Google and Facebook are on a bid to acquire Waze, another high valued acquisition in the industry

There is much high anticipation in the social media industry that Google and Facebook are in a race of acquiring Waze, a popular mobile mapping application based in Israel

Google finally buys Waze'

The anticipation was so high regarding the acquisition of Waze. Facebook and Google both were on the race of buying Waze.Finally its Google who becomes the winner in the tempted race.;

Google+ grows to become 2nd largest social platform globally

Once criticized as the ghost town by large portion of media. More than 300 million users must nullify that statement by now. So Google+ despite being branded a failure or ghost town, grew in terms of active usage by 27% to 343m users to become the number 2 social platform.

Google finally buys Waze

The anticipation was so high regarding the acquisition of Waze. Facebook & Google both were on the race of buying Waze. 
Finally its Google who becomes the winner in the tempted race. 
Google has purchased Waze, the company that makes the popular social traffic app, but did not disclose terms of the deal.
Google confirmed the purchase in a blog post on Tuesday: "The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities."
As the industry follower, to me its the Google Map that has pushed away Facebook from the competition. Though the deal is not yet revealed by any of the parties, but our assumption says it not less than $ 1 billion .With the help of the traffic update features of Waze, Google Map will definitely bring something very out  of the box for the social map users. 
Courtesy: Mashable.com

Google+ grows to become 2nd largest social platform globally

Google+ has taken some exemplary moves over last few months which have helped transforming the stage for it by becoming the number two in recently published ranking by globalwebindex.


Once criticized as the ghost town by large portion of media. More than 300 million users must nullify that statement by now. So Google+ despite being branded a failure or ghost town, grew in terms of active usage by 27% to 343m users to become the number 2 social platform.  

And Youtube , another mega service by Google is at number 3. Youtube is now showing the immense opportunity of linking Google’s services through the Google+ social layer. This is how, Google+ integrated with so many Google products which can define the future of search and the internet.
Business persons & general users used to think of Twitter & Facebook are the two best social network to promote business.  Probably it were true till Q4 2012 when Google+ was in number 3 and Twitter & Facebook toping the list with number 1 & number 2 positions respectively. So bottom line is business person, digital marketer or be it general user, Google + is a must considerable one for the time being.
One may not get 100 comments on Google+ but the quality of them will be superior and more in depth that some of the inconsequential stuff one will get on Facebook, for example.
So to me it’s time we give importance to Google+ in order to help our business and drive traffic and quality interactions.

Here is how to get started with Google+



David Karp: Why I Sold Tumblr

In an interview Thursday with Charlie Rose, Tumblr founder David Karp opened up about the $ 1.1 billion acquisition everyone’s talking about. 



Inc. users have been getting to know David Karp since Tumblr burst on the scene a few years ago: His prodigious worth ethic; his favorite Tumblr; and even his modeling career. Now that he has sold Tumblr to Yahoo, his is in demand everywhere. On Thursday, he sat down with Bloomberg TV's Charlie Rose Thursday night to discuss Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition, why he dropped out of high school, and how he plans to preserve Tumblr's authenticity.

Here are some of the highlights.

On how Tumblr got involved with Yahoo in the first place: 
"We started conversations about working with Yahoo in November of last year. After a few months, we knew there was a lot we were going to be doing together, regardless. We knew we were going to be working together. That's when Marissa [Mayer] showed up in New York and started to walk me through a story of how we could do even more together."


Why Yahoo is a good fit for Tumblr:
"[Yahoo] was a company with a legacy doing exactly the same kind of stuff we're hinging our business on--creative brand advertising. They were the original digital media company. They took a different approach to media. They approached media as an editorial team that created content and built creative brand advertising on top of that content. That's a big part of the future of Tumblr's business. That's something they've built out technology for and something they have advertiser relationships around and something they have a whole big honking salesforce for. What Marissa showed me and what their team showed us was an opportunity for Yahoo to help us fuel in a huge way the development of that network and the development of our ad business."


Tumblr's introduction of ads:
"It's very native advertising. The advertisements fit into spots where we already promote content. We already promote the best of Tumblr and use that as a place for people to discover things they wouldn't have seen otherwise. We'll roll in advertisements into those spots where we promote organic content."


Why it was the right time to sell:
"I was not expecting to sell the company this year, certainly wasn't looking to sell the company. This was a really, really remarkable opportunity that presented itself. This was an unbelievable opportunity to shortcut a lot of the very hard things that we're about to be going through."


Why he dropped out of high school:
"[Computer programming] wasn't in academia, and that was really the reason for me to drop out of school. It wasn't, 'Screw this.' It wasn't that I was bored. It wasn't that my friends were so lame. I was really enjoying school, but back in 1997 and 2000, when I was in high school, there wasn't computer science education in high schools in New York."



On the future of Tumblr:
"Hopefully we get this right, and Tumblr will be home to the most aspiring and talented creators all over the world. That's something we've already started to do. Regular people in the world, right now, they spend a huge amount of time in front of their televisions consuming premium content, some would call it, stuff produced by publishers, networks, studios. If we're not already there today, certainly five years from now, I expect the vast majority of the content we enjoy not to be produced only by a handful of creators who are selected and supported by those big studios."

Courtesy: www.inc.com

Google & Facebook are on a bid to acquire Waze, another high valued acquisition in the industry.

The buzz of the hot high valued acquisition of Tumblr is not yet over fully and another buzz has started spreading like viral move. 


There is much high anticipation in the social media industry that Google & Facebook are in a race of acquiring Waze, a popular mobile mapping application based in Israel.

According to Mashable, Waze has been in talk for a possible
acquisition with Google & Facebook for as much as $ 1 billion. Besides, it is confirmed by the relevant stakeholders that Waze may look for an acquisition price of more than $1 billion. Google and Facebook are both reportedly interested in the social navigation app. Earlier this year, Apple was said to be interested in owning Waze  for a similar price. 


Google & Facebook are yet to decide and close the deal. On the other hand , Waze is trying to ignite a biding war to drive up the price. Sources think, if Waze does not get desired price, it may back off the deal talks and use media to leverage more venture funding.

Its not hard to comment why these two giants – Facebook & Google are getting crazy to have this deal in their favor. Both these network are competing each other over their dominance on mapping service.  

Few facts about Waze:
  • Founded - in 2007
  • Founder -  Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, Uri Levine,
  • CEO - Noam Bardin
  • 40 million registered users
  • Headquartered in Israel



Brief on Waze:
Waze is like Apple Maps or Google Maps in that it lays out directions for drivers on a street grid. It also has voice navigation. In addition to providing users with directions, it lets users scan real-time traffic information provided by other Waze users who are driving on the same roads.

A Waze driver a few miles ahead of you, for example, could report an accident and that cars aren't moving. Another might tell you where a cop is hiding around the bend. 

Though there have some weaker points of Waze, still as the big players are in a battle of acquiring it, there must have some positive things that override the negative parts whatsoever. 

Photo Credi: Allthingsd.com, Google.com, Waze.com

Ashton Kutcher: 'I Don't Think Anyone Has Mastered Mobile'




“it’s going to be hard for Facebook to master mobile because Facebook is a bit closed, and Facebook has to focus on a lot of things,



Says actor and prominent startup investor Aston Kutcher who took the stage at CTIA Thursday (23rd May'13) to talk about mobile, and specifically mobile apps.



Photo Credit: Mashable.com


Courtesy: Mashable.com

7 top most reasons behind Tumblr acquisition by Yahoo!


In last couple of days, there is so much noise in the virtual world regarding Yahoo’s $ 1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr.



So many anticipations are there in order to dig down the inner
reasons of this much valued acquisition. Here are 7 reasons that played the role in favor Marissa, CEO of Yahoo for taking this bold & big step: 


1. Crack ever growing prospect of mobile internet: Its evident that the use of the internet is growing versus desktop and laptop computer use. According to the experts - mobile use of the internet will take over land use of the internet by early 2014. Yahoo is yet to create any sustainable foot print in this medium. On the other hand, Tumblr having 15 billion page views a month, is expected to have most of the traffic from mobile in coming year. So acquiring this high potential micro blogging site would definitely give break through to Yahoo to crack the mobile internet effectively.

2. A wake up call for Yahoo to be social with billion users: Google , Facebook , Twitter etc are ruling the world wide web with upgraded social networking components which is highly the requirement of the time. And Yahoo has not been able to react in this segment positively for so long. As a result, when other search engines like Google is spreading its net with updated social network initiatives, Yahoo is loosing the race. Good thing is Marissa has got it right and to come along in the race, this kind of bang on acquisition is highly required to come back to the track. 

3.Yahoo can’t stay back this time as appeal of micro blogging is climbing high: According to the industry experts, people are becoming more inclined towards micro blogging concept which was initially started by Twitter. But this micro blogging concept has been redefined  by Tumblr with its most creative contents which ensure higher level of visibility. Yahoo can’t afford to allow free ride to the biggies. 

4. Leverage mobile advertise of Tumblr: The move allows Yahoo to take advantage of the rapidly growing mobile advertising. As Tumblr’s mobile advertising market is expected to increase by 65% to $2.1 billion in the U.S. alone this year. And its mobile viewership is growing even more quickly, quadrupling in the last six months, according to the company. According to Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp, mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic by early 2014 at the latest. Thus Yahoo will rip the full benefit.

5. Glorify the image to the teenagers: Yahoo is ready to build its “cool” image to the teenagers giving big time comfort to the advertisers. Given its aging audience is Yahoo's biggest problem with advertisers right now, the hunt for cool companies is high on Mayer's agenda. Thus Tumblr becomes as an attractive acquisition as it has so much credibility among this audience that Yahoo is seeking -- this 18-to-24 sweet spot who fall under the hot target group for most of the advertisers.

6. Great showcase of learning from mistakes by Yahoo: Yahoo has showcased an exemplary move by learning from mistakes that eventually will build confidence of the shareholders. Monotonous facbooking experience requires change to the teenagers which micro blogging can do right away. For example, with its innovative inclusion of live image in Gif format, Tumblr has taken big step of removing the monotony. What else can be better example than this for Yahoo for reacting timely.

7. Capitalize the potential of enhanced visitors: Tumblr users spend an average of 14 minutes per visit, Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp revealed on stage at a paid Content conference in New York City in April’13. That's about a minute-and-a-half longer than the average Facebook visit, and a few minutes longer than the average Twitter visit. Yahoo may become cool again with a shower of enhanced pageview. Tumblr and its 107 million microblogs would add another 15 billion pageviews a month to Yahoo’s hoard.

According to Davir Karp, Tumblr is a really creative platform. It's not only a social platform or a chat platform, but its an experience that younger generation thrives for. The purely content based site can be a tramp card for Yahoo to join in the race of social media evolution.

Also see the previous article on Tumblr: Future Growth Potential of Tumblr
Photo Credit: 
nytimes.com, zapt2.staticworld.net, thesocialmediatrainingschool.com
2.bp.blogspot.com

Yahoo! opts for buying the growing blogging platform Tumblr


In a deal that would vault Yahoo into the premiere league of social media, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is said to be closing in on a $1 billion acquisition deal with David Karp, the CEO of New York-based Tumblr.
Details of the talks leaked out earlier Thursday via AllThingsD, a site which prides itself on its Yahoo sources in particular. A later report in AdWeek, via its own sources, cited $1 billion as the figure currently under discussion. Coincidentally, that is said to be the valuation Tumblr was going to get at its next funding round.



Both sites were cautious to emphasize that the talks could come to naught. Mayer is clearly interested; she's known and admired Karp's New York-based site for years. Tumblr and its 107 million microblogs would add another 15 billion pageviews a month to Mayer's hoard. Most important of all, it could make Yahoo look cool again.
Given its aging audience, Yahoo's biggest problem with advertisers right now, the hunt for cool companies is high on Mayer's agenda. That would be why she offered $30 million to a startup run by a charismatic 17-year-old.
The question remains whether Karp is ready to sell, and whether he believes Tumblr has a better path ahead of it as a media company without Yahoo's help. (Naturally, we've reached out to both companies.)
Tumblr hasn't put a step wrong in the last few months, as far as investors and marketers are concerned, and it's growing like a weed. It's also hitting all the hot button tech and social media targets. Mobile audience overtaking web audience? Check. Ads on mobile? Check. Great shareable memes such as White Men Wearing Google Glass? Check. A platform so cool the White House is forced to join it? Check.
A $1 billion price tag would make Tumblr the biggest purchase since Facebook bought Instagram last year — although that deal ended up costing closer to $715 million, thanks to slumping Facebook share prices.
While we update this story, let us know in the comments: would these companies make a good match? Or should Karp stay independent?
Photo: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images
Courtesy: Mashable
       

Uprising Bangladesh:Outsourcing; the next big remittance source

Inspired by the patriotism lately , I started contributing some little things for my country. Basically I have started highlighting all the impact full positive thing that are being taken place in Bangladesh. Twitter is the medium where I am micro blogging the positive thing giving a hash tag of #UprisingBangladesh.

In continuation with that, I am going to share a sudden experience that I have had today. Though, its bit unusual that instead of twitting, I am going to share it in detail. The reason being, the simple incident that touched me so badly, that I couldn't help myself but writing it to let people know.

I have just checked in to Rangpur, one of the seven divisional headquarters of Bangladesh and also recently declared city corporation,  due to some official urgency. Rangpur is not at all a happening city to live. In fact few years back it was called "monga alaka" due to extreme drought.  Unlike Bangladesh , as a whole an agro based economy, Rangpur had to struggle a lot to produce any sort of agro product during a large period of time of the year.And as a result, people had to leave way below the poverty line. 

Unable to make any income, people used to migrate from here to other cities in search of some work that can let them to earn some livelihood. People from other districts, used to recruit Rangpur people as labor. Government along with different human activist groups used to come here by collecting donation from  reach people of the society and distribute among the impoverished people . Rangpur was such a nightmare of this country.

So I am here due to some professional urgency. Though there is a company owned bung-law here, I checked in the best hotel of the town called Hotel North View. Its literally the best one with all the modern appliances like - LCD tv monitor , Air Condition etc. In one sentence , its very slick.

I entered the hotel bit late. It was around 12 am at night. Eventually, receptionist guy was not readily available. So I had to wait a little. While waiting, as usual, was browsing my tab.As I completed the formalities, a boy of the hotel was helping me carrying my luggage to the room no 707. 

The boy was hardly 5 feet height, very thin; bit fair complexion with few beard. He was wearing an uniform of the hotel. A sky blue shirt; black trouser and a pair of sandal. An ideal attire of a hotel boy.We were waiting in front of the lift. 

Suddenly he asked pointing to my tab " Sir, is it iPad ?" I was bit surprised hearing the brand name iPad from him. I replied very consciously with having concern whether he'll understand or not : "Its Galaxy Tab" . He then replied enthusiastically , "Samsung Galaxy Tab!" I was thinking for a while about what to say? I just nodded with a surprise smile on my face and the lift door opened.

We entered in the lift and it started moving up. He again asked a question "Sir , did it cost 54 k BDT?" . Then I thought, ok, this boy somehow is attached with gadget either he has some sorts of involvement with gadget business or he knows from his peers. We both remained silent and reached to our destined floor.He was walking in front of me.

I could not resist myself, but told him "I can see that you have a good interest in gadgets! " In reply he said , "Though I am poor, I have deep interest about updated gadgets"! He continued , " I have a smart phone of LG that I bought spending around 21 k. " I said, "That's pretty cool. LG is in the 3rd position after Samsung & iPhone in smartphone genre. By this time we reached to my room.

I entered my room and he placed the luggage on the corner of the floor. He kept saying, " I am going to have a laptop very soon from one of my brothers." I found the discussion very interesting. So tried to give my personalized opinion, " Get internet connection if you use laptop. So that your laptop will be worth using to you" I told him. 

Real surprise was due for me at that time. He said , " Sir, I do OUTSOURCING work on
internet" . I was speechless for some moment and got very excited with sheer surprise. I enthusiastically praised him a lot and tried to know what kind of job that he does.After talking to him , I got to know, his name is Kabir. He has been working in oDesk for last 3 months as ad poster with multiple accounts. He has already started getting payments and as per his projection, in next month , few more of his account would start earning and then he will leave his current job and will fully concentrate on this outsourcing thing. Besides, he has a plan to establish a business center with a view to having more number of people working together.

Bangladesh is going to be the next best place for online outsourcing. It has already started yielding foreign remittance from this sector. World wide, the reputation is improving. For example, one of the highest ranking holders female in oDesk is from Bangladesh. Clients over the world are also becoming more confident on Bangladesh. In December'12 an event of world Outsourcing Summit took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

So all this signs are basically favoring Bangladesh to become the next comfortable out sourcing destination for the world.Again getting back into Kabir. Its not an exceptional case. Rather, Kabir is actually representing the awareness level of this particular prospect in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the top ranked young country with 70 % of her  population is below 35 years of age. And by rightly exploiting this emerging  prospects this country will definitely progress and up rise defeating all the odds.

7 features letting Thumb Pro to target the business community


Thumb, formerly known as Opinionaided, allows users to ask questions on varied topics & upload photos for comments from other users. And also share questions outside the Thumb community – using text message, twitter & facebook. It helps million of users to get instant opinion and most importantly from real people.  


Since 2010, Thumb is keeping its mark in the social network world being the 2nd highest time spending network after Facebook. One statistics shows 4.5 hours per monthly is being spent on this platform (thumb) by the active users. Pinterest remains as the closest one with 1.5 hours.
In last three odd years Thumb has been evolved as the strongest network having more than 1.2 mil. user base and thus now is ready to make a big leap for the business community by introducing Thumb Pro. 

The features that are making it standout are given below: 

  1. Instant Feedback – You can get instant feedback on the go on your required business topics like – product design, new products & services, concepts, new designs, pre study testing etc. 
  2. Target Audience – Thumb has the ability to target the exact demographic i.e gender & age. So you can get opinion of our desired product or service or brands or logo from the audience you are targeting
  3. Response Volume – You can get hundreds of responses in seconds. Besides, it has the ability to choose the number of responses you’d like to receive upto 10 K responses.
  4. Filter Results – Thumb can also filter results by age, gender, or response and view in beautiful graphs.
  5. Extract Report - Later on the results can be exported in details to the excel for further analysis & presentation.
  6. Interact–Quantitative feedback can’t help to make decision alone. So you can also follow up with responders in a 1 – on – 1 conversation.
  7. Simple Pricing – 3 different categories are there to choose your required one based on your budget limit. Number of responses & options of extracting report are the differentiating factors to complement simple pricing plans.  
Thumb has already proven its worth; with Thumb Pro, it will give low cost , instant aid for decision taking for the business community working with brands, agencies and market research. 


Courtesy : thumb.it/pro , research-live.com
Photo Courtesy: thumb pro, Video Courtesy: thumb pro

Linkedin's recent acquisition of Pulse is not out of the blues!



Linkedin, a niche social network has made itself exclusive for the 
professionals. Its one of the biggest features is being the meeting place for all sorts of the world professionals who share, learn & connect with loads of individuals and resources. Since inception in May, 2003,
linkedin has relentlessly been working to evolve as a social network that can add value to individuals’ professional life. A recent (11th April'13) $90 million worth acquisition of Pulse, a network that brings all of your favorite blogs, magazines newspapers quickly to read, share and save in one place for free.


Now many people are raising their eye browses looking for reasons this high profile acquisition. Big business concern like linkedin will never be going to spell out the inner reasons of such acquisition. Here I am not going to conclude whether this acquisition has paid off or not. Time will eventually let us know. But I will be trying to pin point the reasons that have played enough as the motivating factors for this deal.

1. Being in the very niche segment, it is imperative that LinkedIn  requires something more to spice it up for its valued users. Rather than having just profile & few connections with professionals, linkedin looked for, to be more dynamic.

2. Technology is evolving at a faster rate than anything else in the world. From desktop, computer has  now come into the palm of the people. Whatever strategy that social networkers formulate nowadays, each of them will have to have the strategy to be strong on the go i.e be active in the mobile devices.

3.  Among the social net-workers  linkedin wants to be the pioneer of being the repository of all the updated and recent news articles with special emphasize as it has direct impact on peoples’ professional lives.

4. Acquisition of Pulse can aid the users for career advancement by injecting professional insights, knowledge like – it allows users to browse multiple media sources, including social networks, to pick and choose the content they want to  read.

5. 750+ Publishers of 190 countries, will view the network having 200 million + users of linkedin, as a prime destination to release exclusive contents thus the window of mega business opens up.

6. Pulse’s core value proposition is to help foster informed discussions that spark the decisions shaping the world around us through news and information. Linkedin will leverage that in the form of news, influencer posts, industry updates, discussions, comments and many more.  

7. Linkedin is now pretty comfortable in terms of having large number of users 200+ mil and 2+ sign up per second. Now they want to increase users time spend on linkedin both on fixed and mobile platform via  the content of Pulse.

8. Linkedin wants to become the indispensable site for professionals worldwide, whether they're on the go and checking in on their mobile devices, or sitting at their desktop.     

9. It will boost linkedin’s expansion into the smartphone’s & tablets of busy professionals.

10.The shared views of (Publish, Discover & Connect ) of professional information and knowledge can transform lives and the world makes linkedin and Pulse a particularly great fit.

Add caption
Professionals turn to the site for trusted recommendations and quality content. With all its changes, though, Linkedin needs to make sure it can stay focused on the social media niche it has so successfully carved out for itself. If it makes too many efforts to connect strangers or bombard users with trivial news updates, it runs the risk of looking too much like the social peers that many LinkedIn users try to avoid.
Photo: webpronews.com, brandwatch.com, arkovi, allthingsd

Irritation for Evernote; “Google Keep” catching up with the proven feature


The latest update of "Google Keep" has overcome the shortcomings that it embraced during launch. Now it contains all most all the proven effective features that other similar apps, like Evernote, have. Features like - you can now take notes that include text, audio, and photos, and make checklists. And your notes are synced with an online server which are stored in your free Google Drive online storage account thus you can edit notes on the Web, too.

So if “Google Keep” has brought in the parity with the leader (In this segment) Evernote again the big question comes - Evernote or Google Keep ? In my last review ("GoogleKeep" - another invention to keep millions of users) I only stated the “color scheme” as the only distinctive factor till then. But the game has slightly been changed now. 


It seems that the most pressing distinction that “Google Keep” is carrying is their symbolic strength of giving

adequate free space in the server. And that’s where the difference has already been created. Evernote is giving small monthly upload allowance that freeloaders get i.e 60 MB. And most critical one is Evernote’s monthly reminder of how much you used and about how many notes you can still make until your balance refills.


Meanwhile, “Google Keep” – having unprecedented reputation by giving enough online space, is giving 5 GB of free storage in Google Drive. Google , the game changer, has once again kept evidence of changing the game for Evernote.

I believe, Google has this ability to keep their mark banging on large free space. The most successful one was when Google had changed the whole game by introducing Gmail with unlimited storage. That particular time , couple of first mover free email service providers were dodged down and Gmail climbed the top.


To me, if other features of Google Keep remain at per, only the free storage can play a big role in giving hard time to Evernote. After all, at the end of the day, it’s the bucks you pay, that matters the most. So “Google Keep” can bang on their USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of large free storage and thus can win the hearts of million users.

So Evernote can’t stand still anymore. They need to come out of being so conservative and need to do something out of the box to remain ahead of the game. Traditional strategy of combating competition won’t help as Google is not a conventional competitor for any of the online giants.

Photo courtesy: mashable.com, tech2.in.com, technozan.com, macworld.com, marketingpilgrim.com

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