Social Media Wars : Digg, friendfeed

The irreverent founders of Digg have been a bit snowed by Twitter’s rise as it is now doing 53 million users a day and is still going to rise by almost 400-500% in 3 months. But Digg has been around for long and its platform has caused lots of ‘social success’ and some heartburn with its traffic redirects , it has put together an institution that predated Web 2.0 and will survive it seemingly.

Of course all of this Digg stuff is for journalists and authors selling their ware and readers reading tons on the web daily. For many, the web remains distant because of this lack of interactive web that actually plays and works with them, as 9 out of 10 browsing ‘afficionadi’ would not bother with too much reading. Let me also, cut the dialogue short and introduct he new Digg feature after the Presidential debates and quasi debates earlier.

No they have not bought up Predictify, fueled FiLife or got into the race for other social media sites ( not to my knowledge at Advantage ‘zyaada’) They have just scheduled another of their fine web discourses with Timothy Geithner taking flak and clarifying the US administration’s position on the stimulus, the stock markets, the banks and may be the tax bill

The latest on Digg:

Dialogg: Timothy Geithner

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Facebook vs. Twitter series 15/800 – After spurning Twitter, FB gets Friendfeed

Facebook finally made use of the choice of social competition in the internet economy today when they ‘closed’ the Friendfeed acquisition deal. After the recent spree of feature launches that made it more and more twitter, facebook cemented its early lead with the talented Friendfeed, which allows it to make conversations a staple and also be more social. Among its obvious synergies otherwise, Friendfeed is aesthetically traditional and fun at the same time while remaining business friendly in terms of logistical support for feeding these conversations ( as also noted earlier in F vs T series 14/800 )

Twitter in the meantime has spruced up its looks and while the old SEO types haggle a little about its value and dump hacker tricks on Facebook and Twitter, Twitter has managed to keep a high growth in user additions till July climbing to 14th in search engine rankings with almost 15% of Facebook’s page views. The jury might let Facebook a grand ovation at this stage for managing to snag Friendfeed but the flexibility of Twitter may still help it overcome its flood of revolutionaries and internet junk to get up and ahead in the race with some good business brands adopting and staying alive in Twitter.

On the other hand, Facebook today can definitely vouch that it has the social infrastructure and the fun and games which keep people busy on Facebook may still turn out to be of some lasting value with a $200 million+ revenue year about to close in the next 3 months. Facebook’s task of morphing is even tougher as it has to merge the good of friendfeed into it without getting into the internecine arguments it is getting used to with its users.

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Is Friendfeed on the scene

zyakaira zyaada

Friendfeed has that magical air that it is elegant even after Twitter has redesigned its home page

I wonder why Friendfeed isn’t on more apps like hoot and tweetdeck?

Guy Kawasaki (Louis Gray liked this)

This is literally the first time I’ve used FF

Wednesday – Comment - Like – Share

235 other people liked this 160 more comments

no way!!!! – sean andersen

I’m with ya…. just started this afternoon. So far, so good. – Ben Daugherty

Jorge Escobar (Louis Gray liked this) is gonna make my social app extra-special-invitation-only. If

you read this, you’ll probably get an invite.

zyakaira zyaada

So, even now I can probably set up a new social network in say a week!

How does differentiate each of the Friendfeeds and Twitter and Facebook!! Esp in six months from

now?

One is going to have social apps in the office though, not just unarchived yahoos!

Though I still wonder why women should have a site of their own! ( I’m a guy, all male.)

There would be these special niches within each of Facebook and Twitter and we can create a discussion on them at Friendfeed

0 seconds ago – Comment – Share – Hide – Edit

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Facebook vs Twitter series 13/800: What about Digital Books? Can Kindle be about social collaboration?

I know what you all are thinking. Why suddenly a Kindle in Facebook vs Twitter wars? What about the Friendfeed and the dozen social networks to be branded me too! Where do they come in? Well, to me Kindle comes first because Amazon is a phenomenon on my personal list of Enterprise greats and the other start ups have still got something to prove in terms of viability. Not that the risk is any lesser for a Myspace or a Kindle but My space going down would be a turning point people would remember like AOL, eBay and the others who have had a not so easy time since they set up on the web and who have never graduated to the real Web 2.0 or near real time social collaboration. Amazon and Kindle however have that potential ( may be they will also drop out later like Starbucks) and they can handle innovation and complex consumer minds with a relative ease that would be critical.
 
Long back, during the days of Patricia Seybold’s customers.com and Guy Hagel’s ‘Net Worth’ we saw an expostulation of the success determining parameters of the new invisible continent by Kenichi Ohmae ( let’s face it, the guy was an other world icon but still made it as a strategist on the new web). What the Invisible Continent described in great detail was an Infomediary – An organization or ‘Trust agent’ that would broker all business transactions on the web because they would be entrusted with the Customers foibles and deep seated choices that would make the best buying decision and robust sales. Amazon and Kindle are the perfect intermediaries for such digital transactions like iPhone and iPod have been for music albeit non collaboratively till now.
 
I think the new web needs Kindle and amazon to ramp up the offering in tune with customers, learning the nuances along with the customer as they go along this adventure. For amazon to continue with its 50% market share of the World’s Book Sales has been relatively easy when compared with the others and a vital part of that has been the enriched customer experience which is really beautifully collaborative and store front’ish at the same time. It also highlights the other essential for social collaboration which Facebook and Twitter seem to make light of, ad that is the reading habit. For any transaction on the new web, one has to be a voracious reader to navigate the choices, discuss with friends, colleagues and competitors online and make instant decisions that are almost always right.
 
Kindle could easily include Video, Audio and twitter / friendfeed messaging on the device along with maps and the books to replace other devices you need to carry arund today for a complete mobile experience. I think that’s the way it’s going to go too.

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Facebook vs Twitter series 12/800: Twitter is down from FB hunting?

Sitting inside a conference room at Twitter, BlackBerry in hand, Kevin Thau is all business.In his first interview since taking charge of the San Francisco technology companys mobile business development a month ago, Thau is confident that cellphones will play a crucial role in helping the messaging service make money.

The four-year-old company, which has raised more than $35 million from Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital and others, offers its service free of charge, and hasn’t yet figured out how to generate revenues.

Thau, 36, says thats about to change. He says the number of text messages passing through Twitters platform has grown 1,000% in the last year. Add to that the fact that users are texting more substantive observations and opinions in real time, and the company has a valuable information database it can sell to businesses.

Thau says Twitter is developing a range of analytics and metrics products and services built around the information contained in “tweets,” the e-mail and text messages that pass through its platform. “We can measure the tweets,” he says. “Were trying to figure out what are the appropriate metrics around engagement and how to convey those.”

Thau, however, didnt say when Twitter plans to sell these services or how much it will charge for them.

Its an interesting business model, but can Twitter survive selling analytics and other services? “When it comes to enterprises, absolutely,” says Jeremiah Owyang, a social computing analyst with Forrester Research ($FORR ) . “I just got off a call with a client thats asking about how to engage on Twitter. There’s definitely interest.”

via ‘Forbes’

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How much is MySpace worth?: FiLife (a WSJ partner)

more about “How much is MySpace worth?: FiLife (a…“, posted with vodpod

Facebook vs. Twitter series 11/800 – Buy up Twitter

Moguls and bankers are packing their bags to attend Allen & Company’s annual media conference, which starts Tuesday in Sun Valley, Idaho. The recession is bound to put a damper on this year’s schmoozefest, where the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller regularly roam, as executives decide it is not the right time to fly off to a mountain resort.

Those who do attend will be debating the troubled state of traditional media companies and how they will fare in an increasingly digital environment.

“People in the traditional media world are terrified,” Ken Auletta, a New Yorker magazine media writer who will lead a panel on new media at this week’s conference, told Reuters.

“They’re in the analog world, and the world is becoming digital,” he said. “They’re insecure about what’s going to happen to their businesses.”

Young Web entrepreneurs have been adding new excitement to the Sun Valley conference, which has been the birthplace of some high-profile media deals. The founders of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and Internet video portals like YouTube and Joost drew large crowds in recent years.

This year, Evan Williams (above), the chief executive Twitter, will likely be in high demand as media moguls try to determine if the hugely popular microblogging service is a money-making opportunity or simply another Web 2.0 fad.

via Sun Valley Buzz: Tough Times and Twitter – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.

zyakaira notes: I’ve been remiss. I shouldn’t neglect Facebook either, but as of now..

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Facebook vs. Twitter series 10/800: Who's that following you?

Facebook is going to take a leaf out of Twitter’s ultimate modus operandi and introduce the option for users to choose to follow others in their circle..in other words, your following me does not beholden me to follow you and vice versa. That freedom is essential to good business. That freedom is also an important part of our personal relationships. just because the mother follows her kid, doesn’t mean the daughter is a devoted follower of Mom or nearr home a jealous lover may stalk you without you nagging him forever…the possibilities are ‘endless’

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Facebook vs. Twitter series 9/800: More social competition

And before we declare weekend shutdown, Let me remind you that the guys at posterous.com get an amazing amount of clear thinking people who read all my stuff much faster. These visit / hit counting methods are really herculean in their differences from each other but communities like posterous have a great future (and friend feed) because you just get read more often…that’s where emailing to post(erous) is already working out for me, i guess you’ll give it a try too. Aren’t the WordPress team ( and they are one of the very best!) also going to start posting to twitter and facebook very soon? I can smell it in the air here!

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Twitter better then Fox News? series 8/800 :: 16 Year old blogger says Twitter better then Fox News

From my groups on Linked In:

This past weekend in Dallas was the word press camp at UTD. Some of the best bloggers in the world took part in this 2 day seminar. 
One of the more interesting bloggers was Dave Moyer a 16 year old that is the Founder/President of Bitwiremedia.com. Moyer believes Social Media is more reliable then traditional media. Here is the video interview. 

http://yates11.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/16-year-old-blogger-likes-twitter-over-fox-news/ 

Just curious how many people still depend on traditional media like the networks for their news or how many people are utilizing social media and other distribution channels for information? Let me know your favorite place to gather info? 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/yateshuddleproductions

Thanks Chris! 

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