Five Friday Facts #26
News
News
LinkedIn acquires SlideShare
It was announced hours ago that professional networking platform LinkedIn has acquired SlideShare, a sharing platform for business documents, videos and presentations, for US$118.75 million or S$147.51 million. SlideShare users have uploaded more than 9 million presentations since it was founded in October 2006, and nearly 7.4 million presentations hosted by SlideShare have been embedded across more than 1.4 million unique domains. In March alone, SlideShare saw nearly 29 million unique visitors. We’ve already seen some form of integration between SlideShare and LinkedIn in terms of social sharing functionalities, being able to view SlideShare content from within your LinkedIn Stream, and hosting SlideShare content on your personal profile, so there’s definitely some form of fit between the two companies.
Mobile usage in Taiwan
Recent figures from mobile ad network InMobi reveal that mobile web users in Taiwan consume 6 hours of media daily on average, of which 27% is spent on mobile devices, which is more than the 24% of time spent watching television and catching up to the 33% of time spent going online on desktops or laptops. 76% of Taiwanese mobile web users use their mobile devices while their waiting, 59% use it while lying in bed, and 40% while commuting. Interestingly, Taiwanese shoppers are less likely to use their mobile devices while shopping, with only 11% doing so. Taiwanese mobile web users are very much into social networking and entertainment, as they spend 21% of their time on their mobile devices on social media like Facebook or Twitter, and an equal amount of time on music or videos. 18% of their time on mobile devices is spent playing games, 12% on search for general information such as news, sports, and finance, and 11% on email.
Marketers increasingly aligning TV and online video
A recent study by video advertising company Adap.TV and DIGIDAY revealed that marketers were increasingly planning, buying and measuring TV and online video together. 49% of brand advertisers and agencies surveyed in North America believed that TV was the most appropriate adveritising channel to align with online video, while 40% disagreed and said online video should be more aligned with display advertising. 62% viewed online video as a direct complement to TV, while only 10% saw it as a replacement for TV ads. In terms of integrated planning, 48% of respondents already currently plan TV ads and video together, while another 25% are planning to do so within the next 12 months. We are bound to see a lot more marketers adopt multi-channel approaches to advertising in the next year as they recognise the importance of balancing traditional advertising with more social forms of media.
Zynga’s ‘Draw Something’ sees a decline in daily active users
Although Zynga’s recently-acquired social gaming app ‘Draw Something‘ had exceeded 50 million downloads and boasted more than 14 million daily users in early April, Draw Something has since lost 4 million daily active users in the past month alone according to AppData. In light of Zynga’s new advertising plans for Draw Something, we wonder how keen brands are to jump on board given the lost in interest in Draw Something after the acquisition.
QR code created by the mid-day shadow of the sun
Korean shopping mall Emart created an innovative QR code campaign to drive sales during lunch hours by creating a large display that formed a QR code from the shadow of the mid-day sun, and could therefore only be used from 12pm to 1pm during the day. When users scan in the ‘Sunny Sale’ QR code, they gained access to special offers, including a $12 coupon. The purchased items through the Emart application were subsequently delivered to users’ homes. Through this location-based mobile campaign, 12,000 coupons were sold, the Emart’s membership base increased by 58% from the previous month in February, and Emart saw a 25% increase in sales of the Emart mall during lunch hours.