Twitter Changes to 'New Twitter' with New Design

Today Twitter changed its old design to new and much loved new design which is being appreciated a lot. Take a look at the hundreds of responses from Twitterverse.


Also take a look at freezed Search.Twitter (Formerly Summize) screenshot for all the responses via tweets which is no less than WoW, Whoa....

It s needless to say that hundreds of responses are being fed per minute about the new design also being dubbed as "New Twitter".

Also check out the trending topics of Search. Twitter which has "New Twitter" as most talked about news (Marked in Red in above picture).

Check out the official Blog of Twitter here to read from the horses mouth about the new changes.

Integrating Friendfeed into Twhirl

This is an awesome new development coming from Chris Brogan via Twitter (link here). Reason why I'm excited about this new development is two fold:

1. I'm a huge fan of Data Aggregation and I feel sites like FriendFeed is just the tip of the iceberg since the future of internet in this age of ageless & countless information and on top of that millions of social tools available to track them makes our life more complex. So data aggregators like FF is sigh of relief since it has not only aggregated data but social tools like Flickr, Twitter, Blogger, digg, StumbleUpon and others in one platform from where we can track everything.

2. I always tried to keep a tab on Friendfeed (FF) but unfortunately always forget to check it out.

So this little bit of information made me quite excited since now I can track FriendFeed & Twitter together from Twhirl (twhirl is a desktop client for the Twitter microblogging platform, powered by Adobe AIR).

Down below is the steps of how to pull FriendFeed in Twhirl account (Source: Mzinga):

If you don't have Twhirl already, you need to start by downloading Adobe Air.

Once you download air and install it, download the beta version of Twhirl from Leo Laporte's site (don't go to Twhirl's site, the latest version they have is only .0.8.5)

Before you install Twhirl, make sure you have your current version of Twhirl closed if you currently use it.

This is the slightly tricky part - open up the new version of Twhirl and click on the logo in the top right-hand corner of the application (it looks like a mini green and white hurricane)

See screenshot below: The key is to select "FriendFeed" as an application option in the bottom left-hand corner:
a) Once you do this, enter your account info in the box just to the right and click the plus sign.
b) Now select your Friendfeed account from the list above.
c) Click "Connect" and this should prompt you for your "remote key" - click on the link below the box if you don't have one and it will pop up a FriendFeed browser window with your key.
d) Copy, cut and paste the key into your Twhirl dialogue box and hit enter.

Thanks again to Chris Brogan & Aaron Strout for sharing this information.

Image Courtesy: Mzinga

Read the official Twhirl release: twhirl 0.8 released - adding friendfeed support

Blog Info: HP Blog Printing Shutdown

This is a part of the mail I got on 9th September, 2008 for one of my widgets on right hand sidebar which helps users to print posts by just clicking it. It seems that now you can't! If you can't read what the mail reads (Screenshot of the mail above), then this is the literature portion:

Following up on our email dated Aug. 15, 2008, this is a reminder that HP Blog Printing will be discontinued on Sept. 15, 2008 and the print dialogue that is invoked when a blog reader clicks on your blog will no longer be active.

In order to ensure that your blog readers are not negatively affected by this change, please follow the step-by-step instructions outlined in the links below to remove HP Blog Printing from your site....

So apparently, today as in 15th September, 2008 is the late date you can avail this useful widget. Gosh, I so wish that they wouldn't shutdown the widget since lot of users like it.

Read more on Launch of this Widget from Mashable.

Tag Cloud of my Blog

Click here to see the bigger picture

I've been trying out a new 'Tag Generator' called Wordle. It selectively picks up the most used word as keyword and it seems I spoke most about Media, Marketing, Technology, Digital Marketing, Online Business, Brand and India mostly in this blog.

So if you're a blogger, then check if your area of interest that gets reflected in your blog. Non-Bloggers too can have fun seeing what their favorite blogs talk mostly about...

Excuse me Mr. Marketer...

...if this is the state of Marketing then "Sex Sells, not Marketing". Or this is the reason that marketing jargon like Market Penetration, Below the Line, Positioning etc seems to be derived straight from it.

Whatever the case is, Marketers, please use this as an example of over-the-top, gratuitous use of sex to sell...(Picture Courtesy: From 5 Blogs Before Lunch)

How Google Won Search War: A marketer's outlook

This Screencast says it all I believe. If it's still being not evidential then let me clear up few things then.

This is the screencast of Google way back in May, 1999 & the Screencast of Yahoo in May, 1999 which I took from Way Back Machine which archives everything in internet from past to present.

Now a quick check of the links above will show 110+ links for Yahoo way back in 1999 whereas Google had none. So food for thought is why did Google win over Yahoo in the search wars? Everyone must have their own reasons but surely I can figure out one. Google anticipated our actions in terms of needs, wants & desires in the most simplistic way. Isn't that how businesses should be run? We overkill it by adding complexity in our marketing messages by re-running those boring, slapstick ads over & over again till customers get bored and start ignoring.

So Friday's thought from my side as a Marketer is: What is the oppurtunity gain/loss between choosing complexity from simplicity for customers? Any thoughts from your side is most welcome.

IAMAI Digital Marketing Conference (Bangalore,2008): Key Insights on the Intersection of Man, Technology & Culture

This post talks about 3rd IAMAI Digital Marketing Conference held at Bangalore. I'll post about the broad implications later in the subsequent post of course but for now enjoy the ride through a list of tweets (Courtesy WatBlog). In between, you will find certain discussions marked green. These are the pointers which I feel makes this blog post's title apt: Key Insights on the Intersection of Man, Technology & Culture. And as usual if you feel like you've anything to say, please comment in the section below to have a discussion.



(I)“ANALOG VS DIGITAL: WHERE TO SPEND MARKETING BUDGETS NOW AND WHY”

Discussions in this section revolved around: Sellers of traditional media tout that media such as broadcast TV allows advertisers unrivaled impact and reach, attributes that become even more valuable as media fragments. Sellers of digital media counter that pinpoint targeting and ever-improving analytics make spending more in digital the right choice. Below is the crux of the discussions:

1. LIVE from #IAMAI: Goggle Ads click-through-rate (CTR) is 16% in India – Mahesh Murty, Managing Director, Pinstorm Technologies (Tweet)

2. LIVE from #IAMAI: Consumer is the new muse for our brand, that should be the approach - Chetan Marwah , Partner & Chief Executive Officer, ISHIR Digital (Tweet)

3. LIVE from #IAMAI: Move from cost per click (CPC) to cost per impact (CPI) to get better deals (Tweet)

4. LIVE from #IAMAI: Jet airways spend 50% of their digital budget in international markets whereas only 10% in India (Tweet)

5. LIVE from #IAMAI: Prediction -TV is going to be primarily digital & we are goin to see the marketer going to ask why was his ad not seen there - Mahesh Murty, Managing Director, Pinstorm Technologies (Tweet)

(II) NEW MEDIA TOOLS

Discussions in this section revolved around: The Internet was just the beginning; these days media planners are faced with a plethora of new digitally-derived media forms from podcasts to blogs, social networking to SMS, all of which need to be evaluated to see if they might meet clients needs. But how to go about it? Our panelists will help you figure that out. Below is the crux of the discussions:

6. LIVE from #IAMAI: In India, YouTube is the 6th most trafficked as per Alexa - Naren Nachiappan, MD, Jivox (Tweet)

7. LIVE from #IAMAI : Video impressions going to surpass search in Q1, 2009 in North America – ComScore (Tweet)

8. LIVE from #IAMAI : Bandwidth barrier in india is surpassed by users by downloading in office and background buffering – Naren Nachiappan, MD, Jivox (Tweet)

9. LIVE from #IAMAI: In 2005 blogs as a search category overtook magazines - Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google (Tweet)

10. LIVE from #IAMAI : Customer doesn’t click on online ads as they dont want to move away from page. Try using gadgets to initiate conversation – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google (Tweet)

11. LIVE #IAMAI : Social Networks should be used to create brand evangelists and not primarily ads placement – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google. (Tweet)

12. LIVE from #IAMAI : In India, Leads from Mobile Search Ads is 3 times better & purer than desktop search leads – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

13. LIVE from #IAMAI: 71% of those who consume mobile internet ads say there perception of brand and recall has increased – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

14. LIVE from #IAMAI : For Google, mobile search queries in India is 10% of desktop queries (Tweet)

15. LIVE from #IAMAI : In US iPhone alone generates 2x the search queries of all other smart phones put together (Tweet)

16. LIVE from #IAMAI : Mobile UI is key to growth of it evolving as a medium – Parminder Singh, Business Head - Technology & Media, Google, (Tweet)

17. LIVE from #IAMAI : Rohini (Citation reqd.) - Intel Online India - Traditionally online treated as bleeding edge and therefore Marketers are wary (Tweet)

18. LIVE from #IAMAI : Rohini (Citation reqd.) - Intel Online India - Our Facebook game statistics: 16000 played, 500 per day talking about it online (Tweet)

(III)“HOW TO FIGHT WEB-WARINESS AND EMERGE AS A WINNER”

Discussions in this section revolved around: Convincing a company to spend more money in digital media is one challenge; to get it to use new media forms to break creative ground is an even bigger one. But there are those who have done it, and on this panel, we’ll hear from them-three gutsy clients who innovated not just in the media they’ve used, but in the work they’ve produced for them. Below is the crux of the discussions:

19. LIVE from #IAMAI : Big TV (Reliance DTH service) generates 50,000 leads online in two days - Tushar Vyas, Chief Marketing Officer, Sure Waves (Tweet)

20. LIVE from #IAMAI : Namrata Sehgal, Senior Manager, Trilogy - Most ads with high decibel on web have less than 1% click through rate (CTR)! We say "No wonder twitter has no ads" (Tweet)

21. LIVE from #IAMAI : Gaurav Gupta, Regional Manager Asia Pacific- Retail Operations, General Motors asks how many brick & mortar are here? Just couples of hands show up in audience! Web Wary are we? (Tweet)
22. LIVE from #IAMAI : General Motors’ 2.5% of all sales in India is through digital channel without any other channel involved for GM. Gaurav Gupta, Regional Manager Asia Pacific- Retail Operations, General Motors - (Tweet)

(IV) THE BLENDED SEARCH REVOLUTION

Discussions in this section revolved around: The first generation of search engines ranked pages based on the content of those pages alone -- the words on the page. The second generation increased relevancy by analyzing links. The third generation, Search 3.0, is upon us now in full force. Today’s search engines automatically blending in results from specialized or "vertical" search engines such as video search or local search. This session looks at the revolutionary change happening with blended search and how search marketers can ride the wave to success. Below is the crux of the discussions:

23. LIVE from #IAMAI : 31% images, 17% videos, 36% news - Clicking percentage on search results in a blended search - Milind Mody, CEO eBrandz (Tweet)

24. LIVE from #IAMAI : Search engines are valued high because they are content finders in context across mediums - Vivek Bhargava, Managing Director, Communicate2 (Tweet)

25. LIVE from #IAMAI : Search has not yet evolved - Narasimha Jayakumar, Business Head – Travel & Local, Google India (Tweet)

(V) TRAFFIC TO WEBSITE AND CONVERSIONS

Discussions in this section revolved around: In the beginning driving traffic was necessary and sufficient, now the dynamics of business has changed driving traffic is important but not sufficient, in the competitive environment with increasing cost per acquisition as marketers there is need for better understanding of website visitors and advertisers look for conversions. This session would look at the importance of digital marketing and maximum potential realization of digital marketing with relevant examples.

26. LIVE from #IAMAI - 'Use of good tracking & analytics software should be a core of ROI. Don’t just use freeware' - Anurag Gupta, Managing Director, DGM India Internet Marketing.

Tweet Courtesy: http://twitter.com/watblog

3 Forces that will affect Marketing forever

This post is random musings from a idle blogger's mind. Early in the morning, lots of things are running in my head. So just wanted to pen down few thoughts. Primarily, the collision of 3 forces has/will change almost everything about Business:

• People (Customers, Clients, Partners)
• Technology (Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Cloud Computing and stuff like that)
• Webonomics

1. People: They are always depended on each other and draw strength from each other (in other terms PEOPLE INFLUENCE PEOPLE).

2. Technology: It has changed everything as far as people’s social interactions are concerned.

3. Webonomics: The economics of the Web i.e. Webonomics which fancies catchy yet profound models like The Long Tail, Freemium etc are redefining the modern day business models.

So if you’ve a brand (and you’ve not involved/participated in conversations), then you are under threat. Your customers have always had an idea about what your brand signifies, an idea that may vary from the image you are projecting. Now they are talking to each other about that idea. They are redefining for themselves what that brand means to them. So your spending of millions & millions of dollars creating that brand is under threat since all these times you never came out of your air-conditioned board room to interact with your customers who now are at all time interacting & influencing each other.

Inspired from the book: Groundswell

Google Chrome, Android, Cloud Computing & My trends

I kick started the year with lot of optimism and hope, especially for the netizens. That’s why I wrote this post on 01-01-2008. Excerpts of that post are down below:

"…On 31st December, 2007 GoogleBlog posted "This year of Google blogging"
which gives a lot of hints about where actually we are heading, not only in tech
space but also about general human psyche. The article contains a small piece on
the posts which captured maximum attention as well as linkbacks from other
bloggers in general. So here what's written in the article...The posts that
elicited the most reaction in terms of views and linkbacks include (courtesy
GoogleBlog):

1) The much-discussed "Gphone" news
2) Our thinking about the upcoming FCC spectrum auction.
3) What the OpenSocial APIs could mean
4) How a black screen might not save energy
5) Announcing the Knol test project
6) Building your own Google homepage

It's very simple to come up with trends for the future. Actually the past always have some clues for the future. So it becomes kind of easy to build upon it. So, looking at the maximum viewed posts, it kind of gave me the key towards the future. The ubiquitous question for every marketer ::What do customers/users want?:: My conclusions from these snippets are based on the point that giving much attention to such posts mean they want to know more about it. So when users want to know more, it becomes apparent for marketers to align their thinking in that direction. So my conclusion would be that "Users need more power, more control & all in all something which is more about THEM i.e. users" which can be in the form of Knol, OpenSocial API's etc.So lets hope 2008 brings optimum coherence between customers/users & marketers.
So, "User Federated Space (UFS)" era is now!!....”

So, come September 2008, it seems we are quite on the track. What interested me in writing this post was the way those developments are taking place. From the above 6 points of my January post, many things get clearer. Though for some, Google is evil & for some Google is God but what Google is can be explained by this small sentence: “they are a freak of a company; the best advertising business ever built is funding the largest collection of mad scientists ever assembled”. Now that's what one of the posts of AVC talks about. Interestingly it also talks about Google’s future trends and how it will shape our lives. Down below is the post:

“…...Google is building a collection of web apps, like gmail, gcal, and google docs, that businesses are increasingly relying on. My personal goal this year is to get our firm completely off of the office suite and into the google suite. As builders of web apps, Google understands that the infrastructure for the deployment and operation of web apps just isn't there yet.

And so they are doing something about it in three important places.

1) They are building a modern browser, Chrome (Point 3 of my trend post above i.e. OpenSocial API's) that resembles an operating system as much as a browser. If you haven't read the Chrome Comic Book, you should do that. It's not that Google wants to build a better version of Internet Explorer or Firefox. They want to build a better environment for running web apps.

2) They are building a mobile operating system, Android (Point 1 of my trend post above i.e. GPhone), which is also designed for running web apps in a mobile environment. I think in time, Google's Android will be to the iPhone what Windows was to the Mac. The iPhone laid out many of the killer mobile device innovations, but it’s a closed device, a closed carrier relationship, and even a closed application store. Android will take all of those good ideas and put them on every device, with every carrier, and in partnership with every app developer. You'd have thought that Apple would have learned the lesson that you can't control the entire ecosystem with the Mac, but they did not.

3) Google is all about the cloud. They have developed all of their apps in what goes for the cloud these days. They've build a great cloud computing platform in App Engine. And they will certainly support other cloud computing environments that emerge. Google's DNA (like Intel's DNA) is about supporting an entire ecosystem. The more web apps that are built, the better Google will do. So they will do anything and everything they can to support the development of a robust cloud computing environment for web apps. It is on this three legged stool (browser, mobile, cloud) that Google's future will be built. And sitting here today, it seems like they are well organized and have a great strategy for doing just that.

Now after 2 random posts (one from my earlier blog & other from AVC), two things becomes quite clear.

1. I was right about the Google’s future trends I covered in January.
2. Secondly, something is more important than me pin pointing the trends. I’m talking about Browser, Mobile & Cloud which is the table stakes for companies to win over potential customers. Now surely Google has identified it but let’s wait and watch who else joins the race so that GooG doesn’t feel too alone.

So what do you think? Where are we heading?

'Yours Truly' featured in AdAge Power 150

This is the 2nd in the 'Yours Truly' series in this blog. This time around, my blog featured in the ADAGE POWER 150 list which showcases the best that there is from the Marketing, Advertising & Media blogs and bloggers from around the world.

From now on, I'll keep the Power 150 widget on the right bar of 'Networks & Affiliations' tab which will keep updating the rank status of this blog.

Apart from the usual excitement on being featured in the much elite list of bloggers, I'm quite aware that this levies more responsiblity on blogging front. Though for the past week or so, posting has reduced due some other engagements but it also shows that I'm quite aware of it. And whenever and wherever possible I'll keep blogging.

Till then, keep coming on if you've missed any previous posts and please comment/criticize/appreciate if you feel like you need to.