides?
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Trackur Shakes Up the Social Media Monitoring Space with a Free Plan
I’m not sure if you know the back story of why I decided to launch social media monitoring tool Trackur.
After completing Radically Transparent, I felt like there was a huge void between those that had outgrown Google Alerts and the monitoring tools available at that time. You had Google Alerts (free) then you had services that started at thousands of dollars.
Fast forward a couple of years–yes, Trackur is two years old this month–and Trackur has grown to be one of the most popular monitoring tools on the web. So popular in fact, that we’re racking up many agency clients–attracted by our quick, easy, and affordable tools.
I digress. No really, I digressed. While we were serving the big agencies, we kind of neglected those that I wanted to help the most: those that had outgrown the limitations of Google Alerts. So, today I’m delighted rectify that by announcing Trackur Free.
Trackur Free comes with all of the great functionality we offer in our Personal and Corporate plans, but without the price tag! You get unlimited search results, anyone can share your login, you get reports, CSV export, RSS and email alerts. Just about everything we offer. The only restriction is that you can only save one search on Trackur Free. For individuals or small businesses, that may be all you ever need!
We’re making Trackur Free retroactive, so if you’ve previously taken our 14-day free trial, you’ll find that your login has been automatically rolled over to the free account.
We hope you’ll make the switch to Trackur Free. It’s a great way to take Trackur for a spin without any time pressures and, when you’re ready, you can upgrade to any of our paid plans. Remember, even our sophisticated Agency plan is just $297–about half the price you’ll pay for many companies’ entry-level offering!
(TechCrunch also has coverage of Trackur Free)
75 Million Visitors to Twitter in January
Yup, this measurement from comScore of 75 million people visiting Twitter in January of this year does not take into account those accessing the service through third party apps. Isn’t it nice to get that out of the way right from the start?
Fresh off the news that in January Twitter served over 1.2 billion tweets there is little surprise in a growth chart that looks like this courtesy of TechCrunch and comScore
When you cut to the chase on this though, the question about Twitter has to be less about quantity and more about quality. As more and more of the mainstream begin to discover and possibly embrace Twitter (have you had any “I don’t get that Twitter thing at all” comments from people who are not like you?) the pure volume of visitors, users and tweets will continue to rise. What might not rise is the legitimate information that is in the cacophony of tweets. If it becomes harder and harder to mine and make sense of Twitter’s stream then it won’t matter how many people visit.
Twitter has done it’s part though by moving forward and making the overall experience more useful
Large sites like Twitter and Facebook before it tend to grow in step-like patterns, with bursts of growth followed by periods of flatness during which the site absorbs its new users and adapts to their needs. Twitter has certainly been improving the functionality of its own site, with the rollout of new features such as local trends, a better suggested user list, Twitter Lists, and the Retweet button. Maybe all that work is starting to pay off.
So how do you feel about Twitter today? I ask about today because the tide turns so rapidly in this space that even attempting to predict the future of anything is an exercise in futility. Obviously, no one has a crystal ball (except of course that broker who keeps calling you with “hot tips”) but to call how the social media landscape will play out over any extended period of time is a crap shoot at best.
Your take?
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Posterous Has a Coke Zero and a Smile
When I saw this ‘announcement’ I really wanted to check into what was going on because it involved a brand I have been a lifelong fanatic of (Coca Cola) and one that I have recently started to really enjoy, Posterous.
While I sometimes wonder why people get so attached to brands and think it’s a little weird, I have to admit that I am almost over the top with my Coke addiction (go ahead and snicker and insert silly drug reference here). I actually refuse to drink other soda products unless there is literally no other choice. Also, I just like the logo and the sense of Americana it carries. Of course, with the amount of aspartame I have ingested drinking Diet Coke for years I will likely prove those lab rats correct but, hey, everyone has to check out of here for some reason, right?
Anyway, back to the marketing stuff. Posterous has teamed with Coke but there is a unique business spin on this one for Posterous which is a free “blog service” to consumers. You see, Coca Cola is actually paying Posterous for it being the platform for a contest they are running that will be part of the NCAA Basketball Tournament this year.
TechCrunch provides the overview
One of Posterous’ first “clients” is Coca-Cola, which is definitely a good first start. Coca-Cola is using Posterous for its NCAA “Dept of Fannovation” where people can come up with ideas to improve the experience of being a fan, and a chance to win $10,000.
Coca-Cola’s use of Posterous revolves around the “post moderation” feature. Any Posterous site can be enabled so that anyone can email post@sitename.posterous.com. The site owner can then moderate those posts, and publish them with a single click. This feature can be used to crowdsource images, video, and text from users.
I have not followed through on the idea submission process on this one so I have not seen this in action. I do see though that on the “Dept. of Fannovation “site” which is a very dark site in its theme because the actual Coke product for this is Coke Zero, there is a nice yellow Posterous tab that could do quite nicely to make the service more well known to a crowd (college hoops fans) that is young enough to understand it and get it.
So it looks like Posterous is taking the same tact as Twitter and deciding that the money to be made is in the corporate market. Keep it free for the regular folks so they can be herded for companies to pick apart and market to the ones they need. Sounds cold and analytical but marketing can be that sometimes, can’t it?
We Are Spending More Time Online According to Harris
Shocked aren’t ya? It really is two days before Christmas because there is just not much happening. The folks at Harris Interactive are still working though and reporting that we are spending more time online than ever before. This will surprise no one but the report digs into some of the specifics of age groups which is always of interest. Honestly though, no surprises there either. TechCrunch tells a little about the study and what possible effects on the results could be:
Harris concludes that the average hours spent online have increased from 7 hours from 1999 to 2002, to between 8 and 9 hours in 2003 to 2006, and surged after that.
There was a sudden spike in time spent online in 2007 when the average hours spent on the Web increased to 11 hours. Last year, Internet users were online for 14 hours a week, double what it was from 1999 to 2002, although Harris says this could have something to do with the outbreak of the financial crisis and the lead-up to the presidential election in October 2008.
The study is about personal time on line and is not inclusive of e-mail time. Based on that, we are talking about just short of 2 hours per day online on average. Here is the data that may be of service to you.
There are no real surprises here. I think the shock of the proliferation of the online life is wearing off. There are likely to be other spikes moving forward like the increase of use of the mobile web that will be the new measure of growth online. I suspect that if Harris did some polling around that there would be great interest in the trending. Maybe that will help us identify when the real “Year of Mobile” was or is to be.
Cute: Yahoo Targets Former Employee Names on Google AdWords
TechCrunch has screen shots of Google AdWords ads targeting Joshua Schachter’s name, a former well-knwon Yahoo employee, leading to Yahoo’s recruiting web site.
In fact, Joshua Schachter tweeted about it yesterday, where he said, “yahoo’s running recruiting ads against my name. classy.” Soon later, Rasmus Lerdorf, another former Yahoo employee, tweeted he was [...]
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Google and Yelp a “No Go”
As the great Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over” and the deal between Yelp and Google is the latest proof of that. In the Internet space in particular an extra dose of caution is recommended when hearing a ‘rumor’ (i.e. something that comes on ‘good authority’ and is almost a done deal) to take a step back and give the rumor a chance to breathe. Unlike a bottle of fine wine, though, rumors in this space often go south but that’s just part of the space.
The latest ‘event’ that received the treatment of a lot of attention but didn’t finish as rumored was the ‘deal’ between Google and Yelp. Last week we told you of TechCrunch’s report on the imminent Google deal to purchase Yelp.
Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.
Well, TechCrunch reports that this deal has derailed and that Yelp is walking away from a significant offer.
The deal was, as we wrote late last week, in the later stages of negotiation. The two companies had agreed on a price – around $550 million plus earnouts – and were working through the final details of the acquisition.
Then something happened that made Yelp reconsider the deal. Over the weekend they notified Google that they were not going to sell, say multiple sources.
That something must have been pretty big and pretty sudden. These negotiations take a considerable amount of time to get to the point where an anonymous source gets the itch to leak the ‘truth’ to the Internet media press. This information was leaked but apparently there were a few landmines that were not seen or not considered ‘deal breakers’.
One can speculate all day long as to why this deal fell apart but we are not going down that road. In fact, until something is officially noted by either company (which may or may not happen) we’ll sit on the sidelines for now.
So with everything in life and, in particular the Internet marketing industry, step on the rumor mill with your grain of salt handy. As for now let us know if this is good news that the deal fell through or were you thinking there was some good to come out of the acquisition.
