Updated version of the epic video Erik Qualman put out last year for his book, Socialnomics.

Great work!

According to a survey of ad advertising agencies commissioned by the video network BrightRoll, a whopping 94 percent plan on increasing their Web video budgets this year. That’s despite the fact that nearly half of those surveyed have either had a video campaign executed in a way other than how they expected (17 percent) or are are unsure about whether their campaigns have run as planned (31 percent).

Indeed, BrightRoll’s report found that online video still has some credibility issues. Among the practices identified as concerns are the polarizing tactic of auto-start video, cited by 43 percent of respondents, as well as “misrepresented pre-roll’ ads (26 percent) and video ads that appear below the fold on a Web page where few people may actually see them (22 percent).

Pricing and metrics are also points of contention in the Web video industry. Many buyers gripe about paying CPMs that are sometimes higher than those charged by TV networks, and complaints about the lack of standards when it comes to Web video impressions and/or views are common. BrightRoll found that many agencies are gravitating towards some sort of engagement based sales model (34 percent of survey respondents said so), yet close to half are interested in a “cost per view” model (45 percent).

 

I agree with the three problems with online video: auto-start, pre-roll (commercials before the video are useless) and videos below the fold.

The Three New Features

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First, we discussed the core philosophy underlying the recent changes at Twitter. As Ryan told me, the company is maturing and asked itself at the beginning of the year, “What are we going to do when we grow up?” The answer is: Grow the platform while enabling developers to do more unique things with it.

The first new feature we discussed is Places, also known as Points of Interest. This new feature, Ryan explained to me, is not like Foursquare () or Gowalla (), where users check in. Instead, developers will be able to attach location-based metadata and use it to enhance their products.

Here’s an example: Say you tweet from a park. Twitter’s new Places feature will recognize your location and then allow you to access relevant metadata, including the ability to see other tweets from that location and who those tweets are coming from. Places is less like a Foursquare competitor and more like a subset of another new feature rolling out later this year, Annotations.

Annotations, which launches next quarter, allows developers to attach little pieces of metadata to tweets. This could be anything from location to tags to notes. Sarver believes that the feature will be huge, but that the company shouldn’t decide what data should be attached or how people use that data. Those decisions, he said, are up to developers.

The final new feature announced today is User Streams, which will make Twitter apps real-time. Instead of waiting for API calls every few minutes to update your TweetDeck () or Seesmic Desktop () applications, updates to your Twitter stream will appear in real-time in your apps. Ryan Sarver says that this feature has really changed how he is using Twitter — in fact, he tweeted about it last night as a teaser for Chirp.

Wow. The groups at Gowalla & Foursquare HQs are crying somewhere.

One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal, the company is making some major changes: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere.

Ning realized that free doesn't really work.

The comments are a great read. Better than the article.

When Twitter acquired Tweetie and made it their official iPhone app last week, dozens of lives and business plans were thrown into turmoil.

The third-party app developers and investors who had worked together to create startups around the Twitter platform were blindsided. Some lost an entire business model or were forced to rapidly reconsider their plans, all because Twitter wasn’t clear and transparent about its roadmap for developing features and acquiring companies.

Kara Swisher of All Things D moderated an investment panel today at Chirp, the Twitter developer conference. With her were two Twitter board members, Bijan Sabet and Peter Fenton, and investors Mike Hirschland and David Pakman. All were eager to address the issues presented to the VC and startup community by Twitter’s situation in particular and about the risks associated with building apps on another company’s platform in general.

Interesting how Twitter is the least transparent platform around.

On balance, are the social media a positive or negative thing?

I’d like to think that on balance any innovation, at the end of the day, is usually a net good. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t significant and sometimes adverse consequences that we need to find another way to deal with. While we’re in the midst of the revolution, we need to stop and talk about its broader consequences.

Can you give me an example?

The ease with which you can organize people means you no longer have to go to the trouble of things like building strong grassroots organizations, developing a coherent message, forming strong and lasting ties with individuals. That’s one consequence. The reason that people did that in the past is that it was really hard, that you had to that to build a broader organization. Now, you can do the broad part so easily, you don’t have to do your homework first.

"While we’re in the midst of the revolution, we need to stop and talk about its broader consequences."

Indeed.

The comments on this post are epic.

Research from social media analytics firm Sysomos supports Twitter’s stickiness. The company examined more than 1 billion tweets over a four-month period and found that 41.6% of the tweet volume in March 2010 came from users who had joined Twitter at least nine months prior.

As recently as December 2009, these percentages were substantially different, with 26% of tweets coming from nine-month veterans and the largest single percentage, 28.9%, coming from users who had joined six to nine months prior.

A posting on the Sysomos blog sums up the significance of this data: “New users are continuing to tweet at a steady pace while the veterans are becoming more and more active.

According to the study, new Twitter users like to experiment. Their statement that the users who have used Twitter the longest are becoming more and more active? I completely agree.

Or maybe that is because I Tweet all day. :)

Twitter Presence- Twitter has to be present on your blog and you should use any and all of these methods: Option to re-tweet post, visible twitter stream, display your latest tweet… There are many twitter plug-ins and tools to twitterize your blog; your blog must have a twitter presence.

Don’t Sweat The Comments- Since twitter has become so popular the number of comments on most blogs has been drastically reduced.  Don’t let this bother you or think it’s an indication of fewer readers.  There is a good chance that the comments that you used to receive on your blog are now coming in the form of @replies, DM’s and Facebook replies.  Embrace these replies as the new blog comments.  Be sure to interact and always try to respond when questions are asked.  @Replies Are The New Comments.

Twitter has killed blog comment numbers. That is OK, it needs be be OK for new platforms to come and change the way we interact online.

Most marketing executives cite email or search marketing as their company's top-performing advertising channel in 2009—39.4% and 23.6%, respectively—and over nine in ten (93.6%) say they plan to increase their budget allocation to digital marketing in the next five years, according to the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey from Datran Media.

Just 9.4% of marketers cited offline channels as their most effective response channel last year. Another 4.7% cited social media, while mobile marketing, still in its early stages, was cited by 0.8% of marketers.

Below, other findings from the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey from Datran Media.

Budget Shifts to Online in 2010 and Beyond

Among marketers who plan to increase investments in digital marketing, 75.2% say their allocations will increase steadily as 2014 approaches, while 18.4% say their allocations will increase greatly.

Moreover, 58.4% plan to reduce or keep flat their offline marketing budgets.

In 2010, most marketers (59.8%) are allocating over one-half of their overall multichannel advertising to digital channels. Another 15.2% of marketers are allocating 30-50% of their budgets to digital, and 7.1% of marketers are allocating 20-29% to digital.

Online Marketing Objectives

Asked to identify their company's objectives when conducting online marketing, marketers cited the following:

• Reach a target audience: 82%
• Lead generation: 72%
• Convert leads into sales: 63.2%
• Measure and understand audience: 60.0%
• Retain existing customers: 56.8%
• Digitally transact with customers: 53.6%
• Avoiding wasted media spend: 40.0%

Among specific tactics, over three-quarters (77.6%) of marketers are using targeting as part of their online marketing strategy this year. Some 71.2% say they are employing customer analytics and measurement tools.

Over six in ten (62.3%) are focusing both on retention and loyalty campaigns and on email list growth.

Mobile, Social, and Video

Interest in online video and mobile marketing is substantial this year: 67.2% of marketers are planning to leverage video, and 54.4% are planning mobile marketing initiatives targeting smartphones users (vs. 34.3% who planned to do so last year).

Marketers are leveraging social media as well: 72.3% have a company Facebook page, and 72.0% have a company Twitter account.

Still, marketers are mixed on whether social media marketing can deliver results: 50.4% say social media will generate quantifiable results this year (vs. 49.4% last year); however, another 37.6% are uncertain and 12.0% say social media cannot deliver quantifiable results this year.

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Looking for real, hard data that can help you match social media tools and tactics to your marketing goals? The State of Social Media Marketing, a 240-page original research report from MarketingProfs, gives you the inside scoop on how 5,140 marketing pros are using social media to create winning campaigns, measure ROI, and reach audiences in new and exciting ways.

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Online Audience Analytics

Marketers are focused on quantifying ROI this year: 72.8% say they now use audience measurement and analytics to assess the success of their digital campaigns, while just 21.6% do not.

Over one-half (54.4%) of marketers say they have optimized campaigns based on audience measurement analytics, while 29.6% have not done so as yet, but plan to in 2010 or beyond.

Most marketers cite clicks (72%), conversions (59.2%), and impressions (58.4%) as the three most important metrics:

Driving Brand Awareness and Revenue with Analytics

Nearly one-half  46.4%) of marketers say accurate online audience measurement is very important for driving increased brand awareness, revenue, and better campaign performance, while another 40.8% say it is somewhat important.

Among the greatest challenges to conducting online audience measurement, marketers cite the following:

• Accuracy: 29.5%
• Lack of ability to take action on data: 23.2%
• Wasted impressions: 9.6%
• Standards: 8.0%

Some 26.4% of marketers say they do not conduct online audience measurement.

About the data: Findings are from the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey, conducted in December 2009 by Datran Media among over 5,000 marketing executives from Fortune 500 brands, top publishers, and leading advertising and media agencies. The survey was conducted in association with the Direct Marketing Association Email Experience Council and other media partners.

Quantifying ROI is still so difficult, but marketers are trying. Surprised that 21.6% do not focus on quantifying ROI of digital campaigns.

Video and Mobile will continue to be huge. Great for BlissTV :)

"In 2010, most marketers (59.8%) are allocating over one-half of overall multichannel advertising to digital." Impressive.

3. Hiring for social media -- Market your social media savvy. As social media rapidly gains popularity among consumers and businesses, employers are taking notice and plan to add jobs and responsibilities related to Web 2.0.

Nearly one-in-ten employers plan to hire a new employee in the second quarter to focus on social media. An additional 13 percent plan to add social media management to a current employee's responsibilities.

Good news for everyone obsessed with all things Social Media