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How Twitter Ensures You’ll Never Be a Top User Posted: 17 Feb 2009 11:16 PM PST Twitter has recently added a new suggest feature that helps get you started with your new Twitter account as soon as you register. After choosing your username and password, you’ll be able to import contacts from your email accounts. Nothing new there. But the new Step 3 of the Twitter registration process now recommends several high profile Twitter accounts that cover the gamut of social media topics and personalities, from CNN to mommy bloggers, tech publications to fashionistas. There are several apparent benefits to Twitter’s new recommendation system, for both Twitter and end users. For Twitter, the added feature makes it easier for newcomers to get started on Twitter’s service, and gives them a good idea of the type of content to be found on Twitter. For new users, there’s an immediate reward for signing up on Twitter, and it’s one that isn’t solely reliant on connecting with existing friends. For power Twitter users, their power just got greater. While we’re unable to determine how Twitter chooses these recommendations, it’s clear that the microblogging platform is pushing out a lot of profiles that were already widely recognized and were being added as some of the first profiles new users followed anyway. The concept isn’t entirely new. Google Reader, iGoogle and other start pages like Netvibes follow similar formats for suggesting content. This is of significant benefit to content providers that get an automatic boost from being a default for new users. And for Twitter to continue to roll out new features at a seemingly quickening pace, it’s clear that Twitter is looking to bring more value directly to its users, and keeping them from having to rely on third party applications such as MrTweet for their recommendations. Such ongoing development indicats that Twitter is enabling more socially-oriented capabilities directly on its platform and makes it more competitive given Facebook’s plans for taking on Twitter with its open status API. Twitter’s new feature roll outs also mean that some of the developers that have created value-added applications on top of Twitter’s platform may be left out in the cold. So far, Twitter’s suggestion step in the registration process is still pretty basic and far from customizable. It would be helpful (and more democratic) to provide recommendations based on keywords instead of pre-selected defaults. And adding a similar recommendation feature under the search tab would be of greater benefit to all users–not just new users. Taking a more personalized approach would also curb any disdain certain users may accumulate as a result of favorable treatment towards certain Twitter users, especially when you consider how Twitter cracked down on spam accounts that merely seek out followers for undesirable reasons.

GrouperEye Launches Marketplace for Internships Posted: 17 Feb 2009 11:22 AM PST GrouperEye is a new site that has launched as a marketplace for companies to find students to help them out with particular projects. The idea is to find students that are passionate about what they do, and will be able to benefit from this type of “internship.” The projects they work on are listed on GrouperEye as real time cases, which are formatted as competitions, giving the companies fresh perspectives and budget-conscious results. Below is an excerpt of an interview I had with Ted Williams, the President and Founder of GrouperEye. Kristen Nicole of SocialTimes: What exactly is GrouperEye and how did you come up with the idea? Ted Williams of GrouperEye: GrouperEye is a platform that facilitates real time case competitions online. GrouperEye exists to match remarkable students with remarkable companies. Senior year of college, Professor MacDonald took our marketing class to Rockbridge Vineyards. At the vineyard, we learned about the wine making process and the history of that particular vineyard. The vineyard owner then handed us a wine bottle without a label. Our class’s mission was simple: create a label and an advertising campaign to go along with it. From a student perspective, it was awesome to work on a real business opportunity. The whole class loved it. Eight weeks later, the vineyard owner came to our class as each group pitched him their new bottle and ad campaign. The vineyard owner was floored with the results and had the opportunity to cherry pick the best talent from the class. And needless to say, the next time anybody in the class bought wine, guess which brand they chose? Yes, Rockbridge Vineyards. Kristen Nicole: How does GrouperEye work? Ted Williams: Companies post a case. This case may be a real time problem or opportunity that they are experiencing. Students then compete to come up with the best solution and submit this solution to the company. After the submission deadline, companies evaluate solutions and choose a winner. This winner receives the employment opportunities and $100. We are not a crowdsourcing tool, we are an HR tool. We don’t do business with companies that want logos, we do business with companies that want talent to make their logos mean something. Kristen Nicole: Why are you targeting college and university students? Ted Williams: We are young and we see a problem that we are trying to fix. We are not targeting anyone or thinking beyond that. We just haven’t thought about targeting older people because we don’t know what they need or how they think. Kristen Nicole: With the current market, what benefits does your system offer to companies and students? Ted Williams: Students receive the chance to get noticed for a job opportunity, cash, experience, and a tangible portfolio. This is a chance for students to get noticed based on their ideas rather than a resume or interview. Companies receive access to top talent, an employee screening mechanism, original ideas, and buzz. Never before has hiring the right person been more important. This is a way for companies to engage and evaluate students before making the hiring decision. Educators receive real business opportunities to teach from, student placement, and the chance to compete. Kristen Nicole: How do you make money as a web-based “data middleman?” We make money through case postings. Companies pay $199 to post a case on the site and $100 of this fee is used as the prize money for students. We believe this is a no-brainer for companies and we even refund them if they don’t receive a minimum of five submissions. Our current goal is to get companies, educators, and students to trust that we will provide value to them. We also provide a list of cool opportunities in regards to internships/entry level jobs. This is free for everyone and we do it to provide students another reason to come to the site and hopefully get them interested in the cases. To be honest with you, we really don’t care about making money. We are not worried about that. We can find other ways to pay the rent. We want to allow organizations to engage with students so that the most talented are matched together. Kristen Nicole: Any plans to integrate with niche or widely established social networks like Facebook? Ted Williams: This sounds cool and we have a Facebook group, but that is about it. To answer your question, if this gives more opportunities for remarkable organizations to meet/engage/work with remarkable students, we would love to do it. If you have ideas, send them my way! Kristen Nicole: What are your ultimate goals with GrouperEye? Ted Williams: GrouperEye is based on three principles: (1) the system for young people finding meaningful work is broken, (2) The solution is for organizations to meet, talk, and collaborate with young people earlier, more often, and in creative ways, (3) young people are valuable to organizations. Companies need to discover and hire the best talent. Students need a way to get noticed for their ideas and originality. My ultimate goal is for remarkable young people to do work that excites them at their first job.

The Secret to Social Media Success Posted: 17 Feb 2009 07:00 AM PST If you’ve been following along with the Social Times for the past few months, you may have noticed that the volume on this site has gone down somewhat. Why?!? Where did we go?!? Well, there’s clearly still articles thanks to the help of Kristen Nicole who has been doing a killer job. I intend for this site to provide even more value for the readers than it currently is providing though. Back at the beginning of the year I wrote about “The Curse of the Shiny Object“. Little did I know that within weeks I would have figured out the most effective model for making a blog explode practically overnight. No, not this blog. AllFacebook has increased 500 percent in the past 30 days. It’s been great but I also realized that blogging “until your face falls off” (as Gary Vaynerchuk says) is not a very scalable business in itself. That’s why I’ve been spending the past few weeks building something that I think is much larger than these blogs and everything that’s been built over the past two years by Social Times, Inc. While describing “The Curse of the Shiny Object”, I alluded to the point that I would like to focus on my refined vision of “success through social media”. Little did I know that this vision would guide me to develop what I consider a revolutionary idea about how to help others succeed in a digital world. As with most other things I’ve come up with, it dawned on me at 2 in the morning when you become slightly hypnotized as you are about to fall asleep. So what did I come up with? Unfortunately I can’t reveal that yet. WHAT?!?!?!?! I know, I took all this time to tell you about my new inspired idea but I can’t tell you about what it is … disappointing! Well, I can tell you all about it very soon. I think this is an opportunity to bring Social Times and AllFacebook to a whole new level, and an opportunity for us to create something that truly helps change the world and help our readers. Yes, there are more details to come extremely soon as I proceed to launch this new business. I’m aiming to make a formal announcement about it in less than four weeks and I’ll give you more details as the time nears. In the meantime, register for our soon to launch newsletter that will keep you up to date on all the details. No, I will not spam your inbox. The newsletter will be sent out no more than once a week. For the thousands of people that already registered for our newsletter via the form in the sidebar of this site, you may want to re-enter your email below to ensure you are included on our list. I will try to transfer your email to the new list but I can’t guarantee that you’ll be on it. No matter what, your email will only be used once. Trust me, I hate getting my inbox flooded just as much as you do! Also, in exchange for subscribing to the newsletter I’m also including a link to download the highly popular Facebook Privacy Settings guide that I released less than two weeks ago. It’s a must read! Also, keep in mind that if you are registered to receive our blog via e-mail, you will not be automatically added to this list. This is a separate email that will arrive no more than once a week. Newsletter Name:   Email:

Offerpal Gets $15M to Build Out Social Ads Posted: 17 Feb 2009 05:00 AM PST Offerpal Media, one of the advertising platforms that works on social applications, communities, games and more, has announced the close of a $15 million Series B round of funding led by D.E. Shaw Ventures. Participation also comes from existing investors InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. The funding will go towards the development of its monetization platform, along with the creation of new tools for web publishers to earn revenue online. The last we heard from Offerpal, it had created an “onboarding” feature for MySpace applications, meaning developers leveraging the MySpace platform could more readily implement Offerpal’s advertising services. At the time of launch, it was too soon for us to know whether or not Offerpal’s claims to experience nearly equal activity on MySpace as it is on Facebook means anything for engagement and end-benefits for advertisers and developers using Offerpal’s CPA model. But in the months since launching the new onboarding feature for MySpace apps, Offerpal has continued to grow. At OnMedia in NYC, the company announced that it was completely profitable and that all of the initial funding was still in the bank. So why does Offerpal require more funding? I’d guess that the company has something much larger planned including their new iPhone advertising platform. It’s the level of engagement that’s of high importance for companies like Offerpal Media, as they move beyond the CPM model in theory, and seek better research and metrics when it comes to consumer interaction and feedback. Social applications found on network platforms and online games have been targeted as Trojan horses for many engagement-based ads, even as some applications become ads themselves, luring in users for interactive advertisements that can easily become social and shared across a media platform to friends and others. Just last week we saw Vizu gain a handful of new partners, including Buddy Media, that will be using the company’s analytics system for reporting on ad behavior within such environments as those listed above. There remains a great deal of interest in this particular space, and Offerpal’s funding only reiterates this attitude especially as quality over quantity becomes a byproduct of budget cuts and re-focused advertising efforts.

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