Not to sound like a broken record or a teen following trends, but Facebook is totally heading down the same path as the likes of MySpace in my opinion.
The new layout sets the path for more paid advertising both on the homepage and profile page, removes any white space that the previous version had & has even gone to the extent of removing elements that allowed one to easily customize what they see. Too take it even one step further downward I would love to know who is concepting for the platform now. Functionality on your profile page below each of the "commercial" banners, allows one to skip forward and see another banner. I mean, are we developing for the 1990's or are we moving forward...? Thumbs up, down and skip on a banner?
I for one liked the recent version - it was simple, allowed one to customize and navigate easily but this time round - usability and personalization is out the window. Has Microsoft taken over?
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Who has a Jaiku account out there? Jaiku was a product of Finland and when it came out some 2 odd years ago it was quite ahead of alot of other mobile devices. Essentially you can use it on the web but the key is to download it as an app to your mobile phone. Essentially you can do status update stuff but the winner here was the whole location based mapping - showing where you are so your friends could see on a map via GPS exactly whee you are via their mobiles (on the basis you are their friend).
Well anyway, Google bought them out some time back and basically Jaiku went of the map for that time - nobody was using it & people pretty much figured, that Google bought it just to keep it off the map for a while - it's not like Google doesn't have location based technology after all eh? And they didn't have so many users when the acquisition took place.
So Jaiku is back on the map now but still has few users but here is my "annoying bitch" about Google today. If you have an account then search in Google your name. If I type in Mchael Trenerry in Google, Jaiku comes up first & you know what - I don't use it anymore...
That's what we call ownership but really, not fair game in my eyes. Defeates the rules of search!
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Positive buzz was moving around yesterday about the Skittles website taking on the social media genre quite nicely. Not even a day later they move the homepage to the static Facebook group page due to negative chatter about skittles on Twitter. So the big question I am asking is:
a) were they smart enough to predict some negativity & change it to Facebook with the aim of getting more press. Sorry, but negative press is good press if they handle it correctly OR;
b) were they simply not competent enough to predict that there will always be some bad with the good...
I honestly can't believe it is the first, because all brands know that putting your brand out into the communities, will always erupt some bad chatter also. Its the strategy you have in place to counter act the bad - support it & grasp it! "we all know that not everyone out there loves our brands" - and that's fine! Interesting to see how they counter act & comment on this... Either way they got bucket loads of press out of it as they are the 3rd top word used in Twitter two days in a row! Yep, beating politics, world news and so on in Twitter...
Good job guys - at least for trying... Not necessarily award winning material but not bad either!
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Well I might be in Finland but you only have to drive 5 hours to the border of Russia and its a different world.
The growth in the Russian online sector is exponential at the moment and I don't just mean finding a Russian Bride for yourself!
Odnoklassniki.ru is Russias 3 year old community with over 30 million registered users - according to Quintura! Odnoklassniki was launched in early 2006 so has some pretty nice numbers being the language is Russian!
Statistically it has about 8 million visitors each day. Their core competitor is Vkontakte.ru with a trailing 28 million registered users and 1.4 billion page views per day.
According to the Russian TNS Web Index Vkontakte had 13.09 million visitors a month, which is slightly higher than Odnoklassniki’s monthly audience. But these stats basically make the Russian social networking market the fourth largest in Europe after UK, Germany and France.
Quite impressive & very interesting markets to watch as well as the Ukraine.
Watch this space!
First of all appologies for not being here for a while! Many things have been happening in my life both good and bad but now back on top of the ice-cream and ready to dip the cherry into the chocolate - bit too much detail eh?
Righteo, well I was previously blogging last June so I am not going to write everything that has happened since then but I am back & will be blogging weekly and daily if I find the time as lots to report. But during this time I have left the Isobar family, worked within a Finnish start-up and now going out on my own and looking for exciting projects to get involved with pretty much anywhere in the world.
But down to blogging - Twitter Twitter Twitter: right now I feel like its really launching itself. I have held back for a little while simply because not many people have been there & it still lacks viewers and users but it is for sure at the top of my wants list - its quick, easy, takes not time, informative... and removes the time restraints that many of us have when blogging - I can post a quick link or a one liner & for me that is great.
As for clients using it, well, I hope to get them on board in near future. At this stage it is essentially collegues or other digital savvy folk like us :)! So add me if you will MichaelTrenerry as Im keen to hear everything we do in here when blogging in micro format. For clients the ability to track what people are saying in Twitter is vital - Its now so much easier to funnel your issues into Twitter so for powerful brands who are using all the tracking tools - thumbs up! I am hoping to work with clients in the Nordics though on their social media strategies and twitting will be just a small part of the overall package!
I also today downloaded TweetDeck: Really streamlined and easier to divide your inbox, messages, groups and so on: Twitter should keep things simple but perhaps make it easier to divide things into categories E.g. news, digital, personal etc... But check it out - TweetDeck is cool...
But what about you? What Twitter client are you using?
Michael Trenerry
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 29 Oct 2009
Total Posts: 104
