Archive for August, 2009
By Molly Galler
Hide your jewels and tiaras ladies; the men are storming the magic castle.
The media is abuzz today with the news that the Walt Disney Company plans to purchase Marvel Entertainment, owner of Marvel Comics.
Are Mickey Mouse, the princesses and Hannah Montana not enough for the entertainment giant?
Apparently not. In the current economy, with sales of DVDs waning, less people traveling to theme parks, and a largely female audience for its television and movie endeavors, Disney is looking to cast a wider net.
According to today’s Wall Street Journal, “The move fits with Disney’s stated strategy of driving revenue from popular content over time across multiple platforms. It also gives the company a boost with young male audiences, where Marvel’s characters like Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor are particularly popular. Disney has shown more strength with females from its properties like Hannah Montana.”
Disney will use its new ownership of popular characters such as Spider-Man, X-Men and the Hulk to rope in male fans. Today’s New York Times suggests, “Marvel’s intellectual property tends to be more popular with boys — an area where Disney could use help. While the likes of Hannah Montana and the blockbuster Princesses merchandising line have solidified Disney’s hold on little girls, franchises for boys have been harder to come by.”
With the acquisition comes a marketing plan targeted directly at the former Marvel audience. Marvel characters will be incorporated into all the Disney theme parks world wide, the Disney cable television channels, as well as consumer products such as toys, video games and clothing.
Is Disney’s acquisition an attempt to purchase Marvel’s already existing male market?
Disney’s CFO Thomas O. Saggs would disagree, “This deal is not principally driven by cost saving or redundancies. What really drives this is the opportunity for synergies over time.”
While Thomas Saggs hopes for synergy, one has to wonder, can men and women share the happiest place on earth?
August 31st, 2009
By Ben Haber
Last month I needed to find a new pair of running shoes quickly and didn’t have time to order a pair online and wait for them to be shipped. Instead of heading to the nearby store, I decided to try out Twitter as a shopping tool and I sent a DM to two local running stores, one being the Greater Boston Running Company (@GreatrBstnRunCo). The GBRC quickly responded, and helped me find a great pair of shoes for my half-marathon that weekend, along with a nice “Twitter discount” off my purchase.
Afterwords, the GBRC was kind enough to answer a few questions about how they are using Twitter, and the strategy that goes into it. Based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s proving to be a great success.
RaceTalk: How and when did you first hear about Twitter?
GreatrBstnRunCo: It’s tough to pinpoint when and how we first heard about Twitter. There’s been such surround sound in terms of how people are using it, trends that are developing, and from our perspective, the business application of strategically using Twitter to build a community and instill our branding. We’ve been fortunate to see and hear about Twitter from all aspects including our store employees, other Running Company franchises around the country, and the large businesses (Zappos, Comcast, etc.) that have established interesting case studies that Twitter recently shared in “Twitter 101 For Business.”
RaceTalk: What strategy did you use to find people to follow and gain followers?
GBRC: Our “following” strategy is simple, and focuses on local runners and other companies, organizations and initiatives that are passionate about running. We feel that our strategy to follow people takes care of how we gain followers because there’s a direct connection our love of running.
Twitter tracking tools have been incredibly helpful, and we are always on the look out for ways to connect with local runners as they are the focal point of our community. One that we find useful is Nearby Tweets, a geography-centric tool to find runners. We’ve found that most local runners tend to tweet about running before or after a run, and most tend to head out the door in the morning. So, we will run a morning search in our 30 mile radius from the stores for various search words to find folks tweeting about running. From there, we’ll take a closer look at those who are tweeting about running, and see if they would welcome the information we offer on Twitter and services at the stores.
In terms of companies, organizations and initiatives that we follow, we immediately tracked down the usual suspects: Asics, Nike, Reebok, New Balance, Brooks, etc. As a local store, we are a big believer in supporting local businesses, so we’ve made an effort to track down others that are also tweeting, and alerted our local paper, The Patriot Ledger, about the Twitter trend which lead to this feature – “South Shore Merchants Use Twitter to Spread the Word.” Additionally, we keep an eye out for national races and charity organizations to stay informed for our store customers. We look at our following list as a real-time collection of incredible running information that we can share with our customers to enhance their experience the moment they step in the door. For example, our Twitter followers have alerted us to cool articles, races on TV, and new running products that we’ve been able to pass along to our customers.
RaceTalk: What types of topics do you try and focus on when using Twitter? Are there any in particular that attract a lot of @replies or DMs?
GBRC: We’ve tried to focus on “all things running” when we send out tweets that aren’t related to store sales, news and giveaways. Any interesting articles, tweets or upcoming races will usually find us RTing or creating a tweet with the URL to the article or race Website. We’ve found that running articles spark the most interest in terms of our followers RT. In terms of @replies and DMs, followers primarily send us questions on store inventory and prices. Additionally, we’ve been fortunate to find a number of followers including us in #FollowFriday hashtags.
RaceTalk: How has Twitter impacted your businesses? Does it bring a lot of new customers into the store or strengthen relationships with existing customers?
GBRC: As we continue to build our following list, we’ve seen a number of folks coming into the stores. We’ve also been able to strengthen relationships and establish the stores as a source of running information and thought leadership. We use TweetDeck to monitor activity in a number of areas: running shoes, marathons, etc. and whenever we find a person looking for answers, we’ll try and provide a timely answer to their problem. Even if the person isn’t located in our area, it’s extremely important to lend any advice or counsel to continue to build our community in the running world.
RaceTalk: Do you entice your Twitter followers with any special offers and/or new products?
GBRC: Yes, we’ve recently started offering our Twitter followers special offers, discounts and giveaways. First and foremost, we wanted to build up a strong following that was engaged in our brand, and once we felt the communication lines were alive, it’s given us a great opportunity to engage Twitter followers with great incentives to check out the stores.
RaceTalk: What types of challenges have you run into while building and using your twitter account?
GBRC: The greatest challenge and advantage is the real-time nature of Twitter. We have started to receive more DMs for purchase requests, and since we are working with customers in the store, we aren’t always keeping an eye on Twitter every minute of the day. We continue to aggressively monitor and answer customers as quickly as possible.
RaceTalk: Do you think Twitter will continue to have a positive impact on the Greater Boston Running Company going forward?
GBRC: Absolutely. Twitter, or whatever the microblogging service morphs into as the days go on, will continue to allow us to connect with potential customers in real-time and share our passion with running on a larger scale beyond the walls of the stores.
August 31st, 2009
By Ben Haber
This week’s #FollowFriday recommendations are Fortune’s green reporter, Olivia Zaleski, and ReadWriteWeb’s Fredric Lardinois.
When it comes to following green people on Twitter, Olivia Zaleski should be included on any list. Olivia is the host of Fortune’s “The Business of Green” video series, which looks at sustainability, the environment and how businesses are successful in those areas. While she interviews some of the most well-known and interesting business people, Olivia makes time to get her Twitter pals involved by taking questions that people would like to see answered and working them into her interviews. So if you’re passionate about the environment and looking for a journalist that will engage with their followers – Olivia is a sure follow.
His bio may limit him to Web 2.0 but Frederic Lardinois takes a look at much more than that. From Microsoft and Yahoo to eBay, Frederic weighs in on most major topics on and off the web. But beyond the breadth and quality of his reporting, Frederic actively follows and engages with over 3200 placing him amongst Twitters most active reporters. If you’re not familiar with Frederic, he’s definitely worth a look… and a follow.
Dan Walsh contributed to this post
August 28th, 2009
By Caroline Kawashima
Nancy Blair, senior assignment editor, Technology for USA Today stopped by the Racepoint San Francisco office this morning for an informal chat on what’s going on with the Technology section of the nation’s largest daily newspaper and 8th most popular online news site.
Like most media organizations today, reporters at USA Today are experiencing increased demands for their time in juggling multiple distribution channels. Fortunately for USA Today, management jumped in early in the game by going online in 1995 and developing a strong community approach – what USA Today calls “network journalism” – to enable an interactive and immersive visitor experience.
As a result of this, Blair feels that USA Today has smoothly adapted to the new world of journalism, herself working very collaboratively and closely with online Tech Editor Michelle Kessler in ensuring a comprehensive view on technology in both the print and online news edition. While the print edition continues to be strong with more than 3.6 million daily readers, the online site enables increased experimentation and “fun” with expanded coverage into areas like video gaming with the Game Hunters blog, the popular Science Fair blog and Jefferson Graham’s Talking Tech video series.
Blair noted that USA Today encourages all its reporters to be active in social media, including Twitter. Unlike other media organizations that have been taking a more restrictive approach to reporters in this regard, Blair states that USA Today has entrusted its reporters to use “common sense” in understanding their role and representation, and through social media channels such as Twitter, readers can get to know reporter “personalities”.
You can follow Blair on Twitter @NanSanFran.
August 27th, 2009
By Ben Haber
Claire Cain Miller had an interesting article in the New York Times this morning about Twitter’s lack of popularity with teenagers. She noted that just 11 percent of Twitter’s users are between the ages 12 to 17, as the site’s growth is fueled by adults.
While the media has paid a lot of attention to the “teenagers aren’t the only trend-setting age group anymore” story, I don’t think this should be a surprise. If you take a look at the last 10 years, the most successful social network among younger people has been Facebook. The reason Facebook was so popular among this age group is because it was rolled out exclusively to college students before anyone else. Think about it: college students had their own, private social network for them and their friends.
So when Twitter entered the scene, these students already had a destination (that almost all of their friends were a part of) where they could communicate, organize parties, share pictures, etc. There really wasn’t a need for Twitter, and since most of their friends weren’t on Twitter, what’s the point of joining?
My cousin is going into his junior year of college and has both a Facebook and Twitter account. He’s very active on Facebook, but only uses Twitter once in a while. Most of the time it is to see what certain athletes are up to, but he doesn’t use it to communicate. And why would he? His interests don’t extend to Twitter unless he puts in some extra effort, and that is certainly not his intention. When he has free time it’s spent studying for an upcoming exam or hanging out with some friends down the hall.
So when I saw this article in the Times, my initial thought was that this isn’t news at all – and it makes perfect sense. Why would teenagers want to duplicate their efforts on a social network that most of their friends aren’t a part of when they already have Facebook?
August 26th, 2009
By Molly Galler
Whenever I receive an email notification that someone new is following me on Twitter, I visit their profile page, review their tweets, and if I am interested, click “follow” to begin receiving their updates.
Today I was notified that @230NoSt_Hingham was following me on Twitter. I have family in the next town over from Hingham, so I wondered if they had noticed me tweeting about my favorite local spots in that area.
As it turns out @230NoSt_Hingham is not a person, but a property listing. The bio for the Twitter handle reads “Condo gem for sale in a quaint community that’s walkable and within easy public transit to Boston.”
Is Twitter the new forum for real estate listings?
In my post yesterday, “How Craigslist Killed the Hometown Newspaper”, I commented on the presence of Craigslist in small towns causing a decrease in classifieds (such as real estate listings) in local papers, thus decreasing their revenue.
If realtors now have two, free online alternatives to the paid, print classifieds (Craigslist and Twitter), will newspaper real estate listings, and thus local newspapers, become obsolete?
August 26th, 2009
By Molly Galler
Last week, my fellow RaceTalk bloggers Ben Haber and Kyle Austin each commented on Twitter’s decision to localize its offering, adding new features that would enhance the site’s sharing capabilities amongst users in the same geographic area.
This week, another website ups the local ante, this time, by expanding its services to 140 new cities. Who is coming to a small town near you?
His name is Craig. Craigslist, that is.
According to Brad Stone in his post for the New York Times’ Bits blog, “the San Francisco company quietly added new sites for 140 cities, a 25 percent increase, bringing its global directory to 690 cities over all. The additions include 87 cities in the United States, eight in Canada and 45 outside North America.”
Not only are these numbers staggering due to the sheer growth and heightened reach of the site, but this expansion is going to yield more than just another place to find a cheap futon.
In most major U.S. cities, Craigslist is the primary resource for finding an apartment, scouring for cheap furniture and even searching for job listings. Where Craiglist lives, “want” ads do not. In an economy where print publications are scaling back on staff and content, and ramping up their list of advertisers to stay afloat, the threat of a free advertising option does not bode well for the hometown newspaper.
Brad Stone suggests, “where Craigslist goes, of course, the fortunes of local newspapers often plummet, since classified ads on the site can mostly be placed free.”
It seems where Craigslist unpacks, hometown papers pack up. Will you miss them?
August 25th, 2009
By Ben Haber
Today is the beginning of a new weekly feature for RaceTalk called RaceTalk’s #FollowFriday. These weekly posts (occurring every Friday) will highlight a couple of reporters and/or bloggers that we recommend following on Twitter. To kick-off our inaugural #FollowFriday post, we are featuring Wade Roush and Peter Kafka.
Wade Roush is the Chief Correspondent for Xconomy, where he covers technology and innovation in Boston and beyond. Wade posts links to all of his articles on Twitter, which are often very useful and contain valuable information, such as great new iPhone apps. He is also very interactive on Twitter and encourages discussion around many different topics. If you’re in the Boston area or are interested in technology, Wade is a great follow.
How could we highlight reporters engaging in new media without mentioning the senior editor for All Things Digital, Peter Kafka? Tasked with covering the evolution of the media industry for ATD’s Media Memo, Peter has quickly become a must-read for those interested in the convergence of media and technology. What’s more, he’s very active on Twitter – posting links to his articles and those he finds interesting around the web. Whether he’s covering the plummeting ad market or reporting on Rupert Murdoch’s efforts to create an online news consortium, Peter is always entertaining and definitely worth a follow.
Dan Walsh contributed to this post
August 21st, 2009
By Kyle Austin
What if you could filter tweets by location? Find out what other folks in your neighborhood, town or city are up to. Get the latest local news at a seconds notice. Engage with fellow concert goers or relay important information during earthquakes or other natural disasters.
It may not be that far off according to a post from Twitter’s Biz Stone on the Twitter blog:
“We’re gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.”
Ryan Sarver, who has led local indexing work at both Skyhook Wireless and Blue Trim, is leading the geolocation platform team for Twitter – so they appear to be in good hands. Although Biz notes that folks will need to activate this new feature by choice, because it will be off by default, I’m guessing many people will embrace the feature (especially while traveling) through their Twitterberry or Tweetie apps in the not too distant future.
While Biz is rightly more interested in the social implications of local Twitter functionality, the implications could be big business, if you think it in terms of the growing local, mobile search market. This is good news for marketers, as analysts are predicting that the majority stake of mobile search advertising revenues will be driven locally by 2013. Local, mobile advertising through twitter, could bring more options.
It’s also good news for those searching for new, hyper-local media business models. Jeff Jarvis has been out at the Aspen Institute this week presenting various models for these hyper-local projects and many of the proposals include the use of twitter coupons. As people begin to filter tweets locally, these new hyper-local news organizations will have the opportunity to grow a larger share of the local voice through twitter. Marketers won’t be far behind, in terms of being open to spending marketing dollars in these types of twitter campaigns.
August 21st, 2009
By Ben Haber
While this may be shocking for some people to hear, there are a lot of people that don’t Twitter. Many people don’t find it useful, and others find it to be a complete waste of time. While I was in New York last weekend, I was at breakfast with some family members when the topic turned to Twitter. One person said they couldn’t care less what someone was having for breakfast, another said it was a just a current trend and would soon die off.
Then I read Twitter’s announcement yesterday about local search and immediately had two thoughts: (1) This is a huge step for Twitter and (2) could this feature help it appeal to the masses?
Even though Twitter is the hottest thing since sliced bread in some circles, it still only had a quarter of the traffic (21.2 million unique U.S. visitors) that Facebook had (87.7 million unique U.S. visitors) in July, making it uber-popular with some crowds but essentially non-existent to others.
But could Twitter’s local search feature be the tool that brings in these other groups of people? While they may have complete different preferences then the normal Twitter user, who isn’t concerned with what’s happening around them? If done correctly, this new feature will be able to bring communities of people together much better then hash tags currently are. For the small town it will be great for local events, elections and news. It will also be a great tool for conferences and meetings, vacationers, people waiting around in airports, going to concerts, sporting events, and even heading to college for the first time.
The opportunities that a local Twitter platform presents are endless, and could be the feature that drives in a lot of younger users (it really is perfect for a college campus) and people who are not yet on board the Twitter train.
For more information on Twitter’s local platform, check out these articles at Mashable and TechCrunch.
August 21st, 2009
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