Tag: twitter

Twitter’s Double-Punch Move To Catch Up

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Right on the heels of a crucial personnel change, with Dick Costolo stepping down as CEO and Jack Dorsey taking over as interim replacement, Twitter announced today that, starting July, Direct Messages (DMs) will no longer have the 140 character limit it enforces for its public tweets.

The Wall Street has responded favorably to the return of Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and current Square CEO, as Twitter’s stock share up 3% since the announcement. The lift on DM character limit, on the other hand, seems to hint at Twitter’s ambition in developing its long dormant messaging features. With competitors like Facebook and Pinterest quickly expanding their messaging platforms, Twitter looks well poised to catch up under new leadership.

 

Why Twitter Is Looking Into Beacons

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Business Insider

Twitter is investing in Swirl, a Boston-based startup specializing in beacon marketing, according to CEO Hilmi Ozguc. Swirl’s technology is intended to surface relevant ads to smartphone-wielding shoppers in stores. Although Twitter has yet to incorporate Swirl’s technology into its ad offerings, it will probably happen soon.

Twitter’s own ad platform could greatly benefit from Swirl’s beacon technology, as it would contextually trigger notifications of targeted ads or value offers and boost relevancy of its real-time ad bidding.

 

Periscope Refines Comments And Discovery With New Update

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Coming off its explosive launch last week, Twitter’s live streaming platform Periscope is now trying to keep up the momentum with a new update, which aims to brings more customization features for users in stream discovery and live commenting. By splitting the live-streams into separate “Friends” and “Global” tabs, users can now easily cut through the clutter and find the streams from broadcasters they care about. Moreover, a new “Follower Only” mode limits in-stream comments to followers only, a good way to filter the rapid-fire live comment streams for popular Periscope users.

Header image taken from Screenshot of Periscope App

By The Numbers: The Meerkat-Periscope Live-Streaming Race

Posted on by Lab Team

Video is an excellent medium for advertising, especially with the added bonus of immediacy in live broadcasts. So it’s no surprise that some brands are already trying out the two breakout live-streaming apps, Meerkat and Periscope.

Meerkat is the success story out of this year’s SXSW festival. After its debut on the website Product Hunt in early March, the live-streaming app quickly found popularity on Twitter, reportedly amassing over 500,000 users.

tweets-with-links-to-live-streams-meerkat-and-periscope_chartbuilder

Not to be outdone, Twitter first cut off its support for Meerkat integration and launched its own live-streaming app Periscope last week, which built on Meerkat’s SXSW buzz to quickly surpass it in popularity, as shown in the chart above, detailing tweets with links to each service in the past week.

Screen Shot 2015-04-08 at 11.08.58 AM

Many expect Periscope to win over Meerkat, given its affiliation with Twitter. But this chart seems to indicate that it is not a zero-sum game. After the initial spike subsided, Periscope has fallen back to around the same level as Meerkat, albeit logging a few thousand more tweets per day than Meerkat consistently. Periscope may be winning at this point, but if Meerkat can find a way to leverage its ties with Hollywood celebrities and not let Twitter won them over,  it might just still have a shot at this live-streaming duel.

 

Charts courtesy of Quartz, with data from Topsy

Live Streaming Hits Full Swing With Twitter’s Periscope

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Verge

The Meerkat-Twitter controversy caused quite a stir at SXSW earlier this month, which eventually resulted in tons of free publicity and a surprising rise for Meerkat. But that may not be for long, as Twitter has officially launched its own app for live broadcasting your life. Periscope arrives today on iPhone, with streams also viewable on the web and an Android version on the way.

One killer feature of Periscope that will differentiate it from Meerkat is a “Replays” feature that lets users save streams to watch later. It also foster real-time interaction between audience and broadcasters via on-screen text displays and floating “hearts” visible to the audience tuning in.

If Periscope wishes to capitalize on the sudden popularity of live-streaming and become the platform of choice, first it has to beat Meerkat’s head start, which might not be so easy, as the latter just announced $14 million in new funding led by Greylock. And we are already seeing some early-adopting brands experimenting with Periscope to engage with their audience. If you’re also trying out Periscope, you can follow us @ipglab.

Header image taken from Screenshot of Periscope App

Why Some People Are Routinely Deleting Their Tweets

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Fusion

The newest trend in social media is a seemingly odd one: reportedly, an increasing number of Twitter users is starting to routinely delete their old tweets, some even going as far as to set up automated system to help simplify the process. Most tweet-deleters cite the effort as a way to eliminate liability for their random online musings. This new phenomenon points to the way in which social media users are now carefully curating their online image, so as to avoid the potential awkwardness that stems from unfiltered thought-sharing.

 

How Twitter Appeals To Small Businesses With “Quick Promote”

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdExchanger

Twitter has developed ad products for big budgets, but it’s also trying to appeal to the small and mid-sized advertisers. Earlier this week, Twitter started rolling out “Quick Promote”, making it easy for small business owners to amplify selected tweets without knowing the intricacies of digital ad tech. Overall, this rollout marks another product off Twitter’s Tailored Audiences feature, which enables advertisers to use Twitter’s congregated user data to better target their branded content.

In related news, Twitter has struck a deal with Google to make its 140-character updates more searchable online, which would grant branded content on Twitter even more exposure by showing up in search results.

Twitter Adds Group Messages And Video Uploads: Is It Too Late?

Posted on by Lab Team

Read the original story on: The Verge

In an obvious attempt to catch up with Instagram and increasingly popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat, Twitter started rolling out two long-awaited features today: direct video uploads (limited to 30 seconds only) and group messaging in DM. These features should make Twitter more versatile and completive, but it might be too little too late as users have already been comfortably enjoying similar features on rival platforms. Still, brands should explore these new features to find new ways to connect with the audience.

Instagram Is Now Bigger Than Twitter

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Instagram is now claiming over 300 million monthly active users, surpassing Twitter’s reported 284 million active users as of six weeks ago. Also impressive is its rapid growth rate, as the news came just nine month after Instagram hit 200 million users earlier this year. As marketers always follow where the audience goes, it looks like Instagram will be moving up on the priority list.

Twitter Enters Brick-and-Mortar Retail With “Offers”

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Re/code

After experimenting with several ecommerce features, today Twitter is officially entering brick-and-mortar retail with Twitter Offers, a new feature that allows users to claim discounts right from a brand’s promoted tweets by linking their credit or debit card account with Twitter. Users can then redeem the discount simply by paying with the linked card in the retailer’s store.

As of now, Twitter is only charging brands for the promoted tweets. If this type of digital coupon catches on, Twitter could start charging retailers a fee for every offer claimed or redeemed. If anything, Twitter Offers would certainly provide physical retailers with a new way to measure the impact of online promotions.