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+

Courtesy: Socialmeidatoday, globalwebindex, Youtube.

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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.

Find previous post : Yahoo! opts for buying the growing blogging platform 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

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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.  

My last review on thumb: How to use thumb to become an opinion leader

Since 2010, Thumb is keeping its mark in the social network world being the 2^nd 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

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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.

Courtesy: Technewsworld Social Media Linkedin Blog

Photo: webpronews.com, brandwatch.com, arkovi, allthingsd

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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.

Courtesy: Technology Review

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

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Facebook Home : GIANT is making the GIGANTIC leap

A lot more buzz is spreading around regarding the recent declaration of "Facebook Home" by co-founder Zuckerberg. Different folds of discussions are taking place. Few people are commenting it as another version of screen saver, while some are deeply concerned about the security of the users.

Interestingly all are commenting based on few assumptions & perception made on sheer imagination as this particular thing has not released any prototype yet. This innovation is going to hit the world wide web on 12th April'13. So for the time being commenting on the good or bad sides of Facebook home is absolutely foolish act.

To me Zuckerberg , the person who have redefined the social media , is not going to do something whimsically. There is sharp indication of bright future business prospect. Just think for a while, if the screen of your smart phone is pre-occupied with one app , you are so much within its control. This is huge business.

As a business entity if you are in control of the major touch point of your consumers to display your product, you have the absolute monopoly power of making making great business out of it.

Primarily as the name suggests 'Facebook Home' which will let the users have their home screen active with facebook application with live chatting option. So far my understanding says , you will remain logged in and news feed will actively show on your display.

So whenever you will look at your smart pal (phone) you will have to see through facebook. Bang on ... that's the hot spot where you will have the liberty and endorsement for displaying your offerings to the right consumer.

Nowadays, the most common touch points that we use to reach prospective consumers, are either expensive or do a little to grab attention. But this time around, such a concept of permanently occupying the home screen would make the deal so hot for overall businesses.

Again another revolution is just at the doorstep. Stepping upon the uniqueness and first mover advantage, for one more time , Zuckerberg is going to rewrite the history with shared benefit. Giant is making the gigantic leap.

Photo courtesy: allthingsd.com t1.gstatic.com rack.1.mscdh.com
Review by Abir Hossain

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1Weather; an amazing weather app

1Weather; an amazing weather app Weather app in mobile always amazes me. You dont need to rely on tv or radio to know the whereabouts of the weather of a particular time. It’s withinh your palm now. You can surprise people with your prediction reading through the weather app. That’s the best part to me.

Few days back, more specifically in last moonsoon season, I made several prediction about the possibility of rain and it worked like anything. I started sharing it with my dad. Initially he thought , it was a fluke.Neither I was properly convinced at that time. But with the proof of several incidents , I got convinced and thus I have grown the interest in me.

At the very onset of my smart phone using, one of my senior colleagues recommended me such an app that can give the weather forecast of my location. That was accuweather. I immediately downloaded it and started using with sheer excitement.

I have been effectively using this app till date. But couple of days ago, while browsing Playstore randomly, I came up with another weather app i.e 1weather. After going through few user comments, I decided to give it a try with an expectation of experiencing something completely new.

Honestly speaking, I have found 1Weather a very nice and effective app. And it’s way better than any

weather app of such genre  It’s nice to keep your eyes on, smooth, attractive visuals, wonderful graphical presentation etc have made it standout. To me the most effective attribute of this app is that, it can detect your exact location and can give the forecast with beautiful presentation.

I believe, 1weather is more impact full due to it’s several distinctive factors. Till now I am pretty happy with that , and I would highly recommend people to have it who wants to track the weather forecast.

Review by Abir Hossain

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"Google Keep" - another invention to keep millions of users

” Google Keep” - another invention to keep millions of users. Just downloaded Google Keep. Not because of it’s utility but the name Google attracts me so strongly , that it becomes very hard to resist.

I somehow feel attached with Google for so long. Particularly I have witnessed the rise of Google and how it has become the internet giant . Hope ‘keep’, another of it’s creation would hook millions of net savvy like me.

The softer part of adding color to the note must make it stand out with others. One thing is for sure, color always spices up our lives. To me it’s one of the major sources of happiness. And Google has once again proved it’s amazing ability to redefine simplicity which is well depicted here in ’ keep’ by adding color schemes.

It’s quick and simple but to my utter surprise, there is no scope of uploading any file as attachment. So one needs to take photograph using camera and that would be uploaded tied with relevant notes . Other than that , voice recording system looks pretty handy and off course , sharing options are good as usual.

Now the big question comes - Evernote or Google Keep ? To be frank , despite my blind support towards Google  I have found color as the only distinctive factor with Evernote. But on the other hand , few important options are missing.

Therefore, just a suggestion for Google, don’t go for inventing something just for the sake of combating competition. Such a monster does not look good doing so. You have already outsmarted others , just keep doing that with unique invention.

Review by Abir Hossain

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Future Growth Potential of Tumblr

Tumblr has become the most trafficked website in USA. A recent statistics shows that the number of visit by the people has increased by 7% (May,09 – Nov,12).

Tumblr.com has the audience of 168.2 mil worldwide with 82.7 mil blogs and 36.8 billion posts. On an average , daily posts is around 68.7 mil according to Tumblr website.   

Tumblr.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 36. About 45% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces). About 9% of visits to the site are referred by search engines. About 32% of Tumblr's visitors are in the US, where it has attained a traffic rank of 18. Its content places it in the “Hosts” category of websites.

Estimated percentage of global internet users who visit tumblr.com:

	Reach %	Change
Last 1 Month	2.557%	+ 7.9%
Last 3 Month	2.406%	+2.2%

So, the statistics shows that, Tumblr is growing very fast which project it as the next big thing.

Conceptually a blog is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Blogging flourishes in the 90s.

Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links". These small messages are sometimes called microposts. Through microblogging people now share:

- What they observe in their surroundings

- Information about events.

- What their opinions are about certain topics.       

And most importantly, they do not require to spend much time on it. Within a very short while using hand held device it is published. The mass people nowadays seek more exposure and tend to reveal their thought process.

Microblogging services have revolutionized the way information is consumed. Microblogging seems nowadays the future of communication platform because of then following reasons:

-         It can be done with simplicity and quickly.

-         It requires short attention spans.

-         People’s growing desire to remain connected.

-        The rising cost of travel that will cut down on face-to-face meetings.

-        The increased affordability, quality and functionality of digital communication tools.

Computers have been getting smaller and closer to our faces since their very beginning. First they were in big rooms, then they sat on desktops, then they sat on our laps, and now they're in our palms. With the increased number of hand held smart devices, microblogging prospect is even on the soar.

Tumblr and Posterous had fought a very tough battle over supremacy in microblogging service where Tumblr appeared to be the winner in the 3^rd Quarter of 2010. Tumblr leaves Postereous behind the competition. In recent technological world, time actually flies faster than we can even assume. Things can be altered anytime in this competitive edge. For instance Myspace was one of the highest visited social networking website in the world. But within the waves of time Facebook has now become talk of the town in place of Myspace. Now people, rarely talk about Myspace. Bottom-line of this discussion is , world of internet is very dynamic nowadays. To remain ahead of the game you need to evolve in a continuous basis. For Tumblr specifically, though it bet its main rival Posterous a couple of years back, but a recent acquisition by twitter (http://specialtake.com/tech-world/posterous-is-a-great-human-resource-acquisition-by-twitter.xhtml)  another gigantic microblogging site. Tumblr must remain vigilant regarding its competitor in order to remain in the game. 

Tumblr could be the next big thing in microblogging world because it has the uniqueness of blogging service like WordPress as well as on a microblogging service like Twitter.

Courtesy : alexa, quantcast, Wikipedia 

Review by Abir Hossain

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