Marketing Biz: Interactive Tweets, Outbrain Self-Service & Perch

This week Twitter continued to showcase how sexy they are to advertisers Twitter Cards and Raven integrated new content marketing features. Outbrain opened up their platform and Closely launched a SMB competitive intelligence app. We also saw the first acquisition by Mayer-led Yahoo, as well as funding for Rewarder and Inigral. Just don’t get me […]

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This week Twitter continued to showcase how sexy they are to advertisers Twitter Cards and Raven integrated new content marketing features. Outbrain opened up their platform and Closely launched a SMB competitive intelligence app.

We also saw the first acquisition by Mayer-led Yahoo, as well as funding for Rewarder and Inigral. Just don’t get me started on News.me.

This is … Marketing Biz.

More interactive Tweets, in more than 2000 ways

Twitter Card Player

Earlier this summer, we introduced the ability to expand Tweets to see content previews, photos and videos right within a Tweet. At that time, we were working with a small group of partners. Today there are more than 2,000 ways to bring more interactive and engaging Tweets to your stream –– on twitter.com, as well as Twitter for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

Twitter continues to push forward with making their platform more visual and interactive, showcasing the new capabilities of Twitter Cards. The question will be whether Twitter can make this switch without ostracizing core users (like Bitly has done.)

Twitter Hires Agency Relations Chief From Google

Twitter is signaling to agencies that it’s all grown up and ready to service them the way the likes of Google and AOL do.

The company has hired a new director of agency business development, former Google exec Matt Derella, who oversaw the company’s relationship with Publicis, the world’s third-largest holding company by revenue.

Well Ad Age nails it here. Twitter is making it crystal clear that they want to play with the big boys and that they’re a safe and effective platform for major advertisers.

Stamped + Yahoo!

The Stamped team will be creating a brand new product and engineering office for Yahoo in NYC’s Bryant Park. After everything we learned from building Stamped, we’re excited to start work again on something big, mobile, and new — but we can’t discuss the details just yet.

What’s intriguing here is that Stamped is both run by a number of ex-Googlers and that it was backed by Google Ventures. Perhaps the best way Marissa can change the toxic Yahoo! culture is to simply fill the ranks with Googlers?

Rewarder gets $7 million to fulfill your oddest, nerdiest dreams

Rewarder Example

Where can you find a place to look for genealogy advice, Lucius Malfoy costume ideas, a recipe for pomegranate sauce, and Navy SEAL training all at once? Rewarder, a social site reminiscent of TaskRabbit or Kickstarter, launches with $7 million to fulfill your dreams.

For whatever reason I think of this turning into an expertise-based Mechanical Turk, which would be of real interest to marketers who might be looking for more scalable ways to produce content.

Return Path Acquires API Provider Context.IO

The integration with Return Path enables Context.IO to scale and better support existing developers’ applications more affordably. Leveraging Return Path’s relationships across the email ecosystem and email intelligence solutions, developers using Context.IO will also have access to the world’s most comprehensive set of data to maximize the performance and ROI of email for their customers.

Email isn’t sexy but it’s still effective. Yet email hasn’t been given that much attention as other forms of marketing have exploded. While I still think RSS should have supplanted email, a savvy marketer should be looking at ways to refine and extend their email campaigns.

News.me shuts down iOS apps to focus on Digg, blames new Twitter requirements

News.me, the social news service built on top of Twitter (and Facebook), today announced it is killing its curation apps for iPhone and iPad. The company is blaming Twitter for the move and says it wants to focus on its Digg efforts instead.

Really? Maybe it wasn’t the fact that there were alternatives out there that were more interesting?

Inigral Receives $3.25-Million to Expand Facebook-Based Enrollment Tools

The company’s service, called Schools App on Facebook, provides a meeting place for a college’s admitted students to socialize and learn more about the institution before they officially matriculate. Students can log on to the application to find other new students with similar interests, organize social events, and receive information from the college.

I’m not that interested in the specific tool but the fact that Facebook is supporting a larger ecosystem of companies. And here Inigral has developed a tool that essentially turns back the clock to the earlier days of Facebook.

Raven adds Scribe 4 to content tools

Raven is adding Scribe 4 content analysis to all accounts. Scribe helps you optimize your content structure and keywords for SEO. A tool from our well regarded friends at Copyblogger, it’s used and loved by thousands of online marketers worldwide.

Content marketing is the new black and Raven continues their integration strategy with the addition of Copyblogger’s Scribe product.

Outbrain Adds Self-Service To Its Content Discovery PlatformOutbrain Logo

If you aren’t familiar with Outbrain, chances are that you may have come across its platform without even knowing it. The company counts publishers like CNN, Mashable, Fast Company and Slate, and brands like GE, among those using its widget to suggest links for further reading alongside content on the site: it offers one column of stories from the site itself, and another of stories from other places.

Hopefully you are familiar with Outbrain because it’s a pretty nice lever to pull. The addition of a self-service model that targets SMBs is intriguing. Outbrain could make serious inroads here given the disenchantment many SMBs have with AdWords.

GraphEffect Launches Enhanced Collaboration Platform

Shift

Last month, GraphEffect announced an API that allows multiple parties/companies to collaborate on projects using their own marketing/collaboration tools. Now, GraphEffect has launched another platform, Shift.com, that empowers applications to communicate with each other.

This is a great opportunity for technically minded marketers to accelerate and test partnerships and ideas. I view this as similar to tag management in that it reduces the amount of red tape marketers must deal with on a daily basis. I’d love to hear from you if you’re using Shift.

Closely Launches SMB Competitive Intelligence App ‘Perch’

Part reputation monitoring, part analytics, part competitive intelligence and part social media education tool, the promo copy on the iTunes site says, “Perch delivers a live, personalized stream of social media and promotion activity for businesses in the neighborhood.”

What a great idea! A hyper-local SMB competitive intelligence tool. Not only that but it gives them a concrete view of who and how competitors are using technology. I feel like this could become a standard app for all SMBs.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

AJ Kohn
Contributor
AJ Kohn is Owner of Blind Five Year Old, a San Francisco Internet Marketing firm specializing in search. An experienced marketing executive with a successful track record spanning 20 years, AJ combines a deep understanding of search marketing with a passion for product strategy and iterative product development, fusing design and user experience with quantitative analysis.

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