Is Twitter becoming the new Wikipedia?

Posted by adi on Mar 26, 2009 in The world of the web

Twitter has recently been gaining prominence in the Google search listings and has this week modified its title tags to improve further the search performance of members tweets and profiles.

Wikipedia has a tremendous reputation for dominating the search listings due to the outstanding architecture and wealth of user generated content.  Twitter obviously has plenty of user generated content, and now seems to be working on the search friendly architecture.

Is Twitter becoming the new Wikipedia?

Tags: Google, Search Engines, Social Networking, Twitter, User-generated content, wikipedia

MS Cashback Search Vindicating the Approach?

Posted by adi on Nov 13, 2008 in The world of the web

Image by BlueJeff via Flickr

Microsoft released a cashback search service this year and earlier today announced the initial results of the scheme, much to the surprise of many of the doubters that poo pooed the scheme when it was announced.

Microsoft is reporting that according to Comscore, Live Search referred 12% of all commercial transactions across the web.  There’s been a 30% increase in the number of products offered via Cashback. 4.5 million unique users per month are generating 68 million commercial queries. eBay has seen an increase of 50% on their ROI.

Does this result vindicate the approach and breathe fresh life into the cashback sector?

Whilst the results are impressive when compared to the 9% market share that the Microsoft search engine achieved over the same period I think time is needed to analyse whether this iniative will provide lasting value to Microsoft.

I’ve spoken to a few people about this and it does seem that many are searching for products on Google, then heading over to Live to get their cashback, with some even setting up scripts to automate this process for them.  Not sure that’s really the outcome Microsoft was hoping for.

They have however announced an expansion to the scheme partnering with shopping cart providers Miva Merchant, Early Impact Inc. (ProductCart) and 3DCart.  That will enable consumers who use these carts become eligible for cashback.

I’ve seen comparisons between Hulu and YouTube and it seems apt.  Hulu isn’t likely to be threatening YouTube’s market leadership but has carved out a nice niche for itself in the video sector, and it seems that Microsoft’s cashback service is doing a similar thing.

Tags: EBay, Google, Hulu, Live Search, Microsoft, YouTube

Reviews and word of mouth come up trumps

Posted by adi on Oct 23, 2008 in The world of the web

I wrote on Tuesday about the importance of reviews and word of mouth after a survey came out in support of email to communicate with the younger market out there.  Lo and behold today has seen a study by Rubicon Consulting bestowing the virtue of reviews and word of mouth in your marketing campaigns.  Some of the key findings of the study were:

• The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals. It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer.
• Website categories that get the most daily usage are search, social communities like MySpace and Facebook, general news websites like CNN.com and NYTimes.com, and online banking.
• The websites that Americans value most are (in order), Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook. Although Yahoo’s financial challenges have generated a lot of press attention, it continues to have a very large and loyal following.
• Young people (age 22 and under) are much noisier online than their elders. They account for about half of all the content and comments posted online.
• Facebook appears to be ahead of MySpace in terms of number of users in the US, and perceived value of the site.
• Despite extensive publicity, the community sites SecondLife and Twitter reach only a few percent of US Internet users.
• Democrats are more active online than Republicans. Democrats are more likely to participate in online communities, and say they are more heavily influenced in their voting decisions by information they find online.

Of course to do well in these areas requires both an excellent product and a good deal of time and effort to liase with the communities in your industry.  Unfortunately many marketers want a short cut when interacting with communities and cannot resist spamming at the first opportunity.  The following steps are a good start for those wishing to use communities as part of their marketing strategy.

1) Lurk, work out how things are done.
2) Respond to posts, share knowledge.
3) Start posts on topics of interest.
4) Discuss with the admin/owner any way that you can help them.

Tags: Facebook, Google, Marketing, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube