The Art & Science Of Video Virals

Make Me A Viral: The Art & Science Of Video Virals

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Mobile Journalism

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Mobile Journalism

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MeDigit News pack

MeDigit News round up:

• What's social score of your #brand? http://cli.gs/7Mjtph #socialmedia
• New Russian Investment values #facebook at $6.5B http://cli.gs/5EJ7vN
• 5 most important features of #ms-office 2010... http://cli.gs/mH9P0U
• #microsoft #bing riding on growth... sees 8% increase in unique visitors since launch.. http://cli.gs/W35H4z
• 15 year old says teens are abandoning #twitter... are u listening?? http://cli.gs/7GU0sJ
• #VAS asia 2009.. many challenges for #mobile market. http://cli.gs/zGR4z4
• Online friedns are like banner ads! only 33% of us trust them. http://cli.gs/jLEXpH
• #unitedbreaksguitar... this is how you damage brand's reputation online... http://cli.gs/HtzTnZ
• Future of media moguls... http://cli.gs/JSNn35 | #twitter #rupertmurdoch

MeDigit News Pack

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Mobile Marketing - Putting Power in hands of consumer

With more then 410 Million mobile subscribers in the country, India is riding on the wave of telecom revolution. After television, mobile has become most promising and potential tool to reach roots of Indian market. Mobile screen has attracted attention of marketers and everybody is now targeting mobile screen as potential marketing vehicle. Potential is tremendous and opportunities are unlimited; what is required now is knowledge of medium and strategy for success.

Let us understand what mobile marketing exactly means and how this new medium is becoming so promising. If you ask me what mobile marketing is, I would say: ‘mobile marketing is utilizing wireless media to provide highly targeted and personalized product information to consumer on their mobile handset which results in generating value for both consumer and marketer’. I call it highly targeted and personalized medium because of the characteristics which mobile as a vehicle offers. Mobile is very important as a marketing tool because of its capability of generating value for both consumer and marketer. Let’s see how:

Personalization
Mobile provides potential for personalization, because it carries the user’s assigned identity. If marketers employ mobile devices for their advertising activities, they can use consumer feedback to customize their messages and offerings and collect information about consumers’ preferences to improve future products and services. This provides an exceptional advantage for marketers, since it enables them to reach their potential customers in a very individual way and thus increase the relationship with the user. Users are receptive to advertising that is personalized and relevant to their lifestyle.

Interactivity
Interactions between consumer and marketer are most important for any marketing communication exercise. Mobile as a medium provides cheap, handy and personal tool for feedback and interactions. Consumers are more receptive towards communication which values their opinion. Also, mobile advertising can react very fast to customers’ feedback just like internet advertising.

Mobile is not like TV, where you have basically fixed time slots, neither is it a print medium were there are limited space selling options. The breadth of data services is remarkable and growing almost daily. Here are the biggies, and a few options of how mobile advertising can be used:

SMS
Texting is by far the most popular non-voice usage of cell phones, and for this reason many companies have started their mobile efforts there. You can use SMS in a variety of ways. Customer relationship management, Promotional offers, interactive SMS are some of these. Apart from these, marketers also use SMS to increase customer involvement by contests, votes and polls.
The possibilities are tremendous but marketers have to be sensible about it. An SMS is very intrusive. If your messages are incessant, you’ll tick people off quickly.

Ringtones, Wallpaper, and other mobile games
Ringtones and Wallpapers are very efficient tools. These options are likely to interest most of consumers as they are actively seeking for such services. It gives a platform for brand experience for the product or services you are marketing.
Games can also be very profitable, though a key challenge here is developing a game that works on a broad swath of handsets. Mobile games appear to be an excellent tool for targeting youngsters.

Mobile Search
Mobile search works much the same way as web search, placing prominent paid search listings. Mobile search is an ideal option for retailers because targeted mobile search campaign will surely give more return on marketing investments as mobile searchers are more likely to be ready to buy than someone using a PC. They are out and ready to walk in your door.

Mobile Banners
Mobile banners are graphical ads, just like web banners. They are usually purchased by CPM or CPC. There are many mobile ad networks out there which provide effective targeting options. Targeting on mobile world includes: Contextual targeting, Demographic targeting, Behavioral targeting and Geographic targeting.
Another thing to think about when you consider banners is what action you are trying to drive. Actions that you can drive are more promising and effective than those on webs banner. Some of the key options are:

1. Click through to a mobile site
2. Click to call, i.e. when the user clicks on the banner, they automatically initiate a voice call from their device to the number. This will likely improve response rates versus communicating a telephone number that the user will have to enter into their phone
3. Email capture
4. Ability to send an SMS (text) message or (less common) an MMS graphical message

Measurement metrics are impressions delivered, click through rates (CTR), click to call rates, Email capture rates, and the like.

Full Screen Graphical Ads
With technological innovations, mobile now offers options for lots of add on games and applications. Sponsoring such applications and games can become another option for your brand.
Sponsored game or application will entitle you a full screen graphical presence on pre- or post-application usage. These within applications can drive users to other sponsored pages in the application, click to email capture, click to call, or click to send MMS or SMS.
Because phone sets have different screen sizes, such full page sponsorships will likely require you to make more than one creative size for your message.

Own Applications
With iPhone opening doors for application developers and Nokia jointly with Symbian working on doing the same in near future; days are not far when marketers will have easy access to application developers. A variety of developers will help you create an application specifically for your brand. Consumer receptivity to such an app will depend upon its utility.
One of the key marketing strengths of building an app is the opportunity to create a persistent consumer relationship versus fielding impressions. User can use a good app on his phone again and again and which will offer hundreds – even thousands of brand interactions which marketers can leverage to build your consumer connection.

Mobile Widgets
Widgets have grown tremendously in popularity, and a subgroup of mobile widgets is growing strongly as well. While widgets are applications, they deserve a separate discussion because they tend to be easier to develop and because new standards are making it still easier to create compelling mobile widget experiences. Some of widgets offered by service providers are:

1. Local Search
2. Email
3. Photos
4. News
5. Sports
6. Finance
7. Entertainment
8. Weather
9. Cell Phone Coupon

A detailed discussion on mobile widgets on some other day….

Yeah, He is in to Technology!

Who do you think this person could be??

Please Vote!

Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.

This time, use your vote to liberate yourself
from
Those 'hand' which stop your growth
Those 'flower' which doesn't allow you to flourish

Choose right candidate.
VOTE FOR INDIA

The Twouble with Twitter

Intellegent Video. Will let you think how fool we twitter users are!

HCP calling entrepreneurs

Highland capital partners (HCP), a VC firm from US is seeking potential student entrepreneurs to partner with. This is their 3rd annual summer entrepreneurship programme. Company's vision is to tap entrepreneurs at early stage. Nurturing young talent and making successful entrepreneurs.

This 3rd annual "Summer@Highland" programme is scheduled for 10 weeks. Budding entrepreneurs will get a chance to work on their business plans and they will be paid stipend. There will be an opportunity of receiving VC funding if your idea is proving results. And the best part is, you are under no obligation after summer.Teams can have up to 4 people and will be given the option of working in the VC firm’s Menlo Park, CA or Lexington, MA offices. Stipend amounts range from $7,500 to $15,000, depending on how many people are part of the team.

Follow these links for details:

HCP's site: http://www.hcp.com
Summer internship programme: http://www.hcp.com/summer
Apply here: http://www.hcp.com/summer/apply.php

Android powered HTC Magic to be launched by April

A tipster points out to Phandroid that the Vodafone website confirms the Android-powered HTC Magic, recently announced, is arriving in April.

More...

Flock ditches Firefox, moves to Chrome

Flock, a social focused web browser is one of most popular social web browser in open source firefox browser. As per news coming from TechCrunch, next flock will be built on Google's Chrome platform. Flock has achieved 6 Million number of downloads and USD 30 Mn funding within 3 years of operations. Popularity of Flock as a browser is very low and it doesn't have significant market share; even lesser than netscape.

The reasons speculated for this migration are: lesser attention by Mozilla to develop this browser any further and ease of operations with Google. However, recent comments from Flock CEO Shawn Hardin reads like this on Tech Crunch:

I was responding to your email from only a few hours ago when I saw your article. It’s important to clarify a couple of things. We haven’t ceased development efforts on the Mozilla platform. Our upcoming release of Flock 2.1 is built on the Mozilla platform. Having said that, the browser space is heating up, and we’ve seen a variety of exciting technologies emerge over the last several months that are appealing.

We always have and will continue to make architectural decisions that balance what’s best for our users and what’s best for Flock as a business. This has resulted in a healthy, growing user base and business for Flock, and we expect this to continue in 2009. In fact, with over seven million downloads almost entirely from word of mouth, Flock enjoys a highly satisfied user base with consistently over 92% customer satisfaction, very strong net promoter scores, and an average of four hours of usage per day.

With a continuing focus on user-centered browser innovation, our team is in active research and development on a range of exciting new enhancements to Flock. It is still far too early to comment on anything specific, but we are very excited about this design phase…

Microsoft launches AdNetwork in India

Microsoft launched its online ad network, DrivePM in India. DrivePM has already tied up with 25 indian websites and running 28 campaigns.

It is interesting to see many global giants entering online advertising market in India as the market is maturing. Online ads occupy very less share of advertising spend pie in India. Typical ratio is around 3-5.5 % compare to 10-20 % in matured countries.

http://www.alootechie.com/content/microsoft-launches-its-online-ad-network-drivepm-india

New Push SMS Services

After MyToday and SMS Gupshup, many new service providers are joining the crew by adding bulk push SMS services to their portfolio.
Aletrix, free SMS alert service from Spot On Media, a subsidiary of ValueFirst offers alerts on Career Tips, Cricket Trivia, Health / Fitness Tips and Inspiring Thoughts.

ibibo sms+, allows small businesses to send SMS at cost as low as 0.10 Rs. ibibo's rate card here.

SMS is generating revenues and also provides good setup for small, targeted and engaging advertising. I hope to see many other players in this arena soon!

Reliance to offer mobile stock trading

Volantis, wipro, reliance and religre have tied up to offer stock trading application via mobile. Stock trading will see new avatar as mobile stock trading is new for india. With 3G knocking the doors and stock trading becmoming prominant in India, this will bring radical shift in stock trading.

To download the application, you need to send MARKETS to 56636. Or else you can download this application using GPRS. RMoney.moby as they call this application will allow all reliance money users to directly login and trade through mobile. Though, this service is not active currently, people are waiting for it eagerly, says medianama.

Good news for indian music Bands

MyBand.co.in, website operated by nediaplus offers online community exclusively for Indian Music Bands. You can upload, share and sell music. You can announce events, interact with people and promote your band here! So, dear music lovers what are you waiting for??

This is second phase of social networking. What happens when one market saturates? Marketers tend to find a niche and design product around specific attributes. This is exactly what MyBand.co.in offers.

MeDigit News

Digital and media stocks update for last week. http://cli.gs/pVTTrp

Long awaited mobile number portability starts from August. Cheers, India! http://cli.gs/8z1jQH

An insight in to Social media usage pattern of Indians. Indians spend comparatively low time on SNS. Orkut Rules!! http://cli.gs/NGybXU

Oodle, classified aggregator service provider to power AOL classifieds. http://cli.gs/NBuqA4

Study: Local / Mobile search has now overtaken yellow pages. http://cli.gs/UjmBBa

MySpace mobile - readying to beat facebook on mobile front. Mobile social networks on a roll... http://cli.gs/7Zut48

Twitter and question of Identity. A psychological point of view - must considered by markets. http://cli.gs/HpbBNY

Facebook and twitter are generating news around. What's the gist and who creates news?? http://cli.gs/SnrZ2q

What will you do when social media is not social anymore?? http://cli.gs/znVt1q

Mobile update: 8 upcoming technology that will change our lives! http://cli.gs/7GYstg

MeDigit News

Another Google application to make your life better. Google Power Meter - designed to measure your home power consumption. Application is still in test mode and will soon be launched [http://cli.gs/z2gNZ9]

Social networks join pact against cyberbullying. This pact is expected to improve safeguards against abuse of any social network online. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29120870/]

Twitter - finally a new development on revenue generation front! I had posted before that something is wrong with twitter's revenue model... well, twitter is coming up with paid services for corporate. New features will be specially designed for businesses and will be charged!! [http://cli.gs/zLqW3m]

Find out what Microsoft still don't understand! [http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=3461]

Get ready for lower priced iPhone. $99 iPhone is scheduled to rock the market!! [http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/99-iphone-coming-this-summer]

Microsoft has picked up minority stake in mobile marketing firm Affle! Giant like microsoft taking interest in mobile marketing is surely a signal of mobile marketing becoming next big thing. [http://cli.gs/7VBBrj]

India on the way of Rural Revolution! State owned BSNL has started rolling out low cost Broadband connectivity for rural areas. The DoT has signed an agreement with BSNL to provide 8,61,459 connections to individual users and government institutions through rural and remote exchanges over a period of five years, i.e, by 2014. A good sign for Internet marketing industry! [http://cli.gs/2YdUbH]

LG mobile's marketing strategy... check out what's new. No one knows whether it will succeed or not. Worth reading I must say... [http://digital.afaqs.com/perl/digital/news/index.html?sid=23295]

3G launch in India by MTNL

Today starts a new chapter in India's mobile telephony sector. With 3G services soft launch in Delhi, MTNL has pioneered 3G services space in India. [Source: http://cli.gs/9qDh4S] With this, the most awaited and most anticipated chapter has begun and it will surely bring changes in the way mobile phones are being used in India.

Here is the snapshot of what you can do with 3G enabled smartphone:

• Video conference on mobile.
• High speed internet ranging from 256kbps to 2mbps accessible from mobile / computer.
• Various data related VAS like: Mobile TV,GPS, Online Gaming, Video Streaming, High speed downloads

For accessing the MTNL 3G `Jadoo Service` a user will have to pay a onetime activation charge of Rs 500 and, thereafter, a monthly rental of Rs 599, besides usage charges with regards to voice calls and data downloads, MTNL chairman and managing director R S P Sinha said while launching the service. [Source: http://cli.gs/7L86Rr]

Usage charges for this comes around 5 Rs/MB. Of course, this is significantly high pricing and not affordable for large group of people. However, I would say that despite high pricing, 3G will find its usage in mobile telephony and will surely be a successful in India. High speed internet mobility is major problem for many of us and 3G is there to fill this need gap.
While 3G promises various advantages and promises, its success will largely depend on various other factors such as:

• Long term pricing
• Network feasibility
• Adaptability of 3G services
• Quality of services
• How Indian consumer responds to it

As a marketer, I see lots of opportunities associated with 3G. Now a days, we hear lot of buzz about internet marketing, mobile marketing, advertising using social networks, blogs, microblogs and customer engagement through various applications based on Internet. Here is how I see 3G as major opportunity for marketers:
Internet possesses personal nature. That is, most of things you do on internet are personal. Be it your email, social networking sites, blog or anything else. Everything is accessed by username and password. The only barrier to this was non mobility of Internet! With 3G this problem will be solved and you will have access to your private mailbox, blog, photos and anything on internet wherever you want.
Potential is enormous, market place is changing, customers are responding and marketers are adapting to changes. Challenge is to tap the potential of this medium! MTNL calls its 3g services as "MTNL 3G JAADU". Let's see what JAADU it does to Indian telecom industry.

Potential of Mobile

Here is a good article on Potential of mobile media as marketing vehicle on Bnet. Consumption of mobile as media vehicle is increasing and it is giving thrust to several para mobile industries. I am talking about industries such as Gaming, VAS, Mobile applications developments and WAP.

Figures are showing that mobile has penetrated up to last mile. In India, however last mile penetration is still distant dream and it will take 3-5 years to achieve this milestone. People's consumption habits of mobile is changing and it is becoming source of entertainment, information and communication needs; suggests this article.

As a marketer, I would say that Mobile is NOT JUST another media tool. Mobile's nature as media vehicle possesses few distinct features. It has Personal nature - same as a news paper as. Also, It is Persuasive nature because of its multimedia functions. Targeting on mobile is highly effective because of emerging technologies. It is these capabilities which gives mobile a distinct identity.

These are motivational factors for marketers and content providers to go Mobile. 'Rework your strategy to suit mobile and achieve good RoI by being present on mobile'. This is mantra for next gen marketing!!

Web 18 registers loss

Web 18; online venture of Network 18 has registered loss for Q3; 2008 - 09. Company posted net loss of 9.57 Cr during last year. It will be interesting to see how online business sustains during recession as giants like Web 18 doesn't seem breaking even in near future.

Must see company's press release here as it's showing various important statistics for media industry.

Reliance BIG entertainment

Reliance's media and entertainment arm BIG was to launch 20 TV channels during end of the year covering genres such as music, movies, kids, entertainment and news. However, company reports that it is no longer ready to enter the market and will postpone the launching. This rescheduling is in lieu of current market conditions and company's strategic decisions.

Also, BIG entertainment is in process to start new vertical dedicated to movie marketing, media planning and buying and creative. This vertical will cater to internal needs of BIG entertainment.

One aspect of having own TV channels is that in near future; IPTV is going to become buzz word in industry and customized channels will play major role in acquiring market share for all players. With Reliance IPTV services ready to launch during later this year, having personal TV channels will make big difference and give an extra edge to reliance.

Finally, we can say that Reliance is coming in E&M industry in BIG way. Company's plans seems to be gigantic. However, success of such business largely depends on marketing and content. It will be interesting to see when company tests the water. Till then keep your fingers crossed!

UTV's new media business

UTV's new media ventures have registered profits for Q309. Titled as UTV New Media business, UTV has Softwares, interactive products under this umbrella. Company also has Gaming as another segment. Compare to loss during last year, this year has proved to be successful for UTV. UTV gaming showed EBITDA of 12.23 million while New media segment showed EBITDA of 1.405 million during the quarter. However, consolidated figures for last 9 months for these verticals shows loss. New media business accounted for 4% of company's profits. Source: Medianama




It is interesting to see companies registering earning revenues and sustaining businesses during tough times by appropriate media strategies and using new media as driving vehicles for new age business. I believe that proper mix of conventional media and new media products will help corporate to sustain during recession and get an edge over competition.

Crucial time for NDTV

NDTV is going through crucial time and effects of recession has started showing up. Company is cutting down its expenses and re looking at few ventures. NDTV registered net loss of 174.8 Million during third quarter. While company's revenue showed 10.7 % growth, expenses were on higher side which resulted in overall loss; reports Medianama.

Here is the snapshot of what these figures looks like:

It is rumored that company will either downsize its delhi based channel MetroNaton or shut it down. NDTV was in talk with HT and BCCL for strategic partnership about this however, both of them have denied this offer.

It would be interesting to see how NDTV takes this matter forward. Mounting pressures, declining revenues and increasing competition in Indian News business would surely result in something good. If media houses manage to provide valuable news content and can sell it across various media vehicles, it would be great for E&M industry.

CyberMedia India Restructuring

CyberMedia India Online Pvt Ltd (CIOL) has undertaken major restructuring processes. Company will merge its online portal with its Parent company CyberMedia India Ltd. CIOL claims to receive a monthly average of 10.5 million page views and 1.1 million unique visitors.

Company has 15 Major publications and 12 websites catering to various verticals of digital, internet, mobile and IT industry. It is also expected that company will go through several cost cutting initiatives as Medianama reports.

Here is snapshot of company's changing revenue mix for last year.

Well, CyberMedia's publications are thoroughly written and provides valuable insights for marketers, managers and entrepreneurs. However, company's online initiatives doesn't seem so much appleaing. I personally believe that CyberMedia can do much more at this front to attract viewers. Let's hope restructuring results in better revenue generation for the company.

MeDigit News this week

• Find out how Obama will use web technology: http://tinyurl.com/clnhvg
• New age 3G enabled handheld game console: Sony PSP likely to feature touchscreen as well. http://cli.gs/b2SE80
• This new paint stops your wifi signals being used by neighbors ... http://cli.gs/aHGmjW
• Approx 200,000 Tech Jobs down since August 2008!!!!! check complete list here http://cli.gs/y2dLJq
• Facebook Rocks!! now it's twice the size of MySpace worldwide: http://cli.gs/Y6rBsz
• New job challenges for new administration at white house: http://cli.gs/v8d78s
• Ronnie Screwvala's letter to employees on challenges in 2009: http://cli.gs/YzhzdX
• Stocks this week... Indian media companies stock last week; http://cli.gs/NDRdbs\
• Media updates this month. Monthly business wins and rankings of Agencies... http://cli.gs/4G6Ejd
• The 2009 OnMedia 100 winners... Top 100 companies in online Marketing. http://cli.gs/by7rQG

Medigit News

Fast track news from Medigit....

Latest news from Media / Internet / Mobile world...

• Beware!! Scams are taking advantage of your trust on social network... http://cli.gs/07rz82
• Friendster - 28 Mn out of 30 Mn visitors are from Asia. Friendster can now claim itself as Asia's social network... http://cli.gs/4v39Sg
• 1.5 Mn Obama related status updates within one day!! facebook connect Rocks!! http://cli.gs/QTt2dE
• MySpace launches black curtain screening program for Slumdog Millionaire and more movies. New age marketing for sure... http://cli.gs/0svYt4
• Airtel launches IPTV services in NCR region; important milestone for new age television experience in India: http://cli.gs/tXdGry
• 57% of internet users in India are in age group of 18-35: http://cli.gs/16vZrD
• Did Twitter Just Pass Digg? http://tinyurl.com/95lpgc via @ShareThis about 1 hour ago
• Digital media stock updates: http://tinyurl.com/73htam
• Google is laying off 100 recruiters..... http://cli.gs/LdGBt1
• Nortel, North america's biggest maker of Telecom equipments filed for bankruptcy... http://cli.gs/0gYa6N

Motorola Layoff

Motorola is not performing well. Revenues down by 26% YoY. Company's cellphone sales is declining. 54% down QoQ. Company is under pressure and taking new actions to focus on new developments and future opportunities. What can you predict the 'new action' would be??

Yes, you are right. Layoff! Motorola is set to fire 4000 people during this year. Read this to know what company's CEO Mr. Jha has to say.

Company is saying it will focus on developing smart phones. Predictions are also that company will focus on developing android based phones and may discontinue its Microsoft based smart phones. However, there is no clear news about this...

What would be company's next move? Well, we don't know. But it is for sure that doing business and generating revenue is becoming tough for corporates and employees are under pressure to perform be it any company. I believe that new wave of android based open system and convergence of voice, data and video services will change the scenario in coming years. But till then keep your fingers crossed!

Google laying off 100 recruiters

This is really painful news. Google, company which always seems to be progressing has started firing people. Yes, Google is stopping connections with 100 of its people hiring services . On Google's official blog, this information was confirmed and now, company is set to cut all its connections with third party manpower suppliers.

Full article here

Yesterday, I had a discussion with this person who was saying about growth of Internet sector despite recession. We agreed that Internet media would grow despite of recession because of unlimited opportunities it offers. However, I am not sure about how things will take shape and what would be driver for growth.

Google and Kettle

Came across this interesting story.

Prestigious New York Times published a story which referred to a research done by a young scientist called Alex Wissner-Gross who allegedly claimed “that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea”. This comes around 7 to 10 grams. This created lot of buzz in internet industry and reporters started discussing about this...

Now the turn comes in the story...

According to Wissner-Gross, he never said / claimed such statement and he never measured any stats on this. He also said that this figure is coming from some third party research and he is not sure about source of this information. We don't know who created this buff; however Wissner-Gross became popular in a days time and reporters were busy interviewing him the whole day!! He also did not miss the opportunity to market his firm called CO2Stats.

See the full article here

The dimention from which I would see this thing is PR!
Isn't this PR?
I have no doubt that both NYT and CO2stats will leverage on this opportunity. I am not sure whether this misrepresentation of data is by mistake or its is being done consciously. However, it is for sure that any news item revolving around Google will be discussed and will get you some mileage.
Guys, use Google to make your marketing! Good example of PR on web.

47 Google Products That Don't Make Money On Their Own (GOOG)

47 Google Products That Don't Make Money On Their Own (GOOG)

@BreakingNewsOn: From Twitter Account To Public News Wire Service

@BreakingNewsOn: From Twitter Account To Public News Wire Service

Top Social media sites of 2008

Social media networks are growing... It would be interesting to check following data.

Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore)

1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)

Here’s a screenshot of the actual data:

Top 10 Products of Google

Can you name Google’s top ten products? If you look at how Quantcast ranks Google’s subdomains, you can get a sense of which Google products are the most popular, since they each have their own subdomain. Google’s main search engine tops the list with an estimated 136.6 million unique visitors in the U.S. Then comes Google Maps (36 million), Image Search (31.7 million), and Gmail (10.5 million). Google Docs, Sites, and Knol are still too small to make the top-ten, but are all showing decent growth.

YouTube, Blogger, and Orkut are not included below because they are on their own domains, but YouTube would be second with 70 million unique U.S. visitors, and Blogger would be in the top 5 with 23.5 million. Orkut is not popular in the U.S., so it would not be a factor in this particular list. And I took out sorry.google.com, the domain Google uses to try to catch bots and spyware. It would have ranked No. 8.

Another notable trend that Quantcast measures is the rise of Google Book Search, which it claims surpassed Google News in visitors back in September. Perhaps the enhanced newspaper archive search features it introduced back then helped. Book Search visitors are now at 8.4 million vs. 7.4 million for Google News, according to Quantcast. Other measurement services such as comScore and Compete show Google News to still be bigger than Google Book Search. ComScore for instance shows Google News at 15.6 million unique U.S. visitors in November, compared to 7.8 million for Book Search. But both also show significant growth in Book Search visitors since the summer.

The Quantcast numbers are not completely reliable because Google’s sites have not been “Quantified” (the process Quantcast uses to collect its most accurate data). But they are roughly accurate. Below the Quantcast rankings, I’ve put the comparable rankings from comScore for U.S. visitors. Some of the rankings are different, but nine out of same products make it on each list. (The only difference is that comScore counts Google Product Search, while Quantcast counts Google Groups).

Quantcast

1. Google Search
2. Google Maps
3. Google Image Search
4. Gmail
5. Google Book Search
6. Google News
7. Google Video Search
8. Picasa
9. Google Earth
10. Google Groups

ComScore

1. Google Search
2. Google Image Search
3. Google Maps
4. Gmail
5. Google News Search
6. Google Video Search
7. Google Product Search
8. Google Book Search
9. Picasa
10. Google Earth

A for Apple

2008, a year of many turnarounds!! Recession hitting the markets and companies shutting down were most shocking waves of past year. However, Apple has experienced tremendous growth during last year. Success of iPhone was most crucial factor for Apple. Also, company saw incredible growth in iMac market. Full article...

Story of iPhone is great example of how collaborative creativity leads to success. iPhone apps are major force to drive success for iPhone. Many private developers have developed more than 1000 applications for iPhone. This, I believe one of major factor for success of iPhone.

Also, continuous innovation in iMac was influential for Mac book. Yes, there are many lessons to learn for entrepreneur from Apple's success story. This year it was collaborative creativity, continuous innovation and effective marketing were key for success. If this success is to be graded, I would reserve 'A' for Apple.