Just like everyone working to build a business based on Twitter, we at Twitalyzer have always been somewhat circumspect about the relationship we have with “the source.” Twitter’s leadership has always been kind of vague about which direction they would take the business, especially when asked about making money. Our hesitation has ebbed and flowed over the past year — increasing when @biz said that they would be doing analytics, decreasing when we saw their “Enterprise” dashboards, increasing when they started changing their terms of service, decreasing after Chirp when we thought we understood their strategy, etc.
June 10th was another roller-coaster ride given Twitter’s acquisition of Dabble DB, makers of the Google Analytics tchotchke Trendly.
At first Jeff and I were bummed; just like all the folks developing Twitter apps for iPhone, anyone building an advertising solution, the Co-Tweets and Hootsuites of the world working to build business-management solutions on the platform, we kind of felt like we’d done a bunch of work to make Twitter more valuable only to have the rug pulled out from under us.
But we thought about it for a little bit and remembered that Twitter never made us any promises. We knew full well when we started investing time and energy into Twitalyzer that Twitter could invest in analytics like this at any time, at least when we were being honest with ourselves.
More importantly, we can’t succeed with Twitalyzer unless Twitter succeeds as a platform. While we love Twitter and all the great things the platform powers, we are also practical enough to realize that unless they figure out a way to become a real business that all our work could be for naught. And despite the amazing work their developers have done over the past year, this weeks API outage emphasizes that Twitter is still very much a work in progress. If Ev and Biz believe advertising and analytics are their path to stability and profitability, well, who are we to complain?
Finally, we love that Twitter thinks that analytics on the platform is important enough to make this acquisition! Sure, we wish they would have bought us or our friends at Klout, but we’re happy for Dabble and we are absolutely excited to know that Twitter will be doing our marketing for us, emphasizing the need for analytics against the platform and the value of measuring success in Twitter-based marketing and customer relationship management.
Given all of this, I personally wanted to reiterate our commitment to our users and customers:
- Twitalyzer will provide highest-quality measurement and reporting on Twitter for as long as we are able. Unless Twitter changes their terms of use (again) and forces us out of business, we will continue to develop against the platform and provide the same or better services we have for the past year;
- Twitalyzer’s customers will continue to be our number one commitment. When we decided to take people’s money, we knew we were “all in” on Twitalyzer and nothing about Twitter buying Dabble DB changes that. “Money changes everything” they say, but we are going to work tirelessly to make sure that money changes everything for the better;
- Our payment model will stay the same, and customers will always be able to cancel anytime for any reason. We’re optimists, but we’re also realists. If Twitter comes out with an analytics package significantly better than Twitalyzer we would expect customers to want to switch and won’t get in the way.
.
We are self-funded, profitable, and not beholden to anyone except ourselves and our customers. This great luxury allows us to continue to innovate and do what we believe is best for our customers, our business, and our friends. Not everyone has this luxury — certainly not Twitter — so we are going to make the most of our opportunity regardless of how the ecosystem around us evolves.
I welcome any questions you have about this post, our business, or the Twitalyzer service. Email me at eric at twitalyzer dot com, tweet to me at @erictpeterson, or give me a call at (503) 282-2601.
Sincerely,
Eric T. Peterson
CEO and Founder
Twitalyzer, LLC
We are extremely excited to be releasing this version of Twitalyzer which greatly enhances our services with expanded capabilities for businesses and agencies. You, our loyal users, have told us what you want and need to help gain further insights into your Twitter usage - You want more control of your data and you want to get at it more efficiently. We have made considerable strides in achieving those goals and we believe you will find this latest version of Twitalyzer even better!
In addition to continuing to offer the most robust twitter analytics service for free, Twitalyzer now provides several advanced features with three cost-effective subscription options.
Advanced Subscription Options
While Twitalyzer continues to offer the most robust Twitter Analytics solution for free, we now provide many new advanced features for businesses & agencies with three cost-effective subscription options.
- Automatic daily updates: Ensures that your account is processed twice a day.
- Multiple account tracking: Associate multiple authenticated Twitter accounts with your primary account and then move seamlessly between accounts for easy access and comparisons.
- Competitive analysis: Our Agency subscription allows you to track the complete set of Twitalyzer metrics for any account in Twitter Keep track of your clients’ accounts or competition, monitor the Twitter “elite”, or research potential customers
- Complete data export: Full access to all of the information collected & stored for an account
- Custom date ranges: Generate monthly, quarterly, annual, or campaign-specific views across all the metrics.
- Weekly Reports: For Business and Agency subscriptions, a weekly email summary of the previous two weeks activity. Week-over-week changes for key Twitalyzer data, top Network, and top Retweeters to make sure you stay up to date on all of your accounts. You can also send this report to others in your department or even a business partner.
User Interface Updates
- “Less is more” approach towards data
- Summary view popup for all users
- Switch user profile without losing context
- Added functionality to processing engine; now gathering Twitter “retweets” for inclusion in all metrics
New & Enhanced Reports
- Profile. Less is more! View your Impact Score, Influencer Type and Location as well as your current Network
- Metrics: The Metric reports shows the 20 metrics and measures in one place. Newly added metrics are Retweeted per 1k followers, Retweet Ratio, References per 1k followers, Reference Ratio and Klout Score
- Tweet Tracking: See how far any tweet reached by potential Impressions and overall Tweet Impact.
- Comparison: Visualize side-by-side comparison of Twitalyzer’s key metrics of two users.
- Personality: Leveraging our partner TweetPsych’s social and psychological data, compare your Twitter psychological profile with any Twitter user.
- Lists: Create Lists in Twitalyzer and Twitter and see how the recent scores and activity for all of the users on your various lists compare.
- Influencer Types: A categorization we derive from work done by Forrester Research. The three types we track include:
- Sources are individuals with smaller networks who are often originating ideas in Twitter
- Spiders are individuals with mid-sized networks who are socially connected
- Suns are individuals with large to very large networks of first-level connections
- Activity By Day: Formerly known as the Trends reports, this report displays average values of the metrics based on the selected timeframe. Business and Agency subscription users can also create and export data in custom date ranges.
- Last Seven Days: A great visual snapshot to how active you were in the past 7 days including updates, mentions and retweets.
Activity by Hour: Another great visual snapshot of when what hours of the day you were most active including updates, mentions and retweets.
- Activity by Hour: Another great visual snapshot of when what hours of the day you were most active including updates, mentions and retweets.
If you have any questions or comments, check out our help page for FAQs, metric definitions and contact information
MARCH 23, 2010 - PORTLAND, OREGON - Twitalyzer LLC, a product of Web Analytics Demystified, is pleased to announce a partnership with Viralheat, by bringing more insight to its leading social media measurement platform.
“We think understanding who is shaping the conversation is a key ingredient in crafting a better social media marketing campaign” says Raj Kadam, CEO of Viralheat “and Twitalyzer definitely helps our customers achieve that goal by providing rich behavioral analytics on Twitter users.”
Viralheat allows brands, PR agencies and digital agencies to measure the impact of their social media marketing campaigns on sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google Buzz, Youtube and others. Viralheat can also identify the handful of people that are the de-factor conversation shapers for your campaign. Engaging with influencers on Twitter and making meaningful connections can make or break a marketing campaign or one’s brand perception. Viralheat brings even more detail to authors on Twitter with its Twitalyzer integration. Twitalyzer is the leading provider of measurement and analysis services for Twitter. Viralheat users, with a click of the mouse, can bring up information about any Twitter author and gauge influence, impact, and engagement on Twitalyzer right from within Viralheat’s social media analytics dashboard.
Jeff Katz of Twitalyzer adds “We are excited that Viralheat has selected Twitalyzer to be part of their social measurement ecosystem. Viralheat customers will now have the ability to understand the impact and influence of any Twitter account within the Viralheat Dashboard, as well as being to able to quickly and easily access Twitalyzer for additional data with one click.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Twitalyzer is a free service available at http://twitalzyer.com. For more information about the service contact Eric T. Peterson (eric@twitalyzer.com, @erictpeterson) at 503-282-2601 or Jeff Katz (jeff@twitalyzer.com, @katzpdx) at 503-805-6901.
FEBRUARY 23, 2010 - PORTLAND, OREGON - Twitalyzer LLC, a product of Web Analytics Demystified, are pleased to announce that Twitalyzer is part of TweetMeme’s new Follow Button. ”Twitalyzer was the only solution we considered to provide Twitter user behavioural data,” says Nick Halstead, CEO of TweetMeme (@NickHalstead). ”While primarily a business application, Twitalyzer gives a unique and fascinating view into how millions of people use Twitter, which makes them a perfect integration partner for our Twitter Follow Button.”
Twitalyzer is the leading provider of measurement and analysis services for Twitter with nearly 10,000 active users. Freely available to all, Twitalyzer contains over a dozen useful and actionable reports for businesses, social media experts, and individuals working to improve their impact and influence in this revolutionary new medium. Presented in an easy-to-use format, Twitalyzer measures 30 different data, analyzes sentiment, tracks against goals, and provides specific recommendations for how to become a Twitter power-user.
“We are excited to be included in TweetMeme’s new Follow Button solution,” says Eric T. Peterson, founder of Twitalyzer. “Given that their Retweet Button is on over 100,000 sites including Time, Wired, Washington Post, TechCrunch, and Mashable, and that they’re serving nearly 300 million buttons a day, we believe this is the largest effort to bring rich analytics to a widespread audience in the history of social media.”
Following the launch of version 2.0 on January 1, 2010, Twitalyzer has been experiencing explosive growth. Active users include some of the best known names in retail, technology, sports and entertainment, government and politics, nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations, and many of the best known social media experts working today.
“Many Portlanders know that I’m a big supporter of using Twitter to increase dialogue between City Hall and Portlanders every day,” said Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams (@MayorSamAdams). “The entrepreneurs behind Twitalyzer are defining the business opportunity of this great social medium, and helping users in the public and private sector do a better job of communicating with our customers and constituents. I’m incredibly proud that Portland is home to this great new venture.”
Additionally, agencies around the globe are using Twitalyzer to better inform their PR and advertising client about their successes in Twitter. Twitalyzer is currently being used as part of Edelman’s Tweetlevel application and is an integrated part of dozens of other regular social media analyses provided by forward thinking PR and interactive agencies.
“I have found Twitalyzer, especially this new version to be an invaluable resource for anyone working in social media” Said Warren Sukernek, VP of Strategy at Lift9 (@WarrenSS). “It is an extremely robust analytics platform that cannot only help you to identify influencers, but also review their associated networks and connections. Twitalyzer provides the depth and flexibility in Twitter analytics that you wish came with your social media monitoring tool. In fact, I think it may be the best application for listening to Twitter.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Twitalyzer is a free service available at http://twitalzyer.com. For more information about the service contact Eric T. Peterson (eric@twitalyzer.com, @erictpeterson) at 503-282-2601 or Jeff Katz (jeff@twitalyzer.com, @katzpdx) at 503-805-6901.
You can learn more about TweetMeme’s Follow Button at http://tweetmeme.com/about/follow_button and learn how to install the application on your own blog or web site at http://help.tweetmeme.com/2010/02/23/follow-button-wordpress-plugin/
We wanted to take a second to note that Ed (@znmeb) and Dan (@sunsblogger) won our first Twitalyzer Community contest to tag social media experts, celebrities, and politicians. Congratulations to both guys who will shortly see their faces in rotation on the “Featured Users” widgets throughout the web site.
While Ed, Dan, Carri, and a host of other folks tagged like crazy we didn’t get the critical mass we’d hoped, especially among politicians and celebrities. Perhaps a better strategy is to ask you … what could we offer you to get you to tag folks in Twitalyzer? Make tagging easier? More intuitive? Better prizes? Cash money? What do you think?
If you have ideas and suggestions please Tweet us directly and let us know. Thanks!
As we kick off the Twitalyzer Community idea we wanted to see if we could get your collective help with something!
We’d really like to start getting more people tagged in Twitalyzer. Tagging makes the application amazingly more powerful and useful, but we have not done a good job clarifying the how’s and why’s of tagging. While we work that out, we want to have a contest!
The contest is to see who can add the tags “Social_Media_Expert”, “Politician”, and “Celebrity” to the greatest number of Twitter users in our system. All you need to do to add the tags is Twitalyze someone you know to be in one of those three categories, click any of the “Tag” buttons on their profile, and add the text. For example:
The only real requirement is that, you know, the person you’re tagging is a social media expert, politician, or celebrity. We’ll let you be the judge, but we will also spot check your work and disallow/remove inappropriate entries so don’t be that guy, okay? To keep track of who is doing the most tagging we’ve created this uber-cool Top 25 Twitalyzer Tracker list that you can segment by geographic location or tag applied. Check out the early results for all three categories:
- Twitalyzer Tag “Social_Media_Expert”
- Twitalyzer Tag “Politician”
- Twitalyzer Tag “Celebrity“
The prize for the “top tagger” in each category on February 1, 2010 will be a free month in the “Featured User” slot all throughout Twitalyzer (a $100 USD value!!!) That and the warm feeling you’ll get when you go to bed knowing you did something really awesome for the Twitalyzer Community. Go forth and tag, Twitalyzers!
One thing that Jeff and I have discovered since releasing Twitalyzer 2.0 is that some of our users are really, really passionate about, well, Twitalyzing people. We think this is totally, totally awesome, and we have been brainstorming on ways to both recognize the fantastic work many of you are doing on our behalf and, if people are willing, apply crowd-sourcing techniques to help improve Twitalyzer.
The best idea we’ve had so far is to launch this section of the site, The Twitalyzer Community pages!
Through the Twitalyzer Community pages we will do our very best to communicate our needs to you and, more importantly, give all of you a voice to ask for the features you’d like to see us develop in subsequent iterations of the application. While you all know we watch Twitter Search religiously for mentions of Twitalyzer and are always happy to get feedback via email (feedback@twitalyzer.com or write to eric@twitalyzer.com or jeff@twitalyzer.com), we wanted to set up another way for folks to offer feedback publicly. Something really, really easy.
How about just tagging your feedback with the hashtag #twitalyzer?
Doing this will let us keep an eye on your feedback using Twitalyzer Search which we think is a pretty freaking useful thing to do. Not that we’ll respond differently if you have low impact or influence … not us, we love you guys! If you have an idea, suggestion, criticism, complaint, or just want to let us know you love us too, tag your Tweet with “#twitalyzer” and we’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP!
You can even keep in touch with each other that way if you like. Who knows how it will evolve?
By very, very popular demand we just rolled out a private tagging option in Twitalyzer Tags (which you need to Sign in with Twitter to use, of course!) Now, when you go to tag a person, you’ll see a checkbox that says “Private.” When you check that box, the tag will be added to the person, and nobody but you will know!
Sneaky, huh? We don’t even send an auto-Tweet about the tagging when you’re using private tags (since that would kind of defeat the purpose, right?)
Like we said, we applied this “marketer” tag to our pal @kaykas and when you go to his profile that tag will simply not appear, at least not as associated with us! But, when you go to your Twitalyzer Dashboard > Tagged report you will see this “marketer” tag followed by an asterisk (”*”) telling you the tag is “private” and you’ll be able to track all the folks you’ve labeled as such!
Brilliant, huh? Even better is that you can use the Twitalyzer Dashboard > Segments tool to apply “private” tags en masse now simply by clicking that same “Private” checkbox:
And there you have it! We welcome your feedback on this feature and please let us know if you find any bugs or glitches.
It’s now been two weeks since we publicly launched Twitalyzer 2.0. We are humbled by the amazing number of people, brands and organizations using Twitalyzer to help them understand their impact on Twitter and to improve their short-messaging strategies.
We have been featured on a couple of our favorite blogs:
- Silicon Florist: Twitalyzer 2.0 takes analyzing Twitter - and over analyzing yourself - to a whole new level
- The Next Web: Twitalyzer Releases Version 2 Of Their Popular Twitter Statistics Application - You Will Use This
- We even got featured on our local NBC affiliate’s Web Watch segment (thank you @StephStricklen and @TheSquare)
While we are certainly happy with this recognition, we are more proud of what you had to say about Twitalyzer 2.0. Here are a few tweets that we really liked!
- “We DO love Twitalyzer! You have done a great job! It’s a really useful tool for us!” @WebEx
- “The new Twitalyzer sets a new standard. I love it!!” @Twitter_Tips
- “Using Twitalyzer in many ways. Benchmarking, finding influencers, GA integration, setting goals, & ongoing analysis. Love it!” @Hallie_Janssen
Twitalyzer continues to be adopted by businesses and organizations of all sizes, as well as applied to various studies. Mark Senak (@eyeonFDA) of PR and Communication firm Fleishman-Hillard published a case study power and use of Twitter by the US Congress using data from Twitalyzer. The white paper is entitled “Twongress - The Power of Twitter in Congress” and can be found here: http://bit.ly/54goBP
We are looking forward to pushing exciting new features and as always, keep the feedback coming
It has been a few months of hard work but we’re very, very happy to announce that everyone now has access to Twitalyzer 2.0! I’m sure Jeff will have a lot more people to thank but I wanted to start spreading the word that the application is now open to all and the 2.0 BETA is officially closed.
If you’re just seeing the new version for the first time we strongly recommend that you take the time to download and read the Twitalyzer Handbook which should get you up to speed on nearly everything you need to know. Beyond the handbook you can get more information about the new release a few different ways:
- Check out our “Help” file online. Yeah, we went ahead and did it and actually provided, you know, helpful links. The help file has contact information, definitions, information about changes to the application, and a bunch of other helpful links.
- Check out our “Definitions” file online. Okay, we’re cheating here, since the definitions are really just part of the help file. Still, one thing that people get all concerned about is how we’re defining metrics and measures so in an effort to be really, really transparent we have included all of our definitions and calculations for your reading pleasure!
- Ask some of the awesome folks already using Twitalyzer! Perhaps you noticed that on the home page you can now see the people who are using this application. If you click the “More” button at the bottom you can see the last 100 people who have been using the application. If you know any of them, go ahead and ask them for help!
- Ask us for help, we’re helpful! Of course if you get really stuck you can reach out to us at @Twitalyzer and we will do our very, very best to help you along. We want you to succeed, truly we do!
- Did we mention we wrote a 50 page user’s guide to the application? Yeah, we did, so please take the time to check out the Twitalyzer Handbook which does seem to be answering a lot of people’s questions.
Okay, we’re gonna celebrate the release now … not quite like Jeff’s wife Amy wants us to with fancy clothes and expensive parties, but we’ll work on that.
Enjoy Twitalyzing!
|
