bhavishya_KANJHAN

You don’t need to look far to find critics of Twitter. There’s as many opponents of the service as there are proponents. The former argue that Twitter is just a ‘fad’. An April 2009 report by Nielsen online says that Twitter has a retention rate of less than 40%, which means more than 60% of the users who sign up and try the service do not become regular users of it. So it may be. But the debate on whether Twitter is a ‘Revolution’ or not will last for some more time.

Let’s change tracks and look at something that was a revolution, Napster, which I doubt I need to give you the history of. Napster brought a revolution in the music industry, changing forever the way people acquired and consumed music. While Napster (in its original form) may now be defunct, the spirit behind is still alive, in the various copycat software that followed it, in the technology that was – in part – inspired by it (Bittorrent) , but most importantly in the attitude and behaviour of the people today. A report by Morgan Stanley’s, now hotshot, teen intern says teens are “very reluctant” to pay for music and spend more time streaming it off websites. But the more important change was in the way we acquire music. Music purchased these days is now accessible everywhere on and on each of the multiple devices a user owns. Unlike in the past where a buyer would pay full price for a crappy album with one acceptable track, he can now choose to purchase just that one track and he now has a playlist full of hits. iTunes is the biggest music store in the world today, having beat all other brick and mortar music stores, distributing DRM free music in a similar manner to what Napster did; digitally.

The point I’m desperately trying to make is it doesn’t matter if Twitter, or for that matter any of the other popular Social Networking Sites, die out in a few years. The web has seen its social meter rise through the years – first with forums, then reviews, ratings, wiki, social websites etc – and will certainly continue on that trend. The people (and businesses) that are social today, will continue to be social then. Brands that did not directly engage their consumers till yesterday, are doing so today and will do so tomorrow. Companies that didn’t see social websites as a source of revenue/lead generation till yesterday, are doing so today and will do so tomorrow. Researchers who did not see the social interaction as a source of first hand knowledge till yesterday, are doing so today and will do so tomorrow. The one to one and one to many channels of communication that we’ll now be used will become an important element of an individual/businesses’ communication strategy.

All the activities I mentioned above will continue even in the absence of Twitter, albeit on a newer and more evolved platform. After all, Facebook and Twitter are also evolutionary products of others (and themselves) before them. So maybe it’s okay if Twitter isn’t a revolution because it’s evolution into the product it is today has brought to center the importance of the Social element of the web which will persist when/if Twitter is superseded by something newer.

Image Credit : Tegan

So you already know that  from Sunday – on occasion of Mother’s Day – Facebook will let you list your parents, siblings and children as relationships on Facebook. Aww, warms my heart. Great news for everyone.

Who is going to like this especially? Why it’s the ad sales team at Facebook. Not only do they have information about you as an individual, now they know you as part of a (real life) network. What does that mean? More specifically targeted ads. Got young kids? Here’s an ad for pampers. Old parents?  Buy them a pair of Reading glasses, or a massage, whatever. Sibling in a different part of the world? Here have a cheap ticket, special offer, discount on hotel.

Do I sound like a cynic? I don’t mean to. It’s a great move on part of Facebook. Relevant ads are increasingly important for firms to maximise their ROI. It’s these very ads that improve the signal to noise ratio towards the potential consumer. Moral of the story, everybody wins. Right?

(Image via Steve Tracy)

Your significant other isn’t the only one who you’ll be in a relationship with over Facebook now. In celebration of Mother’s Day, Facebook will let you list your parents, siblings and children (maybe more?) under the appropriately named “Family Member” section within your profile. A request will be sent to the user who will then, hopefully, accept it and the relationship will be shown on both profile. Easy Peasy.

There is already a website dedicated to the enthusiasm and excitement of parents joining Facebook by them kids. This is exactly the kind of thing that they (me too) have been waiting for to accept the ‘friend’ request from our parents. Before that it just seemed demeaning and insulting.

As for parents, what could give them more joy than to share the name, age and other personal information (profile) of their kids on their Facebook page. Tears of Joy flow everywhere.

Jokes aside, this is a great idea. The feature is long overdue, especially with the demographic spreading far beyond the original college and high school audience. Whether the demographic chooses to use it or not is something we’re going to have to wait to see; especially the college and high school students many of who are who are far from happy with their parents and uncles and aunts sending them ‘friend requests’.

News has spilt over about a failed acquisition of Twitter by Facebook. Kara Swisher of Boom Town tells us that Facebook offered $500 million of Facebook Stock (at Microsoft’s valuation) to acquire Twitter which it rejected. Reasons? The first of course of whether the $500 million of stock represented $500 million or a more realistic $150 million. And more importantly, Twitter execs’ belief that they can eventually come up with a revenue model and take advantage of their exponentially growing user base.

Despite Facebook’s application certification programme, it is far from solving its own revenue problem and picking up Twitter would mean picking up its costs too.

However, the biggest worry for Twitter users is its fit in the Facebook platform and network. The Twitter API is a lot less restrictive than Facebook’s which has allowed users to use the service in a wide variety of ways. Think Twibble, Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Twitterfox to start up with. Any curtailment of this is sure to piss off a lot of users.

Besides the way I see it, there is not a lot Facebook stands to gain from Twitter apart from its large user base. Updates and commenting is already part of the functionality. So I’d say good call by the folks at Twitter. Forget acquisitions and focus on your scaling and revenue issues and all will be fine and dandy.

Let’s face it, Facebook has become a hub of daily activity for a large number of people, including me. This is specially true for university where birthdays and socials are organised over Facebook and if you’re anywhere as obsessed as me about having an organised calendar, you would have noticed the lack of a true solution to have that information automatically imported in your calendar and more importantly mobile device. This is because most mobile phone sync solutions only allow you to sync one calendar to your phone and while you may be able get an internet calendar running in Outlook you can’t update it on your device. I tried copying event information from internet calendar to local calendar but that would mean doing it periodically and it beats the purpose.

Fortunately, there is a, tricky but working, solution to that problem. In this scenario I’m going to use Outlook, Google Calendar and a Nokia E90.

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