Apps, APIs and Opportunities: Platform integration and opportunities

apps, APIs and opportunitiesPlatform integration and the future of the internet

viadeo2 white paper apps, APIS and opportunites

“Social computing is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Gradually, social computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world.”

Nigel Fenwick, Forrester Research

how platform integration is changing the internetTo even the most unobservant internet user it is obvious that the online medium has evolved almost past recognition in the past decade.

Web 2.0, the term coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2004, describes the web’s shift from a passive to an active channel where it is the users themselves that control their online experience rather than website owners or omnipotent editorial teams.

Some examples of changes bought about during the first internet revolution can be seen in the table below: 1

Ofoto

Britannica Online

Domain name speculation

Personal websites

Publishing

Flickr

Wikipedia

Search Engine Optimisation

Blogging

Participation

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

apps, APIs and opportunitiesPlatform integration and the future of the internet

Platform integration is at the heart of next generation social networks. Creative developers are starting to spin a new web of integrated services through carefully constructed apps but do businesses get it? Can this move towards enhanced integration open doors to true virtual mobility for business users or are apps and APIs really just for consumers wanting to play Scrabble and raise virtual farm animals?

1 ‘What is Web 2.0’, Tim O’Reilly, 2005 [http://oreil.ly/9VS5Uk]


Since O’Reilly’s conception of Web 2.0 six years ago there has been another evolution - the rise of the social web. Websites are now just one vector of a three-way dialogue between the site and their users and their users and each other as they compare experiences or recommend a site’s content, product or services:

The users themselves have also changed. Spending more time on social networks even than search engines according to Hitwise Intelligence2, the modern internet user trusts peer recommendation and opinions posted online over corporate websites, advertising and even newspaper content3 (Nielsen). They have now come to expect not only to be able to view and buy products and services online but they also want to interact with the company and brand providing them.

In summary, internet users now want their web experience to be:

Mobile The ability to access a service across multiple platforms such as desktop, web, mobile or TV

Personalised Ability to change the website (or for the website to change itself) to be appropriate to their interests, preferences, location and profession

Interactive Ability to generate and amend content, make contacts online and give opinions

Social Ability to recommend products, services and experiences as well as receive recommendations from friends, contacts and colleagues

Open Ability to take their social or professional profile with them across the web

These needs are captured with the advent of platform integration – a function that allows content to be channelled from one website to be utilised or displayed by another and is rapidly becoming a standard feature of the online experience.

The most famous example of this feature must be the ubiquitous Facebook ‘Like’ button now splashed liberally across the web; this tool allows Facebook users to rate external content and have their opinion displayed in their Facebook news feed without ever having to leave the external site.

As the web continues to evolve it seems likely that an “open” web facilitated by increased integration will continue to intensify whilst social media will become more powerful (privacy concerns not withstanding). This document will explore how businesses, organisations and associations looking to keep up with the needs of their online users can take advantage of this social revolution.

More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month

User Peers

Website

2 ‘Social networks now more popular than search engines in the UK’ Robin Goad, 2010 [http://bit.ly/dbag4U]3 ‘Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most’ NielsenWire, 2009 [http://bit.ly/Q30up]

Platform integration is where two or more software platforms are linked by small bits of programming code ranging from the simple (widget) to the more complex (API/application); this then facilitates the transfer of information from one to the other.

An overview is shown in the table above.

Although platform integration is not limited to integration with social networks this has become an incredibly popular form

at the moment with over 50,000 websites implementing Facebook’s “social plugin” APIs and applications within a week of its launch in April3.

This rush for websites to connect is not only to take advantage of the high number of internet users who are registered on these sites but also because of the increasing amount of time spent there –over 5.5 hours a month according to another recent Nielsen report4.


what is platform integration?Without platform integration social networks would not have any applications or games developed by users and third party businesses, the Apple iPhone would just be a phone and the world would be, well, less interesting.

An overview of platform integration options is shown in the table below:

Type Examples Description Programming experience required?

Application PollDaddy app on Viadeo

Micro website installed by a user to their social networking profile allowing them to extend the functionality of their network and to personalise their experience

Widget Facebook social plugins such as LiveStream or the ‘Like’ button

Small program usually made up of only one line of code - most only display basic information

API Twitter via Tweetdeck or Seesmic

Collection of programming tools that allow information stored on one site to be shared with another site based on a request for information using a unique identifier. The data is often returned in XML format

An average business professional has 85 contacts on their professional network

3 ‘50,000 Websites Add Facebook’s Like Button And Social Plugins In First Week’, Nick O’Neill, 2010 [http://bit.ly/cY5YZH]4 ‘Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year’ NielsenWire, 2010 [http://bit.ly/92iqfO]


why bother?Businesses receive more revenue from users who are active and engaged with their brand online. Can they afford not to take advantage?

Large communities of active users 2 out of 3 internet users belong to a social network according to Nielsen5. Social networking powerhouse Facebook now has over 500 million users and is predicted to reach 600 million by the end of 2010. Twitter has over 105 million and professional social networking sites LinkedIn and Viadeo have 60 million and 30 million respectively6.

Those considered “heavy” social network users spend twice as much time online as the average internet user and despite representing only 15% of the total internet population are responsible for over a third of total page views consumed online7.

Platform integration with a social network is an easy way for external websites to tap into this group of highly engaged and socially powerful internet users.

Brand association The different genres of social networks allow specific targeting of user groups and an option to position a website’s brand in a certain way (see table opposite).

Return traffic Enabling website users to share content with their social networks will allow external websites to harness peer recommendation to attract return and new visitors back to their site.

Social network(Facebook, MySpace)

Social reasons, to connect with friends and family, as a leisure activity

Current, informal, sociable

Microblogging service (Twitter)

Both social and business purposes in an exercise in self-promotion and a desire for cutting edge current affairs/education.

Open, engaged, personal

Professional social network (Viadeo, LinkedIn)

To connect with professional contacts, to look for jobs, enhance career prospects and elevate professional status

Professional, career-related, thought leader

User engagement If a site user can find a more interactive and personalised experience on a site (for example being shown content that is tailored to their profession, interests and location or being able to see that their contacts are also using the site’s services) they are more likely to engage with the brand or organisation, products or services.

Increased and more complete registration Members of a social network have already spent time and effort filling out a complete profile (whether professional or social) – it is unlikely they will commit the same amount of time on an external website. Offering the option to sign in and register using their

social networking user name and password streamlines the process and increases the amount and quality of the information gathered about website visitors.

Low cost marketing strategy The majority of the platform integration options are offered for free. That said implementing a platform integration strategy still requires an investment of time, a careful consideration of the correct options for the website concerned and potentially programming experience or access to a web developer. However compared to other marketing strategies it is a low cost and easy to implement function that can deliver high rewards.

5 ‘Social Networking’s New Global Footprint’, NielsenWire, 2009 [http://bit.ly/acCrFb]6 All figures correct as of July 20107 ‘The State of Social Networks’ presented on Jan 14 2010 by Joe Nguyen, comScore [http://bit.ly/ceGsnn]

Type Used for... Brand association


Organisations have the opportunity to use the data contained in the social network to create a personalised web experience for their site visitors. They gain the advantage of creating an association with a brand that the website visitor already knows and trusts with their personal data as well as opening up their content to be shared with a social network. In return they benefit from extra traffic, increased engagement and a more complete registration process.

what are the possibilities?Platform integration enables organisations to reduce costs, increase users, capture more data, increase conversion rates, promote their brand and drive revenues.

90% of consumers

trust peer recommendations

over other sources

Members of professional social networks are projected to reach 500 million by 2015

Some examples:

Content share

Users can recommend products, services and content to contacts on their social network

Increased visibility and kudos from their friends and colleagues

Free marketing from customers to their trusted contacts

Simplified registration

Users register for external sites using the same account information that they used to register with their social network

Saves time, utilises their portable web profile

Option for registration becomes more attractive increasing conversion rates, more data is captured about user

Site to user personalisation

External site visitors have a personalised experience based on the data they have listed on their social network profile

More relevant information delivered at the right time

Relevance is directly linked to revenue and engagement

Interactive content placed directly on social network’s platform

External sites can develop applications and integrate them with the social network’s platform to be shared and used by its members

Increases the relevance of third party tools by adding a social context

Increases reach and user base through social recommendation and discovery

Type of integration Description User benefits External website benefit


• Site visitors can share and recommend your content on their networks directing qualified return traffic to your site

• Enable users to see their network newsfeed from your site encouraging them to add a feed related to your content or brand

• Enhance your content with information drawn from a user’s social network e.g. people related to a recruiting company for a job description, companies mentioned in an article or contacts who have read the same article

• Give site visitors access to the functionality of their social network from your site keeping them engaged with your site for longer

• Incorporate a microblogging feature allowing users to “tweet” content or thoughts about your site either to Twitter or to their network

how could it work for you?These are just some of the possible applications enabled through the integration of a social network with an organisation’s online or mobile services. It is all possible. The limit is just the imagination.

Half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook

80% of companies use social media for recruitment

50%


The drive towards openness, collaboration and transparency is not only affecting the way people browse the internet and interact with those providing products, services and content but is also changing the way in which organisations operate.

At a basic level incorporating customer or user participation will become key to surviving the social revolution but the changes will also reach to the very core of organisations; management hierarchies will become flattened, employees will become “always-on duty” brand ambassadors and professional partnerships will become truly collaborative.

One thing that will remain constant is the basic principle of marketing – build a good product, provide a great service or interesting content and people will talk about it. The change is how and where they are talking about it. Platform integration is an easy and necessary first step for organisations to get involved with a dialogue that is already happening, to engage with their consumers and brand promoters and to become part of a truly integrated open web.

future thinking?The social evolution of the internet will change the way in which businesses promote products and services forever.

“For those who have been working in the social computing sphere the last few years, either externally or internally, it’s become abundantly clear to us that all business is becoming Social Business”

Dion Hinchcliffe, Communicating the Value of Social Business, Dachis Group

75% of Twitter traffic comes from outside Twitter.com

Contact us Viadeo London UK T: 020 7960 9667 E: [email protected]

www.viadeo.com

Apps, APIs and Opportunities: Platform integration and opportunities

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