3 Things Twitter Have Taught Us (of many)

[Part of our "things" series] 

Twitter the micro blogging platform that allows up to 140 characters in text and has over 200 million users. This company has raised over $360 million in funding and has a reported valuation of nearly $8 billion if they close the recent funding of $800m.

1. Allows people to develop and market their service - Twitter keeps users coming back by allowing developers to innovate tools which make their product more appealing. This is called the twitter ecosystem and their are over one million registered applications.

2. Take Money - Twitter has been very good at taking money from investors for a quite a while, but those investors are going to want to see a return and now they are rolling out promoted tweets in the main twitter timeline.

3. Celebrity endorsement - Without twitter having to pay them and state their interest makes their product very appealing to other users. It also allowed us to get in contact with people that may be very difficult to ever get in touch with.

Let us know what you think...

6 Things Google Give You For Free! (of many)

[Part of our "things" series] 

What I like about Google is many of their productivity tools, which I only need one log in to use all the tools and services they offer.

1. Google Docs - Great for sharing projects if your working remotely or want to communicate whilst you edit a document (distracted us for hours on first use)


2. Google+ Hangouts - A nice way to stay in touch with colleagues (or others) if you want to look at up to ten peoples faces & share things whilst you speak. Perhaps whilst your away because you used Airbnb.

3. Gmail - Get an email address whilst your using the other products.

4. Chrome - A simple and fast browser which allows me to download applications for the web browser.

5. Calendar - Enter everything that's coming up and any tasks you need to do in to lists. You can then share your calendar or have separate calendars or work and home.

6. Maps - This one is just helpful for getting places and looking at places you cant afford to go too. But if you can afford to go, then you can get some directions. Going to London? get a public transport route.

Let us know what you think...

Cash Strapped Entreprenuer - Airbnb?

When your a Start-up business, finance can sometimes be hard to come by and the expenses are likely to escalate. This also goes for larger businesses but consider cutting your accommodation costs when travelling and have a little fun with Airbnb.com. Airbnb are a marketplace for spaces around the world which handles the bookings and financial transactions for users.

Founded in 2007 after a local event was coming to town which they thought they should offer their place for people to stay. The company now offers places in over 16,000 cities in 186 countries and has even had an igloo rented out. The marketplace for property has an iPhone application with over 160,000 downloads since November 2010. This company has raised nearly $120 million after recently announcing their latest $112m series B funding.

Google Another New Feature!

That's right if your travelling in London then Google Maps has added a feature for you to "Get Directions" using "Public Transit". Hope this helps the London Olympic Visitors next year.

So now maps had more features that we might get to utilise globally in the future as street view was a slow progression. After Google+ launch earlier this year can we see Google with more good innovation.

4 Top Google Map Tools


1. Street View - Although I've noticed the address is often wrong.


2. Email Route - This is good for emailing the root to my mobile.


3. Directions - Great for getting directions to any destination by car/ walking and now in London Public transport.  Also estimated route times.

4. Est. Fuel Cost -  Good Indicator although I always add some more just incase.

Apply with LinkedIn

LinkedIn which was launched in 2003 and now has over 100 million users has launched an application button for developers. The service which operates in over 200 countries allows professionals to network online. The company went public on the 19th may 2011 and today have a market cap of over $9.5bn (USD).

The new button will allow candidates to use their LinkedIn profile to apply for jobs when the "Apply with LinkedIn" button is displayed. See more Below or on LinkedIn Developer Page. Is this more good innovation from social networking sites to make sure they don't fade away fast and the recent professional users for Google+, do LinkedIn need to be scared.

Let us know what you think...

Food to Graze in the office! - (Online Food Delivery)

If your lucky enough to eat at your desk (maybe not?) you probably snack on a pack of biscuits through out the day. I recently decided this needs to change and came across graze.com a company which delivers natural foods to the office whether its at home or in an office block, they deliver "nationwide in the UK" to "any address that can receive post". So I thought you might be interested and we are SnakSocial!

Started by 7 friends in 2008 they now send out over 130,000 boxes a with a price of £3.49. They deliver from Monday to Saturday and you can choose the day/s you which suit you.The snacks will come in a box which has four punnets with a variety of different natural food choices -They deliver olives, flapjacks, nuts, dried fruits and many more.

If your going on holiday, that's fine let them know to skip some deliveries. If you don't like something they won't send it again, if you like something they'l send it more often. The great thing is your able to get a variety each time your box arrives. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Let us know what you think...

Monetise outgoing traffic!!

I recently came across a real great tool which allows publishers, developers, website owners to make revenue from people leaving their site. Its called GapAd and its currently in its Beta Stage, we are all aware of sites such as entrepreneur.com which places adverts when someone enter the site.

This could be attractive way to monetise your site without filling the page with adverts but it also means that the ads placed on incoming traffic don't scare visitors away - because don't forget you have 7 seconds to impress. There is also the fact that you will have to have people on your site and they need to leave through an exit link. The other problem is if you adopt just this strategy of  "Outgoing Ads" then you only get the chance to place on ad in front of the visitor/ user.

Let us know what you think...

Formspring for Marketing!

Formspring is a Q&A site that has over 25 million registered users and allows you to sign in with both Twitter and Facebook. They posted their first promoted question which promoted the movie "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Formspring was founded in 2009 by Ade Olonoh and had 1 million registered users in 45 days.

This is definitely worth using for your business so that you can engage customers with questions and help you gain knowledge from your customers. I would say that this is a great tool for mass marketers and for use in conjunction with your social media to get the best results.

To be continued...Let us know what you think.

Just a Twitter in the night. No!

Twitter has "One Million Registered Twitter Apps" according to their blog - How great is that? Twitter which has over 200 million registered accounts and as of June were sending over 200 million tweets a day the company has an ecosystem for all users.

The ecosystem includes tools for organisations and people based on their different needs. The ecosystem for twitter itself makes the platform so attractive by allowing people to get real time data wherever they may be. A large number of organisations are taking advantage of the tools on twitter that allow them to get a good insight into their customers. Sometimes it feels like everyone's trying to promote something...

Tell us what you think...

Three Lessons from Facebook last week!

Last week we wrote a number of articles on Facebook but this is because they are such an interesting company that are getting so many things right. We are well aware Google+ bought out a product which allowed group chat(Hangouts) but Facebook know that the majority of people have one-to-one chats and launched their video chat feature.

Facebook have given businesses people lessons for years now and we managed to see some just last week

1. Get your product right - make sure the consumer loves it then start charging for it - this could mean market research first & knowing your customer - Facebook have data on over 750m people.

2. Innovate - because once you have a great product then people will copy and it's important to always be one step ahead - but for Myspace and Skype partnership in 2007, may have been to early.

3. Stay Efficient - if your not efficient enough to do something then outsource or partner with someone who has the resources such as Facebook and Skype - Spotify are also reported to be reaching a deal with Facebook.

Let us know what you think...

SnakSocial - Our First Week

To You the Reader,

From yesterday SnakSocial had been blogging for one week and what a week it has been.

We have been reviewing the new Google+, seen Skype come to Facebook, find out that the UK's 168 year old newspaper - News of the World is publishing for the last time on Sunday and MySpace get sold for £22 by News International for a fraction of what they paid for it. So really not a good week for News International which holds News Corp.

We have managed to get readers in over 10 countries, post 21 articles and tweet 35 times.Our Poll closed with Twitter being the favourite business social tool.

So thanks to all our readers! Let us know what you think...

Brands say No - News of the World Goes

The News of the World has had a lot of troubles in its time and the latest phone hacking scandals of celebrities and the British royal family have caused a long line of advertisers to pull the plug such as Boots and Vodafone which made up part of their TOP 10 advertisers who collectively bought in nearly £40m. So Sundays edition will be the last with the proceeds going to good causes according to News Corps Mr Murdoch. 168 years its been going and bad apples in their 200 staff have meant the fruit bowl has to go. The News of the world was part of the UK/ European division of News Corp which had bought in $1.61bn revenue in the year ending June 2010 to News International.

Ofcom reports that  with Sky News they have a TV media reach of 11.7m, press media reach with news corp of 14.5m and an online media reach of 4.6m with news corp in the UK. In April 2011 News of the World had an average Sunday circulation of 2.6m people according to ABC.

This just stresses the importance of the operations of a business affecting a brand. This can be said for many websites online which have their revenue supported or wholly from advertisements. Earlier this year we had Wiki Leaks who had many of their service providers pull out because of the thought that their support would affect their own brands.

James and Rupert Murdoch have been getting quizzed by MP's in the UK.

To Be Continued. Let us know what you think?

15 Billion Downloads - have you got an app?

Apple have recently announced that they have had 15,000,000,000 application downloads and this makes you realise the power of the phone applications knowing that this is no longer a FAD but the way we will consume information globally in the years to come.

So are you involved? I think it is important now for every business to make themselves accessible via an "app" to  engage your customers through mobile because they'l see you everyday. We recently wrote about QR codes and how they can be used to take a user to a website on the go. Applications however give users the choice to see what your business is doing everyday. The problem is they can be expensive to make for the more complicated applications.

Their is a lot of competition in the Apple "app" store with over 425,000 of them to choose. Their are places which allow you to make applications for Androids and Ovi. Ovi App Wizard is in its beta stage and allows you to make an app in minutes for Nokia phones - not doing too well.  Android from Google has an app inventor in Google Labs. Will the other operating systems catch up?

Tell us what you think...

No brands! Well not yet. - Google+

Google+ have today told businesses not to use their service whilst they continue to develop their platform for brands. They still haven't opened up the service to everyone yet either but those brands who have managed to get on their have been told that the service won't be ready until later this year.

With yesterdays launch of Facebook's video calling feature, is this going further damage to the appeal for Google+? because not everyone will need the Hangouts 10 way calling and will users stick to the brand profiles where they are offered things? - on Facebook. We recently wrote about the use of Google+ for professionals!



Let us know what you think...

Facebook + Skype = 2 Way Chat

The recent reports were right - So we now have Facebook with one-on-one video chat, not to long after Google+ launched and gave us hangouts. This i'm sure is going to be quite a problem for Google attracting users, who don't need to chat to more than one person.

So we have Google+ hangouts where you can get up to ten people in to one chat and yet to be opened to everyone. Whilst Facebook has launched its one-to-one chat that brings Skype inside your browser. You don't need a new account either to use the Facebook video chat. I still see Google+ as an additional profile for remote workers and Facebook video calling for those personal social calls. We also found out that Facebook have their 750 million users - WOW!

How easy do you find Facebook's Video Calling - here's a clip from YouTube.

To be continued. Let us know what you think...

What do Google, Facebook and the Huffington Post have in common?

The recent knowledge that Google is going to rename their Blogger (very special to us!) and Picasa to Google Photos & Google Blogs is some interesting news for out tech readers but we also have a bit of business side to us as well so I think a mention of the importance of branding to an organisation needs to be mentioned.

Blogger and Picassa are already strong brands in their own right but Google has been ranked fourth by Interbrand best global brands with a "brand value" of over $43bn. We realise that it can have a lot more attraction to a larger market and we understand that Google is making a lot of changes to accomodate Google+, most recently their Realtime feature went down. Reported that this was because their contract for the twitter firehose ran out but also to work on developing it for Google+. The point is that these brands contribute a large part of the valuations of many of our big online names such as Facebook.

Another "brand" is Huffington Post and they have just launched their UK version, will they have the same success in the UK and will they get it right?

Tell us what you think...

QR codes - big business?

Quick Response Codes more commonly known as QR codes. They allow people with QR readers which anyone with a smartphone now holds, to be able to use their camera to access websites straight from their phone. I haven't really seen many QR adopters yet and with a growing number of smartphone users is it more likely business should start looking to QR codes.

Why not just type it in? its more fun to scan and see where it takes you :/

I can see a number of problems for some people who may not what to stop in the middle of the street to scan a QR code especially a busy one. However if we started to see them on adverts could it encourage customers to engage with your brand and perhaps take them to a site where they could review your business. Another function could be to get customers on your website whilst their out and I think that could be good for offering deals which once scanned they receive a coupon code to take to a local store. Customers could also find out more information about your company from an visual advert.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ - A QR code generator and they have an APP! (QR Code's CSI Moment below)

Would like to know what you think...

What will IPO's mean for us users?

With a number of IPO's in the pipeline from many of the major online services we use, are we going to see less user targeted features and more shareholder "profit making" features. Just  recently we have seen Linkedin go public on the 19th May this year and they have profits of just over $15m for the 12 months ending 31st December 2010. Shareholders are probably happy at the moment though - LNKD share prices are holding on the NYSE.

However with some of our other future IPO's such as Groupon later this year and also Facebook expected next April - these companies are said to not be making profits. A little consideration needs to be taken in to account at whether these organisations will come under pressure from their shareholders to give them a return. Will we see any changes in the user experience for the products we use online? I'm not saying they are all going to start charging monthly subscription but perhaps more adverts.

Let us know what you think...@snaksocial

YouTube - Search and they will find!

YouTube is a real cool tool for businesses and many have adopted the platform as part of their online marketing campaign.YouTube is a search engine in its own right and is the second most used in the world after Google. This makes it a very important part in the online presence of any business because of it’s viral capabilities. YouTube was bought by Google in 2006 for $1.5bn - they recognised potential.

So create a video and upload it to YouTube make sure the description, title and tags are what your audience would be looking for - but not false. You can find what your less competitive keywords with Google insight so that your video’s will often pop up in Google’s first page.

Few facts before your example...YouTube is third on the Alexa ranking(top sites used in the world) and Mashable reported "YouTube has 490 million unique users worldwide per month"

Anyway...I recently advised a start up business about the use of video and they have found it really helpful in explaining their idea to people who like visual concepts. Blendtec used this idea by putting objects that wouldn't usually go into a blender, into a blender and the video went viral. Another business called bluQube which makes software used it by starting a contest among some yachtswomen.

Let us know what you think...

Growth in Enterprise

Their are a rising number of young people starting businesses since the Internet has been around and its cheaper to get started. I know that it is widely reported when a young person makes a success of their business but I have noticed that their are problems with the education sector and socially. We are improving with courses such as National Enterprise Academy but their is still a strong push for grades, work still needs doing.

Firstly the education sector, especially the one's I been with are really focused on grades that will get them a Job or into next level education and the league tables. Secondly the social expectations from parents and family pride putting pressure on the younger generation to find work, however work has dried up over the last few years( I won't bang on about the recession).

What changes need to happen? Change the league tables in to a long term goal for education to monitor students post education making sure that they are either choosing to stay in education or the student is in work (including running a business). This will show show a fundamental change in allowing education to prove its worth for the student and their future. In a nutshell a league table which works for both those who wish to continue their education and those who wish to work. Then I think we will start to see education provide better facilities for growing students to work or run a business.

Tell me what you think...

Is email going to die?

I know this is really quite far fetched but I think we need to look at the growing population of social network users and also the increasing features available on these platforms. With many of them you have private messaging features and I know that Facebook allows you to add attachments as well. I've also seen that many websites are allowing users to sign up with their Twitter or Facebook and this is growing.

Email is like your key to the internet you can use it to sign in to the vast number of websites on offer some which will send you discounts on your favourite stuff! but every time we visit our inbox many of the unfortunate ones need to delete a load of emails we don't want. This is time consuming and frustrating that when you get to the ones you want it's like finding a needle in a haystack. If your a daily deal subscriber you can get some cool stuff or your teeth whitened for cheap :)

On the other hand, this isn't very likely anytime soon because many websites would need to find a new way for them to stay in contact with their users and have them sign up. Also sometimes its good to keep your email for work and then personal social platforms for keeping in touch with friends & family - not saying people don't mix them. However we all know about Google+ having a circles feature which allows you to separate groups and change the visibility they have on your profile.

Tell us what you think?

Groupon or GroupOff?

Groupon has had phenomenal growth in the past three years and many more competitors such as LivingSocial have popped up, many turning niche to compete. Launched in November 2008 by Andrew Mason the company now operates in 43 countries with "about 7,000 employees". The business was offered $6bn from Google which Groupon turned down.

For those who don't know? Groupon will offer their users in each market a "Groupon" each day. The deal needs to be bought by a certain number of people so that it becomes available to all. The company has had both good and bad reviews by businesses. The benefits include being able to draw in new customers which can then become loyal and make repeat sales. It's not usual for the business to make a profit from Groupon in fact many companies make losses. These are justified as a marketing expense and I have also heard a number of unsuccessful reviews where the companies don't get the support needed. They already have over 83m subscribers so it is quite an attractive opportunity for many businesses.

I feel that not every business is going to be suited to running a deal because Groupon is trying to make profit and they may stretch your business too far. Its so important for the business to really think about whether the deal Groupon wants to run will suit their business.

Groupon reportedly made $713.4 million in 2010 and has already bought in $644.7m in the first quarter of this year and has only made a profit in the first quarter of 2010 of $8m. This could be put down to its rapid growth and high marketing costs. Its obvious that Groupon are making sure that they have majority market share and are looking for long-term profits. With an IPO in the pipe line are investors going to get the profits they seek and are the business going to be better off or are Groupon just going to cash in. Their IPO is reported to make Groupon worth $25bn.

Tell us what you think...

In Your Hour of Need! - Peopleperhour.com

Peopleperhour.com for those who can't do and need something doing. With an estimated amount of jobs posted valuing £28million and over 130,000 freelancers,  people per hour is becoming a real benefit for organisations who wish to outsource work remotely. The business re-branded and launched in 2008 as Peopleperhour and have allowed clients to have a flexible workforce since.

Their head offices are in London and they operate in over 150 countries worldwide with three offices. For clients its simple(see picture left) you post a Job, review the the bids from freelancers, award the work, pay for it once completed and leave some feedback. The freelancer can bid for work by filtering out the jobs they don't want, their are over 45,000 clients outsourcing work on Peopleperhour. Freelancers need to pay a percentage service fee on the work they do however if you upgrade your account you pay less and you can make more bids on work then the 10 bids you get with the free account.

Elance is the equivilant with 448,000 freelancers and has had over 49,000 jobs posted in the last 30 days. They have also managed to reach nearly $400 million of work since being founded in 1999.

Tell us what you think...

Skype on Facebook!! - ***CONFIRMED***

***NOW CONFIRMED***
This recent spoiler that I have heard, doesn't surprise me - Skype is being brought to Facebook! With the recent knowledge that Google+ has a group video feature how will Facebook's compare? Are both skype and Facebook going to see a huge rise in users, almost certainly.

Skype was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5bn. Microsoft became the "exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook" and began to sell advertising for Facebook internationally on  Oct. 24, 2007. This shows their close ties and Microsoft's lack of entry in to the social network market other than Facebook. Is this as Mark Zuckerberg put it "awesome"? Tell us your thoughts @snaksocial

Reported on techcrunch - Facebook Announcement on 6th July 2011

To be continued...

Dropbox - in case you drop your device.

Have you come across Dropbox yet because it's quite a nifty tool and simple to use. Basically you have three options 2GB Free, 50GB $9.99 and 100GB $19.99. This allows you to access your files from any your different devices such as a PC, Mac and your mobile. Its was founded in 2007 and received funding from Y-combinator who have also "funded over 300 startups" such as Scribd and Airbnb.

Dropbox revealed that it had over 25million users and it serves over 175 countries. They have "over 200 Million files saved daily" according to their website. Their mobile app is free on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone. It also allows you to share files using a link by email or on your social networks etc...

Box.net is a competitor but there are many different solutions to choose from and they have integrations with some of your other business tools such as Salesforce and your Google Apps. Their is obviously more focus around larger organisations with companies such as Dell and Virgin using them. So Box.net has a free plan which gives you around 5GB storage and then 25GB = $9.99 and 50GB = $19.99. If your a big file saver you may need 500GB for 3 or more users at $15 per user/month.

Tell us what you think...

Facebook Announcement

Facebook's making an announcement next Wednesday on the 6th of July. I've had a little look around and I can see some speculation around a new application. Mark Zuckerberg says its "awesome", so would anyone who was releasing a product - so we need to wait and see. After a number of good reviews on the new Google+ (Google plus) this week we'll need to see if Facebook has done again what it is so good at - Innovate.

Next week though, we will display twitter feed from the press conference.

Let us know what you think and will be updating this post.

Foursquare...check it out!

Launched in 2009 and its growing users base suggests you should check it out. "Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform" as foursquare.com says. With that in mind what can you do? well if your at a location you are able to "check in" using a smartphone app or by text. The platform currently has an app on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Ovi & Windows Phone. The growth in use of mobiles makes it an attractive choice for users to get rewards. The site claims to have over 10million users and 3million "checking in" each day so the site is still growing. In comparison to its counterparts it has a long way to go, but as we've seen before it doesn't always take that long. Foursquare also already has over 400,000 businesses using the merchant platform - the benefits??

So what is the use for businesses? well the person who checks in most to a location becomes a "mayor" and you could reward this person each week with something free - just an example. But the application will allow you to see who checks in and how frequently and offer discounts to those who "check in" a number of times.

Can I use it to get new customers? yes you can offer discounts or freebies for those who check in and get your existing users to share their location on Twitter and Facebook. It also has a stats feature to look at how effective your campaign is.

Let us know what you think of foursquare and how you use it...

Office 365. doing a 180?

I have recently looked at Microsoft office 365 and seen that their new "cloud-based management tools" are somewhat late as this article. Microsoft seem to just be following other services and then shoving them in users faces as we have seen with Bing. This now seems like a bold move as they have to compete with the what is becoming a fast and simple to use product - Google docs. We are all aware that Microsoft have been making office software for years so I don't understand the lateness, although they had tried a partnership with Facebook. Which was Facebook docs by fuse labs but I don't know of anyone using it and couldn't access when I was writing this because its being fixed?! However we know that their are still problems with Google docs in that they don't have all the features Microsoft can provide, which I only assume is why Microsoft are still charging for their software, because they still are market leaders.

The £4 per user/month starting price for using office 365 is fairly cheap and the options to sync your files across the web and mobile devices make it an attractive option but even when I began to sign up for the free trial I was felt it was time to leave as the sign up process was ridiculous. It wanted you to set up a sub-domain then a email address or that... blah blah blah. It may be targeted towards professional and different sized organisations but I never found ZoHo(4m users) that mundane.

To be Continued... Let us know what you think