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5 Social Platforms to Put on Your “Fadar”!

Over the last several years lots of social platforms have come and gone. Some are slowly fading away. It’s really hard to keep track of where to spend your time and energy! 2012 will remain a big year for big players such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn and similarly, we should also expect to see exponential growth for newcomers like Pinterest. However, as newcomers gain momentum, we will start to see other social networks fizzle off. Here are 5 social platforms we think you should put on your “fadar” (aka fading radar):

1. Quora: The question and answer platform was predicted to be the next big thing in 2010. However, half way through 2011 the big buzz surrounding the site slowly started to fade off. The site still receives decent traffic, with an estimate of 500,000 users, however, as new social sites emerge Quora might not be at the top of social minds.
2. Digg: The once beloved site-sharing website has been dying a slow death for several years. It hasn’t been able to compete with sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. It is my opinion that it is just a matter of time before it completely fizzles off. A few months ago it did launch a new version of the site, however, it doesn’t seem like users found it very appealing. A couple of years ago a great article would have received on average 3000 Diggs, now you’re lucky if you even get 100.
3. Delicious: This social bookmarking site had everything going for it back in 2005. It was new to the scene and had no real competitors. What happened? As new bookmarking sites started to saturate the market Delicious didn’t reinvent quickly enough. Rumors are it might shut-down or sell its technology.
4. Gowalla: This location-based site was once a fierce competitor for foursquare, both entering the market at about the same time 2 years ago. However, foursquare quickly gained momentum with over 1 billion check-ins to date, leaving Gowalla in the dust. Gowalla’s leadership has now joined forces with Facebook. According to industry insiders, Facebook has not purchased the technology, only the talent. Gowalla will slowly fade out.
5. QR Codes: There’s a huge online debate about whether QR (Quick Response) Codes are slowly starting to die off before they’ve even had the chance to really take off. Some people may think, why would QR Codes be on the “fadar”? I see them everywhere? Well, that’s exactly my point. The ubiquitous use of QR Codes in often ill-conceived marketing efforts, is what might lead to its demise.

What do you think? Do you take issue with any of the above observations? Are there networks or tools you feel should be on the fadar?

Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam

Tags: cool, Delicious, digg, facebook, foursquare, google, gowalla, LinkedIn, pinterest, QR codes, reddit, Social Media, technology, Twitter, youtube

The Progression of Ad Cost & Measurement

The cost and measurement of advertising has changed over the years. Traditional advertising was all about eyeballs and the cost of it was based on how many people were “expected” to see the ad. I emphasize “expected” because traditional media channels were not able to track exactly how many people saw an ad.

Now, with the online medium, advertisement pricing and measurement are beginning to reflect the changing environment of consumer behaviour. People are no longer passively consuming information, they are reacting and taking action on information they see online.

Advertising goals are not just about eyeballs anymore. They are about a higher level of interaction, a stronger conversion measure, a profitable action.

It was a giant step when the cost per click model for online advertisement pricing was introduced. Advertisers were only charged when users clicked on an ad.

The next step forward is the pricing models being adopted by social media platforms. These pricing models make a closer connection between the cost of the ad and the goal of the advertiser.

For example, as of May 25, 2011, YouTube “will change the billing terms of all Promoted Videos campaigns from a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis to a Cost Per View (CPV) basis”. This means the promoted video ads will only cost the advertiser money if someone views the video.

Furthermore, the launch of Twitter’s Promoted Products also include unique pricing models. Promoted Tweets, for example, are charged on a cost per engagement (CPE) basis where advertisers only pay when users retweet, reply to, click or “favorite” a promoted tweet. On the other hand, Promoted Accounts are charged on a cost per follower (CPF) basis, which means advertisers are only charged when a user follows their account.

These pricing models help advertisers more accurately measure the return on investment. Gone are the days where advertisers are only looking for eyeballs. Measure everything you do to determine the best course of action.

Victor

Photo Credit: Nesster

Tags: advertising, cost, measurement, ROI, Twitter, youtube

Spilling Your Own Beans

If you took in the big game yesterday you may have noticed that some of the commercials had already created buzz online.  Volkswagen’s ads scheduled for release on Super Bowl Sunday were leaked 5 days earlier on YouTube, purposefully.

One day after the Wednesday February 2nd release, the commercials had gone viral – with “The Force” receiving more than one million hits.  As I write this post, early Monday morning, the commercial is sitting at 15.5 million hits!

The strategy:  by releasing the videos early, Volkswagen was able to engage audiences before the bombardment of other beer, cola or car commercials scheduled to hit the big screen during the game.  The timing of the release was perfect.  Volkswagen jumped the gun, and stayed one step ahead of the competition.

Pre-released or not, these ads were well received and have been touted some of the most memorable ads of Super Bowl XLV.  Thus, showing us, once again – the power of video online.  Check them out: “The Force” and “Black Beetle”.

Taylor

Tags: commerical, Super Bowl ad, video, viral video, Volkswagen, youtube

Future unFriendly

Louis CK is right:  The world is amazing and no one is happy.

This weekend I saw two game-changing videos. One was the Tipp Ex advertisement with the Hunter and the Bear, the other was the Arcade Fire video “The Wilderness Downtown.” One word sums up both of these experiences: Wow.

The Tipp Ex video advertisement is exhaustively interactive. A bear comes upon a hunter – and you, the viewer, decides what happens next. Does the hunter shoot the bear? Dance with the bear? Kiss the bear? You name it. The hunter and the bear do it.

Of course there are limits. And of course, *that* is what people talk about. Forget the fact that there are at least 50 possible outcomes. Forget the fact that this video continues to shoot around the internet at lightning speed and has garnered over 6.5-million views on YouTube in less than 2 weeks. Forget the fact that this is another inspiring example of interactive media, a la Old Spice. Nope. Let’s talk instead about how the words “sew” or “knit” don’t trigger results.

Taking the concept of what a video can be, to another new level is Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown”. (You must launch this video on Google Chrome for the full effect.) This interactive video sucks you into the experience in a most intimate way. By incorporating imagery from Google Maps, the street you grew up on becomes part of the video. Not only that, but halfway through this experience, you are prompted to write a note to your younger self, who lived on that street. There are multiple windows opening – with content transferring between them. It is truly remarkable.

Yet when you read people’s reactions online, many complain about their address not working. Or, having seen this done before… it’s nothing new. And therefore..? That takes away from the overall awesomeness? People. Dial back the negative. I think this ambitious interactive experience takes an entire industry of video production to new heights. The potential blows my mind.

In my opinion, these two examples give us a taste of what’s to come. And I, for one, will be greeting that future with a jaw on the floor and an abundance of praise for the very effort.

Tags: Arcade Fire, interactivity, Louis CK, TippEx, video, youtube

Why H.264 has won (for now)

H.264 is a video codec that is used in a number of different containers, for example, .MP4, .FLV, .MOV.

As of May 2010, the H.264 format has claimed a stake in 66 percent of all videos online, making it the current leader for internet video compression.

One reason is, well, H.264 is an athletic encoder – it looks great and weighs less! Technically, it offers nearly three times greater compression than MPEG-2, at half the file size, and still looks clean and sharp, I like to think of it as the star wrestler of video encoders, the way it squashes data flat.

Another reason for H.264′s dominance, is it’s flexibility. H.264 was created to allow content from your home computer to be delivered to other devices without the time consuming hassle of converting. So, if you happen to have the latest technology in your hands, you can share your H.264 videos from your computer to your iPhone to your iPod to your DVD player, to your TV set-top box with no sweat, no cursing, no mangled, stretched or pixelated video.

And finally, I would guess that YouTube – the Ruling King of Video – has been one of the major forces in pushing H.264 to the top.

In the beginning, YouTube’s favored codec was H.263 Sorenson Spark in an FLV container. And people were astounded at the speed of playback and the ability of H.263 to crunch a fat movie down to an edible size. We were finally watching video in real time, on our home computers, without fits and starts, and the world was forever changed.

Since then, YouTube, whose very existence requires the staff stay on top of evolving video compression standards, started using H.264 in 2007 and three years later, YouTube uses and promotes H.264 FLV. In a recent blog post, YouTube explained that they chose H.264 because they need a format that will work with as many browsers as possible. And for efficiency’s sake, YouTube needs to minimize the number of formats they accept to keep up with their manic upload rate of 24 hours of video every minute (makes me sweat just thinking about it!).

While YouTube gives a nodd to the people-friendly open video format VP8, YouTube says they’re sticking with the Flash Player and H.264 for now, noting Flash’s security features and it’s technical capabilities such as recording from a webcam straight on to YouTube for live chat and broadcasting.

Tags: codec, H.264, video, youtube