4chan: Lessons from the ultimate crowd sourcing community

They’re smart. They’re unrelenting. They’re Anonymous. 

Love them or hate them, 4chan is without a doubt the most effective crowd sourcing community on the internet, single handedly launching some its most popular memes. The idea behind the site is simple – it’s nothing more than a public imageboard where users can post anonymously. The site, started in 2003 by 15 year-old “Moot” in his bedroom, has burgeoned into a 13 million views a day community. But how did this group go from such an inconspicuous origin to accomplishing so much? 

Variety is the spice of crowd sourcing
The group is collectively known as Anonymous. It’s not just the numbers of the community that make it a force to be reckoned with - their members have a wide skill set, including code writing, programming and hacking. It’s this variety and talent of its members that make it so effective and able to make their plans a reality. Plans like putting 4chan’s founder at the top of TIME’s poll of the most influential people in the world. 

Make waves - the biggest ones you can
Recently, the community has been gaining a new level of notoriety thanks to high profile projects involving vote rigging in a contest from Oprah Winfrey and attempting to send Justin Bieber to North Korea (which we have to admit is pretty funny). Success in crowd sourcing is largely measured by media attention, so find a juicy hook to get people talking.

 

 New BFFs?

Participation has to be one thing: fun

You have 4chan to thank for many of the internets biggest memes. And they do it essentially by creating viral jokes. Sensations like Rick Rolling and lol cats get people jumping on board simply because doing so is so much fun. 

Show them something they’ve never seen before
The 4chan community is also responsible for vaulting certain videos to viral stardom. All it takes is finding something compellingly bizarre, and letting the community run with it from there. The Chocolate Rain video is perhaps the most famous, featuring nothing more than a young man with an exceptionally deep voice. It now has over 53 millions views. Crowds just love quirkiness.

Give them a compelling goal
Perhaps the biggest draw of 4chan is its ability to take on behemoths. YouTube and Google have each had their share headaches at the hands of 4chan, as well as many celebrities like the ones already mentioned. They even played a big role in helping to give the people of Iran a voice during last year’s election. Letting regular people be part of something huge is a powerful draw.

We wouldn’t recommend or condone much of what 4chan does, but there’s no denying it’s an extremely effective machine for bringing people together to accomplish a goal. They certainly have a top notch understanding of how the internet works. Gleaning some of that understanding may well help you achieve some goals of your own.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

 

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6 creative ways to use Twitter

Establishing a presence on Twitter is easy. Even getting loads of followers isn’t that hard (if you aren’t picky). But using it in a way that’s worth both your and other people’s time and effort, that’s another story.

When we start putting together a social media strategy for a client, we try to find an innovative use for Twitter that goes beyond the “we need a Twitter account!” impulse. Which can be tough. But a great way to find inspiration is looking at brilliant campaigns that have come before and boiling them down to the idea behind them. 

Since it helps us, we figure it’ll help you, too. We’ve put together a list of 6 Twitter campaigns that went way beyond the expected, and highlighted the strategies they used to engage people. Check them out and see if any new ideas begin brewing.  

Reactionary auto-tweets
You probably know that you can set up auto tweets, but it doesn’t have to be restricted to a timer. Botanicalls has put together a DIY kit that monitors your house plants and auto tweets when a plant is thirsty. It’s basic technology plus outside the box thinking. Could your target use a clever auto reminder?  

 Feed me, Seymore!

Solve universal problems
To get masses of people involved in your Twitter campaign, try creating a practical solution to a problem everyone can relate to. Some enterprising university students did so when they started an account for their local laundry room, sending out updates when machines are available. Traffic updates via Twitter are also popular, helping commuters through their daily routine. Much like an inventor, start with a practical need, and then find a way to solve it.

Mass interaction at events
Twitter can add a whole new dimension to events and conferences by letting the crowd contribute to the public conversation. Comedian Eddie Izzard is using Twitter to warm up his crowds, displaying tweets mentioning his account on huge screens, thus letting anyone in the crowd with a smartphone post a message for all the people at the arena to see. If you’re hosting a performance or event, consider letting people get more involved through Twitter.

The face of social media genius

Find a novel way to filter the Twitterverse
Twitter’s ocean of information can be sliced and diced in an endless amount of ways, which allows for some creative chopping. Curse Bird is a guilty pleasure of mine. It tracks the naughty language used in Tweets around the world, highlighting a dark corner of an otherwise surprisingly polite sea of messages. This can be applied in many ways – simply find a new, insightful way to filter tweets.

Turn Twitter into visual art
Since a flow of words doesn’t have a visual impact, take them and create one. The museum of modern tweets takes inspirational message sent via Twitter and creates art out of them. Another project called Don’t Tell Ashton created a huge collage of Twitter users, getting thousands involved. See if you can’t find a pool of information on Twitter relevant to what you do, and find a way to make it a visual experience.   

Let your followers be the star
Staring You media is almost always a big hit, whether it be elfing yourself or starring in a movie. You can also make your fans the star with Twitter, like a Japanese group did with Twitter Parade. You simply put in your Twitter name and watch yourself lead a procession of your followers. More than 3 million people have done so already, which is amazing considering how high a percentage of Twitter users that is. If you can find a way to let people become the center of attention, they’ll come check it out.

Could it have come from anywhere but Japan?

Let us know if you have any bright ideas of your own, or want to share other inspiring campaigns.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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How to attract thousands of visitors through StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon may just be the traffic goldmine you’ve been looking for

StumbleUpon has a reputation as an idle time waster, and as such is often overlooked as part of a serious strategy to promote web content. But in reality it’s a widely used tool for people to find new, highly targeted content tailored to their interests. In fact, almost 10 million people have jumped on board this discovery tool, recommending over 5.4 billion pages in the last year alone.

When we noticed StumbleUpon was sending us a lot of visitors, we decided to look deeper into how it works and how to enhance traffic from the service. With minimal effort, you can get hundreds, or many more, new visitors. Here is a quick guide on how to get your content to go viral among the stumblers of the world and give your numbers a swift kick in the pants.

How it works
Installing the toolbar puts a “Stumble!” button in your browser. You select the topics you are interested in – say Arts, Marketing and Roleplaying – and when you hit Stumble you are sent to a webpage about one of those topics that other people have recommended. Pages are only registered when a user specifically recommends it. While you’re stumbling along, you also have a thumbs up/down button to pass judgement on the page (if you click thumbs up on an unregistered page, it will open a form for you to submit that page to the database). A page with a lot of thumbs ups will have more people sent to it, and vise versa. 

May the best man win
Creating brilliant content is key in all social media, but it’s especially vital with StumbleUpon. If Stumblers aren’t giving you a thumbs up, the service will stop sending people to your site. Put extra effort into creating intriguing headlines and striking visuals as it is in the nature of Stumblers to quickly click away from a page if they don’t think there’s anything of interest. You’ve only got a few seconds to hook them, so make them count.

Be selective with what you submit
Certain kinds of content do well on StumbleUpon. It’s a long haul traffic source, so timeless content is more likely to do well than breaking news. Since visitors by and large don’t know you, the page also needs to work as stand alone content and not require delving deeper into your site. Great big no-no’s include pages that have long load times, protected content that requires a sign up, layouts laden with ads and any page with pop-ups - all of those will send people clicking away immediately.

Advocate stumbling
Put a “Submit” button on your website or blog so people can recommend it with one click, even if they didn’t arrive via StumbleUpon. As many don’t know about the service, it’s also not a bad idea to write a post or article educating people about StumbleUpon and why they should use it.

Cheaters never prosper
If you’re thinking you’ll just register and recommend all your pages yourself, StumbleUpon is way ahead of you. Submitting loads of pages from one site will get your account blacklisted (and they won’t even tell you, it’ll just stop working). The only way to effectively submit your own content is to use StumbleUpon genuinely and often, and be very selective about which of your own pages you submit. Also note that if you have avid fans that recommend all of your pages, the value of each thumbs up will quickly diminish, eventually reaching zero. In short, your recommendations need to be from a wide array of active stumblers.

Or just take the shortcut: pay for stumblers
If you’re strapped for time and want an overnight traffic boost, you can join StumbleUpon’s ad program. You first specify your target audience by category, demographics and geography and StumbleUpon will recommend your content to relevant individuals when they click the Stumble button. But it’s still on you to impress them - the more people that recommend your page, the more traffic you’ll get.

StumbleUpon is one of the most genuine recommender communities where each person can shape the content. If you think you've got the content to get loads of thumbs up, dive in and start stumbling your way up the charts.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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How to use Twitter for events: A simple guide

You can’t have an event without a Twitter presence. Nothing makes a crowd feel more connected and active than when they can communicate with each other around a common activity. Twitter helps bring random people together at an event through the use of a dedicated hashtag. A successful Twitter campaign can help increase exposure and will leave people talking long after the event is over. With so many events taking place every year, we wanted to create a guide for creating a successful Twitter campaign to make your next event stand out.

Create an account – After all, you can’t create an effective Twitter campaign without a focal point. Create an account and customize it as much as possible. Refer to our SEO and Twitter post to understand how to maximize your Twitter profile.

Establish a hashtag – It’s important to establish a hashtag early. The sooner a hashtag is created, the easier it will be for people talking about the event to start associating themselves with it. We recommend a short four or five character hashtag. The world’s largest comic book convention, San Diego ComiCon, attracts around 400,000 people over a weekend. To keep everyone informed about events and unite the attendees, they use the hashtag #SDCC.

Tweet early and often – Nothing gets people more excited about an event then announcing activities, celebrities attending and special giveaways. It’s good to start tweeting at least 2-3 months before your event. This will allow you to build an audience, tweet teaser announcements and get the hashtag in circulation.

Offline matters – Odds are the first exposure a person will have to an event will be through a printed flyer or newspaper ad. Just like you would put your event’s URL in the advertisement, you should add your Twitter hashtag as well. 

Add it to your website – This may seem obvious, but so often events forget to link their Twitter account from their website and even more often never mention the hashtag associated with the event. People are looking for this information, and it can be just as important as directions and ticket prices. After people get the directions and buy the tickets, they want to find out who else will be attending. Having the hashtag on the website will enable attendees to communicate more easily with each other and stay informed.

Live stream from event – Let people know what they missed and give them a reason to attend next year by giving up to the minute Tweets about what’s happening. 

Post tweet – After the event is over, keep the good feelings alive by continuing to tweet. Keep your audience informed about changes, new guests and other news associated with your event throughout the year. The more active you are on your Twitter account, the easier it will be to activate people the next time your event rolls around.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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Win an iPad in The American Days Photo Contest!

Snap a photo. Win an iPad.

This American Days, The Duffy Agency is giving you the chance to take home Steve Jobs’ new baby – the one and only iPad. 

But what on Earth is American Days, you ask? It’s a three day event in Malmö, Sweden over the 4th of July weekend. The event celebrates some of America’s major cultural contributions including country music performances, Lindy Hop and Swing dancing, and classic muscle car exhibitions. But if you can’t make the event, sadly this contest does not apply to you.

If you can, the rules for entering the contest are simple:

1. Take a picture! Capture an image that expresses what you think of America. The photo must be taken at Jägersro Trav & Galoppbana during American Days, beginning July 2nd at 5 PM and ending July 4th at 5 PM. Only one entry per user.

2. Upload it! “Like” The Duffy Agency’s Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/theduffyagency. Then simply post your photo on the Wall. You have until midnight on Tuesday, July 6th to enter. 

3. Get the most “likes”! The photo with the most “likes” will be declared the winner. So make it compelling and get everyone to vote for you before Friday, July 9th at midnight! The winner will be announced the following Monday.

You can learn more about the contest by following the link above to the The Duffy Agency fan page. 

Happy photo hunting!

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Foursquare: Changing the way marketing works

There has never been a better time for marketers to directly influence a buyer’s decision. Through mobile apps, businesses can build brand loyalty and add value to the user experience. Smart marketers are now adding simple location-based services to their toolbox.

Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.

The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples. 

Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.

During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show. 

Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.

Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets. 

Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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Writing meta tags: the great equalizer

You may be out-ranked, but you can still out-traffic the competition

You pour blood sweat and tears into SEO, clawing your way to the top spot on Google, triumphing over adversity like Rocky climbing stair after stair in Philadelphia. And you still don’t get the clicks. 

Like your mother always told you, winning isn’t everything. Being in the top spot in search rankings doesn’t guarantee people will be impressed enough to click your link. It’s likely enough they’ll take a look at the few entries below you and go elsewhere. That’s why your click-through rate (CTR) is the real measure of your SEO success.

Getting that high CTR is all about your meta tag descriptions. These are often neglected since search engines have been ignoring them in their rankings for many, many years. Which doesn’t make much sense as, whether it’s organic search traffic or pay per click, the meta tag is where you pitch your website to surfers, telling them what they’ll find on your page and why it’s worth their time.

 Follow the subtle arrow to find the meta tag

But hey, you’ve got the first spot, so you’ll still get most of the traffic right? Actually, you could be missing out on 80% of it. Traffic can vary between 20%-60% of clicks with a brilliant vs. rubbish meta tag description. If we’re talking about tens of thousands of searches, or more, that’s one heck of a lot of missed visits. 

Let’s look at an example. Here are the top 5 search results for “international ad agency.” Which one would you click on?

I would go for the second or third entries and skip the other ones entirely since their meta tag descriptions are far from convincing. 

Now that you know how important the meta tags are, here are some tips for writing them:

• Keep it within 150 letters as that’s all Google will show
• Run searches for your keywords and take a look at what competing sites have written to get a better idea of how to make your tags stand out
• Be convincing without being misleading - a good CTR doesn’t mean anything if you have a sky high bounce rate 
• Think of them as ads for your website

One last thought to mull over as you ponder how to handle your meta tags – if you don’t write them yourself, you may be in for some character assassination at the hands of Google. Just look what kind of spin the meta tag below put on an innocent writer, who in the context of the article is actually held in high esteem. Not so much on Google.

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Twitter Places launches tweeple into the location based web

The lowdown on Twitter’s new geolocation service and what it can do for you

Long whispered about, Twitter has unveiled its entry into location based services: Twitter Places. In this new geolocation foray, you will be able to tag tweets with the location you happen to be in (much like check-ins on Foursquare and Gowalla) thus creating a Twitter Place. Users can click on said Place and see all the other recent tweets from that location in one stream. 

It's like Birdemic all over again

Places is a great addition to Twitter’s functionality, and was an inevitability given the skyrocketing popularity of location based services. And rightly so, they create lots of fun, useful applications. Here are five new possibilities Places has created for Twitter:

1. Follow events in real time from anywhere
Say you’re trying to follow the latest news from some major event, like a conference, festival or the World Cup. What you really want is to get updates from people on the ground, not the worldwide chatter flooding hashtags and search words. Twitter Places will make listening only to the people at the event possible for the first time by following a stream of tweets from only that location, whether it be a stadium, conference hall or street corner. This also adds a new level of engagement for anyone organizing events, as they can promote both remote and on location interaction through Places.

2. Reward programs for “check-ins”
This was already happening with the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla (which are integrated with Places), but now it’s possible through Twitter itself – the much more popular and market saturated mobile service. This means a company or organization can incentivize Twitter users to visit and tweet from their Twitter Place by rewarding them just for participating, or get creative with scavenger hunts and competitions. 

3. Get recommendations on the spot
Having trouble deciding what to order off the menu at a new restaurant? Or what shoes to buy at the mall? Or whether you should get a 6 shot iced venti with 2/3 half-caf and 2 1/2 pump sugar-free cinnamon dolce, or a 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel? Check out what other visitors to your location have had to say and you might find some golden advice.

4. Twitter apps move into the geolocation dimension
Third party apps have always been a fundamental part of Twitter and its success, so you can expect a wave of new apps utilizing Places in creative ways. This makes the timing of Places’ release interesting from a business standpoint, as Twitter announced just a few weeks ago that they will start taking a cut of the profits from 3rd parties. So if you’re a company looking to cash in on Twitter’s new API, Twitter might come knocking, wanting to cash in on your profits.

5. A new level of gauging user sentiment
Analyzing Twitter has been unearthing some brilliant insights into people’s attitudes and behavior. Places should allow for even more specific and refined research, which is good news for online savvy businesses, as well as consumers who have yet another way to talk back to companies and give them their two cents. 

Those were just some of my initial thoughts. I’d love to hear any ideas you have for using Twitter Places, leave a comment if you have any epiphanies. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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The World Cup social media kit

The very best social media tools for getting the most out of the 2010 World Cup

When the World Cup rolled into Germany in 2006, YouTube was in its infancy, the iPhone didn’t exist and no one knew what a Twitter was. Things have changed a bit these past few years. 

Starting today, we will witness the crashing together of two behemoths: the world’s grandest sporting event and the world’s vast social networks. Prepare to have your Facebook, Twitter and every other kind of feed experience a noticeable shift in focus for the next three weeks as every football fan gets the chance to become a global sports reporter without leaving their living room.

There are loads of options for following the 64 games in painstaking detail, but we’ve sorted through them all and put together the top tools that deliver everything you need. 

Mobile: The ESPN World Cup App

There are lots of great apps dedicated to the World Cup, but ESPN’s is the cream of the crop and the only one you really need. You’ve got the full schedule, you can select which teams you want to follow to stay updated on breaking news, and stats and bios of every player for every team. You can even get a history lesson in the major events of tournaments past and interact with other fans by posting comments from within the app. If you’re willing to dole out $8, you gain access to radio broadcasts of every game, letting you follow matches no matter what you’re pretending to do at work. And to think a few years ago I was happy with cutting tournament brackets out of the newspaper. 

Twitter: The official World Cup aggregator 

Sure you can try to follow cluttered, hectic hashtags (like #wc2010 or #worldcup), but Twitter has done you a favor and created a World Cup headquarters themselves. They’ve done a great job of it, too. On the homepage, you’ve got a flow of the top tweets, which is superior to hashtags because it doesn’t just pull in the latest World Cup tweets, but uses an algorithm to select the most interesting ones. You can also see what matches are coming up and jump to a page for tweets about each particular game where you can easily follow and join in the banter. On the flip slide, the constant flow of information on Twitter is guaranteed to contain spoilers, so if you’re recording games to watch later, it’s probably best to abandon Twitter for a while. 

Facebook: The Visa Match Planner 

Visa has put together a great solution for following your favorite teams via Facebook. When you choose to follow teams and matches, you can invite friends to an event page where your customized group shares comments and media. And of course you’ve got the full day-by-day schedule with live updates, as well as a video of the “worldwide goal cheer.” As an expat the event function is particularly appealing, as it’s a great way for me to root for the (former) home team with friends despite the distance. 

Fantasy tournament: FIFA World Cup Fantasy

When they aren’t busy filing ridiculous lawsuits, FIFA (sponsored by McDonalds) is running one of the best fantasy tournaments. You’ve got 140 credits in the bank and all the players in the tournament to choose from. Put your squad together and compete for your piece of the glory. 

Bonus! The World Cup Trivia Challenge App 

Do a little competing of your own with this fun football trivia app. In a creative twist on the regular old trivia contest, with this app you take the role of a team on the road to World Cup glory, advancing as you get questions right. It’s the perfect way to overcome halftime boredom and learn a thing or two about the tournament at the same time. 

If you’ve got any other favorites that you’re horrified I missed, give a shout below. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Oil spill catharsis: How Twitter has been good for BP

We are emotional creatures. Like it or not, raw emotion affects how we judge things intellectually. Businesses and admen have known and played on this since well before the days of Don Draper. With social media, our emotions are played on in a whole different way when it comes to dealing with corporate image issues. Letting people vent their spleen through channels like Twitter to a large degree defuses people’s anger and bitterness. After all, haven’t you ever been upset and felt better just by talking about the problem? The problem doesn’t go anywhere, but the talking lets off most of the steam.

I’ve been seeing this happen with British Petroleum (BP) on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably heard of BPGlobalPR. Nope, that isn’t BP’s official PR presence on Twitter, it’s a satirical account started by one enterprising comedian shortly after the gushing oil pipeline catastrophe struck. 

The Tweeter calls himself Terry and has chosen to remain anonymous despite being contacted by major news outlets who want the inside scoop on how this rogue account has chalked up 140,000 followers. Compare that to the just 12,000 of the real BP account, which actually does provide regular informative updates on the crisis. If you add up the retweets and news stories, the scathing tweets by the fake BP representative have reached millions of people eager to point and laugh at the oil giant. 

Though secretive about his identity, the LA Times did get a quote from “Terry,” all the while refusing to break character, about why he’s doing this: "Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they're doing something while they figure out how to make money again," the fake public relations representative wrote. "BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this. We're making a ton of shirts and commercials about how we care, and I cleaned an ugly bird yesterday." For more great quotes, check out the interview with “Terry” on ABC News (never mind the scary monster voice).

Yes, it is an inspiring case of how social media lets a regular Joe go toe-to-toe with a mega-corporation. It’s hardly surprising that satire is successful on Twitter, it’s easier to pack a lot of sting into 140 characters than it is genuine dialogue or detailed explanation. But despite it being a fitting way to stick it to the man, BP may be the one benefiting the most from this Twitter parody. Don’t you feel less angry and anxious to do something after having a laugh at the jokes? It is still an infuriating travesty, but the heated malice toward BP is somewhat tempered, they become more bumbling than evil. BP could well have filed a complaint with Twitter, but they must have realized that would only create more negative PR and instead let people blow off steam. It may be the one good call BP has made in all of this.

Regardless of whether it’s disarming us or not (on the plus side, Terry is selling oil spill T-shirts and giving the proceeds to charity), some of the tweets are just great jokes. Here are my 5 favorite tweets from the rogue BP Twitter account so far:

 

 
 

 
What effect do you see the mock BP Twitter account having? Let us know below. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Amazing augmented reality campaigns

Recent efforts show that marketing success with this new tech is well within reach

The challenge of using new technology in marketing is numbing yourself to the novelty of it and finding a genuinely good idea. And though most fail, a few succeed brilliantly. We’ve been looking to use augmented reality in an upcoming project and did some research to see what has already been done. What we found were some amazing applications that solve the target’s needs, while wowing them with shiny things at the same time.

Here are the best campaigns we’ve come across and why they were a success. Maybe they’ll inspire you to come up with some brilliant applications of your own that you didn’t even realize were possible. 

Slap a virtual watch on your wrist
So you’re thinking of dropping a chunk of change on a new watch, but not quite convinced it will look as dashing on your wrist as you imagine. Why not try on a digital model first? Tissot is betting you’ll want to take their new range for a test drive. It starts with a paper watch you cut out from their magazine ads (you can also download it from the site). You put the paper watch around your wrist, go to the Tissot site to download the software and hold it up to your webcam. You then see a 3D model wrapped around your wrist. You can cycle through the new range and even test out some the watches’ features. It’s extremely cool, has drawn loads of media attention and fills the need of potential buyers to try out a watch before buying beautifully.

The dude is unsettlingly devoid of emotion, but the watch is nifty
 

Take a BMW for a spin on your desktop (the wooden one)
They could have just gone with creating a nifty 3D pop-up model (like Mini did), but for the Z4, BMW kicked it up a notch and created art. Or rather, they let you create art. Using a simple printout, a Z4 pops onto your desk and you can drive it around, leaving colorful tire tracks in your wake. When your street art is complete, you can save and share it via YouTube or Facebook with one click, thus expanding the campaign's footprint and making it spread organically simply by virtue of being fun and drawing fans more intimately into the BMW experience. 

Such pretty donuts. Mmmmm....donuts.
 

Explore the 3D world on your tongue
Since augmented reality springs to life just by using a simple pattern, you can slip it into almost anything. Even the tongue of your shoe. Adidas has created a 3D city (complete with the Death Star) that springs to life when you go to their website and hold the shoe up to your webcam. You can then navigate the city and play games using the shoe as a controller. It’s pretty dang cool and adds a unique selling point for their sneakers in an overcrowded market. The brilliance of the idea is that it adds a whole new digital dimension into the product itself, instead of creating a one-off gimmick that’s glanced at and forgotten. This way, the 3D world is always on the tip of your tongue. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 

3D city! Storm troopers! Lasers! Overstimulation!
 

Enroll in alien police academy  
The film District 9 used a highly interactive augmented reality app to spread awareness and deepen fans’ experience of the sci-fi world. By visiting the website for Multi National United, the fictional government organization in charge of policing Earth’s alien inhabitants, you can go through an augmented reality training simulation on how to deal with day-to-day tasks, like non-human arrest and shooting at monsters. The campaign is a clever take on the film world and adds depth to the story, increasing viewers immersion and extending engagement beyond the cinema. 

Working for the man is fun when they give you a machine gun.

Get your own mud soccer cheerleader 
In the most ambitious campaign I came across, UK brand Dairy Crest have set up an elaborate mud soccer contest. In order to win a slot for you and 5 friends in the Frijj Swamp Soccer World Cup 2010, complete with your own Swamp Soccerettes cheering your team on, users hold up a Frijj bottle in front of their webcam to enter a real-time environment. Oh, and a swamp soccerette crawls out of the bottle and does a cheer for you. The campaign cleverly capitalizes on the World Cup fever among its target and encourages them to get involved in a footie tournament of their own while their blood is boiling for some action. Plus, it’s so quirky you can’t resist seeking out more info to see if it’s real. 

The connection between mud and milk is left mysteriously unsaid
 

Inspired yet? If so, check out this article for some great practical tips on creating an augmented reality campaign before you get started. And if you’ve seen any other great augmented reality campaigns, share them in the comments section below.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Please don’t follow me

How to work with (not around) Twitter’s 2,000 follow limit

Spammers have nested in Twitter’s dark underbelly since its earliest days. Fully aware of this, Twitter imposes a limit to the number of people you can follow all at once to hinder spam accounts and bots. Since that limit is 2,000 people, it’s not much of a hindrance to your average user. But for those of us trying to connect to as many relevant people as possible through Twitter, it can be a bother.

I’m going to offer some advice for cracking the 2,000 following limit, but first let’s consider why you need more than 2,000 people sending you 140 character messages to begin with.

This is about 2,000 people. Now imagine them all shouting at you. That's what following 2,000 people is like.

 

The line between spam and interesting content is thinner than you think

Honestly take a look at where you fall on the spam spectrum. We think of spam as bots, or companies pushing their offer into the world without restraint, but if you’re bulk following people you aren’t really interested in, or spending far more time shouting than listening, the Twitterverse doesn’t consider you much better than a bot. Almost all of us are guilty of this to some degree. If you’re swaying too far toward the spammer end of the spectrum, you should rethink how you use Twitter before you start strategizing how to get more followers. 

Who really needs to follow 2,000+ people? 

You could argue that no one does, because no one can actually sustain a conversation with that many people at once. Refining your list to a smaller network you interact with daily may be more beneficial than having 1 million people auto-follow you back who aren’t listening. Moreover, how many tweets do you have time to keep up with? If the answer is not nearly enough to stay up to speed on your Twitter stream, consider what the actual benefit of following more people is. That said, there are thousands of interesting people out there (here's how to find them) and if you’re following them for the right reasons, expanding your network can be a good idea. The whole point of Twitter is, after all, making new connections with interesting people. 

Ok, I get it, you still want to follow more people

2,000 isn’t the absolute limit, it’s actually based on a ratio – once you get close to 2,000 followers, you’re only allowed to follow 10% more people than are following you. If you aren’t close to having that many followers, unfollowing people is the obvious way to open up spots for new tweeple. People you should stop following are the ones who are either not contributing anything interesting or who have more or less abandoned their accounts. Here you can find tools to bulk unfollow people, but I wouldn’t recommend getting rid of people just because they didn’t follow you back - they may in fact be your most relevant follows. And you can get them to follow you back by listening to what they say and responding.

Focusing on generating great content and making sure it’s found will help you get more followers organically, and as such raise your follow limit. Using hashtags is a great way to help others with the same interests find you, as is promoting your account through your other social media assets like Facebook and LinkedIn, along with email sigs and business cards.

Do NOT auto-follow people back

This habit severely undermines the value of your Twitter stream and fills up your limit with fluff. There are tons of people bulk following others to try and boost their numbers with no intention of listening to anyone, including you. Following back can be difficult to resist as people can get snippy if you don’t. I’ve been publicly called out for not following someone back, and was forced to publicly state that I didn’t think they were very interesting. I was promptly unfollowed. I was perfectly ok with losing a follower, given that his main interest was fly fishing and, having never touched a rod, I had no insight to offer. So if you don’t share any of the same interests as me, please don’t follow me, neither of us will get anything out of it. Even if it makes our numbers look good.

The 2,000 follow limit is there for good reason. When you hit it, you should start refining your list, not finding ways to subvert the system. After all, 1 follower who really cares what you have to say is worth 2,000 who are just padding their numbers. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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The social media travel kit

Summertime is finally just about here, so it’s time to start planning your big annual getaway. For most of us, this means exploring new lands and leaving the daily grind in our dust. While it can be relaxing to pack up and leave town for a few weeks, it can also be stressful to feel like you’re going to fall out of the loop while you’re gone and like you can’t rely on the internets for all your problem solving needs. Thanks to social media, leaving your home doesn’t mean you can’t stay connected. Just like packing your suitcase with your clothes, toiletries, lotions, swimwear, sandals, etc, you’ll need a social media travel kit keep you connected and allow you get the most out of your vacation.

 

First, you’ll need a smartphone, iPad or mini-pc/netbook. You’re packing a lot of stuff to take with you, so why take a cumbersome laptop as well? Get a small, light-weight device that will allow you easy access to the internet and will allow you to upload photos. Mini-pc’s are a great way to get online when you’re on the go and quality models can be found for $200-300. 

If you’re like me, you have multiple websites you check every day to keep up with news, events, and in the case of vacation planning, recommended locations, restaurants and attractions. Instead of leaving all those bookmarks on your home computer, create a Del.icio.us account and you can check them from any device with internet access. 

Keep in touch with your friends and family and let them know what you’re up to through Facebook and Twitter. Since everyone you know is more than likely on Facebook and/or Twitter, it’s easy to arrange meet-ups if they’re in the area, and get recommendations from them on places to stay, eat and visit. This is an excellent way to get local advice on places to eat and sights to see that aren’t in the travel guides.

You often don’t know anyone in the places you’re visiting, so finding a great place to eat can be difficult. Fortunately Urbanspoon.com is a great user review restaurant site. You can find local places to eat through their website or their android or iPhone app, see how people rated the restaurant and how they critiqued it. 

TripIt allows you to plan out your entire vacation. You can add your flight, lodging and car rental information, plus add all the details of where you’ll be and how to get there, complete with maps and driving times. Even if you choose not to share the information through Facebook or Twitter, this is a great way to keep track of reservation numbers, costs and trip notes. 

Finally, Skype is the best free way to call people and even includes video calls. You can stay in touch with the people you left back home and make them jealous of the wonderful time you are having - without having to pay long distance or roaming fees.

This summer, leaving home for a vacation doesn’t mean you can’t stay informed or in touch with the people you care about or want to meet. Thanks to wifi networks and mobile devices, you can maximize your trip, stay in touch and best of all, get rid of those stupid maps.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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5 lessons Hollywood taught me about social media

Summer blockbuster season has kicked off with Iron Man 2 hauling in bucket loads of cash. Social media has been a big part of movie promotion this year, allowing film studios to get eager movie goers more engaged with their stories and characters than ever. Every campaign site I visited had a Facebook and Twitter account attached, so they aren't anything that will set a campaign apart any more. While most weren't anything to write home about, a few of the campaigns for this year’s big films have been downright brilliant, generating widespread buzz across the internet. As there are some great concepts in these campaigns, I decided to pick a few of them apart to see what the rest of us trying to market through social media could learn. Here are 5 examples of social media campaigns done right and what lessons there are to take away.

1. Toy Story 3 taught me to think laterally 
Beyond promoting Toy Story 3 directly, Pixar “leaked” bizarre retro TV spots for non-existent toys on YouTube. It was a brilliant move because it showed Pixar understood what gives a video viral appeal, making them feel like obscure, hilarious discoveries that you want to share with everyone you know. With millions of views on YouTube, articles written about the campaign on blogs and websites both big and small, and buzz stormed up on social media networks, Pixar showed us that you don’t have to say a word about yourself to get the internet talking about you.  

2. Iron Man 2 taught me to let fans become the hero 

This site easily took the longest to load (and it doesn’t appear to work in Chrome at all), but it was worth it when it did. Using an augmented reality app and your webcam, you can finally see yourself as Iron Man or War Machine. The app tracks where your head is (don’t ask me how) and places the Iron Man helmet over it, moving around as you move. You can also get an inside view of the helmet with all the futuristic interfaces Tony Stark uses in the movies. It’s a big kick for fans of the movie to see themselves as the hero, and there’s nothing that draws more attention than appealing to people’s vanity. If you can find a way to let your target become the star, it’ll earn you a lot of goodwill. 

 I. Am. Iron Man.

3. Shrek Forever After taught me if I let fans build their own content, they will happily share it 

The campaign site for Dreamworks’ 4th Shrek movie is stuffed with the usual content, but its build-an-ogre feature makes it a standout. It invites you to join the ogre resistance by creating your very own ugly green soldier. There’s actually quite a lot of options for customizing your ogre. The franchise lost my interest after the second film, but I still found it great fun to see what combinations of silly faces and fierce weapons I could come up with. It’s even made me a bit curious about what this resistance is and how it plays into the film. But the really brilliant part is that Dreamworks realized people were far more interested in sharing their own creations than someone else’s, so they gave them a way to make something highly customizable of their own that promoted their film at the same time. 

This is my Ogre. I call him Steve.

 

4. Jonah Hex taught me to plant teasers where the target will find them 

In support of the upcoming theatrical release of Jonah Hex, DC Comics and the WB have created a web series of animated motion-comics covering three new story arcs. I had never heard of Jonah Hex, but the motion-comics look kick ass and have gotten me intrigued enough to look into the film and ask my friends about it. The motion comics are available through Amazon, iTunes, Xbox Live and the Playstation Network – most of the places their target go to satisfy their entertainment cravings. By creating exclusive content to hook potential new fans, they’re generating a higher level of anticipation for the film by immersing people in the Jonah Hex universe. If you put the effort into creating great offshoot content, people will happily download and talk about it – even if they have to pay for it.

5. Despicable Me taught me if you’re just gonna do a campaign site, do it exceptionally well 
The best way to get people to share your content through social media is simply by giving them great content. Universal poured a whole lot of effort (and god knows how much money) into their campaign site for Despicable Me to give visitors much more than the usual, forgettable movie site. I usually hate it when a website has music playing in the background, but Despicable Me’s theme song is too much fun to find annoying. And that’s the crux of this whole site: things that are usually throwaways are done well enough to be endearing. Each section is presented nicely and has several options for sharing the content. The games are particularly slick. They’re based on classics but with amusing tweaks, e.g. when you play tic-tac-toe various landmarks pop up along with amusing soundbites. You even have an extra incentive to keep playing as winning games unlocks prizes, like desktop wallpapers. There isn’t a revolutionary idea in the site, but it certainly has me excited to see this film just by how much fun it is.

Those are just a few of the campaigns for this summer's big movies. Did we miss any of your favorites?  

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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State of the Union in Social Media

The 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner was released a couple of weeks ago. Stelzner interviewed 1,356 marketing professionals in order to understand how marketers are using social media to grow and promote their businesses. It confirms what many of us working in social media already knew, but also contained several surprises. 

A staggering 91% of the marketers surveyed say they are using social media for marketing purposes. That’s much higher than I think most people would have predicted. Sure, social media is hot right now, but many companies are reluctant to get started even if they feel they should. The common perception is that more B2C companies are using social media than B2B companies. It turns out that 79.5% of B2B companies use social media, with only 68.7% of their B2C counterparts on the bandwagon.

The majority of marketers are using social media 6 hours or more a week. This shows a growing number of businesses are investing their time in social media – and with great results. Over 73% of marketers using social media for over a year reported that it helped them close business, which is an increase of 12% over 2009. 

 

Additionally, businesses using social media saw the following results:

• An increase in their search engine rankings
• Greater exposure for their business
• Created new partnerships
• Generated qualified leads
• Reduced overall marketing expenses
• Increased website traffic

 

Naturally Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are the most used social media tools. Look to blogs and YouTube to make big strides in the coming year as many of the marketers surveyed planned to increase their usage. But the tools they really want to know more about are social bookmarking sites (i.e.; Delicious) and smartphone marketing. 

Social media is quickly becoming a marketing staple, which means your customers will be less and less forgiving if you don’t have a presence there, and potential customers may miss you altogether. If you aren’t developing a social media marketing plan this year, it will be harder to catch up. 

In our business, Facebook, Twitter and blogging have been instrumental in helping us make contacts and increase our footprint beyond what a small agency could normally create. But we’re always looking for innovative new ways to connect with people. What social media tools have you found particularly effective?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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The top 5 Twitter apps for Android

The smartphone app battle has heated up with legitimate rivals to the iPhone hitting their stride. Apple’s App Store continues to overshadow the competition with downloads in the multiple billions, but Google’s Android Market has emerged with a strong collection of its own mobile apps, along with the advantage of having multiple mobile phone brands running the OS. With around 300 million downloads under its belt, Android Market is building up steam. 

Seeing that Android has a prominent place in the future of mobile devices, we picked up an HTC Desire to discover firsthand what it’s capable of. First order of business: finding the best Android app to run our Twitter accounts. What we found was there is no app that truly stands out as the best overall, but there are apps that excel at meeting specific needs. Below you’ll find 5 of the best apps out there and which type of Twitter user they best serve.

 

The Official Twitter App – For the user looking for basic functionality 
The official Twitter app is surprisingly bare bones, seeming to not even try to compete with the feature-rich apps from third party developers. But for basic functionality, it serves its purpose extremely well. Its interface is one the best looking of the apps we tried and everything works smoothly. Still, its lack of features is a big turn off for all but casual users. Twitter’s official app was only recently released, so keep your eye on it as they are sure to launch updates with expanded features. Since the HTC Android phones come preloaded with Peep, which has the same basic functionality, there is no reason to add this app.

Seesmic – For the user looking to balance features and speed 
 More often than not with mobile apps, having loads of features means sacrificing at least some speed. Seesmic manages to offer a host of functionality without getting bogged down. Some of these features include geotagging, lists, search and multiple retweet styles. Seesmic also gives you a widget for your desktop. There are a lot of features in there for free that usually only come with the premium version of apps. If we had to pick an over all best Twitter app for Android, it would be Seesmic. 

Twidroid – For the user looking for the maximum amount of features 
Twidroid boasts a wide array of functions, including the fan-favorite slidescreen integration. It also allows linking up with other services like TwitPic, Posterous and bit.ly, among others. But for the full experience, including multiple accounts and customizable themes, you need to upgrade to Twidroid Pro. Even the free version is far ahead of most other apps in the range of features, so if you’re looking for the app with the most flexibility, this is it.

Hootsuite – For the professional user with multiple accounts and tweeters 
Hootsuite is the best bet for professionals using Twitter for marketing. You can schedule tweets from your Android phone and manage multiple accounts, which includes the ability to give multiple people access to those accounts, adding and withdrawing access as you see fit. The Android version works best in tandem with the desktop version, so if you’ve been using Hootsuite to manage your accounts, this is the best way to go mobile with your Twitter use. And thanks to Hootsuite’s acquisition of Swift - the speediest Twitter for Android app around - the app doesn’t lag despite being feature heavy.

Touiteur – For the user looking for the prettiest interface 
Touiteur (which we eventually realized is supposed to sound like Twitter, but more French) has by far the slickest and most polished interface of any app we looked at. With animated menus and transitions in a compact, streamlined design, Touiteur is a dream to use. But the glitz comes with a couple catches. The features are quite limited in the free version – you’ll have to pay get link shortening, widgets and multiple account support. And if it’s speed you’re after, this isn’t the app for you, it’s noticeably slower than most of the others. But we’re almost inclined to say it’s worth it.

Developers are starting to put serious effort into creating apps for Android, as these great options showcase. Do you have a favorite Twitter app that we missed? Let us know.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Twitter and Facebook continue to push boundaries of private vs. public

Twitter and Facebook are growing up and dragging the Internet with them. On June 30, 2010, Twitter will shut off basic authentication in favor of the much more secure OAuth. They’ve launched a website with a countdown clock in anticipation of the change. At the same time, Facebook is changing from Facebook Connect to their new “Open Graph API” and “Like” system. Mashable has created a nice guide to help you understand what the Open Graph API is.

The change for Twitter makes connecting to third party applications more secure and should reduce the occurrence of people having their accounts hacked. This is a very smart move for Twitter since, if they want to grow and offer more services, they have to deal with their security issues. There will still be basic authorization for streaming API for apps that need realtime access to Twitter, as these will take longer to switch over to the new system.

The Facebook change is being made to create a larger sphere of influence and to track users’ web habits when they aren’t on Facebook so they can offer new content for them to enjoy. Websites can add a “like” button which, when clicked by a visitor, sends a link back to their Facebook page. This is a big deal for websites as it lets their visitors share content on a more personal level and will boost their traffic. The new system looks to ultimately become a mixture of Delicious, StumbleUpon and Reddit all at once. Basically, a mix of the best of social media sharing sites.

These changes should be great for both Twitter and Facebook, giving them more control of the user experience and allowing for a higher degree of customization. Privacy experts are, of course, up in arms. Both companies can now track your online activity and sell that data to marketers and businesses. The new face of the Internet is user data-mining and Twitter and Facebook are only doing what Google has been doing for years. As we rush to share our common experiences online, we give up some of our privacy. That’s the trade off, if you want your friends and family to know what you’re doing, you have to be willing to give up a piece of yourself. 

These changes aren’t as Orwellian as critics would have you believe. It’s another service that these mega sites believe will provide a more customized and unique experience. Is this a step in the right direction or are we headed to a day when our every move online will be tracked and sold to the highest bidder?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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SEO tips: writing title tags

How to create the perfect title tag – and why you need to

A lot of friends ask me for advice when it comes to SEO. Nine times out of ten the first question is: How can I make my website/blog perform better on search engines – without spending any time or money?

Since I have to be the bad guy and inform them that, at least on our planet, that’s impossible, I give them the best place to start: their title tags. Writing great title tags is the most important thing you can do to explain what your website is about, both to Google and to potential visitors. It’s also one of the least time- and money-consuming SEO tactics you can use, while often making a very quick, noticeable difference in your search engine rankings.

The title tag is that blue link that appears in Google search results, and also the name of each webpage that appears at the very top bit of your web browser. Google’s search bots read these tags first to start judging what your page is about and what keywords are most relevant, so they basically tell Google that your site is what users want to see when they look for certain keywords.

 

As this tag is what appears in search results, a well-written one is likely to get you a higher percentage of click-throughs. Consider a potential visitor searching for new Ray Ban sunglasses. Which title do you think they will find more appealing:

"Sunglasses – Check out the new collection of Ray Ban sunglasses" - or -

"Welcome to my website!"

The tricky bit is appealing to the human beings you want to click your link while squeezing the most relevant keywords in there. With a little extra thought, it’s very doable. Here are six tips to help guide you in writing the most effective title tags for each page of your website.

1.  Make the first word/words of you title the keywords you want to capture users on – if you haven’t figured out what keywords you want to focus on, you can go here to see what keywords related to your content are getting the most searches on Google.

2.  Make the title reflect the information on the page. Misleading people will lead to an extremely high bounce rate and very few conversions.

3.  Don't use more then 63 characters. Google wont show the entire title if you do.

4.  If it makes sense to do so, use your title as the headline of your webpage – users expect to find the title on the page and it also reinforces the keywords you’re using.

5. Getting your brand/site name in there is a good idea for establishing trust and expanding your footprint, but you should generally put it at the end of the tag after a vertical line so the search focus is on your keywords.

6.  Your title will end up as a link in the search results, so make it compellingly clickable.

That’s about all there is to writing a great title tag. The most difficult part is determining which keywords to focus on for each page’s tags and content. Stay tuned for a future blog post on just that. 

If you want more information about writing the perfect title tag, check out the video below by Gareth Davies of GSINC Ltd.  

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Twitter on the right track with Promoted Tweets

Twitter may have set a new record for most time spent running a business without trying to make money. But the streak finally ended last week when they unveiled Promoted Tweets – the company’s first major step towards monetizing their hugely popular service after years of saying, “eh, we’ll figure it out later.” 

Promoted Tweets are tweets from businesses that appear as ads at the top of search results based on certain keywords. So if Starbucks tweets about a special offer, they can pay to have that tweet appear as the first result in searches about coffee. Advertisers win these keywords by bidding against other companies who want their tweets to be at the top of the list. Unsurprisingly, the companies on board at launch include many who have heavily invested in marketing through Twitter already like Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks and Bravo. AdAge and The New York Times wrote up detailed reports on the specifics. 

 In an attempt to keep the PTs relevant and not feeling like spam, just paying to be there isn’t enough to stay on top. Twitter says they will measure the “resonance” of the tweets, i.e. how many users interact with them by retweeting or favoriting, and take down any PTs that are not resonating enough with users. That’s a pretty smart move as it allows users to still be in some control of all content and determine themselves what they want to see. 

Sponsored search results is just the first step, as Twitter plans to extend Promoted Tweet placement into your regular twitter feed in the future. How that will go over remains to be seen as it’s a lot more intrusive than sponsoring search results. But if Twitter can keep the paid content highly relevant, I don’t think users will mind too much. Though given the randomness of most tweeple out there, defining what their interests are and keeping that content highly relevant won’t always be so cut and dry. 

As Promoted Tweets aren’t a lot different than the Tweets from businesses themselves that have been bouncing around Twitter for years, and since they are limiting one PT per results page, the change should be relatively painless. And as the content should be highly relevant and interesting to users, Twitter should do quite well with this monetization plan. The real test of its success will be how many users start turning to Twitter as a search engine and away from traditional engines like Google. Twitter says the numbers are already “huge,” and if the numbers continue growing, Twitter have themselves a gold mine. 

After years of providing us with a completely free, unsponsored service, I say good for them. How do you feel about Twitter’s move to cash in?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Bebo is down but who is left?

Bebo is the latest network to fail as the titans continue to increase their dominance around the world

AOL announced this week it will either sell or shutter their multi-million dollar social media website Bebo. Launched in the UK in 2005, it became a hit in its native land. During the social media land grab, which saw MySpace sell for $540 million and Bebo sell for $850 million, Bebo was a hot site that looked to be a contender for the next big thing. But just like a Highlander, there can be only one. With its imminent demise, it got me wondering about other social networking websites and how they are faring.

The social media landscape is littered with the skeletal remains of failed sites. Fear not, social media isn’t dying. But instead of being the wild west of the internet, the landscape is being tamed and defined in clearer terms. The new wild frontier is smartphone apps and we’re already seeing tough competition between Foursquare and Gowalla. It’s only a matter of time before we’re stepping over one of their corpse on our way to the next big thing.

Right now, the three big social networks are Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.  If we look at the past year, Facebook has added 54 million users, MySpace has lost 8 million and Twitter has added 13 million according to Compete.com. 

The three main social media sites received a collected 194 million visitors in February. That’s roughly 3% of the world's population visiting just three websites. While Twitter and Facebook are secure, MySpace, the little site that everyone wants to go away, is still going strong as it's found a niche catering to music and film fans. 

In comparison, Bebo received 1.6m unique visitors for February. It is a far cry from the big three, but what about Friendster and Orkut? Each of these sites are doing poorly and it’s surprising that Bebo is the first to go considering that Friendster only had 881k visitors in February and Orkut had 761k visitors. 

 

How long before these sites are also shuttered? Google is notorious for purchasing companies, neglecting them until they lose all their audience and then dumping them (e.g. Jaiku). Friendster shot out of the gate, but soon fell by the wayside as MySpace took over. In 2009, there was a shake down of micro-blogging sites as Pownce and ReJaw joined Jaiku on the trash heap. 

As Bebo circles the drain, can Orkut be far behind?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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