Will Sullivan › Comments

Interesting times we live in! - Will Sullivan

"As the decade draws to a close, there’s at least one thing we can say about the social media space with a fairly high level of confidence: it’s here to stay. That said, looking ahead to the next ten years, it’s incredibly hard to predict how we’ll use social media — let alone which services will still be relevant — when we get to 2020. Already this decade we’ve seen the dramatic rise and fall of numerous social media services. This year’s Facebook could be next year’s Friendster, and even as I write this, there are signs that 2009’s media darling — Twitter — may have already peaked. But there’s one innovation that in all likelihood won’t only endure, but thrive, in the decade ahead. It’s also the innovation that has most embodied what we’ve come to define as social media since 2000, while at the same time, showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. That innovation is YouTube." - Will Sullivan

"The deal was, as we wrote late last week, in the later stages of negotiation. The two companies had agreed on a price – around $550 million plus earnouts – and were working through the final details of the acquisition. Then something happened that made Yelp reconsider the deal. Over the weekend they notified Google that they were not going to sell, say multiple sources." - Will Sullivan

"Let's get this straight right away: We didn't test dropped voice calls, we didn't test customer service, and we didn't test map coverage by wandering around in the boonies. We tested the ability of the networks to deliver 3G data in and around cities, including both concrete canyons and picket-fenced 'burbs. And while every 3G network gave us troubles on occasion, AT&T's wasn't measurably more or less reliable than Verizon's." - Will Sullivan

Holy ... Wow. ... Just wow. - Will Sullivan

Lear about the St. Louis delicacy, "Gooey Butter Cakes." - Will Sullivan

"How do you measure influence on Twitter? While follower count is perhaps the most obvious metric, other activities, like the numbers of times you’re retweeted, provide a bit more insight. Along those lines, INQ Mobile has just released their 2009 Twitter (Twitter) influence study, determining the most influential Twitter users in both the UK and the world. The winner? Not Oprah, not Ashton and not Diddy, but Mashable (Mashable)’s founder and CEO Pete Cashmore!" - Will Sullivan

"Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million. Yelp was founded in 2004 as a way to let users leave reviews on local businesses. Comscore puts worldwide traffic at nearly 9 million monthly unique visitors, and it has been growing fast – the company says it’s real numbers are more like 25 million monthly uniques." - Will Sullivan

Fun stuff here - Will Sullivan

"Most of the tech world now considers it a given that Google will be selling its own unlocked phone, called the Nexus One, to customers directly early in 2010. A few stragglers are still debating the finer points of the difference between Google working with handset manufacturers and carriers on a good Android experience v. them dictating the hardware specs and selling it directly to users. While they work that out for themselves we’re off to the next story – the Google Chrome OS Netbook (although we think Google has a few surprises left around the Nexus One, too)." - Will Sullivan

"A positively effervescent survey of more than 500 newspaper publishers yesterday predicted that advertising sales would drop only 0.2% in 2010 after plunging 28.4% in the first nine months of this year. The man who conducted the survey doesn’t believe the publisher forecast. I don’t believe it. And neither should you. Which leads me to wonder: What the heck are publishers thinking?" - Will Sullivan

"While these core statistics are interesting, we wanted to take things further and see how exactly the Twitter accounts were being used. Were the accounts simply linkbots highlighting newspaper content, or were they being used to by the paper to hold a conversation with its readers? Were newspapers simply talking, or were they listening, too? Some key findings on this front: * Many of the accounts we looked at rarely if ever interacted with other users by replying to tweets. Indeed, 33% of the accounts we looked at replied to users in less than 1% of their tweets. 15% of the accounts we looked at had never replied to another users tweets. This indicates that these papers are rarely reading or reacting to the updates of people they follow." - Will Sullivan

"We're just saying, it's totally reasonable Google can sell the Nexus One for cheap, without help from the carriers, and it's not so crazy even, for Google to give it away, just like turn-by-turn navigation. That's what might be worth getting a little breathless about." - Will Sullivan

"Congratulations to all the nominees and winners of the Open Web Awards – you’re now on our radar and we’ll be tracking your progress throughout 2010. Winners are welcome to use the badge provided below and to include Mashable and Open Web Awards on your website and in any marketing or press materials — if you’d like a quote for a press release, please contact us." - Will Sullivan

"Twitter and Facebook may be all the rage, but ordinary email is still king when it comes to sharing content online, according to new research from ShareThis. The company's "ShareThis" button has become ubiquitous at the end of articles and blog posts, linking to a widget that lets users share material via email, instant messenger and social networking tools including Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Yahoo Buzz. With user data from 200 million monthly visitors across 130,000 sites, the service has amassed a wealth of data about how people share and engage with content. Email remains the tool of choice for that purpose, accounting for 46% of content-sharing activity compared to 33% for Facebook, 14.5% via other channels and just 6% for Twitter. People who receive links through ShareThis also tend to spend time with the content, at an average 2.95 page views per click, followed by Facebook (2.76), with Twitter trailing at 1.66." (Via Nieman Labs) - Will Sullivan

"herald A link at the end of stories asks readers to "support ongoing news coverage" and says "if you value The Miami Herald's local news reporting and investigations, but prefer the convenience of the Internet, please consider a voluntary payment for the web news that matters to you." Three credit cards are accepted." - Will Sullivan

"Evidently, the number of applications available for download are only part of the story, but the numbers AndroLib has collected most certainly indicates that the Android Market is maturing fast. Just look at the growth curve in the first graph and the increasing amount of new applications that are published in Android Market every month in the second. My guess Android Market will be serving 50,000 apps as early as Q2 2010." - Will Sullivan

"Marketers will be increasingly willing to trade off reach for deeper engagement. This goes right along with the drive toward improved targeting and increasingly efficient media buys. Rather than try to reach every conceivable person who fits a particular demographic, marketers will be looking for technologies and ad solutions that allow them to reach only the people who—by their past surfing behavior, search queries, online purchases, social connections, Twitter posts and other digital footprints—indicate that they are likely prospects." - Will Sullivan

"Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world’s websites," she says. "And then invoked the translation software a second and third time – to not only then present the results in your native language, but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through.” - Will Sullivan

"Web television has matured significantly in 2009; we’ve seen the introduction of the Streamy Awards, Dr. Horrible seized control of the Emmys, and the launch of more internet TV-related startups than we can count. TV-over-IP is starting to hit television sets thanks to set-top-boxes, TVs, and disc players with built-in streaming capabilities, and like print media before it, traditional broadcast television is beginning to grapple with the inevitability of an Internet-driven future." - Will Sullivan

"For our part, we throw a party when someone “steals” our content and links back to us. High fives all around the office. At least there’s some small nod in our direction. And the aggregators like TechMeme can figure out who broke the news. Page views are lost, but reputation is gained. But for every link there are dozens of sites that outright steal our content with no attribution. Not just spam blogs, even the NYTimes does it. This isn’t a copyright issue – the stories are rewritten by actual people. But it’s far cheaper to simply take the news and rewrite it – if you can get away with it – than to hire people who do actual journalism. Over time, it becomes a competitive tax that is difficult to bear." (Via Matt Waite) - Will Sullivan

"Photos of Google’s Nexus One (aka the Google Phone) are – of course – leaking out on Twitter. The phone is indeed the HTC Passion/Bravo device many suspected, minus any HTC branding. In addition to a Twittered pic, Engadget was smart enough to hop over to Google’s (Google) photo-sharing site Picasa (Picasa) and dug up a few more (below). We gotta say: this is a sleek-looking device. Add this to the fact that it will be sold online and unlocked by Google, and it could be a compelling proposition." - Will Sullivan

"From voice search and translation, to location and visual search, here are the five most impressive technologies unveiled so far." - Will Sullivan

"Here's how it's happening: Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency. The gamers get virtual currency three ways: * Winning it playing the games * Paying for it with real money * By accepting offers from third-parties -- usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an "offers" provider -- a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker's users together." - Will Sullivan

"Data about customers. Seems like such an obvious answer to the needs of news organizations looking for ways to be successful online. Two recent articles, I think, provide direction for news organizations trying to find their way in this era." - Will Sullivan

"Where data is accessible and usable, make it meaningful. This is the hardest part, and it's what reporters most want to do. But if data isn't available, there's no meaning to be had. And if you spend all your time scraping PDFs, it's time not spent actually looking at what the data means." - Will Sullivan

"In response to losing that safety net Dunn and The Post's managing editor Dave Hendricks, both journalism majors at OU's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, launched a simple WordPress site, CollegeNewsNetwork.org, two months ago to fill the content-sharing void. So far, 30 college newspapers are taking part in the free service." - Will Sullivan

"Is there something about people who use Microsoft products that makes them more likely to click on an online ad? Some data from search advertising network Chitika suggests so. Earlier this week, we noted that people coming to Websites from Bing are about 75 percent more likely to click on an ad than those coming from Google." - Will Sullivan

"We told you the Google phone was confirmed. And now some Googler’s seem to be confirming it, too. There is a lot of chatter on Twitter about Google employees with HTC-built unlocked Google Phones running Android 2.1. And the devices look to be coming out in January." - Will Sullivan

"Everybody likes Android, Google's open-source smartphone operating system. But a smartphone operating system isn't all that satisfying without an actual kick-ass smartphone wrapped around it. Now Android has one: The Droid is a hefty beast, a metal behemoth without the gloss and finish of the iPhone, but you don't miss it." - Will Sullivan