November 16, 2009

Fliqz Launches Online Video SEO Tool

Video solution provider Fliqz has announced the launch of a new online video search engine optimization (SEO) tool. The tool is dubbed SearchSuccess and Fliqz says that companies who tested the product are experiencing early success.

A whopping two-thirds of the videos submitted by these early customers have reached first page Google rankings. 25% have seen the number one position.

"SearchSuccess addresses many of the common flaws in existing Video SEO strategies," said Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz. "Many publishers are mistakenly under the impression that submitting videos to YouTube will drive traffic back to their site, or are working with video platform providers whose search engine submission techniques are either ineffective or drive traffic to the platform provider rather than the publisher. SearchSuccess is the first product to ensure search ranking while guaranteeing traffic is directed to the publisher's site."

One customer experiencing the early success is Design World Online, who has produced videos for topics such as 3D CAD models and OEM machine building. They've submitted 1,000 videos and 700 of them are already ranked on the first page of results.

"One of the most critical parts of our business, aside from generating quality content for our users, is helping engineers find and engage in our community and resources," said Marshall Matheson, vice president of New Media for Design World Online. "Using Fliqz to optimize our videos has directly impacted our bottom line as not only has it resulted in a significant uptick in traffic but increased visitor engagement and conversion rates."

SearchSuccess is available as an add-on to Fliqz's Gold Edition video solution.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 9, 2009

American Daily Newspapers Employ 25% Fewer People Than in 2001

I apparently caused a stir yesterday at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Actually, it was a disturbing fact -- or an inconvenient truth -- that I cited which caused the stir. So, don't shoot the messanger.

During the Q&A part of the conference workshop, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations," Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communication, asked a rhetorical question of the audience. I've known Himler for about 15 years, so I raised my hand when nobody seemed eager to speculate on when traditional media relations should be declared dead.

I'm presenting a PRSA teleseminar on Nov. 17, and I had been working on my presentation before heading to San Diego. So, I happened to have a data point at my finger tips that related to the question.

According to The State of News Media for 2009, which is published by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 5,900 full-time newsroom jobs, 11% of the total at America's newspapers, were cut in 2008. By the end of 2009, newsrooms of American daily newspapers may employ 25% fewer people than they did in 2001.

Ad Age estimates that just under 150,000 people worked in magazines in 2008, down from about 170,000 in 2000. And in local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates.

So, that's why PR people need to embrace social media as quickly as they can. If they don't include blog outreach, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, and Twitter marketing within the definition of public relations, then PR will employ 25% fewer people than it did in 2001.

Okay, so maybe that was a little like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But facts are facts, and I was just telling the truth.

But some of the people in the room reacted like they were going through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are: 1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!) 2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?) 3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...) 4. Depression (I don't care anymore.) 5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)

To help the PR specialists in your company through the grieving process, you should have the SEO specialists take them to lunch. Eat some comfort food. And let them know that they will play a really important role in social media -- as soon as they get their arms around social media measurement.

Okay, that last part may be "tough love." They may not be ready to embrace social media measurement -- yet.

But, sooner or later, they have to move on. Sooner or later, they need to heed the advice of Cher in the movie Moonstruck: "Get over it!"

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter Tries to Get Rid of Spammy Trending Tweets

If you've ever viewed the stream of Tweets in a Trending Topic on Twitter, you've no doubt seen your share of spam. Twitter is now testing improvements to trending topics in order to get rid of the spam.

Twitter says they're focusing on identifying high-quality Tweets, but didn't go into detail. They also said you probably won't notice much change right away, but assured that small steps are being taken.

It's good to see Twitter taking on spam. No doubt spam is something that killed MySpace's popularity, which led to the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 8, 2009

Caution: Social Media May Be Closer Than They Appear

I've just finished attending Day 1 of the PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, was the Sunday keynote speaker.

Katie D. Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, discussed Social Media Measurement: Establishing ROI.

And Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communications, Rick Clancy, former senior vice president of corporate communication at Sony Electronics, Jessica Smith, Vice President of Fleishman-Hillard, Rob Key, founder and CEO of Converseon, and Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, participated on a panel entitled, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations."

If PR people seem to be very interested in social media, they are. But they aren't alone. Search engine optimizers have been interested in social media for five years. And customer relations management is interested in social media, too.

Now, blogs started taking off in 2003. Facebook was launched in 2004. YouTube was launched in 2005. And Twitter was launched in 2006.

So, maybe we should cut many PR people some slack for waiting until 2009 to get their arms around social media. But life is unfair -- and PR people who waited until now will find themselves saying, "Hey, that's my job," to other people in other departments who didn't wait to get started.

Now, PR people bring a lot of relevant skills to the social media table, but so do SEOs and customer relations people. All this will generate some interesting discussions when it comes time to launch a company's first social media campaign.

I remember similar discussions in the mid-1990s, when I tried to make the case at my old employer that the corporate communications department should be responsible for creating the company's first website. I lost that argument -- and the IT department was put in charge of creating a new way to interact with "the public" online. The result was a website that wasn't user friendly -- and it used a content management system that wasn't search engine friendly, either.

So, we face another one of those pivotal moments when PR people will be asked why social media is important, how social media works, and which social media to use.

They need to be read with answers now, not next year. Anyone who looks at social media through the passenger side mirror needs to be cautioned: Social media may be closer than they appear.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

November 5, 2009

Twitter Rolls Out Retweet Test [Screenshots]

Back in August, Twitter said it was developing a system of officially bringing the Retweet to the social network. Now, they're unrolling the test to a limited group of users.

Retweeting is quite simple. When you see a Tweet you want to retweet, simply mouseover the lower right corner of the Tweet. Then, click the "retweet" link.

When the Retweeting is done, a simple notification appears underneath the Tweet. You stay right where you are on the page and can continue checking your feed.

Here's what your Retweet looks like. And this is key for the feature we'll discuss just after the image.

But there's a feature of this new Retweeting integration that I don't like. When one of your followers Retweets something, the original Tweet appears in your stream.

In the screenshot below, I don't follow @wyattla. Nothing against him, I just have no idea who he is. One of the people I do followed Retweeted @wyattla's Retweet. But @wyattla's avatar and original Tweet appear in my stream.

Should the test prove successful, I suppose we'll all get used to those little grey Retweet indicators. But call me old-school, I still prefer the "traditional" method of Retweeting, where the Retweeter's Retweet appears in the stream.

What do you think of Twitter's Retweet experiment? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 4, 2009

Twitter Now Habla Espanol

Twitter is now available in Spanish. My rudimentary Spanish skills were able to detect this announcement posted on the Twitter blog - and yes, in Espanol. Ok, it helped that I saw the headline in English before I read the news in my RSS reader, but I digress.

I could deduct from the official Twitter post that they were very grateful to their translation volunteers for helping them to push out this update.

Also, if you go to your Settings link on Twitter.com, look for the language menu and select Spanish if you want this update.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 29, 2009

Twitter Begins to Roll Out Lists

If you normally use a third-party client to access and update your Twitter feed, you have a reason to go to Twitter.com in the next few days: LISTS! At the beginning of the month, Twitter announced that it was testing Lists and now it looks like they're beginning to roll out the beta to users. This is what I happily saw when I visited Twitter.com today:

Let's walk through the steps of making and viewing lists. I decided to make a list of funny people.

Create a new list by clicking the button in the announcement - or in the new Lists section under the search box on the sidebar:

A box will pop up. Name your list and decide whether you want it to be public or private.

To add people to a list, you search for them - or go directly to their Twitter page, click on the List icon and select the list you wish to add them to:

Once you have your list going, you can view the list by clicking the link to the list in the List of Lists under the search sidebar (see pic above). Still with me?

When you do, you'll see a stream of Tweets posted by Tweeple on the list.

If you want to get a list of Tweeple on the List, look for the "following link" at the top of the stream:

Here's the Tweeple so far in my Funny People List:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 26, 2009

Deleted Tweets Finally Removed from Twitter Search

While Twitter allows people to delete Tweets, often times those zombie Tweets were still indexed in Twitter's search. Apparently, that's no longer a problem.

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch has been doing some testing and finding that deleted Tweets aren't showing up in Twitter search. They're not even showing up in the search API, according to Siegler.

I did a small test myself and sure enough, my deleted Tweet was immediately removed from Twitter's search results.

So, now you can stick your foot in your mouth with a little more ease.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 22, 2009

Search and Apply for Jobs Posted on Twitter via iPhone App

Searching and applying for jobs keeps getting more and more modern. A new iPhone/iPod Touch App allows users to search Twitter for job apps and then apply for them with one-click. The app is appropriately named "Real-Time Jobs" and was developed by WorkDigital, the makers of the web-based TwitterJobSearch.com. (Full disclosure: WorkDigital is partly owned by Incisive Media, parent company of Search Engine Watch.)

The app uses WorkDigital's new technology, which they call QuickPitch. Users can attach an online resume, video or other pitch to respond to jobs found on Twitter.

Bill Fischer, Co Founder of TwitterJobSearch explains the concept behind the app. "By bringing together our real-time search capabilities with our QuickPitch platform, we're aiming to re-invent a job search process that simply requires too much effort." Fischer will be speaking at SES Chicago this December at the Real Time Search Paradigm session. With the increased popularity and implementation of real-time search, that will be a session you won't want to miss.

Real-Time Jobs is available in the iTunes app store for free.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 21, 2009

More Rumors: Google, Facebook to Launch Online Music Initiatives

The rumor mill just keeps flying this hump day. First, TechCrunch is dishing on a new initiative by Google to make music easier to search and sample. The deal will involve services such as MySpace, iLike and LaLa, and is rumored to be announced next Wednesday at the Capitol Records building in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, Brad Stone at the New York Times has the scoop on a new music micropayments service slated to be launched by Facebook. Currently, you can spend 10 cents to send cute little goodies in the form of images to your Facebook friends. Soon, you'll be able to send songs that your friends can listen to online. Greeting cards and videos will also be getting the micropayments treatment.

Neither of these stories is officially confirmed. "No comment" is the phrase of the day!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 20, 2009

Is Google the Black Hole of Protected Tweets? No, Not So Much

The L.A. Times printed a sensational expose on how Google had a deal with Twitter to index and make publicly searchable protected tweets. Twitter allows users to keep their tweets private, seen just by their followers. But the Times asserted that Google had special access and that the Tweets were viewable to the public via search.

TechCrunch quickly picked up on the probability that the Tweets were searchable were likely public ones that were published before users went private with their Twitter feeds.

Then, the LA Times published an update with official comment from Twitter saying they do not have a deal with Google for access to private Tweets.

So, that happened.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 14, 2009

We Watch More YouTube Videos than We Conduct Google Searches

Now, we all know search is important. And we all know that Google is the leading search engine.

But here's a factoid that continues to amaze marketers:

In August 2009, Americans watched 10 billion videos on YouTube. That same month, Americans conducted 9 billion searches on Google.

Yep, Americans watched a billion more YouTube videos than they conducted Google searches.

The data comes from comScore, a reputable source. And the reason that it may have flown under the radar screen is that it comes from two different reports.

The YouTube data comes from comScore Video Metrix, which reported that 120.5 million Americans watched an average of 82.6 videos per viewer.

The Google data comes from comScore qSearch, which reported that 169.2 million American conducted an average of 53.2 queries per searcher.

So, do you want to be found when someone conducts a search for a relevant term on Google? Of course you do.

But do you want to be found when someone looks for a relevant video on YouTube? You should.

A lot of marketers are trying to get their arms around social media -- like Facebook and Twitter. These are both important. But YouTube is a video sharing site -- which is also a form of social media.

And according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 62% of Internet users in the U.S. have watched video on a video sharing site. This compares to 46%, who have used a social networking site, and 11%, who have used Twitter.

So, why is YouTube often left off the marketing to-do list? It's a mystery.

But, you can start to get your arms around the topic by watching the YouTube video below.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discusses YouTube and Video Marketing at SES London 2009

You can also get a sense of why YouTube is neither fish nor fowl by reading the TubeMogul report entitled, "How do people discover videos online?" More than 45% of viewers find videos through direct navigation to a video site -- i.e. going to YouTube and running a search or clicking around the featured or related videos. But more than 44% of viewers find videos embedded in blogs.

Finally, you can attend the YouTube & Video Optimization session at SES Chicago 2009. I'll tackle this issue head on -- and provide you with proven, practical guidelines for developing and implementing video marketing for your organization.

With more YouTube videos being watched in America than there are searches being conducted on Google, you will want to find out what it takes to get your videos discovered, watched and shared.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

October 13, 2009

Twitter Fights Spam with New Reporting Feature

Twitter is making it easier to fight profiles which users feel are spam. When you're on the profile that seems very spammy, just look for the "Report as Spam" option, which is now under the "Block" option on the right-hand sidebar. Previously, Tweeple could report spam by contacting the @spam account set up by Twitter.

When you report a profile as spam, it doesn't automatically suspend an account. That would make the system to game-able. However, if you do report a profile as spam, that account will be blocked from following you or appearing in your Twitter stream.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 12, 2009

Twitter to Add Four Additional Langauges

Twitter will soon be available in French, Italian, German, and Spanish. This will bring the grand total of languages to six. Twitter is already available in English and Japanese. Of course, that hasn't really stopped people from around the world from Tweeting in everything from Russian to Portuguese - and, of course, Persian.

To assist in adding the new languages, Twitter is seeking volunteers (which borders on crazy if you know how much money they've raised. But hey, even mega-wealthy Google gets people to voluntarily translate for them).

The volunteers will be able to make suggestions to Twitter about translations on the website. Twitter is hoping this will facilitate the quick roll-out of the four upcoming langauges.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 10, 2009

Wake Up! - The FTC is screwing with bloggers

If you are a blogger in the US your life is about to change big-time.

You have just entered the Twilight Zone...

New FTC guidelines (read full version) described in the official press release state:

1 - "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

and

2 - the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement - or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media."

My reading of this is very disturbing.

Here is a possible scenario:

1. You - a "social media" "celebrity" "blogger" (this is anyone who has more than a few followers on Twitter or some number of subscribers to their blog RSS feed) reviews a book, product, or service - making it an "endorsement"
2. You got a copy of the book to review, or got a free trial of the product, or a free trial of the service
3. You did not mention the freebie in your blog post
4. If someone does not like your blog posting you can be sued

To try to regulate bloggers as if they were professional journalists or compensated endorsements is asinine (incidentally - these guidelines do not apply to professional journalists!) The FTC is trying a land-grab into Internet regulation so they can extend their bureaucratic tentacles and justify their continued existence and funding. All of this is being done under the slogan of their official tagline "Protecting America's Consumers". This of course begs the questions - "from whom?"

This is a screwy world we live in, but the whole premise of blogging on the Internet is predicated on the notion that anyone can have frank and open discussions about any topic of their choosing. Most bloggers do not get paid and do not make any money directly or indirectly from their blogging efforts. They try to build their reputation and disseminate information that their followers may find useful. They never claim to be "objective" and often hold very strong, peculiar, and very personal opinions.

It has always been "buyer beware" on the Internet. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that we should carefully consider the source and reputation of any information that we encounter online. We certainly don't need a chilling effect on the whole online conversation from a huge government agency.

It is ironic that this is happening under the direction of a man who was elected with the strong support of the Internet community and specifically active social media leaders. Unfortunately typical liberal-leaning tendencies are also to regulate people's lives via the government in order to protect them against unscrupulous big-business practices.

Don't get me wrong - frankly I don't care if the assault on individual liberties comes from the left or right (the four FTC commissioners who voted unanimously for the new guideline were all appointed by Bush). But I do care when big brother injects themselves into normal Internet discourse this heavy-handedly.

Fight this unconstitutional over-reach - these are simply regulations from unelected bureaucrats within the executive branch.

Let's make our voices heard and protect the First Amendment and our ability to have unfettered discourse without fear of lawsuits online.

BTW - no one paid me to "endorse" this position on the new FTC regulations - I guess that my butt is now legally covered (at least for this blog post).

Posted by Tim Ash at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

October 5, 2009

FTC Sets New Guidelines for Blogger Endorsements and Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued new regulations regarding blogger endorsements and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. If a blogger is paid to do a review - either through money or product/service - said blogger must reveal said payment.

Ever been annoyed by posts in message boards that ended up being written by a company employee? The new guidelines crack down on such behavior as well.

The word-of-mouth guidelines don't just extend to employees. They involve anyone who has signed up for a word-of-mouth marketing program, such as a Street Team.

To be clear, bloggers can post paid endorsements and people can post in message boards and join street teams or similar efforts. But if there is a relationship between marketer and company, it must be disclosed. If you don't, get ready to pony up $11,000 when you're caught.

How it must be disclosed was not defined by the FTC. But, if you're a blogger, I recommend something like "Acme video game company sent me a free copy of this hot new game and here is my review."

Consumers like it when they know the relationship you have with the product you're pushing. If I had to guess, I'd say transparency begets loyalty.

However, the new guidelines opened up a can of grey areas the FTC needed to tackle. One such scenario is a blogger who already writes glowing reviews of Acme Video Game company. If all of a sudden, the blogger receives a free copy of a new video game and writes a review of the game, s/he needs to disclose the receipt of the game from Acme.

Another funky area of the new guidelines is the issue of liability if/when/should these regulations be enforced. If you're an advertiser engaged in digital public relations, reaching out to bloggers or word-of-mouthers, you could be liable if the endorsers make false or misleading claims about your product/service.

The FTC said that they would consider reasonable effort on the part of the advertiser to keep the endorsers in line. But then they offered up this scenario:

A skin care products advertiser participates in a blog advertising service. The service matches up advertisers with bloggers who will promote the advertiser's products on their personal blogs. The advertiser requests that a blogger try a new body lotion and write a review of the product on her blog. Although the advertiser does not make any specific claims about the lotion's ability to cure skin conditions and the blogger does not ask the advertiser whether there is substantiation for the claim, in her review the blogger writes that the lotion cures eczema and recommends the product to her blog readers who suffer from this condition. The advertiser is subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated representations made through the blogger's endorsement.

The blogger is also liable (in addition to any liability gained if the relationship was not disclosed). But the FTC says advertisers need to provide training and then keep a close eye on the ramblings of bloggers and other endorsers.

The guidelines should serve as a warning for companies hiring interns and other young people to head up your social media efforts. The FTC isn't really proposing anything here that isn't already frowned upon by the general public.

Sponsored blog posts are pretty easy to detect and kill reader loyalty. Many companies have had to repair damaged reputations after they engaged in blogging or forum posting efforts pretending to be random people when a PR effort was really transpiring.

Social media has always been best implemented under these guidelines unspoken rules. Use today's news as a means of lining up your core social media values with how consumers truly wish to interact with your company.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

October 3, 2009

Social Media Press Release Blown Away in Hail of Bullets

This week, I saw an optimized press release blown away by Google News because it was mistaken for a social media press release. It fell under a hail of bullets, an innocent victim of a formatting decision. Before I share this tragic story, let me provide some background.

Two years ago, I asked, "Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?" I had just finished reading Seth Godin's book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?, which defined "meatball sundae" as "the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas." And I answered my rhetorical question by accusing the "social media press release" alias "social media news release" alias "social media release" of being a meatball sundae.

I said the meatballs were the press releases, which should be optimized for news search engines, and the sundae toppings were the "Technorati tags, Digg buttons, del.icio.us bookmarks and other Web 2.0 features," which should be added to online stories and blog posts.

And I pointed out that adding Technorati tags to your social media press releases doesn't get them into Technorati, submitting social media news releases to social news sites like Digg was social media suicide, and using a jazzy new format that features bullet points and del.icio.us links wasn't going to make bloggers care about your content.

Six months later, I took a second look at the questions I'd raised in a blog post entitled, "Does Social Media 2.0 deserve a second life?" Instead of jumping to conclusions, I said the right approach to Social Media 2.0 was to test it, test it, and test it again.

Many of the new distribution options and PR measurement tools worked. But adding social media elements to press releases didn't. Blogs and other social media enable two-way conversation, but most press releases - even many of ones that use the social media format - are essays, not interviews; broadcasts, not conversations; lectures, not discussions.

One of the things that I didn't test back then was the suggested use of bulleted text in social media press releases, versus the narrative format of traditional press releases. Although I prefered the narrative approach, I figured that it was totally fine use bullets. I mistakenly figured that format isn't content, so it probably didn't matter.

Then, this week I drafted an optimized press release about an iPhone application for a client who shall remain nameless. As a courtesy, my client sent the draft to a third-party firm that had designed and developed the iPhone app. The final approved version came back -- with bullet points listing the key features.

Since it had already taken a month to get Apple's approval to even announce the new iPhone app, I didn't make a big deal about using a list of bullets in the optimized press release. Hey, I'm open minded.

But the next morning, I was shocked, shocked to find that Yahoo! News had indexed the optimized press release, but Google News hadn't. The optimized press release had top rankings for targeted keyword phrases in Yahoo! News, but I couldn't find it -- even when I typed the entire headline into the search box and hit the Search News button.

Now, Google News can be arbitrary, whimisical and capracious when it comes to crawling press release distribution services. For example, its automated system is currently best able to crawl headlines or anchor text links that have 22 words or less.

But, I already knew that. So, I talked with the technical gurus at my press release distribution servce. Then, I went looking to see if anyone else had encountered this phenomenon before, or if it was the result of a recent change to the Google News algorithim.

That's when found a post by Rebecca Corliss on HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog entitled, "Study Shows Social Media Releases Are Less Effective than Traditional Press Releases." In May 2009, Corliss conducted a study comparing the results of social media releases and traditional releases by publishing them across five newswires.

As you can see in the graph to the left, the traditional release format performed much better.

And one of her findings jumped off the page. She said, "Don't use formatting. Many portal sites don't accept it. (For the technical folks, we're talking about XHTML.) Ditch the bullets, the itallics and bold type. It complicates the code and makes it more difficult for your release to be syndicated. "

Corliss added, "Use social media and multimedia elements in your PR strategy, not your press releases."

So, after conferring, conversing and otherwise hobnobbing with my fellow wizards, I decided that it was time to test the narrative format in a second press release versus the bulleted text in the first.

Now, I also made some edits to the headline -- changing "launches iPhone app" to "iPhone app launched by" -- and I revised the subhead and lead paragraph. But, these were just to put a fresh look on the announcement for Yahoo! News users.

The most significant change that I made was to rewrite the bulleted text into the narrative format.

Two days later, I submitted the second press release -- selecting the same news release distribution package -- and found that both Google News and Yahoo! News had indexed it. Oh, and it had top rankings for targeted keyword phrases in both news search engines. So, press release optimization still works.

But, what's the net-net? The excessive use of bullets can kill press releases. The Associate Press doesn't use them -- even for AP News in Brief. And according to Newsknife, the Associated Press was the No. 1 source in Google News for September 2009 as well as for the year to October.

So, write your next press release the same way that AP writes its online stories. Oh, and this isn't some dyed-in-the-wool defense of traditional journalism. Check out the number of YouTube videos from The Associated Press that appear in Google News.

Back on June 28, 2009, the YouTube Biz Blog invited any professional news outlet that is already included as one of the 25,000+ sources in Google News to become an official partner on YouTube and more easily share your news videos on both YouTube and Google News.

So, I'm all for innovation -- as long as it works.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

October 1, 2009

Twitter Tests New Lists Feature

Twitter is testing a new feature that would allow users to create lists. This would allow Twitterers to organize the people they follow. For example, you could create a list of your business-related contacts and another list for your local medieval costume meetup.

Lists will be public by default, but you'll be able to set them to private. Public lists will be available for others to subscribe to. The list feature will also be made available for the API.

We've seen listing-type features in third party programs. That's how you get sent back to high school with things like Twitter rankings.

I suspect we'll see things like "most influential search marketers" and "power social media users" that will inevitably include the usual suspects. (Meanwhile, some very fine folks all around the country are rocking paid search and social media and you've never heard of them because they're busy actually working. But that's a post for another day. If anybody has the time.) The nice thing about these lists is that anybody will be able to make them, so there will be a wide array of interesting lists to sift through.

Here are some lists I'd like to see:

1. Cute Pets who Twitter 2. Coffee Lovers Anonymous (yes, we need help.) 3. Amateur Physicists 4. People who like to make lists (oh, the irony!) 5. Former alien abductees

What lists would you like to create? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 23, 2009

Facebook and Nielsen Team Up for New Advertising Initiative

Facebook is entering into a partnership with Nielsen for a new advertising offering on the social network. Dubbed BrandLift, the initiative will use Nielsen's market research expertise to reach the more than 300 million members on Facebook.

"Nielsen is the leader in measurement and is an excellent partner for us as we look to provide marketers with richer ad effectiveness data," said Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.

Rolling out as a test to a few advertisers this week, BrandLift uses opt-in polls on Facebook's homepage to measure consumer attitude and intent about brands. BrandLift will roll out to all advertisers in the coming months.

"Facebook is an increasingly vital link between consumers and brands," said John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen's online division. "We will now be able to add deep knowledge of this important social network to our unmatched media measurement and consumer insight across all three screens. Together we will be able to provide the missing elements to clients seeking better understanding of how Web content and online advertising affect consumer behavior."

Through the partnership, Facebook and Nielsen hope to provide advertisers with more accurate market data in a more timely fashion. Additionally, the polls are easy to create and should reduce the upfront time needed to conduct campaigns.

Members have not been forgotten in the process. Polls will be spaced out so as not to bombard any individual user. Additionally, no personally identifiable information will be collected from the polls.

Let's have a little informal poll right now. What's your reaction to the Facebook-Nielsen partnership? Will you use BrandLift in your social marketing campaigns? Leave your survey answers below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 15, 2009

Facebook: 300 Million Users and Cash Flow Positive

Facebook just announced from the TechCrunch50 stage that it has reached 300 million active users and is cash flow positive. The latter milestone has been reached in advance of its initial goal of first quarter 2010.

Posted by Mike Boland at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 11, 2009

Twitter Updates TOS, Paving the Way for Advertising

Twitter has updated their Terms of Service and one of the most significant updates is in regards to revenue that the social network hopes to generate. The new TOS paves the way for Twitter to introduce advertising into the network, something that's been anticipated for a long time.

Social media sites have traditionally had a tougher time generating revenue through advertising, especially when compared to, say, search.

But Twitter has smartly made search a strong focus of their network, facilitating a trend in "real-time" search. Facebook, which has been criticized for sharing too much data in their advertising efforts, is now integrating search to compete and stay ahead of the game. They would be wise to monetize their search efforts, too, as they might experience better revenue that way.

What do you think of Twitter's Terms of Service update? Share your reaction in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Facebook Goes A-Twitter with @ Tags, With a Twist

If you're a Twitter user, you're used to @ tags. When you reply to a Tweet, you put @username and then type your reply. When you ReTweet someone, you use @username, as well.

The @ symbol was used on blogs long before Twitter came around, so that people could address specific commenters directly.

Now, Facebook is jumping on the @ bandwagon. If you want to reference another Facebook member in your update, use the @ symbol and start typing in their name. The twist is that the @ symbol won't appear in the update, but it will hyperlink the name of the person you've tagged.

Additionally, those who've been tagged will get a notification, and they'll be able to remove their name from your update.

What do you think of Facebook's incorporation of friend tagging? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 9, 2009

Twitter Plans Q4 Revenue-Generating Features; Goes Down During Apple Event

Twitter has revealed plans to begin generating revenue during the fourth quarter of this year. The initial premium features will be available for businesses.

Such features could include analytics to help companies track tweets about their company or verified corporate accounts.

Twitter reached 20.1 million users this past June.

Of course, Twitter will want to keep working on its security and downtime issues if it wants to charge businesses for premium services. Today, there was downtime likely related to a major Apple event (not the first time that's happened). Recently, Twitter succumbed to a cybersecurity attack.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 8, 2009

Study Exposes Difficulty in Measuring Twitter Influence

If you were to ask around social media and online marketing professionals how to measure the influence of a Twitter user, you'd probably get a variety of answers. That's because there are a variety of success stories.

Some organizations use it as a broadcast medium; some are conversationalists. Some have a ton of followers, others have fewer but establish more concrete relationships.

So, who has the best influence? Is it the person with the most ReTweets? Is it the person with the most responses to an average Tweet?

The Web Ecology Project is attempting to answer those questions with their new report The Influentials: New Approaches for Analyzing Influence on Twitter.

Reading the 18 page PDF, I felt like more questions were raised than answered, but what's great about the report is the careful consideration it gives to the different ways to measure influence.

Far too many people seem to place importance on sheer number of followers. But there can be powerful influence among those with smaller numbers of followers as well.

We know this from other studies showing the power of reviews and the trust consumers place in the opinions of friends and family.

And even though the Web Ecology Project itself came to such conslusions as "Mashable is more influential than CNN," reading through their report ultimately reveals that measuring influence really depends on how you define it.

Looking at some of their data shows how challenging these tasks are. The Web Ecology Project chose some of the top Twitterers in Entertainment, News, and Social Media according to how many followers they have.

But what are all of those followers doing with those Tweets? Check out each Twitterer's percentage of ReTweets, Replies and Mentions by number of their total responses:

The less well-known you are the more effort you have to put forth to generate responses. Ashton Kutcher gets tons of responses for his Tweets, which are smaller in number than other less-known Twitterers, such as the social media gurus. In other words, if no one knows who the heck you are, you're going to have to work your butt off to be influential on Twitter.

How do you measure influence on Twitter? Is conversation or broadcasting more influential? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

September 2, 2009

Digg Goes Nofollow to Reduce Spam

Social bookmarking site Digg is incorporating the Nofollow tag to a bunch of links in order to reduce spam. Links on user profiles, comments and not-so-popular posts will get the nofollow tag, meaning it won't pass along link juice.

Many have submitted content to Digg just for the links. Of course, the more popular a link is, then there's the added value of a traffic bump.

In their blog post announcing the change, Digg was not specific on how popular a link would have to be in order to get the Nofollow tag removed.

Digg said it worked with leading experts in SEO to come up with the rule. But since Google bullied Twitter into integrating Nofollow, you have to wonder how much of a collaboration this was and who the experts were.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, and the Power of Social Media

As I mentioned earlier today, lots of sessions at SES San Jose 2009 and the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum focused on the link between search and social media. In fact, the co-location of the two events was as good an indication as any that the two topics were of interest to many of the same people.

While many of those sessions were held at the McEnery Convention Center, others were held next door at the San Jose Marriott. One of these sessions was entitled, "In the Now: Conversational & Real Time Marketing."

With the advent of Twitter, micro-blogging, and mobile video, the publishing model has been turned on its head. How can marketers take advantage of these new tools? This session at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum discussed topics ranging from social media's role in the Iranian elections to Ashton Kutcher.

Following the session, Lee Odden, a member of the SES Advisory Board and the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, interviewed Richard Jalichandra, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Technorati, who was one of the panelists.

Jalichandra cited the example of Kutcher and his Twitter base of more than 2 million followers. He said companies want to develop their brands in the social media space, but they can't always get the reach or scale of a successful viral campaign.

Jalichandra added that as a social media ad network, Technorati encourages companies to place their brands beside the conversation and mix it with a viral component which should help build a successful social media campaign.

Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, and the power of social media at SES San Jose 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:14 PM | Permalink

Liana Evans of Serengeti Communications on Social Media Relationships

Last month, there were a number of sessions at SES San Jose 2009 and the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum that tried to link search and social media. One of them was entitled, "Social Media: Managing Conversations and Reputations When the User Is In Control."

What your customers say about you online -- both on your site and elsewhere -- has an impact on your marketing efforts. This panel examined how businesses must improve internal operations before trying to guide external conversations, provided the nuts and bolts of carrying out a social media strategy and shared first-hand experiences and tips from professionals in the trenches.

One of the panelists was Liana Evans, Director of Social Media at Serengeti Communications. (The Flickr photo of Li at SES San Jose 2009 was taken by Kenneth Yeung of TheLetterTwo.com) John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Li after the differences between search and social media.

Liana Evans of Serengeti Communications on Social Media Relationships at SES San Jose 2009

Li says you need to set appropriate objectives -- otherwise you are just throwing spaghetti against the wall. She says you need to plan your company's strategy, define what will be measured and constantly monitor and measure. With social media, you're measuring influency, intimacy, interaction. You can measure these attributes by observing such actions as whether comments are being left on your YouTube video, or putting reviews out via blogs about your product.

Li says it's about branding and building relationships when using social media and not necessarily about registering a click to purchase. She adds how important it is when building social media relationships to make potential users of your product "brand evangelists." Managing social media effectively revolves around building a strategy, says Li, and its all about the relationships you build.

Search Engine Strategies 2009 - San Jose - Liana Evans (Flickr photo by Kenneth Yeung (cc) of TheLetterTwo.com)

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 1, 2009

Social Media Comprises 20% of All US Display Ad Impressions

comScore has released data from their Ad Matrix for July 2009 and found that social networking sites comprised over 20% of all US online display advertising impressions.

MySpace and Facebook lead the pack with 9.2% and 8.2% respectively. MySpace served up 30 billion impressions to 64 million unique visitors while Facebook served up 26.8 billion impressions to 67 million uniques.

"Over the past few years, social networking has become one of the most popular online activities, accounting for a significant portion of the time Internet users spend online and the pages they consume," said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president. "Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 28, 2009

Facebook to Update Privacy Practices in Response to Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Facebook has been working with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to come up with solutions to concerns that the office has. The updates will take up to 12 months to implement and involve three types of adjustments.

New Notifications

Facebook will work to encourage users to review their privacy settings. The goal is to help members make sure that they're aware of the default settings and to change the settings to reflect their own preferences.

Additions to Facebook's Privacy Policy

Facebook's Privacy Policy will be updated to provide descriptions of a number of privacy practices. Included will be reasons for date of birth data collection, account memorialization for deceased users, the difference between deactivation and deletion and how Facebook's advertising programs work.

These updates will be subject to a notice and comment period by Facebook members.

Technical changes for third-party data collection

A new permissions model will require third-party applications to inform users about which types of information they want to access. It will also require third parties to get consent before data is shared. Users will have to approve access to their friends' information. However, friend data would still be protected by their individual privacy settings.

What do you think of Facebook's plans for privacy updates? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 26, 2009

Long-Winded? Woofer is the Anti-Twitter

Do you like to talk? Do you use more than the average number of words other people use a day? Do you get blank stares and/or smile-and-nods as you go on and on about how cute your baby is? Then you're probably just a little frustrated with Twitter's 140 character max.

Don't worry. A new site is out there to help you update in all of your long-winded glory. Woofer (found at Woofertime.com for all you direct URL typers) dubs itself as a "macroblogging" service that has a minimum of 1400 characters. Don't adjust your screen. That's 10 times more than you get with a Twitter!

I decided to take a stab at the challenge of a 1400 character Woofer. After all, I am a professional writer. Here's what I came up with:

I'm not sure why they decided to name this Woofer. I'm not offended by the name. I first typed in Woofer.com which was a site about audio services, which makes sense. You know, subwoofer. I think the choice of a dog as a mascot is an appropriate, if obvious, one. I'm not totally sure what breed of dog that is. It kind of looks like a Bulldog-Chihuahua mix. A weird mix indeed. Probably heavy on the Chihuahua. Because if you're going to think about the concept of Woofer requiring a lot of characters, you naturally think "What breed barks a lot?" And definitely, Chihuahuas bark a lot. Though, many would say it's more of a "yapping." Which begs the question. Why didn't they name this "Yapper." I suppose that would have offended some long-winded people. But really, is Woofer any less offensive? Either way, you're kind of calling people who talk a lot dogs. Then again, Twitter users are called Twits. I'm pretty sure i'd rather be called a dog. Though, it is kind of funny to think of the "power users" of Twitter as just little birds that hang out at your outdoor table at Panera just hoping you'll drop food for them to eat. Then again, a few months ago, we took my dog with us to lunch and put out some cheese for her to eat (she loves cheese) and rolled our eyes as she was scared of a teeny tiny bird came along and stole her cheese. She's a golden-spaniel mix. She's like 100 times bigger!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

August 21, 2009

Twitter to Launch Opt-In Geolocation Feature

Twitter has announced plans to roll out a geolocation feature. It will also be included in Twitter's API so developers can make use of it. Currently, Twitter apps rely on either location info provided in profile settings or the device that's being used. Now, they'll be able to grab more robust location data from Twitter.

It's set to off as default, so if you want your Tweets to be associated with location, you'll need to opt-in. There are good reasons to do so.

Networking in your area or finding people at a conference you're attending are two examples of why you'd want to turn location on. If you're a parent like me and you're out with the kids, then you might want to turn it off when you're with them.

What do you think about the new geolocation feature Twitter is planning? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 20, 2009

Facebook to Allow Simultaneous Twitter Updating, But Only for the Rich and Famous

If you're important enough to have a Facebook Page (as opposed to an individual profile like the rest of us), then you're getting the ability to simultaneously update Facebook and Twitter - directly from Facebook.

Ok, to be fair, Facebook pages include organizations such as LIVESTRONG who actually have important things to say than, say, celebrities talking about red carpet events or their jeans.

Still, it would be nice if that functionality would roll out to the rest of us - not as an application, but as a bonafide Facebook feature. And hey, with that recent FriendFeed acquisition, that shouldn't be too hard, right?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 14, 2009

Twitter to Officially Adopt ReTweeting (And You Might Not Like It)

Twitter is planning on making the act of ReTweeting an official Twitter feature. Right now, it's just some crazy phenomenon started by users. It wasn't all that far-fetched, really. People have been using @username to respond to comments on blogs for years.

However, Twitter plans to post those ReTweets in a different way. The ReTweet will appear as a regular Tweet, with the avatar of the original Tweeter and everything but underneath, it will say "ReTweeted by so and so" in tiny text.

I do not like this idea at all. Neither does Dan Zarella, arguably the most knowledgeable of the ReTweeting trend. He has done studies on ReTweeting. He is a big ReTweeting geek (that's meant with the nicest sentiments).

Writing on his blog, Zarella explains:

I follow people because I trust and enjoy their point of view, I don't nessecarily trust the POV of people I don't follow, so using the original poster's picture and name in my timeline destroys any social proof the ReTweeter may have lent the Tweet.

I agree. I want it to be obvious when something is a ReTweet. I think I even pay attention to ReTweets more because the nature of a ReTweet is something cool and/or newsworthy or something we wish we'd said but didn't think of it.

Having said that, many people ReTweet using the "via" formula. This happens automatically with some desktop clients. The designer behind the Twitter adoption of ReTweeting does and therefore, that must explain why she designed the new feature that way.

Twitter should just add a simple feature that allows BOTH. Let those who wish to ReTweet do so and those who wish to Via do so. Plus, Twits should be allowed to decide how they would like to view the shared Tweets. Doing away with a popular format that most likely helped spread the use of Twitter does not seem like a smart move to me.

But what's YOUR opinion? Comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

August 11, 2009

Twitter Suffers More Downtime, Attacks

Twitter went down again, and a message on their Status page points to another attack:

Update (12:17p): We're back up and analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack.

Yesterday, Twitter was dealing with malware affecting user accounts. And of course, last week's DoS attacks exposed just how vulnerable Twitter is.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Delicious Founder Regrets Yahoo! Sale, Launches Twitter Tool

Ben Parr over at Mashable dugg up the news (no pun intended) on Delicious founder Joshua Schachter regretting ever selling Delicious to Yahoo! He said:

I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would rather work on a big, popular product.

With all due respect to Schachter, who by the way now works at Google, even if he never sold Delicious to Yahoo!, there's no guarantee the social bookmarking site would have grown to be anything more than it has become.

Let's face it. No social bookmarking site has really be able to truly take on Digg in a significant way. The sale of Delicious to Yahoo! was fairly appropriate because Delicious is to Digg like Yahoo! is was to Google.

Plus, saying you'd rather work on a big, popular product sounds like the thousands who move to Hollywood to work in show business. Many of them do not care about the craft of acting or music, they just want to be famous. The tabloids are full of evidence that it's a hollow way to live. But, I'll give Schachter props for at least admitting that it's not all about the cash and "freedom."

Despite working at Google, I guess the "big, popular tool" Schachter really wants to work on is Twitter, yes, something someone else created. TechCrunch reports that Schachter has released a Twitter conversation thread tool.

It's only slightly ironic since Schachter tweeted that he hates Delicious's new Twitter integration.

Some people are just hard to please.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's So On: Facebook Rolls Out Live Feed Search to All Users, Includes Real-Time Updates

Just hours after announcing its acquisition of FriendFeed, Facebook came out with more big news: it's rolling out its new search to all users.

Now, you'll be able to search the live feeds of your friends and everyone. Of course, everyone only includes those who allow their updates to be visible to the public.

Also, since the search is rolling out, some users will have access to it sooner than others. Expect this to resolve within a few days.

Like the newly acquired FriendFeed and Twitter-the-competitor, one of the best features about this is real-time updates of search results. If you're viewing the results and a new update is relevant to your search, Facebook will let you know. (This already happens when you're viewing your live feed and your friends update their statuses.)

Two things I don't like: (1) the UI and (2) the fact that when you conduct a new search, you have to select "friends" or "everyone" again to search the live feed - even if you were already looking at live feed results.

Check out this search for Flavia Pennetta, an Italian tennis player who won the LA Women's Championship this past Sunday:

This is truly significant because now people can start using hashtags with Facebook just like they do on Twitter. I think search has been one of the driving forces behind Twitter, but Facebook has a much larger user base. Plus, Facebook didn't completely go down during the DoS attacks last week.

Some are even saying that the new search war is Google v. Facebook. Josh Catone over at Mashable is pointing out what Google has to lose, despite its massive strength.

What do you think of the new Facebook search? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

P.S. Connect with me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nathaniajohnson

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 10, 2009

Facebook's FriendFeed Acquisition Could Have Implications for Search (Yes, Search)

Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, a social media aggregator. As Facebook has looked recently to improve and expand features like its live feed and search, this acquisition makes a lot of sense.

FriendFeed makes it easy to share social media updates such as Tweets, blogs, and yes, Facebook updates all in one place. Facebook also enables updates, but through applications and APIs. In other words, it's just a heckuva lot easier on FriendFeed.

The implications for search could be big. Facebook has been testing search for its live feed. This is most obviously an attempt to compete with Twitter, but the FriendFeed acquisition could be a game-changer.

FriendFeed has already incorporated real-time search site-wide. Bringing that functionality to all of Facebook, with its 250 million users and tons of fan pages and marketing conducted by brands could mean people finding what they're searching for on the site where they hang out socially. Recent data has shown search on social media sites to be on the rise.

Oh yeah, did I mention FriendFeed was founded by a couple of ex-Googlers?

FriendFeed has always had the potential to change the face of search, but the site wasn't picking up in popularity like Twitter and Facebook. For Facebook, this could speed up the implementation of real-time search, which they really need to do. The acquisition looks like a win-win for both parties.

If you're not already marketing on Facebook, this acquisition is a pretty big sign to begin doing so - and sooner rather than later.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 7, 2009

Yesterday's DoS Attacks Included Google, Possible Cyberwarfare Suspected

As news broke yesterday about the Denial of Service (DoS) attacks affecting Twitter, revelations began to unfold about how widespread the attacks really were. Facebook slowed down and produced error pages. LiveJournal experienced downtime as well.

While Google didn't go down, they were affected. This statement from a Google spokesperson explains their involvment:

We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DoS attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services.

While not explicitly saying they were attacked, I think it's pretty clear they're just more prepared for malicious attacks of all kinds.

Of course, they've been around for a longer period of time than Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal. But social media sites are going to have to beef up their security, especially considering the nature of the attacks.

It turns out that the attacks were aimed at a Georgian blogger who had accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, YouTube and Google's Blogger. While not confirmed, it seems pretty obvious to anyone following events in the region, that Russia could be behind the attack.

As Patrica Skinner at Search Engine Journal points out, this isn't the first time Russia has been involved in a cyberwarfare attack. Plus, it's hardly a coincidence any longer that the US Marines this week were barred from using social media.

All of this comes the same week that the acting White House Cybersecurity Czar stepped down. Melissa Hathaway resigned just months after replacing the last Cybersecurity Chief, Rod Beckstrom, left the post. Beckstrom left because cybersecurity is mostly handled by the NSA, a division of the Department of Defense. Beckstrom felt that cybersecurity should be handled by a civilian agency.

Hathaway left after being marginalized by political opponents within the White House. She was a holdover from the Bush administration, who lost favor with Obama's economic advisors when she said there should be cybersecurity regulations for the private-sector.

Hopefully, this week's attacks will encourage bipartisan action on addressing what is increasingly becoming very serious cybersecurity threats.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg Begins Rolling Out Beta Version of New Ad Platform

Digg will begin rolling out an early beta version of its new ad platform. Most Digg users won't see the ads, as they will only be rolled out to a small subset of users initially.

The ads will appear along with submitted content, except they will clearly be marked as sponsored advertising. The more an ad is voted up, the lower cost-per-click (CPC) the ad will enjoy. The more the ad is buried, the higher CPC.

Digg announced its new platform earlier this summer. The announcement came two months after canceling its exclusive ad contract with Microsoft.

What do you think of the new Digg ad platform? Will you use Digg ads? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 6, 2009

Facebook, LiveJournal Also Experiencing Downtime Issues (UPDATE)

Update: 1:40pm EST - ZDNet has official yet vague word from Facebook:

Earlier this morning, we encountered issues within our network that resulted in a short period of degraded site experience for some visitors. No user data was at risk and the matter is now resolved for the majority of users. We're monitoring the situation to ensure that users continue to have the fast and reliable experience they've come to expect from Facebook... We are investigating potential foul play at this time.

Update: 12:53pm EST - Fox Business is reporting that Facebook has confirmed attacks on its site. No official statement published on FB blog or press release yet.

Many people and bloggers have noticed that Facebook has been slow today. Live Journal was also down. This was all happening around the same time Twitter went down due to Denial of Service attacks.

There's no concrete reason yet, but one guess is increased traffic to those sites due to Twitter being down. Another possibility is an attack on those sites as well, but that is just speculation at this point.

Keep staying tuned.

What are you experiencing? Share your experiences in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter Goes Down, Falls Prey to Denial of Service Attack [UPDATE]

Update 12:13pm EST - Twitter.com is finally up for many users, DoS attack still ongoing. Facebook and LiveJournal also experiencing issues.

Update: 11:26am EST - Twitter says site is back up but they're still defending against the DoS attack. I personally can't access Twitter.com, can you? Leave a comment.

Twitter went down this morning and it's not the usual fail whale situation. Instead, Twitter issued a statement on status.Twitter.com that they're defending against a Denial of Service (DoS) Attack.

A DoS attack is a malicious attempt to bring down a website or application so that its users cannot access the service.

Twitter went down around 10am EST.

Stay tuned to Search Engine Watch as this story unfolds.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

August 4, 2009

Delicious Updates with New Search, Email and Tweet Features

Social bookmarking site Delicious, which is owned by Yahoo!, has been updated with some snazzy new features to make your bookmarking experience easier.

New search tools have been added that allow you to search a given date range and/or filter down by tag. Search results will also display rich media content for sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Yelp.

Next up, a new category has been added to the homepage called "Fresh Bookmarks." This shows recent bookmarks that are also trending on Twitter. Notice how the number of Tweets is listed below a bookmark:

If you want the old Delicious, just click on "Popular Bookmarks."

Last but not least, if you want to share a bookmark off Delicious, you now have the ability to email or Tweet the link directly from Delicious.

What do you think of these Delicious updates? Share your thoughts below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 29, 2009

Stephane Panier Named by AOL as Global Head of Bebo

To fill the top position of global operations at Bebo, AOL (which acquired the social network last year), promoted from within. VP and COO Stephane Panier will now oversee advancing the social network worldwide.

"Stephane is a proven strategist and operator with executive experience from some of the world's leading brands and businesses," said Brod. "He is the ideal leader to build on Bebo's existing successes, to chart a course for its future, and to execute against that vision."

Prior to joining Bebo this past January, Panier worked at Google for six years, holding upper level management positions in Finance and Operations. Before the Google stint, Panier was a management consultant for Booz & Company where he focused on energy and hi-tech.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Stars in Redesign of Twitter Homepage

Twitter has unveiled the redesign of their homepage and it's clear they're dedicated to search. (You'll have to sign out to view it.) They now serve up a central search box as the main feature with trending topics below in almost a tag cloud style. The top row, with the biggest font features current hot topics. The second row with slightly smaller font features hot topics from the past day and finally the third row with topics from the past week.

I think it would be nice to incorporate the design more inside the sign-up wall. It looks sharp and the main reason I go to the Twitter site is to see what's trending or to conduct a search. I use a desktop and mobile client to do my actual Tweeting.

Twitter does have plans to keep working on the entire site, so they remain a site to watch as they continue to incorporate their strategy.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 28, 2009

When Bloggers Attack: Retaliation is Not the Answer

George Smith Jr. took to his blog to offer up a cautionary tale for both marketers and bloggers. He was recently at BlogHer representing Crocs (a footwear company), when one of the conference attendees walked up to him and struck up some small talk. Then she made clear she wanted some free shoes. When she didn't get any, she threatened to take to her blog and trash the company.

While many are praising Smith for the way he responded, it might not be one you want to replicate.

Smith responded to the woman with his own form of blackmail. He threatened to use his connections to essentially shut down her blog. While the bloggers actions were appalling, I find it hard to empathize with Smith when he retaliated with the same type of threat.

Smith didn't publish the name of the blogger. He said he couldn't remember it. He called her a nobody (in his blog, not to her face) because he claims to be so connected that he knows who the big bloggers in his space are. (He later "clarified" that she was only a nobody as a blogger, but that's not much better in my mind.)

I see this kind of defense all the time. I understand it and used to do it all the time, but I've come to despise it. We try to make ourselves feel better by talking about how awesome we are - a hollow lie that can eventually make us stop trying. But the truth is that no one is so comprehensive in their job that they might not have missed something. Plus, Smith couldn't remember her name, so no one can dispute him.

Search Engine Watch is a well known blog in the search industry, but no one really knows who the heck I am (I prefer it that way). I never imagined I would write about Crocs, but here I am. Marketers can't discount people just because they've never heard of them.

I'm not saying Smith shouldn't have blogged about this. This situation needed a response because she could concoct some lie about Crocs being sleezy at the BlogHer conference and really do some damage to the brand.

But marketers aren't in the clear. In fact, Crocs did give away shoes at BlogHer. They had a limited number of shoes and ran out of swag, leaving the blogger Croc-less.

If Crocs goal was to improve their brand image in the minds of women bloggers, essentially the opposite of blackmail, isn't that bribing? Will the blog posts about Crocs be fair in their opinion or enhanced due to free product?

Would Smith have arranged for a free pair of Crocs for the blogger if she had been "somebody" in the blogosphere?

At the end of the day, both marketers and bloggers have frustrations about the nuances of their jobs. But we need to find ways to work together instead of blackmailing and bribing.

How would you have handled the blackmail blogger? Share your thoughts on the matter by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

July 27, 2009

53% of Women Bloggers Willing to Share About Marketing to Women

A new survey by Ketchum shows that 53% of attendees to the popular BlogHer conference are willing to share information or feedback they've gathered from their blog to help better market to women.

It won't be easy, though. Almost half of those surveyed are contacted by a public relations professional at least once a week. 30% are contacted daily. Keep in mind that many of these women are very busy outside of writing their blog.

They're also not (necessarily) hard as nails journalists that PR and marketing professionals are used to pitching.

If you want to reach them, you need to offer a personal approach. Here's what survey participants had to say about being pitched:

• Take the time to read their blogs and understand their areas of focus. Many women bloggers said they would like to hear about news and products that better match their specific interests.
• This applies to location, too. A number of respondents said they receive communications about products and events not available in their regions or even their countries.
• Know that they are "more than their blog" -- they have other roles in addition to being a mom or a blogger, say respondents, including jobs outside the home.
• Similarly, don't assume that all women bloggers are "mommy bloggers."

What do you think of Ketchum's survey? Share your thoughts on marketing to women in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 20, 2009

Engagement Index Busts Social Media Myths, Finds Financial Performance Correlation

A new engagement index is showing correlation is busting up some long held beliefs about social media. One of the myths is that social media can't be measured. The release of this report alone proves that it can. They measured the top 100 brands, as seen in the BusinessWeek / Interbrand "Best Global Brands 2008"rankings. The index was calculated by Wetpaint and Altimeter Group.

They looked at a variety of channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.), the interaction that took place via those channels and the participation levels within company staff.

It should come as no surprise that brands who engaged with the most depth in the most channels scored best in engagement. Generally, media and technology brands did better than other niches, likely due to their early adaptability.

The report also challenged the idea that social media doesn't work for B2B niches. SAP has been busting that myth for 6 years with their SAP Community Network (SCN). It consists of 1.7 million members. Of those, 5,000 are bloggers. Mark Yolton, Senior VP of SCN, says that opening up the site to bloggers was a great way to scale the community. As a result, the site helps facilitate sales and get valuable feedback on new products.

Take a look at another successful brand using social media: Starbucks. They're on Facebook and Twitter (you know about free pastry day, right?), and also have their own suggestion site, MyStarbucksIdea.com.

Starbucks Chris Bruzzo, VP of Brand, Content and Online explained the value of social media. Bruzzo says that for every 4 people who interacted with a news item, 3 people are added virally as a result.

Another interesting finding was a correlation between social media and financial performance. It's quite interesting to note this during a rough economy. While companies look for efficiency, those who've dug in deep to social media seem to be staying afloat better. However, the report (found here, PDF) is careful to point out that a correlation does not indicate cause and effect. Don't just put up a Facebook page or start a Twitter account and expect a magic potion to cause great third quarter results. That's not how it works. Remember, this is an engagement index.

If you're a smaller brand or if you haven't yet launched a social media effort, the idea of launching such a campaign may sound daunting. But Wetpaint and Altimeter urge that you start now. Do what you can. It's more important to have depth in one or two channels than to spread yourself thin across many. Last but not least, the most successful brands all talked about developing relationships instead of just making social media another marketing outlet. It takes some time. Plan it out. Once you've started, you can't really turn back.

That might sound scary, but the numbers show that it's far worse to stay away than it does to get your feet wet.

What do you think about this report? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

FriendFeed Updates API with Real-time, Oauth, File Attachments and Sharing Options

Social media aggregator FriendFeed has updated its API with a bunch of features that are relevant to current online social and search behavior. The updates are:

• Real-time APIs - Get feeds in real-time by sing long polling. This includes search.
• Flexible sharing options - Allows direct messages and sharing to multiple feeds.
• File attachments - Attach images, pdfs, spreadsheets, etc.
• OAuth support - Use this to let people sign into your application with their FriendFeed account
• Simplified response format - When you don't need/want your application to have to differentiate between the nuanced features of FriendFeed (users, groups, friend of a friend, etc.) This API provides authenticated responses which include a list of possible commands on every feed, entry, and comment.

What do you think of the API update? Tell us in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 17, 2009

Twittergate: Hacked Docs Stir Up Questions of Ethics and Security

Recently a hacker obtained confidential documents containing information about Twitter's business plans as well as user accounts and passwords. The hacker sent the documents to two blogs: Silicon Valley's TechCrunch and Korben, a tech news site in France.

TechCrunch has spent the better part of a week publishing a few of the documents one blog post at a time. (Can we just call them TwitterCrunch at this point?) They claim to be working with Twitter and their legal team to determine which ones to post, but Twitter has denied giving permission for publication of any of the documents. Many comments left on TechCrunch's blog were in opposition to the publication, as well.

Twitter and TechCrunch have agreed on one thing - the documents were not ready for prime time. Many of them were handwritten notes, for example.

I personally haven't read the documents that have been released, though obviously it's been hard not to catch a whim of what was included here and there. They were stolen. They're confidential. I suppose that makes me a bad blogger/journalist, but I've got this "Do unto others" philosophy that I try to live by.

Taking ethics out of the question, I'm primarily more interested in what IS rather than is hoped for. After all, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." (Have you seen Pirates of Silicon Valley? What were Jobs' and Gates' original plans? Where was Apple in the late 1990s?)

What would you have done if you had received the documents? Publish them? Blackmail Twitter? Let us know your gut reaction in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 14, 2009

BingTweets Mashes Up Trending Tweets with Search Results (UPDATE)

UPDATE: BingTweets was showing old trending topics earlier, but as has been noted in the comments, that has been fixed and now is current.

Ever noticed a trending topic on Twitter and then headed to a search engine to learn more? A new site from the Bing team makes that process even easier.

BingTweets is a new site that pulls in trending topics on Twitter and offers Bing search results right on the same page. BingTweets is not found at Bing.com but rather has its own standalone site at BingTweets.com.

When you click on one of the topics, search results are automatically and immediately triggered with no extra clicks.

However, there's one issue and it's a biggie: The topics seem to be delayed. Under the popular right now tab, Wimbledon was trending despite the finals being almost 10 days ago. Wimbledon is no longer trending on Twitter.

BingTweets trending topics July 14, 2009

Twitter trending topics July 14, 2009

Overall, though the UI is nice.

Another thing I would adjust is the Twitter stream down the left side. When I selected "Andy Murray," the Tweet stream brought up Tweets that had the word murray but not andy. If I'm interested in Tweets about Andy Murray, then Tweets about Bill Murray are largely irrelevant.

What do you think about BingTweets? Give us your first impressions in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

July 9, 2009

StumbleUpon's Su.pr is Now Available to All; Update SU, Twitter and Facebook Simultaneously

Last month, StumbleUpon unveiled Su.pr, a tool that shortens URLs but also enables the submission of links to StumbleUpon while also offering the option to simultaneous update Twitter and Facebook.

Now, Su.pr has been made available to anyone. To access it, you must become a registered user of StumbleUpon. You'll also need to authorize Twitter and Facebook to use the tool, if you plan to use the simultaneous updating. (And seriously, why wouldn't you?)

Like other URL shortening services, you can see how many times the link has been clicked on, which is highly valuable.

Especially useful is the bookmarklet that you can use to make the process of submitting to three different social networks at the same time even easier.

Now, all I need is for someone to make a Su.pr Greasemonkey script for Google Reader so I can reduce the step of clicking the links I want to share to open in a Firefox tab. Who's game?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Network Ad Spend to Dip in 2009, Pick Back Up in 2010

eMarketer has released projections showing social network ad spending taking a dip in 2009. They attribute the decline to difficulties over at MySpace, as they try to maintain a presence in a niche being taken over by Facebook and the yet-to-be monetized Twitter.

"The expected rebound in spending will come as more companies focus on creating and implementing an overall social marketing strategy," says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Social Network Ad Spending: A Brighter Outlook Next Year. "And it is a clear indication that the experimental phase of social network marketing is finally drawing to an end."

However, the downturn isn't expected to become a trend. Instead, it will be a blip on an otherwise steadily increasing interest in social network advertising. Should Twitter introduce advertising, social network ads will probably take on a life of their own.

"Facebook, once a distant second to MySpace, has outperformed its rival in nearly every measure of usage--and is on track to surpass MySpace in ad spending by 2011," says Ms. Williamson.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 6, 2009

The Mindless PR Tweets of the Twitterati and the Baseless Response by Michael Arrington

The New York Times has a piece about the "new" style public relations in this day and age of blogs, Facebook and Twitter. They follow a publicist Brooke Hammerling as she develops a strategy for new startup Wordnik. An investor wants to avoid tech blogs such as TechCrunch due to his opinion that they are essentially set on auto-critic.

Instead, Hammerling decides to "whisper in the ears" of Silicon Valley elite. She pitches them about the "ongoing project" of Wordnik, which has been chosen to avoid the inevitable monetization questions that come along with new startups. In true robot fashion, her virtual Rolodex began Twittering away about the Wordnik.

Of course, Tech Crunch founder Michael Arrington was not happy to learn that he'd been kept out of the loop on purpose (nevermind his declaration months ago that he would stop honoring embargoes). So, he took to TechCrunch to label Wordnik a failure, but so far it's his argument that is the biggest failure in the matter.

He chose to compare Wordnik to Topsy, which was launched oh-so-exclusively on TechCrunch. The problem? Topsy based on Twitter, an already wildly popular web application. Wordnik is an online dictionary that will appeal primarily to nerdy wordsmiths, copywriters and students. Never has the cliche of comparing apples to oranges been more appropriate.

Arrington boasts that Topsy has had soooooooo much traffic since launch while Wordnik barely has registered on the radar of tracking services like comScore.

Whether Topsy or Wordnik take off or crash land remains to be seen. These things take time and require use by thousands if not millions of users who find value beyond fad generated by A-lister Tweets. But one thing is for certain. If you continue to follow the "big names" in tech, beware of the mindless PR drivel disguised as original opinion.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 3, 2009

FriendFeed Launches Real-Time Search; Includes Facebook and Twitter Submissions

Buzz has been building about real-time search. Of course, you can search real-time Tweets on Twitter, Facebook is testing search on its live Feed, and Bing just added limited Twitter search to its engine.

Now, FriendFeed is launching real-time search and it has the potential to be the mackdaddy of them all.

Here's why. FriendFeed is a social aggregator. It's a one-stop shop to check and update a bunch of different networks, blogs, etc. Now, you can search all of that in real-time.

The drawback? It only searches what people submit to FriendFeed. Whoever does that can basically say "Check" in the chess match of social real-time search.

Still, this is a tremendous step in that direction. Even better, FriendFeed has released an embeddable real-time search widget you can put on your website.

What do you think of FriendFeed real-time search? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 2, 2009

Bing Integrates Twitter, Sometimes and If You're Important Enough

If you're a celebrity or some other figure Bing has deemed "prominent," then searches for your name plus the word Twitter will turn up a few of your Tweets above the organic results. You can also search for a person's screen name, preceded by the @ sign.

Prominence is deemed by number of followers and volume of tweets. Bing uses the Twitter API to pull in the Tweets. But the feature is inconsistent.

Of course, I assumed Ashton Kutcher, the King of Twitter, would be included since he has 2.5 million followers. But the first search for his name didn't include Tweets. The second one didn't either. The third one did.

And here's what it looks like when it happens:

What do you think of Bing integrating Twitter into the results? Share your reaction in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 30, 2009

Facebook adding payment platform?

Chris Crum at WebProNews.com has pieced together some very interesting pieces of information regarding Facebook, a former Googler and a new payment system.

Facebook in May announced that it was testing a new payments system that would deal in real money, rather than virtual currencies that it had been using for any number of applications. This might work fine for Mafia Wars and other light games that Facebook has increasingly added, but if you were to want to move into, say, storefronts or product comparisons, you'd clearly want to be able to deal in real currency.

Enter announcement two: Facebook has hired an ex-Google Checkout director to develop these payment systems. Given Facebook's immense and growing popularity, its standing as place for sharing opinions and favorites, its open platform and an army of marketers desperate to monetize work on Facebook, it could wind up being an absolute perfect storm.

Imagine classified ads or, bigger yet, entire storefronts integrated directly into a social networking site a la A Small World - except instead of a half million very exclusive members considering five and six-digit purchases in between their social networking activities, it's 200 million+ people worldwide who could have their friends' opinions of a product just a click away from being able to purchase it.

Chris has screenshots and more details - worth checking out.

What do you think? Would you purchase or shop on Facebook? Would your customers?

Posted by Herndon Hasty at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 25, 2009

Twitter Growth Tapers Off in May 2009

It's been an explosive year of growth for Twitter, with celebrities and the media embracing the microblogging social network. Oprah featured Twitter on her show and crowned Ashton Kutcher the King of Twitter after he became the first person to gain 1 million followers.

But new Nielsen data shows that growth tapered off in the month of May, when traffic "only" grew by 7% over April.

Don't get out your Kleenex, though. Twitter's year-over-year growth was a whopping 1,448% year-over-year, growing from 1.2 million uniques in May 2008 to 18.2 million in May 2009.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 24, 2009

More Former Yahoo!'s Head to Microsoft; Weiner Upgrades to LinkedIn CEO

The reasons for Microsoft to still consider a deal with Yahoo! diminished even further this week as news broke that three former Yahoo!'s have been recruited to Microsoft. They aren't the first. You would think there was a fire sale on former Purple People.

Larry Heck, Scott Moore, Qi Lu, and Sean Suchter have all ended up at Microsoft after leaving behind their Yahoo! gigs.

Now, joining them, is Kevin Timmons; Yongdong Wang, former Yahoo VP of international search; and Knut Risvik, who incidentally spent time at Google after his stint at Yahoo!

Microsoft isn't the only place former Yahoo!'s are making their mark. Jeff Weiner joined LinkedIn last year as President, having left Yahoo! last summer and then hanging out at a couple of venture capital firms. Now, he's changing his title to CEO.

What do you think about the departed? Does Microsoft have any incentive to negotiate a deal with Yahoo? Leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2009

Twitter's Monetization Plans, Plus Stream Sorting in the Works

It's one of social media's favorite topics: How will Twitter make money? This week brings news of two possibilities that many have speculated: Shopping and Corporate Verified Accounts.

Twitter is already like the mall, or at least an airport concourse with companies such as Starbucks, Dell, Dunkin' Donuts, Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines tweeting away. It's rumored that Dell has made millions sending out Tweets about deals and sales.

And while companies are increasingly keeping track of their brand in things like Tweets and Facebook updates, wouldn't it be nice to have technology that could serve up an ad or even the ability to directly purchase from Twitter when someone asks "Should I get one of the new Acer Timelines coming out?" or "Are Keen shoes any good?"

Of course, the reason people are even asking that on Twitter is because they're not always satisfied with search results. Plus, they're more likely to trust their network than computer-generated links.

Speaking of which, not everyone in a person's network is alike. On that note, Twitter plans to give users the ability to sort their streams. You could lump celebrities into one group, co-workers into another and Spymasters into another one (yes, I'm addicted). Twitter application TweetDeck already offers groups so it will be interesting to see if Twitter simply acquires them like it did with Summize, which provided search.

So that's your (almost) daily dose of Twitter news. What do you think of the monetization and stream sorting plans? Share your thoughts the old fashioned way by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

June 19, 2009

Persian Translation Features Launch on Facebook, Google

If you've been following the events surrounding the election in Iran, you know that sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been crucial in demonstrating what is going on in the country. The government has been trying to stifle protests, but the citizens - and media - are determined to tell the story.

But, if you're not fluent in Persian, also known as Farsi, you might have problems reading those Tweets or Facebook updates. Now, you'll have a little help.

In reponse to the current election crisis in Iran, Google and Facebook have (separately) released Persian (also known as Farsi) translation features.

Facebook has launched a version of their social network in Persian. If you're using a Persian browser (you're probably not reading this post), it should launch automatically. Otherwise, go to your settings and select Persian from the Language tab.

Google has added Persian to Google Translate. They're pushing it out early due to the events in Iran. It's optimized for translation with English, and even then it may have a few glitches.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2009

Privacy Roundup: Google Street View, French Law, and Congressional Hearings

Privacy concerns are ever-present, but the past week has generated significant buzz on the matter.

First up, Google has been asked by a the European Article 29 Working Party to keep "unblurred" photos for Street View for as little time as possible. The conundrum is this. Google sends its cars out to photograph countries. They use technology to blur things like license plates. However, sometimes the tech goes awry and blurs things that don't need blurring. When Google finds out about it, they use the original, unblurred photo to correct and then add it back into the system. Clearly, that raises a privacy issue. Google says it's working with the Article 29 Working Party to determine the amount of time they should keep the photos, but no solid timeframe has been given yet.

Speaking of Europe, France is putting the pressure on social networking sites like Facebook when it comes to privacy issues. The matter at hand is the trend towards being "open" so that third-party developers can build applications using APIs. French politicians are concerned about these third parties gaining access to private information. There are two things the politicians should consider. One is that most APIs are restrictive. In other words, you don't get access to all of a social network's functionality just because there's an API. Secondly, most of the networks provide an option for users to opt-out of their information being shared.

Last but not least, the United States Congress is having yet another round of hearings on web advertising and privacy. Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy Anne Toth today testified at the House Energy & Commerce Committee subcommittee's "Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumer Expectations." Toth explained the benefits of relevant advertising but also touted the Yahoo! Privacy Center.

Google Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong also appeared at the hearing. Wong spoke about Google's recent launch of interest-based advertising. The benefits of relevancy of the ads was a talking point for Wong, as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 17, 2009

Facebook Overtakes MySpace in US Visits

After surpassing MySpace (and all other social networks) in worldwide visits last year, comScore is reporting that Facebook put the final points on the board in May needed to pass MySpace's US traffic.

This adds to a good week for Facebook - which recently launched its vanity URL program, hit 1 billion daily Facebook Chat messages and launched a Swahili-language version - and a bad week for Myspace - which shed 400 jobs (30% of its team) in order to cut costs and return to a "startup culture".

Still, with a #2 worldwide standing and a more robust range of advertising options than Facebook, there still seems to be a place in this world for Myspace - even in a decline. That is, unless big advertisers find ways to spend more at Facebook or learn how to leverage it with more success, at which point MySpace faces a death spiral of declining viewership and even fewer ad dollars.

What do you think? Where will MySpace be a year from now?

Posted by Herndon Hasty at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Facebook's New Search Test Continues Faceoff with Twitter

Recently, Facebook launched a live feed, something many believed to be a move to compete with Twitter. Now, those competitive intentions seem even stronger with a new search test being rolled out by Facebook.

A small, select group of Facebook users will have the opportunity to search content on the social network as soon as it is published. Testers can search their news feed as well as the live feed of those who publicly post their Facebook content.

I can see how it would be very useful to search your news feed to see who's talking about a sports game you're watching, a new movie that's out, a political action in Washington or the ups and downs of Wall Street. That way you can skip sorting through all of the updates yourself to see just the ones you're interested in at a given moment.

With the live feed, search opens up networking opportunities and the ability to track current events via Facebook.

Last October, Facebook integrated Microsoft's Live Search to provide search for the social network. It will be interesting to see if Bing plays a role in the search test (and if perhaps Bing will serve up Facebook updates in their results).

Of course, last year Twitter acquired Summize, which was a search service based on the Twitter API. Since then, Twitter has incorporated the search into its site, going from being "just" a subdomain to being added to the front page. The feature allows Tweets to be searched as they are posted.

Even before the acquisition, people were beginning to turn to Twitter for search. Many times asking your network of friends and followers returns a result faster than sorting through results for yourself.

Despite Facebook's dominance (the site recently reached the 200 million member milestone), they seem to not be taking their strong position for granted. Competing with the new kid on the block shows that they are keeping up with the trends, something that is usually the death of social networks. But Facebook seems be very well aware of the public's insatiable thirst for immediate news and updates. It may be the thing that gives them staying power.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 16, 2009

MySpace Layoffs to Affect 30% of Workers

Major cuts have come to MySpace in the form of a 30% reduction in its workforce. The layoffs come after upheaval at Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corp. Fox Interactive Media as a whole announced a 5% workforce in January.

In March, former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller was tapped to run News Corp's digital unit. A month later, a former Facebook exec Owen Van Netta was appointed CEO of MySpace.

MySpace has been struggling to bring in revenue as Facebook and Twitter have become the hot social networks of the moment. Of course, it wasn't too long ago when MySpace took the reins from Friendster.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 12, 2009

Follow Search Engine Watch on Twitter

It's #followfriday on Twitter, that day when you spam your followers with lists of names you drop to impress them...or something like that. In theory, the idea is good: share some of your favorite Twitterers with your followers, assuming they'll like what they have to say too. In practice, it can be overused and worthless.

I'm guilty of doing it myself today on the official SEW Twitter account (@sewatch), which made me realize it would be more useful to blog about all the SEW folks who are active on Twitter, broken down by category.

So here's the current list of SEW Experts on Twitter:

SEM News Nathania Johnson (@nathaniajohnson) Frank Watson (@AussieWebmaster) Greg Jarboe (@gregjarboe) Kevin Newcomb (@kevinnewcomb)

SEM Basics Ron Jones (@Ron_Jones)

Search Engine Optimization Eric Enge (@stonetemple) Mark Jackson (@MarkJackson)

Search Advertising Melissa Mackey (@Mel66) David Szetela (@Szetela)

Analytics & ROI Tim Ash (@tim_ash)

Social Media Marketing Erik Qualman (@equalman) Li Evans (@storyspinner)

Promotion & Link Building Sage Lewis (@sagerock)

Local & Mobile Search Michael Boland (@mikeboland) Gregg Stewart (@greggstewart)

SMB Search Marketing Carrie Hill (@CarrieHill)

Enterprise SEM Herndon Hasty (@herndon)

SEM Agency Issues Joshua Palau (@joshuapalau)

The Search Industry Frank Watson (@AussieWebmaster) Chris Boggs (@boggles) Kevin Newcomb (@kevinnewcomb)

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 11, 2009

Three Lists from SES Toronto's Social Media Panel

In the "Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?" panel at SES Toronto, it turned out that the three presenters each offered a checklist of sorts. Though they shared more insight than just this, it's a handy way to sum up some of the knowledge they shared.

First, we have 5 Myths of Social Media, from Mark Evans:

1. Social media is free -- not when you count your time, money, and resources.
2. Social media is easy -- it's not.
3. Social media is about the tools -- but tools are worthless without a clear goal of what you want them to do.
4. Social media is a standalone activity -- it's not an add-on, it needs to be built in from the beginning.
5. Measuring ROI is difficult -- but there are lots of tools to track, monitor, and measure activity.

Then, we have 7 Mistakes of Social Media, from Krista Neher:

1. Focusing on the Numbers -- instead of building an audience of people who care about what you're doing.
2. Hijacking the conversation -- instead of joining it.
3. Spamming -- instead of respecting the conversation.
4. Being irrelevant -- instead of joining conversations where you fit in.
5. Being boring -- instead of giving people something that interests them, not just yourself.
6. Not being committed -- instead of being there to respond when people have questions/concerns.
7. Not playing nice -- instead of being kind and respectful to everyone.

Finally, there's 5 Ways to Impact Your Ranking on Social News Sites from Guillaume Bouchard:

1. Content -- "To make a long story short, you have to make a long story short."
2. Platform -- "Digg is allergic to commercial sites."
3. Submitter -- more important in Digg than StumbleUpon.
4. Category -- The category you choose to write in will affect the level of competition you face.
5. Solicitation -- The number of votes doesn't affect Digg's algorithm as much as StumbleUpon's

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How's Your Whuffie Doing?

This week at SES Toronto, Tara Hunt shared some insights from her new book, The Whuffie Factor. In Hunt's definition, "whuffie" is social capital, composed of reputation, trust, connections, influence, and other factors. It becomes a kind of currency.

As it turns out, her message was echoed elsewhere at Search Engine Strategies Toronto, and throughout the search industry today.

Basically, you need to treat people with respect, deliver what they need in a way they enjoy, and don't try to hold onto things too tight.

Hunt shared a few tactics that would help marketers accomplish those goals, with 5 Ways to Raise your Whuffie:

1. Turn the Bullhorn Around. Instead of shouting impersonally at your customers, listen to them. Become a "beacon for constant feedback." Focus on individuals, and understanding the needs of the community. People want to be treated like "special snowflakes."
2. Become Part of the Community You Serve. Get out of your head, and into the community. Collaborate and share with them. Fall in love with what your customers love. Figure out what problem you're solving, and for whom you're solving it, then join them.
3. Create Amazing Experiences. Become remarkable. Solve problems for your customers so seamlessly, it feels like magic. Engage in fun, lightweight activities that encourage user participation, aka "throwing sheep." Lighten up.
4. Embrace the Chaos. You cannot control the message. Get that through your head. Let go of your perceived control, and you'll see good things come back to you.
5. Find a Higher Purpose. Find a way to give back to the community. Whuffie is part of a gift economy. It's only worth something when it circulates, and the more you give away, the more you get. Do well by doing good.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 10, 2009

Facebook to Give Out User Names at Midnight EST Friday Night

You might need to get home early from the clubs on Friday night. At midnight, Facebook begins giving out user names and you'll want to act fast if you want a popular one or just one that's related to your name. With 200 million members across the globe, it's quite likely the one you want will be grabbed up quick.

If you're brand new to Facebook, meaning you've signed up since May 31, you might be out of luck. Those members are being restricted due to Facebook's desire to quash the squatters who will inevitably be out there to take up all the good names just to do nothing with them (yeah, I'm looking at you, dude with 1,000 domains).

Also, you better really love the name you've chosen because once you have it, you can't change it or transfer it. I sincerely hope they make exceptions for single ladies who eventually get married because we married ladies know what a pain in the you-know-where it is to change our last names. Google still refers to me as my maiden name, despite my name changing efforts. (You know men come up with these rules, right?)

Will you be sitting at your computer with a Red Bull on midnight? Or do you not care (especially since FB profiles are so private)? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

StumbleUpon's New URL Shortening Service to Allow Simultaneous Posts to SU, Twitter, and Facebook

It's a conundrum many of us have faced. We have a Twitter account and a Facebook account. We don't always have the same followers and friends on each. But sometimes we want to share the same content with both. It used to be that you could Tweet something and the Twitter app on Facebook would update both. But about a month ago, that all went to the crapper.

Many of us turned to Tweetdeck. Now, there's another option: Su.pr. Even better? The content will also be submitted to StumbleUpon which sees about 8 million users a month.

This is the soon-to-be-launched new URL shortening service launched by StumbleUpon, but you also get the option of updating Twitter and Facebook when you're up to all your shortening ways.

If you can't wait, you can go ahead to http://su.pr and request an invite code. Be forewarned that the invite codes will be given out via Twitter and looking at StumbleUpon's Twitter feed, they're just getting started.

This is a great way to streamline your content sharing. But that's just my opinion. What's yours? Share in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 8, 2009

Twitter to Launch Verified Accounts to Help Prevent Impersonation

When public figures and celebrities have people pretending to be them, the self-important get all bent out of shape. Twitter has been ripe for impersonations, despite the ban of such accounts via the Twitter Terms of Service. While Twitter is aggressive in suspending fake accounts, I would argue most people are able to spot these fakes a mile away. That doesn't prevent the impersonated from getting their egos bruised.

For these celebrities and also for the rare down-to-earth ones, Twitter is launching Verified Accounts. It will begin as an experimental offering this summer. The experiment will begin with individuals, though Twitter sees potential in extending verification to businesses in the future.

You'll know if an account is official by a notification on the user's page. Twitter also suggested checking out the official website of the public figure you're interested in to see if they link to their Twitter account.

In the meantime, continue using that brain of yours to spot the fakes. Usually, they're as obvious as the Prado street vendors in New York City.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 5, 2009

Facebook Launches New Payment Terms; Begins Phasing Out Regional Networks

Facebook has launched new Payment Terms to cover purchases made on the social network. Purchases are made to purchase items in the Facebook Gift Shop as well as advertising on Facebook. The Facebook site itself, of course, is free.

The major change in the Payment Terms is the consolidation of payments for Facebook Gift Shop and advertising. Previously, there were two separate methods.

Meanwhile, Facebook is beginning to phase out regional networks. When you're signed into network, it will show which networks you belong to. You usually belong to a school network and possibly a company-based network if you're company is large enough. Facebook also places you in a location-based network. Many of these are so large, they're pointless. For example, I'm in the Raleigh-Durham network, but there's a million people in the area and so it's not so useful for actual networking.

The first phase-out involves the removal of regional networks in your privacy settings and removing regional networks as filters in your News Feed has already occurred. In the next few weeks, the regional option for groups and events will be removed as well. Administrators will see a notification of the change at the top of the pages they manage.

How do you feel about these Facebook updates? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg to Launch In-House Advertising Platform

In April, Digg pulled out of its advertising contract with Microsoft. There was speculation at the time that Digg would launch its own advertising platform. This week the social bookmarking site announced that rumor will indeed come to fruition.

Digg Ads will launch as a pilot program in a few months. Ads will be in the form of content you would normally see on Digg, but clearly labeled as "sponsored."

Digg members can vote on sponsored content just like they vote on submitted stories. Digg says the more an Ad is Dugg, the less an advertiser will have to pay for it. The more it is buried, the more an advertiser will pay, effectively pricing it out of play.

The platform is in early stages of development. Digg will be working with advertisers and the Digg community to perfect the system.

What do you think of Digg Ads? Share your initial thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 2, 2009

Twitter Blocked By Great Firewall of China

Seems the Chinese government is not a fan of Twitter. Access to the social media site has been blocked in China, according to ASSME.

Free speech is not an option in China and the blocking of Twitter is another instance of this. One wonders what impact this will have on the user numbers globally. Over a third of the world's population lives in China and they represent a major growth area for the internet.

One of these days someone will create a Wireless Free broadcasting platform, similar to RadioFree America used to send radio into Communist countries and possibly an influence on the fall of the Soviet and Eastern Bloc system.

Might have to discuss the topic with Daron Babin of Webamster Radio when I see him at Affiliate Convention in Denver.

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Minutes Online: Facebook, Tagged and Twitter Soars While MySpace Struggles

Nielsen Online has released new data showing minutes spent on social networks for the month of April 2009. Compared to April 2008, most of the top 10 social networks are seeing skyrocketing growth while MySpace sees a decline.

The news is not all bad for MySpace. Video is its silver lining. MySpace topped the list of networks for most minutes streaming video (384 million) and average minutes per viewer (38.8). While MySpace is already a YouTube competitor, perhaps it should reposition itself as more aligned with video? (Share your thoughts on that below in the comments).

Of course, Facebook topped the list of overall minutes. A site to watch is Tagged.com, which is seeing more engagement that Twitter, which gets a ton of buzz. And Google's Blogger enjoyed a steady 30% annual growth.

Here's the chart comparing total engagement from April 2008 to April 2009:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

May 29, 2009

Omniture Launches Facebook Analytics Solution

Omniture has created a new tool designed to measure the success of Facebook applications. Dubbed App Measurement for Facebook, it utilizes the reporting capabilities of the company's online analytics solution SiteCatalyst.

With App Measurement for Facebook, marketers can view users by how many members they have, see which parts of the app are most popular, monitor video sharing, and observe which users invited their friends to the app.

Check out more screenshots of the tool at Omniture's Flickr stream.

Facebook apps are an increasingly popular way for companies to leverage social media in their online marketing campaigns.

"With more than 200 million active users, marketers are intrigued by the potential of Facebook to help them connect with consumers in personalized and meaningful ways," said Brett Error, CTO and executive vice president, products at Omniture.

But unlike SEO and SEM, social media has been notoriously difficult to measure. App Measurement for Facebook attempts to fill this void.

"The relatively young phenomenon of social media has forced marketers to rely on experimentation to tap into that potential," said Error. "The App Measurement for Facebook solution will deliver actionable insight concerning Facebook applications and help marketers develop data-driven social media marketing strategies that support and positively affect efforts across other online channels."

The tool is now available for SiteCatalyst customers and is part of the Omniture Online Marketing Suite.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 27, 2009

Digg Removes 'Shout', 'Blog This' Features in Favor of Other Sharing Options

Digg is removing two sharing features from its lineup: the controversial 'Shout' feature and the not-used-so-much 'Blog This' feature. But you can still share content found on Digg.

The new (and also controversial) DiggBar enables email, Facebook and Twitter sharing. Digg also launched Twitter feeds a few months back, which means you can ReTweet links in order to share content as well.

The DiggBar launched last month, and it's a toolbar that frames content instead of installing in your browser. As a result, DiggBar uses Digg URLs, which stirred up opposition from the SEO community.

Digg quickly responded by saying that it had talked with experts at search engines and promised that the DiggBar was SEO-friendly. But judging by the comments and blog posts out there, many SEOs were not convinced. Digg continues to work on SEO issues regarding the DiggBar, hoping that its tweaks will finally win SEOs over.

Many Digg members are notorious for disliking SEOs, as they feel they game Digg simply for linkbait. Of course, those same members often game the system themselves in order to win popularity and have more power on the social bookmarking site.

Digg seems to work diligently to strike balances and update Digg to make it friendly to a wide audience, but it's a challenge indeed. Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook are growing rapidly, potentially threatening the impact Digg once enjoyed in the social networking niche - especially with their ability to share content.

These latest chess moves in the ability to share Digg content seem like an attempt to position the site more in line with the latest trends in content-sharing and social networking. It's an ever-changing scene and there's plenty of room for competition and collaboration.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 26, 2009

After Successfully Suing Google, Greenspan Settles with Facebook

When it comes to legally challenging tech giants, Aaron Greenspan is on a roll. In March, he won a small claims court suit against Google's AdSense program, which cut him off without warning and without paying him what his site had earned.

It turns out that Greenspan attended Harvard at the same time Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg did. Greenspan developed a network for the Harvard community called houseSYSTEM. The network included course scheduler, student marketplace, email service, automatic birthday reminder, message boards, photo album, digital flyer advertising, event calendar (with online RSVP's), map integration, job placement, and local business reviews. Greenspan thought about adding profiles, but at the time nixed them for security reasons.

houseSYSTEM included a section called 'The Universal Face Book.'

Later, Zuckerberg would add profiles when he started his social network in 2004. And, of course, he called it Facebook.

Naturally, this led to trademark disputes which have now been settled.

This isn't the first time a classmate of Zuckerberg wanted credit for their Harvard-era work. ConnectU's co-founders (and twins) Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, along with co-founder Divya Narendra sued Facebook for idea-stealing. That case was settled as well, with leaked reports purpotedly showing the settlement money in the $65 million range.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2009

Zombie Tweets Found in Search, Twitter App

Remember that Tweet you thought you deleted? It never really died. It lives on in the Twitter search - and at a Twitter app called Tweleted.

Jonathan Ross found this out the hard way when he posted his email address on Twitter. Ross has a quarter million followers and decided that perhaps posting the email address wasn't a good idea after all. But it was too late.

Apparently, it's always too late. The good news is that if you accidentally delete a tweet, Tweleted will help you find it.

I decided to test this out for myself. Sure, enough, I deleted my test tweet, searched for it and found it using both Twitter search and Tweleted:

Do you think Twitter should permanently erase deleted Tweets? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

May 14, 2009

Twitter Hockey Stick Continues to Take Shape in comScore April 2009 Stats

With the help of Oprah, the hockey stick that is Twitter growth stats continued to take shape in April 2009, according to comScore data. Twitter saw 17 million visitors last month, quadrupling its numbers over two months:

However, with Twitter's loyalty problem, will Oprah's fans stick around? Or will this become the peak in a rollercoaster?

What do you think will happen with Twitter's growth? Leave it in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 7, 2009

MySpace Ad Revenue Drops in Q1 2009

News Corp, which owns Fox Interactive Media, which owns MySpace, has reported their first quarter earnings for 2009. The news was not so great for the social network, with a reported 16% decline in ad revenue.

"“Our third quarter results directly reflect the continuing weakness of the global economic climate. Despite this tough environment, we have proven resilient in several key areas this quarter," said News Corp Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch. "We continued to make necessary operational adjustments to ensure our businesses are performing at optimum levels. We are working daily to increase market share and strengthen our core businesses, even in this very challenging environment.”"

There are changes afoot at MySpace as News Corp and Fox Interactive seek to turn back the negative trend. Former Facebook exec, Owen Van Netta, was recently named CEO of MySpace. Facebook, of course, has been growing rapidly, much to MySpace's demise. It will be interesting to see if Van Netta can breathe new life into MySpace again.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 30, 2009

Twitter's Retention Numbers Exposes Loyalty Problem

With all the buzz about Twitter lately, Nielsen Online exposes a problem: retention and loyalty. It seems that 60% of Twitter users never return the next month to Tweet. Compared to the retention rates of MySpace and Facebook, Twitter is lagging:

They also did some fancy pants math to show the correlation between retention and Internet reach:

What do you think of the Nielsen data? Is Twitter ultimately in trouble? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 27, 2009

Facebook Launches Open Stream API

In the ongoing chess match for social media dominance, Facebook just made a move that is akin to saying "Check." Today, they launched Facebook Open Stream API.

This means developers can create apps based on the live feeds that users see when they log into Facebook. Users, however, can maintain the privacy controls that they want.

If you're familiar with the many desktop and mobile clients for Twitter, then you know what's coming - desktop and mobile apps for Facebook.

In fact, many are saying Facebook did this to compete directly with Twitter. What say you, oh dear SEW readers? Leave thy comments below.

Related Reading: Preliminary Results in Facebook Governance Vote Favor New Documents Facebook's Rapid Growth Continues with 200 Million Members

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2009

Former Facebook Exec Tapped as MySpace CEO

After much speculation, it was finally confirmed that News Corp has hired Owen Van Netta, former chief revenue officer and vp of operations at Facebook, as the new CEO of MySpace. He will replace Chris Wolfe, whose resignation was announced Wednesday.

Van Netta spent less than a year as CEO at Playlist after Facebook. Previously, he was VP of worldwide business and corporate development at Amazon.com.

Van Netta's hiring comes almost a month after former AOL exec Jonathan Miller was tapped to head up News Corp's digital division.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Preliminary Results in Facebook Governance Vote Favor New Documents

The Facebook governance vote concluded yesterday. The social network says that while the numbers need to be verified by an independent auditor, 74% are in favor of the new documents over the old Terms of Service. 600,000 members participated in the vote.

The new documents include "Facebook Principles," which define the rights of members, and a "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities," which replaces the old Terms of Service.

Once the vote is confirmed, the new policies will take effect. Any future changes to the documents will be subject to public notice, comment and voting.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 17, 2009

Really, Oprah? Ashton Kutcher is the 'King' of Twitter? REALLY?

This week's "race" on Twitter to see who could get to 1 million followers the quickest has gotten on my nerves. I've never been a big fan of the "who can get the most followers" game, but usually they're easy to ignore.

This one bugged me. I don't mind celebrities using Twitter. But when I hear things like Oprah crowning Ashton Kutcher the "King" of Twitter, I think - why in the world does Oprah think she's the one who should make a proclamation?

I finally figured out why it's so annoying. Most of the time when a trend happens, it starts with celebrities. Then all the fans start wearing a fashion or driving a car or going on a certain diet or whatever.

But with Twitter, the celebrities practically came from out of nowhere and decided they were the most awesome thing to come to Twitter since, well, the millions of users who were already there.

I guess it's just that I've watched people in a variety of niches really advance Twitter, and then Oprah comes along riding coattails and interviewing celebrities.

Don't get me wrong, I love that Twitter is getting so much attention. For those of you who are trying to market your business via Twitter, having Oprah's fans on there certainly helps.

But for those of us geeks who've been on Twitter for a while, this just feels like the captain of the cheerleading squad trying to take over the yearbook. Or the chess club.

Related Reading: Hit Film Twilight Tops Twitter Searches comScore Releases Surprising Twitter Statistics Twitter Tests Search-Centric Interface (We've Got Screenshots!)

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

The Polls are Open for Facebook Governance Voting

In February, Facebook changed its Terms of Service to reflect a very technical change about the way they stored data. The idea was to allow content shared among users to be stored multiple times in order to not have that content removed from one user sharing the content should the other delete their Facebook account.

Somehow, in the "wisdom of the masses," this all got turned around to get most people thinking Facebook was trying to claim user-generated content as its own.

Facebook caved and returned to the old Terms of Service. They also requested feedback and said they would let users vote on the new Terms of Service, which has now been broken down into two policies: "Facebook Principles," which defines the rights of members. The second is a "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities."

Well, now the voting has begun and will run through April 23rd. That gives you almost 2 weeks to make your voice heard.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 16, 2009

FriendFeed Adds Italian and Turkish for a Total of 9 Languages

Social media aggregator FriendFeed has added two new languages: Italian and Turkish. This brings the grand total of languages offered on Friend Feed to 10.

The other 7 are:

• English
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Japanese
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese

You can select a language using the drop-down menu at the bottom of every page or the Account settings option.

Related Reading: FriendFeed Launches Real-Time Design in Beta FriendFeed Updates Search Functionality FriendFeed Adds Duplicate Detection! And Twitter Tweaks Interface Design

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg Tweaks DiggBar Again in Response to Continued SEO Criticism

Despite Digg's attempt last week to defend the DiggBar, many SEO's are still upset about the URL shortening and potential for reducing link juice.

In response, Digg's next move is to 301 redirect anyone who comes across a page with a DiggBar on it - IF they are not signed into Digg.

Digg users can also disable the bar, though Digg says very few have.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this won't appease SEO's. This almost feels like an admission by Digg that perhaps their DiggBar isn't quite as SEO-friendly as they hoped.

I can see both sides. On the one hand, Digg is trying to improve its bookmarking by allowing people to view the bookmarked sites instead of just going along Digg and voting based on headlines.

On the other hand, this isn't a traditional URL shortening service that, when the page is loaded, kills the URL and displays the page in all of its original glory.

Still, many people like to share links where you can vote a link up or down on Digg. The DiggBar is a new way to do it. Should Digg really have to strip away the DiggBar?

Does Digg's tweak help you like the DiggBar any more? Take it to the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 14, 2009

11 Myths About Bloggers that Need to Be Busted

Stereotypes about bloggers have begun to formalize as blogging has taken its place in society. As usual, not all stereotypes are rooted in fact. It's time to address the following 11 myths before they are perpetuated any further.

1. Bloggers live and work in their parents' basements. This one is used when people are offended by bloggers or feel the need to make fun of them in some way. Most bloggers have jobs that pay the rent or mortgage for their own home - the blog is a hobby. A minute number of bloggers do make enough to live off of, and they usually end up showing off pictures of their big homes on their blogs.
2. The bloggers in the niche I'm interested in are so smart, I can't add anything of value to the conversation. Don't be intimidated by established niches. It's much easier to blog about what you're interested in. If you select a topic that's not interesting just to become the next big A-lister, you're dooming yourself to a life of boredom and self-hatred. Here's my advice: I once attended an improvisational acting seminar where the great Jill Bernard told us to copy other improvisers that inspire us. The reason is that nothing is truly original - and that the character would look different on us anyway. She's right and the same applies to blogging.
3. Bloggers work in their pajamas. Some do. Some don't. Others mix it up.
4. Bloggers write because they cannot do. The idea behind this myth is that bloggers aren't knowledgeable about their niche. Nonsense. Most bloggers write about niches or industries that they are passionate about and actively participate in.
5. Bloggers are hecklers. In the documentary Heckler, bloggers are portrayed as harsh critics who spew a never-ending stream of vicious hatred. While certainly there are bad apples out there, many write about things they love, not topics they hate.
6. All bloggers use Macs. There are millions of bloggers, and Apple still has a minority PC marketshare. Also, contrary to popular belief, Mac OS isn't intuitive for everyone.
7. Bloggers will endorse anything for money. A Pew internet study in 2006 showed that only 7 percent of bloggers do it to make money.
8. Bloggers influence the media. Actually, most blog to express themselves creatively. Only about 200 bloggers (out of millions) influence the media.
9. Bloggers consider themselves online journalists. Most do not. Most are giving their opinion or, again, expressing themselves creatively.
10. Bloggers are nerds with thick glasses. This stereotype was portrayed on SNL over the weekend. But most of the bloggers I've met have more of a preppy look going on. Almost yuppie-ish.
11. It's easy to become a successful blogger. Not even close. Blogging requires good communication skills that can be transferred through writing, video, or photography. You also need perserverance for those days that are mind numbing. Even when you're getting paid, there are days when you don't know how you're going to write about your topic - yet again! It's much easier to get a gig writing for an established blog than it is to start one and keep with it until it pays. In the beginning, without pay, the temptation to bail on work that doesn't (yet) pay is great - and consumes most bloggers.

Are there any blogging myths you would like to clear up? Do so in the comments below.

Related Reading: Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success FTC's Proposed Social Media Marketing Regulations Target Bloggers

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

April 13, 2009

Is Social Media The Key To Challenging Google?

ValleyWag reported that Facebook is now providing 19% of Google's search traffic, add in 3% or so from MySpace (that could get higher if implemented better) and the fact that Twitter is fast becoming a major traffic source for many websites and you can start to see the influence that social media have on search.

Granted Google has strong relationships with most of the social media companies, but if that were to change Google could see a drop in their high percentage of market share, Wonder why Microsoft has not thought of this yet!

Posted by Frank Watson at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 10, 2009

Digg Search is Now Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Digg has introduced an updated search to their social bookmarking site. Design head Daniel Burka outlined the changes in a post on the Digg blog. The updates include:

• Filtering by factors such as Digg count, topic, time, etc.
• Advanced shortcuts to search for specific promotion characteristics. Add +p to your query for only promoted stories, +u for upcoming stories, and +b for buried.
• Common search tricks - quotes for exact match and a negative sign before the term to keep that term out of results
• A graph demonstrating the historical trend of a term
• Searching for stories from a particular domain is much more effective. Filtering results by domain is also available.
• New RSS feeds allow users to create feeds for a given topic but filter out results they don't wish to see
• Digg search is faster

What do you think of the Digg search updates? Let us know in the comments below.

Related Reading: Digg Says Diggbar is SEO Friendly (But You Can Still Block It If You Want) Digg Adds New Twitter Feeds

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Digg Says Diggbar is SEO Friendly (But You Can Still Block It If You Want)

When Digg launched the Diggbar last week, it seemed to follow a trend that social media and bookmarking is taking. But for most, there was just one problem: in the URL box in your browser is a tiny URL created by Digg instead of the full URL of the site. Naturally, SEO concerns over PageRank and canonical issues arose.

Digg is responding with this:

Prior to launching the DiggBar, we reached out to Google and SEO experts to ensure we adhered to the leading best practices, as we framed and linked directly to source content via the DiggBar. This process involved gathering feedback from publishers to ensure the execution was as content-provider-friendly as possible. We took several steps to ensure that search engines continue to count the original source, versus registering the DiggBar as new content. We include only links to the source URLs on Digg pages to allow spiders to see the unmodified links to source sites. These links are overwritten to short URLs in JavaScript for users who have this preference.

We launched a few additional updates early this week to address some lingering concerns in the SEO and publishing communities around the infamous (and sometimes mysterious) search engine 'juice'. We always represent the source URL as the preferred version of the URL to search engines and use the meta noindex tag to keep DiggBar pages out of search indexes. For those of you interested in the technical details, we also include link rel="canonical" information to indicate that the original URL is the real (canonical) version. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well. This is recommended by Google, Ask.com, Microsoft and Yahoo!.

There's also been some discussion about how traditional web analytics and panel based companies like Quantcast, Compete, Nielson and Comscore track shortened URLs. While we don't claim to represent any specific methodology, we've reached out to Comscore and Nielson and they both confirmed that publisher traffic statistics won't be impacted by the DiggBar implementation. Also, any quantitative tag employed by Quantcast, Compete and Comscore's new hybrid methodology will also register the source as the page view.

Still, there are those who are not BiggFans of the DiggBar. Take John Gruber over at Daring Fireball, for example. He's shared a code that blocks the DiggBar.

I'm not a big Digg user myself, but I do use StumbleUpon and, of course, click on links from Twitter, and have been coming across the DiggBar. It comes across as not really wanting to share information and/or network, they just wanted a Digg.

What do you, dear reader, think of the DiggBar? Do you trust Digg or will you go Gruber's route? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yelp to Allow Local Business Response to User Reviews

There have been many a tale of a business owner here or there who is none too thrilled with the review the get on Yelp. Even doctors are requiring patients to sign forms saying they won't give a negative review online because of negative reviews on Yelp.

Of course, there are those who take it in stride, such as the San Francisco pizzeria that decided to start printing their 1 star reviews on T-shirts. (And then customers started giving 1 star reviews in the hopes of seeing their review on a shirt.)

But let's face it, not everyone has a good sense of humor.

So, Yelp has decided to let businesses respond to user reviews. Sense of humor or not, this is a wise decision on Yelp's part. And hopefully, physicians will take advantage of it instead of bullying their patients into keeping them un-accountable.

Related Reading:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 6:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

April 8, 2009

Hit Film Twilight Tops Twitter Searches

Hitwise has released data revealing the top searches conducted on Twitter for the week ending March 21, 2009. At the top of the list is the film sensation Twilight, based on a book series of the same name. Never heard of it? Ask your local teenager.

Meanwhile, here are the top 25 searches, per Hitwise:

Hitwise also reports that entertainment searches were the top category of searches in the top 75 search terms. They consisted of 29% of those searches.

Here are the top 10 celeb searches:

Related Reading: comScore Releases Surprising Twitter Statistics Searchme Adds Twitter Button to Aid Tweets of Search Results Waggener Edstrom Releases Twitter Monitoring Tool: Twendz

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Facebook's Rapid Growth Continues with 200 Million Members

Facebook says it expects to welcome its 200 millionth member today. It was just January when Facebook announced 150 million members.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg sees Facebook as more than just social networking, he sees it as a force for social action. Writing on the Facebook blog, Zuckerberg said:

Creating channels between people who want to work together towards change has always been one of the ways that social movements push the world forward and make it better. Both U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have used Facebook as a way to organize their supporters. From the protests against the Colombian FARC, a 40-year old terrorist organization, to fighting oppressive, fringe groups in India, people use Facebook as a platform to build connections and organize action.

What do you think of Facebook's rapid success? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

comScore Releases Surprising Twitter Statistics

comScore has released some interesting statistics about Twitter. It will come as no surprise that Twitter traffic is on the rise. What is surprising is who's driving the traffic.

45-54 year olds are the top demographic. The more expeccted demo of 25-34 year olds following closely behind at second. But notice how boomers and senior citizens are getting Twitter on more likely than their grandchildren:

Twitter is also seeing an explosion of growth internationally:

What do you think of these statistics? Leave us a comment below to let us know.

Related Reading: Twitter Tests Search-Centric Interface (We've Got Screenshots!) Twitter Taps Ex-Google Lead Designer Doug Bowman as Creative Director Hitwise Report Details Downstream Visits from Twitter

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

April 6, 2009

Amber Naslund of Radian6 on Social Media for the Little Guy

One of the sessions at SES New York that I had to attend was "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy."

Why did I have to attend? Well, Amber Naslund, the Director of Community for Radian6, was on the panel and I was afraid that she'd spill the beans about how Radian6 gives you a complete platform to track millions of blogs, tweets, videos, and comments.

It's one of my "secret weapons."

But she was so intent on helping helping small companies with even smaller budgets freely tap the world of social media to improve their business and increase sales that she almost didn't mention what company she was from.

I should have been selfish and let her keep my "secret weapon" secret. But, when we got to Q&A I had to ask her about Radian6 -- because it's too good a product to keep under wraps.

We've been using it to track the surprising relationships between people who use blogs, video sharing sites (YouTube), photo sharing sites (Flickr) and microblogging sites (Twitter) as well as Social networking sites (Facebook). What continually amazes me is how frequently the person who Tweets this morning is blogging about the same topic this afternoon and then uploading a video about the subject tomorrow.

If you use different tools to track each of these social media, then you will often miss the connections.

To illustrate this point, I interviewed Naslund after the session, have embedded the video interview below and will Tweet about in a minute. Get it? Got it? Good.

Amber Naslund, Radian6, on the importance of social media for small businesses at SES New York

At Radian6, Naslund is responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies tap the potential of online reputation management, customer engagement, and social media monitoring. She's spent the last decade or so raising over $60m for non-profit organizations, building brands for companies large and small, and messing with all things online.

Naslund blogs at Altitude Branding, focusing on brand building and social media marketing for business. She's also an author of Radian6's PowerShift blog, where she's just posted a great story about Southwest Airlines, an old client of mine. And she is a contributor to the popular MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, and she keeps her personal blog at Innacurate Reality.

Oh, and if you contact Naslund, you'll discover that she's is passionate about helping companies and customers build and share brands, together. Yes, yes. That's wonderful. But, ask her to give you a demo of Radian6. If you don't see the product, you'll be missing one of the marketing tools that should be in your social media toolkit.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

FriendFeed Launches Real-Time Design in Beta

FriendFeed is previewing the new version of their site at http://beta.friendfeed.com. The big difference is that updates come in at real-time. You don't have to refresh the page.

If you're not familiar, FriendFeed is a social aggregator. It's a site where you can see updates from most of the major social networks. Get Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. updates all in one place. The great thing about FriendFeed is the ability to search user feeds for conversations about any given topic or brand.

Here's a video demonstrating the new interface:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 2, 2009

DiggBar Enables Easier Social Bookmarking, Sharing

Lately, we've seen the emergence of toolbar-esque social media features that enable sharing and social networking without having to install a toolbar or visit a complete site. Google Friend Connect's Social Bar enables social networking with a horizontal "bar" of social networking that web developers can place on their site. Facebook has a bar that runs along the bottom of the page while you're hanging out on their site.

Now, DiggBar comes along to make the Digg experience easier. Whenever you're on a site, you can simply type "digg.com/" in front of the URL to launch the DiggBar.

From there you can add comments, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc. or click the "Random" button to see a random Digg submission.

Of course, this is very reminiscent of StumbleUpon's toolbar, but it does make it easier to Digg. I expect we'll continue to see these social bars pop up on more and more sites.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Twitter Tests Search-Centric Interface (We've Got Screenshots!)

Twitter is testing an interface that incorporates new search features. The interface is an attempt to keep it simple by using the original Twitter design. The test has been rolled out to a subset of people. I was pleasantly surprised to sign in and see my profile was getting the test page. Now I get to show you what's up!

First up, the search box is included on the sidebar. Previously, Twitter was testing a search box in the top right navbar. You'll also notice trends underneath the search box.

Next, the search results appear right there on the homepage, where you would normally see the Tweets from your Tweeps.

You can also save your search if you wish to return to it at a later date. When you do, it lists the search under the search box:

What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments!

Related Reading: Twitter Taps Ex-Google Lead Designer Doug Bowman as Creative Director Hitwise Report Details Downstream Visits from Twitter Twitter's Big Search Plans: A Google Killer?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 31, 2009

Twitter Taps Ex-Google Lead Designer Doug Bowman as Creative Director

Recently, Visual Design Lead Doug Bowman left Google because he felt it was too constricting of an environment for a designer. I wasn't surprised. Marissa Mayer holds a tight leash on all things Google design-wise. Managing a design effort that's based on an old style serif font with primary colors and micromanaged by an executive with a programming background is probably not the dream of most cutting edge designers.

But don't feel bad for Bowman. The hottest tech company out there right now has picked him up. Twitter has tapped Bowman to be their Creative Director.

When you think of Twitter and design, a few things come to mind:

• A very bubbly logo
• A bird
• Small birds attempting to lift a very infamous whale

It will be interesting to see where Bowman takes Twitter. There's no doubt the company is evolving. With the inevitable monetization methods on the horizon, design will likely play a key role.

But design also has its role in simply updating Twitter as is. Twitter has tweaked the front page a lot since its inception, from testing a search box to a sidebar overhaul. The design efforts have been squarely under co-founder Biz Stone's responsibilities.

Of course, Biz is a very busy dude right now, so hiring a Creative Director appears to be a wise delegation.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 30, 2009

MySpace Mobile Application to Support Microsoft Windows Mobile and Silverlight

A new MySpace mobile application set to debut this summer will support Microsoft Windows Mobile as well as Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight is technology similar to Adobe's Flash that powers rich media.

"We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft's platforms," said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace. "Our relationship enables app developers to use Silverlight to create engaging MySpace apps and allows Windows Mobile users to have a more personal MySpace experience on their phone."

MySpace already has mobile applications for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Sidekick, Palm, and Nokia. Related Reading: MySpace Launches Self-Service Ad Platform Facebook & MySpace Connect: Good Idea or Social Media Catastrophe? Google, Yahoo & MySpace Team Up for OpenSocial

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

March 27, 2009

Veoh Allows Video Sharing Within Groups

Online video site Veoh is now offering groups. Many social sites offer groups. LinkedIn and Facebook are two social networks that have very popular and successful group features.

Groups are a great way of finding other users on the same network with similar interests, but they're also great for sharing. So much of the web, from search to social media to shopping, is about discovery, and groups are an awesome tool for finding new things - and sharing things for others to discover.

What do you think about Veoh's new groups? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading: Veoh Gets Another Victory in Copyright Case Brought by Universal Veoh Launches Slick Video Search Browser Plug-In for Firefox and Internet Explorer Internet TV Startup Veoh Networks Names ex-Yahoo Mitgang as CEO

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 23, 2009

Meebo to Offer Social Ads to Partner Sites

In the second quarter of 2009, instant messaging client Meebo will begin offering its social ad platform to partner sites. So far, over 40 online publishers will participate including:

• CafeMom
• Sugar Publishing
• myYearbook
• Flixster
• AddictingGames
• Bleacher Report
• dotblu
• FanPop
• ibeatyou
• OperationSports
• WhateverLife
• Current TV
• CrispyGamer
• DailyStrength.org
• GGL Global Gaming
• IGN.com
• Internet Brands
• StarPulse

Meebo says their key ad metrics include:

• 10x higher click rates than typical ads on social media sites
• 1% click rates on average
• 1:35 seconds average time spent with the ad content
• 10% of users that engage then share the branded experience with their friends

"Meebo ads work for brand marketers by providing a platform that delivers an abundance of social actions that can be measured," said Carter Brokaw, chief revenue officer, Meebo. "Today, we're announcing that our advertising partners will be able to extend their buys across our syndication network of tier-one content sites, social networks, entertainment sites, blogs, and gaming partners. Our syndication partners will increase their revenue potential because Meebo ads are highly engaging and integrated into the communication experience to drive actions. The result is increased scale for social campaigns that deliver results for both marketers and partners."

Related Reading: IM Platform Meebo Tries Shareable Ads MIVA Direct Partners with Meebo for ALOT Social Community Integration Meebo Signs Media Partners, Adds Advertising Meebo Builds Ad Network Around Chat

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 16, 2009

Facebook Connect Now Available for iPhone

Facebook Connect is a web development tool that helps sites add social networking (similar to Google Friend Connect). Now, Facebook developers have released a version of Connect for iPhone app developers.

This, of course, enables developers to add social networking to their apps. It includes:

• Making API calls so your app can access users' profiles and share information on Facebook.
• Publishing to Facebook via Feed forms.
• Asking users for extended permissions, like offline access, so you can still interact with their data when they're offline.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bebo Expands to Five More European Countries

Social network Bebo, which was acquired by AOL last year, has expanded to five additional European countries. The countries are: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Bebo is already available in the UK and Ireland.

"The proven success of our platform in the UK and Ireland positions us well to expand into these dynamic continental European markets. The social networking audience is growing rapidly and our new sites will allow local users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands, both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the user's ability to express him or herself - as evidenced in our new Lifestory feature - and in the ability to connect to people, media and brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform," said Nicole Vanderbilt, VP International, Bebo."

Related Reading: Facebook Expands to Hebrew and Arabic; Bebo Expands to Latino Community Bebo Launches Social Inbox to Aggregate Feeds from Your Networks AOL's Platform-A to Offer Guaranteed CPM to Facebook, Bebo Developers

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 13, 2009

Hulu Adds Social Networking, Celebrates First Year

Online video site Hulu is celebrating its first birthday by adding social networking to the site. Dubbed "Hulu Friends," users can do the usual: share videos, comment on shows and content, and view rankings. Hulu integrates with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Facebook, and Myspace to help users find their friends and/or invite them to Hulu.

Hulu is experiencing 24 million visitors a month. It has risen quickly in its niche and trails only YouTube in the online video space. They began with 50 content partners and now boast over 130. They've grown from 30 advertisers to 175+.

Over 3.9 million Hulu players have been embedded on more than 100,000 sites. Congrats on all the success, Hulu!

Related Reading: Fox, NBC and Others Testing Online TV With Hulu.com Hulu Launches -- Takes "You" Out of YouTube, Puts Copyright In

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hitwise Report Details Downstream Visits from Twitter

After people are on Twitter.com, where do they browse? Hitwise has released a report with data that answers that question and more.

Interestingly enough, people go to Google and Facebook from Twitter. Here's the data from February 2009:

Here's a look at the categories of post-Twitter visits:

And here's how Twitter compares to other categories and their downstreams:

What this data doesn't show are clicks from Twitter desktop and mobile clients. As a result, this is only a snapshot of the Twitter downstream.

Related Reading: Guy Kawasaki says Twitter is Marketing Weapon in SES Webcast Twitter Marketing Successes Twitter's Big Search Plans: A Google Killer? Despite Debate, Brands Find Value on Twitter Yahoo Competes with Facebook; Facebook Competes with Twitter

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 12, 2009

LinkedIn Rolls Out Update to DirectAds

LinkedIn has experienced great success not only as a social network for career professionals but also in their monetization, normally a struggle for social sites. One of their advertising avenues is DirectAds and this week they're rolling out an update to the program.

Over at the LinkedIn blog, Senior Product Manager Jack Chau explained three of the enhancements included in the update:

• Access to a global audience Now you can target professionals from Australia, Canada, India, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The US was already available.
• More pricing options for more cost-effective advertising Pay-per-click has been added as an option, and cost per impression (CPM) will still remain an option.
• Easier payments for DirectAds Advertisers won't be charged until after they have a clear picture on the CPM or the cost per click (CPC) for their ads.

Related Reading: Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn LinkedIn Launches Market Research Survey Service LinkedIn's New Search Platform Goes Live LinkedIn Launches Targeted Advertising Network

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 11, 2009

Facebook Referring More Traffic to (Some) Big Sites than Google

Some big sites are getting big traffic, but it's not from the usual suspect of Google. Instead, it's from Facebook. PerezHilton.com and Cafemom.com are among the sites benefitting from the word of mouth and social networking going on at Facebook.

Interestingly enough, there is one more site benefitting from Facebook traffic: Twitter, whose buzz as of late seems a bit of a threat to both Facebook and Google. The threat is less for Facebook, who benefits from user mashups allowing status updates to appear on Twitter and vice versa.

Facebook sees about 1/3 of the U.S. traffic that Google does. So, it's surprising to see this trend happen so soon.

Still, Microsoft seems just a little more brilliant for becoming Facebook's search partner last year.

via AdAge

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Facebook Expands to Hebrew and Arabic; Bebo Expands to Latino Community

Facebook has expanded to include the Hebrew and Arabic languages. In a post on the Facebook blog, Ghassan Haddad wrote:

Meanwhile, Bebo has launched a Latino site for the U.S.

"Expanding into new markets is a key pillar of our growth strategy, and we see huge potential for the growing Latino audience in the U.S. Our platform allows users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands, both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the user's ability to express him or herself - as evidenced in our new Lifestory feature - and in the ability to connect to people, media and brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform," said Nicole Vanderbilt, VP International, Bebo.

Related Reading: Yahoo Competes with Facebook; Facebook Competes with Twitter Facebook Marketplace: Now Powered by Oodle Bebo Launches Social Inbox to Aggregate Feeds from Your Networks

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 10, 2009

Social Networking and Blogs Surpass Email in Popularity

With 67% of the worldwide internet population visiting, social networks and blogs are now outpacing email in popularity. They've become the 4th most popular online category, according to Nielsen Online.

"Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience," says John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. "While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why."

Here are some more interesting nuggets of information on the matter from Nielsen:

• One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
• The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to "Member Community" Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).
• Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19 percent in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year - up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the US.

Does this mean people will start responding to social media marketing over email marketing? Only time will tell. So will you when you leave a comment below.

Related Reading: Social Networking and E-mail Marketing Converge Nielson Online Releases January 2009 Search Engine Share Rankings 81% of Online Holiday Shoppers Read Product Reviews Online Video Wins the 9-5 Hour, Weekdays

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

March 5, 2009

Yahoo Competes with Facebook; Facebook Competes with Twitter

Yahoo! is now competing with Facebook Connect. Through a partnership with JS-Kit, Yahoo! Updates is now available on over 600,000 websites. The joint effort helps sites bring social networking functionality to their sites. (Google's Friend Connect is also a player in this space.)

Meanwhile, Facebook is competing with Twitter. It had been rumored that Facebook sought to acquire Twitter, but the deal fell through (apparently because Twitter wanted to go after search). Now, Facebook is going after Twitter by adding more live-stream features to their network.

Last year, Facebook updated user profile pages and the user experience, focusing on streams of updates by friends. Now, public profiles and organizations are getting pages that look more like user pages. The focus, again, is on the real-time stream of updated information.

Additionally, Facebook is updating their home page with the live-stream concept in mind. The new home page will begin rolling out next week. In the meantime, here's a preview:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter's Big Search Plans: A Google Killer?

AdAge has the scoop on Twitter's plans for search. Could this possibly be a real challenge to Google?

Last year, Twitter acquired Summize, which was a Twitter search developed on the API. Twitter search is increasingly popular, especially for finding real-time chatter on a given topic. Recently, a Greasemonkey script was created to incorporate Twitter search into Google results (for those who install the add-on in Firefox).

But Twitter has bigger plans. They want to add a Q&A feature that harnesses the collective - and immediate - knowledge of the Twitterverse. Think Yahoo! Answers meets Twitter Search. Answers sites have been growing in popularity at a rapid pace. This could be a very smart move for Twitter.

Anecdotally, I've been seeing people using Twitter before checking with Google. It makes sense. Ask people from your trusted network instead of searching through tens or hundreds of results on your own - and then deciphering how trustworthy the information is.

If Twitter focuses on search, it's easy to see how they could then monetize their network (finally): search ads.

It's no wonder that Google has its eye on Twitter. From the CEO calling it a "poor man's email" (postering??) to rumors that it may seek to acquire Twitter, this is an exciting space to watch.

Oh, and Twitter passes my branding test. Twitter is definitely being used as a verb!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 24, 2009

How to Get Your Facebook Profile Removed Once You're Dead (It's Harder than You Think)

When Emmy-award winning investigative journalist William Bemister passed away last November, his sister Stephanie decided to have his Facebook profile removed. You might think such a thing would be simple, but during a time of grief, Facebook makes it as hard as possible for profiles to be removed.

Ms. Bemister sent a copy of her brother's death certificate, but Facebook refused to remove the profile, sending this reply:

"Per our policy for deceased users, we have memorialized this person's account. This removes certain more sensitive information and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or find the person in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance."

Eventually, Facebook gave the real reason: it was because Ms. Bemister said only that she was a relative and did not inform them she was next of kin.

This certainly doesn't help Facebook's problems with privacy. Just last week, Facebook went through a debacle of returning to a previous version of their Terms of Service after users protested the new one, which they felt took too much control over their content.

In years past, Facebook has faced privacy issues related to advertising when a program used private information to advertise to Facebook members.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 19, 2009

Twitter Tests a Search Box on the Root Domain

Twitter is testing a search box on the root URL of its site, meaning on the home page and user pages. Currently, search resides on a subdomain, http://search.twitter.com. There is a "Find People" search on the root, but searching tweets is on the root.

The test will include a search box in the navigation in the top right of the page. Only a small subset of users will see the search box during the test.

Twitter has had a hesitant approach to search. While this may seem surprising on the surface, it has probably been necessary in the progress of the social network. As the popularity of Twitter grew, many of the users became accustomed to downtime, symbolized by the infamous picture of a whale being lifted by tiny birds.

As Twitter resolved the majority of their downtime issues, search became a possibility again. Twitter acquired Summize, which was a third-party search developed via the Twitter API. That's when search was placed on the subdomain.

It's good to see that Twitter is finding itself in the place to test search on the root domain. My gut tells me they'll find the search box very popular and roll it out to all users soon enough.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 18, 2009

UPDATE: Facebook Returns to Old Terms of Service

After the uproar over Facebook's change in their Terms of Service, Zuckerberg and company have returned to the old TOS. This is mostly a huge misunderstanding and Facebook is still working on a new TOS.

Zuckerberg is like Jerry Yang - good with the coding and programming, not so great with the communication and leadership. Hopefully, Zuck will fix this before Facebook ends up like Yahoo. (Did I mention Microsoft has a stake in Facebook - oh and a search partnership?)

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Fuss Over Facebook: Hype or Cause for Concern?

Recently, Facebook changed its terms of service and it's caused such an uproar, even the mainstream media is covering it. Thankfully, Carlos Longino over at Techdirt cuts through the hyperbole to explain what's really going on:

Some Facebook users are in an uproar after the site changed its terms of service to say that it retains a license to users' content after they delete their account. As the company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, explains, this change simply clarifies the point that actions on Facebook can create two copies of content. He says that when users add a friend or send a message, for instance, it generates two copies of the action: one for the user on each side. So say a user sends a message to a friend, then later deletes their account; the new TOS language clarifies that Facebook doesn't have to delete that message from their friend's inbox.

Privacy mongers, have no fear. Lately, Facebook has been littered with memes that ultimately drove MySpace to its current irrelevance.

Still, this isn't the first time Facebook has goofed up privacy issues. Despite the faux pas, Facebook has over 150 million members.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

February 17, 2009

How to Go Viral on Twitter: The Science of ReTweeting

Dan Zarrella has been studying one of the most crucial aspects of Twitter: the ReTweet. This is when Twitterers repost something that another Twitterer has posted in their stream. Zarrella's findings can help you go viral on Twitter.

One of the most important findings is a basic marketing method that has been used across channels: the call to action. Tweets that flat-out ask for a ReTweet are more likely to, you guessed it, get ReTweeted.

So what's most likely to get ReTweeted? Freebies, lists, blog posts and meta Tweets (i.e. Tweets about Twitter).

Another interesting statistic is who is more likely to be ReTweeted. The most Tweeted users are:

1. StatSheet (1515.92) 2. yrtv (420.244) 3. MacHeist (386.29) 4. kshashi (313.207) 5. abcinnercircle (273.789)

If you can get a highly ReTweeted user to post something about you, then you're more likely to go viral on Twitter.

(Of course, like pitching bloggers, you'll have to be extremely delicate - covert, really - in how you go about doing this. You'll need to strike a relationship and offer something of value that will benefit the Twitter user.)

Last but not least are two final tips. If you want a ReTweet, include a link in your original Tweet. 65% of ReTweets include a link. Also, post those original Tweets during regular business hours. Most ReTweets occur between 8am and 5pm, peaking in the afternoon at around 3pm EST.

via Mashable

Related Reading: Twitter Not Planning to Charge for Commercial Use 10 Ways Twitter Can Make Money Are Social Media Experts Ruining Twitter?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 15, 2009

NZ Guilt Upon Accusation Act Prompts Blackout Protest

If you see black avatars on Twitter or blacked out MySpace and Facebook profiles it is not some glitch or virus, but a protest against amendment 92 to the New Zealand Copyright Act of 1994.

Apparently ISPs have the ability, no the imperative to take down any content accused of copyright infringement. The people accused will have their internet connection severed, stories have reported,

"TelstraClear’s (one of the largest ISPs in New Zealand) head of corporate services, Mathew Bolland, says from November 1, if TelstraClear hosts a website and someone phones up complaining that site has breached their copyright, TelstraClear will have to take the site down.

“We don’t check or verify,” he says. “We take it down,” New Zealand's CompterWorld reported.

The GeekZone reports, "What's more, under the new law, anyone who provides any form of services over the Internet is an ISP. That means libraries, councils, schools, businesses, government offices, you name it" could be dropped.

British actor Stephen Fry (@StephenFry) has supported the protest and hopes many of his 190,000 plus Twitter followers do the same.

Creative Freedom explains how to black out the social media in an effort to impact the act which could become law "February 28th that calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny."

Perhaps this could be the first true test of the power of social media. The protest is to occur from February 16-23 - my avatar is blacked out on Twitter in support - now let's see who else joins and what effect it has.

Interestingly similar acts have failed to get support in the EU and the UK.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 11, 2009

Twitter Not Planning to Charge for Commercial Use

It's always a little weird to report non-news, but it's generally interesting nonetheless. A flurry of recent news reports have said that popular social media chat network Twitter will soon begin charging for commercial use of the tool.

Not so, says co-founder Biz Stone. Over at the Twitter blog, he allayed fears that his company would start charging for brands to Tweet.

It's important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we're thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don't have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we'll be sure to let you know.

Twitter will need to figure out how to monetize their wildly popular service, but for now, they're being supported by investors. They have been testing ads in Japan, but so far, no ads are included in the U.S. Twitter. Related Reading: Twitter Brings Back People Search Google Friend Connect Adds Twitter Zappos + Twitter = Innovative Success! Twitter's Glory Days

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 4, 2009

FriendFeed Updates Search Functionality

FriendFeed has updated its search feature with added functionality. If you're not familiar, FriendFeed is a social aggregator that enables users to track activity on various social networks and social bookmarking sites from one place.

Now, you can conduct the following search functions:

• Search for words only in entry titles or in comments[intitle:superbowl] - entries that mention "Superbowl" in the title
• Search for only entries that were liked or commented on by specific friends[like:bret football] - entries about football that Bret has liked
• Search for entries with a minimum number of likes or comments[comments:5 friendfeed] - entries that mention FriendFeed with at least 5 comments
• Exclude terms from your search[jobs -steve] - entries about the job market, not the CEO of Apple

You can also use FriendFeed's advanced search page to filter down your searches.

Related Reading FriendFeed Adds Duplicate Detection! And Twitter Tweaks Interface Design Will FriendFeed Change the Face of Search? FriendFeed: The Search Engine for Conversations

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 27, 2009

MySpace Parent Co. Fox Interactive Media to Cut 5% of Workforce

Fox Interactive Media, parent of popular social networking site, MySpace, announced Monday that it would be cutting 5% of its workforce, or 100 jobs. Employees at MySpace are affected.

Social networks are notorious for having trouble monetizing their sites, despite high traffic. MySpace has found additional challenges by increased competition from social network Facebook and the social chat client, Twitter.

But it's not for lack of effort on MySpace's part. Last year, they redesigned their site and launched a self-serving ad platform. MySpace has also partnered with Google and Yahoo in the OpenSocial effort to help social profiles be portable among several sites.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 21, 2009

Are Social Media Experts Ruining Twitter?

Over at Fanboy.com, Michael Pinto laments the volume of social media tweets and tweeple he's coming across on the popular social network, Twitter. He is frustrated about the constant stream of social media dribble that self-proclaimed social media gurus and experts put forth in their tweets. He says they autofollow and soon have upwards of 5,000 followers and followees alike.

I feel his pain.

However, there's a simple solution. Don't follow these people.

Pinto calls the social media gurus a "cancer" to Twitter. If that's the case, then Pinto should conduct a debulking surgery to remove as much of the tumor in his Twitter stream as possible. Then he should take preventative measures to avoid a recurrence in the future by not following these tweeple in the first place.

In fact, Twitter is nothing like having cancer (believe me!) and more like being in high school (believe me!). Pinto is sitting at the popular kids table and the conversation is shallow. The most popular people on Twittter are determined by vain methods found on grading websites that use things like number of followers as a crucial factor of someone's Twitter power.

I recommend sitting with the nerds instead. After all, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. And using "auto-follow" to participate on Twitter requires few brain cells indeed.

Related Reading: Twitter Passes Digg For Usage, Is Facebook Next? Twitter Brings Back People Search Zappos + Twitter = Innovative Success!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

January 13, 2009

Online Video Spend Up 36% in 2008 Topping $2.12 Billion, Expected to Grow in 2009

Online video gross media spend was $2.12 billion in 2008, up 36% from 2007, according to AccuStream. Here's a breakdown on the details:

• In-banner video impressions grew by 65% in 2008, and accounted for $1.5 billion in gross media spend
• Inventory for pre-roll ads expanded by 12.6% in 2008, reaching 18.75 billion total avails, following a 16.8% increase in 2007.
• Video buys made through rep firms totaled $90 million in 2008.
• Overlay executions associated with video added $37.6 million.
• insertion frequency for onsite experiences was capped at 1.5 (content views per avail) on average in 2008, reduced 13.7% from 2007

The forecast for 2009:

• 27% growth in pre-roll inventory
• 22.5% growth in gross media spend

Related Reading: Online Video Views for November 2008 Up 34% Year Over Year Online Video Wins the 9-5 Hour, Weekdays

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 12, 2009

SEW Experts: 7 Social Media Predictions for 2009

It's a new year, which means it's time to raise a virtual glass within your social network and toast your collective social graphs for a great 2009. In today's building brand equity column, "7 Social Media Predictions for 2009," Erik Qualman shares seven things to look for this year.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 9, 2009

Ogilvy Public Relations Launches Social Media RSS Dashboard

Ogilvy Public Relations has launched The Daily Influence, something they call a social media RSS dashboard. Built on Netvibes, an RSS aggregator (aka newsreader), the site comes standards with pre-selected feeds from popular social media and technology sites.

If you click on different tabs near the top, you'll find different niches.

Hey, Ogilvy - why not add Search Engine Watch to your advertising page? Just sayin'

Anyway, you can sign up and customize the feeds you want to see. If you already have a Netvibes account, you can use it to sign in.

This is probably best for Social Media newbies who just don't know what blogs to follow. Or if you're new to RSS and newsreaders, this might be a good place to start.

Related Reading: Global Strategies International Acquired by Ogilvy Technorati and Ogilvy Partner to Harness CGM for Brands Ogilvy's New New Media Unit

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 7, 2009

Facebook Reaches 150 Million Users Worldwide

Facebook is starting off the new year with a bang. Today, the social network announced that it has reached the 150 million user mark. Members speak in 35 different languages and represent 170 countries and territories.

But how many of those users are active? Facebook says half of them use the social network every day. That's remarkable. Writing on the Facebook blog, founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "The full potential of the web is to make the world more open, so everyone has a voice and can share what is important to them. With 150 million voices and counting, we can't wait for the rest of 2009, and we look forward to offering even more ways for you to connect with the people who matter most."

This should make Microsoft happy as well. Last year, they struck a deal to become the search engine for Facebook.

Related Reading: Facebook: Get Educated on the Hottest Social Media Platform Facebook's New Privacy Problem: Groups Created Under False Pretenses

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 6, 2009

Judge Rejects Universal Music's Arguments in Another Veoh Copyright Case

You might remember that online video site Veoh recently had a copyright lawsuit thrown out by a judge. That lawsuit was brought by adult entertainment company IO Group.

But Veoh has other lawsuits it's facing, one of them brought by Universal Music Group. Techdirt reports that one of the main arguments being made by Universal was that Veoh didn't have DMCA safe harbor protection because it changed the format of the video and made smaller chunks than the original.

The judge in the case has now said Universal's argument doesn't fly. The lawsuit isn't over yet, but it's another good sign for Veoh and online video in general.

Related Reading: Big Music Companies in Negotiations to Form Hulu-Like Site Viacom and NBC Take Note: Universal Music (and Others) are Making Tens of Million$ on YouTube Warner Music Not as Thrilled As Universal, Says Goodbye to YouTube

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 5, 2009

Call Secret Service Someone Hacked Obama's Twitter Account

Hackers usually are smart, but can be really, really stupid. The person who hacked Twitter - not the Direct Message phishing expedition that started over the weekend - could have picked pretty much anyone else on the planet and be less concerned of being tracked down.

This person hacked President-elect Obama's Twitter account! There has to be Secret Service people - like the Diane Laine character in Untraceable - crawling through the internet tracking him/her down. That is if the person has not been quietly killed already (for my conspiracy theorist readers).

Barack's account was one of 33 hacked, according to the Twitter blog.

"This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been "hacked" including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts," the site stated.

If the Secret Service kill the person during the arrest, I have a nomination for the Darwin Awards.

Posted by Frank Watson at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Phishing Scam Hits Twitter; Will it Become the Next MySpace?

This morning, I received a direct message from one of my Twitter friends. It was a very strange message. Check it out:

I clicked on the link, which lead to this:

I checked the Tweet stream of the friend who sent me the direct message. She said she had been fooled into following a phishing scam.

She wasn't the only one. Originally, the blogspot page directed people to another site which looked like the Twitter homepage. They signed in, giving away their user name and password. Of course, this helps spread the phishing scam via direct messages.

What really happened is that a mockup of the Twitter homepage was hanging out at a very bad URL. The good folks at Twitter captured this screenshot of the site:

These phishing scams hit MySpace pretty hard once it got popular. Now, it looks like we have to watch out for them on Twitter.

Phishing schemes kind of took the shine off the once popular MySpace. Looking back, I think it's one of the reasons I stopped hanging out on the social network. I saw so many messages that weren't from my friends even though it looked as though they were. I haven't noticed the same on LinkedIn or Facebook yet.

If phishing hits Twitter consistently, then it might just be their demise.

What do you think? Did you get an unusual direct message? Think phishing could ruin Twitter? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!

Related Reading: If You Want To Know When Google Updates Toolbar PR Follow Matt Cutts on Twitter Twitter Brings Back People Search Google Friend Connect Adds Twitter Twitter as a Terrorist's Tool

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

December 24, 2008

Twitter Brings Back People Search

Want to find a person by name on Twitter (again)? Well, now you can (again). Twitter has brought back the ability to search for a person by name.

Once you're signed in, look for the "Find People" link on the navigation bar on the top right hand corner.

Twitter says the search is faster than the original version and that it now boasts a "phonetic similarity algorithm" which helps you find names for possibly misspelled words.

Related Reading: Digg Adds New Twitter Feeds Google Friend Connect Adds Twitter Video, Blogs and Twitter Top Trends at PubCon Twitter as a Terrorist's Tool FriendFeed Adds Duplicate Detection! And Twitter Tweaks Interface Design Sugarrae: Google Pushed Twitter To NoFollow All Links? Twitter Buys Summize?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg Adds New Twitter Feeds

You can track Digg via RSS. You can track Digg by simply visiting the site. Now you can track a variety of Digg topics via Twitter.

This is awesome because if you're like me and keep your Twitter client open most of the day, you'll always know when things are going hot on Digg. This is a great way to streamline two of your social media management tasks.

Here are the new feeds. (Click here for the links to each one.)

• Digg Homepage updates as every new story is promoted
• Digg 2000 : Stories that reach 2,000 or more Diggs
• Technology
• Apple
• Software
• World & Business
• Political News
• Science
• Environment
• Offbeat
• Gaming
• Images
• Video
• Entertainment
• Sports

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 23, 2008

Hubspot Releases State of the Twittersphere Report

Hubspot has released a report it dubs the "State of the Twittersphere" which they say is akin to Technorati's "State of the Blogosphere." It uses data from Twitter Grader (a very vain way of showing who's "popular" on Twitter) to offer the following interesting stats about the popular social networking tool:

What's missing from this data is how many user accounts are active. With so many users following or being followed by 25 or fewer people, it has me wondering if many people try Twitter but not really getting how it's useful. I was that way when I first tried Twitter in 2007. Of course, that was before you could do good searching of Twitter and when there were fewer people using it.

I started up again when I heard Peter Shankman speak at a local interactive marketing luncheon. He explained how to network on it and how to participate in the conversations going on via Twitter, and I've been a avid user ever since.

Now, I'll pass along the advice. Here are some great blog posts on how to make the most of Twitter.

Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn Zappos + Twitter = Innovative Success! Add Value to Twitter Tweets Using Twitter as an Education Tool Twellow: Twitter Member Search Is Twitter the New Google Alternative? It's Official - Twitter's a Marketing Medium

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 22, 2008

Facebook's New Privacy Problem: Groups Created Under False Pretenses

Brad J. Ward is an online communciations coordinator at Butler University. Though he hails from a small academic institution, he's unveiled a whale of a problem going on at Facebook (read, don't skim, for the exciting conclusion).

As high school seniors across the country are being accepted into Universities for the Fall 2009 semester, groups for 2013 grads are popping up on the popular social network. There's just one problem. It seems that one Patrick Kelly of Plano Senior High School is planning on attending a bunch of colleges - 500 to be exact. For that is how many 2013 groups he has created.

Ward rightly points out that the big problem here is that Patrick Kelly likely represents a data collection company that could end up being lifelong "friends" of millions of incoming freshman each year.

They also control the administrative privileges for each group.

But Brad Ward didn't stop at just blogging about this problem. He's got people talking on Twitter, organizing via Google Docs, and submitting Flickr pics regarding the problem.

The effort has identified other names associated with the group squatting including Ron Tressler and Justin Gaither, and he even has a company suspect: College Prowler. What a fitting name!

He even found an ad by College Prowler seeking unpaid interns to set up all this, as Ward rightly deems it, "dirty work."

But get this: College Prowler responded by pulling the fake names that are associated with their company (Patrick Kelly was not, as it turns out) and pulling the administrative privileges. That is quite impressive. College Prowler says that they see social media as essential to their college guides business, but I think most of us would agree that they could go about social media in a different way.

Here's a solution: College Prowler could create a community around its brand of college guides by identifying their Facebook groups with their brand. The group could be "College Prowler's Guide to Butler University Class of 2013."

So, College Prowler, and others interested in using social media, check out these posts from Search Engine Watch and sister site ClickZ to learn how to truly leverage social media to maximize those marketing dollars (and time!):

Facebook: Get Educated on the Hottest Social Media Platform Understanding and Aligning the Value of Social Media SocialTwist's Tell-A-Friend Button Enables Word-of-Mouth and Social Media Marketing A Social Media Marketing Primer Social Media Link Building: From Fantasy to Reality 18-34 Year Old Responds to Email Marketing Over Social Network Marketing How Blogs Drive More Sales Than Social Media Sites 93% of Americans Expect Companies to Have Social Media Presence Using Twitter as an Education Tool Less is More: What Social Media and Electronics Can Teach the Establishment Go Slow With Video Ads in Social Media

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 18, 2008

SocialTwist's Tell-A-Friend Button Enables Word-of-Mouth and Social Media Marketing

If you want to enable word-of-mouth marketing and social media marketing in the form of bookmarking, then adding SocialTwist's "Tell a Friend" button is a great way to do it.

The reason I like SocialTwist's button is because it has a call to action "Tell a Friend." I know there are others, usually they include the word "Share." But I think "Tell a Friend" is more specific and concrete.

Plus, users can, in fact, share what they've found on social sites Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace in addition to sharing via email and IM.

SocialTwist also touts the following features about its button:

• First brandable and customizable social share button.
• First button that offers extensive context wiring allowing marketers to pass context of shareable content.
• Most extensive support for content management system (CMS) and blog platforms; Joomla, Word Press, Moveable Type, Xanga, Expression Engine and Pligg among others.
• First multi-lingual share button.
• Lightest and fastest social share button.

One tip, if you want a different code snippet, you need to change your settings under account details. It feels like you should be able to access it under the "Widget Code" page, but you have to make the choice under Account Details first.

What do you think of SocialTwist's Tell a Friend button? Let us know in the comments. Oh, and use the button below to tell a friend about this post!

Related Reading: The Number of Small Businesses Using Social Media to Double in 12 Months Online Reviews Second Only to Word of Mouth in Purchase Decisions Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Coupons.com Launches Facebook App; Local.com Partners With Valpak for Coupons

Online coupons are hot, and they've become even hotter in a tight economy. It's no surprise to see two announcements today regarding the expansion of online coupons. Even more, these expansions are focused on social media and local search, which are also trends in the online marketing space.

First up, Coupons.com has launched a Facebook application. Once installed, users can print coupons directly from their Facebook page and also share coupons with friends.

Second, Local.com has partnered with Valpak, a coupon provider. Valpak coupons will appear in search results and profile pages.

What do you think about these announcements? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: Yahoo! Shopping Launches Deal Finder Yahoo! Partners with Coupon Inc. for Mobile Coupons

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 26, 2008

Only 11% of Social Network Users Will Make a Purchase Based on Advertising

It's no secret that social networks have had a difficult time integrating advertising that has a bang for its buck. IDC has released some data showing what social networks - and advertisers - are faced with.

Only 57% of social network users have clicked on an ad in the last year versus 79% of all users in the rest of the web.

When it comes to purchasing, only 11% of social network users will actually make one compared to 23% of the rest of the internet.

"The thinking has been that the popularity of SNS will attract a big audience and generate a lot of traffic, which in turn will produce enormous amounts of user-generated content (UGC) and therefore advertising inventory – without any expenses for editorial staff or content distribution deals," said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Marketplace: Media and Advertising. "All of the above has proven true – except that almost invariably, SNS have had a hard time selling this inventory."

Related Reading: The Number of Small Businesses Using Social Media to Double in 12 Months MySpace Launches Self-Service Ad Platform 93% of Americans Expect Companies to Have Social Media Presence

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 25, 2008

LinkedIn's New Search Platform Goes Live

A month ago, LinkedIn unveiled its new search platform. Now they're rolling it out to their 31 million users.

Here's what you can look forward to in the new search platform:

Suggestive Search - When you type into the search box, a list of suggested names from your contacts pops up. You can select one of the names without having to type in the whole thing. I think this might come in handy when you're having a hard time remembering a name. Maybe you remember the first letter or the first name, but the rest of it just isn't coming to you - this can help.

Streamlined Search Results - LinkedIn changed the design to make it easier to scan the results. They also added photos. Results can be sorted by relevance, which includes the social graph, or by relationship, relationship + recommendations, and keyword.

Customizable Views Users can determine what info they want returned in their search results. Just click the "Views" drop down menu (next to the "Sort" drop down menu at the top of the results). You can decide whether you want to view headlines, photos, locations and more of the people returned in a search.

Take Action Straight from the Search Results When you mouse over a result, you'll notice links that let you take action. You can send InMail, get introduced (through a common contact), or add that person to your network.

Modify Your Search On the right hand side of the results, you'll notice a form where you can type in additional information to narrow your search down and pinpoint it to more exact specifications. You can search by name, job title, company location, and school.

Save Your Search If you want to return to the results, you can save your search. This is a good idea if you've modified your search or customized your view.

Check out this video to get a good visual for all of the above:

Of course, you'll need to be signed in to LinkedIn to take advantage of all the features in the new platform. Not LinkedIn yet? Our own Carrie Hill explained why you need to be in her article, Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn.

Head over to LinkedIn and give the new search a test drive. Then come back and let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 3, 2008

The Number of Small Businesses Using Social Media to Double in 12 Months

The number of small businesses using deeply integrated social networking services will double in the next year, according to projections by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. Currently, there are about 300,000 small businesses engaged in social networking, which is 5% of the total number of small businesses in the U.S. AMI expects that number to reach 600,000 in the next 12 months.

“As social networking evolves, we can see the emergence of targeted offerings for business users,” says Nikki Lamba, New York-based analyst at AMI Partners. “In order to attract a greater share of SBs, social networking services must provide customized services that SBs can leverage in order to realize their business goals.”

Social media might be an increasingly attractive option for small businesses in their advertising and marketing efforts. The current economy has businesses scrambling for affordable marketing methods and social media is a possible option, depending on how its leveraged.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 27, 2008

LinkedIn Unveils New Search Platform

Popular professional social networking site LinkedIn is rolling out its new search platform. Like most major releases, it will only be available to a small percentage at first.

The new search platform will include:

• Unified search results
• More powerful relevance algorithm
• Redesigned search results page
• "In Common" (a new field in search results that lets you see what connections and groups you share with a select user)
• Saved Searches
• Choice of Basic or Expanded Views
• Spell Check
• Type-ahead for connections

For more details, check out the LinkedIn blog.

Related Reading: LinkedIn Launches Market Research Survey Service LinkedIn Launches Targeted Advertising Network Yahoo Sets Yelp, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Local SearchMonkey Apps to 'Default On' Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter as a Terrorist's Tool

There was much buzz over the weekend about a military report suggesting the popular mass Instant Messaging tool Twitter could be used by terrorists. They cited as an example the protestors at the Republican National Convention using Twitter to inform about police actions and movement.

In that case, Twitter becomes a better counterterrorism tool than it does the next training exercise for Hamas and Al Quaida. Tweets are public and searchable which kind of kills (no pun intended) the element of surprise that terrorists crave.

In fact, Twitter has been a great source of information during earthquakes and other crisis. It's far more likely that Twitter would be a great asset to emergency response agencies and law-abiding citizens during a terrorist attack than it would be an aid to the terrorists themselves.

Related Reading: Zappos + Twitter = Innovative Success! Using Twitter as an Education Tool FriendFeed Adds Duplicate Detection! And Twitter Tweaks Interface Design

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

LinkedIn Launches Market Research Survey Service

LinkedIn has launched a new survey feature that will enable its members to conduct market research. LinkedIn is an online social network built around business and careers and has 30 million members.

“LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face,” said Dan Shapero, Director of Business Services, LinkedIn. “Because of the public and self-policing nature of LinkedIn, members provide deep and accurate profile information and they update that information constantly.”

LinkedIn also announced that it raised $22.7 million from Goldman Sachs, The McGraw-Hill Companies, SAP Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.

“We secured this investment with innovators in enterprise software, investment banking and business information who see the potential to create value and transform industries through the LinkedIn platform,” said LinkedIn CEO, Dan Nye. “These leading companies understand that LinkedIn is building a network with broad and enduring value.”

Related Reading: LinkedIn Launches Targeted Advertising Network Yahoo Sets Yelp, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Local SearchMonkey Apps to 'Default On'

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

October 21, 2008

18-34 Year Old Responds to Email Marketing Over Social Network Marketing

Social networking is popular, but how to target consumers through them is a mystery that has plagued marketers since social media's inception. Now, a new study from ExactTarget is showing how tough it can be.

The report showed that 18-34 year olds say they're more likely to respond to marketing efforts via email or direct mail than they are social networking campaigns.

Here are more key findings from the study:

• 20 percent of Wired consumers have subscribed for marketing communications via SMS, more so than any other group, but they want to receive texts only for urgent customer service issues such as financial alerts or travel updates.
• More than 50 percent of Young Homemakers use social networks and SMS during the day, but direct mail and e-mail are their two preferred marketing channels.
• 81 percent of Retired consumers have purchased online and 94 percent have been influenced by some form of direct marketing to make a purchase.
• College Students are very spam-savvy and believe private communication channels such as SMS and social networks are off limits for marketers.
• Teens use social networking more than any other group but are more likely to make a purchase from direct mail, followed by e-mail, SMS and social network sites.
• Women are more likely than the men in the Established Professionals group to use new digital media channels such as IM, SMS and social networking to communicate with friends and family, but men and women alike shop online with 92 percent of the consumers in this group having made an online purchase.

What do you think of this data? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading: Google Hits Snag in Monetizing Orkut Social Media for SEM Savvy Small Biz Owners AOL's Platform-A to Offer Guaranteed CPM to Facebook, Bebo Developers

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

Mom Bloggers Prove Powerful Resource to Marketing and Branding Success

A whopping 94% of moms rely on other moms during a purchasing decision. So, it comes as no surprise to learn that mom bloggers can have a powerful impact on your online marketing campaign.

Here's some data from Mom Central Consulting to help let this idea sink in deep into your marketing grey matter:

• 96% of Moms value recommendations they find on Mom Blogs
• Over 78% of Mom Bloggers now review products and services
• More than 60% of Mom Bloggers consider making money important and want more connectivity with companies
• 37% of Mom Bloggers have been contacted as resources for the press

Woah! Did you see that last number? Kind of small considering how powerful moms are. There's clearly an opportunity for you to go in there and snag some good mom blog coverage.

Need tips on how to approach bloggers? (Hint: It's not like pitching a journalist)

• Send them a friendly, personalized email. Do not mass email.
• Ask permission to send them a sample of your product or free trial of your service. Do not send unsolicited!
• Offer them something to give away to their readers
• Be accessible to answer questions
• Be cordial even when you get a bad review. It's ok to comment and defend your product (politely!). But it's even better to take their criticism to heart and make your product or service better.

What are your tips for approaching mom bloggers? Any success stories? Share your success in the comments!

Related Reading: Moms See Search as Task-Oriented; Websites as Entertainment Women More Likely Than Men to Begin Real Estate Search Online Yahoo Wants Women Now

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

October 2, 2008

Social network hi5 Updates with 10 Community-Translated Languages

Social networking site hi5 has updated with 10 new community-translated languages and dialects. hi5 enjoys 56 million unique visitors a month and is the third largest social network worldwide. It's #1 in over 30 countries.

The ten languages are:

• Catalan
• Danish
• British English
• Finnish
• Hindi
• Macedonian
• Slovakian
• Spanish - Mexico
• Spanish - Colombia
• Swedish

"The power of this program to deliver localized versions of our product has exceeded our own high expectations," said Ramu Yalamanchi, CEO and founder of hi5. "It is amazing to see the energy and enthusiasm of our global user community in action, taking our site into new languages and geographies that we otherwise wouldn't have the resources to address."

hi5 saw 100% growth year-over-year in June 2008, the second highest percentage of growth. Facebook had the highest at 153%.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 19, 2008

FriendFeed Adds Duplicate Detection! And Twitter Tweaks Interface Design

Social sites FriendFeed and Twitter have (separately) updated the designs of their interfaces. You won't notice much by going to the homepage not logged in.

But once you're passed the wall, you'll notice a few changes. Twitter's are largely cosmetic in nature, with the biggest change being moving the tabs for Replies, Direct Messages, etc. to the sidebar. They've also slapped some Ajax on there to just refresh Home or @Replies when you click on them. Thank goodness.

FriendFeed's new design incorporates a much needed feature: friend lists. Kind of like buddy lists on AOL's Instant Messenger, you can sort the people you've subscribed to Friends, Professional, etc. You can also create your own lists. Another new feature is adding photos directly to FriendFeed.

But the biggest awesomeness of the day is DUPLICATE DETECTION! This makes Friday end on a happy note after such a crappy week on Wall Street. Ok, it doesn't bring your money back or prevent all those financial companies from failing, but it does make FriendFeed that much nicer!

What do you think of the updates? Let it fly in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 17, 2008

SocialMedia.com and Buddy Media Team Up for Social 'App-vertising' Solution

Socialmedia.com is a social advertising network. Buddy Media is a social media consulting and analytics company (i.e. they have clients!). Today, they have announced a partnership that allows people to buy advertising and access analytics to make the most of their social media campaigns.

They're calling it social 'app-vertising' and brands like FedEx and New Balance have already been privy to the service.

“Advertising in social media is about getting users to engage with a brand's messaging in a way that scales and is measurable,” says Seth Goldstein, CEO of Socialmedia.com. “Our partnership with Buddy Media simplifies the buying and execution of campaigns that get users to interact with brands.”

“In many ways, the app is the new ad unit, and many marketers are beginning to realize that,” says Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. “With the launch of the BuddyBrain and our partnership with SocialMedia.com, advertisers and brand marketers now have a one stop shop to launch their social app-vertising campaigns and reach over 500 million people on social networks.”

Despite all the dark news from Wall Street, social networking and its projections remain hot, hot, hot! Yesterday, I reported how social networking is taking share from dating and pornography (who would have thought?)!

This partnership seems like a smart one, especially for those of you concerned about how you measure social media campaigns.

What do you think of this announcement? Comments, please!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 16, 2008

Social Networking Taking Market Share from Dating, Adult Entertainment Sites

Juniper Research is projecting social networking is expected to overtake dating in 2009 to become the largest revenue generating segment.

Social networks are projected to generate $7.3 billion in advertising revenues by 2013. That will amount to a steady rise in revenues over 2008's projected $1.1 billion.

According to report author Dr. Windsor Holden, "It's clear that we have seen an industry wide shift regarding the implementation of business models in this area. Whereas initially there was a perception that users would pay a small mobility premium to access social networks on their handsets, it rapidly became clear that to achieve truly mass adoption, it would be necessary to offer free membership and then to augment that with advertising and the sale of premium content."

Meanwhile, Hitwise general manager of global research, Bill Tancer, is saying that searches for pornography are down about 50% due to increase in searches for social networking.

"My theory is that young users spend so much time on social networks that they don't have time to look at adult sites," Tancer told Reuters.

Tancer analyzes search behavior and its reflection on society in his new book, Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters.

What do you think of the rise in social networking? Is it changing societal behavior? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: Social Networking and Employees: Where Do You Draw the Line? AOL's Platform-A to Offer Guaranteed CPM to Facebook, Bebo Developers

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

September 15, 2008

Less is More: What Social Media and Electronics Can Teach the Establishment

Read the news and it quickly becomes obvious how complex this world is. So, it's no wonder that what's popular in social media and electronics is simple.

MySpace (IMHO) was easier than Friendster. But Facebook took the best of both and now reigns.

LinkedIn makes it easy to network professionally, and YouTube makes it easy to be entertained - and quickly.

Twitter makes a bunch of things easy - from breaking news to gathering feedback about a product you're considering.

In electronics, the Flip Video has revolutionized camcorders (I am a proud owner of one myself). And now, smaller, more affordable laptops are all the rage. Plus, Apple threw its iPod on a mobile phone, inserted the internet and simplified mobile communications.

So why are these services and gadgets so popular but companies like Microsoft are watching their market share slowly fade?

Dan Kimerling at TechCrunch thinks its all about motivation. Microsoft is motivated by features, while Facebook, et al, are motivated by the user experience.

He has a point. Microsoft considers Google a major rival, and Google is almost always talking about the user experience.

Steve Ballmer might want to take a cue, because he talks an awful lot about catching Google via advertising. And while advertising revenues are most certainly a key to Microsoft's long term success, it will only prove profitable if the customer is happy.

Google should also watch out to avoid the pitfalls that plagued Microsoft. But a Google failure would not automatically equal Microsoft success. It would only leave the door open for a Facebook-esque startup to come along and steal the show.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 2, 2008

140 Million Mobile Social Users by 2013, Generating $410 Million

Social networking is hot, but connecting on a mobile phone is on the rise. ABI Research projects that by 2013, over 140 million mobile users will use social networks on their phones, generating $410 million in subscription revenues in the process.

And just where will this growth be the strongest?

ABI research director Michael Wolf says, “That uptick is based on assumed acceptance levels in the giant emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Those countries are wildcards, very difficult to estimate, so we are quite conservative in our forecasts.”

Last month, ABI projected location-based social networks to generate $3.3 billion by 2013.

What do you think of these projections? Let us know in the comments!

Related Reading: Spending on Mobile Search Ads to Reach $2bn by 2013 Global Internet Ad Spend to Exceed $106 Billion by 2011 Online Advertising to Surpass Newspaper Advertising by 2011

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 26, 2008

Social Media is Key Component of Back-to-School Marketing Supply List

More retailers are turning to social media as part of their back-to-school marketing campaigns, according to Jupiter Research. From Facebook to widgets, from virtual worlds to online video, retailers are targeting youth, who may not share the same feelings as their parents about a tough economy.

“The back-to-school season has grown in importance for retailers and leads into the all important fourth quarter sales period,” explained Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director and Online Retail Analyst at JupiterResearch. “With the shaky economy expected to impact the amount of money consumers spend on back-to-school shopping, retailers are using social media to capture the attention of younger consumers.”

Examples of social media back-to-school implementation are JC Penny and Sears. Both retailers used integrated marketing campaigns, using tv ads to drive youth online where they can view tips on getting the same looks seen in the campaigns.

To promote its two new clothing lines, department store J.C.Penney created an online game called "DorkDodge" in which a girl has to navigate through a number of undesirable boyfriends to find her dream date. The retailer also launched an integrated marketing campaign showing teens how they can “get that look” with an array of clothing brands sold at J.C.Penney stores, featuring the theme of “The Breakfast Club.”

According to David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch, “Retailers experimenting with Web 2.0 experiences will largely find benefit from them in the form of branding and awareness building rather than direct sales as social media has shown little direct impact on actual online retail sales.”

What do you think of using social media in your seasonal campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading: Back-to-School Offline Purchases Influenced by Online Ads Live Search Cashback Launches Back-to-School Rebates

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 18, 2008

ConnectU Co-Founders Place 6th in Olympics Rowing

Facebook competitor ConnectU's co-founder twins, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, placed 6th in men's pair rowing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Their time was 7:05.58 on a 2,000-meter course. Australia won the gold with a time of 6:37.44.

How they find time to train and run a startup is beyond me.

The Winklevoss twins along with co-founder Divya Narendra are suing Facebook for stealing their idea. The three recruited Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg during their time at Harvard.

via CNET

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 12, 2008

Facebook and Hi5 Lead Global Growth Among Social Networks

comScore has released data showing explosive growth rates for social networking sites Facebook and Hi5 globally, with 153% and 100% respectively. With worldwide social networking growth rates at 25%, that certainly is a big piece of the pie.

Facebook's biggest percentage growth came in Latin America, at a whopping 1055%. Meanwhile, Facebook added the most members in Europe, at 27 million newbies. This should come as welcome news to Microsoft, who recently announced a search partnership with the social network and owns a 1.6% stake in the company.

Here are all the charts and data to keep a numbers junkie happy:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 5, 2008

Friendster Names Googler as New CEO

Friendster has named Google's regional managing director of South Asia, Richard Kimber, as its new CEO. It has also raised $20 million in funding.

Despite the waning of its popularity in the United States, Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, and the 9th largest website in the world.

"Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is partly because the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become one of the greatest liberators of our time," said Kimber. "Utilizing the Internet to connect to your friends is one of its greatest benefits, and is changing the way relationships work globally. With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia."

Related Reading: Friendster Drops Yahoo For Google Consumers Ok with Social Ads, But Rarely Find Them Targeted

via NYT

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 1, 2008

7 Location-Based Social Networking Applications for the iPhone

Earlier, I wrote about the estimates for location-based social networking to reach $3.3 billion in revenues by 2013. The iPhone is leading the way with several new location-based social networks developed by third parties for the new iPhone 2.0 software.

Here are 7 social networking apps that use location-based technology:

Twinkle is a Twitter app that incorporates a location-based feature. Not only can you view your usual Tweets from the people you're following, but you can also view Tweets from people nearby who you might not already be following. They're kept on a separate tab, so you don't have to worry about them getting mixed in with your established following.

Twittervision lets you see Tweets from all over the world.

Zintin simply lets you interact with people nearby. It has "walls" like Facebook, and you can scribble on the photos of your friends.

iFob is designed to help users find other members nearby, and by nearby, they mean people in the same coffeeshop as you. iFob has an app for Windows and is working on an app for Mac OS X.

WhosHere helps you find people close to you with the same interests.

Loopt lets you find out where your friends are and what they're up to at that location.

Limbo also lets you find where your friends are, but also has a group chat feature.

What do you think of location-based social networking? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: 24 iPhone Applications That Accelerate Mobile Search

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Location-Based Social Networking to Generate $3.3 Billion by 2013

Location-based social networking is projected to generate worldwide revenues of $3.3 billion by 2013, according to ABI Research. But the business model may not be advertising driven.

“Location-based mobile social networking revenues will reach $3.3 billion by 2013, but successful business models may differ from what many observers expect,” says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. “While location-based advertising integrated with sophisticated algorithms holds a lot of promise, the current reality rather points to licensing and revenue-sharing models as the way forward for social networking start-ups to grow their customer base and reach profitability. Recent evidence: the agreements between GyPSii and both Garmin and Samsung. Similarly, Loopt has established partnerships with all major US cellular carriers.”

This brand of social media has already started to take off with the recent release of the new iPhone platform. Users are now allowed to download applications designed specifically for the device. This has generated a slew of location-based social networks (as well as search apps).

Related Reading: Local.com Gets Location-based Search Patent Apartment Guide Launches Mobile GPS Search Application

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 28, 2008

Social Networking and Employees: Where Do You Draw the Line?

With the rise of social networking, employers are left wondering if or how the trend affects their bottom line. Many have decided that Facebook and MySpace in the workplace are not appropriate (for content or productivity reasons) and have banned the sites from being accessed at their offices.

To which I say: Good luck with that!

With the onslaught of iPhones, resisting social media (and I don't mean for marketing purposes) will prove to be futile anyway. Go ahead. Fire someone for accessing their Facebook iPhone app. But don't be looking for any "Best Places to Work" awards anytime soon.

And when morale is down, productivity goes down. Call it anecdotal, but the places I've worked at with low morale lose productivity to gossip and office politics. What they're really looking for is support in a difficult workplace. So ban social media all you want, your employees will still find ways to "waste time." Or as I like to call it, not go completely mental.

On the flip side, social networking more often than not helps your business. Think of all the contacts that your employees have. All those college and high school pals now have careers in a variety of industries. Perhaps there are great partnerships to be had in these vast social networks.

Or when its time to hire a new employee, these networks are a great place to start.

Social media is also a great way to stay on top of your industry - to learn about things that are happening, what's new. You can't do it all yourself - or even with just your marketing team. What if a guy/gal in IT catches wind of a new program being implemented at a competitor? Chances are, they'll find it out via a social network, blog, Twitter, etc.

I say kill those largely unfounded fears and allow social networking in the workplace. Like the rest of business and life, it won't be perfect. But it can be reasonable.

By the way, one of the new hot things in social media is internal social networking, sometimes referred to as enterprise social media. This can foster genuine channels of good communication among departments across your company.

What's your opinion? Yay or nay to social media for employees? Leave a comment and tell us how it is!

Related Reading: Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us? Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

July 25, 2008

Social Media Metrics: How Internet Famous Are You?

Monitor, monitor, on the wall, "Who's the most Internet Famous of them all?"

Wired.com has launched a new, free service for everyone who wonders how Internet famous they currently are.

It's called the "Celebrity Meter." It won't tell you how whether you have celebrity friends, but it will let you know - in rough numbers - how much of an online celebrity you are.

Wired's Celebrity Meter launched in beta this morning. The program uses data from Google's Social Graph service to see how many people are following you on MySpace, Twitter, and a personal blog/site. It takes into account things like incoming links and number of friends or followers to give you a numerical score — which you can then compare to other big names in the blogosphere and across the Web in general.

We know Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrrington will be battling for the top spot.

Wired writes, "Of course, it's not a complete view. The measurement doesn't account for FriendFeed, Facebook, or a lot of other social services just yet. But it's still hard to resist giving it a whirl."

We agree.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 24, 2008

Microsoft and Facebook Enter Into Search Partnership

Microsoft Senior Vice President Satya Nadella announced at the company's financial analyst meeting that their partnership with Facebook has been extended to include search.

The existing partnership has Microsoft serving up banner and sponsored ads on the popular social network. Last year, Microsoft paid $240 million to own a 1.6% stake in Facebook, a private company.

Microsoft expects Facebook members to see the integrated Live Search, including search ads, by the end of the 2008.

Earlier today, Facebook announced a new initiative, opening up its platform to aggregate feeds from other sites, including local search site Citysearch and other social networks such as Digg and Twitter.

In March, Microsoft announced its alternative to Google's OpenSocial, a data portability partnership across 5 social networks: Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a reorganization which will split the Platforms and Services Division into two new divisions: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Connect Aims to Aggregate Social Media While Protecting User Privacy

In May, Google announced a new initiative called Friend Connect that enables site owners to add social media to their websites, and allows internet users to connect their social accounts more seamlessly. But while Facebook was initally part of the effort, later they banned Google's Friend Connect from their site, citing issues with privacy and the redistribution of user data.

Instead of waiting for Google to comply, Facebook has announced their own initiative: Facebook Connect. It's designed to do basically be a FriendFeed - to aggregate information from users' various profiles on numerous social sites in order to view it all in one place. Here's the details of what to expect:

• Trusted Authentication - easily authenticate into partner sites using your Facebook account
• Real Identity - leverage your real identity across the Web in a trusted environment
• Friend Linking - take your friends with them wherever they go, enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
• Dynamic Privacy - assurance that the same privacy settings users have set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login throughout the Web
• Social Distribution - share actions on partner sites with your friends back on Facebook through feeds

Straight out of the gate, the following sites will utilize Facebook Connect:

Digg Citysearch Twitter Seesmic (online video conversation tool) Six Apart (blog publishing platform) Hulu CBS.com CNET CollegeHumor Disney-ABC Evite Flock (social media browser developed on Firefox) Kongregate Loopt (new social network for iPhone) Plaxo Radar Red Bull Socialthing! (think FriendFeed) StumbleUpon The Insider Uber Vimeo Xobni

What do you think of Facebook Connect? Let us know in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 8, 2008

Ex-Google Exec Heads to Bebo Europe

Ex-Googler Kate Burns has been tapped by social networking site Bebo to head up their European operations, according to the Guardian. Burns previously was Google's managing director for the UK. She also helped launch DoubleClick and AltaVista in the UK.

Bebo was recently acquired by AOL for $850 million. The site boasts 40 million members worldwide. AOL's Platform-A recently announced a guaranteed CPM for Bebo developers. Platform-A was the largest ad network in March.

Also in March, Microsoft announced a data portability with 5 social networks, including Bebo. However, AOL joined Google's OpenSocial initiative in May. Google owns a 5% stake in AOL, and was recently given permission to unload the stock, though it has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, rumor of a possible Yahoo-AOL merger have reared its (ugly?) head again, but today reports are suggesting any deal would not be completed in July. Yahoo's shareholder meeting is August 1.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008

Mike Moran Exits IBM, Joins Converseon

Mike Moran is leaving IBM after 30 years to take a position in the newly created role of Chief Strategist at social media marketing agency, Converseon. Moran will be involved in the development of Conversation Miner as well as provide consulting to Converseon clients.

“We're thrilled to have Mike join us,” said Rob Key, Converseon CEO. “He brings to the table the perfect combination of industry-leading expertise with hands-on knowledge of how to internally adopt and promote these practices within complex, enterprise environments. As we often say, social media can be technically relatively simple, but culturally quite difficult. His experience will be invaluable as we help leading brands develop and execute innovative social media campaigns. He will also play a key role in consolidating Converseon's position as a leading social media marketing and consulting agency offering end-to-end services, from listening to engaging to measuring.”

While at IBM, Moran led several search technology projects including IBM's OmniFind search and text analytics products, the first commercial linguistic search engine, and automatic categorization technology for business search at ibm.com. He has been granted multiple patents and is the author of Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules.

“With their focus on pushing the edges of innovation in reputation management, search marketing and social media, Converseon is the ideal fit for me,” said Mike Moran. “I look forward to working with their standout team and clients.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2008

So Far, Twitter Falters On The Political Front

This weekend, the Personal Democracy Forum hosted a Twitter-only political experiment. The participants gave it the old college try, including a Time magazine blogger and Obama and McCain representatives. At least so far, Twitter falters on the political front.

My main complaint is that it's too hard to follow the topics among the participants. Also there's no simple way to browse all their tweets together, beyond the most recent 20 messages. Finally, a search mechanism is conspicuously missing in action.

To see the commentary, please link to any of these formats: (1) individual tweets from Time's Ana Marie Cox, Mike Nelson for Obama, and Liz Mair for McCain; (2) side-by-side tweets from all three; and (3) mixed tweets based on time posted.

One bright light? The participants intended to communicate about the presidential candidates' tech policies and positions. Everyone adhered to that mission pretty faithfully, and here are a few tweets about net neutrality:

* For the last q tonite, we acknowledge the elephant in the tweets: Net neutrality. Responses in the AM, pls. (Jun 21 22:21:31) * JSM warns "caution" ( http://tinyurl.com/69y9b8 ) abt the gov't enforcing net neutrality-that means he's against it, y? (Jun 22 17:14:59) * Re: Net Neutrality. Barack has set clear goal of NN and an open Internet: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/ (Jun 22 18:18:10) * What I've said previously being noted, JSM favors market-based approach except where gov't intervention abs. nec. (Jun 22 19:45:49) * But note JSM pledge to seek perm. ban on internet taxes & track record of leadership on keeping net free of taxes. (Jun 22 19:46:20)

While Twitter messages seem almost long enough to say something, it takes too much effort to "connect the dots" among the participants. Old-fashioned chat rooms worked better than this!

Posted by at 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

June 17, 2008

iWidgets Launches Public Beta, Makes Widget Development Easier

To compete in social media or with open source search applications, widget development is key. But it can be costly if you don't know what you're doing. iWidgets is demystifying the widget development process by launching their platform into public beta. The service is free to use and brings widget creation to a wider audience.

“Private beta users were so enthusiastic about iWidgets, we knew the market was ready,” said Peter Yared, CEO of iWidgets. “Our robust tools provide an unmatched ability to display personalized content from a source website without requiring experienced programmers. The result is incredibly viral - a fun, interactive application people want to use and share.”

Widgets created through iWidgets can be used on iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace and others.

If you've been holding back on widgets, are you inclined to check out iWidgets? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: Testing Applies to Widgets and Accessories, Not Just Landing Pages

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

SEW Experts: Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment

Social media sites like MySpace or Facebook, and even long-standing social media tools like blogs remain a mystery to many large organizations. In today's Enterprise Search Marketing column, "Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment," Aaron Shear explains how that's all beginning to change, as more big businesses find ways to incorporate these elements into their overall marketing strategy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 16, 2008

Forget The Video CameraTwitter Child's Birth

In what may be the ultimate use of social media, Adam Audette - or just audette on Twitter - is twittering the birth of his child. Live from the hospital are messages on the stages of the process.

We are being brought along for the ride as it starts: It's on! Heading to the hospital w/ an extra car seat in the back. I'll update when we're checked in

http://twitpic.com/14vs

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