Ever since Twitter secured as much as $100 million dollars funding last year, speculation went wild on what kind of business model they will adopt. In November, Twitter COO Dick Costolo confirmed that the first piece to fall into place is the Ad platform which he described as “fascinating. Non-traditional. And people will love it… It’s going to be really cool.”
What We Know So Far?
Now we are getting closer to the day when this Ad-platform will be introduced publicly and it maybe as soon as next month during the South by Southwest Conference. According to the Wall Street Journal, the long awaited Twitter platform will look something like this:
The ads will be tied to Twitter search, displaying only the ads that are relevant to the search term.
The ads will be 140 or fewer characters, 3rd party applications will have the option to display the ads and Twitter will share revenue with them if they do.
Twitter will work with ad agencies at first but will move to a Google like self-serve model later on.
Non invasive and will be clearly marked as “sponsored” tweets
What we already know about the Ad-platform leaves a lot of speculations running in everyone’s head in relation to how it will work and what impact it will have on Twitter’s ever expanding user base.
What Will the Ads Look like?
An Ad.ly ad
Will the ads be clearly labeled like ad.ly’s In-Stream ads? Or will they be more like “I am having the new Italian burger at McDonalds” and “My favorite Chips is so-n-so“ or the direct in your face kind of “Click this link and 20% off of your next purchase”.
The nature of the internet is filled with a lot of information and seeing it animated and simplified visual is certainly a blessing, since it opens our mind to new ways to see our world. Whether it’s through maps, info-graphs or psychedelic illustrations videos on the web surely added a much needed freshness to information and data on the web.
Hopefully with more bandwidth we will see more innovation in this field but for now we can enjoy some recent videos that have been noticed on the web by the Thoughtpick bloggers:
Skinput
Think of the possibilities for this one! This is actually a working prototype for the ultimate in mobile computing. Add a Wi-Fi capability to it, and make it as sexy and small as an iPod and you got yourself a decade long hit. Now I might find it difficult not to mention that I would find it uncomfortable to hold my arms in a fixed position for too long. Although it is slightly different it and definitely reminds me of Sixthsense technology.
We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us! Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992
Touching quote right? I am sure most of you would agree. However, are we really holding our “precious” freedom in our hands? Are we appreciating it as we should? Are we conscious of how our actions might negatively influence the health and sanity of our freedom? I think not!
More Access: Less Freedom!
During another daily round on Mixx, I found the following cartoon:
Internet Freedom?
It made me think about the heavy weight the future of our freedom carries upon its shoulder due to this “much freer access of information”. It also reminded me of my clean up trip on Facebook a couple of days ago and of how I had to remove around 300 so-called friends and place around 200 others on my limited profile! [read full article >>]
We’ve all heard it now. The most over-hyped non-product in history of the world is finally a product.
It even has a name. It’s not the “iSlate” nor the “Apple Tablet” that people have been using for a while, it’s actually called the iPad (naturally, #iTampon was a trending topic on Twitter soon after).
The gorgeous Apple iPad
While many people are disappointed, saying that the iPad is nothing more than an over-sized iTouch, I personally believe that it will be game-changing. Maybe this particular release won’t knock us off our heels, but eventually, with the proper support, a large list of applications, and a little mind-set change from the consumer side, this device is going to be the iPod of “handheld companions“.
Mr. Nick Shantazio was attacked by TWO men as he was peacefully hanging posters at the local movie theater! His violent attackers, who managed to bruise him badly, are no where to be found!
In order to locate the attackers, Nick chose the police PLUS Facebook! He posted his story, in details, on Facebook and people started responding and circulating the story as well!
Though the police have no possible suspects, Nick seems to have faith that Facebook will do him right!
I wonder now: Is this what social media is going to be in 2o1o: The police helper? Helping the police in catching criminals and attackers just as CSI and NCIS do? I also wonder: If the same thing was to happen with you, would you do the same, especially if the police fail?
“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.” Marlon Brando
I, too, believe in privacy as being an absolute perquisite; one which must exist in order to be able to practice and reach real freedom and, accordingly, self development.
Yet, and since Web 2.0 and social media have become major elements in our life’s routine, our privacy is slowly receding, like an old man’s balding head! Day after day, we are finding ourselves more exposed to the world outside and people we have never met. It seems that everyone knows each other across this big world, as sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube becoming more and more inhibited!
In the two videos below, Obama warns about posting pictures or personal information on Facebook, stressing that this might come and haunt you in the near future! Whether this is this another PR stunt or not, is not clear to me however it seems that even Obama has been stung by Facebook just like Zuckerberg was a few weeks ago!
Andreas Weigend talks about the revolution of the web and how important it is to “take data seriously”…
The amount of data created by each person doubles roughly every one or two years!
Furthermore, 10 billion pieces of content are shared per month through the Facebook share button?!
Taking data seriously is dividing into categories: (1) Customer to Business, (2) Customer to Customer and (3) Customer to the World.
Based on the video above, I would like to know what you think: Are we really taking data seriously? Are we using it efficiently to attract customers, build loyalty, maintain friendships, educate and learn?
“The companies that continues to innovate will be able to extend their brand and their business model longer than the people who don’t innovate“. Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon CEO
Hulu connects the physical world with the digital world yet through certain, often less than simple steps. Therefore, and logically speaking, Hulu is bound to become obsolete in a few years because there definitely will be other technologies which will certainly provide even simpler and more innovative grounds to allowing for a more integrated connection between our world and what’s on the web.
Verizon’s CEO refers to the Sixth Sense concept, which was introduced to the world a few months ago. According to him, concepts like these will render other available technologies useless in a few years, and I totally agree: who needs to sit at home to watch the news when it can be streamed at any time and place and projected on to a wall?
Finally and to wrap up this post, I’d like to ask you a few questions: Have you ever used Hulu? Do you agree that it will soon vanish? What other technologies do you know of and which have the ability to take over our world in a few years?
Ever since Microsoft introduced the idea of CardSpace, the holy grail of single login has been sought after by many. OpenID has been a player in the field of single login but the idea never really picked up the level of mainstream adoption needed.
With the recent growth of social media, and to leverage their reach and power, social networking sites started offering their authentication services to third party applications. Authentication systems, such as Facebook connect and Google Friend’s connect, offered users the ability to sign up using their already established ID’s and simplify the sign up process to new applications and sites.
Single-Sign-On (SSO) Woes
While that has been a great example of how social media sites are expanding into other areas of influence on the internet, it already raised quite of few alarms. Besides the single-sign-on tech wars amongst internet giants, the SSO system has facilitated phishing attacks on users. You are no longer supposed to only enter your account information on the sites that you registered on.
The other day I was reading a post about the Nanotech Europe report of 2009 and how developments in the field of nano-technologies have been coming along in Europe. After reading the post I couldn’t help but remember a gem of a design concept that was released by Nokia last year and I wanted to share it with you.
Nokia has always been a leader and innovator in the field of communications and this video gives us a glimpse at what Nokia thinks the future will look like. They explore different applications and uses that nano-technology will have in the field of communications and some of the benefits of being able to achieve the dream of nano computing and how it will effect the way we communicate and interact with reality.
This concept design is called Morph, and as the name implies it’s the mobile phone that will be whatever you want it to be.
