• Pay For Play: What Social Media Insider Has In Common With YouTube CEO
    It appears the Social Media Insider is not the only one who keeps wondering if there's traction in ad-free social platforms. Imagine my surprise this morning when I discovered that last week's column - on how ad-free Ello plans to make money - had 106 shares, ranking it third in the last year behind the column on The New York Times Innovation Report (136 shares), and Restoration Hardware's wrong-headed are you f*ckin' kidding me? mailing of catalogs so heavy you can use them to outfit your home gym (108 shares). Um, wow. And only some of those shares, I should …
  • What The Ello! This Ad-Free Social Net May Be Onto Something
    Not that I've gone on it again since registering a few weeks ago, but Ello is starting to get more interesting, what with the news it just received $5.5 million in funding from real, live venture capitalists. Do ad-free social networks have a real future?
  • Tell Me This: Is It Possible to Still Get Organic Reach?
    The Social Media Insider has (yet another) confession to make: if she could write about just anything this week, it would be the news that HBO and CBS are both planning to offer subscriber-based streaming services. And to think that cable companies used to deny that cord-cutting was a thing! But, alas, as there's nothing very social about holing up in one's house and binge-watching "Game of Thrones," I'm using this week's column to ask for some social media advice that I hope will also benefit loyal readers. (I know -- the columnist is supposed to give the advice, not …
  • Snapchat Accepts Ads -- And Social Media Insider Eats Humble Pie
    My name is Cathy Taylor, and I was all wrong about Snapchat. It's one of the hardest confessions, I've ever had to make, but let me be honest: earlier this year, feeling overconfident, I predicted what would happen in 2014 concerning a number of social platforms. Of Snapchat, I wrote: " ... it's hard to see this turning into an advertising platform -- in 2014, or any other year -- both because its content almost always goes away, and because when it doesn't, it's not a good thing." Since that time -- sob -- as if to defy the mighty …
  • Is It Time to Say Hello To Ello? If Not Now, Later
    The Social Media Insider was feeling a bit quippy the other day when she moderated a panel at OMMA Premium Display. The topic was on whether paid social had actually morphed into online display, so she took that opportunity to try and kill off Ello, only a week after anyone - except for a bunch of people in Burlington, VT - had ever heard of it.
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