Today, Colin criticized me on my choice of Twitter photo hosting solution as it included very intrusive ads next to them (plixi).

He told me that he personally blogs vs. Twitpic, capturing the long-tail on the content with Google. It was really something to think about as he was getting thousands of [...]]]>

Today, Colin criticized me on my choice of Twitter photo hosting solution as it included very intrusive ads next to them (plixi).

He told me that he personally blogs vs. Twitpic, capturing the long-tail on the content with Google. It was really something to think about as he was getting thousands of views on an old piece he did.

I didn’t want to blog as that would dilute the high value of this feed (please know I am mocking myself).

Anycase, after a quick Google, found a nice plugin by @michaeltyson. Recently, been using it and results are not bad. The bad side is Twitter clients don’t work with just anyone for previews. They really need to adopt OpenGraph like facebook.

What do you think I should do? Own my own Twitter photos or host them on Twitpic, Plixi or yfrog?

This really got me to reflect on last 5-10 years…

Google, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter never advertised early in the growth of their success.

They won peoples heart by offering such [...]]]> Today, I was on Pandora listening to some music, to find yet another LivingSocial ad.

This really got me to reflect on last 5-10 years…

Google, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter never advertised early in the growth of their success.

They won peoples heart by offering such a unique offering that they didn’t need consumer advertising. I put my 2005 hat on, and I remember at the conferences when advertising for consumer services was frowned upon as you should be able to capture users based on the quality of your product alone. Also, “the right type of people” (early adopters) signup when you are not advertising and feel more committed to the product.

It’s not only LivingSocial, new growth consumer companies have demonstrated more aggressive paid marketing levels including scvngr, Zynga, and GroupOn.

You can’t watch the superbowl or navigate an iPhone app without seeing an ad for these companies.

Is the cool “don’t need to advertise” attitude gone?
If so, what was the tipping point?
Did GroupOn 6B valuation change peoples psyche on this?
Have we reached hypercompetitive level for time to mass market that this is now required?
Is this acceleration a long-term trend or a short-term fad?

Not sure I have the answer but one thing has changed… Advertising is more accepted for consumer growth internet companies then it was a year or two ago.

<robertsandie> is a prefix I have been thinking about and is my #1 pick

#robertsandie was another one [...]]]> This blog is going to start picking back up.  With that my first goal is to get everyone of you that follows me on Twitter to listen up when I got something “worthwhile” to say.

<robertsandie> is a prefix I have been thinking about and is my #1 pick

#robertsandie was another one I thought about but am not really sure that’s the right solution for this (let me know thoughts).

The tool I am using is Twitter Updater by Victoria Chan.

Long live the blog!