The Web Summit was held in Dublin at the end of October, the guest speakers were top quality, with representatives from Facebook and Twitter to name a few.

“Web Search Has Left the Building” was an interesting talk with Mark Milian & Stefan Weitz and was able to get a few interesting takeaways:

• Keywords to link basis is becoming old.
• From their tests, Bing found they were better than Google when it came to finding the best results, so they put it to the test with Bing it On.
• They also found that Google was also used as a brand. Tests showed removing brand, or placing the Google brand on Bing results gave better results.
• Contextual experiences are the future of search (see Rob Scoble and Shel Israel above).

Nichola Mendelson: VP EMEA at Facebook

• There are now more smartphones than toothbrushes.
• Zuckerberg focussed on mobile very quickly. Facebook went from 0-40% revenue in 18 months via mobile.
• Mobile is now the dominant platform, and will continue to be so for a long time. Mobile is the first time since the 1960’s when a new technology takes over since tv overtook radio.
• Every day audience size of Europe logs in 4-5 times per day on a mobile device.
• 1 in 4 minutess of general time on mobile is using either Facebook or Instagram.

Stephen McIntyreL MD, Twitter Ireland

• 2.3m tweets per day, 75% are from mobile.
• Creating a truly historic tweet, you have to be ready for an emotional moment. Examples include Obama, or Adidas’ own tweet after Murray’s Wimbledon win.
• Old marketing tactics still apply on mobile.
• Storytelling has gone from a close campfire to hashtags, but essentially we’re still storytelling
• Major events are great for marketing, such as this genius tweet from Visit England after acertain football match.
• TV conversations can now be analysed. Stephen shows a visual view of layers between a user, a TV programme, their engagement on Twitter whilst watching that programme, and how this data can be used for brands to identify their audience.

As well as the conference talks, there was startups waiting to tell you more about what they do. Here are some of the best…

• OnScroll. This tool is extremely clever. OnScroll is a new ad technology startup  that enables publishers, networks and agencies to serve viewable-only inventory. They are already working with some of the UK’s biggest publishers including AutoTrader, The Independent and the Evening Standard, enabling them to create the world’s first viewable only ad exchange. Not only are they a cool company, but they made me confident about their choice of steak restaurant.
• TripGems. As someone who travels frequently, and someone who also likes to experience things outside of the normal tourist handbook, this site is extremely useful for me to share about hidden gems within any location. I find that I have a few Word documents that I share to people if they ask me about a place I’ve been before – this makes it more public and interactive.
• WeSwap. A great little product for people who have trouble swapping currency. You open an account and you can then swap currency directly with another user who is trying to source it. No banks, no hidden charges. Just social currency.
• SnappCar. The best way to summarise this would be to dub SnappCar as the Airbnb for cars. You can hire cars from friends and family, as well as hire out your own car to others. On the back of their business card it says “250 million cars are not used for 23 hours of the day”. This statistic is very interesting, considering that I don’t use my car all the time. A great solution to earn some cash from the car you already own, and is fully insured by Achmea (in The Netherlands).
• BragBet. An app for sports fans. You join with your mates as a team, the team adds money into a colective pot, and each week a chosen captain each decides on what to bet on. A great way to add a social layer to the betting process.

Related articles

• Key takeaways from the Web Summit 2013 (econsultancy.com)