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Microsoft Vine Giving Twitter & Facebook Commercial Purpose? Posted: 28 Apr 2009 02:04 PM PDT Is Microsoft’s latest product, Vine, the answer to solving the issue of practical status update applications? The new social web application from Microsoft was revealed today during a beta test in Seattle, offering hyperlocal and personalized information for users and groups. On your computer screen Vine acts as a dashboard that you can use to keep up with other members in your community, whether they’re family members, office or team members, or your best buds. The application itself comes in the form of a map, where your contacts will appear via their location, along with their updated status. You can send alerts or reports, which can be sent and received either through the Vine web application or through SMS on your mobile phone. So everyone is wondering if Vine is a Facebook or Twitter competitor. At this stage in the game, I think the real question is whether or not Vine integrates with these two services, both of which are the prominent services used to update one’s status. While Facebook integration has already been included, Twitter integration won’t be added until later. But is this a way for Microsoft to compete with Twitter and Facebook? Microsoft is an investor in Facebook so partnering up with the social network makes sense for Vine. This is an interesting way in which Microsoft is delving back into the social networking realm. For the time being, Microsoft is pushing Vine as a tool for emergencies, mainly to be used by families and already established, organized groups (i.e. emergency services on a school campus, etc.). This vantage point makes a lot of sense for a company like Microsoft, given its demographic and the general feelings towards geo-data being shared with others. The commercial use for Vine may have a higher potential than if it were being promoted as merely a social networking tool, as consumers tend to be more willing to give up the particulars of their location-based data when it’s for safety purposes. Given some of Vine’s other features, which enable you to pull news stories and other events related to their community, Microsoft could very well have found a way in which to practically integrate social networking status updates into a very commercial product. Status updates act as easy and mobile ways in which to take data outside of a social network, and placing context around those status updates is a necessary step to taking social networking and microblogging to the next level. Aside from creating context for the world of status updates, I also think that Microsoft Vine has potential due to some of Microsoft’s other products, including Silverlight, SharePoint (for business networking) and even Microsoft’s mobile platform. What do you think; is Vine the answer to giving microblogging commercial purpose, or is this another Microsoft flop?

Mint Measures Your Financial Fitness with New Tools Posted: 28 Apr 2009 06:00 AM PDT How financially fit are you? It’s a very important question these days, and the tools to keep you financially healthy are all the rave. Mint, the web-based personal finance tool, is releasing a new section of its site called Financial Fitness in order to give a wider range of features to its users. Financial Fitness really takes Mint’s existing personal finance tools to the next level, making the new segment a natural progression for Mint. Financial Fitness consists of five personal finance principles and lays these out for users to note on a weekly, monthly and annual basis. These five principles include: Know your Money Spend Less than you Earn Use Debt Wisely Invest Your Savings Prepare for the Unexpected These are the core aspects of Mint’s Financial Fitness, and based on the various activity you have in each principle, your financial health will vary. As Mint already had basic personal finance tools to show you what’s going on with your money, Financial Fitness merely helps you answer the question, “what to do with your money.” The new feature allows you to really stay on track with your financial goals, aggregating all the data Mint already has for your personal finance and in turn helping you to make better decisions. For example, Mint can see which credit card accounts your using or which mobile network provider you have. If you frequently end up wasting money on late fees for your bills, Mint can suggest other credit card company that doesn’t have late fees at all. Taking the knowledge it’s learning from a wide array of users and turning it into a custom recommendation service that also keeps you on track is precisely what Mint is going for here. Additionally there will be rewards given out for those that are financially fit. No details have been revealed about the rewards to be doled out for those that stay on track, but we’ve heard that the points and rewards system is akin to a gaming format. It’s a concept I’ve been expecting to pan out with Mint, other personal finance tools and even media recommendation services for some time now. With Mint in particular the Financial Fitness section is important because it makes the previous Mint offering more valuable and it proves the necessity of services such as Mint from a business perspective. Mint is also hoping that the current recession will make consumers more fiscally aware, and the company is really pushing its service as a supplement or alternative to paying for a financial adviser that you may see only a handful of times throughout the year. I really like the idea of having an automated service that keeps you on track between meetings with financial planners, and I’m certain the two aspects of finance will become more intertwined in the coming years.

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Where I’ve Been Relaunches with More Community Features Posted: 27 Apr 2009 09:26 AM PDT Where I’ve Been is an application that became a sensation on platforms like Facebook, where millions added the application that displays a map of where you’ve traveled to across the world. But that was about the extent of the Where I’ve Been application, especially as the company relied a great deal on integration with social networks to provide additional community features and user-generated value by way of recommendations or direct and personalized advice to others. That’s all changed. A year after being acquired, Where I’ve Been has relaunched this week, giving better community features to its stand alone site in order to provide additional value to site visitors and users alike. One new feature is the news feed, which shares real-time information on a destination that’s of interest to you. While the news feed is becoming a default feature for many sites these days, Where I’ve Been is bringing much of the community content to the forefront with the addition of the real-time news feed. There’s also an Ask an Expert section, which lets you get travel information directly from friends who have been deemed experts, or ask other experts on the site as well. As easy as it is to get information on Where I’ve Been, it’s just as easy to give it. On the home page you’ll see questions from other users seeking advice on a particular destination, such as “does it snow every day in Chicago?” This is yet another way in which Where I’ve Been is leveraging its community members to help each other out.T the best way to encourage and maintain this kind of self-contained information cycle is to provide easy tools to users, which takes us back to other feature updates such as the news feed. You can also read and contribute to aggregated reviews, or take advantage of the booking tools that have been added to Where I’ve Been. In all, Where I’ve Been is doing more to establish itself as a stand alone site and community–something many sites set out to do when running successful application and/or social media campaigns on larger social networks. I think it’s still important to incorporate the social networks in Where I’ve Been’s grand scheme, but the re-launch of the site is a necessary step towards remaining an established service in today’s climate.

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Meebo Teams with myYearbook to Expand IM Posted: 23 Apr 2009 04:11 PM PDT Meebo’s latest partnership is with myYearbook, the social networking site started by teenagers for fellow high schoolers. The partnership includes myYearbook using Meebo chat as a prominent feature on every page of its site, providing chat tools for Meebo users and guests alike. The partnership should be a win-win for both Meebo and myYearbook, as instant messaging is a highly requested feature from myYearbook users. myYearbook is one of the largest networks dedicated to the high school age demographic. This specific user base is also quite active when it comes to online activity, making it a good fit for Meebo’s chat and media-sharing tools. With a reported 9.7 million unique monthly users on myYearbook, the partnership with Meebo may seem like a drop in the bucket when compared to the reported 45 million people Meebo reaches overall on a monthly basis. Yet Meebo relies greatly on partner sites for this overall reach, reporting 4.3 million unique users accessed through the new Meebo service through such partnerships for the month of March alone. Teaming up with third party sites, whether they’re social networks or media hubs, has been a successful way for Meebo to grow. It’s simplistic widget format and ease of use for end users has made it an appealing and mobile chat tool for web use, but direct partnerships enable more robust feature integration from an interface standpoint. Meebo has also taken advantage of its wide distribution to grow its advertising potential. The past two years have seen a number of new feature and product offerings from Meebo that are rather focused on the marketing potential of Meebo as an interactive chat and media-sharing tool. Things like Meebo Rooms and Meebo’s platform have proven attractive to marketers and developers for enabling users to discuss various products, or for brands to discuss products directly with consumers, etc.

MySpace Execs Gone. Next Steps for MySpace? Posted: 23 Apr 2009 10:55 AM PDT MySpace has lost two of its most important executives, CEO Chris DeWolfe and co-founder and President Tom Anderson. With their departure we’re reminded of MySpace’s impending decline, but we wonder what MySpace’s next steps will be. Many complain that MySpace departed from its core competency of offering an online tool for musicians seeking a free place to build their brands. But that often happens when a web 2.0 company is overtaken by a traditional media sector. And in the face of Facebook’s rapid growth these past two years, MySpace has also jumped on the open platform bandwagon after initially resisting integration from third parties. So what can MySpace do at this point? I’ve jotted down a few basic ideas, but it boils down to some semblance of reinvention, which i actually thing requires an introspective return to MySpace’s beginnings. Continue to build out its application platform This is an approach currently being employed by Facebook, which is probably better suited to the task. But turning to the developer community and providing a place for third parties to plug into MySpace’s large user base is beneficial to nearly all parties involved.

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Clearspring ConnectedAd Brings More Metrics to Facebook App Ads Posted: 21 Apr 2009 02:58 PM PDT Clearspring is launching a new service today, proving that widgets are still a great way to spread ads across the web. Entitled ConnectedAd, the new Clearspring service aims to further close the circle on social advertising via widgets made for Facebook and MySpace. This is achieved with additional metrics for better analytics and reporting. For instance, advertisers can now measure all conversion metrics surrounding a given widget, from comments to news feeds, the number of times a widget is shared, along with notifications and fan page links, to name a few. Previous offerings limited metrics to site installs and views. What’s different about the Clearspring ConnectedAd approach is the fact that it takes widgets created for platform use into consideration and layers in more advertising-related methods for analytics purposes. What Clearspring is doing is effectively building out its ad network as it specifically applies to these social network platforms. Clearspring was among the first to offer its widgets for availability on Facebook and MySpace platforms, and the company was also ahead on the curve for programs enabling other developers (and later non-developers) to create integrated widgets to run on these social network platforms. For Clearspring’s own ad network, this was a good approach, as ads run on various widgets could be pushed further throughout the social web. Taking this concept a step further for better empowering the advertisers is what Clearspring ConnectedAd is aiming to do in a more direct sense. The benefit of doing so is the increased ability to reel in more data, and give greater feedback to advertisers. In turn, advertisers will get a better grasp on the effectiveness of various integrated campaigns on social networks. No word on optimization options based on increased metrics on Clearspring’s end, but the widget company has been involved with widgets, advertising and soial network placement for years now. It appears that Clearspring ConnectedAd is an extension of the company’s existing advertising and widget-distribution options, enhancing upon the foundation that Clearspring has been building since launch. The new ConnectedAd offering from Clearspring is also a result of social networks opening up their platforms and promoting cross-site cooperation, but we’re still seeing a grea deal of activity for such platform-based advertising coming from third parties like Clearspring instead of Facebook or MySpace. For now, that’s good for Clearspring, especially as it presents itself as a centralized service for distributed ads across mutiple networks, sites and online social services.

Interview with SocialYell Posted: 21 Apr 2009 08:52 AM PDT SocialYell is a recently launched site designed to provide online promotional tools for organizations and non-profits. From profiles to forums, SocialYell helps individuals find organizations they’re looking for while providing a media distribution tool for the organizations themselves. A large part of what SocialYell is aiming to do is extend discussion platforms for people to converse about a particular organization, whether it’s to determine a plan of action for an event or to merely raise awareness. While the SocialYell site is new, the concept behind it has been around for some time. I did an interview with SocialYell founder David Rostan to learn a bit more about the site and to hear about the ways in which SocialYell is looking to stand apart from the crowd. Kristen Nicole: What is SocialYell? SocialYell is a social media community that enables individuals and organizations to discuss, discover and promote socially responsible, environmentally progressive and globally aware businesses and organizations. It is a directory for socially and environmentally responsible organizations and it is a forum for discussing and rating those organizations. Conversations, voting and rating in the SocialYell community make businesses accountable and rewards social and environmental responsibility – benefiting consumers, organizations, businesses and society. SocialYell users raise their voices to make organizations and business better global citizens.

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It’s Shaq’s Fault Twitter Has Exploded Posted: 20 Apr 2009 01:31 PM PDT Yep, Twitter is still growing at a break-neck speed. In the past four months alone, Twitter’s traffic has zoomed at an exponential rate, according to Alexa. Having surpassed 14 million users earlier this month, Twitter is certainly on the rise. Alexa points out some key demographics when looking at Twitter’s growth, noting its global presence as well. This is important, because Twitter being so readily compatible with mobile devices has enabled the microblogging platform to grow worldwide very quickly. But what caused Twitter to finally go mainstream after being around for three years? Celebrity Take Over It was all Shaq’s fault. Or maybe Ashton Kutcher’s. Oprah could be to blame as well. These well-known celebrities, especially Shaq and Ashton, have latched onto Twitter like a bunch of early adopters at SXSW. They’ve also helped bring Twitter to the forefront of media coverage and current trends. There’s no better way to see faddish growth than to get a celebrity endorsement. Celebrities take a liking to Twitter because of the transparency it offers as a communication tool. Twitter is easy and can be updated as simply as sending a text message. Now celebrities have a little bit more control over their web presence (with less work), and the fans are happy. Consider Twitter the latest form of a publicity stunt. That Darn Fail Whale The fail whale might have something to do with Twitter’s popularity, too. The loveable animation of the fail whale can be one of the most frustrating things you’ll see on Twitter when you’re really anxious to post something, but the reoccurring image hasn’t deterred Twitter’s growth in the slightest. The fail whale merely became another shared experience to discuss on Twitter itself, and has since reached cult status. Granted, we don’t see the fail whale nearly as often as we used to, which has likely contributed to Twitter’s actual ability to see the extreme growth it’s currently experiencing. But we also saw enough of the fail whale in 2008 to remember it in fondness instead of hatred. Let’s keep it that way. We Love Twitter Apps But let’s not forget about Tweetdeck. The majority of the third party Twitter applications have had their hand at making Twitter the mainstream blogging platform it is today. If it weren’t for the Twitter APIs and all the developers out there that created useful apps for Twitter, the value of Twitter itself wouldn’t be as great. Twitter’s actual feature set leaves a lot to be desired. Enter, third party apps. From auto-follows to Twitter groups, key word follows and recommendations on which users to seek out, we’d be lost without apps like Tweetlater, TwitPic, Summize, Twitterfeed, and all the rest. It’s All About the iPhone And then there’s the iPhone. Twitter is designed to work with any mobile phone that can send and receive SMS, but smart phones have turned Twitter into one easy-to-use application. The more you can do from your phone, the better. And the more mobile the application, the more encouraged users will be to use Twitter. We’ve seen the iPhone commercials with The Submarines playing in the background. Don’t act like you haven’t noticed the Twitter icon sitting front and center at the beginning of each commercial. Let’s not forget about the new Sprint Now Network commercial that notes the millions of theoretical customers sending a tweet “right now.” All these things indicate a mainstream adoption of Twitter and the necessity for mobile devices and network providers to highlight Twitter integration by default in order to make their products more appealing to the masses. Jon Stewart Shakes Fist at Twitter There’s not much, however, that makes something more mainstream than a spoof mention on The Daily Show. One “old man fist shake” at Twitter from show host Jon Stewart can help catapult it into mainstream status for all of eternity. Maybe not quite that long, but getting made fun of by Jon Stewart certainly means that the world is paying attention to you. Once celebrities, senators and athletes started tweeting enough to get the attention of Jon Stewart, it was pretty much game over for Twitter. It’s officially reached mainstream status. Facebook Acquisition Fail The failed acquisition is certainly something we can’t ignore when it’s all said and done. All of Twitter’s major competitors were acquired and most have since been deadpooled, but Twitter actually entered discussions with Facebook for an acquisition. Being the darling of social media that Facebook is, gaining the attention of such an influential company is press worthy and caused a lot of fence riders to go ahead and check Twitter out. The rest is history.

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Help! I’ve Been Unfollowed! Posted: 17 Apr 2009 07:46 AM PDT Leora Israel currently performs business development Speaklike.com. Follow her @leoraisrael. Social Media has created a whole new set of interactive dilemmas. This morning when I went to DM (direct message) someone who I thought I was following me back on Twitter. Within no time I got the sad reality check that they don't follow me back! You can only send a private message to someone via Twitter if they are following you. Twitter gives you this depressing prompt notifying you that a person isn’t following you back when you attempt to shoot them a direct message. Social media has made socializing a bit more complex with new rules of engagement. With the new complexities comes new questions: If you are friends with someone in real life, but their tweets annoy you, is it acceptable to unfollow them? Should you give them notice or warning beforehand? How do you ask someone without looking like a social media loser, why they are not following you? Especially since you can't send those people a private message on Twitter. Should you publicly ask them why? Or send some @ message their way hoping it strikes up a conversation that leads to them following you? Should you unfollow them as well, or continue to follow them because you enjoy their tweets even after finding out they don't enjoy yours… Is unfollowing on Twitter the same as unfriending someone on Facebook? I would assume not given that on Facebook you cannot have one sided friends. I decided it best to just flat out ask what the deal was from a few Tweeps. So far one responded saying that he simply cannot follow what everyone is doing and decided to only follow people he interacts with daily. Hard to believe he interacts daily with 400+ people, but it is true we have fallen out of touch. Also, my tweets for the most part aren't relevant to him, so I shouldn’t take offense, right? People unfollowing you is one issue, but how about those folks who don't follow you back to begin with? A lot of people, such as myself, opt to not get email notifications when people follow them simply because it crowds their inbox. For this reason it’s always a good idea to send an @ message saying hi to them after following so they know who you are and also have the opportunity to engage with you. This hopefully leads to them following you back. What is the proper way to request that someone follow you back so that you can send them DMs? Should you flat out say “@allnick I want to DM you, so follow me back please”? Perhaps it would be better to take the more subtle approach and comment on one of their recent tweets? If you're curious to know those people who you are following but who are not following you back, check out http://www.friendorfollow.com. It will show all your non followers with their icons so you can visually see who doesn't like you. The one downside is that they don't provide links to unfollow those people and you have to manually click on each person's twitter page to unfollow them. Then I realized that Twitter provides a way to do this seamlessly but without the cute graphic. If you sign into twitter and go to http://twitter.com/friends you can see who you follow and if the option to Direct Message them isn't next to their name it means they don't follow you back. Then with one simple click you can unfollow them without leaving the page. Now that Twitter is becoming so popular and mainstream, the way people use their Twitter accounts will most likely change. We are only beginning to figure out the rules and mores involved on Twitter and other social media platform so I guess it would be best to keep our egos in check and not let unfollowing bother us. Have you ever felt frustrated after seeing that someone isn’t following you back? What do you think the rules of engagement should be? @oprah doesn’t follow me, but @god does, so I guess I can’t be that upset!

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