Bloomberg gets to work on BusinessWeek
Bloomberg is wasting no time in getting to work on BusinessWeek, which it agreed to acquire last month. Although the deal is not expected to close until next month, Bloomberg is already plotting out the future for the weekly business magazine.
According to MediaWeek, Bloomberg's initial plans are to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier and more international". Talking Biz News, whose sources were at a meeting conducted by Bloomberg exec and future BusinessWeek chairman Norm Pearlstine, is reporting that the overhaul would "focus on making it more competitive with The Economist and less like Fortune and Forbes".
30+ Twitter Lists and 5000+ Twitter accounts worth following
Twitter Lists are now officially available to all of Twitter's users. And there are plenty of them. While it remains to be seen whether Twitter Lists will help Twitter boost user engagement, Lists offer a no-hassle means to discovering and following people who you might find interesting.
Here are 30+ Twitter Lists that collectively follow more than 5,000 interesting Twitter accounts.
Five press release mistakes and how to avoid them
As I was going through my RSS reader earlier today, I came across an post on paidContent detailing the launch of Sharecare, a new online health and wellness website that is set to launch in 2010.
I was intrigued because of the number, and identity, of the co-founders: celebrity doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz, WebMD founder Jeff Arnold, Discovery Communications, Harpo Productions (Oprah!), Sony Pictures Television and HSW International. Wow, I thought, this must be good.
35 social media KPIs to help measure engagement
Social media measurement is something that I think should be undertaken with a sense of perspective, by standing back and looking at the big picture.
A widescreen approach to social media measurement ultimately looks at the things that really matter: sales, profits, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Besides, honing in on the detail might not be the best use of your time, given the obvious difficulties that arise, particularly with attribution.
But standing back and looking at the bigger picture is not going to be enough for your data-mad boss, is it? It’s a bit too soft focus, right? He or she is going to want to see proof that all this social optimisation is actually working.
If that’s the case, then don’t worry: there are lots of things you can measure...
Case study: how to lose customers and destroy your brand
Software licensing can be a tough business. But if you're able to build a great product and acquire customers, it can be a rewarding business. The founders of Jelsoft, the company behind the popular vBulletin message board software, know that first hand.
Having built arguably the best message board software out there, they sold Jelsoft to Internet Brands in 2007 for an undisclosed amount. And two years later, Internet Brands is facing a violent customer revolt over a new product and new licensing terms.
Social media stats round up
Here's a selection of recent social media stats, taken from a range of sources, including Econsultancy's Social Media Statistics document, which forms part of the Internet Statistics Compendium, and other reports...
Facebook changes put end users above app developers
The app economy generates big bucks for Facebook's most prolific developers. Thanks in large part to virtual goods, the companies which develop some of Facebook's most popular apps are reportedly pulling in over $100m/year individually.
But what's good for Facebook's app developers isn't necessarily good for Facebook's users. App developers are understandably willing to go as far as Facebook will allow them to in their quest to acquire more users and generate more revenue.
The internet is not responsible for rude customer service
Before the advent of the internet and social media, citizens and consumers had little recourse when they spotted injustice or suffered abuse. But that's all changed. Thanks to ubiquitous mobile phone cameras and internet content sharing services, when something goes down, there's a good chance it will recorded and posted online.
A customer service assistant for London Underground recently learned that the hard way after he hurled harsh words at an elderly passenger. The incident was 'caught on tape', uploaded to the internet and an uproar ensued. Consequently, the customer service assistant is voluntarily no longer employed by London Underground.
Will paid tweets become the new paid links?
Now that Google and Bing have access to Twitter's firehose, the
speculation about over how Twitter data could eventually be used
as a search engine ranking factor has begun.
Since there's not a whole lot of text (and context) in 140 character tweets, it seems likely that if Google and Bing want to use Twitter as some sort of ranking factor, they'll look to the links that are spread on Twitter and who is spreading them.
Search experts weigh in on Google and Bing's real-time deals with Twitter
Twitter's deals with Microsoft (Bing) and Google have the blogosphere and Twittersphere abuzz. 'Real-time search' has been a hot topic in 2009 and there has been much speculation on Twitter's strategy vis-à-vis the real-time search opportunity. It appears that we now know what that strategy is: sell firehose access to the Twitter stream to the search engines and let them do what they do best.
The Bing and Google deals could be significant. Depending on what Bing and Google decide to do with their Twitter firehose, internet users could potentially see SERPs that are heavily influenced by Twitter activity, which would mean that SEOs will have to deal with Twitter as a 'ranking factor'. Of course, nobody knows all of the details yet, which is why I thought it would be worthwhile to see what experts and observers are saying about the deals.
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
