Don't expect Facebook users age 50+ to "Like" a product or service in an ad, but do expect them to click through to the landing page or Web site, according to a new study. The study from SocialCode, a full-service agency supporting Facebook campaigns, examines more than 4 million data points across over 50 clients from a variety of industries to get a better understanding of how age and gender affect "Like" and click-through rates on Facebook. While age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, it often times has the opposite influence on the likelihood of the user becoming a fan of a page. Results show that for ads with a "Like" button, older Facebook users tend to click through to the Web site, while younger users tend to "Like" something in the Facebook ad. Consumers age 50 and older, the oldest segment in the study, are 28.2% more likely to click through and 9% less likely to click "Like," compared with those ages 18 to 29, the youngest group monitored. Compared with the rest of the younger population on Facebook, users age 50 and older see a 22.6% higher CTR and 8.4% lower "Like" rate. Older women seem to show a little skepticism in social media. Laura O'Shaughnessy, CEO, SocialCode, said the data backs-up ad industry general advertising trends. "Older women seem to want to investigate a little more before they hit click the 'Like' button," she said. "Women are active on Facebook. They tend to vote and fill out purchase information, but given that trend, we don't see them click 'Like' in the ad." Think about the goals of the brand. If the brand appeals to younger men, and the marketer wants to build up a Fan base, O'Shaughnessy suggests deploying the "like" technology. When doing that know a more mature female audience will not likely respond to this type of ad, she said. Age influences CTRs for women much more than men. When it comes to "Likes," men seem to click the "Like" button just slightly more than women. It turns out women are 11% more likely to click on an ad. For women, CTR is 31.2% higher for the 50+ age group compared with 18-29 year olds, men only see a 16.2% difference between the age groups. Compared with all age groups, women age 50 and older are 22% higher versus a 16.4% difference for males. The oldest male segment has an 11.7% lower "Like" rate than the youngest segment, as well as a 9.5% lower "Like" rate, compared with all age groups. Women experience a 7.2% and a 7.9% difference, respectively. O'Shaughnessy said the study doesn't include data on Google+, but expects to see similar data for the +1 button. It may take some time before consumers become familiar with Google's social button. "Part of Google's success will determine what the social site and +1 button becomes," she said. "I do think, in general, it may take longer for the older audience to become comfortable with this technology. They seem to take more time and consider the offer before acting on it."
Has Groupon's ship sailed? Well, with its IPO pending, the group-buying leader has seen traffic decline nearly 50% since its peak in the second week of June. That's according to new Hitwise data based on Web-based traffic, but excluding mobile and app-specific traffic. "Regardless ... the drop-off in Groupon traffic this summer has been significant," according to Bill Tancer, GM of global research at Hitwise. During the same time period, rival Living Social saw a 27% increase in visits to its site. Overall, visits to Hitwise's custom category of Daily Deal & Aggregator sites were down 25% for the same time period. What explains the decline -- and Groupon's in particular? "Perhaps it is simply a case of increased number of competitors and deal fatigue among consumers or simply not enough of the right deals," Tancer suggests. Groupon did not return a request for comment by press time on Monday. According to a Local Deals Survey released by PriceGrabber in June, 44% of respondents said they use or search daily deal Web sites. Yet 52% expressed feeling overwhelmed by the number of bargain-boasting emails they receive on a daily basis. Another key factor in the daily-deal market for these sites "is to focus on ... attracting new and preferred audience segments via the inbox," Tancer adds. "Currently, the audience segments for both Groupon and Living Social are very similar, so it will be interesting to see how both sites ... perform heading into the holiday season." Looking into the future, Forrester recently predicted that the daily-deal market will be virtually nonexistent by 2016. "Standing out above the clutter [will become] harder for marketers as ad exposures grow," Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk explained in a report released last week."Consumers will grow so conditioned to micro-impulse offers they'll lose practice at considered decisions ... Facing a cultural descent into maladroit judgment, employers (and spouses) will blacklist impulse deals to keep people intentional," he noted. Still losing money, Groupon said in June that it planned to raise $750 million in an IPO. While sales at the Chicago-based company surged more than 14-fold to $644 million last year, Groupon has also reportedly amassed about $540 million in operating losses since its founding in 2008. In short, its costs are rising faster than revenue.
Amazon will have as many as 5 million tablet computers in the fourth quarter, posing the first credible threat to Apple's dominance of the fast-growing category since it launched the iPad last year, according to a new Forrester report. The research firm projects Amazon will "easily" sell 3 million to 5 million units during the year-end shopping season, assuming its own tablet is priced significantly below competing models. Some sources have indicated it could sell for as low as $299 -- with enough supply to meet demand. Apple has quickly built up a formidable lead in the nascent tablet market, selling more than 28.7 million iPads to date worldwide. Its success has attracted scores of would-be challengers, including Android-based tablets from Samsung, HTC and Motorola, as well as BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion and HP. None have done much to dent the iPad's hegemony. An April Gartner report estimated the iPad's market share at 84% in 2010. But Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps believes the forthcoming Amazon tablet -- which will also be built on Android -- will change that. "Not only does Amazon have the potential to gain share quickly, but its willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as it did with the Kindle, makes Amazon a nasty competitor," she wrote. The Amazon tablet could also provide a boost to Android, by encouraging developers to create more tablet-specific apps for the Google platform. Currently, more than 100,000 custom apps are available for the iPad compared to just 300 for tablets using Honeycomb, the tablet version of the Android operating system. "If Amazon's Android-based tablet sells in the millions, Android will suddenly appear much more attractive to developers who have taken a wait-and-see approach," according to Epps. That means media companies, software developers, retailers, banks and other firms that half held off would be more willing to create content for a popular Amazon tablet. If that turns out to be the case, it would also translate into additional tablet inventory for advertisers to exploit. Increased competition in the tablet space could also benefit both content providers and advertisers by allowing them to negotiate more favorable business terms with Apple. In addition to challenging the iPad on pricing, other strengths of an Amazon tablet include credibility earned through the Kindle brand, a wide selection of digital content via subscription or download, and the company's huge existing e-commerce business and cloud services. That doesn't mean there aren't obstacles for Amazon in rolling out an iPad alternative. For one, it must ensure it does not underestimate initial demand, creating a shortfall during the critical holiday buying season. The Forrester report also points out that Amazon has no brick-and-mortar presence like Apple and Nook-maker Barnes & Noble. To date, Amazon has not demonstrated as much success as Apple in launching products internationally. It also suggests the Google partnership could prove a drawback, including the "terrible shopping experience" of the Android Market and rules Google has set for Honeycomb that limit how much developers can modify the platform. What's more, Apple is expected to maintain its dominant share through 2012 at least, and it's likely to take Amazon's launch of an iPad killer in stride. Still, it seems clear that Epps expects Amazon's 9-inch touchscreen tablet to overcome these stumbling blocks to become the first legitimate iPad contender.
Publicis' VivaKi unit is re-accelerating its role in nurturing new media start-ups, naming Alyson Hyder as vice president of VivaKi Ventures, a role that has been vacant since Tim Hanlon left a year ago. Hyder, who joins from was vice president-digital media and marketing at Publicis' Razorfish unit, assumes VivaKi's ventures role from Sean Kegelman, who continues to lead partnerships for the VivaKi Nerve Center, and to whom Hyder reports. In an interview with Online Media Daily on Friday, Kegelman said Hyder would broaden the perspective of VivaKi's work with new media and data start-ups to strike early stage deals with companies that could represent competitive advantages for Publicis clients and/or strategic and capital investments for the agency holding company. He said VivaKi's ventures focus had narrowed during the year the role became consolidated under him, and that much of his focus was either on nurturing the original deals struck by Hanlon before he left, or on expanding proprietary relationships with VivaKi's biggest partners, companies like Google, and Google's DoubleClick and Invite Media divisions, and BlueKai. "When I took this on we folded it into the partnerships group," Kegelman explained. "We kept the model of advisory role for emerging media companies, but we focused on the ones that are best aligned on the product offerings that we have here in VivaKi. By bringing Alyson in, we're going to broaden it out again so that it's not focused just on the product centers we've developed in the [VivaKi] Nerve Center." Kegelman said Hyder would continue to focus primarily on start-ups that are most relevant to VivaKi's interests, and the clients of Publicis' digital and media agencies, especially "data platforms, mobile, social and video," and he said the deals she structures will be based on three primary objectives: "connecting clients with emerging companies that impact their core business; working fluidly with agency teams; and contributing to the ongoing growth and development of the VivaKi Nerve Center. Hyder, who will be based in San Francisco, previously oversaw media accounts for clients such as Best Buy, Disney, Miller Coors, Nike and Weight Watchers at Razorfish. The re-expansion of VivaKi's ventures efforts comes at a time when other big agency holding companies and smaller, independent agencies have stepped up their work with potentially game-changing start-ups. Ironically, the move comes as Interpublic's Mediabrands division has restructured and appears to be downplaying the role of ventures. As part of that restructuring, Tim Hanlon quietly stepped down as head of Velociter, the ventures-focused unit he created to develop relationships between promising new media start-ups and Interpublic and its clients brands. Hanlon joined Mediabrands in October 2010, when then Mediabrands Ventures chief Matt Freeman was leading the charge to develop new businesses and new business opportunities that would grow from them for Interpublic and its clients. Since then, Freeman has left to become Global Chief Innovation Officer at Interpublic McCann Worldgroup, and new Mediabrands CEO Matt Seiler has taken a narrow view of venture-related activity, reorganizing the agency around businesses and services that directly impact the clients of its Initiative and UM units. During his stint at Velociter, Hanlon developed a portfolio of stakes in 14 startups. During his tenure at VivaKi and Denuo, Hanlon created a portfolio of 43 equity stakes, which included exits with Sling Media (which was sold to Echostar), Rapt (to Microsoft), Navic Networks (to Microsoft), SnapTell (to Amazon/A9), IMMI (to Arbitron), Pelago (to Groupon), Tumri (to Collective Media), and Dapper (to Yahoo), as well as Brightcove, which just announced an upcoming IPO. Interestingly, Interpublic recently cashed in a big chunk of one of its most successful venture capital initiatives - an early stake in Facebook. The deal, which sold half of Interpublic's stake in the social network, netted the agency holding company $133 million, which it is using the help buy back shares of Interpublic stock.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District in California violated federal telecommunications law by blocking wireless service earlier this month, a coalition of groups argues in a petition to the FCC. "It has been settled law for decades that law enforcement agencies have no authority to order discontinuation of phone service on mere suspicion of illegal activity without due process," a coalition of digital rights groups say in papers filed on Monday with the FCC. The groups, including Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are asking the FCC to declare that BART's actions violated the federal Telecom Act. BART shut down wireless service at some stations earlier this month because it was concerned that protests related to a police shooting could create unsafe conditions. "Prior to a planned protest on August 11, 2011, BART obtained credible information that led us to conclude that the safety of the BART system would be compromised," the agency said in an open letter. "Out of an overriding concern for our passengers' safety, BART made the decision to temporarily interrupt cell phone service on portions of its system." But critics say the move raised troubling free speech issues. "Cutting off cell phone service in response to a planned protest is a shameful attack on free speech," the EFF wrote shortly after the incident. "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who ordered the shutdown of cell phone service in Tahrir Square in response to peaceful, democratic protests earlier this year." Public Knowledge's legal director, Harold Feld, recently posted a lengthy legal analysis arguing that the agency's acts were illegal under both federal telecom law and California state laws. "There is a reason we do not mess with the phone system, and why that doesn't change when the phone system is wireless," he wrote. He said as far back as 1942, a California appeals court ruled that the state attorney general could not order the phone company to disconnect someone suspected of using the phones to run a gambling operation. "If BART gets away with including 'we can shut down cell phone service' in its tool box, you can guarantee that other local law enforcement agencies will start copying this -- and all for the best of reasons," he wrote. "Because what could possibly go wrong when you pull the plug on a critical piece of infrastructure whenever some local police chief or city council person or whoever decides they need to do something about these 'flash mobs' or 'rioters' or whatever?" The petition, filed on Monday, argues that BART has no authority under federal or state law to unilaterally interfere with telephone service. "Regardless of whether BART can cut off service in a manner consistent with the First Amendment -- an issue we do not address in this petition -- the fact remains that such disconnections involve willful interference with CMRS [Commercial Mobile Radio Service] and are discontinuations of service without prior authorization based on the mere suspicion of future illegal activity," the groups argue.