Ideatrotter

Instagram’s Twitter Sharing Growth Explodes

Instagram’s success has everyone yapping; it is one of the hottest mobile apps and has been acquired by Facebook. Sharing via twitter has doubled in 2 months and its YoY photo sharing growth has grown by nearly 20x. Some attribute it’s success coming from its recent launch on the Android, expanding its cross-platform accessibility. However, the trend chart speaks otherwise. It may have been due to added functionality/ improved service. How Facebook’s acquisition will impact its growth plan is yet to be known. 

Reuters & Klout 50: The Most Influential Execs on the Web

Reuters, along with Klout, have ranked the most popular web celebs, based on their popularity score, as measured by Klout. In top place is Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable, followed by Oprah, Branson, Cuban and Dorsey. Some noteworthy mentions are Kevin Rose of Milk Inc making the top 10, Torey Johnson of Women for Hire making the top 20 and Michelle Rhee of StudentsFirst making the top 50. Click on the image to view the complete list of web executives making a difference. 

Pinterest Usage Dips, Confidence Levels Need A Boost

Named as the third most popular social network online, Pinterest has enjoyed increasing popularity, enjoying a 52% growth in the month of February. However, the new user growth this month has only been 5%. The monthly active usage in March fell by 150,000 users. This was followed by a 2.75 million active usage decline in April. Pinterest is treading cautiously, so as not be named as another social hype and wipe website. These numbers have been sourced using AppData, an analytics service that analyzes user activity via third party plugins, examples being Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest users typically use these plugins to sign up for their accounts. 

Inspired by a Red Balloon Challenge out of DARPA, Fast Company CTO Matt Mankins hacked Crounty with his technology team in less than 24 hours, to create a reward based social network where you reward all the players that you help accomplish tasks. A more social form of bounty, Crounty uses incentive and reward to help people find jobs, look for apartments, sell items etc. 

Example: I am looking for an apartment. I need help. I inform Mike. Mike informs six of his friends about my dilemma. He shares my information via his social networks. One of his friends has a spare room whilst the other five continue to spread the word. I finally decide to room with Mike’s friend. Along the way, all individuals that shared my dilemma, along with Mike’s friend who resolved my issue, received an email with a unique url. All these players are informed about their reward via email and receive an online crounty in their bank accounts.

Simple, easy and very useful.

Google: “Ok Facebook, I’ve Got a Trick Up My Sleeve As Well”

That’s what you’d expect Google to say, in response to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram. Most speculators are currently questioning how the goliathan will combat this move by Facebook. Google, being as big as it is, has made some really smart decisions in the past (Example: Youtube Acquisition @ $1.7 Billion), but their acquisition of Motorola to take on Apple really has not quite panned out. Google even missed the change to acquire Twitter back in 2009.

Google’s next acquisition has to be quick, strategic and aggressive in nature. Currently, video discovery is the biggest problem on the internet. Social is an enabler and so is tagging, but video discovery still remains a challenge. Speculators are looking to Pinterest to be the next big acquisition by the software giant. Pinterest recently integrated Vimeo, whilst already having the capability to broadcast youtube videos.  They are heavily focused on the video discovery via social problem. With its growth to become the third largest social network behind Facebook and Twitter, I would not be surprised if Google pounced at the opportunity and we see a surge in their stock price, following the announcement.