This Week in Social (Weeks of September 29)
This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.
Attention Focuses on Ello (Read more at TechCrunch)
Ello has attracted the attention of the collective Internet with a massive amount of interest. Ello is an ad-free social network still in beta with sign-ups limited to invite-only at this point. Now, it's getting about 4,000 requests to join every hour.
It's spike in popularity hit after Facebook enforced its real-name policy, frustrating LGBTQ users who preferred to use pseudonyms on Facebook for a variety of reasons, including safety. Ello does not require users to use their real name and claims a zero tolerance policy for "hate, stalking, trolls and other negative behavior…"
Ello is also very anti-advertising, claiming that Facebook and other social networks track and convert user data into advertising.
The network is clearly in beta. Users can share posts, send messages and perform standard social network activities. It does, however, clearly have room to grow as it has no mobile versions or even a clear way to generate revenue. Although, it is considering options for users to pay for specific features. It also is showing one of the struggles with scale as a DDoS attack brought the service down for about 45 minutes earlier this week.
There are a lot of questions surrounding Ello. Will it survive? Will it kill Facebook? Should marketers invest resources in the platform? The answer to all of these questions is it depends or probably not.
It has a lot of attention, which shows how skeptical people are of Facebook and information-mining practices. People are at least interested in exploring options, but Ello isn't exactly privacy-centric. All profiles are public, and there are no privacy settings at this time. In addition, it's minimalistic design will certainly attract some users, but it will deter others.
Right now, Ello follows the privacy, ad-free focused lead of App.net, Diaspora and others, and it has attention. What it does with that attention over the coming weeks will be important, but at the end of the day, it's another network that will be great for some and not a fit for others. From a marketer's perspective, it's going to be best to see where things fall before proceeding.
Facebook Introduces Atlas at Advertising Week (Read more at AdAge)
As expected, Facebook used Advertising Week to announce a revamped Atlas advertising platform designed to make advertising more relevant to users across devices and sites. The platform was originally Microsoft's Atlas Advertiser Suite, but Facebook acquired it from Microsoft and has rebuilt it from the ground up.
Atlas is designed to overcome the unreliable use of cookies that don't work on mobile. Atlas offers advertisers the ability to target, serve and measure ads across devices, while also connecting online campaigns to offline sales. It does this by anonymously linking ad campaigns to Facebook profiles with merchant database information. Facebook is taking user data and using it to target them with ads outside of Facebook.
In addition, Facebook announced that Omnicom signed an agency-wide ad-serving and measurement partnership with Atlas.
Facebook is doing something that many advertisers have hoped for and that's making cross-device targeting much easier, and really no other platform out there is poised to do this to level of Facebook. Facebook has a deep trove of user profiles, and now Facebook has found a way to anonymously link profiles to ad targeting outside of Facebook. Of course, something like this will be under the watchful eye of privacy advocates.
Hopefully, this will mean more targeted ads for users who find them valuable. Google is Facebook's only competition with similar features, but it looks like even it will have to play some catch up.
Twitter Working on New Platform for Developers (Read more at Marketing Land)
Twitter is working to launch Twitter Fabric, a new app development platform.
This will launch after a tumultuous history with third party developers, frustrated with Twitter's policy of restricting API functionality and rolling their innovations into Twitter's standard product.
Twitter Fabric aims to fix that as it will offer tools to make developing apps that incorporate Twitter easier. For example, Fabric would allow developers to integrate with Twitter and allow people to sign up for a service using their telephone numbers.
Twitter has burned developers a few times. The latest of which had to do with Twitter encouraging Twitpic to consider a name change. Now, it seems Twitter wants to get them back, likely in an effort to grow its mobile ad network and collect more user data. With Facebook and Google already having a big head start, Twitter needs to move quickly.
If Fabric offers valuable tools and if Twitter makes a compelling case with developers that earns their trust, Fabric may be the right move.
Facebook Introduces New Research Guidelines (Read more at The New York Times)
Facebook has come under fire for performing tests and research studies on its users without their knowledge. The study that raised the most concern showed users more negative posts than they typically would see to see how it affected user moods. This, of course, has only decreased trust in the platform even further.
In response, Facebook announced new policies this week on how research and experiments will be performed moving forward. The new policy offers clearer guidelines, new training for employees and introduces a panel to review and approve proposed research.
Facebook will require additional reviews for any studies that involve particular groups or populations, deal with deeply personal subjects such as emotions or are involved in academic collaboration. These reviews will be conducted by Facebook's most senior researchers as well as representatives from legal, engineering, research and privacy. Any research Facebook has conducted will be published at research.facebook.com.
It's no secret that every company from Google to Amazon conducts experiments on its users, and they will continue to do so. It was the nature of what Facebook was testing against, emotions, that made people most uncomfortable. Unfortunately, had they been as transparent as they will be now, that experiment may have gone by without much notice.
However, Facebook is now forced to backpedal and deal with an even greater negative perception from its users.
This move is probably too little too late, but it will be beneficial moving forward. Users want to know how their data is being used and feel that they are in control. When that is the case, they're more open to testing and optimization. But when users feel that something was done with their data unbeknownst to them, they are understandably angry.
News Quick Hits
- Google has developed four new mobile ad units to help mobile ads stand out. Interstitial units pop up in breaks between what people do within an app. Users can then engage or quickly hide the unit. It's also bringing TrueView video ads to the mobile experience in non-gaming apps that are part of AdMob. The third unit is the lightbox engagement ad, which can contain slideshows, videos and maps that can expand when clicked. Users must activate these ads to expand them. Anchor is the fourth unit, which stays at the bottom of a user's screen even as they scroll. (Read more at AdAge)
- Pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong turned to an app called FireChat to communicate. The app allows users to communicate without using the Internet or cell networks by instead setting up a mesh network. It does this using Bluetooth to connect devices in close proximity, making it difficult to shut down. (Read more at SocialTimes)
- Reddit has received another $50 million in funding, which will go toward hiring more staff for product development and community management. Reddit will also give 10% of shares back to the community. Although, how they will do that has yet to be defined. (Read more at CNET)
- LinkedIn's Pulse news aggregation service has gotten an update to make it easier to read and share content. Pulse is a major piece in LinkedIn's approach to content. (Read more at The Next Web)
- Facebook is responding to anger over its real name policy that contributed to the popularity of Ello. LGBT users were angered that they could not use pseudonyms for a variety of reasons, including safety. Facebook apologized and has agreed to build new tools and to update its policy to accommodate the need for authenticating users who need to use pseudonyms while "not opening up Facebook to bad actors." Users will be able to identify themselves by their preferred names, even if they may not be their legal names. (Read more at The Verge)
- LinkedIn is continuing its push to diversify with standalone apps. The latest is a new SlideShare iPhone app. This app follows an Android version and, similarly, offers a personalized presentation feed and presentations based on what is trending within your network. Users can also subscribe to certain topics. (Read more at Mashable)