Facebook is web’s ultimate TimeDrain – Thanks Zuckerberg!

The Facebook Globe

The average U.S. Internet user spends more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia, and Amazon combined. Think about that for a moment.

New numbers released by Nielsen today confirm what we’ve known for a while: Facebook () is the web’s #1 time sink. What’s more interesting though is just how much more time we spend on the world’s largest social network today than we did 6 months ago.

Back in June 2009, Nielsen estimated that the average U.S. user spent 4 hours and 39 minutes on Facebook per month. That’s about 9.3 minutes per day in a 30 day month. In August, that number rose to 5 hours and 46 minutes, or 11.5 minutes per day.

In January 2010 though, the amount of time the average person spent on Facebook jumped to over 7 hours. Each American Facebook user spent an average of 421 minutes on Facebook per month, which amounts to over 14 minutes per day. Even if you lump together the time spent on Google () (1:23), Yahoo (2:09), YouTube () (1:02), Microsoft/Bing () (1:35) Wikipedia () (0:15), and Amazon (0:22), it still doesn’t beat Facebook.

Yahoo! ready to attack Twitter on the Microblogging warfront

After closing the social network platform SpotM, Yahoo has launched Meme, in English, to take on microblogging site Twitter. The company had launched this service in Spanish and Portuguese languages earlier this month.

Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.

It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.

The company’s previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched ‘Know Your Mojo’ also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch. Well Yahoo has a reputation of not being consistent with its products, they disappear and the accounts close down.

1 out of your 5 emails doesn’t reach you!

If you’re reading this blog, the chances are pretty good that you’ve signed up for one or more email alerts, e-newsletters, or automated updates over the years. Plus, if you work inside almost any part of the media industry, the odds are also good that you or your company sends out bulk emails.

And if you’re by any chance a blogger (like me :D), you’d be hard put to build an audience if you didn’t at least try the F&F approach via email now and again.

A new report from Return Path indicates that not as many of those email alerts may be reaching your intended audience as you might have expected. Based on 500,000 email-based campaigns in the first half of 2009, the company said more than one in every five — 20.7 percent –of the consumer emails never made it to the intended recipient.

B2B emails performed even worse, with 27.6 percent undelivered.

Spam or junk filters were not a significant factor, causing only 3.3 percent of the failures, but a surprising 17.4 percent of the emails were not delivered at all. The report notes that this contrasts to what marketers are normally told, which is that the percentage “delivered” ranges from 95 to 98 percent.

The differential is whether “delivered” means the message reached the email-host as compared to whether the host passed it through to the intended recipient’s in-box. Factors that affect this include how each email provider rates the sender’s reputation, as well as a mix of other, proprietary filter settings.

How the advertising space of Axion bank became THE advertising space of a band – Bad Cirkuz

I was just randomly browsing through the Cannes Lions Festival and i stumbled upon this, this i personally believe is a revolution and one of the most extra ordinary ideas that an advertiser can come up with. This is just simply mind blowing and when i was checking it out, i had my mouth wide open with my jaw dropped 10 feet below (ok thats an exaggeration!) lol.

On a much serious note this is simply superb. The whole idea is very simple yet very very effective. I dont think the banner ad spaces available on the website can be utilized more effectively than this, what more can you ask for than a like Concert! I mean then you’d only be expecting movies being shot n shown right there and then.

Axion is a bank in Belgium and to reach more towards the youth market, they went a step further. They engaged the audience by providing them something totally unique, persumably a life changing experience. Just read  between the line – What more a struggling youth band can ask for other than a great deal of exposure by performing live for their audience? And my friend a hefty 6.8 million impressions in banner advertisement is no mean feat when it comes to exposure.

Anyways enough of talking see for yourself the story of how the advertising space of a bank became the advertising space of a band. You’ll get the picture yourself and even if you dont get it, feel free to comment! 🙂

Babar Iqbal, the 12 year old cyber Maestro

Do you know what happens when you’re born in an overwhelming surrounding of computers & monitors, and that happens to be Mr Abdul Shahid Sadiq’s home in Dera Ismail Khan?

You get a family from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan. Just not a typical family, a family which has 5 kids; and all of those kids are extraordinary in their own self. How? Well quite simple, The family has 5 kids (3 boys & 2 girls), all of whom are Microsoft Certified Professionals. The list include Asif, Kashif, Babar, Saima and Asifa.

This in itself is an achievement to have a family of 5 MCPs, but no the story doesn’t end here. Asifa Khan is the second youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the family, she achieved the status at a minuscule age of 11 years, 4 months and 17 days.

Babar Iqbal

Whereas Babar Iqbal at just a mere age of 12 years has recently added a fourth crown in his elusive list of achievements. Babar a genius cyber kid just at the age of 10 years, achieved a whole lot more than many of us could dream of accomplishing in our entire life. When he was only 9 years old, he was awarded with Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and Youngest Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA), at the age of 10 he was given Youngest Certified Web Professional Associate (CIWA).

More recently he made a fourth record in his 12^th year as he got the Youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) at Dubai. Hmmm I am wondering what was he up to for 2 years, no records?! The competition had participants from all over the world, they aged between 20 – 35 years. But this little Dexter from Pakistan stunned the IT experts’ world over as he just walked all over of them as he stormed towards yet another achievement. He also surpassed his compatriot Irfa Kareem Randhawa, who made this record at the age of 9 years and seven months.

I am starting to wonder what the world is coming to, with little kids at such small ages creating such headlines. People I warn you, don’t be surprised if a few years down the road the first word that a new born utters might be “Internet”.

Hopefully greater things can be expected of this exceptionally talented teenager, as he has plans to be the youngest PhD in the world and contribute significantly to the world by his skills of IT. I wish him all the best for his ventures in future and would like to pay tribute to the proud parents of Babar, it is because of them that this 12 year old is taking the world by storm and making our nation proud.

The not so cool things to do while networking online

“Hello I am starting my own social networking site would you like to join? please please please get registered and make your friends do the same!! It has got all the features that you can find on facebook, you can upload videos, pictures, news, text and even pdf fileS!!! see how cool is it and what more you need you can twitter there as well!! :D. Its the perfect solution to all your social networking needs, you will have your own MYSPACE and create a LINKEDIN profile there yay! All in one webiste – Now thats social networking at its best!”

Its not new that you get such spam messages in your mail box daily. With the addition of such social networking sites on daily basis, one needs to identify or rather get themselves famaliar with certain DO’s and DON’Ts.  As the number of sites are growing daily therefore, the ‘Unspoken Rules’ of online networking evolve accordingly. But Alas! only if one knew where to look for these rules.

Worry not my friends you have come to the right place, here your’s truly (that happens to be me :P) will enlighten you all with maistakes not to make if you wanna be good at online networking, so here goes:

BlackBerry for kids? Child asks creators

It took a child to stump the creators of the BlackBerry, one of the world’s top selling smartphones and a part of most executives’ attire.

“Are you going to make a phone more for kids so that my Mom will let me get one?” the child said from the packed audience at the annual general shareholders’ meeting at Canada’s Research in Motion on Tuesday.

The world’s No. 2 smartphone maker has so far aimed its near-ubiquitous BlackBerry mobile phone mostly at executives, with U.S. President Obama being its highest-profile user.

The child’s question met with hums and haws by RIM Co-Chief Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis before they summoned up a vague response.

“There’s lots of opportunity and, you know, if the current BlackBerries aren’t acceptable to your mother, hopefully the next ones will,” Lazaridis said.

The interaction was striking in light of a recent research note written by 15-year-old Matthew Robson, an intern at Morgan Stanley, on “How Teenagers Consume Media,” which caused a stir after it was published by the bank. https://vasifabbas.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/15-year-old-boy-causes-frenzy-in-the-mediamarketing-industry/

At the otherwise uneventful shareholder meeting, RIM said it was advancing its campaign to win over more people to its devices, which includes sponsorship of the U2 360 Tour by one of the world’s most popular rock bands ever.

The RIM CEOs said they spent the last 25 years, since RIM was founded, catering to highly demanding industries, and for three years to the general consumer market.

15 year old boy causes frenzy in the media/marketing industry

Matthew Robson a 15-year-old intern at Morgan-Stanley & Co. International, is shaking up the financial and media industries in London upon release of his report about teen’s media habits today. So far, much of the news coverage seems to be centered on his finding that Teens don’t use Twitter, although this has been documented in previous studies. What he has to say about all media channels is of interest.

Plus, like certain other precocious teens I know, Matthew presents his conclusions in a straight-forward, unambiguous writing style that more senior, highly educated financial analysts rarely achieve. Here are a few of Matthew’s main points , from the report.

Click here to get the complete report: Morgan Stanley Teen media consumption

Radio. “Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically.” The reason? “(W)ith online sites streaming music for free they do not bother…” (Except when in Dad’s car going to and from summer camps, school, or dog-walking chores.)

Television. Teens watch less TV nowadays “because of services such as BBC iPlayer, which allows them to watch shows when they want. Whilst watching TV, adverts come on quite regularly (18 minutes of every hour) and teenagers do not want to watch these, so they switch to another channel, or do something else whilst the adverts run.” (Except when ads come on that they actively enjoy like those by Comcast in the U.S. market.)

Newspapers. “No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV.” (Except for the comics section and for The Onion, which is sort of a newspaper.)

Gaming. “Whilst the stereotypical view of gamers is teenage boys, the emergence of the Wii onto the market has created a plethora of girl gamers and younger (6+) gamers…As consoles are now able to connect to the internet, voice chat is possible between users, which has had an impact on phone usage; one can speak for free over the console and so a teenager would be unwilling to pay to use a phone.”

Google’s vulnerable invulnerability: “No more Freebies”

It’s quite difficult to imagine a global Internet giant with nearly a $140 billion market cap, $16 billion in cash reserves and $7 billion in annual free cash flow having a potentially menacing weakness. But in a digital marketplace hell-bent on making consumers pay for preferences, Google could be the odd man out.

Apple and Amazon are demonstrating that paid content and apps are the Internet’s “new frontier,”‘ particularly on mobile devices and in emerging markets. They are driving user payment revenues to an average annual 17 percent growth through 2012 — more than twice the rate of online advertising revenues, slowing to average annual seven percent gains.

That momentum is prompting more developers and producers to charge fees as consumers demonstrate a willingness to pay for premium products. By 2012, user payments will account for 31 percent of domestic online media revenue while still comprising the lion’s share, or 59 percent, of offline media revenue.

That would lessen media’s dependence on advertising and on Google, presenting the Internet colossus with its first major “evolution challenge”. Because it’s not culturally disposed to charging fees and has few billing relationships, Google’s online search clout has been limited to free ad-supported arrangements. Google’s share of total domestic online revenues could be at risk as user payments begin to match or exceed advertising. Google claims more than 30 percent of online ad market and a smaller share of online content apps payments.

Tweeting Your Campaigns: A Menace for Marketers

Marketers looking to leverage Twitter beware: The company will only let you rig the system so much, as one brand recently discovered.

Moonfruit, a U.K.-based company that offers free Web site building tools, saw a great opportunity to raise brand awareness on Twitter. The company last week kicked off a sweepstakes, giving away 10 MacBook Pro computers to Twitter users that include the #moonfruit tag in their tweets. (The sweepstakes ended on July 7.)

The campaign worked, maybe too well. The hashtag #moonfruit was Twitter’s top trending topic for several days, with more than 250 tweets a minute. According to the site builder, at its peak Moonfruit represented 2.5% of all Twitter traffic, beating topics like Michael Jackson, Iran and Wimbledon. Twitters also created posters (pictured above) and a Moonfruit song, which helped shape the campaign, said Wendy Tan White, Moonfruit’s founder.

Then it was suddenly over. Late last Friday, Moonfruit dropped from the top of the trends list and never returned. According to the company’s stats, however, Moonfruit was still emerging above other trending topics. White said Twitter seems to have removed Moonfruit from the trend’s list. Twitter could not be reached for comment at press time. But according to Moonfruit’s blog, “the campaign sets a dangerous precedent and could have implications for how Twitter is used and abused by marketers . . . it’s certainly their right to protect their network and technology investment.” What left Moonfruit puzzled is why it was censored without explanation.

Twitter might have been annoyed by the attention Moonfruit was consuming, or simply tired of the topic. There’s not a big basket of marketing campaigns successfully launched via Twitter because, people being people, there’s a natural resistance to being a receptacle for marketing messages. Plus, there’s no formula for creating consistent viral success.

Marketers can effectively launch their campaigns via Twitter, but it’s important to “keep on your toes” as things can change very rapidly. The difference between this and a normal campaign is that it is an ongoing conversation,this means messages can evolve over the period, but it also means you have to stay on top of it and react fast.

There is another lesson to be learned here for marketers. The Moonfruit story is a great example of money versus gold, Give away money and people will question your motives or yawn in boredom. Give away gold, in this case MacBook Pros, and they’ll line up for blocks!! 🙂