Twitter retention rate only 40 percent
Twitter may be growing exponentially but can it sustain itself? Maybe not according to new data from Nielsen. The research company found that more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month. Twitter’s 40 percent retention rate was even worse over the course of the last year (pre-Oprah) where it was less than 30 percent.
Nielsen’s blog post shows a chart that plots retention rate and reach. Their conclusion: a 40 percent retention rate will limit a site’s growth to about a 10 percent reach figure.
Compare that with Facebook and MySpace which, when they were in the ramp up phase, had a retention rate at nearly 70 percent.
While we’re still happily tweeting, we have noticed several prominent Twitters we’ve followed jump ship. The tides do not bode well.
Ex Facebook COO to be new MySpace CEO?
Facebook’s ex-COO Owen Van Natta has been tapped to fill the role of CEO at MySpace, replacing founder Chris DeWolfe who will now be a “strategic advisor.” The latter is from an official Facebook press release. Van Natta’s appointment is still unconfirmed (it was reported by All Things D’s Kara Swisher).
Van Natta’s appointment represents a sense of sweet revenge. He quit Facebook when his ambitions to become CEO there were not realized. Now he’ll be competing head to head with his old social networking employers.
Tom Anderson, MySpace’s president and co-founder, is also moving on within the organization to a role yet to be defined.
Van Natta is currently CEO of music start-up Project Playlist. In the past, there was speculation that MySpace might buy the music startup. Van Natta was also once the leading candidate to head up MySpace Music.
Facebook closing in on MySpace in U.S.
The gap between Facebook and MySpace in the U.S. is narrowing…quickly. According to ComScore, at the end of last year MySpace’s unique visitors in the U.S. were 20 million more than Facebook. As of March, MySpace’s lead has dwindled to just 9.1 million.
ComScore says that Facebook had 61.2 million visitors in March compared with 70.2 million for MySpace. But Facebook is on a growth curve – March saw 3.8 million more visitors, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous month – while MySpace actually lost 160,000 uniques in March, and an astounding 5.8 million down from January.
At this growth rate, Facebook could overtake MySpace as early as this summer.
Top online media stories of 2008
What were the top online media stories of the year? As 2008 draws to a close, here’s our take on the top five trends to which AIMGroup readers should be paying attention (inspired by a post on the MediaShift blog).
1. Barack Obama and social media
There’s no question that the entire game has been changed in terms of how political campaigns will be conducted in the future. Barack Obama’s use of MySpace and Facebook (where he amassed 3.5 million supporters, far more than Facebook’s 5,000 friends limit) helped get younger voters involved. His custom social network MyBarackObama.com further demonstrated the President-elect’s understanding of new media.
Already copycats have sprung up around the world. In Israel, for example, with national elections coming up in February, Likud-leader Benjamin Netanyahu copied Obama’s Web site nearly pixel for pixel. And the right wing religious Shas party has plastered “Yes we can” (in Hebrew) posters on buses across the country.
2. Print newspapers crater, push readers online
We’ve reported extensively how the print side of newspapers are in big trouble, from The Christian Science Monitor to the Detroit metro papers, all pushing readers online. Newspapers still haven’t gotten their online acts together yet (see our story about the need to add more niche social networking mini-sites), but with the advertising crunch, the more innovative papers will be poised for success.
3. Twitter becomes an important news source
Twitter has been much bemoaned by newspapers who don’t yet see the appeal of the obsessive micro-blogging community. But increasingly, Twitter is scooping mainstream journalism. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai are the best most recent example. AIMGroup staff comb Twitter daily for reports from our favorite tech and social media writers. Newspapers need to get on Twitter immediately to disseminate news and push their authority in the new media.
4. Recession speeds ad moves online
Advertising was already increasingly moving online. The recession is only speeding that trend. There are different predictions on online spend in 2009. EMarketer analyst David Hallerman says total U.S. Internet ad spending will increase to $25.7 billion in 2009, an 8.9 percent growth rate and more than all other types of media. Online video ad spending, he adds, will rise 45 percent in to reach $850 million in 2009. Zenith Optimedia puts online advertising worldwide up 18 percent next year.
5. New models for newspapers and journalists
As newspapers face increasingly tougher times, several interesting alternative models have cropped up. VoiceofSanDiego and MinnPost tried to raise funds by following a non-profit donation model. Spot.us (covered by us here) launched to support freelance journalists with “crowdfunding” micro-donations. Can newspapers jump on the alternative bandwagon?
More micro-classifieds coming for social networks
It took a day to develop. Does it herald the future of classifieds? Probably not. But Tweebay has an interesting twist on the i-List approach to using social networks to post “micro-classifieds.” TweeBay wants to be the micro-EBay of Twitter.
Here’s how it works: Tweebay lets a seller list an item on its Web site. The item is then posted to Twitter under a user called “Tweebay.” Interested buyers add Tweebay to the list of users they follow. They’ll then receive alerts through Twitter when something new goes on sale. The hope is that buying something from a Twitter friend will feel safer than purchasing from an EBay stranger.
Whether or not Tweebay itself succeeds, it probably will be only the first of similar Twitter-specific plays. An aspiring entrepreneur, for example, could create a Craigslist-Twitter mashup that posted items from Craigslist according to categories where each was a separate Twitter user. You’d only follow the categories you were interested in.
There are still a few kinks to be worked out. Tweebay doesn’t have a way to complete a transaction. Buyers and sellers do that offline. And EBay may not like the name “Tweebay.”
Tweebay was a quick hack that Paul Rawlings, a developer in the U.K., put together on Christmas Day. The more established service iList also allows members to post to Twitter as well Facebook, MySpace and Craigslist (see our write up here). But in i-List’s case, the classifieds appear from the specific user on Twitter. TweeBay’s approach of aggregating listings under a single user ID may be more effective, especially when Twitter launches its long delayed groups feature.
MySpace moving from anonymity to real user names
MySpace is encouraging users to show their real name on the site. The social network currently allows users to create any name they want, thus hiding their true identity. Facebook, by contrast, identifies members by their real names.
The anonymity on MySpace worked fine at first for users who preferred living in a more virtual world. But the emerging social Web is all about claiming your true network identity and managing your public reputation. Other services, such as Google, require real names, and with cross-system universal login on its way, a standardized naming system will be required. Facebook Connect is another example.
MySpace’s way of getting real names has been to add a feature in the account settings area that asks users if they want to display their real name on their profile along with whatever display name they’ve chosen. When adding a new friend, MySpace users are also prompted to reveal their real name.
But it’s all still up to the user who can certainly say no. It remains to be seen if MySpace will prevail in its latest endeavor.
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- Audi, Chevrolet, and Volkswagen Rate Highest in Automotive Advertising ‘Best Practices’ With Messages of Efficiency and Innovation
- Yahoo! Names Fred Amoroso Chairman and Appoints Ross Levinsohn Interim CEO
- Tweet It, Like It, Watch It, Buy It. Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide’s New Study Finds 95 Million Americans Use Social Media To Shop
- Working Moms Taking Less Maternity Leave, CareerBuilder’s Annual Mother’s Day Survey Finds
- TheHomePage.com.au launches Chinese listings
- planetRE Launches Cutting Edge Online Marketing and Transaction Tools for Property Rentals and Management
- Groupon Merchant Satisfaction Beats Industry Benchmarks
