Google Buzz is not trending

One thing I've noticed about Google Buzz is that it's not being used that much to share stories from popular sites like Mashable and TechCrunch. If you run through the archives of these sites and look at the share counts, you'll see that Twitter is king, Facebook is a distant second, and Buzz is an even further third. Sites like Mashable tend to have stories that are shared a lot on social networks, and seeing the low number of people using Buzz can give you an idea of how Google is faring against Twitter and Facebook in the social arena.

World map of URL shorteners

I found this cool map of URL shorteners over on Wired. It covers most of the popular country domains in use today by URL shorteners such as Bit.ly, Goo.gl, FB.me (Facebook), Youtu.be and GOP.am (Republican party). Read the full article here.

Shr.ty update

Bad news for my URL shortener service Shr.ty: the top level domain .ty doesn't exist! Now I'll have to think of another clever name for my service if I want to dominate the URL shortening game!

I also checked up on a couple possible addresses for Twitter's own in-house shortener. Twi.tr or Twitt.er would seem like appropriate names for this type of service; the .TR top level domain belongs to Turkey and the .ER top level domain belongs to Eritrea, a small country in Africa. Another option for Twitter is the address Twe.et. The .ET top level domain belongs to Ethiopia.

Although none of these top level domains currently offers commercial or vanity usage, I'm sure Twitter can negotiate with the registrars of each country to acquire an address. Bit.ly uses a Libyan domain and Goo.gl uses a Greenland domain, so it shouldn't be too hard for Twitter to secure a custom address for itself.

URL Shorteners: Bit.ly, Goo.gl, Shr.ty

I'm not a huge fan of URL shorteners. Quite honestly, I don't trust them. I like to see exactly where someone is trying to send me, and I can often sniff out a spammy link just by looking at the URL. There was a time when I refused to click on a TinyURL link. But with the rise of Twitter and 140 character limits I've been forced to change my habits as shortened links are pretty much unavoidable these days.

For most of the year URL shorteners like Bit.ly and Ow.ly were quiet servants of the internet, not making too much noise and working as well as one would expect them to. This past month however there's been a bit of shake-up with the entry of Google and Facebook into this tiny (pun intended) space. Goo.gl and Fb.me were launched for internal use at each respective company, but it's easy to see how these shortening services might be extended to the general public, especially in the case of Google. How will sites like Bit.ly continue to operate in the face of this tough competition?

What is Bit.ly's value proposition? Right now it's the market leader mostly because it’s the default shortener for Twitter. But before Bit.ly the shortener of choice for Twitter was TinyURL. Twitter was able to change over to Bit.ly without too much disruption, so what’s to stop it from changing providers again? Why wouldn't Twitter create its own shortening service, something like a Twi.tr service?

It's really not too hard to start a URL shortening service. In fact, if I wanted to I could start up my own URL shortening service tomorrow without too much effort. (I would call it Shr.ty). But why would I, when there are services like Bit.ly and Goo.gl out there that will take care of all that for me?

Right now I use Bit.ly because it's the default Twitter shortener and because it seems to be the most 'trusted' service out there (whatever that means). But if Google were to offer its service for free to the public, I would probably use Goo.gl over Bit.ly. Why? Well, because I simply trust Google more than I do Bit.ly. I trust that Google has a small army behind it dedicated to security and data integrity, and I trust that Google has a massive database behind it that will allow it to verify and secure all of the URLs that go through its service. Bit.ly simply doesn't the firepower and data to keep up with Google in this area.

Google can probably also offer better reliability and real-time tracking capabilities than Bit.ly. Interestingly enough, Twitter switched over from TinyURL to Bit.ly earlier this year due to these exact issues. Twitter and Google have already partnered up for real-time search, so why wouldn’t they also partner together for URL shortening and link tracking services?

Bit.ly hasn’t remained dormant throughout all this. Bit.ly responded to Google's entry by releasing Bit.ly Pro and Bitly.tv, premium services built on top of its basic platform. Bit.ly Pro allows web publishers to create custom branded shortened links through its service. Sites like the New York Times (nyti.ms), Foursquare (4sq.com) and Meebo (mee.bo) have already started using this service. Bitly.tv is an analytical service that lets you see what videos are currently going viral on the web. Since a lot of the link sharing these days happens through Bit.ly links, Bitly.tv is a pretty accurate view of what is trending right now on the internet. Expect to see this service expand to cover news events and blogs.

Still, the advantage that Bit.ly would gain from these premium services seems fleeting. There’s no real barrier preventing a competitor like Google from entering and stealing away Bit.ly’s customer base. And if Bit.ly figures out how to monetize its service, they why wouldn't Twitter move into this space? Right now Twitter has no real reason to make its own URL shortening service since there's no real profits to be made through this, but if Bit.ly can create a working business model then that’s a whole different game. Why would Twitter give away the link data and profits generated on its platform to a 3rd party company like Bit.ly?

2009 was a good year for Bit.ly, but 2010 will be a rough year for the service. If Goo.gl is opened to the public or partners with Twitter we'll see Bit.ly squeezed out of the market. If Bit.ly figures out how to monetize its service then Twitter will bring this service in-house and leave Bit.ly out in the cold. Either way, it seems like a ‘lose-lose’ situation for Bit.ly.

Or who knows, maybe I'll go ahead and launch Shr.ty and take the URL shortening world by storm!

Twitter's Business Model

A lot of people have talked about whether or not Twitter has an actual business model, and if so what it actually entails. Recently Twitter has made deals with Bing and Google to integrate Twitter data into "real-time" search results, which sounds like a pretty good fit for all parties involved. But aside from search, what other outlets does Twitter have to monetize its user content?

David L. Smith, from Harvard Business Publishing, outlines a couple ways he sees that Twitter can generate revenue from its massive user base in his post "Twitter's Business Model: Brilliant or Non-Existent?" On top of search, David mentions other potential revenue streams such as Ecommerce, network marketing, and Twitter applications.

According to recent network data, Twitter's growth has been slowing down a bit lately. A tweak to Twitter's business model may help resolve both its monetization issues and growth issues. Maybe Twitter can kill two birds with one stone?

Business of Healthcare Conference

Today I was up in Evanston for the 2009 Kellogg Business of Healthcare Conference. They had an outstanding set of speakers and panelists at the event, and there was a lot of great dialogue on healthcare, reform and technology. For me the standout session was the "Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare" panel, which featured speakers from many different segments of healthcare and social media. Panelists included:

Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors, LLC
Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media, Mayo Clinic
Sarah Campbell, Partner, Assoc. Director of Content Strategy, Ogilvy Interactive
Beatrice Ellerin, Managing Director, InterbrandHealth
Marker Wiegand, Director of Consumer Marketing, Amgen

The big message at this panel was that technology (specifically social media and mobile technology) is changing the face of healthcare. It's enabling the delivery of a more personal and customizable product to consumers. The panelists gave several examples of successful applications of this new trend in the industry. From doctors using social media to connect with their patients, to the Mayo Clinic sharing stories to build awareness of medical conditions and to empower their patients, there's a definite lean in the industry to forming a more personal and direct relationship with consumers (just as it is in any other industry). One thing to keep in mind is that this 'connection' process needs to be simple, easy to use, and transparent. This is where social media really comes into play, since it has already established itself as all those things. Other industries are already leveraging social media to connect with their consumers, and it's time for the healthcare industry to realize this and get on board with the movement.

My favorite panelist was Lee Aase, Manager of Syndication and Social Media at the Mayo Clinic. He shared with us the social media tools the Mayo Clinic is using to connect with their patients. It was surprising to see such a conservative organization using tools like YouTube and Twitter, but I guess Lee has convinced the Mayo execs of the power of social media and the net positive returns they can receive through these tools. What's pretty funny is that he was tweeting during the event, using the hashtag #KelloggHC to tag his posts for others to follow. Of course I pulled out my phone and followed his tweets, which made the whole event feel very meta-esque.

Here's Lee's Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/LeeAase

Social class on the internet

CNN posted (yet another) story last week on the social class divide between MySpace and Facebook. This concept has been thrown around for a while now; I think I first read about it a year ago. Basically, users of Facebook tend to be more educated and affluent than users of MySpace. This makes sense when you think about how and where Facebook got started. It originally started out as a service for students at Harvard, and branched out to other colleges before becoming fully public in 2006. MySpace, on the other hand, started out open to everyone.

I avoided the whole MySpace craze back in its day. I had a Friendster account way back when and then joined Facebook pretty late after taking a hiatus from social networking sites. So I may not be the best resource on all these sites, but from a personal perspective I never liked (and still don’t like) MySpace. Every profile page I looked at had HTML diarrhea all over the place. It was the most cluttered busy obnoxious site I could imagine, and I couldn’t comprehend why people needed to add so much junk to their profile pages. It appeared “uneducated”, if that makes any sense… it all seemed so childish and amateurish I couldn’t bring myself to make a profile and validate MySpace’s existence. I know, it sounds a little harsh, but I don’t take too kindly to my eyeballs being violated every time I had to visit MySpace.

Facebook on the other hand has a lot more structure and control, and that visually and logically appeals to me. The privacy controls are important to me, because I understand the risks of letting the public see my profile, both personally and professionally. In my mind, Facebook has a lot more ‘functionality’ in place that actually serves a purpose and isn’t just there to flaunt the latest style or widget that was hot at the time.

Back to social class on the internet. It makes sense to me why the demographics are lining up the way they are on those two social networking sites. There are several articles out on the internet that talk about that. The CNN article also mentions two other sites that attract even more affluent users: Twitter and LinkedIn.

LinkedIn makes sense; it’s a site for white-collar professionals who are seeking to build up their professional network.

Twitter is a bit more interesting… is it because only upper-class yuppies would be so self-centered to think that anyone really wants to ready the very minutia of their lives? Or because only they have that much free time on their hands to waste time twittering about life’s little foibles? :)

Here’s another example of a class divide between internet services. Gmail users tend to have a higher credit score than Yahoo users… the article notes that it might be because young users favor Yahoo email so that drives down the average credit score on that site.

I wonder what other cases might be out there… YouTube vs. Hulu? Flickr vs Picasa? Blogger vs. LiveJournal?