Leadpile’s Blog

We hear so much news about social networking sites and all the changes that are going on with them. However, I would have thought that reports would show internet users tend to use social networking sites more than content related sites. That does not seem to be the case. DMNews is reporting that users are actually spending almost twice as long on content websites versus the social networking sites. I found that very surprising. According to the reports, “Consumers spent an average of 6 hours, 58 minutes on content sites, while they spent about half of that time on community sites: 3 hours, 1 minute.
Consumers spent an average of 2 hours, 40 minutes a month on e-commerce sites; communications — e-mail and instant messaging — sites commanded 4 hours, 54 minutes; and search took up 57 minutes. Compared with 2008, time with content rose slightly, while communications, community and commerce slipped a small amount, and search jumped by a few minutes.
In terms of share of online time per category, people sent 42% of their time on content sites, down 2% compared with 2008. They spent 13% of their time on e-commerce sites, down 19% vs. 2008; and 13% of their time on community sites, up 63% compared with last year. Time spent on searches remained flat at 5%.””
So actually when looking at the numbers the community sites/social networking sites had increased which now really makes sense. In future years, this report I am guessing will continue to show a rise in the social networking sites year after year. I would also have guessed that e-commerce sites would have been higher because a lot of people purchase products online. Maybe because of the status of our nation’s economy has made an impact on the figures for that category? Either way, this is pretty interesting information for all of us that are looking to know where consumers are.

Believe it or not there is a network out there promising if you pay, they can increase your Facebook friends. Does more friends really = something worth paying money for? With today’s use of social networking, I might have to say yes. According to Adage.com, as we all know Twitter and Facebook are effective marketing tools, so maybe the idea of companies really getting into this and helping others build their “friends” list, could be an effective idea. If “friends” = more money then this is certainly something I could see other marketing companies looking into doing. Nothing is free and who has time to try and generate 5000 new friends like this company says they can help you do? Great idea.. hope it works out for this company! At the present time, Leadpile will continue to build our “friends” list and Twitter “followers” little by little.

In past years, many journalist were worried about taking too many incentives to write about something specific. These days now the FTC is bringing to everyone’s attention the fact that many bloggers could be writing about something because they were receiving kickbacks. The FTC (Fair Trade Commission) is trying to make it regulated that if you are receiving any rewards for blogging about a particular subject matter, that you fully disclose this to your readers. It seems that this attempt to regulate could move into social networking sites such as Twitter too. We have all heard about one of the most “famous” bloggers – Perez Hilton, but is he being paid by someone to blog or Tweet about certain subject matters? I would think so…
In this day someone’s time and opinion really matters, so should it be wrong to be able to accept “things” in order to talk about them? In the day of regulations with insurance companies, real estate and many other industries, governing gifts received in order to render a service is against the rules. However, should this sort of thing really apply to bloggers? Leadpile likes the opportunity that a blog allows us to talk about certain hot topics and things going on in our industry, however I don’t think any sort of potential FTC regulation will affect our little blog.

How could we all not forget the YouTube Video that generated some massive buzz for Britain’s Got Talent singer Susan Boyle? She became an overnight sensation all over the world! Well move over Susan because now a new YouTube video is bringing some buzz for Microsoft. A crazy stunt type video recently came out and just seemed impossible to be true, but it generated 1.4 million + views already. After digging and digging it was discovered that this hard to believe video was in fact bogus. Some great video editing allowed this video to be made into something that looked real, but ended up being discovered that it was in fact the work of some “creative” editing. It seems that Microsoft Germany had not planned on this video getting the type of buzz it ended getting, but thanks to Twitter, YouTube users and other news outlets it did!
YouTube and other social networking sites are a great place to get some attention for your company. Leadpile uses YouTube to create a place for the social networking site’s users to learn about our company. If this is not something that you are currently not using as a source of getting your name out there, I would recommend it. Look how much attention this most recent YouTube video brought to Microsoft? The power of YouTube is priceless!

Sounds like the employees of ESPN have gotten busted by the “twitter police”. ESPN has recently rolled out some new guidelines for acceptable behavior with social networking sites such as Twitter. The goal of these new guidelines was to provide guidance on how websites, blogs and social networking sites should only be used in a way to benefit ESPN.
This brings up a good point about employers and the use of these social networking sites. A couple items come to mind when I think about these guidelines being implemented. First, there are a lot of people that might occupy a lot of work time to keep their fellow “tweeters”/Facebook “friends” etc updated on their daily activities. This affects them in their jobs and performing what they are paid there to do… work not Tweet. Secondly, social networking really has not been a part of our daily lives till recently, so there has to be some sort of guidelines implemented to help control what company information/news can be funneled through the social networking sites. If there are not guidelines, then sometimes the common sense factor will not come into play when releasing possibly some private information. However, there are a lot of companies that will use Twitter as a source of promoting their product or service, and I believe that is a different conversation. Promoting your company’s product or service should be okay, but there has to be guidelines on how much time is actually done doing that while working.
Leadpile does work on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, but in a way that does not violate any information that should not be disclosed improperly. It will not surprise me if we continue to hear stories like this one, because employers are having to set a precedence on how to effectively use the social networking sites while conducting business.

Leadpile has rolled out a new offer for the payday loan lead type, and we are looking for more traffic!
We are looking for traffic to Green-paydayloan.com through PPC, email marketing, banner or social networking. The top payout is currently at $73.60. If you are a Leadpile publisher and looking to drive traffic to the offer, you can locate the text link in your seller account under the “offers” tab. If by chance Leadpile is not already working with you, we would like to see you join our marketplace and generate payday loan leads as a Leadpile seller/publisher!
As we all know, a lot of consumers are looking for help in their temporary setbacks, so a payday loan is a lot of the time that in-between money that is going to help them in their current situation.

Can it really be? Facebook to make billions within the next 5 years? Reuters is reporting that one of Facebook’s board members is predicting this. It seems that promoting more advertising, to really capitalize on the massive amounts of traffic frequenting the social networking site, is key. 225+ million users are on the site, so there has got to be some way to monetize this site to maybe earn these billions that are being predicted. However, will it follow the trends of Twitter where there are massive amounts of traffic not being capitalized on yet? I think the future of social networking really depends on these sites figuring out an effective way to capitalize on the users on their sites. What way(s) of monetizing the social networking site(s) will work best? What are the demographics of the Facebook? Who is coming and going on the site?
The users on Facebook seem to be a lot more diverse than the other large social networking site (myspace.com). However, where did myspace go wrong………. or did they NOT go wrong? They dominated the net just a few years ago, yet times seemed to have changed when the site became more of an advertising site than a place for people to network. Let’s keep an eye on Facebook and see if they stay on the right path to really do the right thing for their network… AND earn this BILLIONS of revenue! Maybe Facebook should contact Leadpile to do some lead generation!

Facebook passed a remarkable figure this week.  The 200 millionth user was added this week to the popular social networking site.  If Facebook was a country it would have the fifth largest population in the world. Facebook isn’t only getting larger, it is also getting older.  People ages 26-44 make up the the fastest growing segment of the Facebook population.  

Most Facebook users are still reluctant to click on adds, and businesses are still trying to leverage the social networking space.  Real problems and perceived problems regarding products and customer service can be monitored with social media.  Great opportunities lie ahead for Facebook, Twitter and others.

If Google is not already big enough, it is now in talks to potentially purchase the mega microblogging service Twitter for an estimated $250 million. According to The San Jose Business Journal, “TechCrunch said it has been told by three unnamed sources that the companies are talking. The blog added that the purchase of Twitter — which allows users to post 140-character updates and see what others are posting as well — would give Google a leg up in real-time search.” Previous rumors had circulated about Facebook offering $500 million, however that “deal” never happened.
The brilliant thing is the founders of Twitter (Evan Williams and Biz Stone) had previously sold their blogging service Blogger, to Google earlier this decade. What is next for this internet gurus? Inquiring minds want to know…. and so does Leadpile Lead Exchange. Stay tuned folks.

The social networking site Twitter has become very popular, and sometimes obsessive, way of life for a lot of people. Businesses are also utilizing Twitter as a way of getting their names out there, and selling promotional ideas and products.  These business are trying to cash in on the free advertising they get using Twitter.  However, knowing this is happening, one of Twitter’s co-founders is in the midst of creating a “twitter-like” fee-based service. This service will be potentially be an account a business could create which will have more features geared toward a business. There is no estimated time that this “new” Twitter will roll out, however I know a lot of businesses will want to be a part of it.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Twitter will get a cut of one outside business that sprang up this week, a Web site called ExecTweets. The site, launched by online advertising network Federated Media, displays tweets from business executives.” Those that don’t know what a “tweet” is, it is a 140 character message stating your status.  You can have people follow you or you can follow others to know their current status.
Join the Revolution…. Follow Leadpile Lead Exchange on Twitter!

Much has been written and spoken about Twitter recently.  Some people love it, and others view it as a waste of time.  Also, the lack of a business model that produces revenue has been discussed.  Does Twitter act like email, search, and/or social networking?  The answers currently appear to be no, no, and yes.

This week, the people at Hitwise came out with some research on where people are going after visiting Twitter.  Indications are that Twitter is acting more like social networking than search or email.  Two out of five visitors are visiting social networks or entertainment sites after visiting Twitter.

At this point, very little Twitter traffic is visiting retail sites (search activity) nor is the traffic visiting finance, business or dating sites (email activity).  It appears to be more about social networking and distributing content, especially photo-sharing, than on selling products or services.

Things are sure to change rapidly, but it appears that the monetization of Twitter and its growing traffic is a work in progress.  This potentially huge opportunity is still there for the taking.

Leadpile Lead Exchange would like to wish Facebook a Happy 5th birthday. According to the Valley Wag website, Facebook originated on the campus of Harvard University. Eventually, the social networking site went from one university to universities all across the nation. Presently, Facebook is not just used by university students as a social networking site, it is used by more than 1.5 million people (including Leadpile Lead Exchange). HAPPY BIRTHDAY Facebook!