evans ink

I’m not sure if John Battelle started the momentum with his “Twitter=YouTube” prognostication, but that catchphrase now sits alongside dozens of high profile blog posts hailing the arrival of the new 2.0 messiah, suggesting even a fundamental threat to Google.  So, is this just more valley wagging or something more?

twitter: much (much) more than “what am I doing now”

image credit

It’s too easy to be dismissive of Twitter as simply an extraction of the “status update” that became the backbone of social interaction at Facebook. While the concept originated with this, it has rapidly evolved into THE place where an increasing flock of consumers AND publishers post real-time information (over 6 million users, currently).  More importantly, it’s the place where consumers congregate to consume and converse around this eclectic treasure trove of real-time information. It’s a noisy, disorganized commons, yet it feels very much the place to be.

Continue reading

Anecdotally, it’s becoming apparent that restaurants are struggling as consumers pull in their spending reins. It seemed to start with the gas price crisis, and certainly is continuing through the economic downturn.  People are simply not going out as much as a higher share of earnings are applied towards savings, and as job security fears weigh heavily on consumer’s minds.

I discovered a year end research report synopsis on consumer restaurant spending by a small blog post on the finance blog, Infectious Greed, which linked to the NPD Group’s 2008 research results summary.  The details are insightful, and point to the critical importance of incentive offers to entice consumers into restaurants in 2009.

Continue reading