Think eBiz; thoughts on eBusiness

#Twitter: Is this social media star fading?

We aren't here to slay Twitter. In fact, we like twitter; we just wonder if this social media star is now on the decline, fading away like the CB Radio's of yesteryear. Twitter burst on to the scene and has been center stage for some of major international dramas (Iran Elections for instance). And we have met many influential people - even generated business leads from this platform. So why are we speaking of Twitter's demise?

Watching the tweets from the past month, we have seen a sharp increase in spam and self-promotion (in terms of obtaining more followers or quick-rich schemes). Just this week, we added a dozen new followers - all women with a single tweet; offering a peek at their... uhh selves. In other words, we believe the noise level and lower quality tweets will eventually drive people from this platform.

And this is not really a strong two way communications platform; just how many of your followers are actively in communications with you? Not many. In fact, I wonder how many of the 660 followers we have really see anything we write. There is so many tweets; without effective groupings and filters, much just simply goes by - replaced by so much other spam...

Are we wrong?

What do you think about the future of Twitter? And what is really next? Will Friendfeed's hook up with Facebook take away Twitter's thunder? And where does that leave Biz Stone in terms of monetizing Twitter? Will commercial accounts be a money maker (we don't think so). What do you think?

The #Yahoo and #Bing Deal: Yahoo Fails or Does It?

Today Yahoo and Microsoft announced a deal to combine their forces against Google. Yahoo gets to retain 88% of ad revenue ($500 Million in value over 10 years), and access to some of Microsoft's reach. And Yahoo gains$ 250 Million in savingsMicrosoft gets an instant bump in search marketshare - 28% vs 65% for Google. So what did the investment community think of this long time deal. Who came out on top....

Microsoft gained nearly $2.94 Billion on market value - nearly all of it at the direct expense of Yahoo, that lost $2.91 Billion. Ouch. Read TechCrunch's review of this Yahoo to Microsoft valuation shift.

Investors lamented that Microsoft paid Yahoo no money upfront and that it will share only 88 percent of search revenue from Yahoo sites with Yahoo.

"I was surprised at their decision to give the milk for free rather than forcing Microsoft to buy the cow," said Eric Jackson, a former Yahoo investor, who sold off his holdings in September after Yahoo turned down Microsoft's $47.5 billion buyout offer.

"Yahoo should have fought harder for a big upfront," similar to the search proposal Microsoft initially suggested last year after it failed to buy all of Yahoo, Jackson added.  Reuters.

We think CEO Carol Bartz underplayed her hand and was out-matched by Microsoft. However, over time will this deal make sense - time will tell. We think it spells the end of Yahoo and possible Bartz' herself. And what about Google? We always believe that any innovation that Bing/Yahoo come up with - Google has the resources to quickly leap over- and maintain...and potentially grow market share. It is good that there may be competition for Google's search prominence, yet we believe that the combined marketshare for Yahoo and Bing will maintain current levels or drop off...  stay tuned. If anything - the search market just got a little more interesting.  Yahoo - RIP.

Updated: on the second day - yahoo dropped 3.43% -further eroding value.

#twitter monetization: did Biz Stone miss the boat?

Twitter has become iconic in the social media space; mainstream with today's society.  The State Department even asked them to delay their scheduled maintenance due to the unrest in Iran.So the question is - with over 23 million users tweeting about ...  well frankly anything, how does Twitter make money?

Recent suggestions are focused on extracting a fee from corporations to perform a validation process - to certify that the tweets are legit. Certainly this is viable but is also quite weak. Adding any kind of advertisements/messages to the 140 character tweets would become obnoxious and fail. We think Twitter missed the boat big time; and yet there are milllions of dollars being made... by others!

Take for instance Eye Wonder; leveraging Twitter for one of their clients - the Fox TV Series Dollhouse. Eye Wonder utilized the "free" API's made available by Twitter - and are accruing value. None for Twitter.

The Economist presented an interesting article "Tweeting all the way to the bank" discussing Twitter and Social Media monetization.

We think that Twitter should have held their API's tighter - providing them to agencies and developers for a fee. And secondly, they should have come out with their own rich Tweetdeck version. Their home page is weak functionally - and yet a modified Tweetdeck could support paid advertising and other potential monetization vehicles. Tweetdeck did not miss the boat - they may be in fact one of the captains, leaving Twitter and Evan and Biz at the dock.

Effective #Blogs: Some basic suggestions

There are many articles (and blogs) about what makes a blog effective, however we believe it comes down to being real, writing frequently and with strong tight content.

Real:

A blog has to be written in your voice, it has to represent your views and passions. Write about what you know and feel - and believe in. And keep your blog on topic. For example, if you are writing about travel destinations, don't write entries about political views or that hot new song you just heard. Focus is important. Staying on point will help add relevance to your blog - which is crucial to search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.

Frequency:

The objective of a blog is to gain readers - who come back time and again to read and learn more from your expertise. Write entries to your blog frequently - at least 2-4 times a week. When a reader comes to a blog - where the last article was six months ago (or six weeks) that reader will never return. Stay true to the first point however - never write for writing sake. Frequently written content is also valued by the search engines. The more often your blog is updated - the more often the search spider will return. Spiders love content and may reward your efforts with higher rankings.

Content:

Most of us are not professional writers and -we believe - that our lack of prose skills are easily forgiven in the blogosphere. However - spell checking and good sentence structure is important. A blog is also not a place for a novel. Entries of 200-400 words are sufficient. Readers have patience for small doses of information - and want nice tight content. Give them the cliff-notes version on the subject - and include links where they can learn more.

The challenge in content writing is the balance between the use of relevant keywords (for the ingsearch engine spider) and sentences that are readable by your human follow. Always defer to readable, but ensure that you use keywords to satisfy the search engines. If your blog article is easily readable, that should suffice.  

Additionally, a blog should not be viewed as a self promotion device. Naturally, the reader can know about your business and brand - but this is not about "I" - it should be about "You". In other words, give of yourself - your expertise. Educate your readers about the topic - without directly promoting your service or product. Your readers will appreciate the information and associate you and your business in a positive light.

Lastly, don't overstress yourself in writing - get your thoughts, ideas and advice out there. Keep it real, keep it tight - and share your wisdom frequently. And - a fnal tip: after you publish your entry, revisit it a few days later and edit it...  we find this an way to ensure that the article is effective - because you then become...the reader. 

To #Bing or not to Bing: Initial Reactions

Is Microsoft's revamped MSN Live Search engine, named Bing - a Google killer? Does Bing push the search game to a new level? Will Bing eat into the huge marketshare that is Google's?

We will admit, it took us a few weeks before we gave Bing a try. What we like is the very calm, easy on the eye results display. And we like the "related searches" that  is well presented on the top left of the page. However - these can be easily managed by Google, so no real news here. We can give or take on the images presented on the main Bing page.

When testing for relevancy, which we believe is the most important deliverable from a search engine - we don't see much different. In many Google searches, the related Wkipedia entry is often top ranked, yet it is 2nd or 3rd in Bing. And the actual returned results, in our limited (and unscientific test) was similar. However, we noted that Bing returned many more total results. For instance:

• Internet Marketing Executive - Bing returned 81 Million (now down to 36 million) results to Google's 20 Million (now 44 million).  
• Hawaiian Resorts - Bing presented 42 Million to Google 283,000. 
• Web 2.0 Technology - Bing returned 119 Million (now 147 million!) to Google's 5.8 Million (now 196 million)

The question we ask - is this is a better search experience? Has Bing delivered on the promise to deliver results that lead to a better decision (aka decision engine). At this early stage, we do not think so. In fact, we believe the results are similar to what we observed from Google 2-3 years back.

No doubt, in some instances, the results from Bing could be stated as superior - however in our limited and random checks, we haven't see this yet.

Our initial reaction, especially to the news that Bing has increased it's marketshare, could be accounted for because of it's strong publicity and marketing efforts. Do they stay and sustain Bing's marketshare - for now yes. Until Google reacts and provides added value to return to the dominant search player.

The last two thoughts: we like that "some" twitter feeds are being added to Bing, however it is limited and for now you need to include "twitter" into the search query. And, how does Bing affect the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world. We want to understand Bing and SEO (and will report on this later), as our own professional website took a ranking hit on this Microsoft search platform:

• "Stephen Harris"  (Google #1, Bing #10)
• "internet marketing executive" (Google #1, Bing - Page 3)
• "online marketing executive"  (Google #2, Bing #4)

Twitter: #Follower Influence Index

We have noticed that there are many different twitter personalities on this social medium. Nominally, your Tweet personality can be deduced from the number of followers, how many you follow and your updates. For instance, people with massive followings like celebrity Oprah Winfrey (1.6 Million) - yet she follows only 14 Tweeters - and has only made 51 updates. Not really a Twitter, as she does not provide content just attracts followers based on her celebrity status.  Others like Guy kawasaki have almost the same number of follows and follower (130K) - and over 25,000 updates. This is one generous Tweeter - both in who he selects to follow and his updates.  

And the scammers and spammers, who have massive followings and virtually no updates. You have to love seeing a Tweeter with thousands of followers and yet virtually no updates - and they are not a celebrity. These are the scammers of this online social world.

Most of us are in-between - a good balance of followers/following - with frequent enough updates.

Who are the most influential people on Twitter? Now there is an algorithmic means of calculating influence, thanks for the JCPR Twitter index.  Using indepth factors, such as freqency  of updates - the JCPR Index separates the popular from the truly influencial. Visit the technobabble site for details.

Methodology

JCPRTI	JCPR Twitter index	Rg	Range assigned to score
Fo	Number of followers	Fg	Number users following
Up	Number of updates	@U	Number of name pointing
Rt	Number of retweets	Ta	Twitalyzer score
TaN:S	Twitalyzer noise to signal ratio	Ti	Twinfluence score
Tg	Twittergrader score	Ii	Involvement index score
Vi	Velocity index score	w	Weight assigned to each attribute
Z	Standardised score	p	Popularity
e	Engagement	i	Influence

If anyone knows of a way to plug in their Twitter account and get a relevant score - this would be way cool

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Twitter for eCommerce

We will admit it, we have become addicting to the micro-blog technology known as Twitter. And I am not alone, with over 7 million unique twitters last month. That begs the question - how do you leverage Twitter for your business?

Twitter, in our view, is not unlike blogging, so the rules may be the same. Rule number one - twitter should not be used for self-promotion and advertising. It should be used to enhance the conversation and expound on your thought leadership. Twitter, with its 140 character limitation - makes conversations challenging - but that is the point. Communicate your message succinctly and with impact.

We will explore this further - however we recommend for your business, begin to have conversations about your market specialty - using rich keywords within this brief content. Start talking about your subject area expertise - even citing white papers or new blog entries within the Twitter content... to lead interesting "followers" to visit your website.

Suggestion: create a special welcome page for twitter's who click over and include tracking code - so you can measure the results of your twitter campaign. More on this subject, stay tuned.

Facebook for business?

Is your business on Facebook? If not -why not?

Facebook can enhance most brands - in both the creation of "fan" pages or groups - and with targeted banner advertising. The idea of social networking is allowing a forum where your consumers can talk to you and each other. Facebook facilitates this - relatively easily - and at a far less cost than if you created your own social network site.

Of course, you have to take the good with the bad - as your consumers can tell others about a bad experience they had with your product. Yet this is a golden opportunity to turn a negative into a positive by addressing the concerns in the open - transparently. facebook facilitates this openness - and how you respond could add legions of new "fans" to your brand.

Before you begin, look at how Starbucks and Heineken and others create their page and hold court....   and see how they push promotions out via their page and through inexpensive (and targeting) banner ads. Facebook is good for business, we believe.

Monetizing Twitter - 9.3 Million Users in March

The internet has always amazed me. That a business model for an internet service could include no apparent monetization model. Twitter is a great example of a highly visible, well used service - and well funded  and yet no visible earnings strategy.

I can sign up for Twitter (no cost) and use Twitter (again no cost)...  and there are no advertisements. However, the potential exists - big time. When you have 9.3 million users on Twitter in March - per Comscore - you have huge potential. BUT how...    stay tune, I have some ideas.