Tag Archives: Twitter Application

Instagram Stabbing Itself By Leaving Twitter Cards Off

Hunter Walk

YouTube never disabled embeds on Twitter or Facebook, letting visitors to those products watch a YouTube video without ever coming to our site. YouTube worked with Apple to make our app a default experience on iOS, even leaving it effectively non-monetized until last year. Why? Because we knew our users were on those sites and we wanted YouTube to be synonymous with “video.” Because we knew we could create a differentiated on-site experience which drove clicks back to our site from those embeds. And because we knew that our community was OURS only so long as we served THEIR needs.

Instagram photos ceased being viewable on Twitter last December due to a strategic decision by Facebook management, which Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said was “their prerogative.” At the time Instagram was building out a web presence and seeking overall to drive more consumers to view photos within Instagram…

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Tweepforce Roundup(1st Oct): Tim Cook Tweets, Surge in @Mention & Promoted Trends

Tweepforce continue to roundup Twitter stories and help businesses leverage this platform for businesses and product development.

Rouhani to Tim Cook on Twitter

Tim Cook (Apple CEO), contrary to his predecessor (Steve Jobs), has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon with several other noticeable tech CEOs including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Dell CEO Michael Dell. Cook’s decision to join the social network demonstrates that Apple has recognised Twitter as a PR tool to reach out to both shareholders and customers. – http://ow.ly/pofgb #Blog

Things I Learned Working on the Twitter Platform

Ryan Sarver

I was lucky enough to spend the last four years of my life working with an incredible team of people on the Twitter Platform. I joined Twitter in June of 2009, shortly after Alex Payne had launched and built the early community around the Twitter API. While my role initially entailed product and engineering management, I spent all four years focused on building an ecosystem of companies that created value for our users and our partners and that’s where I’ll focus these posts. It was my first time doing anything like it and I learned an incredible amount through trial and error. There were failures, triumphs, and great lessons learned along the way.

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One Billion Facebook users not enough to make $100bn company

Congratulations to Facebook on reaching one billion users milestone, this is undoubtedly an huge achievement and must be accoladed whole heartedly!

https://twitter.com/joshelman/status/253852332327067648

But I might be wrong, it seems to me that Zuckerberg has carried away with sheer number of users and good words from a stalwart like Steve Jobs about his stubbornness to remain product focussed and not interest based revenue-centric, and although he ended up building the best social network platform, so far he has failed to leverage it for shareholders (shares are already down by 40+%).


And when he really tried to please them by launching various FB apps and bombarding users with ads, sponsored status and promoted stories, users become disgruntled about a timeline so full of commercial page links that they have become more listener than participant, and are confused as to why they need so many apps to manage their accounts!
https://twitter.com/stefBIGdreams/status/251434960584601600
https://twitter.com/BlackCapsNo1Fan/status/252934505281773568

So what exactly went wrong with Facebook? I think, they followed Apple theory too religiously; they built beautiful product (like all iProducts) and then tried to control their ecosystem (Like App Store) in order to monetise it – but can Facebook really follow a purely Apple model?
I don’t think so. Why? Firstly, they don’t have ‘must have’ products for users – social engagement can be substituted or complimented by email, SMS, phone, or via rival networks. Users of iPhones and iPads have no choice but to use Apple by-products, only be available on their devices, including the highly deprecated iMap on IOS6! Whereas they have many choices and no compulsion when it comes to using Facebook and its applications.
https://twitter.com/MisterGed/status/250180550940323840

In other words, Facebook can’t really push things on their users; it should try to build on what is already working, like Zynga games, Spotify music sharing, or the recently launched Facebook Gift!


https://twitter.com/VeilleSMO/status/250278808685535233
I think Facebook Gifts are a great idea and can replace the way we do transactions, specially buying products for family, friends and loved ones – because stats suggests 80+% of us like to buy things from word of mouth recommendations or friends’ suggestions – and there is no better place than Facebook to get recommendations from friends.

In summary Facebook needs to build products with tightly coupled commerce ability not push advertising like pages you may like, sponsored posts or sponsored stories. Along with Facebook gifts (i.e. currency, or credit) let’s build a more open ecosystem for developers so that Zynga- and Spotify-like companies can build really lucrative communities to pour some money in and make Facebook a $100bn company!

Will @twitterAPI support social CRM and Analytics, as promised?

Lately Dick Costolo (CEO @Twitter) has been vigorously advocating at various podiums (Charlie Ross Show and Online News Association Conference Awards Banquet) about the twitter API policy changes, and, to certain extend , I agree with their policy to stop encouraging developers (or hackers) to create a twitter-like experience somewhere else.

OK, now we have bought this idea, but then why is Twitter not giving users (i.e. tweeps) exactly the same experience with their various client interfaces, from iPad, iPhone, Android to web? For example, on the web they don’t have Retweet (RT) with a quote option and some mobile clients don’t have $tag hyperlinks. And then they have no analytics (for non-twitter advertising subscribers) associated, apart from number of RT and favourites.

Also in Michael Sippey’s (Product person @ Twitter) blog posting to introduce API changes seems to encourage developers to build something on top of Twitter such as social CRM and analytics tools, but if Twitter is really serious about that, then why don’t they take API rate limitation off, or why do they suspend accounts if you do too many @mentions?
https://twitter.com/93HZiTao/status/250193965121413121
These limitations are the biggest hindrance in creating a meaningful conversation with tweeps. I know Twitter can argue that unlimited API usage and @mentions can cause spamming, but all marketers can agree that information overload can occur in a variety of media and can’t really can be controlled by some rate limit or usage checks! Can Twitter control spamming via API authentication and subsequent usage analysis checks? How about Twitter opening their ads API (as Google did with ad words) to developers, which would give huge opportunities for developers to create a true commerce experience on twitter!

We know @twitter is free tool and they still have a more open ecosystem than FB, G+, Pintrest and LinkedIn, and if I put my developer’s hat on, it is not easy to manage (free) API usage for thousands of hackers who are hungry for the opportunity to create as many as disruptions as possible and to enjoy and prove their creative skills, but what Twitter has to realise is that the amount of content they generate every second, they cannot manage and monetise alone; therefore rather then that abundance of info go in waste, it should be open to use for developers to turn Twitter into a true social engagement system.

In the end, OK Twitter, don’t let us create a Twitter client-like experience, but, as promised, give us tool to build a Twitter analytics and relationship management system so that we both developer and Twitter can carry on growing and become the best social CRM and content management tool!

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

@YumGo – Twitter voucher code application launched

UK based Internet firm @YumGo allows keen shoppers to simply tweet brand names to access a wide range of discount codes.

The recent economic slump has led to people more closely watching their pennies, and indeed, hard-pressed Britons have adopted a range of strategies to ensure that they remain within their means. One such strategy, for example, could be to simply cut back on everything, whilst another could be to ‘ring fence’ one area of spending whilst reducing another. Increasing numbers of savvy online shoppers, however, are discovering a third way to effectively save money: online discount codes.
Discount vouchers, much like those that used to come in newspapers, can be found right across the Internet, including from a broad range of household name brands. Used regularly, they can certainly help buyers to save a substantial amount of money, and it is now even easier to access the widest range of such discount codes thanks to the launch of a new tweet-2-discount application by @YumGo.

Voucher codes from the biggest brands

@YumGo offers a wide range of promotional codes from the best known brands. These include from top food retailers such as Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, Zizzi and Strada and supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda, as well as electronic stores such as Currys, Comet, PC World and game.com and sports retailers Nike, Reebok and Sunglasses. Shoppers can gain access to these codes within 60 seconds simply by tweeting the relevant brand name to the @YumGo Twitter account. @YumGo also brings local codes first to shoppers who enable their location using Twitter’s location based service.

@YumGo - Tweet-2-Discount

Tweet-2-Discount

An @YumGo spokesperson stated: “We couldn’t be more proud to offer our unique instant tweet-2-discount service. There is no need for tweeters to worry about spam as they are not required to follow us, and nor is there any fee or app to download. Instead, all you get from us is an instant discount, 24/7, if you tweet a brand name to us.”

@YumGo is not a partner of Twitter, instead simply building its application using Twitter’s open-source technology. In addition to its Twitter page and main website at www.atyumgo.co.uk, @YumGo is also on Facebook, making it even more accessible to the escalating numbers of people who are using the World Wide Web (WWW) to find discount codes.