BRotD Entry 0265 - The Twitter Takeover

Best Reading of the Day

 Some people believe a person who's net worth is in the billions is naturally better than everyone else.

"Drop Elon Musk down in a third world country with no money and he'd be running the place within a year," is the typical hagiography we see around these folks.

True?

Hardly.

Here is a little piece (free to read for a limited time) about the Twitter takeover by the world's (previously) richest man:

elon-musk-twitter-takeover.html

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Alicia [part of the core engineering team] wasn’t reflexively anti-Musk. She respected what he had done at his companies and felt hopeful that, as someone who thought of himself as an engineer, he would support her highly technical work. But Musk had a different interest that day. Twitter, he said, should immediately get into video.

“We really should be able to do longform video and attract the best content creators by giving them a better cut than YouTube,” he said, according to Alicia’s recollection. The infrastructure engineers in the room agreed that adding support for longform video was technically possible, but their job was building stuff — not strategy or marketing. It seemed as though Musk didn’t understand the basic organizational structure of a social-media company; it was as if a rich guy had bought a restaurant and started telling the cooks he wanted to add a new dining room. Might he want to speak with the media product team instead?

Having been in tech and product for a few decades now I can say this use of engineering time by Musk is as stupid a waste I have heard of. Engineers should not be making business decisions, rather, they relate what is feasible, exactly as "Alicia" indicated during this meeting.  Any other discussion with the engineering team is a waste of extremely valuable resources.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Facebook and Democracy 2018 Edition

The unfortunate news related to this story is I'm only going to touch on Facebook and democracy in the United States in 2018.  The reality is Facebook is having a profound impact globally and we are really only just beginning to understand the impact.

Here is a piece about what Facebook is doing to protect the looking midterm elections in the United States, just 49 days away:

Two weeks ago, on a hastily scheduled conference call with journalists, Facebook executives announced what many felt was inevitable: Someone, perhaps Russia, was once again trying to use the social network to “sow division” among U.S. voters, this time before November’s midterm elections.

The “bad actors,” as Facebook called them, created bogus events; posted about race issues, fascism, and President Donald Trump; and paid Facebook to promote their messages. “Some of the activity is consistent with what we saw from the IRA before and after the 2016 elections,” Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy wrote in a blog post, referring to the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed online troll farm.

That activity, of course, may have altered a U.S. election, and sent Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg down a path of self-reflection that has changed Facebook’s strategy, as well as its mission.

Here is a snippet from the piece:

https://www.recode.net/2018/8/17/17686252/facebook-2018-midterm-election-plan-russia

How is technology changing the human condition? How is it impacting democracy?  I've written a bit about our entry in to the Information Age and I feel a white paper coming out of it.  I'm sure I'll write more about this subject.

Happy Voting,

J.W. Gant

BRotD - Entry 0262 Social Media's Growing Pains

Best Reading of the Day

This is a really fine article over on the New York Times.

What has Facebook, and other technologies, done to us?  What has the impact been on humanity?  How did we get here?  What can be done?

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Let me first state that I actually like Mark Zuckerberg and have since the day I met him more than a dozen years ago.

But let me also say that he and Facebook, the huge social network that he started in college, have been working humanity’s last nerve for far too long now.

Every week, it’s something, and that something is never good.

This week, it was the revelation that the Russians — or, more precisely, a group of geek thugs who are acting the exact same way that a group of Russians acted when they messed with the 2016 United States elections on Facebook — are still skulking around the platform and making trouble for the midterms.

Here is the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/opinion/the-expensive-education-of-mark-zuckerberg-and-silicon-valley.html

I use Facebook for one thing really.  I have a couple small groups I'm in where we discuss particular topics.  Movies mostly.  I enjoy the folks there.  We are quite collegial and regularly have respectful disagreements.  We stay on topic and share our thoughts and experiences.

Beyond that the platform doesn't do hardly anything for me any more.

Twitter is a great place for instant news, though dangerous as the possibility of inaccurate news is very real.

Troubling times as we've seen our hopes and dreams for technology dashed by bad actors.  As if we've never seen this before in history (oh, yes, we have says Mr. Nobel). 

Happy Disturbing Reading,

J.W. Gant

Brands Feel Pain of Social Media

You would have to ignore all of the news, business or otherwise, not to recognize the struggles of social media today.  Not so well understood however is how this is impacting brands who utilize social media to interact with a large portion of their customers.

The Participation Age indicates brands are now co-created by potential customers.  That mostly happens through social media.  So if Facebook, Twitter, etc. are suffering?  Yeap.

Read more here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2018/06/brands-blamed-for-social-medias-shortcomings.html

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Twitter and the Fakes

Twitter is the streaming consciousness of the world. I'm convinced of it and follow a lot of what is going on very closely thanks to it.  We've seen its impact in strange ways and good ways.  The immediacy is amazing.  Simply no better way for mass communication of simple ideas.  Yet that immediacy can be an issue too.

What if some of the accounts on Twitter are fake accounts to help distribute a fake idea?

What if 48 million accounts are fake and whole waves of "news" can be faked, moving markets, pushing public opinion, and forcing action?

Scary.

Read on:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/10/nearly-48-million-twitter-accounts-could-be-bots-says-study.html

Here is a snippet from the piece:

A big chunk of those "likes," "retweets," and "followers" lighting up your Twitter account may not be coming from human hands. According to new research from the University of Southern California and Indiana University, up to 15 percent of Twitter accounts are in fact bots rather than people.

The research could be troubling news for Twitter, which has struggled to grow its user base in the face of growing competition from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and others.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Twitter's New Anti-Harassment Tools

Twitter has certainly proved to be a critical social media utility.  I admit to being addicted to it. Now can it clean up its act?

They are trying.

Read on:

http://adage.com/article/media/twitter-addresses-critics-adding-tools-report-harassment/306771/

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Del Harvey sees too many of the same kind of tweet. It contains a screenshot of a message from Twitter's user support, saying that a post someone reported as abusive on the site doesn't violate Twitter rules. It's often accompanied by commentary: "Seriously?"

For Ms. Harvey, it's a personal criticism. She's the head of trust and safety at Twitter, and it's her job to make sure that people have tools to deal with harassment and abuse on the social-media site. But during the course of her eight years at the company, she said, "It's very easy to find instances where we got to the wrong answer.''

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

True Omni-commerce is Arriving

You've likely heard of omni-channel.  Previously this kind of concept was called multi-channel where a classic store-based merchant might enable online sales.  With mobile people are always connected to the internet, always living their lives connected, which means they might look to buy at any time from any channel.

Omnicommerce is always on sales from any direction.

With social media adding 'buy' buttons and incorporating a payments vehicle this is becoming a reality very quickly.

Here is a story on the concept:

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/as-social-media-buy-buttons-increase-retailers-must-dive-in-now

Here is a snippet from that piece:

“Payments are becoming embedded across the mobile commerce spectrum, and the rapid growth of in-app payments will accelerate the trend,” he said. “Prepare for the ability to pay for anything, any time, anywhere and on any device be it physical or virtual.

“True omni-commerce, incorporating payments, is happening.”

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Misc on Mobile and Marketing - IoT, Twitter, & Programmatic Ads

Quite a few articles grabbed my eye today and I'm going to share a few in one big post here.

First up is Twitter Marketing:

https://www.internetretailer.com/2015/06/11/twitter-lets-marketers-target-consumers-based-mobile-apps

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Twitter Inc. is letting marketers seeking to drive consumers to download or use their mobile apps target consumers based on the types of apps they have installed on their phones or tablets.

Next is mobile programmatic ad buys:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/251835/mobile-programmatic-growing-as-91-of-marketers-up.html?edition=83587

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Nearly all (91%) mobile ad-buyers have increased their programmatic spend in 2015, according to a new survey and research report from Millennial Media, a mobile ad exchange.

Next is the "Internet of Things" and how some visionary grocers view their potential:

http://www.progressivegrocer.com/departments/technology/grocers-can-use-%E2%80%98internet-things%E2%80%99-their-advantage

Here is a snippet from the piece:

For those who’ve wondered what the Internet of Things (IoT) is, let alone how they can leverage it to benefit their business, the June 9 FMI Connect Learning Lounge presentation "The Internet of Things," held on the exhibit floor, was a must-attend event.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Twitter Beacons

This is huge news, every bit as large ad the Facebook announcement earlier this year.

Twitter is enabling beacon interactions.

Here is the story from BI:

http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ventures-hearst-ventures-softbank-capital-lead-18-million-financing-round-in-beacon-company-swirl-2015-4

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Beacons — small devices placed in retail stores that connect with smartphone apps using Bluetooth — are predicted by Business Insider Intelligence to directly influence more than $4 billion of US retail sales this year at top retailers (.1% of the total).

But right now, a big obstacle in the way of that number jumping higher is that for a consumer to receive a pop-up notification on their phone from a retailer or advertiser sent via beacon, they need to have opted in to receive those notifications (or ads) in a specific app. Right now, those apps are mostly limited to retailers' own apps, or a small network of other apps that are not always likely to be on most consumers' phones.

But that network could soon be opening up far wider.

I love that write-up.  They nail the parameters.  Beacons will be huge.  It is just a question of how big and when.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Best Reading of the Day - Entry 0195 Metrics for Engagement via Twitter

As the Participation Age has dramatically changed the way marketers should be looking at their interactions with consumers (participants).  However some of the metrics have remained unchanged, possibly for too long.  Here is a worthy story on one piece of that:

http://recode.net/2015/02/09/the-monthly-active-user-metric-should-be-retired-but-what-takes-its-place/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Twitter (unintentionally) took on an interesting challenge last week during its fourth-quarter earnings call: It tried to explain to investors why the company lost four million users during the previous quarter.

These users, who had been counted as “monthly active users” the quarter before, had simply vanished from Twitter’s total user count. Poof.

The simple explanation: The bulk of these four million people were not actually using Twitter. They were counted as part of a feature in the iPhone’s Safari Web browser that automatically pulled Twitter data whether the user was reading it or not. After the iOS 8 update, that automatic data collection was halted, and the people who were originally counted as “active” disappeared from the pot.

This loss of users who probably weren’t really users got me thinking: How accurate are the “monthly active user” metrics shared by companies like Facebook and Twitter?

If you wish to read more I recommend 'Marketing in the Participation Age' by Daina Middleton.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Twitter Video and HBO's Video Streaming Struggles

Two more stories are interesting news to read over.

First up is Twitter providing mobile video.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/social-networks/19722.html

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Twitter hopes the introduction of native mobile video will boost the number of people who use its service, supplementing its new search partnership with Google and other moves aimed at broadening its appeal.

With its recent rollout of native video, which allows users to capture, edit and share videos within the Twitter mobile application, Twitter is taking its cue from Facebook, which is pressuring YouTube as the go-to destination to upload and watch video.

Next is a piece on the struggles of HBO to go to a streaming service model.

http://recode.net/2015/01/29/hbo-tech-executives-leave-ahead-of-internet-launch-as-networks-strategy-changes/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

The original plan discussed by the network’s top executives was to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a sophisticated streaming platform that would make HBO, one of the best-known premium channels in the United States, capable of challenging streaming video services from Netflix and Amazon head-on. Berkes, who was also a cofounder of Xbox, was a key part of that ambitious project — he had been hired by HBO in 2011 to set up a new office in Seattle, initially hiring 80 engineers with plans to grow much bigger.

The idea was that the technology would support not only HBO but potentially other Time Warner offerings, such as Turner Broadcasting and Warner Bros.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

How NOT to Use Social Media

Southwest Airlines is in the news for all the wrong reasons this week after a gate attendant forced a passenger to delete a tweet critical of the service he had received.

Here is the article I found was the best presentation of the story:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/minnesota-family-ordered-off-southwest-flight

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Minnesota man Duff Watson didn’t fare so well, however, after a tweet he wrote commenting on what he perceived to be poor service from a Southwest Airlines agent led to him being ordered off a plane and told to delete the offending post.

The incident occurred on Sunday when Watson, together with his two children aged six and nine, prepared to board an aircraft for a flight from Denver to Minneapolis.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Super Bowl XLXVIII - Tweets as Marketing

The big game has come and gone and as always there are winners and losers.  My selection for the best Monday read on the subject comes from Boston.com and the obnoxious Boston Sports Guy:

http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/obnoxiousbostonfan/2014/02/10_things_we_learned_on_super_bowl_sunday.html

Digorno was brilliant in their twitter usage throughout the game as can be seen from the example below:

The best entry in that blog may be #2: Defense Wins Championships.

Having grown up in Spokane, WA during the Steve Largent era of Seahawks football yesterday's win felt pretty good.  Still would have preferred my New England Patriots taking home the trophy but that is a good 2nd place for me.

Happy reading,

J.W. Gant

Best Reading of the Day - Entry 0048 Misc

I have three items to share today.  Completely unrelated but interesting nevertheless.

First up is a great view by Econsultancy in to how to use Twitter for competitive analysis:

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/63651-a-six-step-guide-to-using-twitter-for-competitor-analysis

Next is a view of what Staples is doing in mobile to provide a seamless experience between platforms:

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/staples-redesigns-mobile-site-for-cross-channel-shopping

Finally, how the payment company LevelUp is seeing their SDK work for retail and QSR businesses interested in incorporating payment & mobile loyalty in to their apps:

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/dunn-bros-coffee-caffeinates-loyalty-with-mobile-payments-app

Happy reading,

J.W. Gant