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Facebook Advertising Grows Up

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SOURCE Edge.BI Ltd.

HERZLIYA, Israel, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Edge.BI (http://www.Edge.BI), the leading Decision Support solution for paid advertising, is delighted to announce today that it has won approval as an official Facebook Ads API Tool Vendor, one of only 15 such companies to have passed Facebook's exhaustive and rigorous testing procedures.

Itai Levitan, CEO of Edge.BI, said, "Everyone knows that one of the biggest issues with Facebook advertising today is conversion tracking. Edge.BI comprehensively solves this concern by offering the richest, deepest tracking solution available in the market; and now, with today's announcement, our Clients know that they are working with an authorized API Tool Vendor ensuring fast, simple, trouble-free implementation."

Edge.BI works by using URL-parameters to link Facebook Ad Campaigns directly with actual Client reported performance. This has two advantages; firstly, it avoids many of the pitfalls associated with traditional tracking methods that can lead to a 20%-40% discrepancy between what the trackers are showing and what the Client's back-office or CRM systems are reporting.

Secondly, up till now, traditional tracking solutions have shown an incomplete story; by tracking just the initial conversion and ignoring everything that follows such as profitability, product mix and purchase frequencies, they have left Advertisers in the dark about their real ROI. As Nick Clements, VP Marketing at Edge.BI, says, "By linking advertising channel data directly to actual client transaction data, we empower Advertisers to see the full story of exactly how each campaign is impacting their businesses' bottom line. It really is taking paid advertising to the next level of accountability."

Marketers have proven in the past that with greater ROI control, they are prepared to spend more on their paid advertising. Now, with better tools to help Advertisers make better decisions on where to invest their next advertising dollar, Facebook may soon be leading the online marketing plans for more companies.

About Edge.BI

Edge.BI Software-as-a-Service is used to optimize campaigns in 72 countries, across 40 languages; it is suitable for any organization or agency serious about its Search, Facebook, Mobile, Media Buying Affiliate Marketing, or any other digital marketing that can be tracked with a URL.

With Edge.BI, advertisers can break out to a new level of campaign performance by combining their hard-won in-house expertise with a cutting-edge Decision Support platform to deliver a 40% ROI improvement across all paid advertising. The purpose-built platform also achieves a 90% reduction in non-productive time spent on data and reports, and runs even the most sophisticated analyses, without Excel/SQL frustrations, at the speed of the Internet.

Name of Media Contact: Nick Clements
Title of Media Contact: VP Marketing
Company Name: Edge.BI Ltd.
Contact Phone Number: +972-9-950-9249
Contact E-mail: nick.clements@Edge.BI
Website URL: http://www.Edge.BI

This press release was issued through eReleases(R). For more information, visit eReleases Press Release Distribution at http://www.ereleases.com.

©2011 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved

Snaptu - cool web mobile platform

A mobile application with widgets to facebook, twitter, news, picasa, weather and more. The cool thing about it is that you can add widgets that you are interested in and delete the ones that you are not using. However, the option of adding widgets is quit limited (mainly in London). so I would rather add my own widgets for each section, news, weather, etc. Personalization should be part of Snaptu strategy vis-a-via the wall garden approach of the mobile operators. A prompt replay from snaptu explains that it is possible to add blogs etc by using add URL feature.

The updating on facebook and twitter works fine I would rather have the option of updating my status on facebook and twitter at the same application rather than open each one separately, more like ping.fm application integrated into the staptu.

I was very exited when I managed to add the google calender widget and see my calendar on my Nokia E71 S60 since it is not possible from the google calender site (doesn't support symbian devices in Israel)

I hope the next version of Snaptu will be more stable as this one shut down a few times
Overall, I liked the solution, the real potential is developing and marketing a platform for personal applications and widgets.

Twitter users - city dwellers with middle income, bloggers, age 31 and surprisingly enough mobile and internet addicts...

A survey (http://tinyurl.com/cmlvjb) in the US revealed some facts about Twitter users:

• 11% of online adults use Twitter or update their status online 
  
• overwhelmingly young - 19% online adults ages 18 to 24 have ever used Twitter, as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34. 
• the median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.
  
• Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than is the full U.S (big time globalization) 
  
• Twitter users are also slightly more likely to live in urban areas, with 35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all Internet users) 
• Wireless Internet users are also more likely to be users of Twitter and other status updating services
• The use of Twitter is highly intertwined with the use of other social media; both blogging and social network use increase the likelihood that an individual also uses Twitter. 
• 27% of bloggers Twitter, compared with just 10% of those who do not keep a blog. Overall, 13% of Internet users have created a blog. 
  
• Twitter users are more mobile in their communication and consumption of information. Twitter users are also significant consumers of blog content; 21% read someone else’s blog “yesterday” and 57% of Twitterers have ever read a blog

Welcoming google on twitter?

Yep, congrats to google (or is it actually to twitter) for joining the popular micro-blogging Twitter. the new media industry is changing so fast, it seems like yesterday Microsoft acquired a $240 million equity stake in Facebook, valuing the company at a whopping $15 billion (http://tinyurl.com/7sasep). Now-days the new kid in the block is Twitter and roamers are that Google is actually considering...

Twitter's niche for Google is not only in the social networking segment but rather in the blogging solution. Blogger doesn't seems to be the most successful product (try to use and you'll understand why) and left behind the open source blog, Wordpress. Google actually Invited Bloggers to Improve Blogger in October 2006 (http://tinyurl.com/a9slbj). Twitter is a great micro-blogging platform but regardless blogger should be upgraded and hopefully in the near future

key success factors for using Twitter efficiently

Some of the key success factors for using Twitter efficiently:

1. Creating value - to your current and future followers, post interesting articles, innovative ideas, technologies, photos and try to think what would make them exited.
2. Link it - don't forget to link to the article, post, blog you are talking about. Link in - your web-space source: blog, website and link out to "out" of your web-space source. On Blogger there are some difficulties I know...also for me it might be time to switch to wordpress.
3. Tiny URL - is also handy and convenient for your followers and space efficient
4. Update regularly - the more the merrier of course, 4 times a week is a reasonable minimum to keep your followers curious and anticipating for your next update and still they won't forget about you
5. Be active - responsive, and initiate new topics and ask for your followers' opinion
6. Interesting updates to catch attention 
7. Don't be too pushy - for corporate twitter try to actually build relationship with your followers and not only sell your product/service
8. Promote your twitter on other platforms such as your blog, email signature, website and facebook
9.Time management is critical - twitter is such a great micro-blogging community but it's definitely a time-suck platform so you should limit the time and use it wisely. 
10. Increase your followers - will have a different post on this 
and the most important thing - ENJOY IT  

Show me the money

When the web2.0 buble hipe is fading away together with it's fantacy, start up enterpernuers and senior managers realize that they are acting within the business world and therefore the leading principle is making money (yes, saying it out load). It's not enough to have a great idea, technology in place, high skilled execution and experienced people on board, you also need a potential profitable business model and positive ROI.

Taking the number of facebook's users for example, which grown 70% in 2008 and in the begining of 2009 anounced they have 95 million users. It is an impressive figure but is it being translated to revenues? not so sure about that. Flicker is making around a $1B compare to $300M of facebook with approximately half the users.

A great post about how to increase digital goods revenue is written by Jeremy Liew, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners that basically talks about increasing the gifts product portfolio, creating more payment channels and motivating users to purchase virtual gifts. It is an interesting direction and should probably be a part of the revenues mix together with advertising, applications and premium subscription.

Social networking and web mobile usage

Social networking has been a driving user to be upwardly mobile. Facebook's mobile website grew from 5 million users at the beginning of 2008 to 15 million by November. The downside is that it does not support operators all over the world.

According to tech analysts eMarketer, more than 800 million people will access social networks worldwide on their mobile devices by 2012, compared with 82 million in 2007! It’s time for mobile social applications…

Some figures (http://www.news.com.au/) - Mobile web surfers go online looking for music (43 per cent), games (33 per cent) or sports news and results (32 per cent). Other users shared photographs (70 per cent), ringtones (46 per cent) and music (46 per cent).