Yahoo Memes’ Termination Shows Facebook and Twitter’s Success
News on Yahoo Marketing, according to Brafton News, Meme, a microblogging service most comparable to Twitter which was introduced by Yahoo in 2009 failed to be a part of many brands social media marketing mix. While other social networks have flourished, Meme has acquired only little traffic since it was launched 3 years ago. Thus, the company recently decided to discontinue the service starting May 25, 2012.
In terms of its web services, Yahoo has been experiencing difficulty in recent years. Even with its partnership with Bing in search and ad management, it has noticed the decline in its search volume compared to Google and has dropped to number 3 as a search engine in the U.S. It is also likely that its user base number has decreased dramatically that Yahoo decided to take this action.
However, since Meme was never a major participant, its downfall means little for marketers. With the termination of the website, it shows the global success of Facebook and Twitter, while Yahoo failed to leverage its established brand to have success with Meme.
Even with the interest from marketers to leverage Google’s contextual advertising ability, Google Wave struggled to persuade users to share content on the website. And users are looking if Google’s latest social network, Google+, will have the same luck with Yahoo Meme and Google Wave.
Read more at Yahoo to discontinue Yahoo Meme, its little-known social network
Like Button for Mobile with Open Graph like Action
News on Facebook Marketing, according to Facebook Developers, mobile apps can now integrate the functionality of the Like button with the Open Graph built-in like action. This will make it easier for users to share content from your app. The like action allows you to make your own like buttons for your web app or mobile and drive distribution across Facebook.
For a more integrated experience with your app on web and mobile platforms, you can now utilize the new like action to apply your own like button just as foursquare and Instagram have done.
With the new like action, a notification is sent to the friend once a person likes the story or photos he posts. Like if a person likes a friend’s photo posted on instagram, then the friend will receive a notification.
As with clicking the Like button, like stories are presented in News Feed. However, unlike the Like button, your app must first be authorized by users to publish like stories. Using the Like button makes it easier for users who visit your website to like your Facebook Page and to easily share content back to Facebook.
Read more at Bringing Like to Mobile
Africa: Fastest Growing Mobile Market in the World
News on Social Marketing, according to BBC News Africa, the GSM Association reported that mobile subscribers in Africa has grown almost 20% each year for the past five years making them the fastest-growing mobile market in the world and the biggest after Asia.
The bad service and expensive landline connections in Africa is one of the major reason for the increase in mobile phone market which is projected to hit more than 735 million subscribers by the end of 2012. It has already reached 649 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2011. Sixty-five out of 100 people have already some form of mobile connectivity and that 96% of subscriptions are pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, GSMA reported.
An increase of more than 200% in handset purchases was attributed to the elimination of the 6% general sales tax on mobile handsets in 2009 by the Kenyan government. With 8.5 million users, Kenya leads on mobile money transfer.
With more than 93 million, Nigeria leads in the total mobile subscriptions in Africa with South Africa having the highest broadband subscription at 6% followed by Morocco at 2%.
According to some reports, about 36% of the African mobile market still has no access to mobile services due to less spectrum allocated for the provision of mobile services for African countries.
Read more at Africa’s mobile phone industry ‘booming’
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