60% Of Twitter Users Quit After A Month And For Good Reason

Yesterday, The Silicon Valley Insider reported according the Nielsen 60% of Twitter users quit after the first month. While over half of Twitter users fall off after a month, social networking services such as Facebook and MySpace have much strong retention rates.

They do not seem to want to give much weight to these numbers by quoting MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka:

It’s worth noting here that Nielsen is likely overstating the churn because it is only measuring visits to the Twitter.com URL. The majority of Twitter use happens away from the site, on mobile phones and apps like Tweetdeck, and it’s theoretically possible to never visit Twitter.com after you sign up.

Marketing With Augmented Reality

Recently, there has been some major buzz about a trend known as augmented reality (AR). While this trend is more well known in the academic and marketing worlds, I think it is about to hit mainstream, especially from a consumer basis.

Augmented reality is explained as “add[ing] information and meaning to a real object or place. Unlike virtual reality, augmented reality does not create a simulated reality. Instead, it takes a real object or space and uses technologies to add contextual data to deepen students’ (or in our case consumers’) understanding of it.” In the past, the primary uses of augmented reality devices were academic, research, military, architecture and science based.

Skittles.com Turns Into A Social Media Hub

Mars’ Skittles has forgone a traditional website, and instead has created a seamless social media hub. If you go to the official Skittles website at www.skittles.com, the user is immediately directed to the Skittles fan page on Facebook.

Survival Of The Fittest: Television As An Evoltionary Medium

In Sunday’s Business Section of the NYTimes, Randall Stross speculates on “why television still shines in a world or screens” as readers continue to disappear from print media; books, newspapers and magazines.

He states, “a tipping point has been passed in the competition between print and screen that has been under way since the beginnings of broadcast TV and now continues with video and other media.”

MC Hammer On Analytics

MC Hammer breaks down why analytics and advanced targeting is the future.

Using Facebook Connect to Target Ads On Your Website

Since its inception, there have been many implementations of Facebook Connect, most notably CNN’s use of it to create a live, co-viewing experience for the inauguration. The implementations to this point have been used to socialize non-social websites, create co-viewing experiences and to increase value of a website by importing a users social network. I have not seen Facebook Connect used as a way to create hyper-targeted ads on those third-party websites utilizing Facebook Connect data portability.

Shepard Fairy

Awesome video

He says the use of black and red is because those were the colors he could get for free. Jack White intentionally uses black and red (and white) because he has said they are “the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner”. I wonder if this plays any of the significance for Fairy as well.

Social Apps – Triviality vs. Utility

This presentation is intended to illustrate the difference between  social applications/widgets/mobile apps deemed trivial (adding no real benefit to the community or the user) versus those  deemed utility based (adding value). This is a very interesting dichotomy for advertisers to understand when creating an application for a specific platform. Do they want an application that will hopefully gain a lot of buzz and installs very quickly or do they want to invest in something long-term, providing value and utility.

www.WhiteHouse.gov Redesign

The official White House website gets a much needed redesign.

Follow The Inauguration With Your Friends Through Facebook

Today President Elect Barak Obama becomes President Barak Obama. If you cannot get to a TV, I suggest you go to CNN.com to sign on to the live streaming coverage.

What makes CNN’s live stream so innovative is they have incorporated Facebook Connect into the video. You can update your Facebook status and comment while watching the video stream.