(SKIP TO SLIDE 113 IF YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT TWITTER IS.) A presentation I gave at the Nurun Montreal head office in February 2009. The subject covers an idea I had about leveraging the viral potential of Twitter to benefit both its users and third parties looking for some marketing love.

1. “Twitterface” A viral marketing concept Ara Pehlivanian | ara.pehlivanian@nurun.com | twitter.com/ara_p | February 2009 |

2. What is Twitter?

3. A lot of people aretalking about Twitter

4. “Twitter Won’t Charge For Corporate Accounts” – PC World

5. “Top Twitter Celebrities” – CBC.ca

6. “Congressman's twittering raises security concerns ” – AP

7. “Vancouver Participates in the World's Largest Charity Fundraiser ...” – MSNBC

8. “Twitter? It’s What You Make It” – New York Times

9. “Twitter's popularity trebles in wake of celebrity endorsements” – Telegraph.co.uk

10. “Congress's New Love Affair with Twitter, for Better or Worse” – TIME

11. “Who will be masters of the ever-expanding ‘Twitterverse’?” – CNN

12. A lot of people are talking on Twitter

13. Over 1 million users -- TechCrunch, April 29, 2008 1

14. 3 million messages per day -- TechCrunch, April 29, 2008 1

15. 4 million connections between users -- TechCrunch, April 29, 2008 1

16. 200,000 active users per week -- TechCrunch, April 29, 2008 1

17. 57% of users are from California -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

18. 63% of them are male -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

19. In 2007, most were 18-24 year olds -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

20. Today 25.9%are 34 to 44 year olds -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

21. There are two particular kinds ofuser:

22. “The first group, (14.7% of Twitter visitors), comprises a ‘collection of young and ethnically diverse singles living in big-city metros like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami.’ They tend to work in the arts and entertainment industry, drive small cars and espouse very liberal political views.” -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

23. “The second largest type of Twitterer (12.3% of the site’s visitors) are the 40-somethings. They’re likely to drive a hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius, earn household incomes over $250,000 per year and also identify with very liberal politics.” -- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

24. “Both groups appear to be all-around Web 2.0 fans, favoring sites like Digg, Yelp and Google Docs.”-- Time.com, August 20, 2008 2

25. “OK, but it’s still no MySpace or Facebook!”

26. Worldwide interest on the rise Worldwide searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google since 2007 3

27. Worldwide interest on the rise Worldwide searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 4

28. Canadian interest on the rise Canadian searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 5

29. French interest exploding! French searches for the keyword “twitter” on Google for the last 12 months 6

30. Pew interviewed 2,253 adults between November and December of 2008 and found that 11 percent of adults in the US who use the Internet claim to have used Twitter or a similar microblogging service.– ArsTechnica, February 12, 2009 7

31. The trend seems to be picking up at a quicker pace, too; the firm notes that, just a few weeks earlier, only nine percent of Internet users said they did so, and in May, only six percent.– ArsTechnica, February 12, 2009 7

32. “OK, but aren’t these just geeks?”

33. “Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media. Geeks pass the puck from Twitter to blogs back to Twitter. Eventually it hits Techmeme, Saul Hansell at the Times takes notice and then the whole world knows.” – Steve Reubel, April 29, 20088

34. You might recognize some of these influential geeks Twitter users:

35. Fred Durst

36. Demi Moore

37. Maria Shriver

38. William Shatner

39. Tina Fey

40. Luke Wilson

41. Wil Wheaton

42. Penn Jillette

43. LeVar Burton

44. John Hodgman

45. John Cleese

46. Jean-François Lavigne

47. JJ Abrams

48. Jimmy Kimmel

49. MC Hammer

50. Felicia Day

51. Brent Spiner

52. Barack Obama

53. Eli Manning

54. Michael Phelps

55. Dave Matthews

56. Al Gore

57. Rachel Bilson

58. Vanessa Hudgens

59. Mischa Barton

60. Shaquille O'Neal

61. Jimmy Fallon

62. Lance Armstrong

63. Stephen Colbert

64. Snoop Dogg

65. Rainn Wilson

66. Ashton Kutcher

67. John Mayer

68. Britney Spears

69. Granted, that’s Hollywood, but trendsetters from other social networks are also on Twitter

70. Stephen Fry 165,025 followers9

71. Kevin Rose 105,494 followers9

72. Leo Laporte 85,484 followers9

73. Jonathan Ross 81,409 followers9

74. Veronica Belmont 65,343 followers9

75. Michael Arrington 64,283 followers9

76. Guy Kawasaki 61,831 followers9

77. “…open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties.”-- Wikipedia10

78. Twitter is a classic example of this kind of open network “with many weak ties and social connections”

79. So what is Twitter?

81. SMS

82. Web Browsers

83. Mobile Web Browsers

84. Chat Clients

85. Desktop Clients

86. Mobile Clients

87. Your Toaster

101. Here is a real-world example:

102. snookca makes an announcement

103. snookca makes an announcement

104. cdharrison replies to snookca

105. I can see this because I follow both snookca and cdharrison

106. …and I’ve just found out about a new Twitter app

107. Broadcasting messages and responses creates a huge opportunity for viral marketing

108. So, how do we leverage allthis viralgoodness?

109. Well, if broadcasting on Twitter is the viral opportunity…

110. …and our goal is to promote an offering virally…

111. …then why not marry the two in a way that’s mutually beneficial for both the Twitterer and the offerer?

112. Instant buy-in!

113. We could turn their favourite social networking application…

114. Twitter

115. …into an interface to their favourite online service providers!

116. Online Service Provider Twitter

117. This way, every time they interact with a service provider, they’re promoting for us on a potentially viral scale!

118. Here are a few possible applications:

125. Everyone wins with this system

126. It’s useful for the user(one interface to bind them!)

127. It’s useful for their followers(free info/insight about friends, news, etc…)

128. It’s useful for the provider(free publicity, lower barrier to entry)

129. How to make it work?

130. Accessing your 20 most recent replies with the Twitter API is as easy as making a REST call to: http://twitter.com/statuses/replies.[xml|json|rss|atom]

131. Therefore, all an online service provider needs to do is poll Twitter for replies to its own account and simply parse the results!

132. Last 20 replies please for @dvr please Online DVR Service Twitter

133. jdoe @dvr record “Friends” 8pm tonight jsmith @dvr record “Star Trek” 9:30, Feb 22, 2009 louie @dvr make cash fast! http://makecashfast.com jim @dvr record “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday … Online DVR Service Twitter

134. jdoe @dvr record “Friends” 8pm tonight Account: jdoe = 489364 Instruction: record Show: “Friends” = 9948713 Time: 2009-02-11T20:00:00 jsmith @dvr record “Star Trek” 9:30, Feb 22, 2009 Account: jsmith = 385321 Instruction: record Show: “Star Trek” = 1247924 Time: 2009-02-22T21:30:00 louie @dvr make cash fast! http://makecashfast.com IGNORED jim @dvr record “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday Account: jim = 1894983 Instruction: record Show: “Star Academie” = 7897824 Time: 2009-02-17T21:00:00 … Parsing… Online DVR Service

135. Account: jdoe = 489364 Instruction: record Show: “Friends” = 9948713 Time: 2009-02-11T20:00:00 Account: jsmith = 385321 Instruction: record Show: “Star Trek” = 1247924 Time: 2009-02-22T21:30:00 Account: jim = 1894983 Instruction: record Show: “Star Academie” = 7897824 Time: 2009-02-17T21:00:00 … Parsing… Online DVR Service Database

136. Notifying… dvr @jdoe recording “Friends” 8pm tonight, CONFIRMED! Online DVR Service

137. Notifying… Dear John Smith, This email is to confirm that DVR Service will record “Star Trek” for you on the 22nd of Frebruary, 2009 at 9:30 PM. Sincerely, Your Online DVR Service Online DVR Service

138. Notifying… dvr recording “Star Academie” 9pm Tuesday, CONFIRMED! Online DVR Service

139. More possibilities

140. Retweeting

141. ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

142. ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight Oh cool! The Oscars!

143. ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

144. ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight Oh cool! The Oscars!

145. ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight jflavigneRT codepo8 RT ara_p @dvr record “Oscars” 8pm tonight

146. Retweeting is the big thing on Twitter right now

147. Retweet Radar tracks and ranks retweets12

149. “Tweet this”

150. Make your content easy to post to Twitter

151. Tweet this! ara_p My IQ is 150, what’s yours? (via http://www.iqtest.com) IQ Test Website Test Result

152. Tweet this! ara_p My pong score is 18,096, think you can beat it? (via http://www.pong-game.com) Gaming Website High Score

153. Tweet this! ara_p Just got a coupon for free shampoo at http://www.sham.com Promotion Website

154. A sample of what people are doing with Twitter today:

155. Piping Feeds (RSS) into Twitter

156. Remember The Milk, an online to-do list allows you to add items via Twitter direct message13

157. Twestival.fm, raises money for charity by letting you download free music and encouraging donations14

158. “Hardware hackers have set up household appliances to send status alerts over Twitter”15

159. TwitPic lets you post pictures directly to Twitter16

160. TwitBot “An easy way to create twitter bots and channels. Coming soon, and it's goingto be Open Source.” -- twitbot.com

161. Thank You! Work: ara.pehlivanian@nurun.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ara_p Personal: ara.pehlivanian@gmail.com

162. References “End Of Speculation: The Real Twitter Usage Numbers”, TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, April 29, 2008http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/end-of-speculation-the-real-twitter-usage-numbers/ “Even Gen X is a Twitter”, Time.com, Bill Tancer, August 20, 2008http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1834131,00.html?cnn=yes “twitter” on Google Trends (All regions, all years)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter “twitter” on Google Trends (All regions, last 12 months)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0 “twitter” on Google Trends (Canada, last 12 months) http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=CA&date=ytd&sort=0 “twitter” on Google Trends (France, last 12 months)http://www.google.com/trends?q=twitter&ctab=0&geo=FR&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0 “Study: Twitter users are mobile, urban, and engaged online”, ArsTechnica, Jacqui Cheng, February 12, 2009http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/study-twitter-users-are-mobile-urban-and-engaged-online.ars “Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential”, Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel, April 29, 2008http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/04/even-if-twitter.html Twitterholic.comhttp://twitterholic.com/ Wikipedia, “Social Network”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network “Top 10 Uses of Twitter”http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/05/top-10-twitter-uses/ Retweet Radarhttp://www.retweetradar.com/ “Remember the Milk with Twitter”, Lifehacker, Gina Trapani, July 10, 2007 http://lifehacker.com/software/to-do-managers/remember-the-milk-with-twitter-276583.php “Twestival.fm: Live Aid for Twitter”, ReadWriteWeb, Richard MacManus, February 10, 2009http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twestivalfm_live_aid_for_twitter.php “Twitter Fast Growing Beyond Its Messaging Roots”, Wired, Michael Calore, February 10, 2009http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/twitters-hackab.html Twitpic.comhttp://twitpic.com/ Image Credit Twitter Icons, Smashing Magazine, MirjamiManninen, January 23, 2009http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/23/friday-freebies-flavours-icon-set-and-cute-tweeters-icon-set/ Feed Icons, Smashing Magazine, MirjamiManninen, October 28, 2008http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/28/feed-me-animals-a-free-rss-feed-icon-set/ Marvin the Paranoid Android http://blog.uncovering.org/en/archives/2007/06/marvin_the_paranoid_android.html