article

tnt - 07-30

[01:55] [business/finance] Twitter shares rose 35 percent yesterday after the company’s earnings report w/Katie Benner,TheInformation Miriam Gottfried Wall Street Journal

] They said monthly active users were surprisingly good -- up 24 percent for a total of 271 million people.
] added 16M new users, about the same last QTR,
] they beat expectations on revenue and earnings
] grew earnings by a huge %
] company implied that they still have lots of ways to raise more revenue
] key is to set reasonable expectations,
] challenge is to raise average revenue per user
] analysts asking about user experience, what are they going to do, are you going to be more 'facebook like'
] company saying no to that
] they talked about world cup, they had built/added some great twitter user experiences around that event
] BUT didnt grow users, company was defensive about that, spun it so that the 16M user growth was something consistent, not a 1x event because of ....

] a deep-learning, computer-vision startup
] thinking on why - usage around - ecommerce, engagement, data collection
] twitter has extraordinary data, several companies have been built around 'harvesting' that data and monetizing the twitter data stream
] twitter is getting in on this space, anything they can do to enrich the data stream is going to be good for user engagement and help them to cater to advertisers
] example - ecommerce - cardspring, example data miner does predictive analytics using twitter data
] have had problem in the past integrating aquistions with their core experience, employees, patents, services
] example - lufin labs - took some of the talent, some of the ip, but didnt demonstrate integration with their core product
] a little unclear how this aquisition fit into the big picture at this time

[13:00] [business/product] Google wants search results to be more informative and actionable

] The company is adding a five-star rating system( amazon like) to some ads that appear along with Google Search results.
] mixed feelings - where is it coming from, how is it being determined
] is it like the google+, where users of g+ social network, plussed an item, then it appears in google search results as user endorsed product, without the knowledge or consent of user
] ratings appear to be coming from merchants,
] amazon is the target for taking away ecommerce business

[18:45] [business/product] Virgin Mobile USA launched today a new customizable wireless plan w/ Pete Pachal @ mashable

] It’s called Virgin Mobile Custom. The plan lets customers control the details of their plan -- how much data, how many minutes and so on -- and this can be changed at any time through a special app.
] plan is exclusive through Walmart, paired with a selected few smartphone offerings ( 2 LG's 1 ZTE), all android,
] can select exactly how many minutes, how much data you want
] your plan goes into a pool, that can be shared by up to 5 users,
] if you choose the unlimited option (which of course isnt unlimited), the unlimited usages is only available to 1 of the user's on the plan
] parental controls - the most granular controls offered by a carrier, can authorize specific apps, apps by time
] kids can use airplane mode to avoid parents pushing out admin changes to their phones
] Virgin Mobile is a prepaid mobile service that is subsiduary of Sprint, the technology behind the software to manage the plan, is from a startup called "its on", sprint shuttered the company earlier this month
] essentially its a 'web portal', you can edit your plan at any time, as much as you want,

[25:30] [business/product] Instagram has quietly unveiled a new messaging app called Bolt w/ Ellis Hamburger @theVerge

] why - sending a picture or video, made even easier
] app is similar to tapatalk, but prettier
] typical messaging app like imessage process is - ] go into conversation - ] tap photo - ] go to photo library - ] select photo - ] then select send
] with Bolt app - ] you flip your phone, ] camera viewfinder has faces of 4 of your friends at bottom of screen, ] tap a friends face to immediatley send whats on your screen(photo) to that friend, ] hold your friends face to send video
] a superfast way to send photos or video to your friends
] now there is 5 different ways to send messages, offered by 1 company(Facebook), the 'spagetti against the wall' strategy
] facebook messenger ] whats app ] facebook poke slingshot ] instagram messages ] instagram bolt
] Facebook is just hoping that 1 of them works, doesn't matter which one, projects seem to all be independant , they can deliver ads on all of these platforms, they can harvest your personal data
] will be promoted inside the instagram feed directly, once it rolls out
] currently bolt is only available in select markets - new zealand, singapore and south africa
] bolt is designed to send messages to only 1 person at a time,
] 1 tap messaging app, an emerging category ?

[31:50] [business/product] A new software platform for the hotel industry launched today w/ Ben Fischer @new york business journal

] It’s called Voyat, and it exists in part to harvest information about hotel guests from social media sites in order to customize their hotel experience. Voyat came out of beta and out of stealth mode today.
] CRM behind the curve in the industry, quite a bit of buzz/feedback in the beta
] are people who stay in hotel going to be OK with this, being tracked, marketed to directly?
] 95% users opted in, 50% went thru a social channel to do so
] potential for 2 classes customers, those with big social media followings, those with klout to say, will they get preferential treatment based on that
] currently are 2 classes allready of hotel guests, those who use hotels frequently, those who aren't, the infrequent guests
] hotels thinking they can connect with theri infrequent guests, like they do with frequent guests
] a google ish idea, mining social data to provide a more personalized experience
] one of the companies co founders, Benjamin Havel , is an ex googler, was Marissa Mayer's cheif of staff when she was there
] maybe a target for potential aquistion by google or yahoo,

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