January 2012
1 post
September 2011
1 post
1 tag
August 2011
1 post
1 tag
¶ Could Mobile Apps Be Wilting in the Heat of...
Image credit: Financial Times
It’s hard to believe, but mobile marketing didn’t really get going in earnest until Apple launched its App Store in 2008. Three years later there are now marketplaces on all five major device platforms - Apple’s iOS, Android, BlackBerry, HP WebOS and Windows Mobile. What’s more, there seems to be a constant footrace between brands not only...
July 2011
10 posts
1 tag
→ Media Tops in Corporate Social Media →
Fire up the PowerPoint. Here’s a fantastic, data-rich report (PDF) from Netprospex on the state of social media adoption in Corporate America. What’s notable is that the media continues to shine. One reason? Content matters.
via Lost Remote
1 tag
¶ Three Key Things Google Is Doing While We Focus...
The following is also my AdAge column…
With all of the attention that’s being paid to Facebook and Twitter it’s easy to forget that no single company impacts media and marketers the way that Google does. Even small changes in Google’s algorithm and/or its underlying search technology can cause a massive ripple effect in consumer traffic patterns and buying behaviors.
The intentionally low-key...
1 tag
→ How Journalists Engage Readers on Facebook →
Great and very thorough analysis from Facebook on how news organizations are using their platform to engage readers. It looks like the platform is being used more for consumption rather than engagement…
“In analyzing the volume of postings made by news pages, we saw that readers are hungry for posts - but have a potential limit in terms of engagement. A steady rhythm of 5 to 10...
1 tag
Google Deep Shot →
Google has a research project underway to help users easily migrate tasks across devices…
“Deep Shot remains a research project at Google. With increasing capabilities of mobile phones and fast growing web applications, we hope to explore more exciting ways to help users carry out their everyday activities.”
It’s in Google’s interest to do this not just around...
1 tag
The Google+ Census →
This site is a fantastic resource that you can search to find public profiles on Google+. Don’t miss the stats page. It’s clear from the data that G+ is unabashedly tech-centric right now. It’s heavy with engineering types.
1 tag
¶ Twitter, Not Facebook, Should Fear the Google+...
This was cross-posted on Google+
A lot of the hoopla over Google+ has been whether it’s a threat to Facebook. However, it’s Twitter who should fear the Google+ beard. Here’s why…
Social media networks have typically have one of two lineages - not both. They either first catch on with teens and twenty-somethings or they catch on with nerds (of which I count myself as one). Eventually...
1 tag
How Google+ and Twitter Influence Search →
A fascinating and thorough experiment to see what influence social has on search. Key quote…
“The more retweets a link receives, the better it seems to perform in search results and the more visibility it obtains with the social media aggregators referenced above.”
Also this is up to date to note the fact that Google stopped indexing tweets in real-time, at least for the...
1 tag
The Top 100 Google+ Users →
It’s not even a week old and already there’s a power list out of Google+ users. You know you’re curious - so go on and click.
1 tag
A Budget Brand Digital Dashboard →
Fantastic overview from Google on how to create a brand dashboard on the cheap, albeit very limited.
1 tag
Media Set Up Camp on Google+
A few media companies have started to set up camp inside Google+. They include Mashable (an Edelman client) and The Next Web. Right now most of these are digitally native media companies. Could the big guys like CNN, NBC and the New York Times be far behind?
June 2011
52 posts
1 tag
¶ Consumers Maybe Nonplussed Over Google+
Google yesterday launched The Google+ project - an ambitious new product that aims to take on Facebook. Now that I have had a preview, below is a brief POV of my initial impressions.1 In short, I believe that once it rolls out, consumers will be nonplussed over Google+. The issue here isn’t speeds and feeds, it’s Google’s brand.
At launch, Google+ includes three core...
1 tag
The Social Media Probook →
The gang at Eloqua and JESS3 have compiled an awesome resource that’s definitely worth a read. It was an honor to be a contributor. Free PDF is here.
1 tag
Google's "What do you Love?" →
Great new site from Google that helps you track any topic in one place.
¶ Google Social Network Nears, Aims to Preserve... →
Danny Sullivan:
“Google’s long expected second shot at taking on Facebook in the social networking space has arrived in the form of the Google Project. It has some interesting twists on the social networking model but is far from a Facebook-killer.”
The preview site is live here. At first glance it looks promising, but time will tell. Circles in particular seems like it may...
1 tag
BreakingNews to Curate Local News Tweets →
breakingblog:
“We’re excited to announce a new feature that allows news organizations to fast-track news tips straight to BreakingNews.com and potentially, @breakingnews on Twitter. Here’s how it works. Once we’ve whitelisted a news organization’s Twitter account, appending @breakingnews or #breakingnews anywhere in a tweet will pop it in front of our editors on this page. If...
1 tag
Twitter's Guide for Newsrooms →
The most important part to read is their guide for reporting and how journos are using Twitter to find sources.
Jake Tapper from ABC News:
The way [Twitter has] been most useful is in terms of following people. I’ve been able to use it for reporting and to find sources. Last year when a health insurance company raised its premiums in California and it affected thousands of people, I didn’t...
1 tag
Your own Facebook Book →
This year’s gift for the person who has everything
“This app analyzes your entire Facebook activity since June 2009 – your status updates, photo albums, events you’ve attended, places you checked-in, friends who you frequently interact with, etc. - and turns all this data all into an elegant printed book.
1 tag
The Incredible Shrinking Web →
Really interesting piece about the changing nature of the web …
“When you exclude just Facebook from the rest of the Web, consumption in terms of minutes of use shrank by nearly nine percent between March 2010 and March 2011, according to data from comScore. And, even when you include Facebook usage, total non-mobile Internet consumption still dropped three percent over the same...
1 tag
Social Influencers Shift SEO →
SEOmoz:
“Suddenly, a huge social reach is a competitive advantage in SEO. If you’re doing SEO today, I think it’s no longer possible to ignore the growth of your social connections as a big part of your SEO strategy. Honestly, I expect in 18 months, Twitter followers, Facebook connections, LinkedIn account size and engagement across these won’t just be social metrics; they’ll be KPIs for...
1 tag
¶ Cloudy with a Chance of Communications
The following essay is also my column in next week’s AdAge
In the era of cloud computing, any breech in privacy or security - even a minor one - is the fastest way to erode brand equity and consumer trust. Botching the communications around these events or, worse, not being proactive ahead of time to think the unthinkable, could clinch that your brand may never be able to stage a...
1 tag
To Tumblr or Not to Tumblr →
For those of you who are curious about Tumblr Mitch Wagner and Gina Trapani are having a a good debate on the merits of the format. Gina favors owning her own restaurant vs. merely just having franchises - though she does both. Mitch says Tumblr gets him in the mall where the traffic is (my words in both cases, not theirs). Meanwhile Tumblr and Twitter investor Fred Wilson notes the activity on...
1 tag
term.ly Continues the App First, Web Second Trend →
If you’re a word geek then this site is for you.
“term.ly is a way to explore the English language. It is a semantic reference. A dictionary. A thesaurus. A reference tool. Maybe more. Maybe less.”
Love the nice, simple UI. Notable here is that every word gets its own short URL. Also noteworthy is that this site began as an app brand first, much like Lose It and, soon,...
1 tag
Moms Facebook 'Like' Brands Just for Being There →
AdAge:
“There’s a lot of talk about how important it is to drive Facebook likes for your brand to build an audience and build engagement in order to keep your brand’s news in the feed. There’s less talk about how to actually get people to like your page. According to this survey, you don’t necessarily need to do much at all. Thirty-one percent of moms sampled here...
1 tag
Rick Sanchez on Tumblr: It's "Just Right" →
Journalist Rick Sanchez, writing on HuffPo:
“So what makes Tumblr great? It enables journalists to send news updates with the immediacy and ease of Twitter. With no 140 character cap, spelling, punctuation and key words and sentences don’t have to be sacrificed. Posts can be short in length but long on substance. And posts can include pictures and video, without having to click on...
1 tag
Five Steps for Getting More Facebook Fans →
Fans aren’t everything but here are five simple ways to get more of them.
1 tag
How We Heard About Bin Laden →
This study only tracked how affluents learned about the death of Bin Laden, but still it notes how times have changed…
“If 57% learned from TV, then — strikingly — 43% did not. These individuals reflect the tremendous diversity and fragmentation of today’s media landscape. No other medium — including websites, radio and good old personal communications...
1 tag
It's Called Human Error for a Reason →
Communispace’s CEO nails it:
“In this age of constant interconnectedness, we sometimes blame the new tools for our own emotional outbursts, sloppiness, lack of focus, or inability to count to ten. As in many other situations, the tools are only as effective as the people who use them.”
Humans kill humans, less so technology.
1 tag
Google Tweaks Related Searches →
Google Inside Search:
“Starting today, for many of your list seeking searches, you’ll see a collection of the top referenced items from the topic of your search.”
Also notable is that it commercializes the technology in Google Squared.
1 tag
Social Networking Sites by Daily Engagement →
Pew Internet:
“There is considerable variance in the way people use various social networking sites: 52% of Facebook users and 33% of Twitter users engage with the platform daily, while only 7% of MySpace and 6% of LinkedIn users do the same.”
Even 52% isn’t amazing. Google I bet is 100% or nearly. This is a key stat to watch over time to see if we get fatigued. (LinkedIn...
1 tag
Google Adds Reputation Management Tools →
Macworld:
“Google has launched a tool to help people monitor online mentions of their names and take action to protect their reputation when they find objectionable references.”
Great to see them offer this new tool, called Me on the Web. But why not for brands and corporations too?
1 tag
¶ Tumblr is the Next Great Social Network
Brent Simmons sees a natural evolution for blogs…
“New blogging systems like Posterous and Tumblr seem to be pretty popular, and they fill a nice middle ground: short content, easy sharing, social stuff. They’re cool.
But try to imagine replacing Daring Fireball, Scripting News, Apple Outsider, Shawn Blanc, or any of a number of great blogs with something like Twitter. You...
1 tag
Addressable Doesn't Mean Deliverable →
Charlie Buchwalter at Nielsen on online ad addressability:
“Online has typically been viewed as the most ‘targetable’ medium, but with Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings’ ability to precisely measure actual audience delivery vs. desired audience delivery, preliminary findings suggest that audience delivery within targets for online campaigns is not much different from what’s...
1 tag
A Temporary Lull or Boredom? →
Facebook growth maybe slowing:
“Facebook is still growing towards 700 million users, having reached 687 million monthly actives by the start of June, according to our Inside Facebook Gold data service…But overall growth has been lower than normal for the second month straight, which is unusual.”
What’s your view? (Also testing Tumblr’s ask feature here too.)
1 tag
Telling 26,000 Customers Goodbye →
Flowtown on its pivot:
“By October 2010 we had signed-up over 26,000 businesses, closed 13 big integration deals and had been growing revenue 30% month-over-month for almost 12 months straight.
Then things got turbulent.
The main reason we turned off the social discovery service is because we were shutdown.”
Pivot is the word of the moment in Silicon Valley. And I love...
1 tag
Building Blog SEO with Google Suggest →
This is not exactly my cup of tea, especially given what I wrote last week, but it’s certainly an interesting and successful strategy for Skelliewag:
“This method is frighteningly simple, yet it’s also a very powerful way to seed a new blog with a constant stream of valuable search traffic. By using Auto Suggest you can create dozens of exact match articles for long-tail search...
1 tag
Google on a Quest to End URLs? →
Google Operating System:
“Google tests a new feature that replaces the URL with the site’s name in search results snippets.”
Also recall they are hiding the URL bar on Chrome. Something bigger is up.
1 tag
Robert Reich is on Tumblr →
Former labor secretary turned author and thought leader uses Tumblr to power his entire web presence. Nice.
1 tag
Twitter and Facebook in the Hospital →
Great personal story
“We hear a lot about how social networking relationships aren’t “real,” how they rip at the fabric of society, how everything’s going to hell. Maybe that’s true. But Joel Mathis knows that when he entered the hospital, Facebook and Twitter kept him supplied with love and good feelings that made it easier to bounce back from major surgery”
1 tag
1 tag
The Web Never Forgets →
NYT on the emerging market for personal repuation services:
“The Web is like an elephant — it never forgets, and if let loose it can cause a lot of trouble.”
1 tag
Twitter Hype vs Reality →
AllTwitter:
“It looks like Twitter still has a way to go before it hits the mainstream. A new study from eMarketer shows that Twitter awareness in the general US population is at 92%, but that only about 8% of those examined actually use the service”
What’s more, many of those are lurkers.
1 tag
Speaking of Traffic Quality →
Poynter:
“Early reports Thursday about Huffington Post surpassing The New York Times website in traffic illustrate a critical oversimplification: unique visitors do not equal page views. The two indicators often trend in the same direction, but not always.”
1 tag
¶ Low-Value vs High-Value SEO for Blogs
There’s been a good spirited discussion about why I deleted my two blogs and moved to Tumblr. The best are from Louis Gray, Mark Evans, Matthew Ingram and Hubspot. However, the more I think about it, there’s another point to discuss: high-value vs. low-value SEO.
The dirty little secret is that, for individual blogs, a lot of the SEO traffic that comes in - at least as I experienced...
1 tag
Data Dig: Understanding Smartphone Users →
Great deck from Google, chock full of data points. PDF
1 tag
Facebook v. Google: Clash of the Titans →
Fantastic package from IEEE spectrum on the battle for the social web between Facebook and Google. Bob Garfield’s piece on monetization is a must. Also don’t miss the corporate cafeteria smackdown and how one writer went Google-free
1 tag
Kids Turning Adults into Gamers →
CNET:
“According to (the Entertainment Software Association), which represents the game industry, the average gamer today is 37 years old. Moreover, the average game buyer is 41 years old. Because of that, a greater number of parents are playing games with their children. The ESA said that 45 percent of parents play games with their kids ‘at least weekly.’”
I am also...
1 tag
Twitter is All About the Links →
Fortune recaps statements from Twitter on engagement. And there’s no surprise here….
“80% of Twitter engagement consists of people clicking on a tweet, while the remaining 20% is a Retweet or a Tweet.”
This is why brands on Twitter need to view themselves as curators. Tweet 75% of the time with links that are relevant to your zone and 25% about yourself....