It appears as though Yahoo! may be the first real competitor to Twitter. Other companies such as Facebook have tried to draw people away from micro-blogging back to social networking. But there has been no real competition on the actual micro-blogging front.
A while back, Yahoo! stealthily rolled out Yahoo! Meme in the Portuguese language only. Nobody was all too sure why they did this because as business goes, you’re supposed to promote, promote, promote! Now their reasoning is clear.
It was a test. To see if it stood a chance without causing the company any embarrassment if it failed. They are now tackling Twitter on the global front by launching the micro-blogging platform in the second biggest language in the world; Spanish.
While people all over the world do use Twitter, studies have shown that services are received better by the public when they are tailored specifically to their needs – in this case their language.
While I can’t see Meme over running Twitter on the English servers I can see the new Yahoo! service picking up steam in South America, Mexico, West Africa and of course Spain.
A whopping 67% of us ‘Google’ things. If we want to know something we simply ’Google it’, as it has become known. Like any good online company, their name is also a verb. Just like Twitter with Tweet. They have a hug share of the market – undoubtedly. Now however, they may have their first real competitor in years.
Anyone remember last year when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo! for almost 50 Billion dollars? It went down in flames. But the inter-company relationship didn’t end. Now, they’re discussing a possible collaboration between the two search engines –Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo!.
If this were to go ahead then it would offer a chunk of healthy competition to the dominant Google. The news storyalone would send thousands flocking, to give it a whirl – but Yahoo and Microsoft better be careful.
People like their search engine. For me, its been Yahoo! imply because I like a bit of news before I search and also because it was the first search engine I ever used so I just kind of stuck with it. People don’t like change – and when they do change they don’t want to be insulted by too many sponsored results like over at Ask.com or search results that make them want to ‘Google’ .
It’s impossible to tell what the end result would be from this mutation of search engines. Would it be Yahoo!, powered by Bing or the other way around? They do have a plan to split the revenue between them but what about the work load such as PR, development and staffing the site. Now might not be a good time to invest in any search engine as there’s going to be a war, with casualties. I’ll wait until the final few blows before I put my money on one of them.
Martha Stewart – probably one of the most famous names in the last fifteen years for her less than scrupulous past. The home-decor queen has now made even more waves by calling Facebook “dippy” and saying that she much prefers facebook.
In an interview she commented on how she has grown to dislike Facebook. This is the second major celebrity to do so in just two days – on Saturday Bill Gates admitted to abandoning Facebook.
She said that she like the micro-blogging platform because it’s easier, you can reach more people and it doesn’t take up too much time.
“I just love it so much more than Facebook … First of all, you don’t have to spend any time on it, and, second of all, you reach a lot more people. And I don’t have to ‘befriend’ and do all that other dippy stuff that they do on Facebook.”
She called Twitter the Walmart of the internet – hopefully referring to its success not its large stocking of canned goods which is far from plenty.
Twitter just keeps growing with thousands of celebrities now gathering huge followers.
Crenk on Twitter – here
My Twitter – here
Winners (250 Entrecard Credits Each)
I would just like to thank everyone who entered. This competition was quite successful and I look forward to doing a lot more in the near future.
Entrants included:
Our Entrecard competition is finishing tomorrow, so make sure you head over and check it out now. Everyone wins in this competition, because all entries receive a link back to their site.
For a couple of weeks now I have been running my own little competition to bid on a banner on my site. The current price is $15 for the month of November. Im guessing this wont go up too much at present because I am currently selling a 125 banner for $20 per month. If you are interested in advertising on Crenk please let me know. More importantly please help me try to keep Crenk Advertising Network Free and purchase some ad space. Thanks.
JohnChow and Shoemoney are having a little competition between blogs for the month. Whoever can get the most new RSS subscribers for the month will receive a free link on their competitors site.
Current Standings are:
Who do you think will win??
John Chow also has a competition to try to make sure he wins the prize.
