Short link blogging coming your way this week: our top stories include 10 Downing Street in the UK trying to enforce Twitter rules – tweet must be preapproved before being sent. Best Metrics – how to get social media analytics that your boss understands, Real Madrid loses against Barcelona again, GM’s innovative way of rebuilding trust in its brand – will it work? And finally, yet another Windows 7 vulnerability to worry about.

In case you missed the last six weeks’ best links:

Very useful links: Friendfeed to Berlusconi for week 32.
Very useful links: Trabant to Obama via Copenhagen for week 33.
Very useful links: UBS to Levi’s via CBS for week 34.
Very useful links: Microsoft vs. Facebook vs. SAP for week 35.
Very useful links: Data-theft to tweet-deaths via free tools for week 36.
Very useful links: NFL bans Twitter, now with adverts for week 37.

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Social Media TOOLS and GUIDES that make a DIFFERENCE
VERY USEFUL => Test usability interface (UI) uploading image and getting it tested by online users #trends2watch

VERY USEFUL #tips2follow – 10 Ways to Use Twitter on your university campus – very practical AND hands-on #things2read

VERY USEFUL #tips2follow – 101 ways to use Twitter on college campuses from the onlinecolleges.net folks #tools2watch

Social Media MARKETING BUZZ – building Brand
- Real Madrid vs. Manchester United | Cristiano Ronaldo’s £80 million transfer was concluded on June 30… what financial crisis? There’s none when you look at these clubs’ revenue & record transfer payments (see chart at right).

Real Madrid’s shirt sponsorship deal covers about a fifth of Rolando’s transfer fee. But FC Barcelona steal’s the show again by paying Unicef for having the latter’s logo on Lionel Messi & Co’s shirt – supporting a good cause instead of raking in the money means building one’s own brand = Barcelona’s choice.

VERY USEFUL => Popular on ComMetrics.com via Twitter => re-tweets happen more often, nice #metrics2watch #trends2watch

Social Media FIRST to Move – TRENDWATCH
#trends2watch With the increasing popularity of virtual worlds (150 by the end of 2009, 300 estimated by the end of 2010) while advertising revenues are growing (see chart top left)… every TV show in the US is beginning to create its own virtual world. Why not get a life instead and spend some time in the real world = building social skills as a teen might be a more productive way of spending time.

#SMfailure USA => after last week’s attempt by the NFL to ban tweeting before, during and after games – honest => Orwell’s Big Brother returns or just plain stupid? => NOW #SMfailure UK => in the government – 10 Downing Street’s new Twitter rule requires that every tweet must be approved before release – seriously impractical.

#trends2watch => Search engine in the making – find any movie clip – will Hollywood go for it?

#first2move http://bit.ly/1jnRhT General Motors offers 60-day return policy. Those few that will be returned = very low value #risk2watch

InfoSec
#threats2watch Microsoft hit by malware attack similar to the recent one against the New York Times. MS files lawsuit and goes hunting for the culprits – will they catch them? …Stay tuned! #things2patch

Actionable Metrics: Standards, Testing and Trends
VERY USEFUL KPI experts’ top 5 secrets – things to watch out for and no it is not ROI but …  #tips2follow – hands-on!

That’s the way we saw things this week; now it’s your turn. Did we miss anything important? Please add it below as a comment, along with a link. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Free has become a very attractive proposition for users. Nevertheless, ceteris paribus (all things being equal) using a freemium model must enable the company’s revenue-generation. Below we outline the five critical pillars on which a freemium model must rest to maintain a viable business.

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1) Value proposition
The user must believe that the time spent using the product – think games – or working with a tool or software, adds value. The latter can be measured as just having fun or being able to spend less time getting one’s accounting done by using the right software.

Unless the value exceeds that gained with a competing product (e.g., smartphones such as the Nokia N97, which sold half a million units in a month after its June launch vs. the Apple iPhone 3GS, which sold more than one million units in three days after its June 19 launch), the user will either not sign up or simply switch to another service as soon as possible.

2) Diffusion: The more, the merrier
Early on, mobile phones were not attractive for very many because neither one’s business associates nor friends used one. As economics has taught us, only once an application con only spread effectively to others once it becomes prevalent in a niche market (e.g., business associates, movie buffs or friends).

A perfect example is Skype’s runaway success with Danish students in early 2004 because it helped them save on phone charges. As a student, one had to ‘be on Skype’.

3) No fixed costs but pay to play
In Europe, one reason for prepaid SIM cards’ success is that users do not pay a monthly subscription fee and charges accrue only according to use (i.e. outgoing calls). Still, a monthly subscription service is required to get some services such as unlimited monthly calls and Internet service.

The mobile phone business has demonstrated that this model of pay to play/talk can work very successfully for service providers.

4) No such thing as a free lunch
Beta users of Skype and Facebook felt that both provided value and a rapidly-expanding user base led to diffusion beyond critical mass, thereby making success possible. Facebook and Skype remain super hard to compete with because they are also free.

Nonetheless, in all these cases free is either a gimmick (e.g., Starbucks’ or the Second Cup’s free WiFi service) or part of the basic service that helps the provider to generate revenue by selling advanced features and/or serving online ads (e.g., Skype sells add-on services such as phone numbers).

5) Investing in one’s brand: Risk management
In European football (or soccer), clubs pay ever higher transfer fees for better players. This helps to win more games, while building a global brand. All clubs shown to the right use the freemium model here and there, such as free soccer camps or free attendance to exhibition games for school kids.

Here, freemium builds the emotional link between youngsters and clubs, thereby making parents more willing to:

- fork out a substantial amount of money for each game they want to see with their kids, and to
- purchase club merchandise, such as t-shirts, at astronomical prices.

Nevertheless, none of the clubs listed above has managed to be in the black without help from their owners, such as Silvio Berlusconi picking up the tab for AC Milan… again!

Bottom line: Make money or die
While freemium exists in infinite variations, unless one feels one needs a product (e.g., worth dying for if it is a fashion accessory), people will:

a) neither try it (e.g., Google Chrome), nor
b) be willing to fork out cash for the privilege of using advanced services (e.g., using Skype to make cheaper international calls from your mobile).

Letting a user try your service for free is different than letting them use it for free.

The freemium model only works if it supports the company’s efforts to make the revenue required to assure a positive cash flow, one way or another. When Qualcomm no longer got the revenue stream it needed from Eudora Pro, it gave the rights, including those for Eudora Light, to the Mozilla Foundation - Penelope.

In order to pay the bills and finance growth we have decided to use the freemium model (free to use – pay to play with advanced features) for My.ComMetrics.com. Right now, Twitter can still do without charging, but how much longer before investors pull the plug?

Check out:
- FREEMIUM: Give basic service away for free, acquire a lot of customers , then charge for premium service.
- a venture capital firm (VC) might ask, “… would I want this if it were free?“
- besides Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, there are a plethora of social networking sites that are failing.

Okay, now it’s your turn. Would you have answered any of these questions differently? Did I miss something in one of the answers? Agree, disagree, shout with joy, cry with pleasure… please share your thoughts.

This week’s best links pertaining to trends, research, cybercrime, privacy and sales refer to firms like Flickr, Google, T-Mobile, Twitter, Wal-Mart and, of course, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – once known as the Terminator, now also known as the Governator – who once again comes to the rescue of our school children.

Last week’s links you can find here: Very useful links: Insight versus hindsight

Social Media TOOLS and GUIDES
-   VERY Useful #trends2watch | joined LinkedIn, Xing or Plaxo BUT who wants to join your group? unless it is relevant – nobody – be careful or face the music

Social Media MARKETING BUZZ
-   Trend =>  Swedish EU Presidency begins July 1| first Council Presidency that will use Twitter @se2009eu more tweets #SE2009eu

-  Trends2Watch |Sponsored conversations starts with something like Gawker io9 => HBO True Blood Series but where does it end – ethics, fairness, trust and liability issues

Trendwatch – WHITE PAPERS
-  things2read Twitter study = 10% do 90% of tweeting= 1-way service > than 2-way, peer-to-peer com netw (research report -  blog post a bit weak on methodology details, such as, just because avatar = woman does not mean owner of Twitter account is woman, does it?)

-  PRIVACY Quo Vadis => biggest tracker on 3rd-party sites | Google Analytics (DoubleClick cookies) => 81 (70) top 100 sites use this technology => Google had a presence on 92 of the top 100 sites when combining Google Analytics and DoubleClick cookies via @dkissoondoyal

-  EXPLORATORY survey RESEARCH | Facebook is huge distraction for students |  FB users spend 5 hrs a week studying, while non-users studied 11 to 15 hours per week. #Metrics2Watch

Economic CRISIS AND POLICY
-   Wal-Mart | still expanding – largest private US employer, 2.1mio staff globally  => share price 13x earnings ‘only’ view trend chart (Financial Times 2009-06-06/7, p. 22)

-   Oil price - advanced to 7-month high $65 expected to go over $85 latter 2009 – view chart (Financial Times 2009-06-06/07, p. 22)

-  Trends2Watch |May US unempl = up to 9.4% 345000 |cut in half comp to April – END of crisis? NOT view unemployment trend from 1940 until April 2009  = things look bad

-  First2Move | Schwarzenegger seeking up to $350m savings for Calif. -  doomsday for textbooks – replaced by digital math & science versions by Fall 09 – will all kids have the equipment needed for full and equal access?

-  Real Madrid vs Manchester United - Irrationality | amount of money spent on transfers in football bears little relation to club’s  success on the pitch – Cristiano Ronaldo transfer for 80mio £ will be concluded by June 30 – financial crisis ? not when you look at these clubs’ revenue & record transfer payments made CHART

InfoSec
-  T-Mobile confirms that databases scripts + programs, cust info, posted on Internet are genuine, Refutes claim that its systems were hacked

My.ComMetrics.com
- Have you gotten your real-time alerts in the mail already? –  sign-in or register for free USE plus view June membership newsletter

Okay, now it’s your turn. What important links to insights discussed this week in a blog post did we miss here? Please add it below. Thanks much.