Facebook 'Three Times More Popular Than Twitter' On Mobile

Facebook is more than three times as popular as Twitter on mobile and a host of other apps, according to a survey.

Of smartphone buyers asked to name the three most frequently used apps on their mobile phones, 45 per cent said Facebook, while 13 per cent said Twitter and 11 per cent said Candy Crush Saga, the popular mobile game.

The survey of 500 phones buyers in the US between June and September of this year shows that Facebook is unchallenged as the leading app on smartphones, according to the company which conducted the research.



Mike Levin, co-founder of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), said: “Facebook just dominates mobile phones, in terms of most frequent use, not just downloads.

“For most other apps, including some well-known ones like YouTube and Pandora, fewer than 10 per cent of phone buyers included them among the most frequently used”.

Why Google Sells More Than Newspapers, Magazines

Why does Google gobble up more ad revenue than all of the newspapers and all of the magazines?

(1) A disruptive automated online auction platform that allows Google to handle millions of accounts.
(2) a cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model that doesn’t charge advertisers for impressions but for a measurable action (a click on an ad).
(3) relevant search ads that are served to those in the market to buy something.
(4) display ads in relevant content, and, the most embarrassing reason to legacy media.
(5) superior salesmanship

When digital advertising appeared in 1994 – an ad for ATT on HotWired.com – the legacy media laughingly said, “It’ll never amount to anything.”  Newspapers were the number-one ad medium at the time, TV was second, radio third, and magazines were fourth at the time (as I remember), and the those media sales executives were arrogant about their insurmountable lead in ad revenues over the fledging Internet.

Salespeople at Google (and Facebook) are “evangelists” (yes, that’s their official title in many cases) who educate their customers about their products and help them understand how to best use their offerings.  They don’t sell; they teach.

Google Is Bigger Than Newspapers and Magazines Industry.

Snapchat Scoops Up Facebook, Instagram Exec as COO

Snapchat added Emily White, the director of business operations at Instagram, as the company's new COO on Tuesday.

"It happened really quickly, but to have an actual COO role in one of many companies that is disrupting the communications arena is one I could not pass up," White, who will work directly with Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel as the company's No. 2. “I have always been captivated by the creativity that has gone into the product… and I think that Evan has been looking for someone who can help him grow and scale what is already something that has changed a lot of the way people think about the mobile experience.”

Obviously, one could compare the White hiring to when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg left Google in 2008

The now-former Facebook exec had been director of mobile partnerships at Facebook beginning in 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was assigned to work with Instagram and its co-founder Kevin Systrom in April, and was involved in bringing advertisements to Instagram just last month.
Sources say that Snapchat does plan to sell advertising and use other methods, like selling virtual goods. Figuring this out will be a big part of White's new job.

Whatsapp Said That It Now Has 30 Million Users In India

Neeraj Arora, Head of Business Development for WhatsApp informs us (via WhatsApp, incidentally), that the company now has 30 million user monthly active users in India.

Neeraj Arora, had recently mentioned that the service has crossed 25 million monthly active users in India, up from 20 million in August 2013. This is still significantly (and surprisingly) smaller than the 84 million users (including Internet) that Facebook claims for the country. There still does appear to be a gap between the two, even on mobile: for Idea Cellular, for example, 15.6 million connections (not users) accessed Facebook from their mobile phone in the quarter ended September 30th 2013, while around 4.3 million accessed WhatsApp. Deals like the Tata Docomo one are essential for WhatsApp to grow their active user base.

Telecom operators are in a tricky position: they need services like WhatsApp to grow their data business, but some, like Idea Cellular, are still seeing it as a threat to SMS. Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kampania had recently warned about the shift from SMS to WhatsApp and other messaging services, saying that while only around 36% of Idea’s connection base uses SMS, many high-usage SMS customers have shifted to Internet based messaging services.

Tumblr Adds 'Sponsored Trending Blogs' Section for Brands

Companies looking to connect with customers on one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world now have a new tool: sponsored trending blogs on Tumblr’s mobile apps.

The 153 million-blog juggernaut, now owned by Yahoo, adds over 100 million posts a day to its almost 70 billion total. Brands and companies such as Calvin Klein, Sony, and 20th Century Fox are among the first five advertisers to try out the new ad spot, which will position their Tumblr blogs among the most popular destinations on the microblogging site.

This is a soft launch, and the product will go live in January. It’s only for mobile right now, and it will be given “prominent placement” among the “most popular content” on the service. The ad unit includes the name of the advertiser — or the name of a movie, album, or product — a follow button so viewers can follow that blog and three images from recent blog posts.

This is Tumblr’s fifth ad offering, joining Radar, Spotlight, Sponsored Mobile Posts, and Sponsored Web Posts. The blogging site-slash-budding-social network resisted monetization efforts for years, but has started experimenting with ads — slowly and carefully — since Yahoo bought it earlier this year.

China’s Xiaomi Sold 150,000 Smartphones In Under 10 Minutes

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has just sold 150,000 units of its latest flagship device, the Mi-3, in under 10 minutes – using only a chat app: Tencent-owned WeChat.

The company announced that the Mi-3 sold out in 9 minutes 55 seconds on WeChat, via its Sina Weibo official account. This partnership between Xiaomi and WeChat proves that WeChat has much potential to be an e-commerce platform — after all the entire process, from reserving the device to purchasing it, took place within the messaging app.

As of the third quarter this year, WeChat has 272 million monthly active users.

Last month, Xiaomi unveiled its latest flagship device, the Mi-3. The first batch of 100,000 Mi-3 phones were snapped up in 86 seconds flat.

Japan 's Line Messaging App To Expand Taiwan Office

Japan's Line Corp., creator of the fast-growing social messaging app Line, said Tuesday that its Taiwan office will be expanded by five to 10 times next year to create more localized "stickers" and mobile content.

Kang Hyun-bin, head of Line Business Development Division, told CNA that the Taiwan branch now has recruited about 10 employees since its establishment in May and is planning to hire more local workers for marketing, sales, information technology and design.

He said Taiwan has become Line's third-largest market around the world with over 17 million registered users, behind only Japan with 49 million and Thailand with 20 million, driven by its popular oversized emoticons, or stickers.

Line has more than 7 billion daily messages and over 1 billion stickers sent by worldwide users, according to Kang, who declined to break down the figures for Taiwan.

"Given that we have a huge number of users in Taiwan, we are planning an expansion of our office here in order to improve the user experience and prepare for launching new services," Kang said.

Akira Morikawa, chief executive officer at Line, said in a statement a day earlier that he aims to have 500 million users by the end of 2014 and to develop Line into "the world's top communication service."