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News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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Search, plus Your World »
Google's latest announcement about forcing Google+ into live search results poses some interesting questions; but is the initiative as bad as everyone's making it out to be?
We've covered Google's apparent attempts at becoming social at length here on the Hoop blog; but have always been a little suspicious of their true motives. When we discussed Social Search back in October, we concluded the post with the following:
It's the '+1' button that is going to make or break their attempt to become social. Google+ is just a novel way to encourage people to sign up for a Google profile – which then gives Google access to users' social data but more importantly the '+1' in search. A 'truly social' search experience.
On Tuesday, Google Fellow Amrit Singhal (the engineer partly responsible for the algorithms that Google's search engine is based on) published a blog post entitled "Search, plus Your World" – which is summarised below.
- Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
- Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you're close to or might be interested in following; and,
- People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.
Over the next week, Google are rolling out the above three features (which we'll call Search+ for now); all of which result in personalised search results to live search queries. These features will be available to the 40m users with Google+ accounts; producing individual results for each user's query, populated with content from (only) Google+.
On the one hand, the (opt-out) Search+ intiative is wonderful – and will provide Google+ users with truly personalised (and relevant) content from their social circles. It's also worth noting just how much Google appear to be supporting social data. Just think how (much more) useful Google would become if it were to feature content pulled from every one of your social networks! But then on the other hand, Search+ raises some interesting questions.
- As Search+ won't include results from Facebook (which blocks Google from crawling it) and priorities Google+ content over the publicly available results from Twitter, is Search+ anti-competitive?
- Will Search+ cause Facebook and Twitter to open up and allow Google to crawl their non-public content – or simply deepen the animosity between the three companies?
- Will the personalisation of results from the world's most popular search engine (by market share) have consequences on how we discover information?
Facebook has always been a closed platform, denying Google the right to crawl its databases – although some public posts are available to the search engine. But then Facebook and Google have never really been best buddies.
Twitter did have the 'Realtime Search' agreement with Google, where the search engine's crawlers could access tweets and profiles. But then, for some reason, the two companies couldn't see eye to eye when the agreement came for renewal. So it wasn't.
It has been suggested, although this is a long shot, that Search+ is an extremely risky move to get Facebook (and to an extent Twitter) – its serious competitors in social – to open up (to search) or face the same antritrust procedures that are currently being leveled at Google. Given the history, it's extremely unlikely this is going to happen.
So what's wrong with Search+? Yes, it's a little anti-competitive and will probably lead to a slap on the wrist from an antitrust inquiry – but it'll do little to clear the air between Google, Facebook and Twitter. Search+ won't cause Google+'s competitors to open up their databases either. It's Google's focus on personalisation and their departure from delivering relevant and unbiased results to queries that is causing the issue – an issue explained by Eli Pariser in his TED talk below.
Google's job, as one of the best and most popular search engines in the world, is to deliver unbiased, un-prioritised results to its users. Even if those results do include Google's competitors.
By forcing Google+ into the results page and skewing the relevancy of results, Google is ultimately moving away from what made Google successful in the first place.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Content strategy, Digital strategy, facebook, Google, Google+, Reputation, SEO, Social search, Twitter
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Startups of the week #7.2 »
2011 has been a great year for the company and its users – but we think 2012 is going to bring change to the service we know as Twitter.
2. Twitter
We've featured Twitter quite a lot here on the Hoop blog over the past 12 months. Given they've had around $1.4 billion worth of funding (and have spent over $45m on acquisitions), we're not quite sure they still count as a startup – but given the year they've had, we think Twitter thoroughly deserves the mention in this series.
There have been some remarkable events in Twitter's 2011 history. The Arab Spring, Japan's earthquake and tsunami, Charlie Sheen's meltdown, the August riots, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden; all just a small selection of the events that played out through 140 characters.
Then there was Twitter's partnership with Apple for iOS5, which allows users to share a significant amount of content directly from Apple's mobile devices. It was recently reported that the combination of Twitter/ iOS had increased monthly signups by 25% – after the company announced reaching 200m registered users in June and breaking their record for number of tweets sent.
But, as we've previous discussed, change is on the way for Twitter. After rolling out the first sponsored content earlier this year and closing a round of funding worth $800m (including $300m from Saudi media mogul Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal), Twitter recently re-designed their user interface.
New Twitter marks the beginning of the end of the service as we know it.
The Twitter service I signed up for is one where people tweet 140-character posts, you follow those people whose tweets you tend to enjoy, and that's it. The Twitter service this new UI presents is about a whole lot more — mass-market spoonfed "trending topics" and sponsored content. It's trying to make Twitter work for people who don't see the appeal of what Twitter was supposed to be.
As Daring Fireball's take on new Twitter suggests above; new Twitter signifies a move away from a startup with no monetisation model towards a company that's worth around $8bn earning money from targeted advertising. 2012 will be another great year for Twitter, but it might not be the Twitter we know and love.
Categories: Startups of the week
Tags: Twitter
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5 top finds #24 »
Movember but in HTML5, WWII tweeted in real time, the infographic to end all infographics, Apple doing (not) NFC in their own way and stop motion at its finest. It's 5 top finds...
1. HTM(ovember)5
We're always impressed when we see a good cause backed up with a bit of humour (and awesome technology is always a bonus). Mobelly, a campaign to support Movember with HTML5 Video, Canvas and JavaScript, has all three – in spades. Awesome stuff!
2. World beer – in an infographic
We love beer. We love infographics. Beer + infographics = massive win!
3. @RealTimeWWII
There are times when we're still amazed by the ingenuity of people on the web. This Twitter account is a perfect example of such a time. Real time tweets, starting in 1939 and set to cover the course of the Second World War. Well worth following.
4. Apple debuts their version of NFC (not really)
Sorry if that headline got you all excited. Apple haven't finally thrown their collective weight behind NFC – they've just updated their Apple Store app to allow consumers to scan the barcode of items instore and pay with EasyPay there and then with their iTunes account. TechCrunch and Engadget have the details.
5. A day in the life of stop motion
You can't beat a good bit of stop motion video. I Look & Move ticks all the right boxes for us – let us know if you like it too!
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Apple, HTML5, Infographic, Twitter
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5 top finds #23 »
An eye-watering statistic, some interesting research involving a botnet, tweets that are longer than 140 characters, the future of Apple's personal assistant Siri and a call to action we thoroughly approve. It's 5 top finds...
1. We all knew it was popular, but this popular?!
We're all huge fans of Angry Birds here at Hoop – you'd be hard pushed finding someone with a smartphone who isn't. And it seems that 500 million other people agree with us. Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, announced this week that the app had been downloaded by half a billion people. A truly astounding feat!
2. Going fishing (on Facebook, with a botnet)
Facebook are well known for having an odd view on their users' privacy. Google's results for the query 'Facebook Privacy' make for some interesting reading.
But when we read that researchers from a Canadian university used a botnet to steal 250GB worth of Facebook users' data, it looked like the boot was on the other foot. Facebook's security and privacy teams have some explaining to do! TechCrunch has the details.
3. Telling tales with Twitter
There's something wonderfully succinct about a tweet; it's amazing what you can get into 140 characters. But sometimes, the character limit means a tweet just isn't enough. For those occasions, you could use Shortmail, standard email or simply pick up the phone.
But when a tweet is enough, it's pretty awesome what a message on Twitter can achieve. Which is where Twitter Stories comes in. Well worth a look – another example of the power (for good) of social media.
4. Bob
It wouldn't be a true 5 top finds if we don't include at least one video. Lovely hamster Bob and his global travels gets this week's honour, just don't forget to watch the end credits. Watch Bob on Vimeo.
5. #gomobile
As it says on the site, "mobile isn't going to be a medium. It's going to be the medium". Good to see Google trying to get everyone up to speed on what is set to be (one hugely important aspect of) the future of the internet. Go mobile!
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Angry Birds, facebook, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Mobile First, Twitter
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Fish on Friday steps out. »
Fresh from winning a #FishyFilmNames competition on twitter care of the good people @HotTuna1969 (check out their new website) we tottered onto the red carpet in our new Almodovar-inspired shoes.
They're slip-ons.
Categories: Fish on Fridays
Tags: Fish on Fridays, Twitter
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What's next for Twitter? »
In the first post in a new series of blogposts (about the future of social media, its impact on business and the potential for innovation), we take a look at Twitter's revenue model.
In just a few short years, social media has changed the way we interact with each other – as consumers, as businesses and as individuals. But there's more to come. We've been covering areas of social interest for a while now here on the Hoop blog, but have yet to discuss where we think the potential for innovation lies.
So we've picked a few of the areas where we think there is room for further innovation...
Twitter needs to start generating (more) revenue
Twitter recently announced they had hit 100m users, who send roughly 5bn tweets every month. To date, the company is valued at $8.4bn after recently closing a funding round that generated $800m. Which is all good and well on the one hand, but not so great when you consider the company doesn't yet have a definitive strategy for monetisation.
Luckily, they have a few options. Twitter currently licenses the 'firehose' – which allow tweets to be searchable in real time – to search engines such as Microsoft's Bing. Twitter did have the sameagreement with Google but it recently fell through. But the firehose surely can't generate enough to cover Twitter's current valuation? So the company needs to also be looking at other revenue generating models.
Arguably the next biggest option would be the potential revenue generated from advertising, be that promoted tweets or trending topics etc. When the model was launched last year, many were happy – as long as the advertising was targeted. Which it was; initially promoted or paid-for tweets were only seen in Twitter search from accounts the user followed. Users seem to like promoted content; with a recent survey showing that around 20% of surveyed users have either used a discount from a promoted tweet or discovered a new brand from one.
Promoted content you didn't ask for
But, at the end of last month, Twitter announced it was rolling out promoted tweets from accounts users don't follow. We were a little uncertain at first – how would this work? How would it be targeted? But then Twitter released a bit more information. These promoted tweets would occur in a user's stream if they followed an account that was subject to these ads. Or, according to All Things D;
In discussions with ad buyers, Twitter is describing the concept, which will roll out to a small subset of users by the end of September, as "Promoted Tweets to users like your followers".
This is a process employed on Facebook when you 'like' a brand's page; you're then subject to advertising from brands that Facebook deems to be similar to the one you've just become a fan of.
So, to justify Twitter's currently large valuation (which will only increase), we reckon we'll be seeing a significant increase in advertising on the social network. Will users cope being subjected from adverts from brands they're not following? If users start leaving the network, what other options will Twitter have to generate revenue instead?
Are there other options?
We'd love to see the site say no to an ad-based model and do something a little different.
Why not use the 5bn tweets a month – a veritable treasure chest of content – as a research tool and turn Twitter into something like a crowdsourced information platform? Or aggregate users and the content they generate into interest groups and sell access to them to advertisers/brands?
Change is coming to the twittersphere, change that will mark a new chapter in the company's history. The outcome is far from certain.
Do you think Twitter will change for better or worse once they finish rolling out the promoted content? Have you got any suggestions or points we may have missed in our discussion about Twitter's future? Feel free to leave us a comment below, via email or of course on Twitter.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Business strategy, Google, Mobile, Social media, Twitter, User centred thinking
