In this age of instant Internet celebrity, anyone can become famous for 15 seconds (to rework Andy Warhol’s oft-quoted maxim). But what does famous mean exactly when anyone can have a Facebook fan page—those public pages on Facebook set up by brands, media outlets, celebs, and wanna-be celebs. As it turns out, being popular is not as easy as it looks. A full 77 percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans, according to an upcoming report by Sysomos, a social media monitoring and analytics firm.
Once a fan page is set up (here’s ours), anyone on Facebook can become your “fan,” which is like following someone on Twitter in that it doesn’t require a reciprocal friendship. Sysomos analyzed 600,000 fan pages on Facebook and came up with the distribution curve in the chart above. The vast bulk of fan pages have between 10 and 1,000 fans. Only 4 percent have more than 10,000 fans, and less than 1/20th of a percent have more than a million fans. It breaks down as follows: → Read More
While Black Friday has long been a popular phenomenon for brick and mortar stores, the deal frenzy has been extending to e-retailers and online stores. Now, sales on the web are equally as lucrative as those in the stores. eBay is launching a campaign to capitalize on the holiday shopping season, called “12 Days Of Deals,” and has also rolled out a new Deal-focused iPhone app and partnered with Microsoft to offer deals directly from Internet Explorer 8.
Today, the e-commerce giant is launching a interactive map that shows all of the transactions that took place on eBay on Black Friday. The map provides a visualization of all U.S.-based buyer and seller transactions that occurred on eBay on Black Friday. → Read More
One of the best things about being an academic is being able to mold young minds and guide them to success. When one of my students, Andrew Leblanc told me he was entering the Duke Startup Challenge Elevator Pitch Competition, I told him to come and see me and do a practice run. After all, I had judged several of these contests at Duke and other universities. I thought I knew what worked.
After the eleventh iteration, Andrew got it right. He wasn’t trying to pack his presentation with unnecessary details. He had slowed down his pitch, added a personal touch and was now exuding confidence. Andrew even researched the background of the judges and tailored his message to their interests. So after two hours of intense preparation, I had little doubt that Andrew would win.
Andrew lost. I was surprised. But what I told him afterward is that it really doesn’t matter. Contrary to what the organizers of these competitions will tell you, university business plan contests don’t produce winning companies. Yes, a number of companies have emerged from business plan bake-offs that have been moderate or small successes. But not a single home-run has emerged from this now-omnipresent practice. → Read More
We reported yesterday about Twitter Japan’s plans to start charging followers to view tweets from certain users starting January and explained why this paid subscription model could work in Japan.
Well, please forget it, this won’t happen. Just a few minutes ago, Digital Garage (the company responsible for Twitter operations in Japan), issued a press release (English PDF, Japanese PDF) stating there won’t be any fee-based services of any kind on the site and that Twitter in Japan will remain completely free for the foreseeable future. There’s also a blog post by the Twitter Japan team (who just copied and pasted the press release text, providing no further explanation). Digital Garage says the media reports on their plans to monetize Twitter are based on a “misunderstood presentation by a DG subsidiary, DG Mobile”. → Read More
Video Professor continues to be angry that I called them a scam in my original Scamville post. They’ve gotten nowhere reaching out to me directly (more on that below), so now they’ve tried complaining to the Washington Post, which has syndicated our content since 2008. The Washington Post stood firm beside us today and kept our original post as written. Good for them.
Essentially Video Professor is arguing that they didn’t have the chance to respond to our post before we published, and that in general we aren’t behaving very journalistically.
One of my favorite habits of journalists is that they refuse to state an opinion. Instead, they find a source to say whatever it is they want said and then quote them. And when I say “favorite,” what I really mean is that I hate it.
The story the journalist writes has the look of objectivity but really it’s just the same as if the journalist wrote what she or he meant, directly, in the first place. A gold star journalist will then find a “balancing” quote from someone else, often the person or entity being attacked. “When did you stop beating your wife,” etc.
I prefer to just skip all that nonsense and get right to the meat of a matter. And most of my favorite bloggers do the same. None of us have the audacity to think that we are your only news source. You can find other opinions elsewhere, and judge them on their merits, too.
Video Professor was a side note in our original Scamville post, just one of a bunch of scams that were making their way into social games on Facebook and MySpace. But now we’re focused on them like a laser. → Read More
With the release of Modern Warfare 2, the Call of Duty franchise has surpassed the $3 billion mark in worldwide sales. Netting over $550 million in its first five days, Modern Warfare 2 smashed all previous box office records and is now the benchmark for future releases. → Read More
The year is 1963. It’s November. At 1:40 PM ET, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite comes on the air. “In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.” Rapidly, everyone in America descends upon the closest television set to tune in.
Thankfully, we have not yet had a tragedy of that magnitude in the age of the realtime web. But we will. It’s just a matter of time.
If it were to happen today, most people would still turn to their TV sets to get the most up-to-date information on such an event. We saw that on September 11, 2001. But a large number of people would also now turn to the web. And there they would likely find the information they were looking for faster than those watching on television. We’ve seen it time and time again recently. → Read More
We all know that Psystar is busy bleeding out in federal court, but that doesn’t mean the fun stops. We’ll be dissecting their glorious failure for quite some time. The most recent development: it seems their plan for taking a bite out of Apple’s sales was comically ambitious. How many clones do you think they sold in 2009? Somewhat under a thousand would be putting it kindly. And how many were they hoping to sell? Around a hundred times that. → Read More
Despite what the Internet said a few weeks ago, Microsoft tapped Family Guy to advertise Windows 7. The first one aired last weekend, but the video above and the one after the jump have just been posted to YouTube proving the partnership isn’t dead after all. Watch and enjoy, but don’t expect anything edgy and hip. → Read More
Interrupting your Thanksgiving Day weekend (and my Team Fortress 2 Sniper marathon) with a quick deal that will appeal to many of you (I should hope). You know Steam, right, Valve’s digital distribution deal? There’s a crazy, multi-day Black Friday sale going on right now that includes Left 4 Dead 2 at $37.99 (25 percent off the regular price) and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $2.49 (75 percent off the regular price). A vanilla bullshit at Starbucks costs more than that. → Read More
While consumers around the U.S. are sniffing out Black Friday deals today, sample sale sites have emerged to provide members with serious discounts year round. Online sample sales sites such as Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Ideeli, RueLaLa and others, have been picking up serious traction in the past year.
We’ve seen a plethora of sites pop up for women’s and men’s clothing and accessories, travel deals and even children’s clothes. Totsy, an invitation only sales site that features children’s brands, baby gear and products, recently launched to appeal to parents looking for a bargain. → Read More
If you’re anything like me – and let’s for all of our sakes pray that you’re not – then your first thought as you stagger back to your desk today, bloated and giddy after Thanksgiving, will likely be “what can I do to kill time until the end of the week?”
Actual work is out of the question, obviously. If you’re a PC person then there’s always Minesweeper, while Mac users can make a start on editing their Thanksgiving videos in iMovie. Linux fan? I suppose once you’ve finished your daily six hours of masturbation, you can just fill up the rest of the time pompously explaining to the rest of us precisely why what we’re doing is wrong. You know, the usual.
But, regardless of our OS allegiance, there’s one activity we can all enjoy together – and that’s taking a look back at the last seven days of TechCrunch. So let’s get started, shall we?
(And Linux users, please wash your hands before clicking. We all know where they’ve been…) → Read More
Yoichi Wada is the president and CEO of Square Enix. Square Enix is a very big video game developer and publisher, responsible for games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts. Hence, his words mean an awful lot. His latest words: console gaming, as we know it today, has only a few years left in it. The future? It’s all about the network, baby!~ → Read More
Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard about Tiger Woods’ car crash. Early reports had him in serious condition (which remember, is better than critical condition) after he apparently hit a fire hydrant and a tree while leaving his home in his SUV. The latest reports say he has been released from the hospital and is “fine.” But I’m not going to speak to any of that because that’s not what we do (you can find out more here).
Instead, as I’m watching this unfold infront of my eyes on the Internet, I’m reminded that this type of story is exactly why the web is destroying newspapers, and should eventually even take down television and the main source of news for most people. I first heard the news via a BNOnews bulletin sent via push notification to my iPhone. I immediately pulled up Twitter and already some 10-15 people had retweeted it and the news was appearing in my stream. → Read More
I’m still a big bag of mixed reactions when it comes to Samsung’s new mobile OS, Bada. On one hand, Samsung has always proven themselves to be pretty bad at the software side of things (Need proof? See the hot mess that is the Samsung Behold II). On the other, that’s nothing that a bit of man-power and money can’t fix, both of which Samsung has plenty of. We’ll just have to wait and see how things look when Bada launches, which according to this invite we just got will be on December 8th at a press conference in London. We’ve confirmed two speakers so far: Dr. HS Lee, Samsung’s EVP and Head of Media Solution Center, and Kevin Thau, Head of Mobile at Twitter. That latter appearance makes us think Bada will have a bit of a social twist to it – but these days, what doesn’t? → Read More
Last Tuesday, Xbox announced that it would integrate Twitter, Facebook, Zune video compatibility, and Last.fm into its Live services. The software update was free, and has thus far been a success. We recently reported that over 2 million Xbox live subscribers used the Facebook feature from their consoles in the first week. Equally as impressive, is the fact that last.fm has netted nearly 1 million new subscribers from the partnership. Since the introduction of the service, last.fm has seen a record number of new subscribers in a 24 hour period and Live users have streamed over 120 million minutes worth of music to their consoles. → Read More
Over the last few days, Facebook has apparently been rolling out some UI changes to a small number of users, moving many of the navigation elements that currently rest at the bottom of the screen back to the left sidebar. The changes are subtle enough that they probably won’t spark yet another user rebellion against Facebook — aside from the people who will hate it automatically — but they’re very significant.
The changes in the screenshot above are nearly identical to the shots that were presented at Facebook’s developer garage a month ago. But there are some key differences. First, search now has much more prominent placement, appearing just above (and almost as an extension of) your News Feed. → Read More
If I had $3.2 million dollars to throw away on something like a phone, I’d much rather just build an army of robot carrier pigeons to deliver all my messages by hand. Some, I suppose, prefer a bit more rationale in their complete irrational purchases – thus the existence of this $3.2 million dollar iPhone. → Read More
In time for Black Friday, Microsoft and eBay are partnering to offer eBay Daily Deals to Internet Explorer 8 users directly from the browser. Via a Internet Explorer Web Slice, Microsoft will offer users the best “Daily Deals” from eBay from within the browser.
The deals will be found within Favorites Bar on IE8, and will be updated daily within the browser. In conjunction with the new feature, eBay will also launch a “12 Days of Deals” promotion that will feature a deal of the day within the browser starting tomorrow. The search feature will also let you search eBay from IE8 and will show suggest popular products on eBay to users. And you can find and preview eBay items from any site you are on without leaving the page. eBay previously launched a browser highlighter for IE last year. → Read More
Our buddies at Watchismo are offering a Nixon Newton Watch to one lucky commenter. You have your pick of the litter and you’ll be the most stylish fellow on your cellblock when you pull this watch out of wherever you hid it from the screws! → Read More
