Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:41:33 +0000 - Clearly, video games like Fallout 3 and other post-apocalyptic venues are not enough as a new MMO called Fallen Earth is about to hit the market.
I am not certain if this is the first post-apocalyptic MMO to hit the field, but I believe that the post apocalyptic genre has the potential to be the most [...]
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:34:49 +0000 - Have you ever checked into a hotel, looked around at the lack of amenities and view, and said to yourself: “Man, this is nothing like the brochure”.
Yeah, many of those pictures that you see from a hotel’s web site are taken to make the finest impression on a potential guest, and some of them are [...]
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:05:52 +0000 - Significant changes to Digg’s Application Programming Interface (API) promise to open up new possibilities to third-party developers, and might even make them some money.
Last week Digg announced some important changes to the policies that govern what sorts of things third-party Digg application developers may do. The changes lift old restrictions on certain Digg app functionalities [...]
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:24:49 +0000 - It would appear that our televisions have gone from analog to digital stations just fine. Okay, “just fine” is a little too broad of a generalization; after all, there was a record number of calls (317,000) to the FCC last Friday on this subject.
However, the FCC was prepared, and they had 4,000 operators on [...]
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:58:43 +0000 - Last week, when I reported that Turbine was allowing people to play Dungeons and Dragons Online for free, I only briefly mentioned the negative press that Role-Playing Games received in the early eighties and late nineties.
As a kid who used to play D&D and other role playing games, I heard stories of people who [...]
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:29:51 +0000 - A couple of decades back, Brett Borders had visionary but covert aspirations. Instead of aimlessly wondering the halls of his high school, he took to the underground to search out threads of conversations that were beginning to surface in this new arena called the Internet. A unique but somewhat logical beginning for a fellow who [...]
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:39:52 +0000 - During the early 2000’s, netbooks originally emerged as low cost laptops with a heavy emphasis on web browsing and wireless internet – it was initially aimed at needy children in developing countries. It came bundled with an adequate enough OS to run the most basic of software (email, word processor, the odd mp3 player, etc) [...]
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:22:45 +0000 - As the name Implies, UIzard is a user interface wizard. What does that mean?
In its simplest form, you could call it a WYSIWYG HTML editor – but that doesn’t do it justice! Not only does it make it easy for the non-coder to make classy website front ends, but it also allows you to connect [...]
Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:26:54 +0000 - With Valve’s announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 came the announcement from a group of fans that they would be boycotting the zombie survival game sequel. But are their demands reasonable, or are they the mindless groans of an army of soulless meat puppets?
Sorry, that came off a bit rude. I was just trying to [...]
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:04:29 +0000 - Turbine has recently announced that their latest version of Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO): Eberron Unlimited, is going to be free-to-play version of the popular Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game.
This is a closed beta test for now, and this free version of Eberron Unlimited has some limits. The level cap has been raised to a [...]
Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:20:05 +0000 - He calls himself a Social Marketing Rock Star! His web site was designed for “successfools” like himself. He runs a Ustream broadcast on a regular basis and has amassed over 13,000 (and counting) followers on Twitter. His profile proclaims that he is “ADDICTED to people, their passions, and teaching them to use Social Media Marketing [...]
Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:23:00 +0000 - Google’s iGoogle Showcase was revealed earlier this week, allowing everyone on the whole Internet to look at the homepages personally approved by the publicists of celebrities.
With iGoogle Showcase anyone can take a look at the widgets and plugins that barely likeable celebrities like Al Gore, Demi Moore, Ashton “The Kutch” Kutcher, Martha Stewart, Ryan Seacreast, [...]
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:18:05 +0000 - E3, the biggest gaming convention in the world, has recently had its annual meeting at the Convention Center in L.A.. The gaming companies love to make their big announcements at this time, and here is a list of what they have been holding out on the gaming crowd.
Xbox 360 News
The open-world action game Crackdown [...]
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:02:50 +0000 - With Activision’s announcement of the upcoming release of DJ Hero, featuring Jay-Z and Eminem, it looks like we are finally reaching the conceptual limits of the real-instrument-as-a-toy rhythm game, which is an exciting prospect for people who take joy in witnessing events of almost pure absurdity.
Even for those of us who love games like Rock [...]
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:22:33 +0000 - If Web 2.0 is about web applications and social networking, and Web 3.0 is said to incorporate the semantics of data interpreted by machines, what the heck is Web 4.0 going to look like? If we are in the midst of an evolution, what have the big thinkers been able to conjure up about our [...]
Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:20:02 +0000 - Responses have been overwhelmingly negative to the news that The Pirate Bay will soon be sold to Global Gaming Factory. But what if there is a method to the apparent Pirate Bay madness — one that, as Peter Sunde has hinted, could actually be good for the P2P community?
Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:50:01 +0000 - Joe Sibley, one of Thomas-Rasset's two attorneys said that will appeal and argue the $1.9 damages she was ordered to pay are unconstitutional.
Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:21:06 +0000 - Apple and Linux computers appear to be exempt from China's mandate that a controversial Internet filtering program be shipped with all computers sold in the country. PCs that do not meet the software's technical requirements are excluded, according to one manufacturer. And as of now, there is no version of the web filter software for Mac or Linux.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:30:01 +0000 - Without sending users on some sort of boot camp, changing the preconceptions of users may seem a daunting task. But there are ways to ease the pain of learning Linux.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:00:48 +0000 - Security experts have discovered a flaw in the way Apple's iPhone handles text messages, prompting the company to ready a patch to fix the issue.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:02:20 +0000 - Double Vision is one of the best web browsers for this kind of thing - it lets you view and interact with two applications at the same time, without having to switch windows again and again. So, you could be working on your presentation and watching your favorite video or even better - a related tutorial at the same time.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:00:14 +0000 - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thieves are increasingly going after iPhones and other smartphones but victims now can fight back with technology.One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:40:01 +0000 - Do you like your privacy? I bet you do. What about being able to read all kinds of stuff on the internet without having to hand over your credit card number -- do you like that, too? I bet that's another yes. But which do you like more? You'd better figure that out quickly, because, if you don't, Congress just might decide for you.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:00:03 +0000 - Moblin is an Intel-created open-source operating system for netbooks and people who use them. On a technical level this means Moblin is built for the Atom x86 chip found in many netbooks, while on a practical level it means Moblin is an Internet- and multimedia-focused operating system.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:20:03 +0000 - Companies like Google and IBM are trying to lead the world in cutting-edge, efficient data centers. Not to be outdone, on Tuesday Yahoo announced they're hoping to change to future of data centers as well. The company unveiled plans to build one of the world's most efficient data centers in Lockport, NY and the details do sound pretty exciting.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:10:01 +0000 - For a long time, batteries were bulky and heavy. Now, a new cutting-edge battery is revolutionizing the field. It is thinner than a millimeter, lighter than a gram, and can be produced cost-effectively through a printing process.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:40:01 +0000 - The Swedish gaming executive who’s gambling nearly $8 million buying The Pirate Bay is convinced he can turn the 20 million users of the world’s most notorious file sharing site into well-behaved consumers — even amid a deluge of account-deletion requests.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:20:01 +0000 - In September 2008, the London Stock Exchange collapsed because its Windows-based electronic trading platform, TradElect completely failed. Now, under new leadership, the Exchange will finally do away with its fatally flawed Windows system.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:10:01 +0000 - Recent Apple patents hint at new features that could appear in future iPhones. Finger prints would not be to secure, but for other slick uses for example, a fingerprint from the index finger would trigger the Play and Stop buttons in the iPod. And a fingerprint from the middle finger would trigger fast-forwarding in the iPod. Pretty neat idea, huh?
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:10:01 +0000 - The Kopin Corporation, a self-describednanosemiconductor company, has created the minuscule range of LCDdisplays dubbed Cyberdisplay. The newest member of the display rangemeasures in at 0.27 inches along its diagonal with a resolution of 600x 480. It is reported to be the smallest full-color VGA screen in theworld.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:10:02 +0000 - After Global Gaming Factory X announced that it intends to buy The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million, the CEO of the company bombarded the press with his revolutionary plans for the site. By paying both the copyright holders and file-sharers the company aims to reshape the digital media landscape. We have our doubts.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:40:02 +0000 - Unlike the serif font family, these hand drawn fonts looked less serious but they tend to give and convey strong human touch wherever they are applied. Hand-drawn fonts are hard to stand on it’s own, but they are utmost perfect for these following situations...
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:30:01 +0000 - Last month a working group of the Dutch Parliament published a report in which they made various suggestions on how to deal with online piracy. In their analysis they made several false accusations against the Dutch based BitTorrent site Mininova, who today announce that they will take legal steps if they don’t get a public rectification.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:10:02 +0000 - The EVGA X58 Classified raises the bar for enthusiast grade motherboards everywhere. With never before seen features such as 3-way SLI + PhysX + 1x PCIe device on a single board, 2 8pin +12V connectors capable of delivering 600 watts of power, 10 phase Digital PWM with a switching frequency of up to 1333KHz, three times the amount of normal gold...
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:00:01 +0000 - The fight over music piracy has become increasingly brutal in recent months, with heated debate turning to outright culture-clash. Here are eight rebuttals to arguments against piracy.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:20:01 +0000 - The maker of the Firefox browser shepherds a restive, valued legion of programmers—and provides a model for companies like Google and LinkedIn.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:30:02 +0000 - (put your trousers back on little fella. it's not what you think) It's incredible how some people live their lives looking either straight ahead or down at the ground, the only ceiling they ever notice being the one above the bed.Luckily it hasn't stopped people designing stunning ceilings.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:10:29 +0000 - In order to use the USB key you need to completely disassemble the puzzle-like cube to find the USB key in the center, and then re-assemble it when finished. In addition to honing your puzzle skills an additional hurdle will have to be overcome in the form of the device's pricetag--1,000,000 yen ($10,442)!
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:00:01 +0000 - Netbooks are tiny – usually between half and two-thirds the size of a garden-variety laptop – and they typically weigh around 2.5 lbs. With their cool, slim designs, they outclass some ultraportables. And best of all, these diminutive laptops start at around $200 (in some cases $100, when purchased as part of a mobile broadband promotional deal).
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:50:01 +0000 - The sentencing of a 19-year-old "swatter" to 11 years in prison has drawn renewed attention to caller-ID spoofing, which Matthew Weigman used to perpetrate his fake 911 calls and is at the heart of myriad scams. New York and Louisiana have recently taken steps to curb the practice, but there is disagreement as to whether additional laws are needed.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:40:01 +0000 - Most people wouldn't leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they're on vacation for a week, but users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, "I'm out of the country for a week."
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:02 +0000 - A Linux developer has published a new kernel patch that provides a workaround to avoid Microsoft's patents on the FAT filesystem. The patch, which has undergone extensive legal review by patent lawyers, could make it possible to use FAT on Linux without having to pay licensing fees to Microsoft.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:40:02 +0000 - Whether or not anecdotal reports of iPhones overheating are true or not, Apple has taken them seriously enough to reveal the presence of a temperature warning screen for the iPhone 3G and 3Gs.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:20:01 +0000 - More bad news on the security front for the Smart Grid: The Wall Street Journal reports that the electric utility industry is negotiating with a defense contractor to determine whether spies from China and elsewhere have already hacked into the U.S. power grid.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:10:01 +0000 - Using the hidden settings on the about:config page in Firefox, you can set multi-touch gestures to perform different tasks like switching between tabs.
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:50:01 +0000 - From the 'that's a lot of downloads' files:SourceForge.net, the big open source app/code repository has hit a major milestone: 4 billion downloads.Since 1999, SourceForge has the 'go to place' for all open source downloads, but in the last couple of years, Google Code has put up a bit of challenge.
Retweeting, as we’ve mentioned before (see HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter), is an increasingly popular way to share content on the web.
Twitter is such a powerful tool for sharing media, in fact, that the former market leaders are racing to keep up. News sharing site Digg recently added short URLs and attempted to append a toolbar to those short URL clicks (Diggbar was later scaled back), while serendipitous sharing site StumbleUpon also got into the short URL game.
Both are under attack by new services like Tweetmeme, which provides blog buttons to help users retweet stories and provides a hub of the most shared content on Twitter. Earlier today the company announced a number of new features, all of which launch next week. The feature additions include:
- New image-based button: Use the retweet button in your RSS feeds, emails or on blog platforms that don’t support javascript (eg. WordPress.com)
- Retweet chicklets: Want to show off how many retweets you got this week? The new retweet chicklet will help you do just that, and post the numbers to your blog.
- Analytics package: Tweetmeme aims to launch more advanced analytics next week to help content providers understand their metrics better. It’s a development that might one day lead to a business model for Tweetmeme…if Twitter doesn’t get there first.
Tweetmeme has some tough competition: not only does it have multiple rivals, but bit.ly, the default short URL service on Twitter, has long been expected to launch something similar. In the meantime, you can catch up on everything retweet-related using the resources below.
A few months ago, we reviewed a unique reminder app: Task.fm. In our assessment, we noted its Twitter-like approach to reminders and its ability to decipher human language – you can tell it Task.fm “I need to call mom at noon tomorrow” and expect a reminder the next day. We did note though that you couldn’t set reminders via email, SMS, or Twitter, which decreased its utility.
Since then, Task.fm has been busy adding new features to its app, culminating in the release of Task.fm 1.0 earlier today. Now not only is the interface much more elegant, but you can set and receive reminders via Twitter, SMS, and email.
The big feature in this release is Twitter integration. You can direct message @taskfm with your task and you can then set the reminder. This is on top of the recent additions of setting reminders via SMS and email.
In addition to Twitter integration, Task.fm sports a sleeker, curved design (look at their previous blocky design to see the difference), offers new pro accounts that replace the old credits system, and adds more natural language support. Task.fm 1.0 also improves its To-Do list functionality.
Three months ago, Task.fm was unique for its language parsing ability, but didn’t have the tools necessary to be truly useful. Today, the story is different – with the ability to set and receive reminders nearly everywhere, it can compete with the likes of RememberTheMilk, although there’s still plenty it can do.
With the 4th of July weekend just hours away, it’s time to wish our US readers a Happy Independence Day!
Hopefully you’ll be spending at least some of your weekend away from your computer and enjoying the festivities, but for those who have difficulty leaving the laptop at home, here’s a quick list of resources to help you spend less time online while getting more done.
1. A Guide to Better Web-Working From Your iPhone – One way to spend less time in front of a computer screen is to get more efficient at working from your phone. Elliott Kosmicki looks at applications to do more work on your phone, so you can do less when you get home.
3. HOW TO: Make Firefox Your Productivity Machine – Firefox users have access to a wealth of add-ons that help you get more done during your time online. This article recommends the best picks.
6. 9 Must-Try Adobe AIR Apps for Better Productivity – Adobe Air is known for running some of the most visually appealing apps on your desktop, but did you know some of these apps can make you more productive? We look into the unlikely candidates.
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Quick Pitch: Launchly showcases new websites to an audience to help site owners get the attention and feedback necessary to succeed.
Genius Idea: It’s hard to stand out and get attention for web applications and new websites. You can build a Twitter app over a weekend and get no traction because you don’t know where to promote it. Or maybe you need some feedback and advice on your newly launched website. Launchly does this, but instead of just showcasing a startup and letting it fall by the wayside, Launchly allows apps to resubmit new iterations and build on their ideas.
Essentially, Launchly is a Digg for startups. You submit your site to Launchly and include a short sentence description, a long description, the type of feedback you’re seeking, screenshots, related tags, and you can be up and running on the Launchly homepage. After that, it works a lot like Digg, in that users can rate your website up or down, comment on it, and share the webpage via Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. This can really affect how visible your web app is on the site.
The key to Launchly though is the iterations feature, which allows you to take the feedback you receive and submit a new version of your website to the service. This allows for a new round of feedback once you’ve made upgrades. You also receive some analytics on Launchly user engagement and social media buzz.
The catch, of course, is that this service isn’t free – the lowest-priced plan costs $40, with more expensive and feature-rich plans coming soon. The price is understandable, when you consider that valuable feedback can make or break a website. However, Launchly is very new itself and thus hasn’t hit the critical mass necessary to really get the community needed to justify the cost yet.
Launchly’s value is directly correlated with its community. As it grows, the value of a launch on the website will grow, but this also means that in its early stages, it is tough to shell out $40 for such little visibility. Launchly would do well to focus on building a strong community and offering promotions or discounts to startups to get the ball rolling. If it can gain enough momentum, there could be some real value.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
This week we ran a special Summer of Social Good charity promotion and many of you got involved. Mashable and the whole Summer of Social Good team would like to thank everyone who donated, tweeted, retweeted and showed their support. While the promotion might be over now, because of the great response we will be doing this every week rolled into our Monday announcement posts for donors over $20 and $100. Just make sure to read the rules and forward your receipt to SocialGood at Mashable.
On Monday we have a special fun week planned involving video and prizes, so make sure to stay tuned to @Mashable and @SocialGood for details.
Thanks to Zappos and MailChimp for sponsoring the Summer of Social Good. Their generous sponsorship covers the campaign and event costs, so that 100% of your donations and ticket sales go to the fund.
“Visit Zappos.com and outfit your life with a new head-to-toe wardrobe for men, women, and kids! Step into all the clothes, bags, shoes and more from all your favorite brand names! Plus, enjoy our 365-day return policy, fast & free shipping, free return shipping & 24-hour customer service!”
“MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
We make it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t ‘dumb things down.’ We take extremely powerful tools that sophisticated marketers use (like segmentation, a/b testing, and ROI tracking), and we make them accessible to anyone.”
Thanks to our Summer of Social Good Partners
Thanks to the following partners for lending their generous support to the Summer of Social Good.
The web’s response to the passing of music legend Michael Jackson hasbeenstaggering. Social media was pounded with tributes last Thursday after the news broke, but next Tuesday could be a huge test for the entire infrastructure of the web, when the memorial for Michael Jackson will take place.
The tribute and remembrance of the late King of Pop occurs next Tuesday (July 7th) at 10:00 AM PT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Beyond the 17,500 tickets that will be given away to fans and the millions more that will converge on downtown L.A., the memorial will be live streamed free via the web and media outlets across the world.
This event will almost certainly shatter records for the biggest single live stream ever, and could be one of the biggest worldwide media events in history. Will the web be able to handle it?
The details
The splash page of the Staples Center
Although details are sparse, CBS News does a good job of breaking down the information currently available. Here are the key points:
- The memorial will occur at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. 17,500 tickets will be randomly drawn in an online lottery available until 6 PM PT July 4th. Only U.S. residents qualify
- 8750 names will be selected Sunday, each of which will receive 2 tickets to the memorial
- There will be a simulcast in the Nokia Theater
- There will be a free live stream on the Internet available to all. Details on how the stream will be distributed are currently unavailable
- However, we suspect that thousands of stream will be available from media companies and live stream services around the world
The demand was so high for these tickets that the Staples Center website has had trouble staying up, and in fact took down almost every non-essential image and menu to keep the website up. This could be a prelude to the worldwide response we’ll see next Tuesday.
What will Jackson’s memorial mean for the web?
If you remember back in January, there was another historic event that blew us away: the Obama inauguration. Here are some of the staggering numbers from CNN and Facebook.
- 200,000+ status updates through the Facebook integration on CNN.com
- 3,000 people commented on the Facebook CNN feed per minute
- CNN served 13.9 million live video streams globally in about 6 hours
- Don’t forget about the millions of other live streams and TV viewers that watched worldwide.
Now, throw all those numbers out the window, because Michael Jackson’s memorial is almost certain to utterly overshadow Obama. Not even Obama consumed 30% of Twitter and set traffic records at Yahoo.
With the world mourning and a specific time and place set for the memorial, we may very well see the entire web converge on this one event. There will likely be thousands of streams worldwide via platforms such as Justin.tv and Ustream (the latter of which has a deal with CBS to stream events like this one). It’s also certain that Twitter, Facebook, and the social web will be booming with commentary on the event.
How many people will watch Jackson’s memorial? Can the web’s biggest players handle the massive traffic that will ensue? Will there be enough bandwidth? Could this event be the single media event in history? The answers to these questions will not only be a testament to Jackson’s impact on the world, but may very well set records that will last in history.
Perhaps most of all, the web will allow people to come together to celebrate Jackson’s life, no matter who they are or where they live.
Today a fire hit a major datacenter in Seattle, taking money processor Authorize.Net down. This has caused many web-based financial transactions to grind to a halt, but Authorize.Net isn’t the only website that’s gone offline today.
Another popular website has fallen, Geocaching.com, a worldwide GPS-based treasure hunting game, leaving thousands of people trying to figure out just what’s going on and why it went down. Wikipedia explains the game’s worldwide reach:
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value.
Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. There are over 820,000 active geocaches in the world right now.
While the fire may or may not be responsible for this specific outage (we cannot confirm), it’s clearly had an effect on the entire web. Even Microsoft’s search engine Bing was affected, specifically Bing Travel.
We will provide updates on Geocaching and Authorize.Net as we receive the information.
A somewhat distressing tech story today: a female employee at the Arlington Apple Store was shot in the shoulder this morning by a man who rang the doorbell at the back of the store. Fortunately the employee is said to be recovering in hospital. It’s thought the motive was attempted robbery.
According to ABC7 news, the shooting happened shortly after 10 a.m. at the Apple Store located at 2700 Clarendon Blvd. A search for the suspect is underway.
The Washington Post adds that the suspect is “a black male, between the ages of 35 and 45, with a medium build and facial hair. He was last seen fleeing the area on foot, wearing a light-colored, short sleeve shirt, light-colored long pants and a dark baseball cap. He was carrying a handgun.”
For marketers, Twitter has been a dream come true. It’s an open platform growing at a phenomenal rate. This combination can allow a single tweet to be seen by thousands of potential customers. But as Twitter continues its mainstream ascent, it has been targeted by spammers and scammers, something that doesn’t help legitimate marketers or users at all.
Yet despite its spam woes, Twitter has somehow avoided an overflow of content from one of the Internet’s biggest industries: porn. Well, until recently that is. An interesting article in MediaPost describes both marketers and Twitter users noticing an increase in pr0n-related spam, and they are not liking it. The issue makes us wonder: should Twitter stamp out pornography; and how should they go about it?
Twitter Users’ Feedback on Pornography
The MediaPost piece essentially quotes some of Twitter’s active marketers on the issue of Twitter and porn. What they have to say, though, is not pretty at all. While you can guess how users react in the piece, Ben Smith of MerchantCircle sums up the problem best:
MerchantCircle has begun to offer a portfolio of local city-specific coupons via Twitter feeds. “As we have found with any new communication form, pornography and other types of issues creep in,” says Ben Smith, MerchantCircle CEO. “The problem with this type of activity is that it undermines the trust in the communication channel, which will have a disastrous effect on the channel.”
Has pornography taken over Twitter? No, not by a longshot. Is it a growing problem? Absolutely. Things like Twitter porn trojans make it clear that Twitter is not impervious to porn-related spam and malware.
What Do Twitter’s Terms of Service Say?
We took a look at the Twitter Terms of Service, which governs user interactions with the Twitter platform. While it mentions that they can “remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine … are obscene or otherwise objectionable,” it makes no specific reference to pornography.
6. You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
Does this mean that Twitter doesn’t care about porn? Absolutely not – Twitter has addressed pornography spam in the past and we doubt that it would let the Internet’s underground industry tarnish its strong reputation.
And yet Twitter needs to monitor the situation. Porn should not be acceptable on Twitter, especially an open platform that millions of companies and users use for business and marketing every single day. It may be a relatively small issue now, but it will grow more prevalent unless they put a stop to the problem early. It’s easy to forget just how much of the Internet is entirely porn.
First though, Twitter needs to build a search spam solution ASAP. It’s all part of the same core problem that Twitter will need to address.
Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. We’re particularly inspired by those brands that are engaging with our readers as part of our Twitter Brand Sponsors program: Mashable’s sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers!
Advertise with us and get noticed.
Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers, and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media kit and rate card.
Clickatell offers bulk sms and mobile marketing solutions. Over 700 networks and over 200 countries covered.
Vivvo CMS is an intuitive content management system atop a powerful programming framework, empowering numerous industry leading online newspapers, magazines, journals, TV and radio stations. Vivvo will help you run your news or multimedia website seamlessly and with minimum hassle, providing you with premium exposure to search engines, syndicating your content and taking a good care of your visitors and users.
Influxis is an official Adobe hosting partner and resource for the Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server. Influxis provides Flash hosting plans for all levels of use – beginner to enterprise. With a reputation for exceptional customer service, Influxis provides an extremely reliable international network of FMS servers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
EdgeCast Networks offers a superior, cost-effective, global content delivery service that gives our customers competitive advantage in the delivery of digital media. Our world-class content delivery platform provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network while liberating them from ISP contracts, capital investments and operational hassles.
BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development, and production tools with no upfront costs for up to three years. Members can also connect with a nationwide community of Network Partners – investors, incubators, service providers, and entrepreneurial organizations – who are keen to help.
MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
The Sun Startup Essentials program extends to startups all the benefits of our program; benefits designed to get startups sailing to success with the right IT infrastructure. These include introductions to interested investors; discounted servers, storage and desktops; open source software such as MySQL; discounted web hosting; and free technical support and advice from Sun engineers.
Yield’s Web Marketing Suite is a fully automated, integrated search marketing system that optimizes natural search, paid search, and landing pages. Accessible via any web browser, it is a complete, easy and profitable way for businesses to generate new traffic and get better conversion rates at a lower overall cost.
Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite.
Behance is on a mission to organize the creative world. The Behance Network is the leading online platform for creative professionals to showcase their work and develop their careers. The Action Method (actionmethod.com) is a revolutionary “action management” tool that is replacing traditional project management applications across industries.
Livestream democratizes television on a global scale. The technology provides a highly effective, easy to use TV studio, with the power to create live original programming, controlled by users, and embeddable on any website. Livestream has introduced several new groundbreaking innovations, in addition to paying homage to traditional TV, and has even bigger plans for innovation and interactivity on its roadmap.
Additionally, thanks to the following partners for making Mashable happen:
Mashable would also like to thank AttentionPR for their PR support. AttentionPR proves that PR today is measurable, transparent, and yes, social. Learn more about AttentionPR.
Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.
JESS3 is a creative interactive agency led by Jesse Thomas. Jesse is as much a entrepreneur as he is an innovator, designer, visionary and eager learner. When it comes to the worlds of branding, data visualization and social media, Jesse is constantly pushing the limits and exploring new frontiers. JESS3 has the pleasure to design innovative solutions, directly or through other agencies, for: Mashable, National Journal, Microsoft, Marriott Intl, Ace Hardware, C-SPAN, AARP, PepsiCo/Tropicana, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, Nestle, Pfizer, Shopzilla, SnagFilms, IndieWire, Advertising.com, National Press Foundation, Webgiftr, Busboys and Poets, New Media Strategies, Ashcroft Group, Heritage Foundation, Blue State Digital, Widmeyer Communications, DBC PR, Adfero and many more. In addition, JESS3 enjoys participating in the industry through partnerships with organizations such as WOMMA, Social Media Club, Barcamp, Facebook Developer Garage, AIGA, and Art Directors Club.
ConcentricSky offers web development and strategic consulting services with a focus on emerging technologies such as Social Media and iPhone Apps. From simple websites to integrated web applications, we deliver innovative solutions that exceed your expectations – not your budget.
Vladimir Prelovac is the author of WordPress Development book and popular articles about WordPress SEO, website optimization, customization, security and maintenance. He actively uses WordPress as a base for Internet enterprise strategy for small & mid-sized businesses.
We can get your name out there.
Contact us for more information about supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:
-Competitive direct ad sales
-Sponsorship Opportunities for Events and other channels
-Sponsored giveaways and contests
-Custom ad deals and partnerships
CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but if you contact us directly, you’ll be entitled to exclusive unpublished discounts.
For a complete collection of Twitter resources, check out The Twitter Guide Book, Mashable’s hub for all things Twitter.
-
Most Twitter users probably follow under a thousand other people, but that’s enough to make it hard to keep track of the real-time stream. I actually started having trouble keeping up when I hit about 50 follows — and depending on how prolific the people you’re following are, you could be dealing with a hard-to-parse Twitter stream even following just a handful of people. But while people like social media fanatic Robert Scoble, who follows over 100,000 people, appear to have the superhuman ability to stay on top of things, the rest of us need help filtering the Twitter stream.
Fortunately, there are a good number of methods and applications we can put to work to filter tweets from the people we’re following. Which work best for you? Let us know in the comments.
(Please note that a few of the apps in this post actually do multiple types of filtering, and so could have theoretically been added to more than one category.)
By Keyword
One way to filter Twitter is by keyword. Filttr is a full-featured, web-based Twitter app that includes keyword-based filtering. You can both blacklist and whitelist key phrases and Filtter will block or allow those tweets. Flittr, though, has a pretty steep learning curve, and before I even added any keywords it started filtering tweets — and took a particular dislike to a few of my Twitter friends. I’m not sure what criteria it was using for those initial filters.
Another full web-based client that includes keyword filtering is Mixero, which is in private beta.
Philtro, which is also in private beta, learns what types of tweets you like based on your ratings. Give thumbs up and thumbs down ratings to tweets, and Philtro slowly figures out what you like and attempts only to bother you with tweets you’d be likely to want to read.
By Links
About 19% of all tweets contain links, but if your Twitter stream moves quickly, you may miss many of the best unless you use a filter. MicroPlaza organizes the links tweeted by out by your followers by recency or popularity. MicroPlaza personalizes the concept employed sites like Tweetmeme, Twitt(url)y, and dailyRT, which assume that the more a link is tweeted, the more worthwhile it is of your attention.
MicroPlaza not only looks at which links are being tweeted and retweeted the most, but also which are being tweeted specifically by the people you’re following. The idea is that you’re most interested in things your followers are saying (otherwise, you wouldn’t be following them), so if they tweet about popular links, they’re more likely to be of interest to you.
One of the coolest features of MicroPlaza, though, is that you can assume the identity of any other Twitter user — so if you follow someone very connected to a specific industry, you can see the links that their friends are sharing.
By Grouping
Another way to filter Twitter, is by organizing your friends into groups. By putting the people you’re following into groups, you can break up and effectively slow down your Twitter stream, making it easier to follow tweets from your friends, colleagues, and family members.
There are a ton of different ways to organize you friends into groups, but one of the easiest is to use a Twitter client that supports grouping, such as desktop heavyweights Seesmic Desktop, Destroy Twitter, and TweetDeck (which has a complimentary iPhone app that also supports groups), or a web-based app like PeopleBrowsr.
Another option is to use a service that helps you create channels or groups of Twitter users and monitor their tweets. Floxee is one of the most full-featured such sites. It not only lets users monitor the tweetstream of a predefined group, but also displays stats about the activity of that group (or “flock”). Other sites you could use include TwitHive, Tweetizen, Twhanel, Crowdstatus, TwittGroups.com, and TweetChannel.
Disclosure: TweetDeck partnered with Mashable to create MashDeck, a branded version of the software.
By Favorites
Favorites aren’t the best way to filter tweets, because the reasons you favorite tweets might not be the same as other people. However, by the same token, tweets that have been favorited by multiple users are generally worth reading for some reason: they’re interesting, funny, clever, extraordinary, etc.
Favrd keeps track of the most favorited tweets, but is limited to those users who have signed up with the service to have their favorites watched. (Careful: Favrd is often NSFW.) Favotter is another favorite tracking site, but again, watches a limited number of users (due to API limitations, according to the site’s about page).
BONUS: TwitterForBusyPeople doesn’t really filter Twitter, but it does organize your recently active follows in a way that you can get an “at a glance” view of the activity of people you’re following. Once you get used to it, it is potentially a good way to make your Twitter stream more manageable.
BONUS 2: Twalala does keyword filtering, but where it really shines is the ability to mute certain users to remove their tweets from your twitter stream temporarily.
As a lot of e-commerce businesses and Twitter users are noticing, the entire Authorize.Net infrastructure crashed a few hours ago. For anyone who makes a purchase online, this is huge; Authorize.Net is the largest service for accepting credit cards and e-checks through the web. This means that millions of web-based transactions and purchases have come to a halt.
Luckily, Authorize.Net understands the usefulness of social media in situations like these. They set up a new Twitter account, @AuthorizeNet, earlier today to keep users informed about the recovery of one of the web’s most important payment systems. So what took Authorize.Net down anyway? And when will it be 100% back?
Twitter and the status of Authorize.Net
According to AuthorizeNet, the cause of the outage was a fire at their datacenter in Seattle. This impacted not only their website and transaction platforms, but even their backup center. Couple this with the fact that today starts the 4th of July holiday weekend, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Luckily, it seems that transaction processing has returned, although global processing is still down:
This is the most important aspect of the outage – without the payment system, merchants couldn’t accept credit card payments, which could result in millions of dollars lost among all of its vendors. The website is still down, meaning that accounts can’t be accessed. Luckily, the company had the foresight to use Twitter to keep merchants and users informed. We will update this post with any new developments on the situation.
Update: From the Authorize.Net Twitter account:
#authorizenet Full transaction processing has now been restored with Concord EFS.
The website seems to be loading now too, albeit very slowly.
Readers may have noticed that Google changed the way it displays search results this week: the Google logo is smaller, results are indented and spacing has been added above the search box. Google also removed the page size indicator, which gives you a hint of how long the page might take to load.
Reader Marek Foss sent us screenshots comparing the old and the new layout (below), which he feels looks more like Google AdSense than a page of Google search results.
And yet we know that such changes can have a significant effect of Google’s revenue and page load times – removal of features (eg. page size indicator) gains a fractional boost in load times, for instance. We also know that Google is meticulous in optimizing pages, and that asking the user what they want (as we do here) might not result in the correct answer, as a CNET article last year explained:
For example, Mayer said, the company wanted to find out how many search results to show users–the customary 10, or 20, 25, or 30? When asked directly, users said they’d like more results on a page, but testing showed otherwise.
Specifically, Google found that when the results increased to 30 per page, people searched 20 percent less overall, Mayer said. After much analysis of server logs, the company found it was because it took about twice as long to display the longer results list for the user, and speed matters.
Google’s latest layout change, then, isn’t likely to be for aesthetic purposes: it’s for speed and revenue. The question is: do you, like Mark, find it less aesthetically appealing?
We’ve noted before that China’s Green Dam, web filtering program supposedly designed to block pornography, but in reality a serious threat to privacy and security, was obviously created in a haste, with many of its shortcomings being revealed as the story unwinds.
Now, besides the fact that it doesn’t work on 64-bit operating systems, we have another one: it doesn’t support Macs. Thus, Apple’s computers seem to be – at least for the time being – exempt from the order that all PC makers must include Green Dam with new PCs sold in China.
This is probably just another temporary setback to the controversial Green Dam initiative, as the program will undoubtedly get updated to include support for currently unsupported operating systems. IDG writes:
“A service representative at a sister company to Green Dam’s main developer, Jinhui Computer System Engineering, said the company is testing the software on non-Windows platforms and will release an updated version if compatibility is added for other OSes.“
Yes, the program is a possible security threat, and yes, the entire initiative was launched before it was actually possible to implement. But judging by the fact that mostPC makers have already started to comply with the demands of Chinese authorities – even with the actual initiative being postponed – proves that all those shortcomings probably won’t be enough to stop it.
I don’t play World of Warcraft anymore. The doctor ordered me not to. Suffice to say that I actually started reading about TweetCraft 10 hours ago, and then ended up watching the entire BlizzCon ‘08 PVP tournament replay.
However, if I did play today, I’d definitely appreciate the ability to tweet in-game. Waiting for 25 people to come together for a raid, or standing in front of the battlegrounds gives you a lot of time to kill, and what better way to do it than to tweet your heart away?
Now you can. TweetCraft, a Twitter plugin for World of Warcraft been in the works for a while, and although it’s still not the easiest thing to install (read the full instructions and some background here), it’s fully functional.
Basic features, beside in-game tweeting, are the ability to queue tweets for later, upload in-game screenshots through TwitPic, autotweet certain events such as entering an instance (for the love of God, please don’t use this option), and the ability to connect with other AddOns which can also register events and set them to autotweet.
If you’re worried about breaking Blizzard’s terms of service, it’s a bit of a gray area, but you’re probably safe. From the FAQ:
“Is this a violation of World of Warcraft’s Terms of Use or the new AddOn policies?
As far as we know, no. We do not do any internal memory reading or other hacks to the Warcraft client. You could argue that it’s possible to follow a Twitter user that would add advertising in-game which would violate the addon policy for in-game advertising, but the onus is on the user of TweetCraft to ensure the people they friend don’t write messages (Tweets) that violate Warcraft’s AddOn policy. In short, it’s up to each person to ensure they’re following Warcraft’s terms of use. “
However, since it is, in part, a third-party app, it’s always wise to wait for official word from Blizzard before you install it.
There are some bad news, too: it doesn’t work on Macs, as it requires an external, Windows-based application to run while you play.
Download TweetCraft here, check out an introductory video below, and remember; if you need a shaman, PVP-specced, has a job but will probably get fired after reactivating his account, I’m back at Burning Legion (EU) (;.
Twitter is all about facilitating conversations, but until you’re following some people, it’s just a blank page. Once you find people to follow and talk to, however, Twitter becomes exceptionally useful. You can share thoughts, ask questions, get updates about news, music, brands, and businesses, and discover helpful links and information. Finding good people to follow, especially for new users staring at a blank page the first time they log in, can be a bit daunting, though.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways you can find people on Twitter. Here are ten sites you can use to locate “tweeps” to follow. Let us know in the comments if you know of any others.
People Search
1. Twitter People Search – Twitter’s built in people search isn’t the greatest way to find people on Twitter, but it’s probably where you should start. Twitter searches the “real names” people enter in their bio fields, but because there isn’t much accompanying bio information and because Twitter doesn’t have any sort of requirement to use your actual name, that can make it a bit difficult to find people, especially those with common names. It also makes it hard to verify that the people you find are actually who you’re looking for. Still, it’s a good place to begin your search.
2. Tweepz – Because the biographical information Twitter collects is minimal, no Twitter people search engine can improve on Twitter’s that much. Third-party site Tweepz does an admirable job, though. Tweepz lets you limit searches to specific parts of Twitter’s user information (like name, bio, and location), filter results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, and greatly improves on the layout of the search results.
3. TweepSearch – TweepSearch lets you search by Twitter name or location, or search a specific username to get a list of all friends and followers. However, if the “indexing” number listed on their main page is accurate, they’re crawling about 600,000 less Twitter user profiles than Tweepz.
4. TwitDir – TwitDir is another search engine, but if the crawling stats are accurate, it’s well behind the curve, searching about 3 million fewer users than Tweepz. Still, it’s not a bad people search engine, and has some helpful “top” lists if you’re concerned with who the most popular or prolific people on Twitter are (then again, they’re also not that up-to-date — the site doesn’t seem to know who @aplusk is, for example).
Directories
5. Twellow – Your best bet for finding like-minded Twitter users might be to use a directory, and Twellow is certainly one of the most complete. Nearly 6 million Twitter user profiles are indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories. You can search the entire lot of profiles, or confine searches to a single category. Twellow also operates a local directory called the “Twellowhood.”
6. WeFollow – Created by Digg founder Kevin Rose, WeFollow is a Twitter user directory that organizes people by hashtags. WeFollow is user-generated and anyone can add themselves by tweeting @wefollow with three #hashtags that describe them.
7. Just Tweet It – Just Tweet It is another user created Twitter directory. It’s not quite as well organized or easy-to-use as Twellow or WeFollow, but it is certainly large enough that you should give it a browse when trying to locate people in your interest areas to follow.
Recommendations
8. Twubble – Twubble recommends people to follow by spidering the people you’re already following and recommending users that they’re following. The idea is that the people you’re following are interesting to you, so if more than one of them are also following another person, that person might also be interesting. Of course, that means that Twubble can’t be your first stop when finding people to follow — you already need to be following some people for the service to work.
9. Twitterel – Twitterel attempts to find people you might be interested in following by doing keyword searches of tweets. The service can update you by email, direct message, or @reply when it finds new people it thinks you might be interested in following. It’s kind of like Google Alerts for Twitter follow recommendations.
10. Who Should i Follow? – Enter you Twitter username into Who Should i Follow? and the service finds users who are similar to those you’re already following. The site doesn’t disclose information about how it works, but in my experience it is pretty accurate at finding users whose tweets are similar in content to your followers. The results can be filtered by how popular the people are, and how close they are to a specific location.
BONUS: Mr. Tweet – Mr. Tweet is a very popular Twitter app that lets you give and receive recommendations about Twitter users. The app also provides more helpful statistics about users, such as tweets per day or the percentage of tweets containing links. To get the most out of Mr. Tweet, consider installing the Firefox plugin, which gives you access to statistics and user recommendations while you’re browsing Twitter.
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Quick Pitch: Provides real users who record their screen and voice as they use your website. $29 and 1-hour turn-around.
Genius Idea: If you’re launching a new web app, ideally you’ll have time to organize a focus group and watch real users interact with your software, and tweak it based on the feedback. Unfortunately, that can be both expensive and time consuming. UserTesting.com looks to solve this problem by bringing together users that are willing to do usability tests (for $10 each) with companies that need testing done on their products (who pay $29 per user for the service).
When you request a test, UserTesting claims it can start returning results within an hour from members of its panel, though that can be delayed a bit if you request specific demographics. Nonetheless, the final result seems like a good value: a video that shows how the user interacted with your site (essentially a screen cast) with their voice commentary. The user also submits a written report detailing what the user liked, disliked, or found confusing.
Here’s a sample video for a usability test done on behalf of TripAdvisor:
The idea seems to fill an obvious need, and UserTesting.com has received some fairly high profile endorsements, including Evan Williams of Twitter, as well as executives from Amazon.com, Justin.tv, oDesk, and lots of other prominent websites. Between a great name, a valuable service, and lots of success stories, UserTesting.com seems like a winner.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
With 3.3 million+ YouTube views in the past two days, the video “Unknown Lifeform in North Carolina Sewer” (below) is taking the web by storm, becoming the most viewed video this week and beating out a performance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The clip, which shows an alien-looking life form living in a North Carolina sewer, was posted along with a claim that it was extra-terrestrial life.
Today mainstream news has taken notice and corrected the myth: the video is indeed real, scientists say, but the strange creature is very much a terrestrial phenomenon. News14 writes:
Ed Buchan, environmental coordinator at the Raleigh Public Utilities Department, said staff biologists have confirmed that the “creature” is actually a colony of tubifex worms. The colonies attach themselves to roots that gradually work themselves into weak points in the pipes. “They seem to respond to the light from the camera,” Buchan said. “That light is pretty hot.”
The worms naturally occur in sewage and pond sediment and are actually sold both live and dried as fish food in pet stores. He said other staff members in the department have seen it before, although sightings aren’t particularly common. “I’ve seen a lot of sewer TV before and I’ve never seen them,” he said. “We were surprised. We didn’t know immediately what it was.”
It’s unclear what made the clip such a YouTube phenomenon: most likely it’s explained by the mystery surrounding the strange creature, much like last year’s Montauk Monster mystery.
Social activity aggregator FriendFeed, which re-designed earlier this year to show updates from friends in real-time, has just extended that same functionality to search. Now, when you search for a given term – like “Michael Jackson” – you’ll see updates from FriendFeed users stream in real-time in your browser.
Just as on your homepage, you can hit “pause” on the real-time results, which, after a few minutes of staring at items about Jackson being shared, is definitely a needed feature if you’re actually attempting to keep up with a topic. After hitting pause, FriendFeed will tell you how many items have been queued, and you can then hit play to see them and resume the live streaming updates.
Personally, I’m not so sure that I don’t prefer the latter approach – simly checking search results for a given term (I generally keep “mashable” open all day on Twitter search) periodically rather than watching it constantly in the browser.
That said, the coolest aspect of FriendFeed’s real-time search might be that you can extend it to your own website via an embeddable widget. To embed a search, you can simply click the “Share / embed search” option that accompanies each search result and grab the embed code, like such:
Google Blog Search has just added a few features that users of other Google services are likely familiar with.
First, you can now subscribe to any topic via RSS or Atom, like you already can do in Google News. This means every time there’s a new story in the “Technology” category, or more specifically a search term like“social media” you can get that update pushed to your RSS reader. There’s also a new iGoogle gadget if you’d rather access the topic or search term via iGoogle.
The Google Blog Search homepage now also features a “Hot Queries,” which, is similar to Google Hot Trends. This shows what searches are currently hot in Blog Search, as opposed to Google Trends, which shows what’s hot in the broader search engine. That said, both lists appear to be fairly similar, though Blog Search only shows a top ten at this point.
There’s also a new “Latest Posts” feature on the homepage that simply lists new posts that Blog Search has picked up. It’s a nice update, but one that makes me wonder how much utility separate blog search really has at this point. Google News already includes plenty of blogs in its database (there are now more than 25,000 sources in total), and as evidenced by the similarities in Google’s two different trend lists, users are generally searching for the same things at any given point in time. In other words, blog search might be filling a need that no longer exists.
Are you still using blog search engines regularly? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Ideally, your brand has the same name across all of the social sites you use, and, it matches your domain name (for example, we’re mashable.com, twitter.com/mashable, and facebook.com/mashable).
Realizing this fact, popular domain registrar GoDaddy has integrated Twitter registration into its domain manager, allowing you to see if the Twitter username that matches your URL is available, and if so, register it.
The target here is GoDaddy’s small business users. The company explains in the tool that you can “Join today and start “tweeting” about your next sale, when you’ve updated pictures on your site, or other things that may be going on with you or your business.”
To use the feature, just login to your GoDaddy account and click on any of your domain names to access the manager (where you also go to do things like update name servers). There’s now a Twitter option under “Domain Enhancements” from which you can check your username availability.
While this probably isn’t a big deal for most our readers, it could be for Twitter. This integration puts the service in front of millions of people that are actively managing their online identity, many of whom have probably heard of Twitter, but haven’t actually signed up for the service. As if being featured on Oprah and on the cover of Time wasn’t enough free publicity …
Not to be confused with the first music video about the iPhone 3GS (”Got My Mac on With iPhone 3GS“), the first video purportedly shot using the camera on the new device is making its way around the web.
The video – “Technologic Overkill” – is directed by filmmaker Steve Ellington, and shows “the plight of a little blue robot and his attempt to be relevant in an increasingly technological world,” set to a song by the band XFYA. Check it out below:
As we recently noted, mobile video certainly seems to be at a tipping point, with dozens of services offering apps to get your video from your phone to the Web, and YouTube seeing a huge upswing in mobile uploads since the iPhone 3GS launched. Technologic Overkill is perhaps a small symbol of this movement, in what will likely be just one of many firsts that we see as people get their hands on the new Apple phone.
Retweeting, as we explained in our article How To Retweet on Twitter, has evolved as the main way to reshare content you like on the social media service. There’s also a great deal of data we can glean from retweeting behavior, as we outlined in the article The Science of Retweets.
But apart from the obvious, what makes a retweet different from a tweet? What makes some types of tweets get shared more than others? And what can you learn from that data if you’d like to get retweeted more?
This week viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella dug into the data on retweets and published some interesting stats about retweet behavior. These help us understand why people retweet things, and might help you too.
1. Retweets Contain More Links
Retweets tend to contain a link, Zarrella explains – 56.69% of retweets contain a link versus 18.96% of normal tweets. So retweets are being used to share content from around the web.
Key point: If you’d like to get retweeted, include links in your tweets more often.
2. Longer Words / More Syllables
Retweets also appear to have more syllables per word than ordinary Tweets – tweets have an average of 1.58 syllables/word, versus retweets at 1.62 syllables/word. This isn’t necessarily what you’d expect, since the most viral ideas are often said to be the simplest ones.
Key point: Using long words is not a barrier to getting retweeted – in fact it seems to help.
3. Higher Reading Grade / More Complex
Another unexpected finding, perhaps: Zarrella found that retweets require a “higher level of education to understand” – 6.47 years of education versus 6.04 years according to the Flesch-Kincaid test. The graph also shows the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook test, which found similar results: 6.13 years of education for retweets versus 5.88 years for tweets.
Key point: Tweets don’t have to be stupid-simple to get retweeted.
4. More New Words and Concepts
Perhaps unsurprisingly, retweets tend to add new information. By creating a “novelty” score that counted how many times a word appeared in the entire sample versus in the retweets, it was found that retweets tend to contain more unique words.
Using a sample size of over 10 million tweets, Zarrella discovered that “in the random Tweet sample, each word was found an average of 89.19 other times, while in the ReTweet sample each word was only found 16.37 other times. This shows us that while simplicity may not be very important to ReTweetability, novelty certainly is.”
Key point: If you want more retweets, try adding new information.
5. Less Self-Referential
Also unsurprising: retweets tend to be less self-referential than ordinary tweets. In other words: talking about what you had for breakfast is less likely to get retweeted than talking about what Obama had for lunch. This was found using the LIWC (“Luke”) method, which is a little complex to explain here but you can learn more on the site. Another LIWC finding: people tend not to retweet swear words.
Key point: Don’t talk about yourself too much if you’d like to be retweeted.
So there you have it: if you want to get retweeted, don’t talk about what you had for breakfast, don’t swear, and throw in a useful link from time to time.
Mashable’s Best Retweeting Resources
If you’re looking to continue your education in the art of retweeting, then we encourage you to read some of our most popular Twitter and retweeting posts:
- How To Retweet on Twitter – Ben Parr offers a primer on how retweeting works, plus tools to retweet more efficiently and track the most popular retweets.
- The Science of ReTweets – Dan Zarrella explains which factors make certain tweets more viral than others.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the woman who was charged with copyright infringement through online file sharing, tried to fight, and subsequently lost, will appeal the verdict in her case, which ordered her to pay $1.92 million in damages to the recording industry that sued her.
As we’ve noted, her case was always on shaky legs, and it was probably taken into account by the jury which set a very harsh penalty. However, it’s questionable whether the verdict is constitutional, and Jammie Thomas-Rasset will appeal on that grounds.
“She’s not interested in settling. She wants to take the issue up on appeal on the constitutionality of the damages. That’s one of the main arguments–that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm,” her attorney Joe Sibley told CNET.
And disproportionate they are. 80,000 dollars for sharing a song – one song – on an online network? However you look at it, it’s an arbitrary number. If you tried to apply the same standards in other cases, you’d get ridiculous results. Together with the fact that Thomas-Rasset doesn’t have that kind of money, trying to appeal the verdict is a logical choice.
No one can tell whether she will succeed or not, but in a case as important as this one, it’s good that she’s putting up a fight. Awarding such huge damages for online file sharing is a dangerous legal precedent that might result in further pressure on ISPs and governments to implement draconian measures to stop it, as well as give them more rights to monitor online activities not only of file sharers, but all of us.
Samir Balwani is a social media marketer who helps businesses create effective web strategies. You can follow him on Twitter and get his newsletter.
One of the biggest misconceptions by brand managers is that the web is not a luxury market. The truth is that people are spending more money online and it’s a place luxury brands must build a presence. However, most have a nagging fear of ruining their brand reputation.
So, how can luxury brands engage in social media?
The Luxury Market Online
Before we answer the previous question, let’s define the luxury market. According to The Journal of Brand Management, Luxury as a concept is defined:
“…within the scope of socio-psychology as a result of its connection to a culture, state of being and lifestyle, whether it is personal or collective. When linked to brands, it is characterized by a recognizable style, strong identity, high awareness, and enhanced emotional and symbolic associations. It evokes uniqueness and exclusivity, and is interpreted in products through high quality, controlled distribution and premium pricing.“
So, brands with scarce products and high prices must find a way to find consumers online. The questions we haven’t answered yet are, “are premium, affluent consumers online?” and “does making a product available online hurt controlled distribution?”
In November 2007, eMarketer published a report titled “Affluent Internet Users: How the Rich Live Online.” In the report they concluded that the number of affluent Internet users will grow from 43.7 million in 2006 to 57.1 million in 2011.
Now that we know that there are luxury consumers on the Internet, and that the demographic is growing steadily, we need to determine how a brand can engage these consumers.
Problems With Luxury Brands Online
The unique luxury brand must overcome a number of obstacles upon entering the online space. Here are some of the challenges:
1. Luxury implies a sense of exclusivity; that it isn’t for everyone. It’s difficult for a brand to selectively choose who to interact with and, unless done properly, this segmentation could cause a major backlash.
2. Most luxury brands are extremely hesitant to experiment with new marketing strategies. They feel that trying new things is too risky for their brand image. Instead, this hesitation can actually limit online opportunities, hurting the brand in the long run.
3. Because of a luxury brand’s need to maintain the appropriate aesthetics, social media can be a more expensive proposition for them. Building an application or web page is an expensive, arduous task for any major brand. It’s important to remember that social media for brands is not free.
Finding Solutions
The first and most obvious solution is to simply trust your consumers. If your internal perspective of the brand aligns with the customers’ view of the brand, everything will be fine. If not, you’ll finally learn who your core demographic really is and what they are looking for.
Just as a product can be exclusive, so can sites on the web. Creating an exclusive social network, an invite only site, or a suggestion site for actual customers are ways to limit the demographic.
If you decide you must engage on a public site like Twitter or Facebook, throw out any hopes of being exclusive. Selectively following or befriending users can quickly cause a backlash as customers complain about being left out. One way to engage on public sites is to target those sites with the closest demographic to the brand’s consumers. This limits the number of “outsiders” engaging with the brand.
Lastly, if the brand finds a mention that they aren’t comfortable with, it may be better not to respond. The web is huge; not everything will be seen by the masses (especially as we move towards real-time conversations). Responding or seeking removal of a message may legitimize and simply bring attention to any negative sentiment.
Examples of Luxury Campaigns
Case studies analyzing social campaigns are a great way to determine how to position a brand online. However, too closely emulating a campaign can have a negative affect. Social media success requires implementation of something new and exciting; some kind of added value.
Use the following case studies to see what they did right and as a means to understand the fundamentals for a luxury brand in social media.
Gucci On Facebook
Gucci has built an amazing following on Facebook, with over 404,000 fans on their official Page. By continually updating the page, and introducing new content such as photos and videos the brand is keeping its consumers engaged. Each update receives over 200 interactions in the form of “likes” and “comments.”
By opening Gucci to everyone, and not selectively deciding who gets to join, or inviting only specific people, Gucci has built a community. Even though many of the Gucci fans may not be able to afford actual products, the Facebook fan page builds “lust for the product.” This idea of “one day I’ll be able to afford that,” is part of the luxury appeal.
Not only does the Facebook Fan Page build consumers’ desire for Gucci products, but also enables the community to offer free feedback, publish images, and share Gucci content.
Mercedes Benz Social Network
Scarcity online is only achieved in a closed system. Usually this is against the accepted best practices of a social campaign, but for a luxury brand it can work. Mercedes highlighted this idea by creating a closed social network for Gen Y’ers.
GenerationBenz.com, is an invite only social network where consumers can give feedback on vehicles, as well as give Mercedes Benz insight into their younger customers.
By creating a network that includes only those that are either previous buyers, Mercedes members, and potential consumers, the brand has targeted exactly the demographic they want. Mercedes is able to engage users without fear that the brand reputation will be tarnished.
Creating a successful private social network can be costly, but the return on consumer loyalty may be great. Allowing brand customers to connect with each other while connecting with the brand, as well as creating a place to introduce new products to a brand’s core demographic, can be an invaluable asset.
Summary
Social media can be a powerful tool for a luxury brand. With a growing affluent market, the online world is a place high-end brands need to be. The question is, how are you going to maintain guardianship of your brand identity, keep your product premium-priced and exclusive, or engage your customer?
Knowing that releasing your brand to your consumers doesn’t necessarily hurt brand reputation is the first step.
Hans Pandeya, the CEO of Global Gaming Factory (the Swedish company that had recently acquired The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million) has an ambitious plan for the new Pirate Bay. It seems bold, perhaps even too bold at first, but Hans thinks he has a plan that will make everyone – the file sharers, the ISPs, the content providers – happy.
Talking to the BBC, Pandeya said that he plans to make legal file sharing (which is what The Pirate Bay will be focused on from now on) more attractive than illegal file sharing by paying the users for sharing files. He also plans to pay the content providers that provide the files, and he plans to raise money from the ISPs by reducing their traffic overload.
“Let’s say a popular song comes out. Rather than a million downloads from a site – which would cause a considerable strain on that ISP – we can take that song and put it out on P2P,” he says.
Unfortunately, when you try to put all of the pieces of this puzzle together, you’ll find out that one piece is always missing. Yes, The Pirate Bay is a huge source of traffic. But this traffic comes from file sharers who will not appreciate the fact that one day, The Pirate Bay will get a “temporarily closed” sign while they work out the deals with all the content providers out there. They’ll quickly move on to other torrent sites; yes, The Pirate Bay was much loved for their activism, but when your goal is to download a new Kanye West video, you’ll just take it from whoever offers it. Need examples? One word: Napster.
The file sharers might be inclined to stay on The Pirate Bay because they’d receive money for their troubles. But I’ve long held the theory that piracy is not only about money; it’s also about choice and availability. A torrent tracker needs to have a lot of content; if it doesn’t, getting paid a small amount to use it won’t help.
Now, about those content providers. There are a lot of them, and many of them hate The Pirate Bay with a passion. They probably don’t even like the name. Working out deals with all of them will be nearly impossible; especially since The Pirate Bay is surrounded by legal problems, recently losing a lawsuit from the same companies they should be doing deals with now. The content providers aren’t as passive as they used to be; they’ve got Hulu and Epix, and I’m afraid that few of them feel the need to deal with The Pirate Bay.
Finally, we’ve got the ISPs. Whether they would be willing to work with the Pirate Bay at all is questionable. Whether The Pirate Bay will remain such a huge traffic source to be interesting to the ISPs after the “true” pirates move on to other torrent trackers and after they’ve cut the deals with content providers is also uncertain. BusinessWeek raises several technical and legal issues surrounding such a deal.
Yes, the entire idea sounds nice on paper – after all, everybody wins, right? But transitions such as the one proposed by Pandeya are tough even when you’re not talking about one of the most notorious torrent trackers out there. In the end, The Pirate Bay might end up trying to sell traffic they don’t have, harnessed from content they also don’t have, to ISPs that are reluctant to buy it. It’s not a very promising future for the pirates, I’m afraid.
Surf the web for a couple of minutes, and – usually without anyone asking you – you’re giving away a lot of personal data to the various companies that are tracking your browsing habits. Yes, you can set your browser security to high and turn off cookies, but then half of the web won’t work properly. In the end, people just accept the fact that they’re being tracked and stop caring about it, even if it has serious implications for their privacy.
This might change soon, as a new set of guidelines for web tracking are due to be unveiled today. These new guidelines are set forth by trade associations representing some of the biggest companies out there, including Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. It’s an attempt at self-regulation; the US Congress and the Federal Trade Commission have recently been looking into online advertising practices, and the major companies probably decided it’s better to act now than have to adhere to more strict guidelines set by someone else in the future.
So, what do these new guidelines mean for your privacy? Well, companies can still track your online behavior. However, they need to tell you you’re being tracked, explain to you what it means, and (most importantly) provide you with an easy way to opt out of web tracking. In practice, it also means we soon might see a uniform link or an icon that’ll take you to a disclosure page. Finally, companies will have to ensure that the data collected from the users is stored securely; moreso if it’s sensitive data such as children’s personal information, financial data and medical records. Companies will be monitored for their adherence to these guidelines, and answer to federal agencies if they don’t adhere.
Is it enough? Well, it’s an ongoing debate. Measures such as this will provide the users who are concerned about web tracking and their online privacy with a way to ensure they’re not being tracked. On the other hand, one could say that web tracking should be opt-in instead of opt-out; that consumers should be tracked only if they willingly approve of it beforehand, and that no one should be tracked by default. When you consider that cookies change or get deleted, that users often change browsers and work on several different computers, opting out of every web tracking attempt out there might become a never ending chore.
The new guidelines are definitely a step forward; we’ll be able to judge how big when we see some of them implemented in practice.
I guess the celebrations were premature. According to a China government official, Chinese authorities haven’t given up on web filtering program Green Dam; they’ve just postponed it.
The controversial program was supposed to be installed on all new PCs sold in China from July 1st onwards, but after strong protests from both the Chinese people and the PC sellers its launch was postponed indefinitely.
However, it’s bound to come back, according to an unnamed government official. Speaking to China Daily, he said:
“The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. It’s just a matter of time. What will happen is that some PC manufacturers will have it included with their PC packages sooner than the others. But there is no definite deadline at the moment.“
This was always a possibility. The implementation of this entire initiative was sloppy, and just as we’ve noted earlier, this was probably the cause for postponement, and not some sudden change in China’s policies with regard to censorship and the Internet.
*Update: AP reports that more companies have taken after Sony, including Green Dam bundled with new PCs sold in China. The list includes Benq, Acer, and Haier, with other companies, such as Asus, claiming they’re planning to start bundling Green Dam with their PCs. HP, Dell and Toshiba still haven’t decided how to proceed, but overall it seems that, regardless of its postponement, Green Dam has already won.
Twitter’s trending topics are a great way to find out what’s hot in the Twitterverse, but they’re also a haven for malicious hackers and spammers who are constantly finding new ways on how to abuse them.
This time, an odd, vulgar hashtag has appeared in the trending topics, as you can see in the image below. It obviously doesn’t belong there, and it doesn’t lead to any actual Twitter conversations, but someone, somehow, managed to put it there.
*Update: this time, it’s a legitimate trending topic. Commenter Mark Nagurski explains: “British actress Mollie Sugden died yesterday. She played Mrs Slocombe in UK comedy Are You Being Served and ‘Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy’ was a running joke. This is a tribute from fans.” However, Twitter is not showing any results for it, probably because its anti-spam filters have activated.
We’ve seen this done before via an onslaught of spammy or malware-infected messages send through dozens of bogus accounts, but this time the spammer seems to have reached trending topics with other methods. In any case, the topic will probably soon be removed, but Twitter definitely needs to work on better spam prevention methods.
The sentence above still stands, but in a completely different context which we haven’t encountered before. It’s possible that Twitter’s anti-spam detection has worked all too well, removing the results for a legitimate trending topic. You can’t really blame it: joke or not, at first glance the hash tag seems vulgar, but it can also be completely innocent, depending on semantics.
Again, Twitter needs to work on spam detection; not only to prevent spammy topics from entering the trends, but also to prevent legitimate topics to be labeled as spam.
Tweetdeck users have noticed tonight that their hourly API call limit has been increased from 100 to 150 per hour, essentially meaning you can get more frequent Twitter updates if you require them. Twitter, however, has made no announcement, and the API Wiki still states 100 as the limit.
It’s not just TweetDeck that saw the change: we’re seeing rate limit increases in Twhirl: this would suggest a rate limit increase across the board, although that’s yet to be confirmed. The blog SocialGeist also spotted the change, and sent us the news.
If the change applies beyond TweetDeck, it’s great news for developers and those who use Twitter with remote applications.
Have the rates increased for your app? Let us know in the comments.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has some pretty extreme views for the business world. I think he might be looking in the mirror too closely when he talks about the business world as a whole.
With more and more people signing on to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, companies are working overtime to figure out how to make the companies, products and offerings go viral. While I've written quite a few article about the theories behind preparing a campaign that's likely to go viral, the truth is that some of the most effective viral campaigns are also the simplest. Sometimes it's less about creating a great idea and more about enabling the spread.
I saw the perfect example of this earlier today while hunting for a pair of sandals. I was looking for a pair of slip-on Croc sandals to replace a pair that broke last week. Since I'm going camping with friends this weekend, I wanted to make sure I had replacements before we head out on Thursday. There aren't any local stores here in Canton that sell this style of Crocs, so I headed to Zappos, knowing I'd get fast, free shipping. Unfortunately, Zappos doesn't carry Crocs.
That sent me to the Crocs site, which had my shoe in stock, but charges a hefty fee for shipping. That's when a Google search turned up Shoebuy.com. The site advertising free UPS ground shipping both ways, plus they carried the Crocs I was looking for. On top of that, they were offering $20 off a $50 purchase if I used PayPal. That alone would have been enough to make me mention the site to at least a couple of friends. After all, giving people a great deal is a key way to get them to talk about you.
In fact, I pretty much expected to see the standard "send a discount to friends" option pop up after I checked out. I wasn't disappointed. But the folks at Shoebuy.com score in the viral realm by taking it a step further.
Give the Consumer Control
If you look up in the top right corner of the checkout page, you'll see the discount code for friends. Clicking on that discount shows where they take things a step further and do them right. They not only offer me a discount for my friends, they give me the ability to share that discount in any way I'd like.
If you look closely at that screen shot, you'll notice the standard "email to friend" form. The nice thing is the line of options along the top of the window allowing me to share it via several other social media outlets. As a woman, I love this. I'm not keen on giving the email addresses of my friends to a random company. (I'm more than happy to TELL my friends about a company, but I don't like handing those email addresses over.)
The folks at Shoebuy.com give the power of the message to me. No email? No problem. I clicked over to the Facebook icon and filled out the form to share it with my Facebook friends.
A few seconds later, their coupon and my personal endorsement broadcast to my list of Facebook friends.
I clicked through the list, looking at the options and ended up shooting the link and a quick plug out to my Twitterverse as well. Making a perfect example of how this type of enabling of your customer can take word of mouth or viral marketing to a whole new level. Had the Shoebuy.com demanded email addresses for me to give friends the discount, I likely would have given them just three or four addresses. My best friend, my mom and maybe one or two others. But with these options...it got broadcast to a few hundred Facebook friends and to a few thousand Twitter contacts.
Heck, they even gave me a simple "embed" option complete with code, so I'll go ahead and share it with all your Search Engine Guide readers as well.
Save on shoes, accessories, handbags and apparel at Shoebuy.com. We've got something for everyone and for a limited time, you can save $10 on that special something. Valid on purchase of $50 or more.
I watch companies put tons of time and creative energy into coming up with a brilliantly catchy video, or an enticing blog pitch. Marketers preach viral like it's the key to free advertising, but we try to convince business owners they have to create the next big thing to capture a viral success. While that's one way to go about it, most companies will see a dramatic improvement if they just start with something as simple as creating a really great social media friendly "send to friend" option. Give people a simple and easy message to spread, then give them the tools to spread it. You might be surprised at how far it takes you.
A few day ago, a business owner told me about a rather complex problem with his Google Maps business listing and asked me what to do about it. My explanation was pretty long, starting with the need to claim his listing and ending with a warning that fixing errors in Google Maps isn't always simple.
It took several paragraphs of detailed text to cover what I felt the business owner needed to do and he came back to me with a, "That's great, but how do I claim my listing?" Sometimes, I get ahead of myself when I'm answering questions and in this case, I forgot for a moment that such a huge number of the business listings that make up Google's local index are still unclaimed. Let's get down to basics with this article. If you've been mystified by the verification process, read on!
Why Do You Need To Claim Your Google Maps Listing?
Important Reason #1 - Just as you keep careful tabs on the content you have published on your website about your business, you need to be in control of what content Google is publishing about your business. You may discover that Google has errors or blank spots in their data about you. The way for you to correct this is to let Google know you own the business, which I'll describe how to do, so that you can officially edit the content of your business listing. Claiming your listing gives you improved control over how you are being represented by Google.
Important Reason #2 - Just like the rest of the web, Google's local index is plagued with spammers and crooks. Unclaimed business listings are at risk of competitive hijacking. If you haven't claimed your business listing, malicious parties can step in and alter its content for their own benefit - not yours. This has been an acute problem in Google Maps and your best defense is to lock down your listing by claiming it.
How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing
Step one is to go to Google Maps and do a search for your business. Let's imagine we own K-Mart in San Mateo, California. So, we do a search for k-mart san mateo ca.
Unless your business is brand new, chances are it will have been indexed by Google already. So, all we have to do is click the More info link next to the business title, as shown:
This brings up the big popup to the right of the business listing. Click the Edit link, as shown:
This will bring up a second popup, this time a smaller one. In this popup, we see the question, Are you the owner? Claim your business:
Click that link and you will be taken to Google's Local Business Center login page. If you already have a Google account of some kind, such as for gmail or Adwords, you can use your pre-existent login information to get into the Local Business Center. If you do not already have a Google account of some kind, you will need to create one at this point. Once you have logged in, you will be shown the business you want to claim.
Look carefully at all of the data in the listing! Are the address and phone number correct? Are the categories the business is listed in accurate? Are there additional details you could include, such as hours of operation, languages spoken or forms of payment accepted? Make sure the description of your business is as thorough and accurate as possible.
Once you have edited the data so that it is the best possible representation of your business, the Local Business Center asks you whether you would like to verify your changes to the listing by either phone or postcard. A phone call is the fastest way to go, but sometimes, the phone call doesn't work because of weaknesses in Google's phone system and you have to select the postcard route. In this case, Google will send you a small postcard containing a pin number that you need to phone in with when you receive it.
And that's how you claim your Google Local Business Center listing.
Despite the fact that Google has given major prominence to their local search results in the Universal SERPs, they have done very little to alert business owners to the need to verify ownership of the listings. No one, that I know of, has calculated what percentage of the listings in Google's local index are unclaimed, but pretty much everyone agrees the number is staggering. So, don't feel badly if you didn't realize you needed to take control of your listing. You've got the information you need to do it now.
Once you've got this initial, and utterly vital, task completed, you can work towards starting to win reviews from your happy customers and encourage citations from relevant websites. But that's a subject for another post!
Everyone is staring hard at Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, and I mostly like what I see, with one exception. I've written before about the search engine conflict of interest between highlighting their own properties and providing the truly best answer. In the quest for ever more cash, search engines are presenting results that point to their own pages. What does that mean to the searcher and to the search marketer?
If you don't know what I am talking about, take a look at search results from any major search engine today. They often highlight Web properties owned by their parent company. Google shows its YouTube videos, Yahoo shows its Flickr photos, Ask.com shows its CitySearch results, each of which shows more of their own advertising. Yahoo's Tim Mayer has been refreshingly open about their goal: to keep searchers on their results pages for as long as possible.
Microsoft didn't start this trend, but Bing is certainly part of it. From the few searches that I did in health care, it seems like Bing is being a bit more aggressive in highlighting its own properties. Search for "arthritis" and see what you get. Here's the top result as of today:
If you look closely, you can see that this is not the average search result--it's not the #1 result on merit. It's the top result because Microsoft has a deal with the Mayo Clinic to provide information on health conditions. I don't know which way the money flows, if at all, but this is a different way to get the top result than we've seen in the past. The other search engines favor their own properties but don't automatically slam them to the top of the list.
I'm not sure whether this is worse than what the other search engines do or not. Bing makes this search result look different than regular organic results, much the way Google pioneered distinguishing paid search results when the industry went through another major ethical dilemma. The other search engines often make their own properties blend in with the ones that really got their on merit.
This is not to say that those results are never there based on merit. Nor does it say that this is necessarily a bad experience for the searcher. Obviously, if searchers didn't click on these results, the technique would not work. And, taken to an extreme, if searchers begin to doubt the honesty of the results, a search engine is toast.
But the truth is that for many searches, such as "arthritis," the Mayo Clinic information doesn't seem any better or worse than say, the information from WebMD. But the WebMD information is far down the page for Bing, while it is near the top in Google.
Some of this is just the difference between how search rankings work across engines, but there's a larger point here. The truth is that if the Mayo Clinic information is featured, searchers are less likely to need the WebMD version, which is bad news for WebMD, but also for anyone whose search marketing strategy is based on content. Ask yourself what you'd do if you were WebMD. Wouldn't you be on the phone with Google, Yahoo!, and dozens of other search engines around the world to get your own deal like the one May has with Bing? It becomes an arms race where only the big and the connected get the special treatment.
If you think this affects only large businesses, think again. The more obscure the search keyword, the more likely that a small business, such as a local medical clinic, has prepared string helpful content that can win the battle of the search results. I searched for "osteomyelitis," a rare bone disease, and found the Cleveland Clinic rated highly by both Google and Bing. Because it is such a rare disease, there was no Mayo Clinic link for that keyword in Bing. But does anyone think that day won't be coming?
And don't breathe a sigh of relief if you're in a business other than health care. You can already see signs of this stuff in travel and shopping searches. It's likely that search engines are just working their way down the long tail, doing the most lucrative keywords first.
The simple fact is that all the search engines are looking to improve revenue and they are no longer going to be satisfied with merely selling ads for the searches. Now they want to sell ads for the results pages you click on, too. And that strategy favors large information providers, not small businesses. Where search was once one of the few forms of marketing where small businesses had a level playing field against large ones, I think that each day the field is tilting a bit more.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. There's only more to come.
A few weeks ago I attended the Maryland Chamber of Commerce session on Social Media and Online Marketing with guest host Mario Armstrong from XM radio. The panel consisted of Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Blue Sky Factory, Matt Goddard, CEO of r2integrated and Leah Messina, CEO of Sinuate Media.
The
panelists spoke about various topics such as; online tools, social
marketing and challenges their clients face. Some good points were made
throughout the session however, as most panels go, they were all
intertwined and scattered. I have highlighted some of the main items
that are beneficial to all businesses either as a refresher or as new
information.
Communities
How are your customers
currently buying items or services? Social media outlets such as
Twitter don't work for everyone or every business. Let's take a
business such as a local plumber or heating specialist. When do you
need a plumber? Typically when something is wrong! Most people will
more than likely pick up a phone book or do an online directory search.
It's doubtful that anyone will follow a plumber's business on Twitter.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a recommendation for a
plumber, Twitter or Facebook might be the perfect place for you.
According to Goddard, "Social media is really about reducing a risk by
reaching out to like-minded peers. It's our way of saying, how do I not
make a bad decision?" We go get advice and it's sitting inside these
communities, we are getting the information when the conversation is
happening and it's all about reducing the risk. The social tools that
exist are about streamlining the process.
LinkedIn.com has been
around longer than Twitter and it isn't getting as much hype. LinkedIn
is a risk reduction and helps members make better decisions on how to
build relationships. It's Quality over Quantity. Your business should
be tied to your area of expertise, local community or industry
specialty. If you are a local business in a specific trade industry try
to focus on what you do and important topics that are relevant.
The Clutter
There's
really no need to tweet about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich you
just ate. According to Cangialosi , "THERE'S A LOT OF A LOT! " There is
no way we are paying attention to everything you have written. There is
so much white noise that it is crucial for businesses to stay focused.
Try to use important keywords or tags that can be searched for easily.
Blue Sky Factory leverages social media technology by using Hubspot.
The Hubspot tool looks at web analytics and takes all the keywords you
want to optimize and ranks the conversations that are really important.
Blue Sky's goal is to engage the community, cut through the clutter,
and sharpen the focus. Tools and Tracking
Messina
recommended several different tools which keep a watchful eye on what
people are saying about your product or who might be interested. Search.twitter.com - Twitter's basic search tool Google alerts - a great way to have information pushed instead of searching with the other tools icerocket.com - a social and search tool radian6 - a monitoring source for your brand across the web Chi.mp - helps steam line across multiple accounts Dragon Search - social media calculator
One tool that was not mentioned was Twitter Analyzer, which is a tool that is fun to explore.
Rule of Thumb to Execute Social Media
Mario's
last question to the panel was, "How much time do you have for all of
your social responsibilities? We all know that owning a dog can be
free, but don't you have to nurture it?"
Leah recommends before
you update your Twitter account to spend 2 hours researching and
compile a list of daily social media updates. Update once in the
morning and at the end of the day. Leah typically puts aside 1 hour a
day for updates.
Greg doesn't use Twitter to update his Facebook
account. The Twitter stream is primarily used for business and he
separates his personal account from corporate account. He does his
tweets in spurts. He recommends that your conversations grow into one
on one dialog. You should pick and choose from one platform to another
because it is not relevant between the two socials. Try not to use hash
marks in your Facebook account - it may be Greek to many of your
friends.
Final Words
Matt states, "The Internet is
a buying engine - not a selling engine. You have to be a part of the
buying process." You can't force the buying moment. Experiment with the
tools available to you and evaluate the outcome.
Leah - "When
you reach out you can tease out the most important people that are the
influencers. They can help you be a bridge to the community. Be genuine
and use it methodically."
Greg - "The influencer in today's
social world has a very wide footprint so you need to be very
authentic, transparent and methodical." The long term strategy for
social messaging is making sure your messaging is exact. What's the
right story to tell your audience; is it compelling and why?
Having a good headline, a good article and even a good-looking site isn't always enough to maintain an audience. To keep people coming back to your blog day after day you have to go through the extra effort to keep your visitors interested in your content.
Think of your blog as a TV show. How many shows start out strong but can't maintain the interest as time passes? I remember years ago watching the show Alias. It quickly became one of my favorite shows that I looked forward to watching each week. Then somewhere around mid second season it jumped the shark. (The post-Superbowl episode when SD-6 was brought down and the sexual tension between the two main characters... oh, never mind. Yes, I'm still holding a grudge!) Alias just as quickly became one of the many shows that I threw away.
While you don't need to have sexual tension in your blog content (or an evil mastermind, for that matter) to keep people interested, you do need to have an element of anticipation. Your readers should want to come back and read what you have to say next. But unlike a TV show, the anticipation of each "episode" of your blog needs to provide a release, leaving the reader completely fulfilled.
Grab Attention
You need to open your blog with something that draws the reader in. When writing with search engines in mind this can often be a bit tricky. Stories often make the most compelling openings but they often lack the keywords that your audience needs in order to accept the post as valuable. If the story is short, it will grab the reader's attention and quickly lead them into the "lesson" of the content.
You don't have to have keywords in the opening paragraph for the search engines, but it can be an important part of gaining and maintaining long-term rankings. If you can integrate the keywords into the opening story then you've got the best of both worlds.
Story isn't the only way to create a compelling opening. Sometimes getting right to the meat works best. Telling the reader the conclusion before you even tell them how you got there can get them invested into leaning how you came to that conclusion.
I suggest you pick up a few books or read some other blogs posts that address this topic specifically. You can write a compelling opening any number of ways, you just need to find what works best for you, your audience, and for each particular blog post.
Appeal to Needs
Once you have the reader interested in whatever you have to say, you need to keep them moving through the content, consistently delivering information that keeps them intrigued. Unless your blog is for entertainment purposes, readers want to feel as if they have learned something. Heck, even entertainment blogs educate their readers in some way or another. But each reader comes to your site with a basic desire. It's your job to meet that desire.
With business blogs there are three things you need to do. 1) Expose the need, 2) State the solution and 3) Provide the benefits.
Expose the need: What is it you want your readers to walk away knowing after having read your post? Make sure you expose the need in language they understand using concepts and illustrations that are familiar to them.
State the solution: Next, provide a solution to that need. The solution must be clearly stated and accurately explained. What must the reader to to achieve X results? What steps must they take? What products must they buy? What services must they engage in? These are all solution oriented questions that can be answered for your readers.
Provide the benefits: Finally, the benefits of each solution bust be clearly outlined. There is no sense in showing someone what they need, and how to get it if they are not fully aware of the benefits of doing so. The benefit is the final selling point that tells the reader that they truly do need what you are offering and that you have the right solution for them.
Ask Questions
Just as I did two paragraphs above, ask your readers questions. Questions get them thinking about answers and then allows you to insert your knowledge and expertise in providing an answer. An answer for an unasked question is often far less potent as an answer to a question that the reader is already contemplating... even if it's a question you set them up with.
Not every question needs an answer. Some questions are designed to get the reader to move beyond what you can tell them and to think in terms of their own situation. Ultimately, if you can help your readers think for themselves this makes what you have to say even more valuable.
Inform
Finally, you want to make sure that each blog post serves its ultimate purpose and adequately informs your readers. They must walk away feeling as if their time reading your blog post was well spent. Failure to inform leaves your readers wanting. And unlike a TV show, and with the exception of the occasional multi-part series, leaving readers wanting does not bring them back for the next episode.
Keeping your readers interested in your content really boils down to creating good content that your readers find, well, interesting. If you keep your readers interested they'll keep coming for more.
Google's Webmaster Central team has started an excellent YouTube channel and in this week's video Matt Cutts Answers: "Will Google consider Yahoo! Directory and BOTW as source of paid links? If no, why is this different from another site that sell links.
I post something on my Biznology blog each day, and we've got a lot of subscribers so we get a fair number of comments. And I check each and every comment before it is posted, so that I'm not littering the blog with spam comments. But I am finding myself challenged by deciding just what is and is not spam. If you run a blog, I wonder if this has ever happened to you, too.
For those of you that are unaware, search spammers love to target unsuspecting blogs with comments that link back to their sites to try to improve their search rankings. So blogging software has implemented the same kind of anti-spam techniques that e-mail programs have, with the same limited success.
Some blogs use captchas or challenge questions (mine goes that route) to reduce the success of automated spamming software. Some bloggers have implemented a "nofollow" attribute on their comment links to eliminate the benefit of links, but I think that's unfair to the legitimate commenters who deserve the links, so I haven't done that.
But even with what I've done, I still get lots of questionable comments for my approval. Let me show you a smattering of them. These are all real comments that I had to decide what to do with. I'm finding it harder and harder to know what to do with some of them.
What do you do if someone just types, "nice post"? I've decided that it is probably automated spam and I mark it so. So if a few of you liked one of our posts and I made you a spammer, I'm sorry. Next time, say something substantive.
I also mark it spam if someone enters a blatant product pitch with uncertain relevance to the post, such as "if you want to buy the runescape gold or runescape money I think we certainly can satisfy your request.Your choice is our service." (I removed the links before displaying the comment here.)
But a low-key pitch that is on-topic I usually let go, such as this comment on a post about hosting blogs with a link to a Web development company: "Great article post...as of this time.. there are many hosting companies that can choose from. and if you wish to have it free...there are some of them offer a free hosting services." Would you have had a different opinion if that same comment had a link to a hosting company? Or if it had a link inside the comment as well as from the name? Do you just edit out the links and post the comment?
What if the comment is nasty and clueless but somewhat on topic? Here is a comment I got on a post about PR people spamming journalists: "People on the internet do. Journalists in the vast majority are nothing more than worthless distractions to readers, and useful propagandists to whoever feeds them their information." I decided to publish this one, but maybe it is just a clever ranting automated spammer.
If a comment is stupid, short, or dumb, that doesn't make it spam, does it? Now I know that it might be a spammer doing those things, but I am concerned that I might be insulting someone by not publishing their response, and even more concerned that I am tarring them as a spammer unfairly by pressing that spam button.
Maybe I am being too black and white about this, because I tend to either mark comments as spam or publish them. Perhaps I should simply ignore some comments and not publish them, without marking them as spam. It's a middle ground that will make my decision making even more complex, however—three choices instead of two—so I've shied away in the interest of time management.
I wondered if even writing this article is an invitation to spammers to send me short inane comments because I might publish them.
I'd like to hear from you. What do you bloggers do with these kinds of comment decisions? Am I being too lenient? Too strict? I don't want to help spammers but I certainly don't want to punish my loyal readers unfairly. Suggestions are very welcome.
It's just a fact of life, good looking people get more attention. We walk through the checkout line in the grocery store and see half a dozen magazines filled with beautiful faces on top of beautiful bodies. A good looking woman walking through the mall is bound to turn a few heads. Commercials are filled with models that pass the schwing test. (Yes, I pulled out my 80's innuendo reference manual for that!)
Our love of beauty isn't just focused on the human body. We love well manicured lawns, beautiful sunsets, and gorgeous building architecture. Some of us even go to restaurants where the food is pretty. Face it, we are very visual people.
It strikes me as odd, that as much stock as we place in things that are wonderful to look at, we often don't take as much care with our blogs. I understand that it's not easy putting together a website that looks good. It takes effort, skill and often a good amount of money. So instead of doing what needs to be done we skimp. Blogs, on the other hand are far easier, it's just a matter of finding a good theme and running with it. But for whatever reason, that often doesn't happen.
We dress appropriately for our jobs but our blogs are going to work everyday in beat-up sweat pants and unkempt hair. It may not be an ugly site, but it certainly ain't much to look at.
This brings me to a humorous aside. Over the years I've talked to dozens of people who run crappy looking websites but they refuse to make any type of aesthetic changes to them. Why? Because they continue to get the rare compliment on how beautiful their site is. I've had this syndrome myself and it can be quite comical. All it takes is a few compliments from people who don't know any better (why trust the experts who do) and it's clear that the world agrees your site is the web equivalent of Halle Berry in the movie Swordfish.
Believe me, it's not.
I looked.
Twice.
Looking good and having site appeal
Having a good looking blog starts with having a good looking website design. It's amazing how easy it is to throw up a blog. But putting one together that is visually appealing to your audience is often another matter all together. There's more to a website or a blog than a header, side navigation, and a few images.
What looks good varies from industry to industry so don't think this is all about being "pretty". You want to look good for the audience you are trying to reach. Pink and flowery doesn't work with a rugged outdoors blog. Hard-hats and burly men won't work on a blog about women's health. Well, maybe it does a bit, I don't know.
The point is, you have to make your blog appealing to the audience it is intended for. You won't have credibility selling scientific papers with images of half-naked models used in your each of your posts. Of course you might sell more if you include the pictures in the papers, but still, your credibility will be shot, and you'll annoy your audience for having to explain to their wives that they only buy it for the articles.
Once you've got a good looking blog, there is a usability aspect that needs to work as well. The navigation, headings, content, visuals and images all need to work together to complete the package.
Nobody get's excited about seeing paragraph upon paragraph of blog content. Or for that matter too many pictures with little textual value. There is a balance somewhere in between. Your text can be made more visually appealing by formatting your heading tags to stand out and get read. Use pictures to provide visuals to your words. If you're are pimping your products or services use pictures to give your content meaning, clarity and further understanding of what you are selling.
Too much of any one thing is still too much. Your blog needs to be balanced. Visuals need content and content needs visuals. And there is no reason that either the content or visuals should not be visually appealing to the site visitor.
Your readers will come to your blog for the content. But if it's not presented in a visually appealing way there will be some credibility loss. This is especially true if your blog is tied to your business website. Build a decent blog design that fits your target audience and appeals visually to them for the type of information they are coming back to read. When you make it easy on the eyes, you make it something that people will continue to come back for.
Microsoft's Key Phrase Research tool is now officially in beta. It's a really powerful tool and offers a ton of great information. I highly recommend you check it out!
This storyline isn't new. Jennifer has blogged about what her kids
taught her about SEO, what her kids taught her about blogging, and what her kids taught her about Social Media. A friend in the apartment business just blogged
about Bass Fishing and Leasing Apartments. As you can tell Gus is a
dog, a mostly wonderful Bull Terrier. Gus is a year and a half old and
is my first dog of my own. Gus goes to the office regularly, and has
learned to regularly tweet on his own twitter account @Gus_Urbane. He
has created quite a stir from time to time.
ENGAGE AND EMOTION
We have all heard about the Four P's of Marketing, but what about the two E's, Emotion and Engagement, are you fully utilizing them? Gus,
like most pets really knows how to evoke our emotions. In our small
business, a boutique property management business, we decided to go
after the pet market, and accept pets. Lots of places accept pets, but
with weight and breed restrictions, and a hefty pet deposit. We decided
to keep it simple; We Love Pets at Urbane, no fees and no breed
restrictions. The theory was this, If we have a good resident, they
likely have a good pet. If we have a bad resident, they likely have a
bad pet. We worked really hard on an enhanced resident screening system
and attracting great residents, which has also improved collections. A
nice side benefit to accepting pets!
But the success of this program isn't about accepting pets, It is about
"Urbane Loves Pets" which has successfully evoked prospects and
residents emotion. Consequently, we own the local pet market. If you
are going after sliver markets, go with vengeance and own them.
MAKE IT A PLAYFUL EXPERIENCE
Gus is a pretty happy guy, tail always wagging. He just wants to play,
play and play. He is Fun Boy. With that, we have lightened up the
entire leasing process. Apartment hunting is not a walk in the park. We
have a Centralized Leasing Center, known as Urbane Underground that is
anything but typical. There are farm watering troughs with tropical
plants in them. A forty-five foot long bamboo planter. Crazy music
playing. A Tropical bird hanging out. A conference table that hangs
from the ceiling with no legs. Anything but typical. Point is, it is
very whimsical and fun. Lighten up your approach, have some fun along the way. Life is Short.
EVERYONE LOVES TREATS
Anyone who has pets know they love treats. Gus is no different, he
lives for treats. We have developed a pretty interesting program and
have created Urbane VIP cards. They resemble a credit card and enable
the holder to cash in on several discounts locally. During the tour, we go
through the program, explain the benefits and send them off with an
Urbane VIP Card. I am pretty sure our competitors aren't forking over
any treats. It is a great way to differentiate, and is funded by the
local commerce.
MAKE ME LAUGH
Gus loves to make me laugh, and he does a great job of that. Our
marketing at Urbane is anything but typical or traditional. We set up
movies that reverse play against a backdrop that show silhouettes of
girls dancing together, guys dancing together and a variety of other
wacky stuff. We can set up the movie in minutes, and it comes on at
dark and shuts off at 2;00 AM.
Cars and people literally stop in the
street and stare. They laugh, and make lots of comments about Urbane,
including some who think that two guys dancing together is too
provocative. We like that. Is your marketing material causing your
prospects to talk about you, or does it end up in the trash because it
is outdated old and stale? BTW, the movie we made cost us nothing to
make, the projector is reused over and over.
LETS CONNECT
Perhaps the most significant thing I have learned from Gus is that he
loves to connect with people, and so do your customers.
Our blog, The Urbane Life has caused lots of folks to connect with
hip and cool local business, blathering and goings on and just a
general give back to the community. But how can you do those kind of
things one may ask, what is the pay back. Try this on, page one Google,
number one ranking for Apartments Royal Oak, one of the most used
search's. Where does your Small Business fare with a Google Ranking. Even
more, what kind of web traffic does your community drive? We will have
over 14,0000 visitors this month. We only have 360 units. I think the
blog is a great payoff don't you?
You too can try these things. They aren't hard, and they are not
expensive. We would love to hear your thoughts.
Convincing small business folk to get on board with social media is akin to asking a four-year-old to watch paint dry. It's nice to look at, for a few minutes, until boredom sets in and the child asks if he can go outside and play. Outside is where the action is. There's stuff to do. People to see. Places to go.
And, like watching paint dry, we watch what's happening on the public time line and conclude that not a lot is going on. Well, unless you're a marketer in which case you're immediately drawn to the incestuous sharing of cutting edge information ... er ... well ...
Never mind.
It's fun to be a skeptic though because it makes you sound really smart, like you know something no one else does--something everyone else is just too dumb to comprehend. For example, when TechCrunch told us that that 80% of the "people" on twitter are essentially squatters, the neo-web pundits gave a collectively cynical "duh!" And the commenters over at Shoemoney Blog seem to think this is indicative of how useless twitter really is. That hey, they were right all along. It's like one big I-told-you-so love-in over there.
Yet if you read the entire TechCrunch article, you're reminded that twitter is no different than any other web media. For example, about 10% of any forum membership actually participates in the discussion, and that's on a good day. Or, how many of you grabbed a MySpace ID but never used it? Maybe it was intentional (to protect a company brand) or maybe it wasn't (I hate MySpace).
The TechCrunch writer closes the article by saying that:
"Twitter is no different than any other form of social media. A small fraction of users produce the overwhelming amount of content, even if it is just 140 characters at a time. Everyone else just drinks from the stream."
It's the old 80-20 rule. And it's not really news. The biggest returns result from a relatively small amount of input or, in this case, a small handful of users. Moreover, no one ever said you had to participate (generate content) to get something out of social media. In fact, cruising around a forum without saying a darned thing can be quite informative. Some even call it research.
I feel like a broken record repeating this, but it's not sinking in: you get what you give. And if you don't want to give, that's okay. Just don't complain about what others are doing or not doing. Be quiet and enjoy the show.
So, how are you using twitter? And if you're not using it, what are you complaining about?
You have a good idea for a blog post, but getting people to keep coming back and reading day after day takes more than a good idea. You have to execute that idea in an appealing way.
Ever wonder why so many commercials we see on TV revolve around sexual appeal? Because sex is appealing. At least when it's packaged properly. Commercials using fat, bear-bellied men or "average" looking women are few and far between. Everyone is nicely toned, handsome or strikingly beautiful.
Blogging is no different. The best titled "pickup line" in the world is only going to get you so far. To get anywhere you have to prove that you've got the goods that go with it.
While I won't provide a step-by-step tutorial on on how to write great content here, I will provide a few points will make what you have to say more appealing and more readable. The key is to draw your readers in and give them a way to enjoy the content, whether they are reading every word or performing a quick scan of your blog post.
Compelling Content
Each blog post must start with a compelling premise or something of interest. Not every post will be compelling to every person, but each post should be interesting to at least a portion or segment of your audience.
Speak the language
One of the reasons why it is so important to know your audience is so you are able to write using the words that appeal most to your audience. There are two parts to this. The first is using the keywords that your audience is searching for. We addressed that back in step 2.
The second is to write for the education level of your audience. You want to find the right balance so as not to speak over the heads of your lesser educated readers while also not talking down to those who are more knowledgeable.
If your blog targets a very knowledgeable audience then you want to keep the "basics" down to a minimum. If you are always explaining basic concepts your educated readers will feel that you're talking to a lower-level audience. At the same time you can't assume that your audience knows as much as you do. If they did you wouldn't need to be blogging. If you assume your audience knows too much then they won't be able to follow what you are saying because they are missing key components of information that have not been shared.
If you know your audience and their knowledge level on your blog topic, you'll be able to write in a language that they understand and appreciate. Speaking to them, not above or below them, is essential to keeping them engaged in your content.
Scannable
Not everybody reads word for word and most people will at least scan the content before they commit to investing the time to read. Making your content scannable is crucial to keeping your audience engaged.
Scanability is all in the visual appeal of the content. Visually, your audience needs to be able to look at the post and see the important concepts and main takeaways . If they find those appealing then they may go back and read the content word for word. If they don't have time for that then you've given them some valuable information just at a glance.
Bullet points: If possible you should break out pieces of your content into bullet points. This doesn't work for every post but you should do it where and when you can. Bullets catch they eye and provide a nice list format that the brain can more easily remember.
Bolds and italics: Make key concepts stand out using bold and italics. This isn't something you have to plan out, but once a post is completed you can look for things that you think should stand out. Anything that's important enough that you want your readers to see without having to read every word can be either bolded or italicized. Don't just use this strategy for keywords, look for key concepts instead.
Using bolded paragraph headings (or hx tags) also helps with the optimization of your posts, provided that there are some keywords being called out. Your first priority in your blog is to your readers so make sure anything you do with keywords is relevant and non-intrusive.
Presenting your content in a way that appeals to the reader both visually and intellectually will help you establish yourself as a knowledgeable author on your topic. With enough time, and the continued production of quality content you'll earn a reputation as an authority. Your readers will trust that your headlines won't just be good pickup lines, but they'll be just the taste of what will likely be a body of content they want to devour.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=49a27a87-0aaf-4a00-ae18-57695abacd66)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f2c27265-5aba-44a7-87c4-9edefad5dd7d)
Our love of beauty isn't just focused on the human body. We love well manicured lawns, beautiful sunsets, and gorgeous building architecture. Some of us even go to restaurants where the food is pretty. Face it, we are very visual people.