CoTweet Standard Being Pulled

CoTweet

Image by Gustavo Pimenta via Flickr

CoTweet Standard, which is used by a lot of companies to manage Twitter for teams, is being withdrawn on February 15th

From then on CoTweet will only be offered as a paid service under a new name “SocialEngage”

There aren’t much details about SocialEngage on the CoTweet / Exact Target site unfortunately, nor is there any information on pricing. It looks like they’re adding support for tracking Facebook, but without knowing pricing etc., it’s really hard to see if this is going to end up costing companies a lot more than they’ll gain or not.

Their Enterprise product “Cotweet Enterprise” may have been very powerful, but it also came at a very high price.

So are there any viable alternatives?

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Gowalla To Go The Way Of The Dodo

Gowalla pins

Image by sermoa via Flickr

Gowalla is to be shutdown.

After being acquired by Facebook the “also ran” to FourSquare will be shutting down early in 2012, according to Techcrunch.

So while Facebook may have acquired the skills and experience of the FourSquare team, they’re not taking over all the data.

So will Facebook use some of the technology to improve their own location based services? You’d have to assume that was the plan..

Guess we’ll find out ..

 

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Facebook Acquires Gowalla

Gowalla pins

Image by sermoa via Flickr

Facebook has acquired Gowalla according to reports.

Gowalla, which offers very similar functionality to FourSquare, never quite seemed to be as popular as its rival.

Facebook had been offering a location based service for its mobile users, but they were reportedly going to be phasing it out, but with the addition of Gowalla that will probably change ie. the current Facebook system will be supplanted by Gowalla’s technology.

The main page of Gowalla currently offers users the option to signup via Facebook, though it still maintains a signup feature for those that do not wish to succumb to Zuckerburg. Whether that will change or not is probably too early to tell

 

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Turntable.fm Brings A Different Social Angle To Music

I’ve seen a few “social” music services and apps over the past few years. They’ve all been quite interesting, but not overly engaging.

Turntable.fm might turn that experience on its head.

You can now chat with friends (and strangers) whilst “DJing”.

 

Play music, listen and vote

Play music, listen and vote

 

If you like a tune you can vote it up and give the “DJ” points..

Word of warning – it is quite addictive!

Social Is All About Permission

If you’re going to use “social” as part of your online strategy you need to remember a key concept.

Permission.

Earlier this morning I got an email “invite” from a contact to join a site that likes to see itself as being “social”.

I ignored the invite but the wording of the email really touched a nerve:

Skillpages unsubscribe email footer

Skillpages unsubscribe email footer

Why on earth would I “unsubscribe” from something I’d never subscribed to in the first place?

Who gave them permission to “subscribe” me in the first place?

It is possible that this is just bad wording on their part and that what they actually mean is that clicking on the link will “block” my email address from being used ..

Now why don’t they actually say that?

It’s also worth noting that Facebook’s notifications include equally misleading wording, so Skillpages aren’t alone in this.

 

Heinz Launch Commerce Via Facebook But Get Security Wrong

Heinz have launched a special offer via their Facebook page that allows “fans” to buy a “limited edition” ketchup.

Heinz limited edition ketchup

Heinz limited edition ketchup

Unfortunately it’s pretty clear that the people behind the integration don’t really understand security or privacy.

In order to order the ketchup you need to fill out this form:

ketchup-order-form

Now why do they need ALL that information to send you a bottle of a ketchup? A delivery address is obviously going to be needed, but why would you need my date of birth?

Sorry, but that’s really intrusive.. too intrusive really

Of course to get to that page you really have to trust Heinz .. because whoever setup the “social commerce” doesn’t know a lot about secure certificates or ecommerce judging by this:

Heinz SSL error

Heinz SSL error

I’m sorry, but unless you can actually get the ecommerce basics like SSL certs right then all this talk about “social commerce” being the next big thing are just more fluff

And if a company the size of Heinz can’t get it right I doubt smaller ones will ..