The latest from TechCrunch
- Disrupt Backstage Pass: Google's Marissa Mayer Talks Serendipity (And Dodges The Apple Question)
- Twitter Is Launching Its Own Photosharing Service
- Users Say They're More Likely To Buy If A Business Answers Their Question On Twitter
| Disrupt Backstage Pass: Google's Marissa Mayer Talks Serendipity (And Dodges The Apple Question) | Top |
| Hey, this is Jason K. with TechCrunch TV. And I am here with Marissa Mayer. Again, I actually just got a chance to interview her earlier this month. But now I have another chance to ask more questions about all the cool local and other products that you guys are working on. And once again, thank you for coming here to TechCrunch Disrupt. No problem. I love TechCrunch Disrupt. It's just a really great opportunity for entrepreneurs, and it's just also amazing to see all these launches. I just love that there's this launch vehicle that really helps get companies going. It's definitely it's exciting. So, here's a question that Mike didn't really touch on at all, and I'm not sure how much you're totally going to get into this, but there's been speculation that Apple is going to do some stuff around maps. There is a lot of controversy as far as location and WiFi data recently, and as part of that, Apple responded indicating that they were doing something related to traffic mapping. And I'm wondering what's going to change, if anything, for Google's strategy if one day a significant segment of the mobile market, in other words all the iPhones out there and iPod Touches, stopped using Google Maps powered product, and transitions over to something that's controlled by Apple? Is there any game plan there, I'm sure there is? Well iIthink I'm not going to speculate as to some of our competitors, but I will say that one thing that we're really learning is that maps is a huge part of the mobile ecosystem. Today we announced we have 200 million active users of Google maps for mobile. And we actually now are seeing crossover on the weekends. What I mean by that is that we see more traffic from mobile than desktop maps on the weekends. In June we think that is going to crossover permanently . We know that's a really big part of it. That said, we're really proud of some of the innovations that we've been able to roll out. Things like latitude, but also things like Vector maps. It's not just about tiled maps anymore. Which aren't actually on the iPhone as far as I know. That's right. And so... The iPhone map is not as good. No, the vector maps, they're beautiful, they're fast, there're one one hunderd of the data. And the other nice thing, that in addition to being able to really quickly drag and drop and move around, because were transmitting mass data we can do interesting things like cashing the map around you, so if your connection suddenly fails, you're not lost sitting there looking at the blue dot in the middle of an area that isn't filled in, and so there's just a lot of potential. So here's another question that's actually been especially important to me out here in New York. I noticed that identifying exactly where I am is not working so well in New York City. I've got my wifi enabled and I know Google has a very powerful data base as far as associating were you are using the wifi hotspots that are available. Is there some other technology that I'm not aware of? Or something that is coming down the line that will be able to improve on these wifi hotspots? Is this sort of something that is going to improve overtime as you get more hotspots in your database? I think that the hotspots are something that will help. New York city's particularly challenging because of the tall buildings and the signal and the surround is also hard to get a signal into a really tall building and it can drain the battery. things like that, and do they really understand where a person is when they say find me and show me on the map? That's actually reasonably hard to do. Right. But one of the things here is really about inputs, and so, you know, we really hope that the users check in. We have loyalty offers in order to promote more people doing that. The other value in check-ins is it actually causes person to say. I'm here Actually, I'm here, and we understand them, what that signal looks like. So then later when someone else is there, we have a better chance of getting it right. And so there really is like a lot of times in these types of systems where they need to learn. | |
| Twitter Is Launching Its Own Photosharing Service | Top |
| Twitter has been completely emphatic about where developers should stake a claim, with Twitter Platform Lead Ryan Sarver warning the ecosystem to stay away from building “ client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Well if Sarver stays true to his word the Twitpics and Yfrogs of of the world can just it give up now. According to multiple sources, Twitter is on the verge on announcing its own built in Twitpic competitor. Like tomorrow, if things go according to plan (naturally this post might change that). This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, as photosharing is the next logical step of Twitter expanding its in app experience. It’s basically grabbing at low hanging fruit. Twitter is flinging money around; It just spent $40 million on power user client Tweetdeck which represents 13% of its userbase. It’s only natural that they would spend more resources on photosharing, especially considering how much money is being poured into the white hot space and that images were the crux of the success of competitor Facebook. I’ve got no details on what exactly the photosharing URL shortener will be if any (Twitter has owned Twimg.com for a long time) or what the Twitter for Photos product will look like. Just that it’s coming, soon. And if they’re smart they’ll put ads on it. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Users Say They're More Likely To Buy If A Business Answers Their Question On Twitter | Top |
| Currently I am not in Cancun . The reason I am not in Cancun is out of my control (an over three hour Virgin delay on the tarmac at JFK caused me to miss my connecting USAirways flight at SFO). I spent a good part of those three plus plane-trapped hours bitching on Twitter, asking both the @VirginAmerica and @USAirways Twitter accounts for guidance, because calling their respective 800 numbers either put me on hold or wouldn’t go through. Guess which Twitter account responded? Guess which one I’ll consider purchasing tickets from again. And according to a recent survey of 2049 Twitter users completed by Twitter Q&A search service inboxQ, I am not alone: 64% of the inboxQ survey respondents were more likely to make a purchase from a business account that answered their questions on Twitter, 24% were just as likely and only 12% were less likely. Another added benefit of answering user questions on Twitter (ARE YOU LISTENING @USAIRWAYS ?) is that users are more likely to follow a business that answers their questions, at 59% versus 29% who are just as likely and 12% who are less likely. The inboxQ survey results are filled with other lovely “well duh” info nuggets like how users with high follower accounts are more likely to receive answers to their questions, at 41% respondents with more than 100 followers receiving an answer from a business versus 21% with less than 100 followers (Maybe brands don’t think its worth the effort? Or maybe the questions from low volume accounts get lost in whatever social media monitoring service businesses are using?). In any case, pro tip: If you’re a business serious about user engagement on Twitter, go out of your way to sincerely answer sincere questions from users, no matter how many followers they have. They might just end up buying something. Or not hating you . @bmull Brenden Mulligan I specifically this (6 hour) @ usairways flight because they advertised it had wifi. But it doesn't. Boarding for my last @ usairways flight! May 29, 2011 3:00 pm via Twitter for iPhone Reply Retweet Favorite CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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