Here’s a quick breakdown of a few top stories I came across while perusing the headlines this morning.
1) Mashable’s Ben Parr broke the news around a newly-forged Twitter-LinkedIn alliance. Syncing user profile pages for simultaneous updates – either via check-box notification on the LinkedIn platform or hashtags “#li” or “#in” on the Twitterfeed – this tag-team effort is noteworthy on a number of levels. First, it reflects an increasingly popular trend of consolidation - we’ve examined this before.
Second, it reflects savvy on the part of both Twitter and LinkedIn as it will enhance the user experience for both (particularly important as they share many of the same users). This collaboratoin will allow LI to offer greater real-time visibility into professional developments, and it will allow Twitter to offer its users the ability to sync, share, and search, according to professional updates. And with 35% of LinkedIn users already on Twitter, there’s no better way to satisfay customers and up user time than to streamline usage.
2) BusinessInsider’s King Insider Henry Blodget reports that Priceline has gobbled up even more of the ecommerce travel business. As “Orbitz saw domestic gross bookings decline 5%, while Expedia posted 9% growth,” Priceline reported Q3 revenue of $731M, accelerated gross bookings, and made noteworthy market share gains. Whether its the inexpensive, William Shatner-led ad campaigns or the Web 2.0 customer-centric culture (“name your own price” and “no booking fees” are mainstays), Priceline has maintained a trend of ecommerce travel dominance. I hypothesized it was also Priceline’s deal-doling Twitter alias - The Negotiator – which is helping to maintain brand awareness beyond direct competitors. However, with its 18,549 followers, compared to Expedia’s 20,278 abd Orbitz’s – 32,960. Priceline does not seem to necessarily have a social media edge. Could it then be Shatner?
3) Netflix might capitulate to Hollywood’s insistence on a 30-day holding period on new releases being available Netflix subscribers. Techcrunch’s MG Siegler wrote a hard-hitting report of this development. Netflix is likely encouraged to participate in order to received what will be a significant discount on those new releases (50%, perhaps); and the fact that 70% of its customer rentals to date are non-new releases anyway is further motivation. Of course, this hiatus on new realeases could (and in the author’s case, would) lead to greater online movie piracy (a valid claim given the growing preponderance of wireless broadband). But the crux of the story and MG’s condemnation of Hollywood itself, is the concept that no one really wants to buymovies anyway because the overwhleming majority are devastatingly unentertaining. The content is poor, so the inspiration for ownership doesn’t exist. Hollywood could fix the situation by recalling a golden social media rule: content is king.
