IMAG-MPA Conference Discusses Growing Industry Trends as Well as Traditional Circ-Building and Revenue-Producing Best Practices
I spent the first part of this week in DC at the IMAG-MPA conference, where the focus was on digital, social and a little bit of mobile, along with some tried and true traditional media strategies.
I learned that Facebook has passed Google to become the top source for sending traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN and that there are over 5 billion pieces of content shared every week on Facebook. As a higher percentage of shoppers become dependent on their friends’ advice for purchase decisions, it is imperative that publishers establish their brands and a strong presence within existing, powerful social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
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The Keynote lunch on Monday was provided by the founder of ChaCha, a mobile text search service that was claiming it “answers better questions than Google.” Scott Jones, Chairman and co-founder of ChaCha compared it to “phoning or texting your smart friend” when you need an answer to something.
Go ahead, try it. ChaCha is free. It answers over a million questions a day, surpassing Google in mobile search. Text any question to 242-242 and moments later you will receive a response. The answer will come from one of three sources:
– the first method will look through a database to see if the question has been asked and answered before
– the second method searches to see if there is an appropriate feed that can answer the question (weather, sports)
– the third is an actual guide, a live human being, that goes through “search university” and then ChaCha monitors the quality of the answers. Guides get paid .10 cents for each answer they provide.
Jones said that the future of search is mobile. ChaCha reaches over 15 million unique users a month, mostly in the 13-24 year old range, via their SMS text service, their online service, voice service, Facebook app, Twitter, iPhone app and Driod app.
Here are several more posts from the IMAG ’10 conference:
IMAG ‘10 Coverage: Audience Development Best Practices
IMAG ’10 Coverage: PixelMags Shows the Importance and Potential Behind Apps
IMAG ’10 Coverage: A Solid Product Idea and Several Tips from Ogden Publications
