Tag Archives: @tweepforce

Is Twitter poised to change the dynamics of online selling?

It’s fair to say that the Internet has made an immense difference to the way in which we shop for products and services. In the old days, finding a great deal may have been more difficult than it is now, but you at least knew where you stood. If, by any chance, you didn’t like what was on offer on your local high street… you just had to accept it, and that was that.

In the past decade or so, however, the retail picture has changed completely with the emergence of quick, easy and widespread Internet shopping. First, it was Amazon that was turning the retail world upside down, first altering the dynamics of the books market and then doing the same for home appliances, electronics and whitewoods.
Then, it was eBay that was causing a stir, namely by giving more power to the individual seller, and in the process creating an economy of a greater size than half of the countries in the world. This was followed by services like Craigslist and Gumtree, which allowed for last minute and generally more informal selling – even including the letting out of driveways and spare rooms during Wimbledon! And even more recently, we’ve seen the impact of

Facebook Marketplace in linking a social media network to opportunities to buy and sell.
That, however, is not the most recent of the continuous revolutions that are being experienced in the world of online shopping. That’s because, in attempt to leverage the very fast growing base of Twitter users here in the UK – 6 million people, in fact – the Twitter deal specialist @YumGo has added another service to its offering that further empowers sellers.

The way the service works is that by simply tweeting to @YumGo, the seller can have their voucher code tweeted back to the service’s rapidly growing list of followers. It means that there is no download, no registration and no spam for any seller to worry about.

A @YumGo spokesperson commented: “Twitter’s no-nonsense and easily accessible world allows us to expose sellers’ daily deals to the right people, in the process creating a transparent, agile and cost-effective marketplace.”
So, the next time Wimbledon or the Olympic Game takes place, people can tweet to find the best daily deals…

Is the voucher codes industry overcrowded?

There’s no question that voucher codes have long been a valued means of saving money for a wide range of people around the world, whether they are struggling to make ends meet or simply love to save money on essentials and luxuries alike. Nonetheless, with SRK Com having recently launched its own @YumGo tweet-2-discount service, making use of the open source technology offered by Twitter, it seems an appropriate time to assess the state of play in the market, as well as one of its key questions: has the voucher codes industry become overcrowded?

At first inspection, it certainly appears that those who are looking for the latest online offers have no shortage of choice. On the one hand, there are the location based services from top players that take advantage of the huge numbers of people who access the Internet through mobile phones and tablets in search of the latest local offers. These include Google Offers and Google Wallet, with the latter being a mobile application that makes use of Near Field Communications (NFC) technology to enable users to conveniently pay for goods using their phone. Other such services include Facebook Deals and Foursquare Deals, which reward customers who check in at a vendor’s place of business.

Other sources of offers include technology and affiliate network players such as myvouchercodes.co.uk, vouchercodes.co.uk and moneysupermarket.com. Then, there are the rapidly growing daily deal providers to consider, such as Groupon and Living Social. Indeed, the overall voucher codes market is now worth some $4.5bn, having grown by 155%. As a matter of fact, with the present economic climate leaving more people than ever in need of a effective means of saving money for a wide range of goods and services, it only looks set to continue its exponential growth.

Now, all of this competition would at first seem to place @YumGo in a difficult position. Nonetheless, whilst the market is certainly competitive, it is also close, and given the way that Twitter appears to be overpowering other social mediums, it seems that a small startup such as @YumGo may yet emerge a winner in this most hotly contested of races

@Twitter Power

These days, it seems that Twitter is everywhere. It has seen a wide range of applications and been at the centre of a wide range of news stories, from the recent revolutions in the Middle East to the controversy closer to home in the UK over public figures’ ‘super injunctions’.

The former of those two instances has once again demonstrated Twitter’s position at the forefront of the rising trend for ‘citizen journalism’ and the increased use of social media, even by those working in traditional media. Take the example of Andy Carvin, the NPR editor who has curated news from the region with thanks, in no small part, to the social networking site. Then there is the example of Brian Stelter, the New York Times reporter who reported on the aftermath of the Joplin, Missouri tornado through the site.

Over in Britain, meanwhile, Twitter hit the headlines as the place on the web where thousands of users posted the name of the Premiership footballer who had taken out a gag order to protect their privacy amidst an alleged extra-marital affair. In a separate case, legal action was also brought by councillors and officials from the South Tyneside local authority who sought to unmask a Twitter user who the group had claimed made libelous posts about them on the site.

If there is anything to learn from such recent developments, it is certainly that Twitter has grown considerably in power and influence. Such is the site’s dizzyingly wide range of applications, however, that its value is certainly not just restricted to those that dominate news headlines. Another way in which Twitter has made its influence felt since its launch just a few short years ago is as a source of seemingly every possible product or service that one could seek.

One such product or service is the humble voucher code. Voucher codes are certainly a highly effective means of saving money, and the new @YumGo tweet-2-discount service allows Twitter users to instantly access any of a wide range of discount codes from top and local brands, simply by tweeting a brand name to the @YumGo Twitter account.