7 Leadership Lessons From A Mind-Meld Between Twitter's Dick Costolo And Venture Guru Ben Horowitz

Twitter's CEO and "Founder" Dick Costolo interviewed Ben Horowitz of VC powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored event in San Francisco. Here's what you missed.

Dick Costolo sits for plenty of interviews. But Twitter's CEO had never played the role of interviewer until Thursday, when he grilled Ben Horowitz, the hip-hop-loving partner in Menlo Park-based venture capital powerhouse firm Andreessen Horowitz, at our Innovation Uncensored conference in San Francisco.

Since Horowitz is an early investor in Twitter (what's your revenue model again?), this could have been all kinds of awkward. But these are two guys who stare down risk and disruption daily. And it turned out to be an historic mind meld, revealing details about the day-to-day business management styles of two Silicon Valley icons.

The full conversation between these two giant business brains--annotated with must-read links--is embedded here, and the key leadership lessons are in the text below.

1. Wartime CEOs Can't Always Delegate

Costolo brought up a Horowitz's well-known blog post about wartime and peacetime CEOs and took it a step further, asking Horowitz, How does a leader go from General Grant to the Reconstruction?

Horowitz had first written about the subject after reading a bunch of management books and noticing that most professional consultants wrote from the perspective of really successful companies. But the lessons of embattled CEOs are just as vital, Horowitz said. Peacetime CEO's are much more willing to delegate and rely on the organization when their companies are well out in front of the competition. But when the difference between bankruptcy and success depends on the next product release, "A wartime CEO may not delegate," Horowitz said. "They make every decision based on the next product release. They may use a lot of profanity."

When it comes to HR, the peacetime CEO's approach is all about grabbing talent, Horowitz said. But as a wartime CEO (He founded LoudCloud and OpsWare with Andreessen, Tim Howes, and Sik Rhee), "My number one role for employees was, 'Do you want to work here?' And if you don't want to work here, I can't use you. This is going to be hard. This is going to suck. We're getting our butts kicked." Anyone who wants to work at a wartime company has to answer those challenges.

2. Founders Have Permission To Make Unreasonable Requests

Horowitz got in a few questions of his own. Costolo, he said, is often referred to by Twitter (and now Square) cofounder Jack Dorsey as a "founder" of the service, even though Costolo is its third CEO. So Horowitz asked him what exactly makes a CEO a "founder," even if he wasn't with the company from day one?

"What I think [Jack Dorsey] is really doing is saying that, 'I anoint Dick with the permission to make unreasonable requests of you and demands of you,'" Costolo said. "Founders of a company have permission to make unreasonable requests of the team. They have the moral authority to make absurd requests that they can make with a straight face and you (you being anyone else in the company) don't have permission to say 'You must be out of your mind, that's impossible.'"

Of course, Costolo isn't operating in a vacuum. He's caucusing with Twitter's board, upon which actual founders Dorsey and Ev Williams sit, to make sure he sets some context before issuing challenges. The result, he says is that "there's a gravitational pull that the team has to listen to my requests and say 'Okay, we'll go out and figure out how to do that.'"

Horowitz asked if the "founder" distinction gave Costolo the authority to unravel some of Twitter's fabric. The answer was, in short, yes.

And Costolo gave an example. Twitter's architecture just wasn't suited for how the company wanted to scale when he came on as CEO, he said. And that became apparent in the days running up to a historic traffic night with the presidential election. So he instituted some fundamental changes in the way the company's architects worked. Without getting too far down the geek hole with talk about the company's technology stack and how it wasn't a "service-based componentized architecture," Costolo said he told his architectural team: "We're never going to be able to keep the site up and running and scale it.… You're not going to be able to code that way anymore. You're going to have to use this other way of building things."

And because he's the "founder" they made it so.

3. Create A Culture Of Dissent

Before Costolo got to Twitter, the culture of the company often involved avoiding open conflict. "One of the things I told my managers a little bit after I took over as CEO," Costolo said, "was, 'You have an obligation to vocally dissent in a meeting if you disagree with what we're discussing.' I don't want to ever hear afterward, 'Well I didn't really think what Bob said was really the right thing to do.'"

The reason, he went on to say, is that failing to speak up and doubting a decision later only serves to undermine managers' authority--it leaves their team with the perception that they don't have to authority to dissent. And who wants to work for that guy?

4. Be The Person You Want To Work For

"One of the things I say to people is: Imagine if we succeeded," Horowitz said in describing how he instills the importance of style in his management teams. If the company succeeds on a foundation of jerky leadership, "And now we've got thousands of employees and everybody who works here is miserable at work and goes home and kicks a dog... how would you feel about yourself?"

So how does a person deemed worthy of promotion end up becoming the caricature of a bad boss? "The number one kind of bad thing people do when they get promoted from individual contributor to manager," Horowitz says, "is that they have some kind of platonic form of manager in their mind, and they try and be that platonic form, which is not them. The manager all of a sudden … goes from being somebody who you can talk to just like a complete jerk."

But even when someone is promoted because of his or her cutthroat style, the problem comes when they try to change. Horowitz recalled the story of basketball player Charles Barkley, who had a reputation off the court for getting in bar fights, getting arrested, peeing in public--it overshadowed his on-court performance so much that Nike cast him in a famous series of ads in which he proclaimed "I'm not a role model." Suddenly he was freer to be himself on and off the court, and some of the pressure came off. The Barkley story, Horowitz said, is a perfect example of the importance of retaining the personality that got you to the management role in the first place.

"The best advice for managers is: You've got to be the person you want to work for," Horowitz added. "And don't urinate in public."

5. Build Trust Through Honesty

Costolo described in fascinating detail the challenges he faced as Twitter was growing astronomically. Lots of people were coming to work at Twitter from other tech giants--Google in particular. Training managers often meant undoing what they'd learned at companies that had very distinct management approaches. That challenge is best told through the following back and forth between Horowitz and Costolo:

Costolo on how he responded to people who began suggestions for problem solving with the phrase: "At Google…":

"This isn't Google. We don't have the gross margins they have. We don't have the engineering infrastructure they have."

However, he added...

"Google makes this incredible amount of money, so it actually justifies whatever decision they're making."

Horowitz:

"Yeah. Cash covers up a lot of mistakes. Spread the cash over the mistake and nobody sees it."

"People would come in and say, 'Well at Google, we only hired salespeople who were only taller than five-foot-six.' Okay, well, it didn't matter, because you could have said the opposite and it would have worked."

Google is also famous for letting its engineers work on passion projects--the famous 20% time. Costolo has a different approach. He brought up a hypothetical example of a developer who comes to his manager and says he's sad because he wants to work on Project A because he's more passionate about it. And maybe if he can't work on it, he'll quit. Instead of telling the developer what he wants to hear, a Twitter manager considers first whether Project A is a priority for the company. Otherwise, Costolo said, "five months later when they've worked on Project A ... and we still don't ship it because it's not a priority, they end up quitting then because their manager's thrown them under the bus five months ago." "The way you build trust with your team is around super-clear communication in that instant when they say 'I will be sad if you don't do X.' You have to say 'We're not going to do X, and here's why and believe me you'll be much sadder later if I let you go do it and you spend a bunch of time on it and nothing ever happens.'"

6. Explain Your Decisions

Twitter knows from crossroads decisions. Changes to its API have sunk third-party services built on its back end. And recently, Twitter soured its relationships with LinkedIn by cutting off the ability to pull your Twitter feed into your LinkedIn profile. Horowitz asked Costolo what those kinds of decisions look like from the inside.

Before making them, Costolo said, he gathers feedback from insiders, but it's important to know when you've gathered enough. A good sign is when you start to hear the same themes repeated, he said.

Just as important is making sure everyone on the inside understands why you made the decision. "Here's what I've decided, and here's why I've decided it," Costolo said. "So when someone in the market or someone outside the company says, 'Well I don't understand…,' The people inside the company all understand what I understand. They may still disagree with me, but having that context makes it much, much easier for them to say to people outside the company or people in the space: 'Here's why we did this.'"

7. Manage Superstars By Setting Aside Your Ego

Our CFO Ali Rowghani was the CFO at Pixar," Costolo said. "And so he's reported to Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull. I'm sure I tell him a few things and he looks at me and in the back of his brain, he's going 'That's not what Steve would have said.'"

So how do you effectively disagree or sway someone whose ideas have proven extremely effective? You can't always, Costolo said. And it's in these situations that he responds by saying, "You know I really have no idea. So hopefully you guys can come to some sort of agreement on this." It's important, Costolo adds, not to go against the will of a team of senior, experienced managers too often, lest they start to tune out. "Even if I go into the room disagreeing with these guys, if I start to hear from all these senior people that they agree on something I don't, then I have to set my thinking aside," Costolo said. "And then I have to do what I tell my managers and leave the room and commit to my decision." If you don't, he adds, "There's no better way to undermine your own leadership."

Costolo returned to the topic later to describe how his senior managers are conduits for the most important leadership lessons on the planet.

"These guys have worked with Larry Ellison and [Marc] Benioff and Steve Jobs, and you can say--I say to them all the time: 'Okay ... you guys dealt with this kind of stuff at Salesforce, what would Benioff do in this case? Tell me the discussion you would have.' If you take your ego out of it, you can learn a truckload from these guys."

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

Social Media is Not an Island: 5 Ways to Move From Awareness to Conversion

So, your brand is on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. You refresh your Radian6 hourly, have a killer Klout score, and hundreds of thousands “liked” your brand on Facebook. So what?

While it’s now considered a brand death sentence to ignore social media, many marketers, who are results- and/or strategy-oriented, are still failing to connect social to entire channel strategy and measure its results therein.

In fact, a recent Econsultancy study revealed that while 66 percent of marketers consider social media an integral part of their strategy, less than a quarter of them have measured its impact on their customer conversion rates. At the end of the day, customer conversion really is the end goal of any strategy, marketing or otherwise, a company bothers to put together.

Social media is somewhat of an anomaly though; it’s been widely accepted by marketers as a vehicle for awareness rather than one that can be relied upon for conversions or enhancement of the 360-degree customer experience. Ironically, it’s become a lot like traditional advertising in that regard. This is likely because marketers aren’t exactly sure the right next steps to take once they’ve met their social media awareness goal and they simply aren’t sure how to bridge their virtual friends & fans with tangible business objectives.

Not only is it possible to use social media as an effective customer conversion tool, marketers can take it a step further to use it as a customer retention tool thereafter.

Here are 5 steps you can take to elevate your social media goals beyond awareness and into customer conversion and retention:

1. Nurture Fan Engagement Immediately

Your job begins the second visitors arrive at your social media doorstep, so make sure your page has eye-catching visuals and branding that’s consistent with your official website (albeit a tad more relaxed, in most cases).

Like it or not, people are superficial — and most followers won’t ever come back unless they feel they have a good reason to. So once they’re in, offer immediate and easy ways to engage them: gift downloads, blog subscriptions or an email list.

Hint: use A/B and multivariate testing to see what types of content, design style and initial offers have a positive impact on conversion rates.

2. Encourage Sharing

When people tweet about you on Twitter, “like” you on Facebook or pin your images to their Pinterest boards, you have access to consumer data that can be used to create unique, personalized fan experiences — providing a boost to customer loyalty.

Of all the content you provide, you want to emphasize the type your fans will share with their friends and followers. Shared content is the strongest indicator of social media’s business value, as it translates into the types of action that lead to tangible results.

Take sharing a step further by integrating social media plugins into your site. Tools such as “like” buttons, comment boxes and recommendations turn these new visitors into brand advocates, making it easy for them to share select information with their friends.

Finally, show followers what they can do and what’s available to them by displaying prominent calls-to-action (CTA) with clear instructions.

Hint: Test various CTA combinations — in terms of style, content, placement, and ease-of-use — to see which bring in the most fans.

3. Gather Data!

One of the most important steps in moving from awareness to conversions is gathering data about fans and followers who end up on your website as a result of your social media efforts. You can learn a ton about the type of visitors you’re attracting — age, gender, location, relationship status, other “likes” and more — depending on the level of authorization granted by each fan.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Getting Ahead of Twitter Trends, Advertising Potential for Digital Marketers

Social marketers keep a close eye on the topics that are currently “trending” on Twitter. But what if you could predict those hot topics with 95% accuracy, 90 minutes before they hit the trend list?

MIT Associate Professor Devavrat Shah and his student Stanislav Nikolov say they have developed a proprietary algorithm which can in fact predict what topics Twitter’s own proprietary trending algorithm will place on the trending list an average of 90 minutes before they get there, and up to four or five hours in advance in some cases.

How It Works

Twitter’s own trending algorithm selects topics automatically based on overall number of tweets and recent changes in tweet volume. Shah and Nikolov’s algorithm works based on the “machine learning” principle of taking a sample “training set” of Twitter data that both trended and did not trend and searching for patterns. The algorithm tracks changes in the number of tweets about new topics to changes in the number of tweets about every topic in the sample set, with sample topics that are similar to the new topic weighted more heavily. Based on how sample data performs in comparison to new data, the algorithm creates an estimate of whether new data will trend.

Shah and Nikolov say the algorithm can be scaled according to computational resources (meaning it can be divided among multiple servers for greater processing power) and also becomes more accurate as the size of the training set of data increases. In experiments with a training set of Twitter topics that did trend and 200 that didn't, the algorithm predicted trending topics among live tweets with 95% accuracy and a 4% false positive rate. 

Taking Advantage of Trending Topics

For Twitter, the new algorithm developed at MIT could potentially allow the social media provider to charge a premium for ads associated with developing trending topics. For digital marketers, advance knowledge of trending topics could greatly assist efforts to perform real-time social marketing and ensure that Twitter promotional messages are timed ahead of trending topics, rather than developed in response to them.

In addition, Shah and Nikolov say the algorithm can be applied to any set of data that follows trends and varies over time, such as stock prices. It could also be applied to detect content trends on other social networks such as Facebook and Google+. 

Forecasting TWeather

Shah and Nikolov are not the only ones attempting to forecast what’s hot in the world of Twitter. A recently launched service called TWeather is designed to give reports on what is emerging on Twitter — the “clouds and patterns” of tweets on different topics, providing 10-minute “weather” updates on popular trending topics in Twitter. From the home page, users can select any one of the top 10 currently trending topics or a link within featured topics such as politics and music. From there, the user is brought to a “TWeather report” that displays a cloud of constantly shifting keywords relating to the topic. The larger and closer to the right of the screen a keyword is located, the more “hot” it currently is.

By selecting a keyword, users can see related tweets. Reports are updated every 10 minutes and users can scroll back to see previous reports. Thus TWeather presents tweet trending data in a way that makes it easier for users to detect and track patterns than they can by scrolling through topical Twitter timelines. Users can subscribe to TWeather reports from their Twitter accounts, and once a user subscribes to five different reports, they can create their own TWeather reports.

Targeting ‘Hipsters’

BostInno interestingly points out that a marketer using Shah and Nikolov’s algorithm might have particular success in applying it to targeting “hipsters,” the young urban demographic that specializes in irony and keeping up with the very latest trends. BostInno points out that the algorithm successfully predicted the popularity of #NoShaveNovember, a hipster-friendly topic about a month long facial hair contest that is currently trending on Twitter in Boston, hours before it popped up.

“This sounds like an ideal algorithm for the hipsters out there,” states BostonInno. “They can discover what’s cool before it is cool. Just know, Twitterverse, once the trend surfaces, the hipsters will be on to the next underground fad.”

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Reverse-Engineering Twitter To Solve An Advertising Mystery

Does Twitter have an undocumented API for promoted Tweets? Dwolla developer Michael Schonfeld tore apart the app to find the answer.

Recently I opened the Twitter app on my Mac and noticed something very strange: It was omitting promoted tweets from my timeline. In the side-by-side comparisons below, notice the "howaboutwe.com" promoted tweet from Twitter.com on the right is missing from the Twitter.app feed on the left.

An example of Twitter breaking its own rules, or just a bug?

Then I found a missing promoted "Pepsi" tweet on Twitter.com which was absent from the feed on my iPhone Twitter app. There was definitely something going on here. Why would Twitter differentiate content between their official mobile app and their web client?

Back in September 2010, Twitter said that it was using its own API. "It fetches data from the same endpoints that the mobile site, our apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, and every third-party application use," wrote Britt Selvitelle in a post on the engineering blog. That appears to no longer be the case, which raises an even more hairy question: Does Twitter have an undocumented API for promoted tweets? To find out, I did what every curious engineer would and decompiled the app. (Twitter, if you're reading this, please don't ban me from your network.)

Reverse Engineering Twitter.app

Twitter Sleuthing 101

1. Disassembled the app using class-dump.
2. Found the code routine that handles network responses using Hopper.app.
3. Detected network responses from the API using GDB.
4. Compared the API output to my Timeline feed using Rested for Mac.

My first idea was to set up a local proxy and examine if the Twitter.app was filtering out promoted tweets, or whether it was receiving them at all. Setting up a proxy proved not to be as easy as I had hoped. Twitter.app uses SSL encryption to communicate with the API server and because it's set to reject self-signed certificates, trying to spoof an SSL certificate renders the app completely non-functional.

For help, I enlisted my brother Daniel Schonfeld, a seasoned hacker for help disassembling Twitter.app. Fortunately for us, the app was written almost entirely in Objective C, which meant that we'd be able to examine some of the app's source code as it was written by Twitter's very own engineers; usually, when disassembling C/C++ binaries, source code loses its original naming symbology, but Objective-C preserves a lot of symbols which makes it easier to follow along.

Using a nifty tool called class-dump, we began examining the contents of Twitter.app and how it was designed. First, we set out to see if we could find any mentions or references to promoted tweets. It wasn't too long before we found this little gem buried within the code definition of the "Twitter Status" object. Notice the built-in flag for promoted tweets:

@interface TwitterStatus : NSObject <...>
{
NSDate *lastUpdated;
...
struct {
...
unsigned int isPromoted:1;

From this finding, we could assume that Twitter.app does in fact at times receives promoted tweets from the API server and classifies them as such using the "isPromoted" flag.

On to the Data Stream
Once we knew that Twitter.app has some built-in handling for promoted tweets, we had to dig deeper. Daniel fired up Hopper.app, a Mac disassembler, and a couple hours later, boom: He had found the code routine that handles network responses. Namely, the [ABHTTPRequest connection:DidReceiveResponse:] message (method). Now could finally answer our initial question: Does the app receive promoted tweets from the API server or not?

We used GDB to set up breakpoints in Twitter.app and forced it to show us what it was getting back from the API server. Specifically, our debugger will halt every time the app receives a network response.

To repeat our method, fire up a terminal window and launch the debugger:

> cd /Applications/Twitter.app/Contents/MacOS/
> gdb --arch=i386

Then, while working within gdb, type:

> (gdb) exec-file Twitter
> (gdb) b *0x6dec3
> (gdb) commands
> x/s $eax
> end
> (gdb) set print elements 0
> (gdb) r

This will cause the debugger to freeze Twitter.app on our given breakpoints. The first thing you'll notice is that Twitter.app is actually working with Twitter's XML format--yuck. The first couple API server responses will be your own account's information. Type **c**, then hit the **Enter** key to continue to the next breakpoint. The next block of XML you'll receive is your timeline feed. Comparing the XML to my Twitter.app feed and my Twitter.com feed, we discovered that Twitter.app is not actually not receiving the promoted tweets in the data feed from the API server at all.

Is This an Undocumented API?
Just one question remained: Were only Twitter's official apps not receiving promoted tweets from the API server? Or, does the API not return them to any client at all?

This was a rather easy test. Using Rested for Mac, I quickly polled Twitter's API server for my own timeline feed. As can be seen in the resulting output above (truncated for your convenience), it appears that the API server simply does not return any promoted tweets.

Conclusion: Twitter Has A Secret Feed For Promoted Tweets
The FAQ on Twitter's dev site says that, "As of March 12, 2012 there is no Advertising API for serving Twitter's promoted products in third party applications." Which means the promoted tweets ought to appear in any timeline that uses the API. That's obviously not the case.

The mobile ad market is an enormous and constantly growing one. Ad revenue is a major component of Twitter's revenue, and the company projects it to grow to $540 million by 2014. Twitter has also promised to "share a portion of advertising revenue" with developers who serve Twitter ads, according to its own Developer Rules of the Road.

Advertisers and developers, it's getting close to 10 p.m.: Do you know where your promoted tweets are?

Michael Schonfeld is head of developer relations at Dwolla, a service that empowers anyone with an Internet connection to send money simply. Follow Michael Schonfeld and his brother Daniel Schonfeld on Twitter.

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

Gartner: Fake Social Media Ratings, Reviews to Hit 10 to 15 Percent by 2014

Feel comfortable buying Facebook Likes or Twitter followers? The practice is becoming more and more accepted, and fake social media ratings and reviews could hit 10 to 15 percent by 2014, according to research company Gartner.

In its recent report, "The Consequences of Fake Fans, 'Likes' and Reviews on Social Networks", the company says that trust in social media remains low, but could rise from single digits to as high as 33 percent by 2014.

Who to Trust

It may sound obvious, but people tend to trust those most like them and also people they know in real life. That partly explains why many people don't trust what they read when it comes to Amazon.com reviews, for example. However, people do trust websites that have lots of reviews.

A May 2012 online survey of 2,000 people from econsultancy.com found that companies with 50 or more reviews see nearly a 5 percent boost in conversions. The survey indicated that 31 percent said they use reviews to help them make a purchase. These numbers no doubt influence the rise of companies like SocialJump, who charge US$ 75 per thousand Facebook likes. 

While Gartner is realistic about how popular this practice is becoming on Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, the report cautions that companies should be aware of the risks associated with using these services. According to the report, any short term gains could nullified in the long run if the public finds out about the inflated numbers and starts viewing those companies as untrustworthy.

Regulators are Taking Notice

In 2011, the FTC levied a US$ 250,000 fine against Legacy Learning Systems for hiring marketers to post fake reviews on several websites. Gartner also cited campaigns by Sony, Wal-Mart, Nestle and Volkswagon as having been found to be misleading. Many of those campaigns were run by large marketing firms, but some companies were found to have been deleting negative comments on their social media sites.

In 2010, retailer Ann Taylor was suspected of giving out gift cards in exchange for favorable blog reviews. The case was investigated by the FTC, but no economic sanctions were filed. Additionally, the FTC settled with PR company Reverb communications the same year over fake reviews.

In a more connected world where people are interacting more than ever via some kind of mobile device, the report shows people still value real transparency and have little tolerance for deception. Let us know in the comments if you've come across some reviews or ratings you were certain were paid for. 

Editor's note: Check out our coverage of the advantages and pitfalls of "buying" fans, and why marketers are struggling to master social marketing. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Which Way Does the Twitter Wind Blow? Ask TWeather

In theory, Twitter is an ideal mechanism for finding out what the hot online topics are and what people are saying about them. In reality, tracking patterns in Twitter activity is much easier said than done — which is where the new TWeather platform comes in.

Weathering the Twitter Storm

In a short introductory video on the TWeather home page, an unidentified man (presumably a founder) explains that TWeather is designed to give reports on what is emerging on Twitter — the “clouds and patterns” of tweets on different topics. “Tweets are like rain it’s all over the place; if I look at every drop I don’t really know what’s going on,” he states.

TWeather attempts to rectify this problem by providing 10-minute “weather” updates on popular trending topics in Twitter. From the home page, users can select any one of the top 10 currently trending topics or a link within featured topics such as politics and music. From there, the user is brought to a “TWeather report” that displays a cloud of constantly shifting keywords relating to the topic. The larger and closer to the right of the screen a keyword is located, the more “hot” it currently is.

By selecting a keyword, users can see related tweets. Reports are updated every 10 minutes and users can scroll back to see previous reports. Thus TWeather presents tweet trending data in a way that makes it easier for users to detect and track patterns than they can by scrolling through topical Twitter timelines. Users can subscribe to TWeather reports from their Twitter accounts, and once a user subscribes to five different reports, they can create their own TWeather reports.

 

Expert Cites TWeather Innovation

On his Portals and KM blog, Merced Group Partner Bill Ives praises TWeather as “innovative and useful” and as delivering a “new way to observe and discover the movement of tweets.” Ives also points out that TWeather is powered by technology from Darwin Ecosystems and that the free site “is supported by a relevant messaging-based advertisement placement service” which serves contextually-based ads. 

Twitter API Rules Don’t Stop TWeather Development

TWeather may serve as an early test of Twitter’s new API rules which have stricter authentication policies and developer rules of the road, among other new features. Although Twitter is stressing that the new changes will help eliminate abuses and make Twitter app development a more structured and orderly process, many observers have speculated the move is really to ensure Twitter makes a profit at the expense of third-part developers.

While it’s too early to say whether TWeather will prove financially successful, considering the advanced functionality it offers, Twitter can point to TWeather as an example of how the new API rules are not inhibiting developer creativity. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

IBM Connections 4 Gains New Social Capabilities

IBM is unveiling version 4.0 of its Connections social business platform, featuring new social capabilities as well as support for open standards.

Connections 4 Delves into Twitter/Facebook Territory

A new microblogging feature allows Connections users to attach files their personal status messages and also tag them with searchable Twitter-style hashtags. Status updates also can be reposted and “liked.” These features make Connections postings more like both Twitter and Facebook postings. 

Earlier this week, Web publishing platform WordPress started offering VIP users Twitter-like instant blogging functionality through its new Liveblog Add-on. The add-on is designed to make WordPress competitive with Twitter as a means of providing quick, real-time commentary and updates, and IBM appears to be gearing up Connections as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook for business users, as well.

Social Analytics, Communities Updated

Existing Connections social analytics capabilities have been strengthened with system-wide metrics that make more than 100 new reports available and trend-tracking functionality. Updates to Connections Communities include a new view called “Recent Updates” which provides a centralized place to see what is happening in a community, a community activity stream that provides access to approved third-party applications and a wall for status updates (another Facebook-like feature). 

In addition, this release introduces new support for open standards such as ActivityStrea.ms, OpenSocial and OAuth2.

Connections 4 also offers mobile support and starting September 20 will give users the ability to have access to and manage their mail and calendar content directly from IBM Connections. IBM supports IBM Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange environments.

Meeting Market Expectations

With its new version of Connections, IBM may overcome criticism of the platform leveled by industry observers such as Josh Dormont of the Collaboration for Good blog, who in a post earlier this year opined about what he saw as shortcomings of Connections. Although Dormont said “only organizations with heavy-handed IT departments were going to love (Connections),” he added that Connections benefits from “agile, constant improvement and a deep focus on building tools to meet business needs.” 

Dormont went on to say that considering its resources IBM should deliver a better social intranet solution out of the box and negatively commented on Connections as a “networking platform first and a collaboration platform second,” compared to Salesforce, which created its CRM collaboration platform before launching its Chatter networking platform.

The latest version of Connections includes significant upgrades to both networking and collaboration functionality, so it will be interesting to see how the blogosphere — and customers — react.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Twitter Gets Strict with Official API v1.1 Release

Twitter has officially released version 1.1 of its API. Initially announced in August, the updated API has stricter authentication policies and developer rules of the road, among other new features.

Twitter Toughens Up

In version 1.1, Twitter is requiring applications to authenticate all of their requests with the API. Twitter says this step will prevent abusive behavior and help it to further understand how categories of applications are using the API so it can better meet the needs of developers.

At this time, all authentication requires user context, but in the coming weeks Twitter says it will release support for a form of authentication not requiring a user context.

Twitter also updated its developer rules of the road, placing regulations against activities such as publishing private user information, resyndicating data and performing “surprise” actions not initiated by users. And all applications replicating the core Twitter experience, usually called "clients," will have some new restrictions placed on them, including a 100,000 user token limit.

There are also new display requirements (which were previously suggested guidelines), dictating things like display of the tweet author avatar and how text is displayed. Other changes include support for JSON only, discontinuing support for XML, Atom and RSS, which Twitter says are “infrequently” used.

Rate limits in version 1.1 of the API are divided into 15 minute intervals, which is a change from the 60 minute blocks in version 1.0. Additionally, all 1.1 endpoints require authentication, so no longer will there be a concept of unauthenticated calls and rate limits. Search will be rate limited at 180 queries per 15 minute window for the time being, but Twitter says it may adjust that over time. According to Twitter, developers will “now be able to query the API on a per endpoint basis a lot more than (they) previously could.” 

Show Me the Money

Although Twitter is stressing that the new changes will help eliminate abuses and make Twitter app development a more structured and orderly process, not all observers are convinced its motives are entirely pure. Last month, CMSWire columnist Stephen Fishman wrote that,

Twitter really does not care whether (solo developers) make money. Twitter cares whether Twitter makes money. In order for Twitter to make money, Twitter needs consumers to engage with Twitter on the Twitter site as much as possible. Twitter's value prop to developers is a free, functional and highly available micro-bloging platform that can easily be integrated into your site.”

Fishman also said the new API is directly aimed at “data scrapers” whose primary goal is to extract Twitter data for their own benefit.

Resyndication Rules Could Cause Problems

According to Mashabale Tech, new restrictions on resyndicating data appear to mean that information contained within a tweet — such as a URL — cannot be sent to another service using a third-party client. Mashable says this “could be problematic for social news aggregators such as paper.li, Postano and RebelMouse” and “have a much larger impact on the entire Twitter ecosystem,” including mainstream applications as well as third-party developers and power users.

Ultimately, Twitter is probably in a position to enact whatever API rules it likes and ride out any developer backlash. As Fishman states in his article, “If (Twitter’s value proposition) is not good enough, build and market your own platform and see how much money that makes you.”

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

How Did They Know I Unfollowed Them On Twitter?

Ever unfollow someone on Twitter--then notice that they unfollowed you back? How did they notice you unfollowed them? Our Social Media Agony Aunt has answers.

I had the experience recently of unfollowing someone on Twitter. He has about 800 followers, is following 400. A few days later, he unfollowed me. (I've had this experience several times in the past as well, which is why I checked.) My question is this: how did he know it was me? Barring him visiting my profile and noticing specifically, which is always a possibility, is there a tool you can use that alerts you who unfollows you? Or do people like that keep a list and crosscheck every time they lose a follow? This is something I've been wondering about for a while... thanks for your time! - Amélie

Dear Amélie,

There are quite a tools that will help a user monitor who unfollows them on Twitter. Here are four I've tried, so I know they are reliable:

* Followerwonk
* Who Unfollowed Me
* Qwitter
* NutshellMail

For some people, Twitter is a place of enlightenment, where the joys, sorrows, and intelligence of the world arrive on our personal screens faster than seismic waves (literally), a place where we may even make meaningful professional connections who help us do our jobs better.

For other people, Twitter is simply another weapon in their selfishness arsenal, a place where relationships are only as valuable as the other person's ability to help them (or their career). I am being a little extreme, but only a little: case in point, #TeamFollowBack, the meaningless practice of promising to follow back all of one's followers.

I don't monitor my unfollows, so I don't unfollow people who unfollow me on Twitter--and probably wouldn't even if I knew they'd hit the unfollow button. I follow people because I find their tweets interesting or educational, not because I want them to follow me back and rack up my follower count. It turns out a great many people on Twitter share my approach:

If their content is valuable, keep following. Isn't that why you follow in the first place? #shouldbe

— Kristin Swartzlander (@kswartzlander) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany if you unfollow back, I'd question why you followed in the first place? It goes against what #Twitter is

— DeeDee (@deedee173) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany If you get value from their tweets, keep following. Don't take it personally. Everyone uses Twitter differently.

— Lynn Stevens (@peoplingplaces) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany No I continue to follow them because I followed them for their tweets not to get a follow back.

— Chet Thaker (@chetthaker) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany @fastcompany I follow people who can teach me things I don't know.I don't care whether they follow me or not.

— Jay M. Oza (@5ToolGroup) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany I don't unfollow them. I follow people because I enjoy their tweets,not out of some social obligation like Facebook-friending

— Palu Esgla (@pcsegal) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany All about what type of content they offer. Breaking twitter down to small-town politics is short-sighted.

— Daniel Regan (@jabbercreative) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany I take little notice of who follows/unfollows. My stream is for me.Unfollowing can be for valid reason. Each to their own.

— Rebecca Smith (@becs355) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany I keep following them, slightly hurt though:)

— sarah grossi (@sarahgrossi) September 4, 2012

That said, I suspect many people on Twitter who "unfollow back" did not want to out themselves to me in public, and that there are a many Tweeters who, as you have observed, engage in that practice. A few people did explain to me why they "unfollow back":

@anjalimullany Often I follow people out of politeness from them following me even if their content isn't relevant. If they unfollow, me too

— AJ Munafo (@AJ_Mufasa) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany it depends. If I was only following out of courtesy, yes.If I like their tweets/ content, no.

— Freedom (@FreedomReeves) September 4, 2012

Okay, fair enough. I don't "courtesy follow" anyone, but I can imagine professional circumstances in which it's more awkward to not follow someone back--like a colleague, or a business contact--than it is to just follow them back out of politeness. I can also imagine circumstances under which one would not want to see one's ex's tweets in their stream:

@anjalimullany If it's someone who I know & am interested in what they have to say, I continue to follow. Unless it's a break up!

— Alan Adams (CIC) (@AlanCIC) September 4, 2012

Of course, unfollowing back because you realize the person who unfollowed you was annoying/mean/boring/overwhelming/offensive/etc, seems quite reasonable to me, as well:

@anjalimullany If I like your content, I'll follow. If your content is relentless or boring, I won't follow.

— Brandon Marshall (@TNBrando) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany I'll keep following them if I benefit from their perspective, connections, etc. Gen'ly, I unfollow if they do 10 tweets n 30s

— Jimmy Locklear (@J5locklear) September 4, 2012

Some people take unfollows personally, which leads to them unfollowing back. I don't think they should, but far be it from me to dismiss the legitimacy of another person's feelings:

@anjalimullany I usually unfollow them as well. But I'm a bitter, spiteful Twitter-er.

— Alex J. Martin (@amartinmedia) September 4, 2012

@anjalimullany I usually unfollow out of spite, but only after I'm done crying into my "Why don't people like me?" journal.

— Jillian Sederholm (@JillianSed) September 4, 2012

It's worth noting that some people expect to be unfollowed back:

@anjalimullany I don't always follow back or unfollow back. It depends on who it is. I expect ppl to unfollow me if I unfollow though. :-/

— ro | c | o (@RoarCio) September 4, 2012

Nevertheless, take heed, Fast Company Twitterers: in general, your Agony Aunt finds the concept of serial unfollow back-ing silly and antithetical to the whole point and culture of the Twitterverse. Maybe it's like that saying, "An unfollow for an unfollow will make the whole world followerless." Or something like that.

Sincerely,

Anjali

P.S.: Whatever you do, don't do this (even though it's a good song):

@anjalimullany I park my car in front of their house and blast "in your eyes" until they decide to follow me again

— causerconsulting (@builditup) September 4, 2012

[ Image: Flickr user Kat Selvocki] Got a question for the Agony Aunt? Use the form below to submit your questions. And if you want us to protect your anonymity, don't use your real name.
Source : fastcompany[dot]com

WordPress Aims for Twitter-type Functionality with Liveblog Add-On

Web publishing platform WordPress is attempting to provide users of its VIP service with Twitter-like instant blogging functionality through its new Liveblog Add-on. The add-on enables users to post updates from the front end of their site, without using the WordPress admin dashboard.

In addition, Liveblog viewers will see the new updates automatically, without having to refresh their browsers. Liveblog authors can drag and drop photos into the Liveblog area without needing to navigate to separate browser tabs or windows, and all posts (including existing ones) can be turned into Liveblog posts. Users can preview posts before making them live.

That Familiar Tweety Feeling

In a short promotional video on the WordPress VIP site, the narrator states, “When liveblogging an event you need to report news as quickly as it happens.” A screenshot of a sample Liveblog post reads “We’re entering the building now. The atmosphere is electric!”  And although WordPress does not specify whether there is a character limit or if so how many characters are allowed, the video describes the add-on as enabling “short-form posts” and a screenshot shows a reminder to keep the post short.

Clearly, the add-on is designed to make WordPress competitive with Twitter as a means of providing quick, real-time commentary and updates. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but Twitter has become the second-most-popular social networking platform in a short time period, so WordPress has its work cut out for it if it intends to seriously challenge Twitter for marketshare.

Twitter also has the advantage of the numerous third-party apps that have been developed via the Twitter API that make it easier to manage and use as a promotional tool. However, Twitter recently tightened its API rules to the consternation of many industry participants and observers.

There are also many live blogging third-party plug-ins available for WordPress, and it will be interesting to see how WordPress attempts to either take advantage of or minimize their popularity in spreading the use of the new add-on.

WordPress Acknowledges Bug Issue

One issue which WordPress needs to quickly resolve is a bug in the Liveblog Add-on identified by VentureBeat. According to a VentureBeat article, saving a featured image can eliminate saved liveblog posts without warning or error message. A WordPress spokesperson told VentureBeat a fix will be available shortly. VentureBeat also reports another bug which can make liveblog postings invisible to readers.

WordPress VIP clients GigaOM and Local TV provided feedback and contributions during the beta testing phase for the Liveblog Add-on and the code has been completely open-sourced for self-hosted WordPress. Open source code is available at the WordPress.org plugin repository and on github.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Twitter Gives Stamp of Approval With New Certified Products Program

Twitter is rolling out a Certified Products Program that offers Twitter-based products and services from third-party developers and partners to businesses. The program is launching with three verticals — engagement products, analytics products and data reseller products.

Twitter Seeks Engagement, Analytics, Data Resale

Twitter is aligning its three initial certified products verticals as follows:

• Engagement Products — Helping brands keep in touch with their customers. This includes activities such as providing workflow or advanced sorting, delegation and assignment of replies, as well as alerting users to high-priority events or tweets requiring immediate action. Developers must make Twitter and Twitter account management and network engagement part of the core product experience and offering.

• Analytics Products — Helping businesses learn from their customers on Twitter. Examples include historical analytics of how previous campaigns unfolded on Twitter and industry-specific analytics that tie activity on Twitter to success metrics. Developers are required to encourage further engagement with Twitter, clearly attribute Twitter as a data source and make Twitter a core part of the product experience.

• Data Reseller Products — Platforms for innovation on top of large numbers of tweets. These include APIs that allow analytics companies to study past conversations and with customers' private data to tie activity on Twitter to proprietary business processes. Developers need to offer API features that are significantly differentiated from Twitter's own, actively encourage customers to build products which drive engagement with Twitter and staff a sales and support organization to meet enterprise customer service expectations.

Twitter Incentivizes API Development

As reported by CMSWire, earlier this month Twitter publicized plans to release version 1.1 of the Twitter API in the coming weeks, and it involves a number of new user restrictions. Changes will include required authentication on every API endpoint, a new per-endpoint rate-limiting methodology, and tighter “Developer Rules of the Road,” especially around applications that are traditional Twitter clients. 

Twitter said these restrictions and requirements are intended to prevent “malicious” use of the Twitter API and to gain an understanding of what types of applications are accessing the API. However, many observers have been skeptical about how altruistic Twitter’s intentions really are. According to VentureBeat, the Certified Products Program is a good start to Twitter’s new API policies.

“For some time now, in private meeting rooms and on public stages, Twitter has urged developers to make these kinds of products — noncompetitive products that would give their makers a real business opportunity,” stated a VentureBeat posting. The article went on to say it is “somewhat encouraging to see Twitter creating incentives for building the right kind of Twitter apps, not just punishments for building the wrong kind.”

Twitter is launching the Certified Products Program with 12 initial partners: Attensity, Crimson Hexagon, Dataminr, DataSift, ExactTarget, Grip, HootSuite, Mass Relevance, Radian6, Sprinklr, Social Flow and Topsy.   

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Twitter, Hootsuite Partner up on Ad Campaign

Twitter and Hootsuite have partnered up for an ad campaign by giving away US$ 100 Twitter advertising vouchers to Hootsuite Pro account holders.

30,000 of them to be exact. Not all Hootsuite Pro accounts are getting vouchers, but the move does give us a bit more understanding of what Twitter is up to now that the company has decided to change some of the user restrictions involved with its API. 

Twitter Sees Value in the Enterprise

Twitter isn't the only social network that integrates with Hootsuite, but those lucky enough to get the US$ 100 advertising credit can redeem it right when they log in to the popular app. Hootsuite is sending out emails to the selected voucher winners, and a dashboard pop-up will appear to nudge them into redeeming it. 

By changing its API rules, Twitter is trying to make better use of its partner and devloper relationships in order to promote its own platform. One way to monetize Twitter is to charge enterprise companies for access to tweets and things like trending topics through apps like Hootsuite. The API changes are also made to encourage people to build apps in areas like analytics and CRM. 

Hootsuite the Big Winner

Hootsuite integrates with other social networks and apps, but with Twitter taking away some features through its API change. Hootsuite now becomes perhaps the most robust Twitter client. The new ad campaign solidifies the Twitter and Hootsuite relatitionship, and whatever future moves Twitter makes will surely include more of this type of cross promotion.

Twitter looking to small and medium sized businesses with its Hootsuite partnership.

The Hootsuite ad vouchers are only available to U.S. based accounts and then only for those who have never advertised on Twitter before. Additioanlly, the vouchers must be used up by the end of the year. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Now Tumblr Loses Friend-Finding Feature Via Twitter

 As Twitter does more to secure its APIs and market share, as well as compete with rivals, another service has lost the ability for its users to find their friends using the micro-blogger's userbase. 

Falling Out of the Twitter Tree Fast

In the name of security and building its own brand, Twitter is limiting the access that other services and companies can access its most valuable asset, the user database. Recently, Instagram users found they could no longer find friends via the service, the loss of that feature for Tumblr users is probably a little less traumatic, but still unwelcome nonetheless. 

Commenting on the loss, Tumblr said, "To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users’ ability to 'Find Twitter Friends' on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing the Twitter platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets."

Changing the Tune

Following recent changes, Twitter is clearly looking on how to tighten the service up, but at the moment it is not making any friends with these enforcements. Expect more services to get the friend-finding chop as Twitter firms up its new APIs and decides how it lets others use Twitter features.

Perhaps monetizing the friend-finder feature is something the company's may be considering, but for users who are heavily into Twitter, it limits their ability to bring friends along to new services they are using. Meanwhile, Tumblr and the other services can still rely on Facebook and Google account links to find friends.

Will users find Twitter less essential as a result of these changes? Probably not. And, with Twitter trying to drive users to its own site, to witness whatever marketing and advertising methods it plans, it will be playing against its former friends in worse ways. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

A Little Birdie Told me Twitter was Doing Product Strategy via API

Late last week, Twitter announced a series of API changes that it plans to launch in the upcoming weeks. The changes covered several different areas including changes to authentication requirements, changes to number of calls an end-point can make to Twitter in an hour (both up and down) and creating a series of binding agreements that developers and applications must adhere to. While the API will be released shortly, developers will have a migration period of 6 months before the old API is retired.

We Are The Knights Who Say Tweet!

While the individual changes themselves are indeed interesting, the fun stuff lies just beyond the surface in what the changes mean to both Twitter's business strategy and to its overall approach to product strategy and development as well. These changes are not random demands for "shrubberies" but rather a fully acknowledged attempt to encourage and discourage specific partner and developer behaviors when integrating with and leveraging Twitter's platform. In other words, Twitter has fully embraced the idea that its API is a product to be designed for a specific set of consumers along with a specific strategy in mind (something predicted in these pages earlier this year).

Twitter is still in the throes of figuring out how to fully monetize its immensely popular micro-blogging platform and has made these changes with an eye towards furthering its profitability goals. By throttling smaller apps and unleashing larger ones, twitter has furthered its ability to charge enterprise media partners for access to the firehose of tweets in search results and also for trending topics.

The authentication, partnering and rate limiting changes will directly go after data scrapers in two ways (also predicted in these pages earlier this year):

1. The lower rate limit (more than five times less than its current amount) will make it harder to do mass scraping and will force any programmatic scrapers to identify themselves with a license key.
2. The upper rate limit (just over twice the currently supported amount) will give scrapers a legitimate opportunity to abandon scraping and legitimize their use of twitter data.

No One Expects The Twitter Inquisition!

Another big shift is Twitter's move from display guidelines to display requirements along with a certification requirement for certain Twitter apps. Twitter will now require its developers to adhere to a specific set of rules to standardize appearance and functionality. Twitter has justified this change by citing that it will give a better, and more standard, interface to its end users and has reserved the right to revoke license keys from any non-conformists. Some developers have cried foul citing that this will limit the individual Twitter-client developers ability to differentiate their user experience and their overall ability to make money. Well duh! Twitter basically said that in its blog post by specifically saying that it was trying to discourage developers from making new differentiated client apps for consumers.

In case it is not obvious to the solo developer community, Twitter really does not care whether you make money. Twitter cares whether Twitter makes money. In order for Twitter to make money, Twitter needs consumers to engage with Twitter on the Twitter site as much as possible. Twitter's value prop to developers is a free, functional and highly available micro-bloging platform that can easily be integrated into your site. If that is not good enough, build and market your own platform and see how much money that makes you.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Twitter Tightens API Rules: Increases Authentication, Decreases Requests Per Hour

Twitter plans to release version 1.1 of the Twitter API in the coming weeks, and it involves a number of new user restrictions. Changes will include required authentication on every API endpoint, a new per-endpoint rate-limiting methodology, and tighter “Developer Rules of the Road,” especially around applications that are traditional Twitter clients.

Seeking Authenticity

In version 1.0 of the Twitter API developers have access to certain API endpoints without requiring their applications to authenticate, essentially enabling them to access public information from the Twitter API without Twitter knowing who they are other than their IP addresses. To prevent what Twitter calls “malicious” use of the Twitter API and to gain an understanding of what types of applications are accessing the API, in version 1.1 the company will require every request to the API to be authenticated.

For developers who are already using OAuth when making API requests, Twitter says all authentication tokens will transition seamlessly from v1.0 to v1.1. If an application is currently using the Twitter API without using OAuth, developers will need to update it before March 2013.

Rate-Limiting Endpoints

Twitter will cut the number of authenticated requests applications can make from the current 350 calls per hour to 60 calls per hour per-endpoint. According to Twitter, analysis of current use of its API shows this rate limit “will be well above the needs of most applications built against the Twitter API, while protecting our systems from abusive applications.”

There will also be a set of high-volume endpoints related to Tweet display, profile display, user lookup and user search where applications will be able to make up to 720 calls per hour per endpoint.

The Rules of the Road

Changes to Twitter’s official developer “Rules of the Road” will include a shift from display guidelines to display requirements (such as linking @usernames to the appropriate Twitter profile), requiring developers that are building client applications that are pre-installed on consumer electronics devices to have their application certified by Twitter and requiring developers to work with Twitter directly if they need a large amount of user tokens.

Bloggers Voice Displeasure

In addition to preventing misuse and gaining a better understanding of the API environment, Twitter says its new API guidelines are designed to encourage application development activity in areas such as social CRM, social analytics and social influence ranking, while limiting certain use cases for traditional Twitter cases and syndication.

However, not all observers are quite so positive about these planned changes. Computerworld compiled a list of negative postings from IT bloggers about the changes. Comments included: “[It's] disappointing to see Twitter turning its back on the…community that played such a large role in its…expansion”; “the new requirements…may make it more difficult for third-party clients to differentiate themselves” and a “translation” of Twitter’s “weaselese” that boiled down to “We look forward to forcing you to build a service, then destroy any chance of making money from it.”

Not every blogger was negative, however. One blogger wrote, “I was left thinking a lot of the changes were reasonable and made sense…With concrete rules we can always ensure we are in compliance.” There was a caveat of “My only request to Twitter is that they keep the lines of communication…very open.”

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Pinterest Opens to the Public

Pinterest is changing its invitation only policy and is now offering open registration to anyone who wants to join. The “online pinboard” is allowing new users to register via Facebook and Twitter logins as well as personal email addresses.

Pinterest is a social network designed to allow users to organize and share things they find on the Web. Users “pin” online images, such as photos of vacation spots, or directly upload photos from their computers. Pinned photos from websites link directly back to the sites and are placed on the user’s “pinboard,” which can be browsed by any other Pinterest user.

Pinterest Interest, Value Explodes

Even as an invite-only service, Pinterest has been undergoing what can only be termed explosive growth. According to figures released by comScore, in Q1 2012, Pinterest experienced a 4377 percent increase in unique visitors between May 2011 (virtually none) and March 2012 (close to 20,000). This makes Pinterest, which began reporting unique visitors in May 2011, the fastest-growing social network since that time. Interestingly, another photo-oriented social networking site, Tumblr, follows with 168 percent growth. 

Pinterest’s growth is historic, not just among social networking sites but among all sites. The network was averaging 11.7 million new users a month as of March 2012, which is 10 million unique visitors per month faster than any other standalone website in history.

Ideas for Content Marketers

Pinterest is used as a marketing/advertising vehicle as well as a consumer networking tool, and comScore figures from its invite-only period suggest it offers huge potential as a promotional means. In Q1 2012, Pinterest users were ranked second only to users of the professional social network LinkedIn in the comScore Buying Power Index for social networks, and were tracked as spending more money on more items through more transactions than users of any other social network. 

Undoubtedly taking these statistics into consideration, the Content Marketing Institute released a list of nine Pinterest board ideas for content marketers.

These are:

1. sharing videos (so far images are more popular, but CMI expects this to change)
2. creating miniboards highlighting important clients
3. highlighting books worth reading
4. providing advice and how-tos
5. sharing favorite resources
6. setting up miniboards to highlight industry peers and collaborators
7. spreading the word about upcoming events and conferences
8. highlighting relevant infographics and data
9. posting inspiring quotes.

Open Policy Follows Major Investment Round

Pinterest’s decision to open to the public follows a major investment round that occurred in May of this year. At that time the large Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten confirmed it is leading a US$ 100 million investment in Pinterest, with a stated goal of helping the network expand to more international markets and solidify its business model.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com