Why Apple should buy Square & Foursquare

Posted by on Apr 30, 2012 in Blog, Social Media, Technology | No Comments

This is an interesting and makes sense at multiple levels: Apple should acquire both Foursquare and Square.

To summarize: after the deal, Apple will immediately become a giant payments company, with an installation base that is expected to encompass half of all mobile devices sold. The company will have the best local search abilities, far exceeding any existing recommendation engine. And due to its enormous reach, it will possess a payment system that merchants will line up to support.

Apple dominates mobile sales. Mobile apps. Music. Why not electronic payment and local search as well. Makes sense to me.

Google+ Redesign & Updated

Posted by on Apr 12, 2012 in Blog, Social Media, Video | No Comments

Video: Facebook IPO Overview

Posted by on Jan 27, 2012 in Blog, Social Media, Video | No Comments

GOP Social Media Matrix

Posted by on Jan 20, 2012 in Blog, Infographic, Social Media | No Comments

Nice PR Stunt RuPaul

Posted by on Jan 7, 2012 in Blog, Social Media | No Comments

TV hostess, singer, and supermodel RuPaul* was at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, NH this morning. Why you might ask? She told Politico, ”I’m going to N.H. on a mission to spread love and set the record straight: contrary to recent reports, I am not Ron Paul. And I am not running for president of the United States. I hope to meet Ron Paul in person so we can be seen together to put the rumors to rest once and for all.”

*I have to admit I had to use Google to determine exactly who this individual was :) .

Facebook Memology 2011

Posted by on Dec 7, 2011 in Blog, Research, Social Media | No Comments
Facebook Memology 2011

Mashable has a huge round-up of year-end 2011 Facebook stats. Most popular memes, movies, sport teams, shared news stories, you name it. Interesting read.

Twitter’s Self-Serve Ad Platform Launches

Posted by on Dec 2, 2011 in Advertising, Blog, Social Media | No Comments

We all knew this was coming, cause it was a long time in coming, but today it is here (at at for a limited number of firms):

Twitter’s long-awaited self-serve ad platform was quietly introduced in November with a “handful” of advertisers, according to the company.

The program, which Twitter announced in April 2010, is available to anyone with a credit card who wants to take advantage of Promoted Products. However, the option isn’t yet open to the public.

[....]

Twitter has indeed been taking its time with the initiative. A year ago, the company rolled out a turn-key advertising solution that lets marketers express their interest in advertising. However, such potential advertisers were not able to actually buy ads until last month. The timing of the self-serve ad platform was not a surprise. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has stated that the company planned to introduce such a program before year’s end.

At this point it is important to note that eMarketer estimates that Twitter generated $45 million from ad sales in 2010 and will earn around $139.5 million this year. So clearly with a few hundred million users there is a ton of upside here for Twitter if they can figure out a ad business model that just remotely works.