Twitter Needs to Compete with Facebook's Open Graph. Here's Why:
This just in from InsideFacebook:
Twitter already has an official Facebook integration that lets users post tweets to their profiles and friends’ News Feeds. It does not share retweets or @replies. An Open Graph app could leverage Ticker, allowing retweets and replies to appear in the lightweight feed and other tweets to show in News Feed. This would be similar to how Spotify publishes individual song listens to Ticker but puts stories about users listening to artists, albums and playlists in News Feed.
The Inside Facebook goes on to discuss how integrating with the Open Graph would allow tweets to have a dedicated section of timeline's designated for them. Check out Twittus, an unofficial app that does this already.
I don't disagree with Brittany Darwell's approach per se. However, I have another point of view: why would Twitter cede the "open graph" space across the entire Internet to Facebook? Why not directly compete with Facebook's Open Graph in some way? While Twitter doesn't have the ability to directly compete with Facebook purely on its merits and capabilities, plenty of large Web players would back Twitter if it could provide a Facebook alternative for carrying one's social identity across the Internet.
Many people love the adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." If I was Twitter, my motto would be "if you can't beat 'em , beat 'em anyway."
Why Google+ Hangouts Office Hours are a Great Idea
Google has started to host office hours in Google+ hangouts, making it incredibly easy to meet with folks on the Google Webmaster Central team. I'll test this shortly, but my first thoughts are that this is a great way to get webmaster-centric questions answered and provide feedback to Google staffers about how the company is doing.
These office hours will be held a few times weekly and announced a few days ahead of time. Each session will typically last an hour, and will cover any topics related to Google search, such as developing sitemaps, Google Webmaster Tools, dealing with duplicate content, and more. You just need, you guessed it, a Google+ account to play. A webcam and headset will help too, obviously.
Here are some of Google's next Office Hours:
- Thursday, 15 March, at 10am Zürich time, English office hours with John
- Thursday, 15 March, at 2pm Seattle time, English office hours with Jonathan
- Friday, 16 March, at 2pm Zürich time, German office hours with John
- Friday, 23 March, at 2pm Zürich time, German office hours with John
You can find the rest of the Office Hours listed here.
Thanks to Lee Odden, my Google+ chum, for helping me to notice this. Ultimately, I think this is a great example of Google leveraging Hangouts in a positive way. After all, the big G isn't known for support and most people don't think there are enough reasons to use Google+ Hangouts; this essentially kills two birds with one stone. And isn't that what business should be about?
Why Steve Jobs wouldn't have launched "New iPad" this way
As you know unless you live under a rock (and it would have to be a particularly heavy rock), Apple announced the "New iPad" yesterday. I'm not saying this won't be a big success; after all, inertia is such a tremendous factor, and Apple certainly has enough to make "New iPad" a runaway success. I just don't know if it's something Steve Jobs would have done.
Steve Jobs did lend more than a fair share of intrigue to all of his product launches, particularly the more recent ones. However, Jobs did one thing well that didn't happen yesterday: he didn't distract from the product launch itself. When I look at news stories today, while many of them are talking about the "New iPad" features, many are also talking about why the naming convention was a bit odd, which isn't the conversation that increases initials sales of the new device. Why isn't it iPad 3? Or iPad HD? Would a name like that have proved less of a distraction? I'm pretty sure those names would have allowed the social media chatter to be focused on the technical specs as opposed to the name.
If you're going to launch a new edition of an existing product, don't you want 100% of the conversation to be about why you need the new edition, as opposed to 80% about the new technical specs and 20% about why the new name is a bit odd?
Come Join Me at Prestashop's 3/20 Barcamp Event!
In case we haven't spoken recently, you might have missed the chatter about Presto Changeo. My good friend Abe Shaw, VP Marketing at Presto-Changeo (the leading provider of Prestashop modules/add-ons and website dev provider), is helping organize Prestashop's is holding their Barcamp event here in NYC on March 20th. I'd love it if you could come, hang out, meet me, yada yada.
If you don't know about Prestashop yet, you should absolutely come and learn about the platform. It's like Magento, but plenty of pros like it more. It's an open-source, free e-commerce solution founded out of Paris & has offices in Miami too. The underlying technology has a strong undermining, based on the Smarty template engine, and is currently used by 100K+ ecommerce sites worldwide. PrestaShop was named the Best Open Source E-Commerce Application in the Packt 2010 Open Source Awards and the Best Open Source Business Application in the 2011 Open Source Awards.
Get all the details here: http://barcamp.prestashop.com/
In addition to everything Prestashop has planned (some great keynotes speakers, workshops, and of course, cocktails), Presto-Changeo will be holding "360 Degree Social Media Integration" workshops throughout the day.
Hope to see you there, and please pass this note along to anyone interested! I'd love to meet you guys there.
Retweet-worthy: @jeremarketer News Roundup for 2/21/12
I'm trying something new, in that every day I'll share my Twitter links that get retweeted (RTed) the most the previous day. In case you're not following me yet, I tweet as @jeremarketer.
Here's what you need to know:
Google TV adding Siri-like voice controls: A Google patent unearthed by Patently Apple finds that Google will be adding voice controls to their upcoming TV offering. Thanks to Rue Liu of Slashgear for the writeup.
9 Hot Tips for Small Business Marketing on Facebook: Really helpful post from Mashable which originally appeared on the Amex OPEN forum. By Christine Erickson. If you're a small business, there's a pretty good chance you're not doing all of these!
Sorry, Pinterest Users: Websites Can Now Block Pinning [VIDEO]: A nice piece by Joann Pan on Mashable about how Pinterest is catching up in regards to what it will need to do to avoid backlash as it grows. For one, Pinterest etiquette is becoming more normalized, with proper procedures for one to cite his or her pins. For those of you who don’t know, Pinterest follows the Digital Millenmium Copyright Act, and is currently removing any images that someone claims is violate copyright laws. It will be interesting to see how Pinterest deals with the copyright backlash as the service grows.
Why Veterans Are a Good Fit for Tech Jobs [INFOGRAPHIC]: Good infographic courtesy of Payscale. If you’re in tech and in hiring, pay attention to the bottom part of the image in particular!
Gmail gets stricter about keeping children out: I liked this Indian Express piece in that it touches on something I think is a tremendous business opportunity on the Internet: children. If there is a way for a business to do a good job of marketing to parents and provide parent-gated services like email to the younger crowd, there will be a tremendous market. Provided, of course, there are strong parental controls. I just don’t think it’s reasonable anymore to say that children under 13 have to be 100% unexposed to the Internet; it just has to be done in the right way.
Data Primer: Nathan Yau: If you’re into data visualization, hopefully you’re reading the FlowingData blog! If not, take a look, we’ll wait. Nathan Yau is the PhD candidate in stats who is behind FlowingData, and Matt Carmichael of AdAge sat down with him for this great Q&A. Definitely worth a look if you’re into data visualization half as much as I am.
Want to discuss this post, or any of the articles contained in this post? Shoot me a message to my @jeremarketer account and I'd love to discuss. Happy reading!
Publishers And Agents List
http://publishersandagents.com/com
Just found this on Diigo. Not a bad way to start your research if you're looking for publishers and agents for your work.
BREAKING: L'Oreal Acquires Clarisonic
Wow, huge news just broke in that leading beauty device brand Clarisonic was just acquired by my good friends at L'Oreal. Very interesting to see how beauty gadgets are going mainstream, no? The below from WWD:
L’Oreal Buys Pacific Bioscience Laboratories
L’Oréal USA has signed a merger agreement to acquire Pacific
Bioscience Laboratories, the manufacturer and marketer of the
Clarisonic series of electronic beauty devices, one of the hottest
brands in the market.
“This is a strategic acquisition for L’Oréal,” said Frédéric Rozé,
president and chief executive officer of L’Oréal USA. “Devices are
rapidly emerging globally as an important new skin care category.
Clarisonic is successful and the fastest-growing premium brand in this
segment.” While declining to discuss the purchase price or company
sales, industry sources estimated that Clarisonic generated retail
sales of more than $100 million in 2010.
The deal is subject to the approval of Pacific Bioscience
Laboratories’ shareholders and other conditions and is expected to
close in late December. According to L’Oréal USA, it has received key
shareholder commitments to vote in favor of the acquisition, including
from Rosewood Capital and David Giuliani. Clarisonic’s management team
has committed to transition with the company to maintain continuity.
Referring to Clarisonic’s headquarters in Washington State, Rozé
added, “We think that together with Pacific Bioscience Laboratories,
we will create in Redmond an outstanding center of innovation for
L’Oréal.” He noted that after the deal’s closing, the Clarisonic brand
will be housed in the portfolio of brands in the Luxury Products
Division, under the leadership of president Carol Hamilton.
The brand was launched in 2004 and the company has since spun a
distribution network spanning six channels, as diverse as the offices
of dermatologists and cosmetic surgeons, spas, prestige retail, e-tail
and television shopping, as well as clarisonic.com. Pacific Bioscience
Laboratories has 300 employees and recently relocated to its new
corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility in Redmond. This
facility significantly increases production capacity of Clarisonic
products, currently sold throughout the U.S. as well as in the U.K.,
Australia, Mexico, Canada and the Far East.
“L’Oréal brings powerful marketing, distribution, and R&D synergy to
the Clarisonic agenda,” said David Giuliani, ceo and co-founder of
Pacific Bioscience Laboratories. “L’Oréal shares our vision for
ingenuity and dedication to quality.”
Facebook Acquires Friend.ly: What's Next?
This just in from InsideFacebook:
Facebook has acquired friend.ly, developers of a Facebook-integrated website that lets users get to know their friend better by asking them questions about their interests. The friend.ly website will continue to operate, but the team will be “focusing on new projects at Facebook” according to an announcement on friend.ly’s blog.
The friend.ly team’s experience getting people to reveal things about their identities could help Facebook coax more biographical data from users. This data could then be used to strengthen ad targeting.
What do you think of friend.ly? Long-term, will friend.ly functionality be 100% folded into Facebook, or will it operate as its own (well-integrated) entity? Have you tried it out yet?
Nintendo Wii U Event Kicks Off on Facebook December 1st! - Examiner.com
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Nintendo Wii U Event Kicks Off on Facebook December 1st!
Examiner.com Much like Apples iPad (which Nintendo marked as its number one threat in console gaming) the new Wii-U controller boasts touch screen interactivity but goes above and beyond Apples iPad by including an as of yet spec'd out wireless video tethering ... |