Question: how many legitimate active accounts are there?
Dan Frommer had a nice piece yesterday on Silicon Alley Insider. Here's the piece.
Over the last year, Twitter's traffic has exploded 15X to 44.5
million worldwide unique visitors in June, according to comScore. But
Twitter's growth story isn't just limited to the U.S. and North
America, where only about half its traffic comes from, according to
comScore.In June, Twitter attracted 11 million visitors from Europe, 7
million from Asia Pacific, and 4 million from Latin America — a total
22 million uniques from those three regions, up from about 2 million
the year before. (Note that this shows Web traffic to Twitter.com, and
doesn't include traffic via mobile phones, text messaging, etc. In
other words, it's not a direct measurement of Twitter's membership. But
it should be directionally correct.)
Some immediate thoughts:
- Twitter IS a world wide social media phenomenon
- Its probably significantly higher because of the high usage of mobile phones in Asia and Europe
- Whats the percentage of spam accounts on there?
- Is Twitter's growth fueled by word of mouth? I think Yes.
Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Blip.fm
5 innocents that spent 15 minutes – then poof!
Fifteen minutes of fame. They say we’ll all get ours at some point in life. Some people work for years to have a chance at those precious minutes. Others depend on the right time and place. A few log on to Youtube and click ‘upload.’
As the summer is wrapping up and, consequently, major procrastination time is coming to a close, let us take a moment to remember those Youtube stars whose innocent video shot them to international fame…for a short time.
Charlie Bit Me
It all started with a mom capturing a funny moment with her two sons. It ended with international fame, British talk show airtime and countless parodies by fans. Although Harry and Charlie’s other videos haven’t warranted as much attention as the initial nibble — the original video has more than 113 million views — the phrase “That really hurts!” said in a British accent will forever make people smile and envision these British boys.
Chris Crocker
Who is this, you ask? Well, you might recognize him by his most famous words, “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” He shared his love and passion for Ms. Spears in a dramatic and tearful video posted in 2007 and became the automatic punch line to every late-night talk show joke. Since that time, Chris has expanded his topics of passionate rant. If you’re interested, check out his Youtube page <http://www.youtube.com/user/itschriscrocker>.
David After Dentist
The backlash toward David’s dad has been intense. Bill O’Reilly <www.foxnews.com/oreilly> was infuriated at the so-called “exploitation” of David. When David and his dad were on Tyra Banks’ show <www.tyrashow.warnerbros.com/> and “Today,” <www.today.msnbc.msn.com> the question of exploitation was brought up. Some commentors loved it. Others agreed with O’Reilly. But we’re not here to discuss morals. We’re here to pay homage to a video that generated national buzz and nearly 27 million views on the original video.
Kittens Inspired by Kittens
This five-year-old girl is an impressionist. She looks at pictures of kittens and creates what they’re thinking and/or saying. Like the others, her initial success prompted other videos and appearances on talk shows everywhere. I’m just waiting for this kid to get a movie or TV show deal…
Obama Girl
Obama Girl has the 2009 Presidential Election to thank for her 15 minutes. Her first music video, “I Got a Crush…on Obama,” was posted in 2007 when President Obama was an Illinois senator, but it took a few years for her to be a household name. Amber Lee Ettinger, as she is less commonly known, became a well-known face during the 2009 election season, appearing on magazine covers, comedy shows and several cable news channels, including Fox News <www.foxnews.com> and MSNBC <www.msnbc.com>. At least she was politically impartial where her publicity was concerned…
Where are these Youtube sensations now? Who knows? Who cares? Their 15 minutes are up. Whose are next?
- Alyson (follow me @alyandthecity)
What demographic do you think this is?
I wrote a post about online "social" etiquette a few days ago – seem even more relevant now. Regardless of whether this is embellished or not – the point is clear. Be careful of what you post in the public areas of Facebook. I have to be honest – its pretty damn funny!
Indianapolis’ Scofield Editorial captures vendor client relationship dark side
If you live in the marketing, PR, social media, website, or any related field – you can feel this Youtube video. The metaphors are spot on. The virality was presumably driven purely by word of mouth – I’d say email, facebook, and twitter. Its very clever. Here’s a quick look at some of the results:
- Comments: 1,079
- Favourites: 7718
- Ratings: 3.053
- Average rating: 4.91
Consider that this video is B to B, and the 1,013,255 views are more impressive. Also interesting is that the most popular demographic is male 35-64 broadly. Nice job, Scofield Editorial – I’d say they deserve an award for great Indianapolis social media usage! Content is king! I’d be interested to see how they’ve used the virality to generate additional business.
So why haven't I been back?
Last year, while I was out on a photo shoot with my colleagues Chad Richards and Mark Juleen, I was introduced to Chick-fil-a and the experience was caught live on camera. I'd watched videos on YouTube, heard hipsters rave about its low brow appeal, heard the buzz on about how great it is that its closed on Sunday, my wife raving about the awesome waffle fries and fresh lemonade, and much more.
During my visit, maybe because we had a camera, the service people engaged heavily with us. I had a great time and we left. The video that we shot was funny and was dripping with cheese by the time we posted it on YouTube.
Yet a year later, I've never returned to Chick-fil-a, despite the chicken tasting very good at the time. Here's the video:
I've tried to examine why I've not returned and here's what I think.
- I don't care if its closed on Sundays. And being closed is frankly inconvenient for me. Religion is not part of my buying criteria.
- The bun sucked. The fries weren't exceptional.
- While the chicken was good – it didn't make me happy like the way YATS does (disclaimer YATS is a client) nor was it any more memorable than any other fried item. I'm suspicious of fried things in general though.
- I think I realized I felt guilty for being the one person that hadn't been there. But now that I've been I don't care?
- There isn't one even remotely close to me.
- Although even with the camera, I felt the service really was damn good. But great service isn't enough to make me return to a fast food place. In fact, there is a fast food mexican place that has awful service in the mornings and I still go.
- Great word of mouth or YouTube videos aren't enough to make me go back?
- If I had to choose between McDonalds, Burger King or Chick-fil-a (none of which I ever eat) – I would choose Chick-fil-a. But, um, it hasn't happened yet.
So why do you think I haven't been back? Why isn't the unexpected buttery goodness calling me back? Why don't I want to feel like I've just arrived in America again for the first time?
This was actually posted a few months ago. But I've been thinking that this needs to be revisited and its a great interview. So if you haven't seen it – and most of you haven't – please check it out!
I've been an admirer for a long time and had the chance to catch up with Emanuel Rosen, Dean of Buzz, at Patachou on the Park, downtown Indianapolis. We drank some great coffee and talked about word of mouth, buzz, visual buzz, and text buzz.
Its been a few years since the ground breaking book – The Anatomy of
Buzz – by Emanuel Rosen. He's back with The Anatomy of Buzz -
Revisited and he's on a cross-country bus tour. The bus is called
Tootsie – it's powered by recycled vegetable oil that is used by
NOLS–The National Outdoor Leadership School–to spread the word about
their organization and about alternative energy.
