Just saw this ad for AT&T, where the odd man out gets a memo late because he doesn’t have AT&T. But I noticed the phone he uses (which receives the memo much later than everyone else) at :19 is actually an iPhone 3G with a sticker over the home button. As we all know, iPhones are currently exclusive to AT&T, thus making the message of this ad that those with iPhones will be “left behind”
Good job AT&T, this is a fail in so many different ways.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but thanks to the holiday season I’ve actually been really busy (with some help from COD: Black Ops and WoW: Cataclysm) but I just wanted to drop by real quick and mention this interesting piece from AddThis that I saw on Mashable today.
Interesting enough, Facebook is still growing and in 2010 grew faster than it did in 2009 (I blame it on the older generations that are trying to be cool). But interesting enough Email is still beating out Facebook. Obviously a big factor in Facebook’s attempt at Facebook Messages, which will integrate email, FB Msgs and Texts all into one inbox. Personally I would have thought Twitter would have seen higher growth rates but I guess not. I still have high hopes for higher growth in the future and hope they haven’t topped off yet. I was surprised to see Myspace and Friendster still in consideration. Who knew they still existed.
Anyway, just a quick update as I thought this was really interesting and definitely something businesses should continue to look into. Clearly Facebook isn’t going anywhere and if it does, there’s plenty in the line up to replace it. Social Media should definitely not be taken lightly as we can see it’s growth here.
I should definitely be back on a more regular blogging schedule after the new year, as I have some big changes I want to make and some new ideas I’m going to try out. Stay Tuned.
Real quick before bed, Mashable released this great video tutorial just going over Twitter’s Advanced Search function. As an alternative to Google, Twitter’s advanced search allows the user to search for “personality” rather than “popularity”.
Google recently released its Zeitgeist report for 2010, which highlights the most popular search queries on Google for this past year. Mashable shares some great insite into what we found most intriging in the world in 2010 and what we looked up on Google throughout the year:
“The search giant analyzed billions of searches performed in 2010 and compared them with searches from 2009 to surface emerging trends. Chatroulette, the iPad and Justin Bieber were the three fastest-rising search terms in 2010; Twitterand Facebook also made the list, at numbers eight and 10, respectively.
Among the items of interest that lost the world’s attention in 2010 were swine flu, Stephanie Meyer’s novel (and the accompanying movie) Twilight: New Moon, Susan Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire, “MySpace layouts” and Michael Jackson.
The iPad was the emergent search winner in the consumer electronics category, followed by the iPhone 4,Nokia 5530, HTC EVO 4G and Nokia N900.
In terms of news searches, Haiti proved the most popular, followed by Turkish sports club Besiktas, Chile, “earthquake,” Lady Gaga and the iPhone 4. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill ranked 10th.”
Here’s the video that Google released, recapping our favorite search topics for 2010:
The big story this week in social media was Google’s attempt to buy group discount company Groupon for 6 BILLION dollars. To which Groupon said “No Thanks” yesterday. Many might think this was a crazy decision on Groupon’s part (6 billion dollars is A LOTTTTT of money) but it might make a little sense. Groupon is the fastest growing company of its kind, leaping light years ahead of it’s nearest competitor, LivingSocial. They’ve absolutely exploded onto the scene and pretty much took the discount market by storm in a very, very quick fashion. To be honest I don’t think Groupon is going to slow their growth much at all in the near future.
I think the main reason that Google wanted to buy Groupon was because Groupon offered something very specific that Google was never able to accomplish. We all know Google to be this huge mega company that does everything on a huge scale. what Google lacks is local advertising distribution. Groupon (and any other group discount company) will have a much superior grasp on local advertising. The 6 billion dollar acquisition of Groupon would have made Google billions on top of what they already make. But Groupon knows that they can make it themselves, at least for the time being.
Regardless this is a pretty new area of social media that definitely isn’t fully saturated yet. But with only a few companies in the ring and with Groupon dominating the competition, it makes me wonder just how big this business can be.
If you don’t know what Groupon is, or how it works, here’s a couple videos:
Ninja Plug 