Why social media platforms won’t be free forever

We’ve all come to love, mostly, social media. The first kid on the block, MySpace disappeared when Rupert tried to make back his then astonishing $580M purchase price, in a single day. The the upstart Facebook migrated from the domain of US college students to anyone with an email address, or 10. Blogging had been around and popular but was a siloed activity with feedback and comment coming only after an audience had been built. Then came Twitter’s micro blogging which we didn’t even know we needed until we couldn’t finish or start every breathe without telling our followers about the breathe we were about to, or had just taken.

Follow the money!

Rupert lost his cash on MySpace and even though it’s been reinvented, rebranded and relaunched, it’s a ghost town.

The most anticipated IPO of the past decade was Facebook. It heralded a return to the days when millionaires, even billionaires could be made overnight; if your were an advisor or merchant banker on the inside of the deal. Facebook stock has recovered half of what it lost since Zuckerberg asked his long time girl friend to marry him but it’s nowhere near its opening bell price. And with a revenue strategy that is as revolutionary as airships don’t expect it to recover. Ever. Hindenburg. It might be a great platform for companies selling their wares but it’s getting old and tired very quickly. With no new money coming and no longer being the cool kid at the party Facebook is becoming the slightly out of date uncle that is trying to be king of the kids. In reality, Facebook is fast becoming everything Mark hated about himself which was the catalyst for creating The Facebook. Circle of life, much?

Twitter hasn’t listed but must at some time. Soon. A couple of years back they took a $300M investment from a Saudi prince and gave him, I shit you not, a mere 3.75% of the company. This deal instantly valued Twitter, which had made not a single dollar, at $8,000,000,000. Look at all those zeros. Eight. Billion. Dollars!

Google+. Stop laughing. This is Google’s second or third attempt at a social platform. I’m a big fan and have a bad poker face. I love this platform and am not quite sure why. I think it’s because I can have long conversations with people I don’t know but share an interest. This makes it very different to Facebook (can only talk to friends and lets be honest, how interesting are they – no offense friends who read this) and Twitter (where pithy takes on a whole new meaning somewhere between art form and cryptography – that’s code breaking, dummy).

There’s one more thing that Google+ has over both Facebook and Twitter; bucket loads of money. Plus patience. Google is more than happy to play the waiting game. They invented the waiting game. They also invented the ‘oh, that looks fun, let’s buy that company’ game. They play both very well and win frequently.

Polish your crystal ball and look into the future. Facebook falls over because revenues remain stagnant, investors pull out and the company is purchased for pennies on the dollar by Rupert. Then it dies. Twitter continues on its trajectory of being an easier platform for spammers and with no revenue model is purchased by Rupert. Then it dies.

Google has a history of giving things away and then turning the taps off when they feel the time is right.

There are some notable exceptions like Gmail but in reality it is the perfect entry point for all of Google’s other services not to mention the constant visitors for AdWords advertisers. And lest us not forget the massive data mining exercise that Google embarks upon with every email sent and received through their ‘free email’ service. There are also add ons to the service like data storage for people who really need to keep every email they’ve ever received (ie are too lazy to cull their old emails).

Recently they turned off their free Google Apps service. This service is for SMEs and provides a host of brilliant collaboration platforms like Gmail, Docs, Messaging and easy management of all those services. Plus there are a host of third party widgets that can be installed to enhance your business operations.

If you already have an account you can add domains to your free account but you can’t create a new free account. Kills me that I merged all my free accounts into one master account about a year ago. Ho hum…. still, glad I have that one free account. New members will need to pay $5 per user per month. That’s $60 per employee per year. And that’s what I reakon they will do with Google+ sometime in the future when Facebook has been sold to Rupert.

Using other’s branded content for your benefit

There are days when you have nothing to say across your social media channels. These days should be very, very rare if you’ve planned your content strategy correctly but when they do arise, fret not. But for the simple search by your favourite interwebs engine and content that is (a) funny, (b) emotive or (c) informative and (d) relevant to your community is there for the repurposing.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen for you viewing pleasure I present
“Dumb Ways to Die” courtesy of Metro Trains Melbourne.

Metro Trains had this piece of brilliance created for them as branded content. But with it they found the Holy Grail and it became viral. At the time of posting it had 9,237,959 views. Check out the full stats below.

Where do your emails end up?

The short answer is; you never ever know, so treat each one as if you’re telling the world. Countless court cases have come down the wrong way due to so called ‘private emails’ being made very, very public.

The lesser end of the spectrum is just personal or professional embarrassment.

Below is a screen capture of an email that was forwarded to me from a friend who received it from one his friends.

It’s a funny little analogy. But to me, what makes it even funnier is who it’s coming from. Or more correctly, the profession of the originator – a counsellor  (sort of a budget shrink).

When the ‘joke’ and the signature are read together it’s a short walk to see this guy is pretty much saying, ‘if your life is fucked, I can’t help you’.

So the lesson for today; learn how to remove your ‘business’ signature when sending unrelated emails.There’s probably others to do with professional misconduct but I’m no expert in those matters.

Popular Science has sold 10,000 iPad magazine subscriptions

In mag land, cover price usually covers printing and newsstand distribution. So if you’re delivering it electronically, and giving 30% to Jobs et al, then your profits have just increased.

Interestingly, is this 10,000 new subscribers or existing. Or a mix of both. Either way you look at it, magazines may start to breathe a sigh of relief if this trend starts to appear for all publications taking the step towards iDistribution.

Popular Science has sold 10,000 iPad magazine subscriptions.

I want to tell the world everything; except you.

Facebook’s privacy statement now nudges 6000 words. The US constitution is a mere 4543.

Now I’m pretty sure the Facebook privacy statement doesn’t have to deal with trivial matters of interstate commerce, the right to bear arms and whether a negro is or isn’t worth three fifths of a man.

The US constitution, on the other hand, isn’t concerned with the who said what about who and making sure your ‘besty ‘ can see what you’re up to but your ‘ex-besty’ can’t.

The New York Times article below has a great graphic of the new Facebook privacy statement.

Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options – Graphic – NYTimes.com.