That means that users who aren’t following Virgin America on the service might still see an ad for the airline in their “timeline” — if Twitter thinks they have things in common with people who do follow Virgin.

Outside of Promoted Tweets, this is a new era in how Twitter displays advertising. Until now, the user had to have made some type of action to see ads. An algorithm matching your profile with similar ones will now trigger them.

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Whatever you want to call it, the redesign that was unveiled yesterday is a big departure from the simple stream we’ve been used to since the microblog’s inception.

Now, I’ve always argued that adding features was not the prime concern when looking at a product. User experience via the user interface is what matters.

Being a very text-based person myself, I was not sure how Twitter would be able to make it work while not looking like Pownce, the now-deceased social network that added inline-media in its stream.

But Twitter seems to have made the right call.

Users are on Twitter.com

Know your users/consumers behavior. While third-party clients are all the talk amongst geeks, an overwhelming 78% of the Twitter users go to Twitter.com. Twitter.com is what most users see everyday. Not Tweetdeck, not Echofon, not Hootsuite, not Seesmic. Twitter.com.

➡ Top 10 Twitter Apps

Users want media-rich experiences

Again, know your users/consumers behavior.

Most of the users are not purely text-based like I am. Does any single article on the web get the number of views a viral YouTube video can get? Probably not. We’re drawn to images. They play with more of our senses.

Look at the success of Facebook. It reigns for its ability to aggregate everything on the stream, from pictures -it is now the largest photo-sharing site on the planet- to links, from videos to questions.

It reigns for its ability to create a virtual Ἀγορά, agora, the place where people meet, exchange, sell, buy and speak in public.

It is what makes Facebook so attractive & sticky. A destination website that you don’t have to leave. Add the ‘Like’ -what people liked outside of Facebook- and you’ve got a holistic experience.

Twitter understands that. It has outgrown the innovators and early adopters -people like me. It has become a huge water cooler experience, where people stop to listen to what’s going in on, tell people what they’re up to, joke about non-sensical stuff, get the most recent news, exchange with like-minded people, show their latest pictures, pitch their product and what’s not.

Twitter works because it amplifies real-life gestures. Reading, writing, watching, demonstrating.

Adding rich-media will only further grow this sense of belonging to a public place. To the Ἀγορά.

How the redesign impacts brands

How so?

• Users will stick to Twitter.com

Up to now, links shown on Twitter.com would have to be clicked, leading to a new browser window. With more that 25% of the tweets containing a link -whether it’s a URL for a website, a picture or a video for instance- the redesign will alter the users’ behavior. A lot.

Taking cues from the newly release Twitter for iPad application, media will now open in a second pane on the website. Flickr pictures and YouTube videos. Etsy product images too. No need to leave the website.

• Users will expect richer experiences

The redesign is an opportunity. What Twitter has allowed you is to make your channel less dry. Or richer. Pick your words. Pick your videos and pictures.

Brands using Twitter need to assess which platforms they are using and if they want to switch services in order to satisfy users who will undoubtedly be less and less willing to leave Twitter.com

Current limitation is that Twitter has only partnered with sixteen service -including Twitpic, Flickr, DailyBooth, YouTube, Vimeo and Brightcove. Only those sixteen will show something on the new right-pane to begin with.

• Users will focus more on content consumption

An often-overlooked aspect of Twitter is that people are not only there to share. They’re also there to listen, watch, click. Not everyone tweets, you know.

By prompting a new experience, Twitter makes it easier for people to understand what it is about. Facebook users trying out Twitter will be more familiar with the environment, with the type of interaction they’ve been accustomed to.

It’s a big deal. The success of Facebook is based on both people easily sharing and people easily consuming content.

Twitter has suddenly become less difficult to explain and new users will be drawn by the new interface -or, at least, not put off by its inexplicability.

But these new users will be different. They will be consumption-driven. Think YouTube: most users do not upload videos, they merely watch them.

Twitter is becoming a read/watch/share platform. In that order. Not only the share/read/click it was up to now.

• Users will get better recommendations

The platform is really encouraging the growth of its social graph.

With the introduction of the second pane, Twitter has beefed up its profile recommendation system -the “follow recommendations”. Users will now see four profiles instead of two, making it easier to create new connections.

Add the recent roll-out of the profile-specific common followers feature -“you both follow”- and the “followed by” information and you’ve got an opportunity for brands to be discovered and promote other accounts, like product-specific ones.

I actually find this system overall better than Facebook’s. The “Likes in common” remains overwhelming, misplaced and underused. Twitter’s lighter options make a lot of sense.

• Users won’t see your account background image

It’s a smaller implication, but it’s there. If you’re using the account’s background to convey data, like contact information or else, the new widescreen layout is crushing it to oblivion. Simply forget it.

Truth to be told, I was never a big fan of it in the first place, no real call-to-action there, no linking.

• Users will get more used to location

The new layout also introduces maps. Locations through Twitter -or via Flickr pictures- are now shown with an accompanying map.

Not only users will take notice more than they might have been until now, but it might trigger their will to try location-based tweets -and third-party location services.

Take note of this emphasis.

What the redesign left unchanged

Some key Twitter-specific design choices were not altered by the redesign.

• Users will still see the tweets chronologically

While the second pane allows for a different experience, the stream itself will not change. Compared with Facebook and it’s relevancy algorithm that pushes the information on top of its newsfeed, Twitter still relies on a purely chronological stream.

It means that brands need to push users to actually visit their Twitter channel and be smart about content so that it gets retweeted/shared enough to garner the attention by landing in other users’ streams.

• Users will still have a hard time having a conversation

Twitter still relies on clicks to see reactions to a tweet or replies. And an account not following another one is prevented, by design, to see its replies in the streams.

Compare that to the threaded conversation model on Facebook. I needn’t say more.

It cuts noise, but makes it hard to have a real conversation. While brands are using monitoring tools which automatically thread conversations, keep in mind than the vast majority of users don’t have this capability on Twitter.com.
Be smart on how you answer your consumers.

What Twitter didn’t announce

• Analytics

The use of third-party providers for the current redesign allows companies to chose a media sharing service which includes some measurement system, but it’s not enough. Like relying on external services -think bit.ly- to garner measurements on clicks done through tweets is not enough.

Analytics is a tool sorely missing for brands on Twitter.

Analytics could also uncover the dark matter of Twitter: the good portion of users who do not tweet -or only occasionally so. Have they actually been to your account for instance? It’s currently impossible to monitor these behaviors.

The creation of a Twitter-branded URL shortening service, t.co, however hints at a potential package for businesses that would include metrics. This might be around the corner.

• Verified account guidelines

The “verified account” status is still hard to get for businesses. While we’re not exactly in the age of cybersquatting anymore, Twitter should make it easier for brands to submit a request for verification, with simple and clear guidelines.

I also expect that to arrive in the coming months.

• Rich sponsored tweets

It doesn’t seem that Sponsored Tweets are media-rich capable. Yet. I’m sure Twitter’s ad platform will be enhanced shortly.

Twitter’s new strategy: Twitter.com

Twitter is for news. Twitter is for content. Twitter is for information.

➡ Twitter is NOT a Social Network

Read that again. Kevin Thau‘s second sentence. Content.

It’s a refocus on consumption of content.

It’s the new strategy for Twitter. Mark my words. If you look at the company’s behavior these past months, with the Twitter Economy -the API-based ecosystem that saw third-party service providers strive- being cannibalized, the path is clear.

The redesign is yet another stepping stone after the creation of the aforementioned URL shortener and the acquisition of Tweetie -now Twitter for iPhone and, newly, for iPad.

You gotta go on Twitter.com or use tools that will mimick the experience closely.

It’s a refocus on Twitter.com.

This is where the company will make money, not on third-party services.

Twitter has not just added a pretty layer over an existing platform. It’s truly a new Twitter. A Twitter that means business.

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It’s only my second time at this conference and I must say I was really impressed by how it improved in a year. I’ll do a summary in a next article when I wrap things up about thess 10 days in the Philippines, but I need to stress from the get go that you’ve got a world-class event here. Better than conferences I attend in more traditional cities like Singapore for instance.

My task on that day was to participate in a panel about how brands can become social. I was sided with George Foo, the Founder and CEO of iHub media, the Facebook Official Sales Partner for South East Asia, South Korea, Japan & Taiwan and Frederic Levy, #3 of Netbooster Asia, a subsidiary of the French digital agency, headquartered here in Manila. Good mix: a platform, an agency and a business consultant.

In a society where women have such an importance what a relief to see one moderating the panel: Crisela Magpayo-Cervantes, the head of ABS-CBN Interactive, the biggest multi-media conglomerate and TV broadcaster in the Philippines.

Whew. Lots of great minds around me. Let’s take a notepad and my favorite Mont-Blanc ballpoint pen which never leaves my side.

The panel took cues on what Jeremiah Owyang, Maria Ressa and other speakers presented before us and built upon it, in a slightly more interactive way (hey, we’re talking social, right?), the public being able to ask questions and get varied answers from three cool guys.

Interactive is not social

Is social good for all brands? That was the first question.

My starting point, which is kind of becoming a motto now, is that interactive is not social. These are two different approaches. In interactive, there’s a people to machine and machine to people interaction, while social is a people to people platform -I sometimes call that C2C in the pure business sense.

The dynamics are different. I think it is key to understand this, especially with many agencies in the audience. Campaigns and discussions are linked, one can empower the second, but while campaigns tend to limit themselves in time, people go on with their lives and have on-going conversations -including those about products and companies.

It’s no different here in the Philippines than elsewhere.

The Philippines social numbers

With the staggering 79% YOY growth, reaching the 17m mark, the Philippines now stands as the 7th biggest Facebook market in the world in terms of active users. Up to last September, Friendster was still the top social networking platform here and seems to be going down the drain everywhere else in South East Asia too -it’s former last stronghold.

Extrapolating on the recent ComScore numbers, Twitter is reaching 2m users here, the 6th biggest Twitter market worldwide with a reach of almost 15%. Not bad. Not bad at all -and again, what a striking difference from the time I was living here when Plurk was leading.

Interestingly enough, while mobile data is still limited in the country, AdMob ranks it 10th for mobile usage [pdf], based on ad requests. Add to the mix that it is the texting capital of the world -I’d say over 1.5bn SMS with a subscriber base of slighlty over 50m- and you’ve got a pretty interesting picture: social networking + mobile = traction.

Now, the most important numbers, in terms of social strategy, are still lacking in the Philippines: What are people exactly doing online.
How long, where, when, how? Which demographics is where? What are they doing? Social games like Farmville -hint, they tend to drive a big female demographic? Are they on Tumblr? Are they active during the week and not the weekend? One needs to survey the market with all those questions. The absence of these more ingrained numbers limit the creation of valid strategies for brands here.

I’m sure that, by this time next year, those will have appeared on the market, though. It’s an absolute certainty. Jeremiah hit the nail multiple times.

Research, Strategy, Preparation

Coming back to brand strategy, going social is first about knowing where your customers and prospects are & what they do. It’s fashionable to open Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, but it is often done without doing research, without preparation. This is step two after intent. Research, strategy and preparation.

To quote myself: “there’s no such thing as a Facebook strategy, only business strategies”

The lack of deep demographics and online behaviors -the point I just made above- is limiting the research. But Filipinos brands haven’t waited, obviously.

In all cases, lack of strategy creates more problem than it solves. A very simple example: my airline of choice, Emirates. I don’t have any insider information on their strategy -or lack thereof- but opening a Twitter account then abrubtely stopping it (last tweet was on Jan 6th) shows a lack of long term planning.
On the other hand, look at Air France, the airline I used to fly the most when I was a resident in Tokyo, which offers great customer support through its social tools. When, as a customer, I was reacting on Twitter to the fact that my miles card didn’t get accepted in one Singapore hotel, they went as far as sending me an email within 24 hours, explaining them the differences in hotel miles rewards across continents. They couldn’t send me a direct message on Twitter -one needs to follow an account to get those direct engagement-, so they went and looked my email up in their database. Good stuff!
Nice for Emirates that I only have good things to say about them. Imagine the contrary. No one would have reacted. This is how stories like the Montrin Moms against a brand go in overdrive.

Negative comments are usually an overblown matter. I estimate they don’t surpass 20% of the comments -or reviews of a product. They act as validation for the positive ones -is there such a company or product that really gets 100% of satisfaction rates? Dream on-.
More importantly, and this is a motto of mine, by humanizing your brand, since going social is a people to people business, forgiveness is higher.

We, humans, do forgive others for their mistakes -unless too grave or repeated. I don’t want to forgive a machine or a brand. I don’t care. But I can forgive a humanized brand. Negativity is soothed by this process -unless you really have a crappy product, that is.

Training

Preparation does also mean not giving these social tools to the new hire, just because he’s young and Facebook is a “teen thing” or whatever. First, it’s not a “teen thing”. Second, it leads to the Nestle brandjacking debacle, where the employee, while maybe not a new hire, had no clue about crisis management. You don’t say to people to shut up. Imagine Nestle telling you to shut up. This is not communication on a professional level. Lack of training which led to a backlash against Nestle that got the world headlines.

Social media is a serious matter. It’s a job. With skills, both soft -empathy, sensibility- and hard -crisis handling being one. It requires both carefully choosing the pool of talent that will represent you online, but also training them on a on-going basis, while offering support (the Nestle Facebook page employee could have gone and ask what to do about it -he might have, again, I don’t have the specifics).

That, with the previous point, answers one of the question Crisela asked us: how to minimize the risks of social media.

Fred made an essential point there: life comes with risks. I’d add: deal with it. But I’ll advise: prepare yourself (with the risk of repeating myself).

This also applies in the choice of community managers, probably one of the most sought-after profile companies will get for in the coming years. Chose carefully. Pick a good listener. Think diplomacy.

Social Media doesn’t scale

Social media doesn’t scale. Repeat that in your head. Do that again, repeat it. Churn on it. You will never be able to follow the amount of conversations -including criticisms that need attention- especially with the high growth rate of social platforms adoption. You need tools to monitor, prioritize and group. Social CRM, in analysts’ talk.

Whether you’re a small company or a big corporation, this is tantamount. This requires investment. People’s investment. Money investment. You cannot escape this.

This would require a full analysis by itself. It was a 45 minutes panel -and I tried not to keep talking at the expense of my two great co-panelists-, I only touched the surface.

I however quickly mentioned the Apple case. Besides an App Store Facebook page, the Cupertino company seems absent on the social networking platform. Really?
Do you really think Apple is not listening the online chatter? Do you really believe Apple reacted to the recent antenna-gate issue because some big newspapers started talking about it. Apple listens. You can listen without being present. That’s your choice. Not always a wise one, but in case of Apple, they addressed the mounting complaints with a official press event. They were listening.

Being social is about being a good listener first. Not about babble skills.

Feedback loop

Listening with the appropriate social tools also allows a brand to measure the success or failure of a campaign. And it’s immediate. The campaign can be refocused -let’s say on the part that click with people, abandoning what doesn’t resonate. Quickly.

Use the feedback loop to full effect.

Listen, measure, track, rinse. And restart.

Use what people are telling you to get better, to evolve. Whether it is during a campaign or not.

Interactive can become social

Ken Mandel, head of Yahoo! South East Asia, said it best during his keynote: “paid media priming the viral pump”. Yes, an interactive campaign can generate conversations -and great ones. This is why I talked about interactive and social in terms two different approaches: they are still part still of an ecosystem. This was a main point in my keynote on day two, I’ll write about it on a subsequent post.

Going Agency or not?

This question comes a lot when I talk to clients. Coca-Cola is using an agency to run its Twitter, so it’s not something only small companies do because they don’t have the right staffing. The advantage, as my presentation on the corporate impact of social pointed out, is the professionalism. The disadvantage is the disconnect.

An agency, when it comes to listening and engaging in conversations, is not as passionate as you. It’s, at least, difficult that it will reach the level of knowledge you have for the brand that you do. Moreso the passion that you do have as you can imagine. Agencies are still, for the most part, in a broadcast culture, not in this C2C world I’ve mentioned. Beware. Only a handful of agencies understand this.

A very small amount compared to the massive presence of “social media experts” -you can replace that last word with gurus, rockstars, etc.- and to phony agencies -adding a social page to an existing agency website is easy, even famous ones do.
Be sure you get an agency that knows what it’s talking about. It should have done its homework. It should have deployed -it’s so easy to fake the appearance of seriousness and expertise.
Ask for credentials. Be social: ask around you. Why not create a Filipino website with reviews of agencies, that’s surely a good opportunity for someone!

I’m sure I’m missing lots of what has been said during these intense 45 minutes. I hope I gave you a good overview though.

More to come about this IMMAP experience in the days to come.

IMMAP coverage:
Paid Media Priming The Viral Pump
Maria Ressa And Your Heroes
Going Social With Your Brand
The Corporate Culture Of Social
Flickr photos

We may eventually develop a set of social rules and legal conventions that acknowledge that an angry tweet is less likely to be considered defamatory than a published article, but we are not there yet.

I seriously doubt it. While the social norms will eventually adapt to open communication, libel will remain. We have to take responsibility for what we write. What we do in public.

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Flipboard will soon integrate the semantic data-analysis technology [...] in order to app better determine the relevance of the information and updates from your various social networking connections

Robert was right. Revolutionary or not, this iPad application is mesmerizing. The addition of semantic data-analysis is what I’m looking mostly forward though. My6Sense, your turn to up the ante. ➡ Flipboard, New “Social” iPad Magazine will be Powered by Semantic Data

Gruber says that when he’s writing Daring Fireball, he’s picturing his ideal reader — a copy of himself — and conceptually writing just for him. With everything he writes, he’s writing to and for that one ideal reader, not trying to boost his SEO for target phrases or appeal to an ever broadening demographic.

➡ How I write and time-manage

There you have it.

I love writing. For more than fifteen years, I’ve been having amazing debates online with a selected group of friends. I can spend so much time crafting the most documented answer or going into a non-sensical reply frenzy that it can be described as a real passion.

I was never able to translate that completely into blogging, though. I have had several blogs dating back to 1995, on way too many platforms, with way too many different domain names.

Gosh the staggering amount of time I’ve spent experimenting. Don’t do it. Well, do experiment. But don’t think technology. Think content. Think you. You’re the ideal reader.

I’m the ideal reader.

I was thinking too much. I’m a Virgo ascendant Virgo. I don’t value astrology, it’s a know fact amongst my friends, but random online searches about the topic would tell you that, besides not hiding my personality, I’m double the perfectionist, double the the analyzer. I think too much.

I was always struggling with the eventual noise I was putting out. Not noise to me, but what could have been noise to you. I didn’t want to disturb. I don’t care anymore. Well, I do, I just learned to better deal with it.

Twitter, the so-called grave-digger of long-form writing, has been my therapy. I realized I’m doing just fine with my half-professional, half-personal, half-witty, half-grunty, half-worldcup, half-analyst, half-Japan, half-non-sensical shots. People are free to like my noise or not. To follow me or not.

To like me or not.

I’ve repeated over and over and I’ll do it again: I like opinions. The only reason I ever read newspapers is for the op-eds.

I’m opinionated. Like my articles. Or not.

Like my tone or pass. There you have it.

CNN: a journalist specialized on the Middle-Est fired because of Twitter

Because of Twitter?!

I repeat. Because of Twitter. Seriously, people, because of Twitter?!

Yes, I got the news in French -flame me for having that one as a mother tongue- and I’ll admit a rapid skimming of Google News shows English headlines make more sense, but still… The art of not taking responsibility has reached a new height. The art of bullshit I’d say.

I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again. I love opinions and opinionated people.

I think journalists should have the right to express their opinions on the topics they cover. More importantly, I think readers have a right to know what those opinions are. Frankly, I’d like to know sooner rather than later just how insane some of these people at CNN and Fox News are. To stop them from giving me that information is just another way to lie to me.

➡ We Need More Opinion In News, Not Less

Mike is right. I’ve had enough of editorial policies leading to convulsed news report trying to hide any bias. I like frankness. I like to know what people think. It allows all of us to form a constructed opinion rapidly -if you’re slower, you just might be dumber. A better opinion.

See? That’s what I always do. I’ve called some of you dumb. Dislike that? Don’t read me. Or read me and discard my opinion. Hate me. Do whatever the hell you want with what I’m telling you. But take responsibility.

Stop blaming technology at least. It’s not because of Twitter that Octavia Nasr was fired.
The postulate of Twitter is simple. Broadcast 140 character messages. In public by default. You don’t have to be on Twitter, you don’t have to use it and you sure don’t have to write everything and anything.

Stop blaming technology, take responsibility and take a stand.

Let me take this back to me -yes, that opinionated egocentric guy who takes responsibility of everything he writes online, including the expletives. I’m a fan of the World Cup. I comment the matches live on Twitter. On the spur of the moment. With emotions. Boring some of my followers. Like I’m in a bar.

10 days ago, during the exciting Germany – England game, I did react to the German team rising domination with a tongue-in-cheek tweet which referred to their former armored fighting vehicles. I’m no Monty Python though. It didn’t fly well with a good friend of mine who immediately reacted. I apologized and removed the tweet.

I took a stand. I took responsibility. I apologized. I removed the tweet. Nothing to do with “because of Twitter”. It was me writing that tweet down. Me. Me. Me. Someone didn’t find it funny. I didn’t want to offend anyone. Didn’t try to find excuses and blame it on an external factor. It was me. I was wrong. I am sorry.

Nars did tweet. She knew she had 140 characters. Her account is called OctaviaNasrCNN. It’s officially linked with her employer. She knew that. And tweeted with it. On the spur of the moment. With her emotions. But it was her. Her. Her.

a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues

➡ Nasr explains controversial tweet on Lebanese cleric

Wrong. Completely wrong. It’s a choice. And a responsibility. To your employer. And yourself.

Take a stand or shut up.

Japan is increasing Twitter addicts everyday.

This story of a Twitter-addict not writing for a day creating a panic for her followers is indeed kinda scary. ➡ A Japanese Heavy Twitter User Pausing A Day Thought As Missing By Followers, Retweeted Frantically

we are calling the end of Japan’s 3-1 victory over Denmark a record that bests the end of the Los Angeles Laker victory over the Boston Celtics [...] When the referee blew the final whistle, we saw 3,283 [Tweets-per-second]

➡ Another Big Record: Part Deux

The US soft drinks company is only the second brand to sponsor a “trending topic”, using Twitter’s “promoted tweets” to tap into online discussion about the World Cup this week. It saw 86m “impressions” or views of the ads in 24 hours

It’s Coke, an established brand. It’s the World Cup time. But 86m impressions in a day? Insane. Engagement rate -even with no precision on how it was computed- of 6%. Add free press coverage and you’ve got a big win. ➡ Coke sees ‘phenomenal’ result from Twitter ads

the fact is that in many cases, particularly during a sporting event like the World Cup, Twitter is like a bar [...] It’s called social media because it’s social

➡ Esquire Misses the Point on Twitter and the World Cup

Japan scores against Cameroon on June 14 in their 1-0 victory

2,940 Tweets per second in the half minute after the goal. Top most tweeted goal of the World Cup so far. ➡ Big Goals, Big Game, Big Records

Twitter is like haiku. It is so Japanese.

Japan: 16.3% of  internet users tweet. #1 Mixi is surpassed. 8m tweets a day, 12 percent of the global tally. Loic recently said that more than 20% of Seesmic tweets are in Japanese. Ryan has more than 30% on HootSuite. Twitter is truly dislocating that SNS galapagos. ➡ Twitter a hit in Japan as millions ‘mumble’ online

I presented key important trends related to the future of social technologies and engaged the audience about their implication on our daily lives.