Web Applications

Web Applications — 1 Comment
9
May 08

TwitterAds – Monetize Twitter

After reading a post about Robert Scoble advertising on Twitter, I had a slight brainwave for a new Twitter application. Something that would allow users to make some money of their Twitter account.

Step 1 – Name & Domain

The idea start of as such, you register a domain like twitterads.com, twittercash.com, tweetads.com, etc. You then name the new service according to the domain name, as is with all Twitter apps.

Step 2 – How It Works

I’ll explain how the application works from a users perspective from their first visit. So, the user comes across your newly created application, because you’ve promoted it well. Here is how the story goes.

Your new visitor needs to become a user before they can start monetizing their Twitter stream. So they create an account using their Twitter username and password. We need these two crucial pieces of information to publish ads into their Twitter stream.

While the account is being created, we check the user’s Twitter account details for 3 important criteria, the amount of followers and tweets they have as well as how many people they are following. All these numbers are put into a tight algorithm to determine which advertisers will be available to the user, it will also determine how many ads they can serve per day.

In order to advertise top brands in your Twitter stream, you need to have a large number of followers and tweets. This shows that you are an influential and authentic Twitter user. If you figures are lower, you will only have access to “average” brands. The higher your figures, the higher your payout per click.

So now the user has successfully registered or logged in and we direct them to the list of advertisers available to them. They will be allowed to select the brands they would like to see served in their Twitter stream. The rest is handled by the system, in terms of how many ads will get served into this user’s Twitter stream per day (user can lower the amount). All the links will contain tracking code in order to track clicks and thereafter payouts.

Step 3: Will It Work?

A very rough idea, with some potential. I could see some people using this, it much like advertising in feeds and on blogs. However, it might be intrusive to some and you might find people stop following people because they have ads in their Twitter stream. If the ads were quality ads, it might be another story. It’s all trial and error. Good luck.

Web Applications — 1 Comment
5
May 08

Summize – Powerful Twitter Search

Summize is a realtime Twitter search engine and in my opinion is the best Twitter search engine out there. It allows you to subscribe to your search terms using RSS but the most impressive feature one that alerts you to messages that were created after you searched while you are browsing the results.

Summize - Realtime Twitter Search

I bet you’re asking why anyone would want to use a search engine just to search Twitter, let me explain. Twitter is fast becoming popular in South Africa, never mind the rest of the world. South Africans are using Twitter to tracking local events, get the latest headlines and to help fellow consumers make decisions.

So using tools like Summize are great to help you track mentions of your brand across Twitter. So use Summize and search for keywords that relate to your brand, copy the RSS feed links and put them into Google Reader (or any other RSS reader), that way all the tracking gets done for you.

Update: You might also be interested in Allan Kent’s A Poor Mans ORM, where he explains how he uses Yahoo Pipes to filter results.

Social Media / Web Applications — 3 Comments
18
Feb 08

SDSN – The Adoption Issue

Simple Distributed Social Networking (SDSN) is an initiative started by Charl van Niekerk, Neville Newey and Stii Pretorius. Their aim with the project is simple, as put by Charl:

We believe that the current implementations of distributed social networking are much too complex. This was the main inspiration for this project, hence the name.

Personally I think it’s great that they have started this initiative, even if they are re-inventing the wheel slightly. They have started working on an issue which I feel will become much bigger as the internet evolves. However, I do feel there are many issues with using domains as an identity mechanism.

It’s Way Too Geeky To Adopt

Let us take a look at this from the average user of any social network. Before we can use domains as a solution for identity, we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

  • How many of these users own their own domain name?
  • How many of these users even know what a domain name is?

Sure, we can use 3rd party domains (eg. tylerreed.jaiku.com) but what about the users who are on Facebook or any other social network that doesn’t provide users with a domain? Simple. SDSN can provide users with their own sub domain.

Great, so I just answered what seems to be my own questions about this initiative. Not really, we still having the fundamental issue of adoption. How long will a service like this take to penetrate the average user? The user is going to have to be educated, again. There are still millions of internet users who use social networks, but don’t understand what this is all about. They don’t really care yet.

Web Applications — 1 Comment
29
Dec 07

Amatomu – Climbing Fast

Vincent chatted to me about the new feature that Amatomu launched last week that allows you to compare your blog reach with other blogs. I like this feature as it comes in handy for research and to see who is reaching more of an audience than you. As you can see below, Mike and I are pretty much on par, sometimes.

Amatomu - Comparison Graph

One slight suggestion though would be to allows users to embed the graph on their blog, similar to how Alexa allows me users to. No the less, a nifty feature. Vincent mentioned he loves playing with statistics, so I can safely assume we will see more features like this one.

Something that Amatomu has just launch is the fastest climbing and overall losers in terms of their traffic algorithm. It’s another feature that allows users to see who is rising and who is falling. I think it’s a great way to find new content from the South African blogosphere as it is growing rather rapidly. You can view it on the far right hand sidebar.

Amatomu has come a long way since it’s launch. I like the way it is progressing as I love statistics, although I am still waiting for an API and mobile access. Never the less, great job Vincent.

Development / Web Applications — 3 Comments
24
Dec 07

Twaction – Turning Tweets Into Actions

On Thursday last week I decided to start playing around with Twitter’s API. After playing around with it for a few minutes and seeing sites such as Foamee and TweetGift I decided to build my own site using the API.

The result is twaction.com, a simple site that converts tweets (messages on Twitter) into actions. It was really fun to create and at some stages was a challenge. I will be working a few more sites that make use of the Twitter API, these ones will be more useful though.

For the months of January and February I will be giving the two 125 x 125 ad slots on twaction.com away to two African start ups every 15 days. If you work for or own an African start up then please contact me.

Twaction - Turning Tweets Into Actions

I would like to thank Marc Forrest for helping me to get started and registering the domain, Charl Van Niekerk for some PHP insight and testing, Allan Kent for helping me with some PHP issues as well as the peer pressure and Vincent Maher for inspiration because he codes like a machine. I would also like to thank all those who follow me on Twitter and tested the alpha version and gave me advice.

← Older Entries