Tag: twitter

Native Ads That Scale: Twitter Acquires Namo Media

Posted on by Lab Team

Namo Media was one of MoPub’s main competitors as they offered an SDK that allowed developers to easily integrate native advertising into the feeds within their apps. They connected into multiple ad exchanges to dynamically fill ad inventory using existing assets and copy, adding the flexibility and scale mobile native ads were in need of. It was their SDK that was the main differentiator to MoPub, but Twitter’s offering obviously had more scale.

Now it appears Twitter has acquired the company in search of technological improvements to MoPub. Should be exciting news for mobile advertisers who can easily port over existing assets into native streams. If you can’t beat em, join em!  

Newcastle Ale Attempts Pay-For-Follow Twitter Strategy

Posted on by Lab Team

Brands will do just about anything, it seems, for social media engagement and loyalty. Now, Newcastle Brown Ale is shooting for something similar – albeit a bit more extreme – by paying every new follower $1 via check in the mail. Paying for likes on Facebook or for sponsored placements is one thing, but paying for Twitter followers is an entirely different level. Our research shows that 61% of people are unfollowing brands as we move away from follower numbers and towards engagement metrics, so the profitability of this strategy in the long run seems murky at best.

Twitter Introduces Mute Feature

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter is looking to answer its detractors who think its feeds are overcomplicated and too busy by introducing a Mute feature across Android, iPhone, and Web platforms. The option, as its name implies, allows you to silence other users in your feed by taping on the gear icon and choosing “mute @username.” The goal is to give users more control over the content they see, and to allow you to curate your own feeds by selectively cutting people out. Muting users doesn’t stop people from favoriting, replying to, and retweeting tweets – they can still use Twitter as usual. And, the muted user won’t know that others have muted them; it’s entirely silent. It’s a way to hopefully reduce the noise on the social network, and keep users engaged in a customized feed that works for them. 

LINE Continues Expansive Growth

Posted on by Lab Team

International mobile messaging service LINE continues to show impressive growth, so much so that it’s finally begun to outstrip Twitter. Their revenues have increased to over 223% of last year, and 19% over the past three months alone. People compare LINE to Twitter because both companies are centered around direct – or private – messaging, something that Twitter is only now focusing on. DM’s were a more hidden feature of Twitter, while LINE has made them the prominent feature of their app and have succeeded financially as a result. LINE also offers gaming, which represents a large portion of their revenue, and advertising via direct messaging and gaming – as opposed to blasting hashtags out into the feed – has been proven to be more effective. All that is to say: this is further proof that messaging apps, as we’ve mentioned before, are an effective way to get a direct line into customers and users across the globe. 

Amazon Lets Customers Shop Without Leaving Twitter

Posted on by Lab Team

Amazon announced a new feature, tentatively called #AmazonCart, that would allow customers to fill their shopping carts without leaving the social network at all. Users would connect their Twitter and Amazon accounts via their social settings. Then, all you’d be required to do is reply to any tweet containing an Amazon product link with #AmazonCart and the item would be automatically added to your basket. Unlike similar twitter services that have come before it, this service does not allow you to purchase the product directly – it will just save it for your basket for later, in an “add it now, buy it later” policy. As more of these twitter use-cases bubble up, it will be interesting to watch if and/or how the shift towards purchasing affects the way people – and indeed brands – use the social network. 

Facebook Launches FB Newswire

Posted on by Lab Team

In its attempt to become the one ubiquitous homepage for the Internet, Facebook is pandering to news networks in its latest creation, Facebook Newswire. In cooperation with Storyful, FB Newswire promises journalists a constantly updating repository of realtime breaking, trending news stories. And with Storyful in cooperation, journalists can be sure that these trending stories are actually verified. The Newswire will collect “newsworthy” stories being shared across the network publically – including media like photos, videos, and status updates from places where stories are breaking. As Facebook looks to position itself against Twitter as the place to go for breaking stories and trending topics, the Newswire will attempt to lure journalists away from the now-traditional breaking news center that many consider Twitter to be. 

Tumblr Has More Social TV Activity Than Twitter

Posted on by Lab Team

According to a new study that looks at an 11-day window to compare live TV chatter on Twitter and Tumblr, the volume of social-TV activity on Tumblr far exceeds that of Twitter. The study, conducted by the U.K.-based Pulsar, pulled data from Datasift and looked at activity around four episodes from TV shows in the fall and winter of 2013: “Sherlock,” “Supernatural,” Pretty Little Liars,” and “Sleepy Hollow.” Pulsar found that 70% of those social mentions within 11 days of the show happened on Tumblr, with the other 30% on Twitter. Twitter mentions spiked whilst the shows were actually on TV, but Tumblr mentions had more longevity after the shows were off of the air, sustaining their momentum for days. So while Twitter might, in fact, rule the real time social mentions, Tumblr seems like the place to go immediately afterwords for the social afterlife.

Twitter’s MoPub Showcases Native Ads To All Publishers

Posted on by Lab Team

Four months after initially putting support for native advertising into beta, Twitter’s mobile exchange, MoPub, is putting the solution up for all publishers to leverage. The idea is for MoPub’s native product to serve as a complete solution for native ads; including a native ads SDK and a publisher-side ad server. The former can be used to create a customized ad unit inside of an app, and the latter allows publishers to traffic their own ad campaigns into native areas, complete with integrated reporting. However, nothing from this post necessarily suggests that data from Twitter will be integrated as a targeting feature. It’s a sign, though, that Twitter is very intentionally expanding bit by bit into this increasingly monetarily viable space. 

Twitter Reveals Mobile App Install Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

After months of talk about whether Twitter was going to delve deeply into mobile marketing, the company announced that it will debut mobile app install ads as a beta product today. The ads will run as a part of Twitter’s mobile app as well as on MoPub, Twitter’s recently accrued mobile ad network. The goal, of course, is to build revenues across the board as Twitter continues to struggle to post revenues after its IPO, and today’s news will give the company’s investors hope that Twitter is heading in the right direction. Twitter has a few partners immediately lined up for the release, including Spotify, HotelTonight, Deezer, Get Taxi, and others.