Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

Latest Data on Facebook

Latest Data on Facebook’s US Growth by Age and Gender – October 1, 2009

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/10/01/latest-data-on-facebooks-us-growth-by-age-and-gender-october-1-2009/

October 1st, 2009

We’ve been keeping track of Facebook’s self-reported demographic statistics on the US market for a while now, and here’s the latest update for October 1, 2009. While Facebook says these stats, provided to advertisers, are not necessarily real time, they do give us a sense of how Facebook is growing.

On the whole, Facebook’s US audience grew by 8.6% in September to 88.3 million uniques (compare to latest data from Quantcast, Compete, and comScore). Here’s how Facebook’s gender and sex numbers break down as of today:

The Internet Is Finally, Primarily A Content Platform

From siliconalleyinsider.com

It used to be the Web's only real killer app was communications -- email. But these days people use the Internet for content consumption more than anything else.

Users spend 88% more time consuming content on the Internet each month in 2009 (7 hours) than they did in 2003 (3 hours, 42 minutes), according to a study conducted by the Online Publishers Association's Internet Activity Index.

Whereas people used to spend 46% of their Internet time communicating in 2003, in 2009, that number is now down to 27%. As indicated in the chart above, content consumption is up to a 42% share from 34%

Change in Marketing Spending for Select Media ..emarketer.com

ShoppeSimple annoucing new enhancements to TransactionalRSS Feed Analytics Tools

What separates ShoppeSimple? Feeed Analytics. TransactionalRSS's platform enables a merchant to use tools that manage/grow the TRSS channel.

New ShoppeSimple Features

from RSCheck.com

What really separates ShoppeSimple TransactionalRSS (TRSS) from plain old RSS?  One of many compelling answers: Management and Analytics. ShoppeSimple’s SaaS-based TransactionalRSS platform is the only place to get a rich suite of tools that online marketers need to manage and grow the TRSS sales channel.

Case in point:  VP of User  Experience Jake Ingman just announced two new analytics features for the TransactionalRSS management side that should help our clients and peak the interest of many an online merchant:

1. The “Today” Row

This row on the analytics page provides up-to-the-second information about the pageviews, product click-throughs, and order conversions for the current day.

2. Campaign Tracking

ShoppeSimple stats now support Hub traffic source segmentation!  That means you can add a unique identifier to the end of your ShoppeSimple Hub URL, and it will be displayed separately in your detailed statistics report (and soon, in your summary table as well).  Some email campaign programs add variables to the end of your URLs automatically.  If you don’t use a program that adds these variables for you, you can add them manually.

For example, if you wanted to track visitors that came through your email campaign, you could modify your Hub URL like this:

Your generic hub link:

http://hub.shoppesimple.com/for/yourcompany/

Your email-specific hub link:

http://hub.shoppesimple.com/for/yourcompany/via/email/campaign/23/

This would tell the ShoppeSimple statistics program that those visitors came “via: email” and “campaign: 23″.  If you don’t have a campaign id, you can just use the /via variable.

There’s more, of course.  As usual, check out www.shoppesimple.com to see how it looks to the consumer; and have a look at www.shoppesimple.net to get a sneak preview of the next phase — a first of its kind opt-in prospecting portal for online merchants.

Let us know what you think — and if you want to learn more

For more information click on the Contact Us link at the top right of the home at RSSCheck.com

From Federated Media

Boing Boing

Boing Boing attracts more than 5 million unique visitors to its site each month, and has over 600,000 RSS subscribers. This mirrors my experience of email to RSS. The power of TransactionalRSS or TRSS like RSS is not in the collection or growing a massive TRSS subscriber file but in its ability to provide a consumer with promotional or product offerings everyday or multiple product offerings every day 365 days a year.

This is a very different strategic approach then what you tend to do with email subscriber files. thegies

RSS is how the news flows

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by Dave Winer.

http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/08/26/rssIsHowTheNewsFlows.html

To Sam Diaz who says RSS was "a good idea at the time but there are better ways now," I have many things to say.  

1. People confuse RSS with Google Reader. Let's be clear that there's a difference. Google Reader is an application that reads RSS-formatted data. There are many other applications that read and write RSS. 

2. I think Google Reader was, on the whole, a good thing. It's probably the best reader of its variety. You have to go find the new stuff in Google Reader. I prefer a reader that finds the new stuff for me, and presents it in reverse chronologic order. This is known as a river of news reader.  

3. Diaz more or less says that's his preference too. Interesting. 

4. My newspaper doesn't tell me how many articles I haven't read going back to the date of my birth. I bet it would be in the millions. Why should I care. This was the worst idea ever in news readers. 

5. The core problem -- so many programmers who write RSS software are not themselves news junkies. If they were they'd know when they got it wrong. News is about what's new! Show me the newest stuff first. Sorry to all the articles I didn't read, maybe in the next lifetime. 

6. He may not use a RSS reader, but the news is still getting to him through RSS.  

7. If all the RSS on the planet were all of a sudden to stop updating (key point) the news would stop flowing. Any news guy or gal who thinks they could get by without RSS -- think this through a bit more. We all love the Internet, but don't shut off your gas and electric because your computer and router wouldn't work without electricity. Same with RSS and news. RSS is how the news flows, whether you see it or not. If not RSS, something exactly like RSS.  

8. The Internet is layered. New technology comes on line building on tech that already existed. RSS was like that. It built on XML and HTTP, which built on text and TCP/IP. The new things that Diaz likes so much, in exactly the same way, build on RSS.  

9. When news authors don't understand how technology evolves, they propagate incorrect notions to everyone else, including would-be inventors, who have to figure it out for themselves, and then convince investors and partners they know what they're doing -- when they just read in ZDNet that things don't evolve at all. So Mr. Diaz does us all a disservice.  

10. I object when technology writers tell the story of technology incorrectly. People say I should just be happy to see my name in the story, or in this case something that I fathered. No deal. I want the accurate story out there. I want people to understand how technology really works, because that's central to users being empowered by it, instead of being controlled by it.  

Bonus: Marshall Kirkpatrick, my partner in the Bad Hair Day podcast (tomorrow 7PM Pacific) has his own excellent rebuttal to the Diaz piece. 

The Facebook Exodus

Fred Wilson sekingalpha.com

The NY Times Magazine has a short piece this weekend called The Facebook Exodus. In it the author, Virginia Heffernan, cites a number of anecdotes about people quitting Facebook. I am sure there are people quitting Facebook.

But the most recent comScore numbers tell another story (click to enlarge).

In the month of July 2009, almost 370 million people worldwide visited Facebook, up 155% from July 2008. Facebook is a global juggernaut. It is the fourth most popular website in the world after Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Yahoo! (YHOO).

This reminds me of all the Twitter Quitter stories I've read. People do quit Twitter. A lot of them. But here are the July comScore numbers for Twitter (click to enlarge).

In the month of July 2009, about 52mm people worldwide visited Twitter, up 1880% over July 2008 and Twitter is the 47th most popular website in the world according to comScore.

Here's the deal, churn is part of online media, particularly social media. People come and go. Some stick around, some don't. These stories about quitters are true of course, but they miss the big picture. More and more people are using these services every day.

Of course, Facebook and Twitter and every other web service out there should pay a lot of attention to why people are quitting their services and address those issues. The best services reduce churn over time. I don't know the exact numbers, but when we first invested in Twitter, it seemed like only 10% of first time users stuck around. Now that number is much higher and is one of the reasons why the service is growing faster.

So when you read these quitter stories, take them with a grain of salt. And make sure to look at the bigger picture at the same time. It may look very different.

A call out to Newspaper Advertising Executives...Is your ad revenue in decline?

TO: Newspaper Advertising Executives

If you would like to reverse the decline in your newspaper ad revenues why not partner with Shoppesimple.net

Join the very first of its kind TransactionalRSS feed marketing portal and you will receive transaction fees on every sale that is associated with your traffic. For more details...call 612.349.2740 or email info@rsschecl.com

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Newspaper ad sales shrank by 29 percent in the second quarter, a hit executives blame on both the recession and Web advertising's encroachment on print ad spending. They hope ad sales might buck back up during the holidays, but even if the recession abates soon, newspapers will still likely feel the pinch from Web ad sales that don't pay as well as print and the continuing decline of classified ads. source: Newspaper Association of America

Direct Marketing Circulation Stats

Co-op database firm Abacus recently released a study of direct marketing circulation that shows mail volume for the first quarter of 2009 decreased 19 percent vs. last year's first quarter. While both housefile and prospecting circ were down — 13 percent and 28 percent, respectively — a higher percentage of circ shifted to housefile, the report revealed.
Consider the following: In the first quarter of 2007, 54 percent of circ was devoted to housefile. That percentage swelled to 61 percent in the first quarter of 2008 and 65 percent in this year's first quarter.