Twitter Usage Explodes in March

The number of visitors to Twitter.com jumped 131 percent in March to 9.3 million visitors, up from five million in February.

We call that an inflection point!

Consumers Sending "Price" Signals to Apple?

Economists are fairly unanimous about one element of human behavior. When prices of any product are raised, demand tends to drop. The salient exception is "luxury" goods, where higher prices sometimes stimulate demand. But early evidence suggests that consumers believe 99 cents is the "right" price for a single song.

Last week was the first week of iTunes’s new, steeper pricing on some tracks, and consumers voted with their wallets, according to Billboard. Sales figures from iTunes show that tracks that now sell for $1.29, up from $0.99, sold 12.5 percent fewer units than during the previous week, while tracks whose prices were unchanged sold 10 percent more than the week before.

Overall revenue was up three percent during the week, so it might not be possible to blame the "economy" for the changes. It appears that unit sales for the top-100 songs were up for the week.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-is-the-price-right-itunes-price-hikes-impact-first-weeks-sales/

YouTube As Monetizable as a Newspaper?

"User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross, says Farhad Manjoo, Slate's technology columnist.

YouTube, for example, sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. But the costs of storing and serving up 75 billion video clips a year costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But YouTube will make about $240 million in revenues for 2009.

Oddly enough, YouTube loses more money on its content than a daily newspaper.

http://slate.com/id/2216162

You Tube Sensation Will Grab You

If this does not make you tear up just a little in joy, I'm not sure you have a heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBTVdnWj1hM&feature=bz301

Tweet Shows IP Impact

"The terrible phone connection I was blaming on our VoIP line turns out to be the cordless phone clashing with WiFi," says Matthew Weinberg. "May need to go corded."

That's as good an example of any about the changes IP technology has wrought for service providers, who no longer can simply sell a connection, terminate at a network interface and hand off the premises network and devices to an end user. That generally worked when interface specifications were stringent and the total number of devices and applications were limited.

These days the application and device environment is much more complex. But users will call their service provider when applications or devices don't work properly. One way or the other, greater involvement in premises networks and configuration are required.

Skype Proves Stand-Alone Long Distance is a Business

Now that it appears Skype will become a stand-alone company, we have to note the irony. Telcos and cable companies have concluded that long distance no longer is a viable stand-alone business. That's essentially why AT&T and MCI Worldcom do not exist as independent companies.

But it is worth keeping in mind that when an executive says something cannot be done, what that really means is that "I cannot, with my cost structure, personnel or technology holdings, do that." Skype will be able to compete as a stand-alone long distance provider. To greater or lesser degrees, much the same can be said for calling card providers.

As true as it may be that a service provider cannot make a viable business selling long distance alone, that isn't true for all market contestants. One simply needs a different cost structure and channel.

The issue now is what Skype actually is worth. Merill Lynch analyst Justin Post says Skype is worth $2.2 billion, and that could grow to $3 billion by the time it either goes public in 2010 or is sold.

Jeffries & Company analyst Youssef Squali values Skype at $1 billion.

Thomas Wiesel analyst Christa Quarles thinks Skype is worth $1.7 billion. Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang, meanwhile, values Skype at $1.85 billlion.

http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/user%2F05579064408535224496%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list

Skype and eBay: Cautionary Tale for Communications-Enabled Business Processes

As useful as communications-enabled business apps might be, eBay's inability to wring any significant advantages out of voice-enabling eBay. Perhaps messaging of other sorts is valuable, but voice integration does not seem to have added much of anything to the eBay shopping experience.

All of which raises the question of where and when voice communications, perhaps as opposed to text-based communications, adds value to another application, or adds enough value that people even care very much.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCWYwCYVyHx4&refer=home