Yikes! Google to Acquire Yelp!?
You know how marketers will burn unused budget before the end of the so they don’t lose it next year? Well, do you at least remember when that was a common practice since today there usually much budget to start with? Apparently Google must have some end of the year M & A funds lying around to spend. The word is that they are ready to acquire the local business review site Yelp for a tidy sum. What a way to end the year.
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been busy coming up with the inside scoop:
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.
Yelp was founded in 2004 as a way to let users leave reviews on local businesses. Comscore puts worldwide traffic at nearly 9 million monthly unique visitors, and it has been growing fast – the company says its real numbers are more like 25 million monthly uniques.
This would certainly be an interesting addition to Google’s growing local search empire. With their activities in the mobile realm and all the opportunities with Google Maps, Google Local Business etc, etc Yelp would be a very strong addition to an already strong stable of local offerings.
As for Yelp as a service? It certainly is growing and has a great reputation but it remains a service that has great success in high tech pockets. With Google at the helm it could spread like wildfire. Either that or it may just be assimilated into “The Goog” and used as the model moving forward for Google’s local business offerings. That is all a big TBD and, of course, having this deal finished first will help with the speculation about the integration of Yelp and its offerings.
Arrington notes as well that we should expect more acquisition activity from Google in the coming months. While many joke about it, maybe this really IS a Google world and we are all just allowed to play in it.
US Twitter Visitors Down in October – Sound the Alarm?
Before you read any further just lean back and take a deep breath. You are about to enter the “Research Zone”. You know the place well. It’s where we give you shocking numbers that someone has come up with using their “methodology” and it is then used to create shocking headlines around the Internet for your reading enjoyment. It’s almost like having an informant who whispers something in your ear then you get to blab it all over the place and set the masses running. It’s fun!
Today’s “OMG stat” is brought to you by comScore via TechCrunch. Apparently, Twitter had a rough October.
Ever since last summer, Twitter’s growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter’s domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September.
On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market.
Things to consider:
- Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, has acknowledged the slowdown so there must be some validity to it. His hope is new features will help slow or stop this trend
- These results do not measure those accessing Twitter via third party clients. Only Twitter knows how many actual accounts they have and which are showing activity. Of course, I challenge them to present a number of accounts that are real users and not spammers. What would the numbers look like then?
- This could be a hiccup
- Facebook is possibly cleaning their clock
- US growth is one piece, albeit a very important one, to the grand Twitterscheme of things
Here’s the pretty picture for you to look at wonder over.
So what’s your take? Twitter – thumbs up or thumbs down? Can adding new features attract more users or are they just tools that “preach to the choir” meaning only helping those already on board? Should anyone be worried about this?
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20% of Online Advertising is on Social Networks
We reported one stat from a new comScore report yesterday—that Facebook served 8.2% of all online ads—but the full report is even more impressive.
More than one in five of all online ads are served on social networks. MySpace still leads the pack with 9.2% of all online ads, and Facebook is a close second with 8.2%. The 3.7% of online ads served on social networks is split among such sites as Tagged.com, MocoSpace.com, Hi5.com, Bebo, Classmates.com and other smaller sites, most with 0.1% or less of the total online ad market:
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Top Online Display Ad Publishers in Social Networking Category June 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix |
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| Total Display Ad Impressions (MM) | Share of Display Ads | Ad Exposed Unique Visitors (000) | |
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 326,899 | 100.0 | 188,589 |
| Social Networking | 68,927 | 21.1 | 129,620 |
| MySpace Sites | 30,004 | 9.2 | 64,472 |
| Facebook.com | 26,813 | 8.2 | 67,389 |
| Tagged.com | 1,940 | 0.6 | 7,422 |
| MocoSpace.com | 496 | 0.2 | 1,067 |
| Hi5.com | 461 | 0.1 | 3,459 |
| Bebo | 435 | 0.1 | 6,350 |
| Classmates.com Sites | 400 | 0.1 | 9,181 |
| BlackPlanet.com | 345 | 0.1 | 2,084 |
| GaiaOnline.com | 258 | 0.1 | 1,859 |
| DeviantArt.com | 204 | 0.1 | 3,681 |
The top advertisers on social networks was AT&T (seriously?), with >2B ad impressions, 30% of its online advertising (seriously?). Other top advertisers included Experian (1.25B impressions, 24% of its online ads), Ask.com (950M impressions, almost 47% of its online ads), Sprint (790M impressions, 26% of its online ads), Pangea Media (572M impressions, almost 90% of its online ads) and Microsoft (564M impressions, only 17% of its online ads).
So mobile phones and also-ran search engines are among the top advertisers on social networks. I guess the mobile phones make sense—we’re on social media to connect to other people, and that’s what cell phones are for, right? But somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be quite enough to turn around Microsoft’s and Ask’s online fortunes.
What do you think? Are you surprised by the proportion of online advertising social networks have grabbed? Do you think social network advertising is worth it? Can it help Microsoft and Ask?
Seriously, Do Teens Tweet?
Yesterday, we went in search of Twittering teens, after the NYT couldn’t find any. Time and again we’ve heard statistics tell us that teens don’t tweet—or do they?
The Silicon Alley Insider took a look at comScore’s recent numbers and charted them. The chart says it “measures unique visitors relative to their presence on the Web as a whole”—meaning that if 16% of Internet users are teens, and 16% of Twitter users are teens, they’d be at 100.
For July, teens (well, teens and young adults) are at 120—meaning there is a higher percentage of Twitter users that are teens than Internet users that are teens. Also note that the 12-24 bracket is the only one on an upward trend since June.
But really, we kind of already knew this. When we looked at the much-hyped “Teens don’t tweet!” headlines three weeks ago, we saw yet another lie-with-statistics and took it to task. The Nielsen company issued a chart that said only 16% of those aged 2 to 24 tweeted, while 64% of those aged 25 to 54 tweeted. But:
But the chart on the other hand looks a little misleading. Let’s start with the age bands—technically, you’re supposed to be 13 to use Twitter (doubtful that they can enforce the TOS, but, hey, let’s humor them). If we assume (probably incorrectly, but that’s kind of moot) that the distribution in the 25-54 range is roughly equal and readjust the age banding accordingly, then we get:
Yes, teens and young adults are still slightly underrepresented. But remember this leaves out entirely everyone using phones to Tweet—and if I had to guess, I’d say that the same age group was slightly overrepresented on mobile usage.
So yes, maybe teens fear the publicity of Twitter. Maybe they prefer texting. (My 17 year old sister does.) But let’s get real: teens are on Twitter, just like they are on the Internet.
What do you think? Are teens on Twitter, or are we all just boggled by numbers?
Ning Rings VC Bell Again
With all of the talk regarding social media it seems that the inordinate amount of the attention goes to the big 2; Facebook and Twitter. While they do tend to generate significant drama and even some real news there is more to the social media space. In fact, there are those who see the social media universe fragmenting into very specific verticals so those of like mind can gather online without having to see that your friend just had a great breath of air. There’s got to be more right?
One of the biggest ‘sideline’ players in this space is Ning. They are doing very well despite some recent decline in numbers. They are doing so well that they picked up some more VC investment. The amount of the investment is not the focus, however, as pointed out over at AllThingsD. It’s the valuation that the investment is based on, which is a hefty $750 million. Not bad for getting just a small percentage of the attention that social media gets in the online press. For the uninitiated here is an overview of the company
Ning is working in a different corner of the social media space than the others
Ning is a platform aimed at offering customizable tools that lets users create their social networks about their interests, such as for fans of the movie “Twilight.”
Ning puts online ads on the sites, using Google (GOOG), and is also working on its own advertising platform. It also offers an array of other services and is planning more soon, such as a virtual gift offering.
Founded in early 2007, it currently has 29.3 million registered users, using 1.3 million social networks, and it adding one million registered users every 15 days, said the company.
Despite the positive news of investment interestTechCrunch reports
In the U.S., unique visitors actually declined 10 percent from May, 2009 to June, 2009, according to comScore. Ning had 5.1 million visitors in the U.S. in June (its worldwide audience is about three times as large).
The company attributes the decline to “some downtime in June as we expand and optimize our infrastructure to support the growth that we are expecting in the next 12 months.” Ning says it is adding 4,000 new Ning Networks every day and one million registered users every 15 days.
Ning lands this relatively small investment while it wasn’t even seeking more. Having Lightspeed Venture Partners on board, however, makes the roster of investors more impressive as the folks at Ning continue to grow their business. that can carry some value later on when they may actually look for money intentionally.
What is your experience with Ning? Do you have any experience at all with the service? What place does a service like Ning truly have? Ning CEO Gina Bianchini says that “We want to be the social network for interests and passions online.” Are there ways one can express passions online without such a service? Give us your passionate thoughts on the subject.
