2above.com

With twitter and facebook, now google buzz become mainstream media, it’s a matter of time for more “status update” ad network. I have written about “how to make money with tweets” through this type of ad network such as revtwt.com, but I have not come across a legit ad network focusing on facebook status update. Facebook has been very aggressive on shutting down any ad networks that serve “sketchy” ads, and I can’t agree more with that. Just take a look at revtwt.com which is the #1 “tweet” ad network you will find many advertisers are really sketchy. For a new ad network to succeed, it has to add value to facebook eco-system using the core of the facebook platform: social graph. There also has to be a quality control system in place to preselect the advertisers, only allowing the formats and contents that are in par with Facebook.

Who can build that out?

Hotel/Resort Lake Placid, published a LONG comment to a great article about how businesses benefit from twitter.com, which I shall re-post in the near future. Take a look at how this resort takes advantage of social medias.

We are a Hotel and Resort in Lake Placid, NY that began a Twitter and Facebook Specific promotion on 4/22.

In brief – The Adirondack High Peaks is not only the name given to 46 mountain peaks over 4000ft in the 6 million acre Adirondack Park of New York but they are also the namesake of our hotel-the High Peaks Resort.

For 46 straight days we are offering a special rate for 46 minutes each day based off the elevation of one of the 46 High Peaks. For example a rate based off the 4867 foot elevation of Whiteface Mountain will be $48.67.

Each day between 9 and 5 we alert friends, fans and followers only through our Twitter Profile and Facebook Page to when the daily rate will be available. After the update is posted the “elevated” rate of the day becomes bookable for 46 minutes on our website.

In the first 26 days of the promotion we’ve gained 550 new Facebook fans, 350 new Twitter followers and have averaged just over 12 reservations and 25 room nights per day.

But more, we’ve experienced such positive feedback from guests grateful for a chance to have a getaway at a time when they thought they just couldn’t afford it.

The promotion has helped us educate others about the High Peaks region around Lake Placid, establish why we are named the High Peaks Resort, give folks a chance to getaway to Lake Placid and to stay at our resort, but most importantly it creating impressions and relationships with guests that will hopefully last a lifetime.

I can’t think of another platform other than Twitter and Facebook that this would have been as successful for us!

Smallaa aims to group your social media “stream” into category by interests. In their own words: “Smallaa makes people’s conversations in their multiple social networking websites more about their own interests – The ability to follow only the most interesting aspects of the people you like.”

TechCrunch just released its first article about it, mentioning Facebook and twitter integration is on the way.

P.s. Pay attention to what he says toward the end of the video.

I hope by now you get a chance to read Whit’s “twitter rant” and start wondering: am I for twitter, or am I against twitter?

Whit and lot of people think twitter.com is a fad because “no one is busy with tweeting, no one is paying attention to what others are tweeting about” and soon “it will end up like a big pile of crap no one can do anything about but forgetting”.

Read this: Twitter is supposed to be full of “crap”, the more crap there is on twitter, the more valuable twitter.com will become.

Imagine there is no twitter.com, people still chat/talk: popular people talk on the phone with friends/family all the time, lonely people talk in their head. All these talk are gone disappeared after “talk” is done.

Twitter.com lets people tweet in short message, which resembles the most basic human behavior: random chitchat, small talk, daydreaming. Although twitter.com insists it’s a great tool to connect with your friends in a more intimate/closer setting, it’s actually being adopted by millions people for other purposes: random chitchat, small talk, daydreaming, stay on top of News.

It’s not important for people to read all the tweets, the good ones will surface for different individuals and each person can have his/her own favorite few. 99% of tweets are supposed to be random crap that will instantly get lost. How often do people write down their phone conversation, their random chitchat, small talk, daydreaming: not often. But people still have to turn their thoughts/chitchat/small talk/day dreaming into action of pursuing something, buying something, doing something. Conventionally, marketers are able to identify people’s needs based on their experiences, seasonality, understanding of people, sometimes, guessing. With Internet/Google/Yahoo came the much better transparency from the historical data, which enables digital marketers to capitalize on. When Facebook came along, social media breaks down the inter-personal barrier, all of sudden everyone is connected with everyone. But Wait, Facebook does not provide better than what Google does: the historical data. Facebook only “invades” more on our privacy and force people into a more social animal than they are supposed to be. Readwriteweb calls “Facebook is a cult”, Facebook does not really provide anything more than smart sustainable marketers don’t already know. Yes, I have listed my favorite movies/hobbies on Facebook, but they don’t represent my real time needs, like AT ALL. Many marketers have been trying Facebook “contextual ads” for ages without success. I am one of them: running contextual ads for ages without seeing ROI. The “valuable information” on Facebook now became “crap”.

With Twitter.com, all of sudden, people start writing down their random chitchat, small talk, daydreaming. I tweet about the nice raincoats that bunch of random women wear at a street corner near my apartment while it was raining and I wanted to know where I can get that raincoat (for my gf). You maybe twittering about the shopping trip you must do afterwork. All in real time!

Yes, I admit all these tweets are trivial, worthless to our friends and no one wants to see. But that is besides the point. The smart sustainable marketers in the social media era that is beyond Google/Yahoo will need to mine the real time twitter.com. That is when crap becomes gold. That is why visionary people start treating twitter.com as a real time search engine. That is why Google is drooling over twitter.com.

That is exactly why Twitter will be the king of new social media marketing.

From business/potential revenue point of view, Facebook will not be able to match twitter in 2 years. However Trenderr did bring up an interesting graph showing the correlation between Facebook’s traffic and tweet volume for “facebook” on twitter.

Silicon Alley Insider just published interesting data comparing growth rate of first three years among Twitter, Google, YouTube, Facebook, it appeared that Twitter’s growth dwarfed by three big guys. Do I worry? No, Twitter will matter more to people and business than Facebook, just give it time. And I am glad people consider twitter the little giant. The matter of fact is: twitter is experiencing exponential growth just about now, and much of usage is on mobile device.

Wait, did Youtube just give us a middle finger?!:)