Posts tagged mean
Big Question (Answered): “What Does the Facebook IPO Mean To You?”
Feb 1st
Many people are expecting Facebook to file for it’s initial public offering today. In what could be the biggest tech IPO in history, Facebook would be aiming for a $75-100 billion valuation. They are looking to raise $10 billion in stock.
Facebook is expected to go public under the symbol “FB,” but it’s unclear whether they will list on the NYSE or the NASDAQ. With $3.8 billion in ad revenues in 2011, Facebook is on a roll. But what does that mean to the typical Facebook user?
What Does the Facebook IPO Mean To You?
We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.
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Poll: What Does Android “Clopen” Mean, Really?
Jan 6th
There is a new word making the rounds in technology circles that has caused a stir this week: “clopen.” The nature of clopen is that a platform is ostensibly open to be built upon but it must while also creating a profit for the company providing the platform. The clopen argument this week has centered around Android with the fundamental question: How open is Android, really?
Android is open source. Even by the most traditional definitions, the mobile operating system open for developers, manufacturers, carriers, custom ROM builders and hobbyists to build upon. From a consumer perspective, the nature of Android “openness” is cloudy. Is Android “clopen?” Answer for yourself in this week’s ReadWriteMobile poll.
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The main argument for Android being clopen was made by reporter Danny Sullivan at Marketing Land. For the most part, this has to do with Android version updates to various devices from original equipment manufacturers. The fact of the matter is that users do not really have any clue if their bright, shiny Android device will ever get the newest iteration of the platform, Ice Cream Sandwich. The so-called “Android update alliance” has been a complete failure.
We have written about the mess that is Android updates several times before. The problem is that updates that run over the air through the carriers are expensive. The OEMs have to allocate resources to make sure devices are capable of running the new version of the operating system, no small task, and then the data that flows over the carriers pipes is costly for the operators.
To a certain extent, the OEMs and operators have put themselves in this hole. There are more than 300 different devices in the wild. Many of those are low cost devices that were never intended to get any significant updates. So, we can eliminate about 70% of the device ecosystem already. The carriers and OEMs should focus on updating devices that fall in the “superphone” category. A superphone is a device of at least a four-inch screen with at least a gigahertz processor. Just about every upper class Android smartphone fits into this category. The owners of these devices have the most invested in their devices, are the most vocal and use the most data and apps. Superphone owners are more cognizant of when platform upgrades become available and want it as soon as it hits the market.
The giant PR nightmare created by the Android update ecosystem could be placated by concentrating on the needs of these users.
Device Upgrades Really Have Nothing To Do With “Open”
The Android upgrade argument of clopen is completely consumer based. Sullivan says that the average consumer does not really have a choice to upgrade to the newest version of the OS if they want it. Apple makes it easy to upgrade through iTunes and now Wi-Fi with iOS 5. Apple’s advantage is that it is both the OEM and the software provider and it does not have to go through the carriers to push updates. Microsoft originates all Windows Phones updates from Redmond and pushes them out in OTA cycles. Granted, it is much easier for Microsoft to update Windows Phone since there are far less devices and users.
There is something missing from this consumer-driven clopen debate. The world of open source technology has almost never had anything to do with average consumers. Average consumers update when their computers or smartphones tell them to. As long as everything works fine and does not need a functional update (to make sure the device works properly), most consumers are hardly even aware that a new version of the OS exists. They are not looking so much for feature upgrades such as with Ice Cream Sandwich.
If there is an argument to be made about the clopen nature of Android, it has to do with what restrictions or limitations that Google places on the platform from a developer perspective. For that perspective, there is not a lot. The nature of Android being open comes into question when third-party service providers, such as location-based network Skyhook, come into play. Overall though, Android is about as open source a system as it can be without causing complete and utter chaos.
So, what does clopen actually mean? To different people it means different things. The nature of open source has taken a subjective tone in the last several years. What is open to one person seems closed and proprietary to another. Make no mistake though, there are not many companies that take a major operating system that powers hundreds of millions of devices and makes the source code available to everyone.
What does clopen mean to you? Take the poll below and let us know in the comments.
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Why Social Media Doesn’t Mean Business – Huffington Post
Jan 5th
 PR Web (press release) |
Why Social Media Doesn't Mean Business
Huffington Post Social media can work for profile-raising, SEO, inbound links, customer research in order to change your service offering, and monitoring mentions and sentiment. If engagement is the key, then you have to be engaging. If you want to attract business, … The New Role of Social Media in Public Relations & Online SEO Services An Indiana SEO Company is Helping Small Businesses Get off on the Right Foot … SEO Marketing Media Elite Has Improved Their Facebook Page |
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LinkedIn’s Top 10 Most Shared Articles Of 2011 Mean Business
Dec 22nd
Today professional network LinkedIn released its top most shared stories. There are currently 130 million professionals on LinkedIn, and the most popular shared articles are about how to be a better worker. The number two and number three most sahred stories were about Steve Jobs. The number nine most shared article was about how people look at your Facebook profile, and the number one article was written by digital marketer Ilya Pozin for Inc. magazine; it is called “9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money.” So who are these LinkedIn users, anyhow?
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An infographic from AdAge gives additional breakdown of LinkedIn by age, sex and location. It shows that the majority of LinkedIn users are U.S.-based men and women ages 35-54. There are no users ages 13-17.
According to the January 2011 LinkedIn demographics slideshow, North American users breakdown like so: 13% are in the high tech industry, 14.8% are in finance, 10.8% are in the medical industry, 7.5% are in manufacturing and 7.1% are in corporate America.
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Google Augmented Reality Glasses Could Come Soon, What Would They Mean?
Dec 19th
Would you look at the world through Google Glasses? If you did, what would you see? That may be an option soon, if a reliable report today that the company is in “late prototype stages” on just such a product, proves accurate.
The Wow factor is clear – but what would fashionable cloud (connected) glasses really mean? How might they change what it means to be human and to live in this world? Make no mistake, they certainly could have a deep impact for those who wear them – and possibly for those who are seen through them as well. There’s no better time than now to begin considering it all. The best way to start is to recognize those who have already begun before us; in this case science fiction author Vernor Vinge is a key source of illumination.
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Above: TV Glasses
Hints and Clues
Hot in the news today is a report from Nick Bilton of the New York Times that Google is developing wearable computers in the secret Google X Lab that Bilton wrote about last month. That prompted Google specialist Seth Weintraub, now at Fortune and formerly of Computerworld, to call the news “an open secret among some in the Google community.”
Weintraub asserts the following based on his previous reporting and one unnamed source he cites today:
[Google is] “in late prototype stages of wearable glasses that look similar to thick-rimmed glasses that ‘normal people’ wear. However, these provide a display with a heads up computer interface. There are a few buttons on the arms of the glasses, but otherwise, they could be mistaken for normal glasses.
“…In addition, we have heard that this device is not an ‘Android peripheral’ as the NYT stated. According to our source, it communicates directly with the Cloud over IP.
“…We do not have a release date for this new device, but we know that Google Co-founder Sergey Brin is closely associated with the project and it will be Google-branded hardware.”
From battery power to proper contextual understanding of a user’s location to price to form factor – there are a lot of problems that Google is going to have to solve beyond the imagery and signal reception. Cellular devices are now so small and so cheap that connectivity is probably one of the easier problems the secret team is working on.
What Could it Mean?
The how-and-wow is certainly interesting, but questions of use cases and implications are important too.
Sci-fi authors and artists have been talking about this future for years.
New media choreographer Johannes Birringer has said he looks forward to a future where cloud glasses can be used in art “to enhance and enrich the performer and audience experience with the media.”
Mike Kuniavsky, co-founder of smart connected device design firm ThingM, invokes science fiction writer Vernor Vinge’s ideas when it comes to widespread Heads Up Displays:
“I think that [Vinge's] idea of consensual imaging among belief circles is interesting. I consider it a kind of physical manifestation of software skinning, mixed with ideas shared among members of a social-network (as a blogroll is, for example).
The implications of this both excite and scare me: it would be totally cool to overlay a trusted source’s view of a given scene on mine, but I feel people already ignore the complexity of reality too much and tend to live on parallel planes that exclude ideas that challenge theirs.
I don’t want Orrin Hatch’s world skin (though I’d try it on to see what it looks like), and I don’t think he wants mine.”
Above: Pixel Pour, street art installation by Kelly Goeller, via Near Future Laboratory
Architect and urban futurist Dr. Cindy Frewen Wuellner references Vinge as well in imagining how devices like this could change the way people experience the cities they traverse.
“The social city..where IRL [In Real Life] meets virtual, means people/you are the manipulators. The dumb city gets smart and social. The explosion of mobile phones brings the internet into the streets.
“Augmented realities give maps, twitter, sensors, and layers of information. It’s transformational. NYC phantom city tour, don’t miss that. Heads up display like Vinge’s Rainbows End. For architecture and cities, the implications are huge.”
Urban Futures, Language of #Architecture: How will you change 21st c #cities?
“Ways of revealing the linkages between 1st Life actions and consequences can be made sensible in ways that have been previously impossible. “
Artist and mobile technologist Julian Bleecker riffs on Vinge’s talk five years ago at the Austin Game Conference.
Bleecker imagines a truly meaningful augmentation of reality…
Ways of revealing the linkages between 1st Life actions and consequences can be made sensible in ways that have been previously impossible.
New forms of networked interaction, participation & engagement that are not just about lightweight atoms & bits, RSS, and WoW raids, but about heavyweight action, the consequences of supra-atomic activities such as driving cars that are too big.
If I could have a heads up display akin to what WoW heavyweights have, but indicative of the relationships amongst a whole matrix of parameters that relate to my 1st Life actions..now that would be really significant.”
In other words, Bleecker imagines the Cloud Glasses not displaying imaginary visions – but making things that have always been real, visible.
It’s hard to imagine a more valiant calling for Augmented Reality than that.
No doubt most people will use their Google Cloud Glasses to play Angry Birds in an empty room (better that than Farmville!), or will wear them while wearing nothing else, but that’s not the reason why any of these technologies are built and they don’t represent any kind of limit to what’s possible.
You may not want to visit StopHumanTraffic.com with your Cloud Glasses and your location turned on, but there are a whole lot of things good and bad that go on in the very same streets we all walk down every day that we don’t see.
We may see the price of speed and altitude-displaying Heads Up Ski Goggles drop over time and it’s not hard to imagine tourists wearing glasses given to them by visitors bureaus in major cities around the world.
But a SOPA’d future could also prohibit looking at copyrighted materials through your Cloud Glasses. There might have to be a splintered web that Cloud Glasses tie into in order to view things outside official channels. What would be on each side of that line? It’s provocative to consider. Here comes the future, ready or not.
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Facebook’s Insight Data Mean Pages Will Optimize for Engagement
Oct 3rd
As one of the seven companies that participated in the Alpha release of this new Insights data, we’ve been very excited about the opportunities this new data presents for pages and their fans. Let’s take a closer look at why.
While most discussion around social analytics slips and slides across the valley floor of a wide crevasse between practitioners and business leaders, there has been one metric everyone agreed was important: fans. Fans have been an obvious place to start because your number and everyone else’s have been public for years. Also, there’s a natural, implied value proposition in the metric because it’s about affinity. Surely having a large number of people with expressed affinity for your brand is a good thing (especially if it’s more than your competitor has).
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Justin Kistner is the Director of Social Products as Webtrends. He’s a regular speaker on social media marketing at conferences like Web 2.0 Expo, OMMA Global, and Social Fresh. Kistner also founded Beer and Blog, a social marketing meet up in 20 cities from Portland to Tokyo.
Focusing On Engagement
Now Facebook has helped the world move into the second of four stages of maturity for social measurement, which is engagement (stage 3 is monetization, and stage 4 is retention/growth). Facebook has announced a new metric to define engagement, which is “People talking about this page.” If you want to know how many fans your competitor has, you simply need to look at a single metric. If you want to know how much engagement your competitor has, it used to take some effort to pull that data. Only a handful of lesser-known tools offered the capability. Now, Facebook has made it easy to pull as a single number for any fan page on Facebook. This has huge implications because it now puts the focus on engagement. This may not seem all that new or revolutionary for leading edge social marketers, but it’s a huge deal for the market. ROI will now expand beyond cost per fan to cost per engagement. We still have two phases of maturity to go through before social marketing is as developed as some of its other digital siblings, but this is a big leap forward.
Expanding Engagement
“People talking about this page” is a roll-up metric of all engagement for a page. It includes what we expect, which is Likes, Comments, and Shares; but it also includes a few actions you may not have guessed. Along with standard interaction, “People talking about this page” includes more niche actions like RSVPs, answers to questions, check-ins, and more. It also includes a group of actions known as consumption, which is video plays, photo views, expanding the More button on long comments, and hovering over the profile pic of a commenter.
Facebook’s announcement about supporting customer OpenGraph actions and objects also feeds into this new focus on engagement. Facebook has made it easier to create connections between people and content by lowering the barrier from affinity to action. Mark Zuckerberg said it well on stage at f8 when he said, “People read ten times more books than they like.”
By including all types of engagement such as interacting with posts, consumption, and custom app actions Facebook is leading the focus past fan acquisition onto fan engagement. For at least a year from now, page owners will be optimizing their social campaigns by increasing engagement. That is also good news for fans because it means a focus on content they want to interact with.
The Continued Rise of Sponsored Stories
One of the big winners for this new engagement focus is ads. Facebook beefed up Sponsored Stories at this year’s F8 by announcing the ability to use your custom OpenGraph actions in the ads as well as the ability to target users based on actions they took on other people’s apps. Now they have rolled out the ability to see how much activity the paid channel is driving for posts. Facebook now reports on reach, which is the total number of unique impressions, and they break it down into Organic, Viral, and Paid. Organic is how much reach you achieve from people seeing your post. Viral is how much reach you get from the stories generated by people interacting with your post. And Paid is how much reach you get from Sponsored Story ads. As you can imagine, pages with ad budgets will be focusing on how much additional reach they can achieve through Sponsored Stories. We’ll also start to calculate how much additional Organic and Viral reach can I achieve as a result of a boost from Sponsored Stories.
Technically Better
Most people won’t care about this part, but the other nice thing about this data is that it brings richer post level metrics into the API. Previously developers had to use FQL in order to pull this kind of data, which added complexity to development by requiring additional knowledge of Facebook’s various data access methods. And, some of this data was not available, even through FQL. Now, Facebook has brought more of the post level data into their standard Insights API, which makes it simpler to innovate on their platform. Facebook has also told us that they will be continuing to increase the speed of data delivery with the goal of achieving real-time availability.
Relevance, Relevance, Relevance
All things considered, this new metric will make the experience for pages and their fans more relevant. Pages have been pumping out poor quality content for some time. And, because Facebook’s distribution algorithm, EdgeRank, is based on engagement; most pages have reached less than 10% of their fans with their posts. Starting on Wednesday when the new data becomes available, it will be easier for page owners to optimize on engagement, which means they’ll have to publish more relevant content.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
What Might Google+ Improvements Mean for Marketers?
Sep 22nd
It’s been about 90 days since the Google+ project began and the proud parents of the bundle of joy are still oooh-ing and awww-ing over their 3-month-old. The site has seen more than 100 improvements, the most recent of which rolle…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Google & Motorola Mobility: The What’s It All Mean Edition
Aug 15th
What a way to start the week. The company that once said it would never build its own mobile phones, Google, wants to buy mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility. The technosphere has gone into 5G coverage over the news. Here’s what I’ve been finding interesting and some thoughts. Patent…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Google Health Shutting Down Doesn’t Mean Google Has Abandoned Health
Aug 7th
Recently, Google announced that it will close Google Health to new consumers on January 1, 2012 and that the service will be retired a year later. Google Health was much different than Google as a search engine; it required that consumers use thei…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
