Twitter Exec: No IPO in 2010

In a video interview with Bloomberg, Twitter COO Dick Costolo said his company will not try to make an initial public offering this year, but instead focus on expanding and making more money.

That’s further affirmation of Twitter’s () apparent strategy; co-founder Biz Stone said a month ago that he and his colleagues “are definitely not interested in selling the company.”

Costolo said he expects revenue growth from a new advertising platform that’s coming “very soon,” commercial accounts with analytics features for tracking tweets and traffic, and at least 10 more distribution deals in the future. Twitter has drawn some criticism because the company’s revenues are low for its $1 billion valuation. That is clearly a concern within the company, and something that needs to be addressed before an IPO. “Now we have to go build the business the business that lives up to that valuation,” Costolo said.

Expansion into new areas and features is part of the plan despite slowing growth (or maybe in response to it), but Costolo didn’t go into specifics in the Bloomberg video. He did say that the company will be aggressive in making acquisitions of companies that have something to offer in the areas into which Twitter wants to expand. source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/20/twitter-coo-ipo/

Google Real Time Search – 6 Minute Reaction Time for Earthquake

Google is changing, and becoming far more effective than ever before. With personal and universal search we have seen results and information more relevant to our searches. Now with the relatively new real-time search, we are starting to see just how it can have a positive impact on results, and also give us more reason to trust in social media.

This morning 10:09 am a small earthquake measuring 4.1 struck San Francisco. According to Stephen Shankland at cnet, Within 6 minutes Google had reacted and was displaying real time search results in the form of twitter updates relating to the earthquake for searchers in and around the San Francisco area. In Detroit, it took about another 6 minutes for results to appear.

This kind of fast reaction on Googles part not only helps to improve the relevance of the search results, but also is a strong point in favor of pursuing social media as part of your web marketing campaign. If you put up a twitter post about a very current event, there is a chance that you will appear in the top results in a very short period of time.

Being active in Twitter is just one piece of the puzzle, but an active account can help drive traffic to your website and can also indirectly result in overall improved rankings for your site. Something every website owner should consider.

source: http://seomanatee.com/

Bit.ly Shortens URL Shorteners

On Twitter, Every Character Counts

URL-shortening service bit.ly, the favorite of Twitter, has introduced a new URL-shortening service, or an extension of the original one rather. The new one is j.mp, which as you can see by looking at it resides at a domain with very few characters.

That is exactly the reason bit.ly has introduced it. The company says that for some people, "every character counts," and that is certainly true in the Twitter age, where a maximum of 140 characters is allowed per tweet.

"j.mp has the same short URLs, metrics, history, user accounts (you’ll have to login again, but your bit.ly accounts will carry over), and customization you’ve come to enjoy on bit.ly, all on a short, memorable domain," says bit.ly on its blog.

So by simply using j.mp instead of bit.ly, you will be saving two characters automatically. This doesn't seem like a major difference, but it could be the difference between including one more word or not.

To some people - particularly marketers, tweets could almost be thought of like an email subject line. Having the right words can be key in getting someone to click a link (the tweeting equivalent to an email open).

Then there is the subject of being found in real-time searches. Keywords play a very important role in what tweets appear in these results. When there is a 140-character max, every character certainly can count. Either way, using a service like j.mp could save you from having to abbreviate certain words, which can frankly, sometimes make your message sound dumber.

We've certainly seen a lot of URL-shortening services appear over the last year or so, and I suspect we'll see quite a few more. I have a feeling that we might see more going for this as-short-as-possible approach with them in the future. J.mp has a pretty good advantage being an extension of bit.ly though.
source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/09/04/bitly-shortens-url-shorteners