Your Social Network Asset

in ,

Currently I have about 80 followers on Twitter, about 500 Facebook friends and about 500 LinkedIn connections.

There's some overlap between networks, but more or less with a few keystrokes I can send a message to 1,000 people that trust me and are attentive and willing to listen to what I have to say.

That is an asset. A social asset. Not only the captive and trusting audience but the ability to communicate to that audience in real-time, whenever I want and as often as I want.

Like any asset, I can make it more or less valuable over time, either by losing or gaining audience, losing or gaining trust, or losing or gaining attention.

I think it's worth thinking about this for a few seconds next time you want to post something you want people to support. Will it make your social network asset more or less valuable?

Email and E-Commerce

in ,

Fred Wilson had a post last week called Don’t Forget Your Logged-Out Users where he discussed how social media sites need to pay attention to the value they create for users that aren’t logged-in; i.e. Twitter allows you to see Lebron James’ Tweets without logging-in.

This is something I’ve thought about a lot in the context of e-commerce.  You need to be very careful about what value you provide to a user before you force them to authenticate (i.e. force them to give you their email address). 

Most web services drive the majority of their traffic through email – especially repeat traffic.  As a result, email capture for a new visitor is critical.  It’s hard to get a user to your site, it’s even harder to get them back – in most cases you need their email address to get them back.  An email address allows you to regularly market to that user to bring them back when you have a better or more relevant offer for them.

So when you think about how much value you provide to a user that isn’t logged-in, you need to consider the potential missed opportunity to capture that user’s email address.

I’ve found that when you put up a authentication page before allowing a first-time user to shop, you lose about 20% of visitors; most users came to your site to see what you have and they’re willing to take an extra step to see it.

I’ve also found that when a user comes a site, there’s about a 5% chance they’ll transact on the first visit. 

Think of it this way:

Scenario 1 – Authentication and email capture before user can shop

1,000 New Visitors

800 New Email Addresses

40 Transactions

Scenario 2 – No Authentication before user can shop

1,000 New Visitors

50 New Email Addresses

50 Transactions

Here’s the question to consider when making the decision on how much value to provide to users that aren’t logged-in to your e-commerce site: what’s more valuable to you, 10 transactions or 750 new emails?

Twitter Business Model

in , ,

The other day Sarah Silverman tweeted a somewhat vulgar complaint about American Airlines.  I'd post it here but it looks like she deleted it from her Twitter account. Her complaint regarded a connecting flight that was cancelled after a 7 hour layover.

Following her tweet, a short discussion ensued between Sarah and her followers about the poor service they've experienced from American Airlines.

As of today, Sarah has 1,692,580 followers.  To give you a sense of her reach, that's approximately the same number of people that will see this 17,000 square foot Walgreen's billboard that rises 340 feet above Times Square in a 24 hour period.

112008timessq

Imagine someone posting a complaint about your company on this billboard?  The damage that can come to American Airlines and other consumer businesses from Twitter is significant.

I know several companies (particularly airlines) are already using Twitter to communicate with frustrated customers.  I believe there’s a huge B2B revenue opportunity here for Twitter.

If I was American Airlines, I'd pay a lot for a Twitter application that would integrate into my CRM or customer service software where I could view all of my @mentions sorted by the number of people that follow the Tweeter.  If American Airlines is able to turn Sarah into a happy customer and can get a positive Tweet from her, they’ll get 17,000 square feet of Times Square advertising for $0.  A pretty good investment to make in one customer.

I have no idea if Twitter is already doing this or if they're considering B2B CRM as a future revenue stream.  But it seems to me that there'd  be a significant revenue opportunity if Twitter was able to effectively integrate their reach, data and users into a company's CRM systems and process.

What Makes a Good Tweet

in ,

I've been using Twitter for two years. I check it almost everyday and follow about 150 people. It's a unique social graph for me in that I follow almost no friends or colleagues. I don't use it to interact, I use it to be informed and to learn. By the way, Fred Wilson has been writing some interesting stuff on the different social graphs we use and what he calls "implicit social graphs" -- social graphs that get built for us rather than by us -- definitely worth reading.

Anyway, so much of what I see each day on Twitter is wasteful: boring personal messages, links to sites I'm not going to click on, self promotion, etc. But I keep checking it reguarly because every few days I find a gem -- a piece of information or an insight that makes me laugh out loud, makes me more informed or smarter or causes me to look at things differently. I love when that happens.

I realize different people use Twitter for different reasons so they're free to Tweet whatever they feel like Tweeting.  But over the last two years I've noticed that the best Tweets, the Tweets that are really valuable, seem to have these  four things in common:

  1. No web links; all of the information is communicated in less than 140 characters
  2. No hashtags (#), they're annoying, unless they're added to make the Tweet funny, which can work sometimes -- see @bronxzoocobra
  3. No @s, unless it's a Retweet; generally conversations on Twitter are lame
  4. They aren't a simple statement of what someone is doing or where someone is; e.g. "mowing the lawn" or "at the movies"

To do this well you actually have to think pretty hard, you have to initiate, you have to create. That's why these kinds of Tweets are the best, and probably why they're so rare.

The Perfect Music Service

in ,

Amazon announced yesterday that they’re releasing an online service (a “cloud”) that allows people to store their digital music and access it from various digital devices, though they still have some legal work to do in sorting out licensing issues with the record labels. I’m a big fan of Amazon and the announcement got me thinking about the different music services I use and what I really want out of a music service. Currently, I use iTunes to buy music and Pandora to discover music and Last.fm to log my top artists, albums and songs. I don’t subscribe to any of the steaming music services like Rhapsody and I don’t yet interact with music-based social networks, though I could with my Last.fm profile.

All-in subscription services like Rhapsody are very appealing -- all the music you want, on-demand for 10 bucks a month. The industry consensus seems to be that the subscription services generally target listeners that have more money than time and ownership services like iTunes target listeners with more time than money. I can afford the subscription service but there’s something about owning my own music library and being stuck with it that’s appealing to me. Sometimes having limited options can be a good thing.

All that said, using three different services is a pain and there are still some things I’d like the services to do that they don’t. In a perfect world, here’s what I think an all-in-one service would include:

  • Cloud: all of the music I own (my library) could be easily accessed through the service and on demand on my home or work computer, or on the road with my BlackBerry, iPad or iPod
  • Discovery: the service would include a discovery component with various stations that could be streamed to any device (similar to Pandora now) but I could easily switch between channels that include songs in my library and channels that don’t
  • Ownership: I could buy a song or album and add it to my library at any time
  • Social: my library and listening history would be captured regardless of where or how I’m listening to it and could be viewed by “friends” and vice-versa
  • Live shows: a calendar with dates and venues based on zip code for every artist in my library as well as an option to see recommendations for shows based on my library
  • Recommendations: an area where I can see recommended albums based on my music library/listening history/friends tastes
  • Music Information: artist profiles and news, upcoming releases, charts, etc.
  • Advertisements: Option to pay higher fee to remove them

Because of the economics of the music industry I realize that I’d likely be paying a monthly fee in addition to per-song fee/album fees, and that's ok.

The digital music industry will very likely continue to be fragmented for quite a long time and there’s no doubt that different listeners have different needs that can be met by different services. But I’d bet on the service that is able to flexibly and cost effectively blend ownership, discovery and social into one platform.

Milo

in ,

I wish I had known about Milo when I wrote this post back in April of last year.  Milo's mission from their site:

Milo's mission is to track every product on every shelf of every store in real-time. We see ourselves as building a bridge between online and in-store commerce that empowers the consumer to access the best of both shopping worlds—all in one place.

Basically, with Milo, you can check in-store inventories and find the best in-store prices online.

Bridging the gap between offline shopping (a trillion dollar industry) and the internet is an enormous opportunity that Milo was able to take advantage of.

They started just a few months before I wrote this post, completed their Series A round in November of 2009 and were acquired this month by eBay for $75 million.  Nicely done.

 

Why Chrome will be free

in

Rumor has it that Google's soon to be released OS will be free. I was thinking about why they would give out a very valuable product to users at no cost; surely they could price Microsoft out of some market share without going to zero?

 A couple thoughts:
  • 80% of online ad spending goes to Google
  • The vast majority of ad spend still happens offline
  • Cheaper operating systems will result in cheaper PCs
  • Cheaper PCs will result in more computer/internet use
  • More internet use leads to more attention online
  • More attention online leads to more ad spending online
  • 80% of online ad spending goes to Google
 That's why Chrome will be free; it's an investment that will shift attention online faster than the current pace.

542542...

in ,

542 ...is a service that you can send a text message to that will answer any question you want for $0.99.

I saw the commercial earlier and I had to try it.

I texted, "Who played third base for the Detroit Tigers in 1984?"

They responded with, "Howard Johnson", the right answer, in under a minute.

Then I asked them, "Why doesn't private unemployment insurance exist?"

They responded in 41 minutes with, "Overall there is no private market due to the state benefit. It was set up as a social net for people out of work."

Not the insight I was looking for. But a pretty cool service nonetheless.

My BlackBerry - Part 2

in

Blackberry-logoBack in January I wrote about post about all of the things I use my BlackBerry for and how I believe that handhelds are coming closer and closer to eliminating the need for personal computer use.  It's interesting to watch how this list increases over time.  Here's an updated list.

  • Phone (home and cell)
  • Texting
  • Email (work and personal)
  • Blogging (because the keyboard is so easy to use, I rarely feel the need to write on my laptop anymore)
  • News. I've setup the WSJ.com Reader on the device so I get real time news feeds from all of my favorite news outlets and blogs. I get more news through my BlackBerry than other format.
  • Personal calendar, address book, tasks and notes
  • Alarm clock
  • General web surfing
  • Facebook (I have the application though I rarely use it)
  • Camera
  • Watching video
  • Online radio (through Pandora)
  • Sports Radio (through Flycast)
  • Navigation (Google Maps is a great application when it works)
  • Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009

What's Too Personal?

in

Twitter_logo_header Here's the thing about Twitter and Facebook status updates that's really got me thinking.

Surely there are certain things that one can write but that they'd rather not share with the entire world, in real time. So, when one becomes inclined to 'Tweet" there must always be an assessment, even if subconscious, as to whether or not the musing is something that should be shared with the audience that's following the "Tweeter."

This assessment is of course made harder by the fact that the Tweeter's audience is always evolving, thus the thought required of this assessment increase over time.

Does this seem stressful to anyone else?