ExperienceZen

Be-A-Magpie Is PayPerPost For Twitter:
It was recently brought to my attention that one of my projects could benefit from advertising on Twitter through “Be A Magpie” which is something akin to PayPerPost for Twitter. My initial reaction was to imagine what it would be like for the Twitterers of this world to see adverts coming up in their Twitstream… and I thought it could be terribly annoying and make them feel like the people they were following were trying to monetize them… Surely this would break trust and potentially cause a rush of un-following…

A Rush to Unfollow?
Now I’m wondering if that is really what would happen? I think that the end-result will be a devaluing of the conversations on Twitter, however the effect may be more subtly noticed than immediate un-follows.

First of all…

• Can I be bothered to unfollow?
• If I’m generally finding Twitter useful/interesting will I allow some annoying adverts and just mentally block them out?
• When do the adverts become too annoying such that I’m perceiving more ads than useful/interesting stuff?

At this point…

• Is Twitter, in theory still useful if I could only see what I want to see?
• Would I therefore pay to not see the useless stuff?

Problem/Opportunity
Should the Twitter guys be worried then or is there opportunity here? I mean I’m presuming they’re not worried about Magpie per se because they could just introduce their own similar service to protect themselves from externals. But are they worried about the impact on their user base of trying to monetise the service?

Personally I would pay to be part of a community such as Twitter where people were not allowed to advertise or use “Magpie” like services. Somewhere where I knew there was a cost to entry, and a cost to ongoing participation such that there was a shared sense of value-add (worth paying for!)… but of course it would take a freebie version to convince me of the usefulness…

So do you reach a certain volume of free users and then turn on the money taps, knowing that only a small percentage will pay while the remainder of the freebie users may continue to devalue the service? If you’re Twitter or Facebook even a small percentage can generate a lot of $$. If you don’t have any other money taps apart from “premium” though do you have to allow the devaluing of your free bit to make the “Freemium” model work? Twitter is such a simple service, unlike Facebook which has many more facets to it, that either it’s useful and interesting to receive a stream of updates… or it isn’t… is there much more to it?

Certainly Twitter’s lack of monetisation strategy has been reported by commentators to be a factor in the breakdown of the Facebook/Twitter dealings that have been going on this week (and if some techcrunch are to be believed have been going on/off for quite sometime). Apart from Ads and Ad-free premium service I’m still struggling to think of monetisation options (answers on a NDA to…)

Anyway… back to everyone’s favourite bird… I look forward to seeing how much of the shiny good bits the Magpie steals from the Twitter nest…

Technorati Tags: advanced, business growth, customer experience, future, innovation, twitter, social networking, technology

Facebook Rolls Out Verified App Program, Plus One Hell Of A Revenue Model For Themselves:
I disagree with Michael Arrington @ TechCrunch that the recent announcement of fb Verified App Program represents a new revenue model… I mean of course it DOES as in it will bring in revenue.

It just may not have high margin and may only be done by a certain proportion of the app marketplace.

I loved Michael’s comment that $9M was a lot of money where he came from, and it is where I come from too, however neither of us own one of the largest social media platforms in the world that is heavily invested in by Microsoft (did he forget the $240mn they put in??!!) $9M one-off SHOULD be small fry in fb-hq and if it isn’t then start worrying!

now if it was $9mn recurring and growing…. that might be a different matter as long as the margins were good… however $375 to test, verify an app – I’m sure there is automation but it does sound like a low-margin cost-covering exercise so there must be something else in it…

So imho what is more interesting is that fb want to get more involved in telling users which apps are good, and which aren’t.

fb’s Great Apps has already drawn a lot of criticism from, what might be sour grapes, commentators claiming nepotism, but hey I figure people that made a great platform probably have some friends who make some great stuff too… no biggie. Plus causes is a GOOD IDEA.

so whilst I don’t buy the big conspiracy theory of “great apps” I will entertain the possibility that being able to rank apps into badges of acceptability from fb will allow them to get more involved in how business is built on their platform. If you can introduce control on your platform you can certainly take a slice of the pie that other people are making in your playground. Fair Play

For those of us intending to roll-out serious business models with fun apps on social media $375 for the right to play in the playground shouldn’t be a big deal… the only thing is that we will expect a different kind of relationship with fb now… a little more serious now that we’re paying them money… are they ready?

Facebook Rolls Out Verified App Program, Plus One Hell Of A Revenue Model For Themselves:

Technorati Tags: business growth, customer experience, design, facebook, social networking, technology

Facebook Rolls Out Verified App Program, Plus One Hell Of A Revenue Model For Themselves:
I disagree with Michael Arrington @ TechCrunch that the recent announcement of fb Verified App Program represents a new revenue model… I mean of course it DOES as in it will bring in revenue.

It just may not have high margin and may only be done by a certain proportion of the app marketplace.

I loved Michael’s comment that $9M was a lot of money where he came from, and it is where I come from too, however neither of us own one of the largest social media platforms in the world that is heavily invested in by Microsoft (did he forget the $240mn they put in??!!) $9M one-off SHOULD be small fry in fb-hq and if it isn’t then start worrying!

now if it was $9mn recurring and growing…. that might be a different matter as long as the margins were good… however $375 to test, verify an app – I’m sure there is automation but it does sound like a low-margin cost-covering exercise so there must be something else in it…

So imho what is more interesting is that fb want to get more involved in telling users which apps are good, and which aren’t.

fb’s Great Apps has already drawn a lot of criticism from, what might be sour grapes, commentators claiming nepotism, but hey I figure people that made a great platform probably have some friends who make some great stuff too… no biggie. Plus causes is a GOOD IDEA.

so whilst I don’t buy the big conspiracy theory of “great apps” I will entertain the possibility that being able to rank apps into badges of acceptability from fb will allow them to get more involved in how business is built on their platform. If you can introduce control on your platform you can certainly take a slice of the pie that other people are making in your playground. Fair Play

For those of us intending to roll-out serious business models with fun apps on social media $375 for the right to play in the playground shouldn’t be a big deal… the only thing is that we will expect a different kind of relationship with fb now… a little more serious now that we’re paying them money… are they ready?

Facebook Rolls Out Verified App Program, Plus One Hell Of A Revenue Model For Themselves:

An extraordinary thing happened this weekend. A major brand was “taken down” by Twitter. A good synopsis of the story can be found here

http://blogs.forbes.com/sciencebizblog/2008/11/twitter-moms-si.html

it includes the original add. But you should SEE the response on Twitter (#motrinmums). I myself first heard about from @dancingmango and a very good post on his blog which shows the spikes in activity. Marc’s post and the whole unfolding of this event makes, more than ever, the case for marketing to get out of their entrenched positions and get up to speed with the ways in which consumers are able to communicate now and to understand the importance of the power of the consumer to the future of their brands. More than just showing themselves up as an out of touch team they followed up with a classicly poor apology in which tehy didn’t even say sorry and skirted around the issue by apologising for disappointing their consumers. Geesh this isn’t your DAD telling you off for coming in late… this is your BOTTOM LINE telling you to f.off because you took a liberty!

However is this a fair response to the situation? Some, but notably male, comments on the forbes.com article point out the “Mobs are inherently unpredictable…” and is probably right. Do we believe that Motrin really wanted to create offense? Do we believe that Motrin DIDNT think they were genuinely connecting with their customers? When journalists get a bee in their bonnet about something in the UK we often blame the hacks for stirring up a storm in a tee cup… can we say the same about the Twitter Mobs… did they get themselves in a mess about nothing?

Does it matter if the end result is your web-site is down for a whole weekend and the whole world thinks you just took the michael out of Mothers worldwide?

I think it does matter if we are to have a sane world in which we all consider the impact of our conversations, the truth of our communication (both sending and receiving) and are going to truly understand each other…

but what certainly matters more is saying sorry properly…

Oh dear…