Twitter's New Revenue Model

Twitter looks set to unveil another revenue raising model with launch of @earlybird account, that will carry special offers with brands paying to feature on the channel.

The development was first reported on Read Write Web, but there is no official statement from Twitter. The company’s spokeswoman told Read Write Web: “There are interesting things in store for @earlybird. Keep waking up early and you might be the first to find out what they are.”

As they say "Early Bird gets the worm".. looks like Twitter is seeking various option to generate dollars. The account is currently protected and is followed by 258 people.  

Twitter has been experimenting with its advertising initiative "sponsored trending topics" which is truly innovative. Twitter announced its first paid-for service, Promoted Tweets, in April 2010.

Are Banks Monitoring Conversations Online?

On 17th June @ sandeepgeetla tweeted the below rumour which led to a slide in the ICICI shares by

3.5 % in the intra day trading hours, however within hours the stock price recovered due to prompt action by the bank. This info was published in Business Standard on 24th June.

ICICI bank is known to monitor 3-5k tweets per day via its Twitter handler @icici_care. The bank also monitors online conversations on Facebook, Blogs and other social mediums, to help stop rumors.

The bank responded to the user on twitter as follows:-

@sandeepgeetla These r baseless rumours abt ICICI Bank, request u to not pay heed to them & also not spread them further…”

ICICI has gone ahead and filed a complaint against the person with the cyber crime cell of the police and market watchdog SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India)

How about the banks in GCC – do they monitor conversations online? Some of the banks that are active on Twitter in GCC are: -

• @DubaiBankAE
• @arabbankgroup
• @rakbanklive
• @ithmaarbank – Bahrain
• @Gulf_bank - Kuwait

@Rakbanklive is interactive and they do listen to customer complaints/feedback. But, how many banks in GCC monitor Social Media Conversations?

Check the screen shot below taken from a popular forum in UAE, where a customer is complaining about a bad experience with a bank : -

The person may have had a bad experience with the bank but may be was never heard. However, he has found the web to share his experience with people. 

What is the Impact of such online posts.....

• One bad customer experience would cost the bank many others
• Does the bank know about this post?
• Is it a competitor bank spreading the rumor?

There are many groups on Facebook, where customers share their experiences with other potential bank customers, which does influence choices to an extent. Many people resort to share their personal experience about anything on the web as it is a feasible medium to voice their opinion. This makes many bank's vulnerable to online abuse, as some of these opinions may be rumors, proving that bank's need to have online monitoring tools.

Many banks have Internal Communication Departments who monitor print media for news but discount online conversations. What can a bank do to minimize the impact?

• Have a communications team to monitor online conversations and tackle rumors/complaints
• Hire a PR agency that can monitor the web 24x7
• Have a strong e-Marketing team that can create a positive perception of your brand online

Having an online presence is a must but tackling rumors/complaints is a challenge. The banks will have to bear the brunt of online conversations if they continue to ignore this medium. Online conversations will make or break customer relations in the future as more and more people seek feedback from peers on the web.

Twitter Hits the Limit

To fix the "whaling" issues on Twitter and avoid frequent outages, Twitter team has placed restrictions on various functionalities. Below is a list of restrictions placed by the technical team to ensure maximum availability of the websites: -

•Direct Messages: 250 per day.

•API Requests: 150 per hour.

•Updates: 1,000 per day. The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as updates.

•Changes to Account Email: 4 per hour.

•Following (daily): Please note that this is a technical account limit only, and there are additional rules prohibiting aggressive following behavior. You can find detailed page describing following limits and prohibited behavior on the Follow Limits and Best Practices Page. The technical follow limit is 1,000 per day.

•Following (account-based): Once an account is following 2,000 other users, additional follow attempts are limited by account-specific ratios. The Follow Limits and Best Practices Page has more information.

 

The above information is sourced directly from the Twitter Help Centre which you click to read for more info. The above restrictions may impact few avid twitter users and keep spammers on the bay. Hope twitter is able to fix these issues at the earliest.

Twitter has experienced several incidences of poor site performance and the site has reported being used above capacity for almost two weeks now.  Click here to read more on the technical glitches that are being fixed by the tech Twitter team.

Twitteratis turn out in force for ‘Tweet up’

We had organized a Tweet up for Doha Twitteratis this week on 06 June. Members of the social networking site Twitter gathered at Café Colombiano earlier this week to discuss the uses of the service and how it could be used to encourage socialising and information sharing in Qatar. We also got reporters from Gulf Times who helped us cover the event followed by an article in their paper.

We had a round of presentations one by Isabelle Carbonell, documentary filmmaker and environmentalist, who presented Story of Stuff followed by short video by Mohammed Al Ibrahim from Doha Film Institute explaining the scope of the institute.

Thanks to @bilalr and @haniarif for getting this Tweetup up and running.

Middle East Leaders on Social Media

The leaders in the Middle East have realized that Web/Social Media are one of the potential mediums to reach their people. Some of the leading personalities in the region are Jordan's Queen Rania, Sheikh Mohammed from UAE.

Recently Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei (231,462 fans) overtook Queen Rania (207,666) on the total number of followers on Facebook as per an article in Jersusalam Post. As per the article ElBaradei is a potential future leader and challenger to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak according to the article.

Some of the other leading political personalities in the region on Facebook are: -

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud - 16,045 fans

Muammar al-Gaddafi - 751 fans

President Mohamed Hosny Mubarak - 11,932 fans

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum - 172,202 fans

Some of the above leaders are active on Twitter, which is more like an Information Network than a Social Network, proving that internet is a very influential form of communication.

Time will tell how the leaders will harness the potential of these websites. The fact that Facebook has more subscribers in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries than the number of newspapers circulated in the region is further encouraging for the leaders to be present on these websites.

Facebook Penetration Rate in Middle East

UAE has the highest Facebook penetration rate followed by Qatar in the Middle East as per the data released by Facebakers. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Facebook users but the penetration rate is very low.

The users in Qatar are growing rapidly and overall in the Middle East. Users in UAE have grown by 11 % and Qatar by 8% in the last 6 months. This illustrates the Social Media boom in the region.

Iraq also has a decent penetration rate considering its conditions, and this show the willingness of people to communicate with each other.

Male population dominate Facebook in the Middle East with a total of 4.3 million users and Females amount 2.5 million, almost half of the male users.

Interestingly, Iceland has the highest Facebook penetration in the world :)