Marketing Pilgrim

Seems like just yesterday that the Telegraph was reporting that Twitter was considering the introduction of video tweets into its playbook (actually it was just yesterday). Interesting and scary thought all at once (honestly, do you need to actually see some of the folks who pass along their nuggets of 140 character wisdom?). So while it makes for a nice article and creates the some speculation, what was actually given to the folks at Mashable was even more important. High atop Mt. Twitter the story was given ‘the biz’ by The Biz as an official thumbs down was offered to the rumor. Biz speaks, Mashable reports.

I remember once hearing someone say, “you are your business card”. Essentially, the idea is that the way you present yourself in public defines who you are–more than any piece of paper ever can. I think this is extremely true today, now more than ever. Think about it this way, if you are always there to help others, provide good ideas and contribute to the dialog in a positive way, then you become the guy/girl that helps others, provides good ideas and contributes to the dialog in a positive way. In the same tone, if you are obnoxious and annoying then you are the obnoxious and annoying guy/girl. Or if you dress in a creepy unicorn costume, then you might be that creepy guy that dresses in a unicorn costume. We define ourselves through our actions.

The Twitter blog informs us that if you are not already lucky enough to get the good, the bad and the truly ugly of Twitter in the English or Japanese language that help is on the way. Founder Biz Stone gives us some more “Bizdom” on the Twitter blog regarding the status of the social media site and how there are more folks out there who will be able to be ensnared in the web that is Twitter.

Twitter is currently available only in English and Japanese. With some help, we will soon be rolling out support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish. These languages are commonly referred to using the acronym FIGS and are often the starting point for services like Twitter when its time for more language support. Later, we hope to offer Twitter in several other languages. No matter how sophisticated technology gets, we’re reminded daily that it’s about people and that’s something we’ve taken to heart regarding translating Twitter.

It looks like September of 2009 was a pretty good month or Facebook according to Experian’s Hitwise report about social media usage. If you are a regular reader of Marketing Pilgrim you know that we report on statistics all the time and we approach them with same amount of reverence as we do skepticism. What is seen in this report though would likely be of little shock to anyone and that is that Facebook is kicking some serious social media butt.

The press release for the report states

Experian® Hitwise® announced today that Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. The 58 percent was the highest among all social networking sites sites, as U.S. visits to Facebook increased 194 percent in September 2009 compared with September 2008. MySpace received the second-highest market share of U.S. visits for the month, with 30 percent.

Facebook is no stranger to lawsuits. And now they’re being slapped with two more, for allegedly infringing the patents of Japanese company Mekiki and Phoenix Media/Communications, publisher of the Boston Phoenix. Both allege that Facebook’s core social networking capabilities violate their patents.

Mekiki, owners of the Japanese social networking site SamuraiTime.com contends that they have three patents on adding friends of friends as contacts on a social network. The patents, one granted in 2005 and two granted this year, are for a “human relationships registering system.” They’re seeking an injunction to stop Facebook from using their technology.

Tele-Publishing, a subsidiary of Phoenix Media, has an even older—and potentially even more devastating—patent they claim Facebook is infringing on. Filed in 2001, the patent allegedly covers a “computer network and method of creating and sharing a personal page” securely.

Remember StumbleUpon, the recommendation engine that lets you surf the web for random sites—but mostly sites that other people liked in your areas of interest? (If you haven’t tried it, it’s pretty fun). Well, since they bought themselves back from eBay in April, they’re changing things up. According to TechCrunch, StumbleUpon is revamping itself as a service “between Google and Twitter” with its new search features.

With 8 million users Stumbling, StumbleUpon has amassed 35 million pages that at least one person likes. Now they’ve indexed these pages so you can search recommended pages. In a sense, it is a bit like Google and Twitter—recommendations from your friends get a boost in the rankings, while you still get to search millions of pages for relevant results.