Smart companies learn from past successes and failures, seems nothing of that sort happening with Apple and AT&T. Did Apple/AT&T expect anything different this time around?
From Gizmodo:
The iPhone 4's first pre-ordering day has been a total disaster. AT&T's online system has collapsed, there are account security breaches, Apple's online upgrades are down, and stores are now using pen and paper to process sales.
The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.And how do you choose which Tweets get promoted, Twitter has come up with a Resonance score using which it will determine which Tweet needs to be pushed as promoted post. From the same article:
Twitter will measure what it calls resonance, which takes into account nine factors, including the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links.While I feel that if done right this will be a win-win for all as Twitter plans to roll this out to Third Party Developers, like John Battele, I also saw the following in the same article.
If a post does not reach a certain resonance score, Twitter will no longer show it as a promoted post. That means that the company will not have to pay for it, and users will not see ads they do not find useful, Mr. Costolo said.
...Companies will “be able to increase awareness in that instance when the iron is most malleable,” said Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter.Now this is little scary with the kind of example given above. I value the reviews/recommendations of my immediate friends and then the friends (who I don't know personally but are revered and I follow because I feel they are the authority, people like Scoble, Dave Winer etc). If my friends or "revered" friends are giving negative feedback about a Movie, a positive tweet coming from Studio is a farce/distraction and something I won't appreciate in my timeline. Also, the Promoted tweet in this case will be very difficult to ignore unlike online banner/image/text ads thus negating the whole tweet reading experience. I hope Twitter would be looking at all such scenarios. Overall I am excited about the new revenue model coming from Twitter. If done right, it will enrich the Twitter eco-system and benefits all - Advertisers, Twitter Client Developers, End Users and Twitter ofcourse.
If a new movie is getting negative reaction, the studio could use the ads to link to a positive review, for example.
...
In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser.
Stats:
- Email marketing returned $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, and is expected to return $42.08 for every dollar spent on it in 2010. (Direct Marketing Association)
- 89% of retailers cited email is the most mentioned successful tactic overall. (Forrester Research and Shop.org’s Retailing Online 2009: Marketing Report)
- 67% of subscribers say they've purchased products offline as a direct result of receiving an email from a retail company. (Epsilon – 2009 Report)
Online Content, News Papers etc
What’s up with Newspapers?
A lot of talk on future of newspapers seems to be unfolding with each passing day. The answer so far seems to be two things (atleast in the recent days):
The Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has sold four-month ad packages to Coca-Cola Co. and FedEx Corp. for $400,000, the newspaper said, citing the people. Coke and FedEx declined to comment on the terms.
Time Warner Inc.’s Time magazine has signed up advertisers including Toyota Motor Corp., Unilever NV and FMR LLC for single ad spots that cost $200,000, the Journal said.
Will this be enough, we will know soon.
Taking The Tablet: 15 Ways Publishers Are Re-Imagining The Magazine
PaidContent has interesting collection of videos on how Magazine Publishers are beginning to ideate the perfect iPad (or Tablet) Magazine App.
While each takes advantage of the touch screen to, at the least, replicate the tactile experience of flicking through a magazine, visions for the digital mag vary somewhat, coalescing around five key trends…
- Print shovelware: Those that merely recreate the page-turning experience on the digital screen.
- Interactive editions: They’re recognisably a magazine, but navigation and animation really take advantage of what is essentially a screen.
- Motion-heavy mags: Co-produced by film makers, they’re as much a video narrative as a magazine.
- Web shells: Lazy apps that merely funnel through a publication’s existing website.
- Live info: Divorced from monthly print cycle, an article can take advantage of the real-time web.
News site Ad Revenues – Some numbers
There is a great debate going on between Reuters blogger Felix Salmon and Business Insider’s Henry Blodget. You can follow the debate, here, here and here. Anyways, what I wanted to point out was some great Ad Revenu numbers for a general news site.
Social Networks
Twitter announced to launch a new platform that lets Web publishers display tweets on their sites more broadly and easily than is possible today using Twitter APIs. The new framework called @anywhere, will let Web publishers bring in relevant tweets to their sites by inserting JavaScript code to their websites thus lowering the complexity for integrating Twitter content into external Web pages.
Software
Few big news stories breaking out of Microsoft Mix 2010 event.
The Silverlight adoption has continued at a rapid pace with installations approaching 60 percent of all Internet devices worldwide — an increase of nearly 15 percentage points in just four months.
Research
Mobile Apps to be $17.5 billion market by 2012
According to a new study which looked at Mobile Apps space across all platforms and on a global basis, the revenue from mobile apps will grow to $17.5 billion by 2012. Currently this stands at $4.1 billion in 2009. This revenue includes both paid downloads and revenue from advertising and virtual goods. Some more stats from the report are as below:
Get the entire report here (PDF).
Starting today, I will be posting small briefs of the stories that catches my attention. I will be publishing these every 2-3 days and eventually the goal would be to publish these daily (not making any promises, history against me :))
Internet Issues
Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity
With great examples from the recent Google Buzz launch and last years Facebook Proivacy setting issues, Danah Boyd in her Keynote at SxSW-Interactive says that Privacy is not dead, just that people need to be in control over their content. When you lose control of your content, you lose privacy. Read the entire Transcript on Danah’s site here.
Marketing and Advertising
NYTimes.com - Instant Ads Set the Pace on the Web
Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft let advertisers buy ads in the milliseconds between the time someone enters a site’s Web address and the moment the page appears. The technology, called real-time bidding, allows advertisers to examine site visitors one by one and bid to serve them ads almost instantly.
Social Networks
Get ready for a new web. It's big, it's blue, and it's social.
Steve Rubel says Facebook will rule the Web in next decade, so much so that it will become the #1 website in the world in next three years. Some great data points in there,
According to Compete.com, Facebook recently became the top source of traffic to major sites such as Yahoo and MSN, surpassing Google. Hitwise said that Facebook is the fourth leading traffic driver to news sites.
Nielsen reported that in January, U.S. consumers spent a staggering seven hours a month on Facebook -- more than three and a half times the time spent on Yahoo, which ranked second in attention.
Finally, while still tiny compared to Google, search queries on Facebook climbed 13% in January, according to ComScore.
On a lighter note
On a lighter note, "How many Social Media consultants does it take to change a light bulb" - Courtesy – Digital Marketing Inner Circle
None. "Look, if all you're thinking about is changing the light bulb, you're missing the point. The idea is to first lurk around in the room and watch other people changing light bulbs. Then, start providing commentary and encouragement to those that are changing light bulbs. Then, build relationships with these people in the lighting community. Then -- and only then, should you even think about trying to change the light bulb.
Have been thinking a lot lately to update this blog. I have managed to maintain this blog for a while now but have not given due focus to share my longer thoughts. The shorter ones gets taken care of by Twitter. Twitter & Facebook has changed a lot of things for me, have become more social (in a much more digital way) and over time I have started using those mechanisms more than any other channels. The blog has taken a backseat amongst these changes. With changing priorities at work, my focus areas have also changed.
So here is what I am going to do. The blog will focus a lot more on my current interests in all things Digital, Social Media and Marketing while Twitter/Facebook is where I am more personal. Stay tuned…
View of Seattle from Bellevue Downtown, that’s Lake Washington in between.
Some photographs of the place where I stay and my daily commute.
ComScore reported today on the total search market in December and the growth year on year. There is a total growth of 46% in the past year with US representing the largest search market with 17% of searches. From the ComScore report.
The total worldwide search market boasted more than 131 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home and work locations in December 2009, representing a 46-percent increase in the past year. This number represents more than 4 billion searches per day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute. The U.S. represented the largest individual search market in the world with 22.7 billion searches, or approximately 17 percent of searches conducted globally. China ranked second with 13.3 billion searches, followed by Japan with 9.2 billion and the U.K. with 6.2 billion. Among the top ten global search markets, Russia posted the highest gains in 2009, growing 92 percent to 3.3 billion, followed by France (up 61 percent to 5.4 billion) and Brazil (up 53 percent to 3.8 billion).
One key country missing in the report is India, looks like people are not doing enough search in India.
Google sites account for almost 2/3rd of these searches. But great to see the inroads made by Microsoft based on release of Bing. Microsoft sites saw a growth of 70% as compared to Google’s 58% growth. Cool features like Visual Search (narrow down using controls on left hand side), Recipes are turning the tides for Bing and thus Microsoft. Google is facing the heat and it is evident with this and all such other reports.
Falero strawberry candy car at Mapro in Mahabaleshwar
Buddha statue in Brightland resort in Mahabaleshwar.
Microsoft this week has talked openly about opening Retail Stores and even hired a seasoned Retail exec to lead the effort. From WSJ.com:
Microsoft Corp. said it hired a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive to help the company open its own retail stores, a strategy shift that borrows from the playbook of rival Apple Inc.
The Redmond, Wash., company said it hired David Porter, most recently the head of world-wide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation SKG, as corporate vice president of retail stores for Microsoft.
In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them. A Microsoft spokesman said the company's current plans are for a "small number" of stores.
Microsoft has been quick to state the purpose of these stores which is to build brand and connect with consumers directly unlike Apple which opened stores more for Distribution (although I think Apple stores drive brand experience the best). Microsoft Pri0 blog had Robbie Bach, head of the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division stating the same:
Q: Can you give us your thoughts on moving into retail? You guys have a lot of important partners, especially who resell products from your [Entertainment and Devices Division]...Bach: "The way you have to put this in context is you have to think of it as just a natural evolution of what's going on in the market and it's a natural evolution of what's going on as we develop our brand.
"And I don't think -- I saw some of the commentary that this was designed to be the same as Apple or whatever. You should think about it, I think, quite differently.
"Apple's approach was about distribution. People forget that when they entered their stores [in 2001], this was quite a while ago, they didn't have distribution for Macintoshes, so they created their own distribution.
"We have plenty of distribution. These stores for us are about building our connection to customers, about building our brand presence and about reaching out and understanding what works and what improves the selling experience.
"So Apple you would think of as a volume distribution play. You should think of ours as much more of a brand and customer relationship investment more than anything else."
My take, this is great news coming from Microsoft. Microsoft few know have a very strong Retail Industry Practice where they have been working with various partners and have just launched the Retail Experience Center which blends, Microsoft's merchandising strategies as a consumer goods company and its solution capabilities as a technology provider for the retail industry.
This knowledge and a proof of concept store means a lot for the Microsoft Retail initiative. Think about the possibilities of Surface tables, Windows 7 with it’s Multi-touch features on big LCDs and Interactive Shopping Carts. Think about Store assistants telling you product features by keeping the product on the table which reads the tags and builds a rich interactive experience on the table. The only thing Microsoft should be wary of and will need is Execution and I am sure Microsoft would be working on that. They would learn from Apple Stores success and apply their own Retail Practice knowledge to make this a killer retail store, something we have so far only dreamt of and seen as Proof of Concepts only.
MSN has launched Wonderwall, a site which will pull content from other MSN channels and concentrates on Celebrities and ofcourse gossip.
You can read about the launch in the Microsoft press release or some coverage on All Things Digital and PaidContent. I think PaidContent got it right more than anybody.
Wonderwall exemplifies the latest rage in portal strategy—a site that can stand alone with its own brand while feeding from and feeding into the portal.
To most, it looks like MSN is playing catchup. Not so, argues MSN GM Rob Bennett, who contends that Wonderwall provides a single destination for content scattered across MSN, not something completely new. “The reality is a lot of the same content and the same audience is there.” That lack of a single destination is “why it looks like we’re further behind than we probably are.” Bennett expects the promotional power of MSN to help Wonderwall catch up fast: ” I think when we turn the firehose on in different places; it’s going to be a close race.” MSN also has an off-network campaign in the works.
Which is exactly what it is, a strategy to push content from and to MSN and in a way which creates value for Users (central place for all celebrity news/gossip) and Advertisers (more targetable audience at the same place). MSN has great content and if they are able to mix it well with programming and keep it fresh (and they have help in the form of BermanBraun), they will have a winner. One look at the site and you can see the enormous advertising opportunities the site provides. And as far as I understand, users and Advertisers love such stuff. For each click on the celebrity photograph on the wall you have one opportunity to show highly targetable ad. Throw in some research surveys and analysis and the site brings more value to the advertisers.
Good Job MSN.
Guess Politicians are the same everywhere. I have every reason to say, this is India 2012-2015 when our own politicians will hopefully have Facebook profiles :).
Now Social Networking sites need to worry not just about competition but THE Establishment too.
Maryland General Assembly Blocks Facebook, MySpace
"With the beginning of the 2009 Legislative Session, we have observed a significant increase in viruses and malware affecting the Maryland General Assembly computers," the Office of Legislative Information Systems Director Michael Gaudiello wrote to staff on Thursday, according to Legum's New Line. "After several weeks of analysis, we have determined that many of the infecting programs are originating from pages hosted on www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com."
That's not all. The IT department intends to continue its investigation and ban other sites determined to be "problematic."
Has Gaudiello ever heard of anti-virus software? Banning Facebook and MySpace clearly doesn't solve the problem of viruses, as many, many sites can install malware. And, clearly, many lawmakers find social networking sites useful for spreading messages to the people they represent.
Notwithstanding, I have not been able to blog here for quite some time. Have been busy at work mostly. Lots of interesting things happening at work and that has been taking most of my time. Anyways, am rethinking on how to take this blog forward. At work a lot of what I am engaged in these days involves Media related work so you will see a lot of Media related posts too. As always, a considerable amount of will be on Microsoft, Google and other online, media companies. Have said the following words many times before too, I hope and wish this time for good.
Stay tuned…
