Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Pinterest Revamps Mobile Site Due to High Volume of Daily Traffic” plus 1 more

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Pinterest Revamps Mobile Site Due to High Volume of Daily Traffic Posted: 06 Feb 2014 01:35 PM PST More than 75% of Pinterest usage takes places on phones and tablets. When I saw that number this morning, I thought it was a mistake and in a way it was. Some outlets are reporting a clarification on this notation saying that it’s not 75% of users on mobile, it’s 75% of usage. When talking about social or any site that requires registration it’s usage that matters not users. As we all know, plenty of people sign up for a service, use it once or twice then never or rarely return. As marketers, those people don’t count. What we want are those folks that sign in at least a few times a week and are active on a service. On Pinterest, these folks are mighty mobile. What really interests me about Pinterest’s mobile upgrade announcement is that we’re talking web not app. The site already has a very nice app for both iOS and Android, but this improvement is for all those folks who browse the web on their phone. This could mean they’re using a type of phone that doesn’t handle iOS or Android apps, or it means they don’t feel the need to add another icon to their crowded home screen(s). When you login, you won’t see much of a difference, but Pinterest says the update is cleaner and now includes more useful pins and related pins. Basically, they’re doing their best to make the top features sync across all usage options. It’s a big job but it’s a concept that’s becoming more and more important as our businesses go global. Check out this infograph with mobile growth figures from 2001 to 2011 in Europe. That’s just one corner of the world. Egypt grew by almost 3,000%. Brazil 750%, Pakistan 14,000%. Getting back to Pinterest  – they have advice that you should take and use not just for their site but for every site you manage on the web. Learn how Pinterest works on mobile. Even if you use Pinterest mainly at work, use our phone and/or tablet apps to get a feel for how people experience Pinterest on those devices. Make your Pins and boards mobile-friendly. When you create boards and Pins, think about how they'll look on mobile phones—that's how most Pinners will see them. Make your Pins search friendly. We've covered this before, but search is just as big of people's mobile Pinterest experience as their desktop one, so make sure your stuff is easy for people to find by using thoughtful Pin descriptions and categorizing your boards. It’s all very simple but I’d bet that at least half of the people who read this have never looked at their own social media on a mobile device. My point is, when we talk about mobile we tend to think apps, apps, apps. But making sure your website works on a variety of mobile devices is the best thing you can do for your customers and your bottom line.

Twitter Teeters Between Informed Users and Government Censors Posted: 06 Feb 2014 12:22 PM PST Running a giant social media company is tough. You’re responsible for keeping a member’s secrets secret but you also have to respond when the government and law enforcement come knocking. In order to satisfy both sides, companies comply with legal requests but then disclose these requests in broad terms to users. They call it transparency but it’s more like a foggy window pane and the fog is getting thicker. Both Facebook and Twitter released their latest transparency reports this week but as far as US data goes, they’re not very informative. And this comes on the heels of an agreement by the US Justice Department that allows social media sites to disclose “more” information. They can now report the number of National Security Letters (NSLs) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) separately but only in groupings of 1,000. 100 requests = 0-999 4,532 requests = 4,000-4,999 Thus Facebook’s latest transparency report looks like this: Facebook also calls this a “significant step forward.” Twitter has a lot more to say on the subject. For the disclosure of national security requests to be meaningful to our users, it must be within a range that provides sufficient precision to be meaningful. Allowing Twitter, or any other similarly situated company, to only disclose national security requests within an overly broad range seriously undermines the objective of transparency. In addition, we also want the freedom to disclose that we do not receive certain types of requests, if, in fact, we have not received any. On the one hand we have free speech and privacy – on the other public safety and law enforcement. I lean toward the public safety side but I don’t see how either side is harmed by a more accurate accounting. How is 525 requests more of a concern than 0-999 requests? It’s still just a broad number. It’s not like some law breaker is going to see 525 and say, “Oh no! That’s me. I better cover my tracks.” As far as I’m concerned, the significant number here is the percentage of growth. Over the past 24 months, we've received a 66% increase in requests for account information coming from more than 45 different countries impacting over 6,400 accounts (~.0028% of 230M active users) around the world. Some of this could be due to the fact that Twitter is becoming more popular around the world, but 59% of account information requests are coming from the US. Japan had the second highest total of information requests. Overall, Twitter provided some information in only 50% of the total requests. Twitter’s new report also includes information about Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices. Between July 1 and Dec 31 of 2013, they received 6,680 requests. That’s an increase of 16% over the prior period. In 62% of the cases, materials were removed. That’s 26,506 Tweets, 5,847 media removals between Twitter and Vine. That’s a full-time job for someone. Like I said, running a social media site ain’t easy. To see Twitter’s full Transparency report (minus U.S. national security requests) click here.

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