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Social media take on the news – BusinessWorld Online

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:58:21 +0000

Social media take on the news
BusinessWorld Online
Posing as sidekicks are Facebook, a social networking site, and microblog-ging site Twitter. These four, together with other social media outlets such as ...

Google Pesonalizes Search Results More with Star Feature

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:05:34 +0000

Google today introduced yet another way it is personalizing search results (we talked about social search with the company at SMX). Now Google is letting users "star" search results that they like, just like the star feature in other Google products like Gmail, Reader, and Google News.

This almost seems like an obvious move for SERPs now that it is there, but it has not been present until now. Essentially, when you star results you like, you will get them at the top of your results the next time you search a query relevant to them.

"With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant," the company explains. "That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl]."

"The great thing about stars is that you don't have to keep track of them," the company continues. "You don't even have to remember whether or not you starred something. Simply perform a search and you'll rediscover your starred items right when you need them. Stars sync with your Google Bookmarks and the Google Toolbar, so you can always see your list of starred items in one place and easily organize them. Even beyond the results page, while browsing the web you can quickly click the star icon in Toolbar to create a bookmark, and those pages will start showing up in the new stars feature."

Interestingly, the feature replaces Google's existing SearchWiki feature, which apparently didn't catch on too much. According to Google, people don't much care for rearranging the order of search results. I can't say I blame them. The annotation feature that came along with that is pretty much what you get from Google's other product - SideWiki, anyway, and Google suggests using that if you want to leave a comment on a particular result.

The new star interface will be rolling out over the next couple days. It will only work if you are signed in of course. Do you like the result starring concept? Share your thoughts.

Google Open Sources reMail

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:52:16 +0000

A couple weeks ago, Google acquired reMail, a popular iPhone app, and pulled it from Apple's App Store. Now, Google has made it open source.

"After looking at a number of options to make reMail available in some form, we decided to open source the code, which is now available on Google Code as remail-iphone under the Apache 2.0 License," Google Communications tells WebProNews.

reMail was created by a Gabor Cselle, who used to work as a software engineer on Gmail. On the reMail blog, Cselle says, "As someone who is passionate about mobile email, my hope is that developers interested in making email-related apps can use reMail code as a starting point. Part of the reason email apps are hard is because you have to pay the tax of figuring out how to download email via IMAP, parse MIME messages, handle attachments, and store data. reMail has already solved these problems. If you have a great mobile email idea, I hope you will find reMail's source code helpful in your quest."

Cselle has documented the source code so developers can quickly start on any ideas they have. "If you like reMail and want to improve it, I have also listed some potential projects with implementation tips," he says. "Most of these projects are features that users have requested in the past. I encourage you to contribute improvements back to the project. I've also created the group remail-iphone on Google Groups, which is a great place to ask questions."

This page will tell you how to build using the code, let you see some project ideas, and show you how the datastore and UI work.

YouTube Changes Default Size on Embeds

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:01:11 +0000

YouTube has changed the default size for embedded videos. By default they're getting bigger at either 480x385 for a 4:3 video, or 640x385 for a 16:9 video. YouTube says it went with these sizes, because they will give most viewers the best viewing experience because they better match current video encoding sizes.

"A video's life on YouTube is just the beginning; embedding gives it a life off of the site. Just look at your favorite blogger and they're likely to be embedding YouTube content in their posts," says YouTube Senior Web Developer Geoff Stearns. "In fact, almost every popular video on the site is first made famous by embeds on the Web. That number can be as high as 50% of views in the first 48 hours, kicking off a great cycle."

"When using the 'Play in HD' option, it's best to embed the player at a very large size (at least 1280x745) in order to accommodate the large size of the video," says Stearns. "If you play HD video in a small player, the user's computer will have to scale down the video to fit within the player, costing the user extra CPU cycles and bandwidth, which may result in choppy playback. It's always best to play the video size that best fits the size of the video player. And if you want even better performance when watching HD content, you can choose to watch it in full-screen."

When users click the embed code, on a video page, they will be able to choose the following for the video player:

- The color and size
- Whether or not to include related videos
- Whether or not to display the player border
- Whether or not to play in HD by default -- triggers video resolutions of 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080p)

This week YouTube also expanded its auto-captioning program. This is a tool that combines some of the speech-to-text algorithms from Google's Voice Search to automatically generate video captions when requested by viewers. More on that here.

Plenty of Reasons Email is as Relevant as Ever

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:10:12 +0000

Every now and then, there is a discussion about where email stands as social network use becomes the "it" thing. We've all heard mutterings like, "email is dead" and "social media is killing email," but it's just not the case, and there are plenty of reasons why (even if Google thinks it's time to start over).

Do you think email is on the way out? Share your thoughts.

Last year, we ran a piece titled 10 Reasons Social Media isnt' Replacing Email that got a pretty good response from readers. In a nutshell (read the article for elaboration), these ten reasons were:

1. People still send hand-written letters
2. Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address
3. Email notifies you of updates from all social networks
4. We haven't seen any evidence yet that Google Wave really is the next big thing
5. Email is universal, and social networks are not
6. There are plenty of people who have no interest in joining social networks, but already use email
7. Email is still improving
8. Even social networks themselves recognize the importance of email
9. More social media use means more email use
10. As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well

At the Online Marketing Summit last week, there was an interesting session about email marketing, led by Joel Book, Director of eMarketing Education for email marketing firm ExactTarget. In that session among other points of discussion, he provided the following concept equations:

Email + CRM = lead nurturing
Email + CRM = Reseller education
Email + CRM = trade show follow up
Email + CRM = sales support for dealers
Email + analytics = Personalized recommendations
Email + analytics = live offers
Email + retail = product education
Email + retail = scannable coupons
Email + retail = subscriber acquisition
Email + social = driving demand
Email + social = using social forward to expand customer database
Email + sms = mobile immediacy
Email + SMS = lead generation
Email + sms = subscriber acquisition

Some things to think about.

Also at the Online Marketing Summit, WebProNews discussed the integration of social media with email, with Kara Trivunovic, Sr. Director of Strategic Services at StrongMail, who makes some great points.

Businesses are plugging in social aspects into email programs to not only expand the reach of their existing offers, but to turn customers into evangelists, and ultimately grow their databases, as she says. Keep in mind that about half of all content is shared through email, and social media can make for a great way to gain subscribers. According to Trivunovic, there are 3 major ways that people integrate social into their email programs:

1. Share with your network

2. Leverage as a medium to incentivize current customer base to evangelize on their behalf, and drive additional subscribers or awareness

3. Business model: acquiring customers through referrals

This article could go on for a long time, but let me just conclude with a few more points. Mobile apps will continue to keep email relevant in the mobile world (Google just acquired a popular one). Google recently released its own social media product, Buzz, which the company decided would fit best right in Gmail. Microsoft Outlook only recently started integrating social networks into the inbox (Mozilla has Raindrop to serve a similar purpose). The social networks themselves are creating email services (it didn't take MySpace long to get a lot of users for theirs, and Facebook is said to be working on its own...and we know how popular Facebook is [it recently surpassed Yahoo as the number 2 site on the web]).

Tell us why you think email is here to stay or why you think it's not.

24% Of Households Have a TV Connected To The Internet

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:02:45 +0000

Nearly a quarter (24%) of all U.S. households have a television connected to the Internet, according to a new report from the Leichtman Research Group (LRG).

The report found consumers connect to the Internet via variety of devices including a video game console, a Blu-Ray player, or a compatible TV. While Internet connectivity has become a common built-in feature in many devices, consumers are just beginning to use this feature to watch video from the Internet.

Overall, just 1 percent of adults watch video from the Internet via one of these devices daily, and 5 percent weekly. Usage leans heavily towards young men, with 16 percent of men ages 18-34 watching video from the Internet via one of these connected devices weekly, compared to 3 percent weekly use among all others.

"Despite speculation that consumers are 'cutting the cord' to cable, satellite or Telco video services and choosing to watch video exclusively online or through other alternatives, there remains little evidence of this being a trend," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc.

"Emerging video services do not necessarily create either/or scenarios in decisions to subscribe to a video service or not. Rather, they create opportunities and trade-offs in how, when, what, and where to consume the increasing video entertainment options."

Among households with a TV connected to the Internet, 20 percent do so via a game console, 8 percent have an Internet connected TV set, and 6 percent have a Blu-Ray player with an Internet connection.

Just 5 percent of those online at home strongly agree that they would be willing to pay $9.95 per month to watch TV shows from a service like Hulu, while 81 percent strongly disagree.

Other findings include:

*55% of Netflix subscribers report that they used the "Watch Instantly" feature in the past month -- overall, 1% of all adults use Netflix's "Watch Instantly" daily, and 4% weekly

*Overall, 3% of adults watch a full length TV show online daily, and 11% weekly

*Among all individuals online at home, 4% strongly agree that they would consider disconnecting their TV service to just watch video online -- compared to 3% last year, and 4% two years ago

CMT’s Anthony Barton Promoted To Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing – Music Indistry News Network

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:44:49 +0000

CMT's Anthony Barton Promoted To Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing
Music Indistry News Network
He joined MTVN in 1995 as an assistant at Nickelodeon Affiliate Marketing in New York City where he worked on marketing promotions and the launch of TV Land ...

and more »

SEO and Quality Key to Competing in the Long Tail

Chris Crum — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:19:33 +0000

A while back, WebProNews had a conversation with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn about how the long tail of search is getting more competitive. Companies like AOL and Demand Media are working on dominating long tail searches with content across a broad scope of article subject matter. We had another conversation with another company that is doing this, called Suite101, which is placing an increased amount of emphasis on SEO to up the competition in this space even more. Suite101 President and CEO Peter Berger took a break from Olympics mania in Vancouver (home of the company's headquarters) to tell us about it.

"Making sure well-written articles get found online involves continuous hard work and search engine knowledge," says Berger. "We know that in order to help our writers get their stories found, we need to increase our expertise in the area of search." That's why the company just hired search strategist Aaron Bradley as its SEO Director to implement new SEO tactics across its articles.

Berger tells WebProNews Suite101 attracts over 25 million unique monthly visitors. The company's revenue comes from advertising - mainly AdSense, but other networks have been integrated as well. They don't charge writers fees, but they have a strict submission process. Only 20% of writers are accepted, with 80% being turned away. Writers are required to submit work samples and resumes before being accepted. The first article must be submitted before it goes live, but after that, articles go live and are then reviewed by editors.

Berger says "quality is key," and is the reason he doesn't seem too worried about competition from big name brands like AOL. That, and he says most writers want to write for numerous publications, so even if a writer does work for AOL, there's a good chance they'll submit to Suite101 as well.

Presumably Berger is hoping the hiring of Bradley will help with the competition in terms of search engine traffic, the company's biggest traffic source (though they do see spikes from social media as well). One writer for Suite101 achieved a monthly earnings record of $5,000 for articles published at the site, which splits revenue with its writers. It will be interesting to see how quickly that record is surpassed with the company's new SEO efforts.

Naturally, the more quality articles the site is able to obtain, the more content it will have out there in the search engines, and if their SEO efforts are as effective as they hope, they will be getting a lot more eyeballs and clicks on their ads. Berger thinks writers like Suite101 because it’s the "closest" they can et to "actual professional editors in a lot of cases. Quality, he says, is the "key differentiator" between Suite101 and its competitors.

There has been a lot of talk about how SEO practices can hinder quality, because you should write for people, and not search engines. Berger thinks they can achieve both.

Most Businesses Still Only “Experiment” with Social Media

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:26:43 +0000

Social media use among businesses has grown significantly over the past year or two, but new research from E-Consultancy, in association with the Online Marketing Summit (where WebProNews is conducting exclusive interviews this week), indicates that most businesses are largely still in the experimental stage when it comes to their efforts.

There are a great deal of interesting stats to pick through in the report, but to me, one of the most striking is that 61% (nearly 2/3) say they have experimented with social media, but not done that much. Various stats suggest businesses are starting to get to the place where they view social media as crucial, however. For example, the vast majority (90%) say they expect social media to take up more time internally "in a year's time," while only 8% expect it will take up the same amount of time, and 2% expect less time to be spent on social media next year.

Some other highlights from the report:

- The majority of companies have difficulty measuring the return on investment (ROI) from social media. Almost two-thirds of respondents (61%) say their organizations are “poor” (34%) or “very poor” (27%) at measuring ROI.

- Increased traffic to Web site is the business goal that marketers are most likely to be trying to influence through social media marketing. Three quarters (74%) of companies say they use social media to increase traffic.

- Direct traffic to Web site is by far the metric most commonly used to measure the impact of off-site social media, measured by just under two-thirds of company respondents (63%).

- More brand recognition (64%) is the second most important business objective in terms of impact of social media. A similar proportion of respondents (62%) cite better brand reputation.

- Despite the widespread recognition that social media marketing impacts brand reputation and brand visibility, only a quarter of all respondents (25%) surveyed use online brand mentions and brand awareness as a metric for measuring off-site social media success. Just 15% use brand perception as a metric.

- Just over half of companies (56%) say that they try to achieve increased sales through social media activity. But only a quarter of companies (24%) use sales as a metric for measuring social media success.

Facebook is the Web property mostly commonly used in social media, with 85% of companies surveyed using it as part of their marketing strategy. This is followed by Twitter (perhaps more closely than expected, given Facebook's much larger user base) at 77%, LinkedIn at 58% and YouTube at 49%.

Over two-thirds of company respondents say that the amount of money spent on social media has increased since last year, while 30% say it has stayed the same, and 81% of companies expect social media budgets to increase over the next year, while 18% expect spending to stay the same. So while companies are still experimenting, they must be generally seeing good enough results to keep at it, or see the potential to use it on an expanded basis.

Do you have a concrete social media strategy or do you simply experiment? Discuss.