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Mark’s Blogs
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Is Foursquare For Real?
According to TechCrunch, Foursquare is now attracting more than one million check-ins/week. It’s certainly a big number but does it really suggest that Foursquare is showing signs of becoming the next Twitter, or to be fair, the next widely-embraced social media tool?
Take look at Foursquare’s traffic over the past [...] Continue Reading…
Does Every Company Need Social Media
I was reading a blog post recently by Valeria Maltoni (aka ConversationAgent) about Apple and its army of customer evangelists who enthusiastically spread the gospel about new products and genius of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Part of Apple’s ability to activate and engage customer evangelists is an aggressive and [...] Continue Reading…
Is Social Media Making Journalists Lazy?
When I was a newspaper reporter, a key part of the job was finding and interviewing sources who could offer information, perspective, insight and, of course, some good quotes. It required legwork and the ability to build relationships and trust with people.
While talking to sources is still an integral [...] Continue Reading…
Much Ado About the Real-Time Web?
I’m doing a presentation this week in Burlington looking at the most interesting technology trends for 2010, and one of the no-brainer items is the real-time Web. The problem, however, is the more time I spend looking at the real-time Web, the more I wonder about why people are [...] Continue Reading…
Head’s Up, Twitter; Google’s Coming!
The blogosphere is abuzz about Google’s plans to integrate a “Twitter-Killer” into GMail – and there are already people such as Robert Scoble boldly suggesting it’s not going to happen.
Twitter is the dominant micro-blogging service, having forced Pownce (remember them?) to go away while a score of such as StatusNet and Plurk quietly toil away in the background. Meanwhile, Google’s first stab at the market, Jaiku, was a dismal failure.
That said, anyone who dismisses Google’s chances of posing a threat Twitter would be making a mistake. Here’s a few reasons:
1. Despite Twitters’ large user base – 50 million or so around the world – it’s growth appears to be slowing, particularly in the U.S. where it has been flat in recent months. This may suggest that Twitter as a standalone service has reached a saturation point.
2. GMail’s popularity provides Google with a huge potential market to launch a Twitter-Killer. GMail users are already are used to having conversations using GTalk so adding another feature is not coming out of left field.
3. GMail is also a excellent demonstration of how Google has bene able to break into new markets. At the time, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail dominated the landscape, so GMail received a tepid response. Today, it’s one of the most popular e-mail services.
The keys for Google’s Twitter-Killer will be how well it is integrated into GMail, and the features it offers given Twitter’s weak spot is the fact it continues to be a no-frills service.