RaceTalk’s friend, Erik Qualman, shared on his blog yesterday a list of the world’s top social media sites, ranked by the number of registered users. In first place is Skype with 560 million registered users, followed by Facebook at 516 million.
Does this come as a surprise to anyone else? Given its ubiquity, I would think Facebook would come in at the number one spot easily. The two sites are not separated by a small number either. 45 million users is a fairly wide gap.
In your personal experience, do you know more people using Skype than Facebook?
Today Ben Parr of Mashable reported that Disney has partnered with location-based mobile app Gowalla to help visitors further engage with their two flagship theme parks – Disneyworld and Disneyland – via mobile check ins and stamps.
This is a significant partnership for Gowalla who is often left in the dust behind mobile check in dominators Foursquare and Facebook Places (I wrote about the launch of Facebook Places back in August, you can read the full post here).
Parr describes some of the details of the partnership and agrees, this is a monumental deal for Gowalla. He writes:
“ . . .Gowalla and Disney have created literally hundreds of stamps for rides and locales within the two parks. Everything from the fireworks show to “Finding Nemo-The Music” offers a stamp or pin that can be earned by checking in. This is a major win for Gowalla; Disney is the world’s most-recognized entertainment brand, and any form of promotion by Disney should drive new users and extra attention to the location-based service. It’s struggled to keep a high profile in the face of stiff competition from Foursquare, which raised $20 million earlier this year, and Facebook, whose Places feature recently got a new deals platform.”
Joshua Brustein of the New York Times reported that Gowalla currently has 600,000 users as compared to the 120 million people that visited the Disney theme parks last year. Brustein accurately comments, “Gowalla’s user base would skyrocket even if it converted a miniscule proportion of Disney’s users into new users.”
Why haven’t Foursquare or Facebook Places announced these types of partnerships? According to a post on Gowalla’s corporate blog an incredible amount of time and human resources went into customizing this mobile platform. The blog post reads:
“We’re launching over 100 new featured stamps within Disney Parks today, with over 100 more expected by the end of the year. Each featured Disney stamp was painstakingly rendered in pixel form by Gowalla with the guidance of the Disney creative team — bringing you an experience that is truly 100 percent Gowalla and 100 percent Disney.”
Congratulations to Gowalla on teaming up with the most recognizable entertainment brand on the planet. Naturally this announcement will breed intensified competition from competitors, but for now, Gowalla is at the happiest place on earth.
Two weeks ago RaceTalk was offered the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the book “All the Devils are Here” which is co-written by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. We were immediately intrigued given both authors’ extensive history covering business and management in the media.
Bethany McLean is the former editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and the author of a book titled “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” Her book explores the behind the scenes drama that lead to the collapse of Enron. The book was later turned into a film. According to the Business Insider, McLean will begin a new role as a Wall Street and finance columnist for Slate in the coming weeks.
McLean’s co-author Joe Nocera (who RaceTalk interviewed after his sudden and aggressive call from Steve Jobs) is best known for his expert reporting on management and business for the New York Times. Prior to his current role, Nocera, like McLean, worked as an editor for Fortune magazine. He also wrote regular columns for GQ and Esquire and served as a contributing editor to Newsweek.
In their joint effort “All the Devils are Here” McLean and Nocera take an inside look into the United States financial crisis. The book opens with an eight page of glossary titled “Cast of Characters” to assist readers in remembering who is who. There are also two upfront page of nothing but critical acronyms! From the prologue alone the reader feels a knot in his/her stomach as the poor judgment and incredible greed comes to light.
I don’t want to give away too much for interested readers, but the tone of the book is set very early. In the first chapter we learn that a star at Merrill Lynch, John Breit, finds himself being pushed out because in his role as risk manager he was reporting findings that would slow the “growth” of the business. The reader gets the sinking feeling this is going to be one of the milder stories.
If you’re interested in the decisions and the key players that influenced the eventual topple of the U.S. economy, “All the Devils are Here” is a must read. Written by two of the most knowledgeable business reporters, this is an expertly detailed and analytical account of our nation’s financial demise. You can listen to McLean read an excerpt from the book on this Vanity Fair podcast.
If you find reading a 350 plus page book intimidating, you can experience a visual account of the financial crisis via the documentary “Inside Job” which is currently playing in theaters.
Thank you to Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera and their team for sharing their latest project with us here at RaceTalk. We’re frightened but enlightened.
Here at RaceTalk we’re huge fans of the ABC comedy Modern Family, so imagine my delight when discovering a social media platform (and iPhone app) called PHILO has created a way for users to check-in to their favorite TV shows.
According to Mashable, PHILO describes itself as “Twitter and Foursquare for TV fans.” Users check-in to their favorite, participating TV shows to declare their allegiance and to win badges and physical prizes.
Like this idea? PHILO isn’t the only player in the game. Competitors Get Glue and Miso also offer similar check-ins and all three platforms provide the ability to link your updates to Facebook and Twitter.
This comes as great news to people who may not use Foursquare or Gowalla because they feel checking in to hotels, restaurants, airports, etc compromises their physical safety. Checking in to a television show allows you to proudly display your fandom, without giving away your physical location.
Shows that have already hosted check-ins include: ABC’s Modern Family and Dancing with the Stars, as well as NBC’s Community and Chuck.
What are you waiting for? Plop on the couch and check-in!
This morning Leena Rao reported for Tech Crunch that Skype has launched Skype 5.0 with new features, most signifcantly, intergration with Facebook. While Skype has become the standard go-to for video calling, there was no social aspect to the service. Rao described the new integration:
“After logging in via Facebook Connect, you’ll be able to see your Facebook News Feed with the Skype interface, post status updates that can be synced with your Skype mood message and comment and like friends’ updates and wall posts.”
As a Skype user, I am thrilled to know that I can now access my entire Facebook social network and enjoy the free Skype services (phone calls and video calling) with all my Facebook friends. It will be interesting if the two companies collaborate to add new dimensions to this partnership for their joint users.
In addition to integrating with Facebook, the New York Times reported two weeks ago that Skype has also struck a deal with Avaya to intergrate with corporte phone systems. Verne Kopytoff detailed the news:
“Hoping to make inroads into big businesses, Skype joined on Wednesday with Avaya, a major seller of corporate phone systems. As part of the deal, Avaya will integrate Skype into its bundle of products for customers in the United States. . . Skype and Avaya both say that Skype could be used in calls centers and by sales staff. The technology would reduce corporate phone bills and allow consumers who use Skype to call companies free from a computer.“
While the Skype products may seem simple, their strategic decisions to align with the largest social network and a major telecommunications provider for businesses is nothing short of genius.
This week USA Today’s Bruce Horovitz reported that McDonald’s has taken their social media strategy to a new level of engagement by planting their own, branded farm via Facebook’s incredibly popular application, FarmVille.
For the past24 hours, McDonald’s sponsored FarmVille’s first-ever branded farm. For the full day Thursday October 7th, users who interacted with the McDonald’s farm were rewarded with virtual prizes to decorate their personal FarmVille empires. Rewards included items like virtual, McDonald’s branded hot air balloons.
Why FarmVille you may ask? How many FarmVille users could there really be? Answer? 18 million.
McDonald’s director of media, Anja Carroll, told USA Today, “This is all part of a larger social-media strategy. It’s difficult to ignore the sheer volume of the audience that FarmVille brings.”
McDonald’s is a superb example of a company taking their Facebook activity beyond their corporate page and continuing to strategize new and effective ways to target their ideal audience. I’m lovin it.
Early this week Universal Pictures invited RaceTalk to attend a private screening of the documentary “Catfish.” Given our extensive coverage of social media, and particularly Facebook, the studio felt we were the perfect viewers.
The film follows a young, New York City based photographer, Yaniv “Nev” Shulman as he forms relationships with a family in Michigan. After seeing one of Nev’s photographs in the New York Sun, this Michigan family sends him a painting of his photograph, done by their eight year old daughter Abby.
Nev winds up “friending” Abby’s mother, father, sister, brother and more via Facebook and communicates with them regularly. Over the coming months they share countless emails, Facebook messages, phone calls, photos, videos, song recordings, and of course, more paintings. Eventually, Nev begins to form a romantic bond with Abby’s older sister Megan. He talks to her every day on the phone, via text, email and she sends photos and recordings of her singing songs she wrote for him.
One evening Nev discovers via the power of Google and YouTube, that Megan has been sending music recordings that are in fact stolen from an artist named Amy Karney. When he confronts her about it, she becomes frazzled and overly emotional. From this conversation on, things with Megan and the entire family begin to unravel. In an attempt to get some closure on what now feels like a mountain of lies, Nev and the two film makers (his older brother Ariel and their friend Henry) decide to drive to Ipsheming, Michigan to meet the family in person and uncover the truth.
Without spoiling the ending, because if you are an active user of Facebook you must see this movie, I will say that “Catfish” caused me to rethink my personal approach to Facebook. As a PR professional, we counsel our clients on the use of social media and the real-time web, and encourage them to share, share often, and share with complete transparency. We position social media as an easy, low cost way to reach your target audience on the websites and applications they are already using. Personally, we do the same. We use our Facebook profiles to share photos, videos, articles we enjoy, blog posts we write and more. Facebook has become so ubiquitous; we behave this way without question.
In David Kirkpatrick’s book “The Facebook Effect” he chronicles the early days of Facebook when a user was required to have a college, .edu email address to join. Mark Zuckerberg felt the university email address provided a level of authenticity that you are who you say you are. Once Facebook was opened broadly, and that requirement disappeared, you could use any email address to sign up, even a fake one.
“Catfish” demonstrates that the internet and in this case Facebook, allows users to not only share content, but to also steal content; to poach photos, videos, music and more and re-purpose it for their own use. The current explosion of content on the internet and social networks provides users with the ability to pluck content off the web and create an entire identity with stolen information.
Nev is still an active user of Facebook. His experiences have not diminished his use of the network. However, “Catfish” will force you to re-think the way you use Facebook and exactly how open you want to be with your personal information and the people you allow into your network. This film is a haunting, brutally real look at the power of social media.
Back in April I wrote about Jeff Pulver’s 140 Character Conference that was taking place in New York City. I praised the conference and its attendees for providing advice on social media best practices live from the event. The live tweeting was so impressive I felt like I was there in the auditorium.
Yesterday, I actually was in the auditorium as Pulver brought his traveling conference to Boston for the first time. The conference began at 9:00 am and went until 6:00 pm with over 61 speakers on the roster. Each group that took the stage had 10 minutes to share how Twitter and/or the real-time web have impacted their goals professionally and personally. Below, a few highlights from the day:
Jeff Pulver, @jeffpulver – Check out Pulver’s opening remarks to kick off the day:
John Daley, @Boston_Police – Daley, deputy superintendent for the Boston Police, shared that the department is using Twitter to broadcast vital, public safety information to the city of Boston and their broader Twitter followers. The police see Twitter as an effective way to disseminate critical information in real-time. Daley also noted that citizens have begun reporting crimes to the police via Twitter. They tweet updates and photos, typically of crimes they consider “too small” to dial 911. Who knew!
C.C. Chapman, @cc_chapman – C.C. is on a mission. A mission to give dads who blog as much power and recognition as the infamous “mommy bloggers.” During what was by far the most animated speech of the day, C.C. shared his personal quest to force consumer brands to recognize fathers as a key sales demographic. Marketers, pay attention. The dads have wallets too.
Patrick Larkin, @bhsprincipal – Larkin is the principal of Burlington High School where he is trying to bring the school into the digital revolution. In addition to teaching a Web 2.0 class to his students, Larkin is working to educate families on the importance of digital education for students. During his panel, Larkin said, “We need to teach our children to use social media. Without that, the diploma doesn’t mean much.”
Amanda Palmer, @amandapalmer – Palmer, best known as part of the musical group the Dresden Dolls, shared with the audience that, “I was able to ditch my management and my record label to launch an album all via the internet.” She went on to say how her Twitter followers have been incredibly supportive and a resource she didn’t realize would be so critical. She said, “Life is becoming easier, faster and cheaper as we harness the power of social media.” Rock on, Amanda!
Georgy Cohen, @radiofreegeorgy – Cohen is the managing editor of web communications for Tufts University and has one of the best understandings of the power of social media that I have encountered. Not only does she see the value in active social media platforms for the university, but she is consistently engaging with students, staff and alumni to build meaningful relationships. Cohen hit the nail on the head when she said, “We have to be in the ‘now’ because our brands already are, whether we are or not.” I was also impressed by Cohen’s decision to harness the strength of content creation and launch a Tufts website called Jumble (their mascot is the Jumbo) to aggregate all of the best content created by students, staff and alumni. For colleges and university seeking social media best practices, look no further than Tufts.
Chris Brogan, @chrisbrogan – Brogan, a high profile social media player, author and the president of New Marketing Labs, spoke to the group about Twitter and other web applications simply serving as a platform for larger goals. In one of the best quotes of the day he quipped, “No one ever asked Hemmingway what kind of pencil he wrote with. Don’t ask me what blog platform I use! That’s not the point.” View Brogan’s entire talk here:
For more information on the speakers at the Boston 140 Characters Conference, check out my live updates @MollyGaller on Twitter or the #140conf hashtag.
At the close of the event, Pulver said, “This conference is not a tech event, it’s a life event.” Thank you, Jeff Pulver, for a superb day that reminds us all that the next big thing could be just a tweet away.
In a post by Matthew Ingram for GigaOm, Twitter CEO Ev Williams shares that mobile use of the free, micro-blogging service has grown 60 percent since April. Williams also announced that Twitter has 145 million registered users, a 40 percent growth in overall users since April.
Given Twitter’s immense popularity it is no surprise that the company has seen a steady rise in user numbers, however what is interesting is the number of users who first activate the service on a mobile device. Presently, 16 percent of all Twitter users activate via mobile.
For that reason, Twitter has its own iPhone application and recently launched an application for the iPad. Several outside vendors have also launched mobile applications for Twitter.
Williams said on the Twitter corporate blog, “We quickly understood that we were doing users a disservice by not having a great client on each of the major mobile platforms.”
He went on to say, “As we had hoped in April, these clients are bringing more people into Twitter, and, even better, they are attracting and retaining active users. Indeed, 46 percent of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience.”
For businesses considering putting resources behind a mobile application, let Twitter’s success be a reinforcing pat on the back that you’re headed in the right direction.
MTV’s public health campaign encourages young people to get routinely checked for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The Associated Press reports, “MTV says the idea is to remove the stigma attached to getting checked out for STDs.”
While this is a nice idea in theory and I applaud MTV for fully integrating mobile into their campaign outreach, I think most people, no matter how much they typically share via Foursquare, are unlikely to publicly broadcast their appointment for STD screenings.
This Foursquare partnership would be more successful if it was linked to MTV’s political campaign, “Rock the Vote” which encourages young people to register to vote and make their voices heard. If they offered a badge for checking in to a voting location, I think the response would be tremendous.
What do you think? Can MTV leverage Foursquare for such a person declaration?
