ImpactWatch Blog

In more “no one’s shocked” news, the Nielson Company released reports yesterday stating that Google was on the top of the search engine rankings for December 2009, as it has been for many a month.  What’s interesting about this most recent release is that Google saw an increase in its share nearly equal to the drop experienced by main rivals Yahoo! and Bing.

In November 2009, Google had 65.4% of the share, meaning that the company has gained almost two whole percentage points of the overall search market.  Yahoo! and Microsoft are going to have use their new deal on the offensive if they don’t want to continue losing the market.  I personally love the notion to name the combined search engine “Bing-hoo!”.

In other news, our parent company’s blog reported yesterday about the text campaign for Haiti relief.  According to the official American Red Cross Twitter account, texters have donated over $3 million in aid.  That’s an amazing combination of compassion and technology!  As they said, keep it up!

I discovered (AKA fell in love with) Vimeo about a year ago (despite the site existing months before YouTube).  Like many other casual Internet users, I didn’t know that something existed for uploaded videos more than YouTube and perhaps ZShare.  Like other video sites, Vimeo allows users to sign up for an account and upload videos for online storing, viewing, and sharing.

In 2007, Vimeo became the first video sharing site to support HD video, allowing regular users to upload one HD movie per week.  In 2008, Vimeo went through more changes, the biggest of which occurred in July 2008 when Vimeo announced that they would no longer allow gaming videos on the site due to their lengthy nature which resulted in longer wait times for user uploads.  Vimeo has already differentiated itself by allowing only videos created by the user and disallowing anything commercial or that could be considered pornographic.

The main way Vimeo differs from other sites comes down to attitude.  As Martin Paling said, Vimeo “doesn’t suffer from some of the idiots [on YouTube]”.  Vimeo’s main goal is to foster a community of filmmakers who can critique and discover videos.  Below is an incredible time-lapse video that I found while exploring the Staff Picks section.

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Some other advantages of Vimeo include support for MOD files, unlimited movie length, HD support, and a very clean look to the site.  A very thorough comparison of most of the available current video sharing sites can be found here.  Vimeo goes the Twitter-design route be making the interface clean and bright with large buttons and menus.  A user would be hard pressed to get confused with the navigation.  I also generally prefer the way that stats like likes, comments, and other metrics are displayed.  Check out this example screenshot.

Should you switch over to Vimeo?  The answer depends on what you want to do with online movies.  If you want them to be seen by more people and they’re mostly unedited videos of you and your friends, I’d stick with YouTube.  But if you are editing things that can be considered “films” in some way, shape, or form, go with Vimeo.  In short, YouTube is the popular little brother with the high-paying job, but Vimeo is the older art school bro whose parents secretly prefer at Thanksgiving.

comScore says ‘yes’!  In a recent press release, the company released information and data about holiday e-spending in an attempt to show that social media and online purchasing is on the rise.  Earth-shattering news? No.  But interesting nonetheless.

Below is a chart of the various social media channels that respondents to their survey claimed they had used when gift researching this year.

I find it interesting that user reviews influenced purchases more than expert reviews.  Consumers obviously value recommendations from others, but the expertise level of the source doesn’t matter quite as much.  Also, don’t the numbers for Twitter seem kinda…low?  I would have expected the amount of those following a company and those influenced by a friend’s tweet to be at least a combined 10%.

The release also contains a graph showing the amount of online purchases by week leading up to New Year’s Day.  The recession doesn’t seem to be affecting online holiday shopping for 2009, although this may be due to consumers hoping that the Internet will provide them with better deals than stores.  The week beginning with Cyber Monday (November 30th) sees a huge jump in online spending, although as this Focus article explains, Cyber Monday is never the biggest online shopping day of the year.  It typically begins about a week or two later, though still on a Monday.

To show off the fantastic features of ImpactWatch (IW), we consistently run a demo highlighting a particular news topic, similar to how our clients track mentions of their brand or industry.  For the past several months, we’ve been running a demo on New Energy.  This includes everything from wind power to biofuel, and includes key stakeholders and various messages.  For this summary, I drew metrics from June 1, 2009 to August 31, 2009.  I also drew some comparisons with the previous three month period.

It’s about time for a new demo, so I created a report using the various graphing and reporting features which are fully customizable on IW.  I found out some interesting things about the various new energy sources by looking at the articles brought in from over 5300 online sources.  Make sure you click on the graphs to see them in full high-res.

Comparing the various “competitors” was interesting.  Wind Power was always on the top of the heap, but seemed especially high during the month of July.  Delving deeper into the articles which made up that month showed that criticisms of wind energy, a ban on the use in North Carolina, and home tips for wind energy resulted in the increased coverage.

Week-by-week, Water Power was consistently the second-lowest competitor with the exception of the week ending in the 24^th of August.  This week had a lot of news on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announcing an agreement with the state of Maine to coordinate schedules and procedures for the review of new tidal energy projects off the coast.  By the next week, this coverage had decreased and Water was back in its normal position among the competitors.

The stakeholders were of particular interest.  Within ImpactWatch, once a graph is created you can click on the segments to view the articles which made up that particular piece of the pie.  I delved deeper to find out why some politicians were in so many articles.  The reader should note that this graph does not include Barack Obama (though we were tracking him) due to the fact that his mentions represented over 70% of the graph when included.

Al Gore’s prominent number-one spot should be no surprise as he is known for his outspoken activism for clean energy and the environment.   Sarah Palin mentions are a mix between statements from her on new energy and criticisms of her plans.  Joe Biden is mostly mentioned in the context of current environmental plans and his opinion on them.

A supermajority of the articles contained messages about politics or development of the new energy sources.  When comparing the message pickup from the previous three months to the time period shown in the graph, articles containing global warming mentions were down over 5%.  This 5% was almost completely taken over by articles about politics while the percentage of articles about development stayed nearly the exact same (42.2% –> 43.2%).

This sample report shows off some of the great features of ImpactWatch.  Not only is it a platform for storing reports for an indefinite length of time, but it’s incredibly easy to use the system to pin-point the reasons behind fluctuations in coverage for a variety of messages.  Contact us for a walkthrough of the more advanced functions that IW can provide, including social media monitoring, advanced graphs, and more.

I absolutely love movies; I probably go see every single one that comes out in theaters (and yes, that includes such gems as Stepfather).  I was excited to see a Twitter application come out that proposed the idea that it could tally a movie review total from tweets.  It’s called TwitCritics.

We already have plenty of websites and blogs dedicated to movie reviews, so why use this?  Well, I like to think that most Twitter users would immediately tweet about whether or not they liked a movie they just saw.  Think of this not so much a review summary, but a ‘first impression’ summary.  The system searches for tweets that include a movie title, and then assigns a tonality based on the content of the tweet.  A handy ‘mistake’ button is present under each individual tweet to ensure that users can report a faulty rating.

Does it work?  Not completely.  Its success is on a movie-by-movie basis.  Some films that have unique names such as The Men Who Stare at Goats and the tweets for that film are easily recognizable.  Other films such as Fame suffer the issue of having a common word for its title.

Most of the tweets were not actually about the movie but were still rated in the system and part of the film’s overall tonality.  Often, tweets about an actual film were still not rated correctly.  A prime example is below:

Currently, the system doesn’t seem to account for popular acronyms for longer movie titles (such as TMWSAG).

The website is still in its infancy with the Beta only about a month old.  Hopefully, they will find a way to work some of the kinks out.  It doesn’t really subsist as a standalone product, but I could easily see something like this incorporated into a more robust site like Rotten Tomatoes.

The Royal British Legion is trying to appeal to the young generation (nicknamed the “Afghanistan Generation”) this year by promoting their Remembrance Day poppy campaign through social networks such as Twitter.  With a hefty donation goal of £31.5 million, the Legion hopes that by reaching out online they will be able to target the younger demographic.

They also have an iPhone poppy application, an online social hub (http://legionlive.org.uk/), and heavily encourage soldiers to use Twitter to stay in touch with their loved ones.

The Two Minutes of Silence is a way for people to wear a ‘virtual poppy’.  On November 11, at 11AM, the Legion asks users to refrain from tweeting for two solid minutes.  It’s an interesting approach to the campaign, similar to the Earth Day campaign to go without electricity for an hour.  They are hoping that people will help spread the word beforehand with the simple #2minutesilence hashtag.  I certainly bet that two minutes of no activity on Twitter would be noticeable.

Another timely way Twitter is used to inform the masses is by simple one-shot accounts aimed at specific news items.  Statesman.com created a Twitter account to follow the tragic Foot Hood shooting that occurred recently.  They also created a list to capture all the national attention the shootings were garnering.  This kept families and loved ones informed of what was happening with hourly information and up-to-date news.

Personally, I think it’s wonderful to see these two recent examples of Twitter used to have a positive impact and keep people informed of important issues.  It bolsters my opinion of the platform quite a bit after realizing last week that the most followed and listed people were nearly all celebrities.

Twitter recently opened up a new feature for Twitter users: the ability to lump users into ‘lists’.  Users can then add or delete their friends from these lists as they see fit.  Following a thousand users, but only want to see your 15 close friends’ tweets?  Done.  Just create a list of them (may I suggest the title ‘bffs4ever’?), and then view that list within your account.  AS of now, more than 50% of users have access to lists, and a full rollout is imminent.

Another positive feature of lists, as noted by TechCrunch, is that new users can follow a well-created list to get them started on the platform.  A potential downside, suggested by eWeek, is that lists may tarnish the open feeling of communication that Twitter champions.  Will users start looking at their lists after they login instead of their whole buffet of tweets?  We’ll have to wait to see the fallout.

One interesting question that popped into my head was whether the most-followed Twitter users would also be the most-listed.  At this point, the same celebrities and organizations are going to stay on their high follower pedestals, but now there’s a new metric in town.  Some of the popular kids may lose their lunch table and have to eat in the phone booth (schools still have those, right?).

Twitterholic.com provided me with a cohesive list of the most-followed Tweeps.  I went through each of the Top 50 accounts in order to get an updated amount of followers as well as the new listed metric.  Before looking, I assumed that the rankings would be nearly the same.  I was very wrong. (Please note that I ranked the 50 most-followed people against only the other most-followed.  The data does not represent a list of the 50 most-listed, at large.)

I uploaded a full spreadsheet of the data below, so check that out, and I’ll note the highlights.  Apparently there’s a big difference in being followed and listed in a Twitter list (‘Twist’?).  Taking a peek at the actual people, they are all very recognizable (except for Lily Rose Allen, who I had to Wiki-stalk even after reading her tweets).  Why would there be a difference in their rankings?

Taking a look at the actual tweets provides some clues.  The people that have a higher listed ranking than followed ranking provide frequently (but not too frequently) updated tweets that are well written and either witty, news-worthy, or interesting.  People who don’t provide good content have a much lower listed ranking as compared to their followed ranking (Looking at you, Kim Kardashian).

Users aren’t going to un-follow people often after they have started to follow them, but Twists are a different beast.  Those can change at a whim and other users would have no control over them.  Also, when they are being created, only those Twitter users that have provided good tweets in the past are likely to be thought of.  Think of the amount of followers one has as the kind of popularity a HS cheerleader has, and the amount of lists one is on as the popularity one has in college with closer friends and colleagues.

Top 5 Users by Followers

Ashton Kutcher

Britney Spears

Ellen DeGeneres

CNN Breaking News

Twitter

Top 5 Users by Times Listed

Barack Obama

Pete Cashmore (you know, the Mashable guy)

CNN Breaking News

Ellen DeGeneres

Taylor Swift (though Kanye rarely lets her finish her tweets)

Felicia Day and Pete Cashmore are the two users listed in a far bigger proportion to their followers (both ranking 29 places higher) while the biggest drops from followers to lists were 50cent (down 23 spots) and Kim Kardashian (down 22 spots).

Of course, lists are still very new so this could change as more users have access to them and begin using them.  Let’s hope lists do their jobs of making Twitter slightly more organized and perhaps spurring better content from some important users.

50 Most Followed and Listed Twitter Users

Two days ago, Bing announced that they were partnering with both Twitter and Facebook to provide extensive search capabilities for their users.  In simple terms, the searches would mine for keywords entered by the user for all the ‘public’ posts on Twitter and Facebook.  According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life Project, at least 19% of users post and read status updates.  This searching power could prove very useful to those 19% and perhaps cause more users to use status updates.

On October 21^st, when the announcement was first made, well over 1500 tweets were linking to various articles about the announcement.  Most Twitter users seemed more surprised than anything else.  Nearly all of the tweets were a simple headline and URL link.  On October 22^nd, the number of tweets about Bing and its inclusion of social media search were down to approximately 1350 tweets.  As of the writing of this post, October 23^rd tweets on the topic are around 250.

In contrast, Google partnered with less and garnered more attention than its competitor.  There have been over 1500 tweets every day since the announcement on the topic of Google’s deal with Twitter.  Bing may have prepped the user base for Google’s announcement by letting the public know only hours before Google did.

The vast majority of the tweets were simply passing along the information in the form of links and headlines.  Approximately 20 tweets were negative, fearing privacy issues, especially with Facebook.  Below is one such example.

Social networking users have some reason to be concerned about privacy.  After all, Jeremiah Owyang makes a very good point that Facebook is going to have to make more content public in order to compete as these two search engines wage war.  Jared Newman expresses eight big concerns about the process; my favorite of which is how Bing and Google will filter out this information in searches for people who don’t care about social media.  Most of the time, I probably won’t care what the Twitter-world is saying about the topic I want.  I can see that being easily the most frustrating thing to filter out.

Overall, it’s no surprise that these search features would eventually come to light.  Twitter user-ship has increased by over 700% in the past year.   With more celebs and non-celebs picking up the habit, most ways to search for them were inevitable.

As a sidenote, people forget that Google and Bing aren’t the only search games in town.  18 other useful (and in many cases, MORE useful) search engines are listed in this fantastic article.

One of the most universally used features on Facebook is the status update.  Status updates let me know everything from what my friends had for dinner (NOTE: I normally do not care what you had for dinner) to legitimate life announcements.   Users are updating them in greater frequency as well.  The current statistics on the Facebook press room page count 40 million user status updates a day, up from 20 million in April, 15 million in February, and 13 million in December 2008, according to Digital Beat.  Of course, the exponential increase is certainly due, in part, to the inclusion of the app to allow tweets to be Facebook status updates.

While most status updates are little more than time-wasters on the bus ride home, several have made national headlines.  Let’s look at a couple:

The Trapped Girls – Two adolescent girls were trapped in a drain for hours.  Rather than call 911, they updated their Facebook status about the situation.  A friend noticed the update, contacted the authorities, and the girls were saved.  Oddly, they could have easily called 911…seeing as how they used their smartphone to update their status.

Status: Robbed – According to a report by Belinda Goldsmith, many users post their holiday plans on Facebook, including times that they are not at their residence.  Being that it’s incredibly easy for criminals to target people using social media, Goldsmith likes to call it “Internet shopping for burglars”.  Might I suggest “iBurgle” for that Web 2.0-y flair?

Diamonds are Temporary – In September 2009, a robber broke into a house, pocketing a couple of diamond rings.  Before he left, he checked his Facebook page…and forgot to log out.  Police followed the trail of the obsessed social networker all the way to the big house.

Updates from my Vaca! – Criminals should really just not use Facebook.  This week, police followed the trail of Maxi Sopo through Cancun after he commited bank fraud.  They got a break in the case when they realized that one of his Facebook friends worked for the Justice Department.

The Pursuit of (Virtual) Happiness – Recently, Facebook introduced a Happiness Index.  Working with psychologists and users, the social network created a list of happy and sad words. The list of positive words includes “happy,” “yay” and “awesome,” while negative words include “sad,” “doubt” and “tragic.”  This really isn’t news, but it’s certainly creepy.

Since Facebook status messages can now save kids, catch criminals, and rate intangible concepts, it’s not long before they get a full-blown book deal.

I’ve talked to several people who ‘de-friend’ or ignore colleagues who updates their status too often.  Do most people feel this way, or our those annoyed by it in the minority?  I personally subscribe to the “once-a-day but no more than three-times-a-day” school of thought.

In “someone finally did this” news, Laura Fitton, author of Twitter for Dummies, recently launched a directory for currently available Twitter apps known as OneForty.  Fitton, whose career pretty much hinges on Twitter, is attempting to fill the gap where a formal Twitter app store might fall.

I like the site’s motto:

Twitter is confusing.
What’s the value? How do you start?
Apps make Twitter better. Find yours!

It’s true.  Twitter still confuses people, users still aren’t sure of the value, and there’s still got to be a way to make it better.  While the site still has a long way to go (at launch it listed only 1200 of an estimated 4000 apps), the idea is a good one, and I can’t wait to start messing around with it.

[Original story from the LA Times]