Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category
Techcrunch has changed their theme yet again. A few months ago the theme was changed for the 3rd time in a year and I thought it was really moving in the right direction. The navigation was clean, there were a lot more options to find the articles you are looking for, and the theme had some colour and character.
Techcrunch today have launched a new theme which keeps the same navigation principles but totally gets rid of all the character and colour on the page.
Let me know what you think!
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There has been lots of news recently about Twitter accounts being hacked from several stars, including Britney Spears. Today there is a new star who has been hacked and he hasnt just lost his Twitter account but also his Gmail and Myspace accounts.
The hackers were responsible for spreading an online rumour – seemingly from Kanye himself – that he was plotting a move into bisexual pr0n movies. “Please I beg you, give me a break!” West wrote on his blog, which appears to be the only arm of his online empire NOT to have been hacked.
There is a post over at Techcrunch that seems to be getting a lot of hits today and I’m not entirely sure why! Kevin Rose the founder of Digg, Revision3 and Pownce, has written a guest post for Techcrunch which outlines the top 10 ways to increase your Twitter followers.
The 10 points that he makes seem be very basic and if you actually know how to use Twitter properly I’m sure they aren’t new to you. However what I find funny about this post is that Kevin has probably only really got his followers from mentioning Twitter on every Revision3 show that he does and by being hugely known in the USA as a tech boy pinup. It is just weird that he is trying to preach ways to increase your Twitter followers when he hasn’t really used any of these methods.
Digg has finally made some critical changes to the way they are doing business. It has been reported by various sources this morning that Digg has fired about 10% of their staff and are hiring a direct sales team. I know this statement is probably bitter sweat for some of the employees fired, but Digg really needed to change the way they were doing business or eventually everyone there was going to be out of work.
This all comes on the back of BusinessWeek recently disclosing that Digg’s revenue was just $4.8 million in 2007, and through the first three quarters of 2008, $6.4 million. These results meant that they lost about $2.8 million 2007 and $4 million in 2008.
Digg are making these changes for one reason and that is to find a buyer! In my opinion Digg has to make a profit to have any chance of a acquisition. I think the team Digg have really taken the site as far as they can, because they had so many opportunities to implement Digg into a white label solution which would bring in million in license fees, but they were too busy trying for an acquisition based upon heavy loses. Is it just me or does this sound like a stupid business model. I know these days most tech startups don’t have a business model when they first start and they seem to be very reluctant to even add some advertising to at least generate some revenue. In this current climate that kind of business acument really doesn’t boad well for an acquisition!
In a recent article on the AppleInsider, Apple’s iPhone has outsold the competition in Quarter 4 of 2008. What a way to end the year right? The nearest competitor would be the Android phone which made a splash late 2008 with its amazing interface and design. Many pundits thought that Android would surely topple the mobile phone giant, offering customers a suitable choice in what had been an Apple dominated market.
In the report it was stated that the iPhone outsold Android 6-to-1, which many would consider a slaughter. No doubt Apple had a stellar 4th Quarter, but is Android really the iPhone killer or is this premature celebration?
Reports from Morgan Stanley explain reasons for the massive gap in sales between the two competitors. Noted in the report was Apple’s full use of the quarter with an existing brand that has proven itself in the cell phone market. Morgan Stanley also reports that established 3G network encouraged sales as opposed to T-Mobile’s faster network which only truly hits 25 major coverage areas versus 3G’s over 300 major coverage areas.
Apple also enjoys global mass appeal in over 70 countries while Android was only available in the UK at launch. So with all this said, it’s obvious why the iPhone outsold Android, and to say that it has dominated Android would be misleading.
You can read the full article on Morgan Stanley’s findings here for a further breakdown on the difference between the two companies.
So share your thoughts in the comments below. Do you have an Android mobile? I’d like to hear from both sides about your take on the mobile market.
I have been wondering for a long time now “what makes a good startup page”? How does an internet user determine what will be their start page and what just doesn’t do it for them? In this article I’m going to run through some of the basic types of startup pages out there today and see what characteristics are good for me and what aren’t.
The first type of startup pages are the ‘add your own modules‘ type of startup pages. About a year and a half ago these types of pages were being developed left right and center, but lately they seem be going into liquidation very fast.
Netvibes - Netvibes is a module based startup page that has been growing from strength to strength recently. They are based in France but have been able to build up traffic worldwide. All modules can be customised in whatever style the user sees fit. Netvibes is the leader in this type of startup page and I every time I head back to their site they seem to have made improvements.
Pageflakes - Pageflakes is a startup page very similar to Netvibes except they don’t have the adoption levels of Netvibes. Pageflakes was acquired by Live Universe about either months ago because they were struggling and running out of liquid funds.
iGoogle - iGoogle is basically the Google version of Netvibes but with the Google search option at the top of the page. iGoogle has very limited themes, but it is simple to integrate with everything Google of course.
These types of startup pages are good for the user because they allow you to place whatever modules you want onto the page, but there is such a thing as information overload. Personally, Im not so sure about these types of sites as startup pages, because they are simply just ugly to look at because everything is a base size module and they just take too long to setup!
The next type of startup pages are the ‘one page aggregators‘. This type of startup page brings together some of the most popular rss feeds from around the internet and puts them all onto one page. Basically it is a rss reader for the lazy.
Popurls - Popurls is the original startup aggregator which brings together some of the best sites in the tech industry. Sites include Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz, Metafilter and more. The site has a very simple layout showing the top 10 from each site. Additionally, they have added videos from Youtube and photos from Flickr.
Alltop - Alltop is a new site from Guy Kawasaki (evangelist at Apple), in which he takes the idea of popurls and spreads it to pretty much every time of market. This is basically an rss reader for every type of industry for the most basic of internet users.
Original Signal – Original Signal used to be one of the leaders in this space, but recently they have been losing market share fast. Original Signal covers mainly tech and business topics, but they have seemed to update the service in many years.
These startup pages are great if you just want to have a quick look at one site in the morning and see what is happening around the world on a specific topic. However, they don’t allow users to choose the rss feeds you want to read, this can be done easily by using an rss reader.
Finally the other type of startup page is the simple search engine and 99% of the time its Google. Personally Google is my startup page but mainly because I find it easier to click the home button at the top and then type in my search, instead of typing it into the top of Firefox. Google as a page is so simplistic and it provide immense functionality behind that basic exterior.
Overall, what makes a good startup page? This is probably a different answer for every single person. However, I do think that startup pages need to be simple, have a good search option and allow the user to customise if they wish. As always simplicity and functionality are the keys.
Why is Darren Rowse still with b5media after all that has happened there. Darren Rowse who is also know as the Problogger co-founded b5media. I have been wondering after all the job cuts and changes over at b5media, why Darren Rowse is still with the company and is his part in the companies future.
Problogger is one of the most popular blogs in the world and is the cornerstone of b5media which is a network of over 300 blogs. Darren doesn’t see to have a huge active role within the company, but why does he sit by and watch when it is slowly going down the toilet in a tough advertising economic environment.
Darren doesn’t need to be at b5media any more, because his site is still growing and im sure he will always have his equity stake in the company, so what is his motivation?
What is currently happening with Feedburner stats? Is Google somehow updating the service, because in the last few days I have seen a huge drop in Google Feedfetch numbers within Feedburner. I thought I would also spend sometime trolling around the web to see if other sites have been affected by this situation and what I have noticed is that all sites have been affected by this. I was hoping Feedburner might be able to let us know if they are updating this system and why there are such drastic changes.
Currently for Crenk we have been noticing that more and more people are following our feed on Twitter. It has got to a stage now where there are more people adding us on Twitter everyday than subscribing to our RSS feed. Is this saying something? Is Twitter becoming more of an RSS reader for people or are they just following our feed in Twitter because we are fairly active and give actual responses to direct questions?
There has been a lot of talk recently about companies still not adopting new media as much as they should and especially Twitter, but I really cant understand why! Twitter is an amazing network tool for all types of companies and it can actually provide big organisation with an easy way to directly communicate with users. Branding on Twitter is easy to control and even easier to see who has been discussing your brand.
From my point of view I couldn’t live without my RSS reader, simply because I have so many sources of information and I can easily and effectively control and read them. Twitter could never be my RSS reader, but is it some kind of substitute?
If you’re into cloud computing, you understand the importance of hard drive real estate and getting files on the go. In the past year more companies are even utilizing cloud concepts to save on expenses. As such, we’ve become accustomed to virtual networks that have linked our personal and professional life together for easier access.
Enter ZumoDrive, which just beta launched on January 16th! This amazing application is set up to function as a syncing system for your files in the cloud. Other related applications all offer various formats for syncing, but essentially do the same thing. ZumoDrive takes what you know to a whole new level and makes virtual connections to the cloud that much more worthwhile!
The Good!
Storage and space are always big issues for your devices. Perhaps not so much on your desktop, but on your mobile devices anything you can do to prevent capping the storage is a good thing. ZumoDrive works in such a way that it tricks the system into thinking that the file is native on the device you are accessing from, basically creating a virtual drive. You are then able to stream your music, watch your videos, work on documents all from your device without having to download the document onto your device.
The concept is made even more enticing by the fact that the application becomes intuitive based on the types of files you regularly access. These files are made ready for instant access from a favorites menu to save you time. The application can even find similar files that it might think you will need in reference to what you are working with.
The Bad!
ZumoDrive offers a price range that users have commented on being high with less total storage capacities. While this might be so, it appears that the offerings are far superior to their competitors. I’m not sure how this will all shake out, but ultimately, this is the only con to this application according to users and readers.
Stay tuned for an iPhone application that will further extend ZumoDrive’s popularity amongst those mobile users!
A couple of months ago EMI launched the new EMI.com which is basically a consumer portal where all EMI videos can be put into playlists and played. I wanted to take a quick look at how the site has been performing in the recent months.
According to Compete EMI.com has had a huge growth in the first month since launch. Previously the site was a basic corporate site in which generated no pageviews, no promotion and of course no revenues. Since launch traffic has gone from less than 4,000 visitors per month to around 40,000. That is a huge 1177.3% increase in a month.
I think in the coming months we are going to see this figure grow even further to probably around 100,000 visitors per month, but I cant see the site go much further than that. That is of course unless they are able to make the site a lot more user friendly, cause at the moment the UI is a little boring and navigation is terrible.
There is another music streaming service that we didn’t mention in our Top 10 free music streaming services and that is Spiral Frog. Spiral Frog is an ad-supported music download service which has had a huge amount of hype since launch.
Today it has been reported that Spiral Frog might be in a bit of trouble and heading towards the deadpool. These reports come from executives within the struggling company. Why is Spiral Frog in trouble? When launching Spiral Frog was in a growing advertising market in which was still yielding good CPM (cost per 1000 ads) rates, however now in the economic downturn these rates are quickly dropping. Therefore, companies need to keep increasing pageviews and presence to stay ahead of the curve. Spiral Frog has been losing a lot of traffic of late and this combined with the big licensing fees they had to pay upfront for major label catalogues means their in a lot of trouble.
There are only a couple of options that will save Spiral Frog. Firstly, a miracle could happen and they could turn around the traffic and the revenues, but that’s not going to happen. Secondly, they could get more funding and sell part of the shares, but they are running out of shares so I don’t think this would happen either. Finally, the only real option is for someone to step in and purchase the company just before they run out of money and get a bargain basement price.
To be fair in the past Spiral Frog has had a lot of issues and they have been in trouble a couple of times. This is probably what has lead to Spiral Frog getting a lot of media attention. I think Spiral Frog will be acquired by the end of 2009, its the only decent option of the company.
