The social media war: Face facts 14/04/2010
ONLY 12 months ago MySpace was still seeing its traffic grow; now it is plummeting.
Less than two years ago, AOL paid a reported $850m in cash for Bebo, and is are now seriously talking about closing the service.
In 2006 ITV paid £175m for Friend Reunited. Last month they sold it for circa £20m.
Blog platforms like Digg and StumbleUpon, once the darlings of the sector, are now fighting for their very survival and having to fundamentally change their business models to give themselves a chance of being around in a year's time.
This task could become even larger when huge sites like the BBC update their social integration points. When this happens I can see that these two, along with Reddit and maybe even Delicious, will lose their current and very valuable positioning as the mighty Facebook and less mighty, but current media darling, Twitter take over.
Speaking of Twitter, its announcement this week that it has bought third party Twitter App Tweetie was a kick in the teeth for the many independent Twitter App companies out there - but did they really think that Twitter wouldn’t do this even though one third of Twitter users access the service primarily via third party apps?
On top of this, the Twitter advertising platform launched by TweetUp was gazumped the very next day when Twitter announced its own service.
Unless TweetUp offers a far superior offering it will surely only be a matter of time before it burns through its funding and disappears.
I’m not actually 100% convinced by Twitter’s own long term chances, however. Who is to say that they won’t crash and burn in a year or so? After all, they’ve yet to break through into the mainstream despite all the celebrity backing.
The one platform I believe that is definitely here to say is Facebook.
To me, it’s a social phenomenon and has cleverly decided that integration of its service outside of the Facebook.com domain is the key for growth, longevity and ubiquity.
It is still seeing month on month growth, which is amazing considering it already has 420m monthly unique visitors.
It also has a massive advantage over companies like Yahoo and MSN, as it is all built on one common platform, and therefore faces none of the huge integration issues that those businesses face as they try and integrate the various companies they have purchased to try and broaden their reach and relevance.
If I were a (online) betting man, its where I’d put my money.
For more on social media, click the tag below or read Matt Nash's Social Media -
what you're doing wrong blog post.
Thoughts? EGR welcomes pitches for blog posts of 300-400 words on topical issues in egaming. Email deputy editor Stephen Carter for details.
Posted: 14/04/2010
User comments
Stephen
Interesting Matt. Local search and the ads platform launched this week will be the make or break for Twitter (in my opinion).
Jorge
Personally, I would love to see some numbers which prove success in chasing the community platforms. Does anyone publish any numbers that conclusively show an increase in ROI from investing in Twitter, Facebook, et.al.?
SEO is another on of my pickings. No conclusive numbers published anywhere that prove that SEO is a must have for a gambling company. At least nothing I have seen. Though I'd rather put money into SEO than Facebook or Twitter any time.
It would certainly be interesting to see more figures.
Stephen
So Jorge, you are putting money into SEO without results but not social media? Interesting.
Show me your Customer Service centre, email broadcaster or telephony solution ROI and I'll publish my Social Media stats!
Facebook is not just there to make you money, but a tool to assist you in communicating and gaining invaluable knowledge about your customer base.
Jorge
Hi Stephen,
Nope, no money into SEO. Sorry. Also, not particularly asking anyone to lift their skirts and show me their numbers. I am though, attempting to bring light to the fact that none of these applications are the holy grail to traffic or an increase in ROI.
You mentioned the Customer Service Center, and this is where I believe the real money is made. Customer loyalty is won everyday by the treatment clients receive. I have seen enough blunders in customer service which ultimately cost companies more than they can recoup on any type of marketing.
I am most certainly not against using new marketing techniques and social sites are not on my hit list. And maybe, the attempts I have seen are not u to par to what is needed for success. But until I see a promising return, I'm sticking to other mehtods.
@casino
You never know which business model is going to crash and burn. It would take something extraordinary for this to happen to Twitter though.
Use[d]R
I must say that I agree with Jorge in the most of the blog statements. I have an account on MySpace, Digg...and Facebook.... Guess which one i regularly check.
BUT I am a consumer of services. For instance, I started paying real money for Facebook poker once I got my hands on Paysafecards, that asks no questions, just fills the chips. And I see more and more people joining that network everyday, doing the same thing. I don't think any other social structure could stand the fight against this giant.
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Calvin
I think you are very very wrong if you think that Twitter is going to crash and burn.
If you would have said that they were to be aquired for 1 billion+ howver, I'd and many other experts would agree with you.
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