Friday, June 24, 2011

10000 Year Clock Gets Funding From Amazon’s Jeff Bezos


Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is throwing some of his capital behind an ambitious project that has been decades in the making. $42 million to be exact. A team of scientists and engineers is currently working on giant clock that will be stationed inside of a mountain. The clock will run for 10,000 years.
According to Wired, the project is already underway. Last year, contractors began assembling the components to the clock and excavation began at the mountain site that will become the clock’s final resting place. As the clock will run on solar power, computers at Jet Propulsion Laboratories have spent the last year calculating sun positions for the next 10 millennia.
The “father of the clock” is a man named Danny Hillis. The millennium clock has been on his mind since 1989. For him and for Bezos, it’s all about long term thinking. Bezos has set up a website for the project, at 10000yearclock.net.
There, he describes the project in brief. The clock will be stationed deep inside a mountain in the West Texas Sierra Diablo Mountain Range. The clock will tick once a year, and the century hand will advance every 100 years. And every time it hits 1000 years, a cuckoo will emerge.

Visiting the clock, once it is completed in the next few years, will not be an easy venture. Here’s what Wired says about accessing the clock according to their interview with Bezos and the team –
To get to the clock, you’ll need to hike half a day to the base of the mountain in which the clock is embedded. You’ll walk up into a narrow notch of stone, coming at last to a door made of stainless steel with panels of green nephritic jade. The door leads into a tunnel, which ends at the base of the vertical shaft, in darkness. Taking a flashlight to see, you’ll start climbing up the spiral staircase, winding around the outer wall of the shaft, going past various parts of the clock as you go.
One of the first sections you’ll pass is the power train, with huge suspended stone weights and a capstan that you can turn to raise the weights and wind the clock. Once wound, the energy of these weights will help power the clock and its chimes.
You’ll then walk past the mechanical computer (a complex collection of gears and linkages) that rings the clock’s chimes, and a bit further up, the actual chimes.
If it’s been wound, the clock will ring the bells once a day, playing a different tune each time. The mechanical computer will rearrange the notes to create a unique melody for almost every one of the next 3,650,000 days. (Musician Brian Eno is helping compose the music the chimes will play.)
The clock itself will be impressively huge and mechanical, with giant gear wheels made out of stainless steel turning on ceramic bearings, as well as smaller pinions made out of titanium. There will be no way to see it all at once — you’ll have to climb through a couple hundred vertical feet to see all its parts, one by one, ending at the clock face in the uppermost room.
Brian Eno Chimes! Awesome.
If you still want to make the commitment to go see the clock once it is completed, Bezos asks you to send a blank email to clockinterest@10000yearclock.net.
What is the point of this millennium clock? Why take on such an undertaking and invest so much money into a project that will be located in such a remote area? Long-term thinking. According to Bezos, we now have the technology to build this amazing clock so we should.
“Over the lifetime of this clock, the United States won’t exist,” Bezos says. “Whole civilizations will rise and fall. New systems of government will be invented. You can’t imagine the world — no one can — that we’re trying to get this clock to pass through.”
Bezos and the crew are thinking about this clock in the same way we think about the Pyramids. They are symbols of time, and of history. Thousands of years from now, Bezos wants people to visit the clock and see it still working. Whatever civilization looks like in 10,000 years, those people will have a glimpse into the past. And by building a clock like this, it allows us in the present to glimpse into the future.
But it sure is a lot of money, even for a project this cool. Some people are asking if the project is truly necessary –
What do you think about my new blog idea? “Crazy People With Too Much Money” Subject of the first post: http://bit.ly/iiP6Xv 2 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
Jeff Bezos is clearly sitting on too much cash. 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
Is it just me or is this the definition of a guy with a lot of money and too much time on his hands(no pun intended)? http://t.co/sRvb3z3 4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
Most of the internet chatter surrounding the project seems to be positive, however. The most commonly used phrases to describe it are “Wow,” “Amazing” and “Awesome.” I believe I fall into that camp.
Bezos is also looking for future generations to create “anniversary chambers” for the clock. Here’s what he has to say about that on the site –
Carved into the mountain are five room-sized anniversary chambers: 1 year, 10 year, 100 year, 1,000 year, and 10,000 year anniversaries. The one year anniversary chamber is a special orrery. In addition to the planets and the Earth’s moon, it includes all of the interplanetary probes launched during the 20th century, humankind’s first century in space. Among others, you’ll see the Grand Tour: Voyager 2′s swing by of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Clock will activate and run the orrery once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon.
We aren’t planning to build the animations for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 year anniversary chambers, but will instead leave those to future generations. We are providing a mechanical interface into those chambers that provides those future builders with power and the correct Clock triggering events. We do intend to build the animation for the 10 year anniversary chamber, but haven’t decided what it will be yet. If you have an interesting idea for the 10 year anniversary chamber, please feel free to email it to 10-year-chamber@10000yearclock.net, and we’ll add it to the mix of ideas.
Sounds like a awesome project. Maybe whoever inhabits this planet in 10,000 years will stumble upon the clock and will view it like we view Stonehenge. At least I’m sure that’s what Jeff Bezos hopes.
About Josh Wolford
Josh Wolford is a staff writer for WebProNews. He likes football, French New Wave cinema, and bacon. @joshgwolf on Twitter 
source:http://www.webpronews.com/10000-year-clock-gets-funding-from-amazons-jeff-bezos-2011-06

Keywords and Content Marketing

I recently had an interesting discussion with Ron Jones who is writing a book specifically on using keywords for online marketing called “Keyword Intelligence“. He was researching for the content marketing portion of the book and we talked about where keywords fit. These kinds of discussions are great for blog posts so here are a few ideas for you on keywords, SEO, Social Media and content.
Content marketing is customer centric and therefore often focused not only on creating information to educate prospects and customers about product/service features and benefits, but also about topics of interest relevant to the situations that cause people to need or want those products and services.
Effective content marketing informs prospective buyers of what they need to know in order to help them arrive at a logical conclusion to buy and recommend. Relevant and engaging content facilitates that outcome.

“Great content isn’t great until it’s discovered and shared.”


Understanding the information needs of the customers you’re trying to reach is the first step in creating a great editorial plan. The role of keywords in a content marketing program come into play as a manifestation of knowing what customers are interested in and what their pain points are. What are they searching for? What are they talking about on the social web?
Great content is best optimized, so to speak, for the intended reader first and foremost. At the same time, that content is thoughtful about keywords that can attract new readers through search and social recommendations. Great content is amazing. Great content that is findable and shareable is even better.
Here’s an Example Scenario:  Company 1 2 3 wants to focus on “Round Widgets”
  • Target Customers Care About Round Widgets That Cost Less and are Environmentally Safe
  • Target Customers Search for “round widgets”, “low cost widgets”, “green widgets”, “environmentally safe widgets”
  • Target Customers Socially Discuss “save money on widgets”, “widget impact on the environment”
  • The Content Plan Outlines An Array of Content Objects Supporting Search Keywords & Social Topics
  • Content Plan Tactical Execution: Blog Hub, Video Tips, Shared Customer Widget Photos, Facebook Page for Widget Environmental Tips, Email Tips & Issues Newsletter, Widget Deals Twitter Account, Guest Blog Posts Using Target Keywords on Widget Blogs, Contributed Articles to Consumer & Environmental Publications on Widget Cost Saving Tips and Being “Green”
By coordinating customer needs with content creation, optimization and social publishing, there’s a much greater and more relevant reach for the investment.
Keywords guide content optimization for findability through search engines as well as a focus on topics that customers care about and are discussing on the social web. Keywords are also useful guides for the blogger and publication outreach.
Keywords drive the “optimize and socialize” efforts of content marketers to share, promote and increase the reach of information that is relevant for customers who may buy or refer brand products and services.
The mistake online marketers often make is to solely lead with keywords (vs. customer needs) thinking that optimizing for the most popular phrases are all that is needed to maximize customer reach. High ranking content that doesn’t resonate with readers to share or with customers to buy and refer isn’t an effective approach. Also, customer information needs will vary according to where they are in the research and buying process.
Keywords and topics change over time so even after a customer is acquired, it’s important to monitor, measure and refine as needed.
My question for you: Are your content marketing and optimization efforts focused solely on high popularity count keywords? Are you digging into both search keywords and social topics as you formulate your content marketing strategy?
Lee Odden is CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing and public relations firm in Minnesota that specializes in search, social and online PR consulting and training for companies worldwide. Odden has been cited for his internet marketing expertise over the past 10 years by the Economist, Forbes and U.S. News and contributed a chapter to the book, "Online Marketing Heroes" published by Wiley. For the past 5 years he has also been the editor of TopRank's Online Marketing Blog, a Technorati 100 favorite blog and one of the top marketing blogs according to Advertising Age. 
source:http://www.webpronews.com/using-keywords-to-formulate-your-content-marketing-strategy-2011-06

Google Goggles Gets Copy/Paste, Map View for Search History

Today, Google announced some new features for its Google Goggles product, the mobile search app, which lets you search by snapping a picture. There is a new map view of your search history, the ability to copy contact and text results to the clipboard, and some changes to the results interface.
“If you’ve enabled search history on Goggles, your history contains a list of all the images that you’ve searched for, as well as some information about where you performed the search if you chose to share your location with Google. Sometimes this can be a pretty long list, so we wanted to give you another way to sort and visualize your Goggles results,” says Google Goggles software engineer George Nachman. “We’ve added a map view, which shows your Goggles image search history on a map so you can quickly zoom and pan to find a query from a particular location.”
Google Goggles Map View for Search History
In terms of the clipboard stuff, you can grab URLs or phone numbers from signs, and copy the text to your phone’s clipboard so you can paste it into different apps. That’s pretty handy.
Google revealed at its Inside Search event last week that Google Goggles now supports Russian. The company talked a little more about this today.
Google Goggles learns to read Russian: http://t.co/VFaRJNs 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
“Since Google Goggles first launched in 2009, it has been able to recognize and translate text in a number of different languages, as long as the language used Latin characters. With the launch of OCR for Russian, Goggles is now able to read Cyrillic characters. Goggles will recognize a picture of Russian text and allow you to translate the text into one of over 40 other languages. Russian OCR is also available for users of Google Goggles on the Google Search app for iOS. Очень полезно!”
Also last week, Google announced the launch of Search by Image, which basically takes Google Goggles to the desktop, letting you upload an image and search for results based on that.
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-goggles-2011-06

Facebook Fans Worth 20 Yearly Site Visits, $136 A Piece?

What is a Facebook fan worth? It’s a question that many have attempted to answer. These answers are often greatly debated. Can you place a set value on a Facebook fan?
The latest attempt comes from Experian Hitwise. “We are constantly asked: ‘What’s the ROI with advertising on Facebook?’ and until now that has always been a difficult question to qualify precisely,” says the firm’s Research Director in the UK, Robin Goad. “Leveraging our unique data sets we now have an answer: for retailers, each new fan acquired on Facebook is worth 20 additional visits to your website over the course of a year.”
How much is a Facebook fan worth? Tell us what you think.
“Our data shows that for the top retailers, even if they have no Facebook fans they can still expect to receive on average 62,000 visits from Facebook each month,” says Goad, plugging a new service the firm is offering, called Facebook Fan Acquisition and Analysis. “Within retail each new fan acquired will drive an additional 20 visits to a retailer’s websites, which in turn will generate extra sales both online and offline.”
“The figure of 1 fan = 20 extra visits to a website uses a unique methodology that combines Hitwise data with data from Techlightenment,” he says. “We took the top 100 retailers ranked in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category and benchmarked visits to those websites against the number of fans those brands had on their Facebook page. We then also looked at the propensity for people to search for those retail brands after a visit to Facebook using our Search Sequence tool.”
A study (about a year ago) from Syncapse found that people who are Facebook fans, on average, spend $71.84 more per year on brands they are fans of than those who are not fans. In addition to that, they’re 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using that brand. Michael Scissons, the CEO of Syncapse, talked about the study on the Fox Business Network:
He says a Facebook fan is worth $136.38, taking into account factors like spend, loyalty, recommendations, earned media value, and cost offset for fan acquisition.
The Value of a Facebook Fan
Back in February, a report released by ChompOn (which just partnered with Loopt its interesting new u-Deals offering), proclaimed that a Facebook Share was worth $14, while a Facebook “Like” was worth $8. That’s compared to a tweet being worth $5 and a Twitter follow being worth $2.
“For shares and tweets, we were able to directly attribute sales to the original action, so we simply took the total revenue attributed to each action and divided it by the total number of shares/tweets,” the firm said. “For likes and follows, we had to estimate attribution by looking at our traffic references and subtracting out purchases made through shares/tweets as well as purchases made through direct traffic.”
ChompOn Puts Value on Tweets, Likes, Shares, Follows
Last year, a study from Virtue found that Facebook fans are valued at $3.60 each in earned media for brands. The study was debated, but interesting nonetheless. “Despite the formula flaws, I do think it’s a good start to something many marketers are looking for – i.e. what’s the return on investing budget and human capital on a Facebook fan page?” wrote Yahoo Sr. Manager of Community Marketing Michael Brito in an article we ran about the study. “In fact, working on the brand side for many years, this question arises daily.  And, the reality is that we may never know the true value of a fan because human behavior changes all the time and technology isn’t quite there yet; not to mention the possible privacy implications.  I do feel that calculating fan value needs to involve more than just impressions.”
Brito took the formula used to come up with that valuation, and ran it for some major brands at the time. Based on this, Coca-Cola fans were wroth $0.96 a piece. YouTube fans were worth $1.92, Adidas fans were worth $2.40. NBA fans were worth a whopping $8.22. The formula used went like this:
1M impressions x 2 posts x 30 days = 60M impressions
60M impressions / 1000 x $5 CPM = $300,000
$300,000 x 12 months = $3.6M
$3.6M / 1M fans = $3.60
Feel free to poke all the holes you want in any of these studies. Augie Ray at Forrester Research once wrote on “why the question of Facebook fan valuation is problematic”:
  • Assumptions:  The methodologies for estimating the value of a Facebook fan rely on a host of assumptions, but every audience, brand and program is unique. For example, the value of a fan for big-ticket items cannot be the same as a fan for lower-consideration items.
  • All fans are not equal:  Every individual has a unique social graph and a unique voice.  I might be considered influential on topics of social media and marketing, but my opinion on floor mops might hold little influence within my set of friends and followers. One’s value as an influencer varies from category to category.
  • Acquisition matters:  How a fan is acquired makes a difference.  A fan that organically “likes” a brand has more potential value than one that is encouraged to click the “like” button in exchange for a coupon or some Farmville bucks.
  • Cause and effect:  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?   Do Facebook fans spend more, or do people who spend more become fans?  If the former, then Facebook fans are generating new value, but if the latter is true then Facebook fandom merely reflects existing value rather than creating new value for brands.
Of course Facebook has continued to grow tremendously since most of these even came out, and user behavior has also changed (strictly in the sense that you can’t assume that everybody is using Facebook exactly the same way they were using it a year ago) so even if it was dead on, it’s possible that things have changed.
The “Filter Bubble” is worth considering. This is a concept we discussed in an article earlier this week, based on a TED talk given by Eli Pariser. Basically, this is about the content we consume becoming more filtered because it’s being tailored to us on a personalized level by the sites we use – including (and especially) by Facebook. Pariser quoted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as saying, “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
Zuckerberg’s point is that Facebook wants to give you the information most relevant to you. It does this by not showing you everything from all of your friends and Pages in the news feed. In terms of Facebook fans for a page, it’s worth considering that all of your messages might not find their way to all of your fans, simply because Facebook may filter some of them out of their news feeds. You can’t expect all of your fans to go to your page on their own on a regular basis.
There are ways to improve your chances of getting in the news feed. In another recent article, we discussed “EdgeRnak,” which is the basis for Facebook’s News Feed algorithm. A report from Buddy Media, which has built a business out of creating Facebook tools for businesses, and counts many major brands among its clients, provided these tips to keep audiences engaged. Posts with higher engagement are more likely to appear in the News Feed:
1. Ask questions
2. Post games and trivia
3. Interact with fan engagement
4. Incorporate wall sapplets (polls, coupons, etc.)
5. Incorporate relevant photos
6. Relate to current events
7. Incorporate videos
8. Post content for time-sensitive campaigns
9. Include links within posts
10. Be explicit in your posts
In social media in general, you might say you get back what you put in. Earlier this month, we ran an article from Brian Solis, who said, “Social media is as effective as its design. The ability to deliver against brand lift, ROI, or an established set of business and operational metrics and KPIs is all in the design. I believe you can not measure what it is you do not, or do not know, to value.”
He pointed to a study from Vocus and MarketingSherpa, which looked at the effectiveness of various social media marketing tactics, finding that effectiveness very much reflects the degree of difficulty for different strategies. In other words, it’s probably not going to be as effective if it’s really easy, but if it takes more effort, it’s likely to work better. Here’s a graph from the study that illustrates this:

Solis offered the following tips:
1. Start by understanding who you’re trying to reach and what it is they value
2. Design programs that meet the needs of each segment
3. Dissect the keywords and clickpaths of your desirable segments and develop a thoughtful SMO program
4. SMO is only as effective as the content and destinations its meant to enhance. Develop content and click paths that matter and deliver value on both sides of the transaction.
5. Identify the individuals and organizations that influence your markets. Learn what it is they value and develop engagement programs that offer tangible value (what’s in it for them and their audiences).
6. #Engage
In reality, it’s hard to say with any confidence that every Facebook fan you have is worth a set amount of money to your business. People may even forget that they even “like” your brand over time, if it’s not appearing in their News Feed frequently. That said, it does seem pretty clear that there is value to be had in Facebook fans if you’re willing to engage them and give them reasons to value you. Value isn’t a one-way street.
Maybe you should look at the brands you “like”. Why do you like them? What’s in it for you? If you have a good reason for “liking” a Page, they’re probably doing something right. Are you doing the same things right as a reflection of your own brand? Do enough things right, and the value of “liking” your page will go up for the consumer, which in turn is bound to make that consumer more valuable to your business.
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

source:http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-fans-worth-2011-06

Monday, June 20, 2011

Google Adds HTTP Header Support to rel= “canonical”

Google is now supporting link rel=”canonical” relationships specified in HTTP headers. Evidently this was heavily requested, as the feature is in response to webmaster feedback.
The syntax can be found in this document. Google Webmaster Trends analyst Pierre Far outlines an example on the Webmaster Central Blog:
To see the rel=”canonical” HTTP header in action, let’s look at the scenario of a website offering a white paper both as an HTML page and as a downloadable PDF alternative, under these two URLs:
http://www.example.com/white-paper.html
http://www.example.com/white-paper.pdf
In this case, the webmaster can signal to Google that the canonical URL for the PDF download is the HTML document by using a rel=”canonical” HTTP header when the PDF file is requested; for example:
GET /white-paper.pdf HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
(…rest of HTTP request headers…)
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf
Link: ; rel=”canonical”
Content-Length: 785710
(… rest of HTTP response headers…)

Far also notes that the canonical tag in HTTP headers might help when a site serves the same file from multiple URLs, such as a content distribution network, when the webmaster wants to let Google know the preferred URL.
The support is for web search only.
Last month, Google’s Matt Cutts discussed some reasons (which are few and far between) why Google might skip your canonical tags:
If you’re unfamiliar with rel=”canonical” altogether, watch our interview with Cutts from when it was first launched:
About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 
source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-adds-http-header-support-to-rel-canonical-2011-06

Facebook Launches Send Dialog


Facebook has announced the launch of the Send Dialog, building off the momentum of the Send Button, which has been added to over 100,000 sites in the first 30 days of its launch, according to the company.
“It resembles the Feed Dialog, but gives people the ability to share a link as a private Facebook message, email or Group post,” says Ravi Grover on the Facebook Developer blog. “The Send Dialog is better than the Send button for deep integrations because it enables developers to build sending messages into the core flow of their website or app.”
“The new dialog was designed for activities that a user may want to only share with specific people, which makes it particularly useful for ecommerce, travel, and event websites,” Grover adds.
It even lets you pre-populate a user in the “to” field, which is interesting.
“Facebook Messages are intended for high quality conversations between friends, not impersonal, unwanted messages,” he explains. “Apps on Facebook should use Requests to let people communicate in-game status, invite friends to use an app, or send messages to multiple people. The Send Dialog is appropriate when a person might otherwise send a personal email.”
As with the Send button, the Send Dialog should be able to help drive targeted traffic to websites, since people are sharing content with very specific friends or groups.
The Send Dialog can be seen in action at Airbnb, Gogobot, Keepsy, Jetsetter, SniqueAway, and Viagogo. You can get the code for it here. It doesn’t require any special user permissions.
The feature is not currently supported on mobile devices.
About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 
source:http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-launches-send-dialog-2011-06

Google Launches “Me on the Web”

Google has released a new feature called “Me on the Web.” It’s a reputation management tool accessible from the Google Dashboard, underneath the Account details.
Google says the tool makes it easier to set up Google Alerts, and suggests search terms you may wish to monitor, and provides links to resources that offer information on how to control what third-party info is posted about you on the web. Product Manager Andreas Turk writes on the Google Public Policy Blog:
In recent years, it’s become easier and easier to publish information about yourself online, through powerful new platforms like social networking sites and photo sharing services. One way to manage your privacy on these sites is to decide who specifically can see this information, determining whether it is visible to just a few friends, family members or everyone on the web. But, another important decision is choosing how you are identified when you post that information. We have worked hard to build various identity options into Google products. For example, while you may want to identify yourself by name when you post an answer to a question in a forum so that readers know the response is reputable, if you upload videos about a controversial cause you may prefer to post under a pseudonym.
However, your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you — whether a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update. When someone searches for your name on a search engine like Google, the results that appear are a combination of information you’ve posted and information published by others.
Me on the Web
As far as I can tell, there’s not a whole lot new going on here. Me on the Web simply shows you what links you have attached to your Google Profile, which you could also see by actually going to your Google Profile (and which you presumably already know, since you set them up in the first place), a link to Google alerts, and a couple of Help Center articles about reputation management. This is all accessible from the Google Dashboard, which there is a good chance you hardly visit. At best, it looks like just another access point for this info. I guess the alerts suggestions could be mildly helpful.
All of that said, Me on the Web certainly can’t hurt anything. If it makes a few more people, a bit more conscious of their online reputation, that’s not a bad thing by any means. It should also serve as another subtle reminder to Google users that they have Google profiles (which provide a landing page for those Google social products – Buzz and +1s).
About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-me-on-the-web-2011-06

American Cities According to Twitter

Have you ever wondered what United States cities would actually be called if they let the internet name them? By analyzing tweets, Inbox Q has given us the answer. Did you know that Twitter users commonly refer to Milwaukee, Wisconsin as “Milwacky?” Nope, I didn’t either.
Inbox Q is a service that crawls Twitter for questions about specific companies or brands and streams them for the people who should be concerned with questions, say a customer service department, or a marketing department. They say that they started Inbox Q because they “realized that there were lots of questions being asked by people on Twitter but most weren’t receiving very useful answers. In fact, most questions go completely unanswered on Twitter.”
They sorted through millions of tweets and discovered that only about two-thirds of those tweeters used the proper place name to describe where they were. They then compiled this fun little infographic to show the odd names that Twitter users give large American cities.
Nicknames like “Gotham” for New York and “Nawlins” for New Orleans aren’t anything new. In fact, I was pretty sure once that New Orleans was actually “Nawlins.” But some of the nicknames the Twitter users give our cities are strange to say the least. “Shark City,” “El Chuco” and “Miami of Canada” are new ones to me.
It thrills my heart that Twitter users call San Diego “Whale’s Vagina,” a reference of course to this scene in Anchorman
If they would have mapped my city of Lexington I’m sure it would have been “Horse Capital of the World” or “Lex-Vegas.” Check out the infographic below to see if your city has a wacky Twitter name.
America According to Twitter 
About Josh Wolford
Josh Wolford is a staff writer for WebProNews. He likes football, French New Wave cinema, and bacon. @joshgwolf on Twitter 
source:http://www.webpronews.com/american-cities-according-to-twitter-2011-06

Thursday, June 16, 2011

YouTube To Broadcast Copa America Tournament

No, the lead video does not come from the past Copa tournaments; I just wanted an excuse to use Jozy Altidore’s awesome goal against Guadalupe. Enter YouTube’s announcement about the live steaming of the 2011 Copa America soccer tournament.
Much like the World Cup, Copa America is a once-every-four-years tournament featuring a who’s who of great South American soccer teams, all of which are apart of the South American Football Confederation, or CONMEBOL. The 2011 tournament will be hosted by Argentina, and, as indicated, there are number of traditional soccer powers taking part, including current Copa champions, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. All in all 12 nations will take part, although, the two “stars” of the tournament are the Argentinians and the Brazilians.
Oddly enough, Japan’s national team was invited to participate — as was Mexico — but the recent natural disasters that rocked Japan caused the country to pull out of the tournament. Taking Japan’s place will be Costa Rica, who was invited to fill Japan’s vacated spot. As for YouTube’s involvement, this is not the first time they’ve streamed live sporting events, and while YouTube’s broadcast of the Indian Premier League’s cricket games was successful, cricket isn’t considered the most popular sport in the world, outside of the United States.
Considering soccer’s popularity, especially for the way the South American’s play the sport, odds are the Copa America streams will be consumed heartily by the masses. Of course, they’ll have to compete with Univision’s web broadcast, but what’s good for television channels fighting each other for ratings is also good for the Internet.
Concerning the Copa America broadcast, YouTube provided us with some details:

  • On the Copa America channel at youtube.com/copaamerica, soccer fans will have access to all 26 matches including pool play, semi-finals, quarter-finals and the championship match

  • Taking place across eight Argentine host cities this year’s tournament is expected to include an all-star roster representing household-name professional teams, including Lionel Messi (Argentina/Barcelona) Diego Milito (Argentina, Inter Milan), Robinho (Brazil, AC Milan), Diego Forlan (Uruguay, Athletico Madrid), and dozens more world class footballers.

  • The three week competition starts on July 1, with Messi and Argentina meeting Bolivia in La Plata and concludes with the final on July 24th.

  • Each match will also be available on-demand after the match concludes on YouTube.

  • From this writer’s perspective, the chance to see Lionel Messi is reason enough to alone to tune in. If you’re wondering why that is, wonder no more:

    As indicated, YouTube’s streaming of the Copa America tournament begins on July 1 and runs through the final on July 24, and all games will be available on the Copa America YouTube page. Considering the success of IPL cricket, it wouldn’t be surprising if the viewership of Copa America set some kind of YouTube record.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/youtube-to-broadcast-copa-america-tournament-2011-06
    About Chris Richardson
    Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news

    More to Google Offers Than Meets the Eye?


    Let me take you back to the beginning of the year for a minute. Groupon had recently turned down a buyout offer from Google reported at around $6 billion. Everyone was wondering what Google’s next move was going to be. Clearly they were interested in entering the Groupon/daily deals space. It was highly unlikely that Google was just going to give up on these aspirations because Groupon turned them down.
    Google’s Marissa Mayer did an interview with Media Beat, reminding us that Google already had some things that could compete with Groupon, and with the right integration and implementation of products, could be a viable player in the space.
    “I think that when you look at our overall suite of services, especially around our advertising, we already have some things that are like this,” Mayer said. “We have things like coupons and offer extension ads that allow merchants to basically make offers to our users. So we’re looking at how we can take that technology and put it to use, especially in the location space.”
    Here’s the full interview:
    Fast forward a bit, and Google officially launched its first Google Offers deals in Portland at the beginning of this month. The product is, for all intents and purposes, essentially a Groupon clone. While some may have dismissed Google’s entry into this space as just that, now comes an interesting discovery by Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling, which seems to fall more in line with a broader vision, and with Mayer’s discussion.
    Sterling happened across a Google “offer ad” in the wild (which has been known to be in testing), but when he clicked “view offer,” he was taken to an offer page with a button for “save to My Offers,” that when clicked takes you to a “My Offers” dashboard, which he describes as a “repository for several deal types that Google appears to have up its sleeve”.
    So, all of these Google-based offers would appear in the same place in your Google account, making for an easy way to access them, which could be huge for user engagement.
    In addition, the concept would seemingly give Google more flexibility in its own “offers” offerings – to delve more into other areas, such as location, like Mayer talked about, for example. The thing about Google is that it has so many products that it could find ways to integrate offers into. So many products tied to that one Google account. Think search, Gmail, Latitude, Places, etc. They have a lot of ways to potentially get offers in front of users’ eyeballs, and an email-style Groupon clone appears to be only a part of their strategy.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-my-offers-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 


    Compete: Comparing Our Data to Google Analytics is Apples and Oranges


    Compete, as you may know, provides analytics tools, and shows website traffic data on things like unique visitors, pageviews, visits, etc. The data is sometimes compared to Google analytics, and often tells a different story.
    We reached out to Compete to discuss this a bit, and Damian Roskill, Managing Director, Marketing at Compete tells us, “It’s really like comparing apples and oranges – both methodologies have their strengths and their weaknesses.  Google Analytics doesn’t actually track people – it tracks cookies.  This means that when people change computers, or delete their cookies, you can have double counting that goes on.”
    Compete’s methodology has four basic components. They are (as described in a Compete white paper):
    1. Multi-source panel – combines both recruited panelists and licensed clickstream data from partners, resulting in a very large and representative online consumer panel;
    2. Harmonization algorithms – proprietary processes and technology that work together to integrate Compete’s multiple data sources into a unified online
      consumer panel;
    3. Sophisticated normalization techniques – unique processes that weight, calibrate and project metrics across panel sources resulting in accurate base audience measurement data;
    4. Metrics that matter – analytics on site visitation, audience profiles, media exposure, search term usage, cross-shopping, conversion, competitive behaviors, and audience segmentation
    “In contrast, a panel is a sample-based approach – we track about 2 million US consumers – a percentage of the total internet audience here in the US – and then we use computer modeling to project behavior from our panel to the general internet audience,” says Roskill. “The upside is that a person is a person – you don’t have the double-counting.  The downside is that you can sometimes get undercounting of smaller websites.”
    “Also notice that we are currently only doing US consumers – so people often send us a Google Analytics number that includes all international users as well as US consumers – the two aren’t comparable in that way either.”
    Certainly an important point to note.

    “Bottom line, the approaches are complementary rather than either/or – what should make sense is that the two methodologies should be similar directionally.  But comparing the numbers doesn’t really provide much value.”
    In my experience, they generally are similar directionally in most cases.

    “What we think can be meaningful is combining the two approaches – essentially using a cookie-based approach and combine it with a panel based approach and use them to provide validation for each other,” says Roskill.
    The fact is that you can compare data from any number of analytics tools, and you’re going to get different results. It’s when they tell dramatically different stories that you need to investigate further. Luckily there are resources explaining how data is collected. Compete’s white paper, for example explains its methodology. Google Analytics has an entire help center, and there are plenty of articles on the web discussing it.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/compete-google-analytics-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 

    25 Ways to Get Another Site to Link to Yours

    This guest post was co-authored by Ken McGaffin and Susan Payton
    There are many ways to get other sites to link to yours, which helps in boosting your ranking on search engines.
    Here are 25 link-building methods you can use for your website.
    1. Pay for a Listing
    There are sites that will pay to host a link to your website, so if you’ve got the budget, this is your easiest method. This can be a great way of attracting traffic, but be careful that the site you’re advertising with follows Google’s webmaster guidelines.
    Paid links fall within Google’s guidelines as long as they are designated as advertising. You should do this by:
    • Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
    • Redirecting the links to a page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
    Fail to follow Google’s advice and you may adversely affect your site’s position in their search results.
    2. Join a Trade Association
    Oftentimes, trade organizations link to their members’ websites, so this is a great way to get more exposure for your site. A quick search will help you find many organizations that relate to the industry you’re in. Check to see that they have a member directory with links before joining.
    Join a trade association
    Many trade associations now have a good online presence and as part of their benefits publish links to their member’s websites.
    3. Get People Talking About Your Products
    People might be talking about your products right now. Would you know if they were? It’s easy to set up a free Google Alert to find out any time someone mentions your company or links to your site. This might come in the form of a product review, blog post, social media update or question in a forum about your products.
    It’s important to know who’s talking about you and respond to any questions or feedback (especially negative) immediately.
    4. Join a Local Group
    Just like with trade associations, local groups like Chambers of Commerce or business networking organizations will often link to their members’ sites. Find groups you want to be associated with and join.
    5. Be a Great Case Study
    By giving your opinion, taking surveys and connecting with the media, you can get a link to your site included in a case study or article. Let your opinions be heard, as it’s a great way to get some exposure online.
    Net Imperative - Be a Great case study
    Companies are always looking for good case study material. If you can help your suppliers communicate the benefits of their products, then links can follow.
    You likely fit into some category, whether it be as a young entrepreneur, senior entrepreneur, work-at-home parent or ecommerce specialist. Connect with others like you, and brand yourself as a representative of that group. Look for opportunities, such as the one that YoungEntrepreneur.com offers, to submit your story for more coverage of you and your company.
    7. Submit a Tip
    By providing useful information on your blog or website, visitors to your site will link to these tips and share with others. Also look for media leads like Help a Reporter Out, where journalists put out requests for tips or advice from certain types of people. You might get quoted in a
    newspaper, magazine or website.
    Submit a tip

    Submitting tips to industry journals or blogs raises your profile and brings nice links such as this one on The Woodworker’s Journal for Adam Rung.
    8. Piggyback Breaking News
    Pay attention to the news, and find ways to write blog posts or comment on relevant news. For example, after the news broke that the Clintons’ cat, Socks, had passed away, PetsPlace.com wrote an article on “10 Oddest Presidential Pets,” which was linked to by many other sites.
    9. Become a Valuable Resource
    Often, writers will compile a list of resources for an article. If you have a relationship with the writer or reporter, you might be included in that list. For instance, if you run a diner in Arizona, your restaurant might be included in a list of places to visit in an article about Arizona. At Wordtracker we set up an online marketing Academy that is packed with valuable advice – it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a month.
    10. Offer a Discount
    People love saving money, and they love sharing deals with others. Many bloggers specialize in finding coupons and sales and telling their readers about them, so make sure they know about your discount. During holidays, offer special themed discounts to improve visibility and links.
    11. Make a Donation
    While contributing to charity is good in and of itself, it can also provide good PR opportunity, as many organizations will link to contributors’ sites, or include them in a press release. You can issue a press release yourself about your involvement with a charity.
    12. Support Your Industry
    Whether you donate to industry organizations, attend meetings or just host a badge on your site, you may find that they respond in kind by hosting a link to yours.
    13. Be Unusual
    The more unique your business, the more attention it will get. Sites like CoolBusinessIdeas.com look for innovative companies to profile, and you can search for sites where you can submit your out-of-the-ordinary company.
    14. Give an Interview
    People make better stories than companies, so position yourself as an expert in your industry with journalists so that they will want to interview the person behind your company. Ask them to link to your website.
    15. Start Hiring
    Even posting jobs or internships that you have available can get you links. Human resources and hiring sites often link to other sites, so you might get linked to by dozens of sites from a single job description.
    16. Attend an Exhibition
    If you set up as an exhibitor at a conference or trade show, you may have the opportunity to get your link and company listed on the event’s website. Also offer to give quotes about your experience at the show to reporters.
    17. Buck a Trend
    If everyone else is suffering in a down economy but your company is thriving, ride this wave to get some publicity. Reporters look for anything that’s going against the grain, and that just might be your big break.
    18. Publish Videos to Your Site
    Video production is cheap these days, so create how-to videos, video blogs and interviews and host them on your site. Promote them through social media and email to get others to link to them.Publish videos to your site
    Yeti Coolers are stronger than ordinary coolers. And they’ve made some videos to prove it. The videos attracted links from the spearfishing community at SpearBoard.com
    19. Publish Videos on YouTube
    YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google, so it makes sense that posting your videos on here would drive traffic to your site. Not every video is viral-worthy, so focus on creating videos with useful content your customers will enjoy.
    20. Position Your Products as Gifts
    Bloggers and writers often compile gift lists for holidays, and your products and links could make these lists. Plan three months out to contact journalists about lists they’re working on in the future. So you should be pitching your best Valentine’s gifts in November.
    21. Help People Make Money
    Affiliate programs serve multiple purposes: first, they get other people to sell your products for you. Second, those people get to make money. And third, you get more links to your site. Set up an affiliate program that compensates people for writing about or linking to your site and making sales.
    22. Offer Healthy Products
    Health is still all the rage in the media, so if you sell products that are good for people, you increase your chances of getting media coverage.
    23. Partner with a Local College
    Your company might be a good partner for a local university. For example, you could offer special workshops or extend your company’s services or resources to the school. In return, you might be listed on the company’s website as a supporter.
    24. Ask for Help
    There are sites like MarketingProfs.com or Answers.com that allow you to ask for advice or feedback. It could be as simple as asking what web designers think of your website or whether your logo expresses what you want it to. You’ll get a link that anyone visiting that page will see.
    25. Get Blog Reviews
    There are thousands of blogs who review products. Identify the bloggers whose audience includes your target market and ask them to review your products. Be aware that some bloggers charge for their services, and you may also be required to give away a second product to one of their readers.
    Use any or all of these tips to start getting more links to your website today!
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/link-building-2011-06
    About Ken McGaffin
    Ken McGaffin is Chief Marketing Officer with Wordtracker, the keyword research company. He writes regularly on link building and online public relations and is the brains behind Wordtracker's Link Building tool

    Google Announces Instant Pages, Loads Results Before You Click

    Google made several big search announcements today, including Voice Search for the desktop and Search by Image for the desktop (like Google Goggles on mobile). They also announced a couple new “instant’ features.
    For one, at its Inside Search event, the company showed off Google Instant for image search, which will be available in the next couple months to all domains and languages where Google Instant is already available.
    They also announced something called Instant Pages, which speeds up how quickly you can access your search result (provided that the top ranked result is the right one for you). This is a Chrome-only feature. Google explains:
    Whether you’re typing, speaking, or using an image, entering your search is only part of the process. You’re not really done searching until you have the answer you’re looking for. But waiting for webpages to load adds time to this process – the average webpage takes about five seconds to load.
    With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you’re looking for faster with webpages that load instantly.
    For searches when we can predict with reasonable confidence that you’ll click on the first result, Instant Pages technology will begin loading that webpage early so that by the time you click on the result, the entire webpage appears fully loaded instantly.
    The above video demonstrates the feature in a side-by-side comparison with a normal Google search.
    Google has maintained for a while now that speed is a ranking factor in its algorithm. Now, Google is helping the page load process along itself, to some extent.
    The feature takes advantage of a prerendering technology, which is being baked into Chrome.
    The technology is currently in the Chrome Dev Channel, and will be rolling out in Chrome beta this week, with stable and mobile releases coming in the coming weeks.
    As most of Google’s new features are Chrome-based, it’s worth noting that the Google Chromebooks come out tomorrow.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-instant-pages-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

    Google Intros New Mobile Search Features

    Google had several announcements today at its Inside Search event. Some of them brought features that have been available on mobile to the desktop (such as Google Goggles and Voice Search). Google also revealed some new mobile features.
    For one, Google is displaying new shortcut icons on the Google for Mobile home page, to make it easier to find things nearby. There are icons for Restaurants, Coffee, Bars, and More. When you click More, you get other options like shopping, ATMs, gas stations, etc. This is also part of Google’s new Places homepage.
    “On the results page, you’ll see a map with markers for your current location and places around you,” explains Director of Engineering Scott Huffman. “When you scroll through the results, the map remains at the top of the page and adjusts automatically to the listing you are looking at. That way, you can see the listing information while still getting location context from the map. Tapping on a result will quickly show you more about a place including reviews and other useful details. Discovering great places nearby has never been easier on your mobile phone.”
    Google has also introduced a new way to build longer, more complex searches, with a feature that lets you add suggested phrases to the search box. The feature is already available on the Google Search app for Android and iOS, but now it will simply be available on google.com from the mobile browser. The following video illustrates how this works:
    The new features are available for Android version 2.2 and up, and iOS 4.0 and up in 40 languages, globally.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-mobile-search-features-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 

    Google Launches Search By Image

    Google announced the launch of a new image search feature today, which actually lets you search by an image itself, rather than text. Like voice search, this has been available on mobile for some time (via Google Goggles), but now it’s coming to the desktop.
    Google explains on its Inside Search blog:
    You might have an old vacation photo, but forgot the name of that beautiful beach. Typing [guy on a rocky path on a cliff with an island behind him] isn’t exactly specific enough to help find your answer. So when words aren’t as descriptive as the image, you can now search using the image itself.

    To search using an image, go to images.google.com and just put your picture in the search box. There are many ways to do this. You can click the camera icon in the search box and upload a photo from your computer or paste the URL of an image from the web. You can also drag and drop pictures from webpages or your computer into the search box. To search images on the web even faster with just one click, you can download the Chrome or Firefox extensions.
    Search By Image
    Google says the feature returns the best results for images that have related content already on the web, so you’ll be more likely to get relevant results for landmarks, paintings, and things like that, as opposed to images of your family. This is pretty standard for Google Goggles already.
    Google made it clear at its Inside Search event that it does not use facial recognition technology, surely thwarting any potential privacy complaints.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-search-by-image-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

    Every 3D Movie Ever Made


    Sony may have taken a beating over in their PlayStation 3 department, other arms of the Sony entertainment octopus has apparently been busy cataloging every 3D movie ever made in order to release a nifty infographic. While I’m not sure if the graphic was made to offer support for the style of movie-making, or if to inform the public about the upcoming swoon in regards to interest for the film gimmick, something that’s already shown its head, as audiences for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently demonstrated.
    The information in Sony’s graphic, besides listing all of the 3D movies, is fairly educational. It offers a distinction between the various methods of producing 3-dimensional films, and, in fact, the actual number of ways to simulate the third dimension is surprising. According to the graphic, there are 11 different methods listed to achieve the desired effect. Also of note, the graphic reveals the first film to use 3D was actually a 1903 short film called, L’arrive du train: Lumiere Short, and according to Sony’s research:
    This original short was probably shot flat, and was probably re-shot in 3D as late as 1915. Due to the lack of proper display technology, the film was probably shown on a modified Stereoscope, one person at a time.
    Nonetheless, it still counts as a 3D film. With that in mind, here’s the graphic in question, and you can view it in its entirety by clicking the following image (it’s over 10 MB):
    3D Movies

    One of the biggest trends that stands out is the trend-like life 3D movies enjoy. As pointed out by Slash Film, 3D movies make a comeback in regards to popularity every 30 years or so:
    The 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s all mark periods of interest in 3D cinema, and with the exception of the current 3D bubble, each has been followed by sharp drop-offs in 3D filmmaking toward the end of each of those decades.
    As for the current 3D bubble mentioned in the quote, perhaps the lackluster response to the latest PotC movie indicates it’s begun in earnest. Considering the absolute disdain critics have the for the technique, it’s surprising the current trend lasted as long as it did, but then again, that’s another conversation entirely because it deals with studios trying to charge as much for tickets as they can and 3D movies provide them with a reason to do so.
    The SeeMikeDraw blog covered this subject beautifully:
    3D movie pitch

    Booyah, indeed. The troubling/interesting thing is the amount of 2011 movies that have and will be presented in 3D. By a glance, the only year where as many 3D films were produced was 1953. Of course, if the current crop performs like the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, the trend could be over — at least until James Cameron makes Avatar 2.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/every-3d-movie-ever-made-2011-06
    About Chris Richardson
    Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.

    Google Launches Voice Search for Desktop

    Google has had voice search available for mobile for quite some time, but today at its Inside Search event, the company announced that it is bringing it to the desktop as well.
    To use the feature, you will click a button off to the side of the search box, and speak your query. Obviously, you’ll need a mic.
    To be honest, I’m not sure how often I would find myself using voice search from the desktop. Quite frankly, I don’t use it from my mobile device all that often. It’s just easier to type it, even from mobile, because all too often, it voice search doesn’t get the query right. I’m sure this will improve over time, and has already improved since it was first introduced, but I’ll still probably go to typing by default in most cases – especially on the desktop. That said, the feature has tremendous advantages in terms of accessibility for the disabled.
    “We train our systems on massive amounts of data,” Google says. “You cover the differences in pronunciation with learning algorithms.” More from Google’s blog post about it:
    You’ve been able to use Voice Search on mobile devices since 2008, but you’re probably so used to typing your searches that you don’t immediately think to use your voice. With Voice Search now available on desktop, searching by voice is becoming more ubiquitous and the idea of being able to speak your search will be more familiar, no matter what you’re searching for.
    Voice Search can be especially useful for long queries such as [pictures of big wave surfing in Waimea Bay] or words that are hard to spell like [Schenectady, New York]. It’s also a helpful option if you’re in a conversational mood and you’d rather ask your question out loud than think of the keywords to type. For example, maybe you just to find “a recipe for spaghetti with bolognese sauce.” Just click the microphone icon in the search box and ask out loud.
    For now, voice search from the desktop will only be available for Chrome, as it takes advantage of Chrome’s speech technology. It will be rolling out this week for all Chrome users in English. It really illustrates an interesting strategy of Google’s to enable new features to its core search product using its browser, which should only serve to generate more interest in the browser, which could also inspire more interest in its recently launched Chrome OS operating system.
    source:http://www.webpronews.com/google-voice-search-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

    Tuesday, June 14, 2011

    Google on How Much Content You Should Have On Your Home Page

    The latest Google Webmaster Central video from Matt Cutts talks about home page content. Given issues like content depth and site speed, which Google has brought up a great deal in recent memory, the content on your home page is worth considering with regard to these things as well.
    The question from a user, which Matt addresses is: “More or less content on a homepage?”
    Today’s webmaster video: How much content should be on a homepage? http://goo.gl/SE9ss 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto
    “You can have too much,” says Cutts. “So I wouldn’t have a homepage that has 20MB. You know, that takes a long time to download, and users who are on a dial-up or a modem, a slow connection, they’ll get angry at you.”
    “But in general, if you have more content on a home page, there’s more text for Googlebot to find, so rather than just pictures, for example, if you have pictures plus captions – a little bit of textual information can really go a long way,” he continues.
    “If you look at my blog, I’ve had anywhere from 5 to 10 posts on my main page at any given time, so I tend to veer towards a little more content when possible,” he adds.
    You can see Matt’s blog here, if you want a better idea of how he does it.

    Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-on-how-much-content-you-should-have-on-your-home-page-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

    Ranking Google Ranking Factors By Importance

    Rand Fishkin and SEOmoz polled 132 SEO experts with data from over 10,000 Google search results, and have attempted to rank the importance of ranking signals. It’s not confirmed fact, obviously. Google won’t provide such information, but I suppose the next best thing is the collective opinion of a large group of people who make their livings getting sites to rank in search engines, and Fishkin has put together an impressive presentation.
    Do you think Google is ranking search results effectively? Comment here.
    You can view the entire presentation here, but I’ve pulled out a few key slides that basically sum up the findings.
    The factors are actually broken down into the following subsets, where each is ranked against other related factors: overall algorithmic factors, page-specific link signals, domain-wide link signals, on-page signals, domain name match signals, social signals, and highest positively + negatively correlated metrics overall.
    The results find that page-level link metrics are the top algorithmic factors (22%), followed by domain-level, link authority features (21%). This is similar to the same SEOmoz poll for 2009, but there is a huge difference in the numbers, indicating that experts are less certain that page-level link metrics are as important. In 2009, they accounted for 43%.
    Search Ranking Factors
    Page-specific link signals are cited as metrics based on links that point specifically to the ranking page. This is how the results panned out there:
    Page-specific linking factors
    According to Fishkin, the main takeaways here are that SEOs believe the power of links has declined, that diversity of links is greater than raw quantity, and that the exact match anchor text appears slightly less well-correlated than partial anchor text in external links.
    Domain-wide link signals are cited as metrics based on links that point to anywhere on the ranking domain. Here is what the poll looked like in this department:
    Domain Level linking factors
    The report compares followed vs. nofollowed links to the domain and page, finding that nofollow links may indeed help with rankings:
    Nofollow
    On-page signals are cited as metrics based on keyword usage and features of the ranking document. Here’s what the poll looked like on these:
    on-page factors
    Fishkin determines that while it’s tough to differentiate with on-page optimization, longer documents tend to rank better (possibly as a result of Panda), long titles and URLs are still likely bad for SEO, and using keywords earlier in tags and docs “seems wise”.
    Here is how the domain name extensions in search results shook out:
    Domain extensions
    Here are the poll results on social-media-based ranking factors (which Google has seemingly been putting more emphasis on of late):
    Social Factors
    Fishkin suggests that Facebook may be more influential than Twitter, or that it might simply be that Facebook data is more robust and available for URLs in SERPs. He also determines that Google Buzz is probably not in use directly, as so many users simply have their tweet streams go to Buzz (making the data correlation lower). He also notes that there is a lot more to learn about how Google uses social.
    Andy Beard has been testing whether links posted in Google Buzz pass PageRank or help with indexing of content since February 2010. He is now claiming evidence that Buzz is used for indexing.
    Danny Sullivan asked Google’s Matt Cutts about the SEOmoz ranking factors survey in a Q&A session at SMX Advanced this week – specifically about the correlation between Facebook shares and Google rankings. Cutts is quoted as saying, “This is a good example of why correlation doesn’t equal causality because Google doesn’t get Facebook shares. We’re blocked by that data. We can see fan pages, but we can’t see Facebook shares.”
    The SEOmoz presentation itself has a lot more info about the methodology used and how the correlation worked out.
    All of the things covered in the presentation should be taken into consideration, particularly for sites that have experienced significant drops in rankings (because of things like the Panda update or other algorithm tweaks). We recently discussed with Dani Horowitz of Daniweb a number of other things sites can also do that may help rankings in the Post-panda Google search index. DaniWeb had been hit by Panda, but has seen a steady uptick in traffic since making some site adjustments, bringing up the possibility of Panda recovery.
    Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable polled his readers about Panda recovery, and 4% said they had fully recovered, while more indicated that they had recovered partially. Still, the overwhelming majority had not recovered, indicating that Google probably did its job right for the most part (that’s not to say that some sites that didn’t deserve to get hit didn’t get hit). In that same Q&A session, Cutts said, “The general rule is to push stuff out and then find additional signals to help differentiate on the spectrum. We haven’t done any pushes that would directly pull things back. We have recomputed data that might have impacted some sites. There’s one change that might affect sites and pull things back.”
    A new adjustment to the Panda update has been approved at Google, but has not rolled out yet, he says. This adjustment will be aimed at keeping scraped content from ranking over original content.
    Home Page Content
    There have also been other interesting bits of search-related information coming out of Google this week. Cutts posted a Webmaster Central video talking about the amount of content you should have on your homepage.
    “You can have too much,” said Cutts. “So I wouldn’t have a homepage that has 20MB. You know, that takes a long time to download, and users who are on a dial-up or a modem, a slow connection, they’ll get angry at you.”
    “But in general, if you have more content on a home page, there’s more text for Googlebot to find, so rather than just pictures, for example, if you have pictures plus captions – a little bit of textual information can really go a long way,” he continued.
    “If you look at my blog, I’ve had anywhere from 5 to 10 posts on my main page at any given time, so I tend to veer towards a little more content when possible,” he added.
    Who You Are May Count More
    Who you are appears to be becoming more important in Google. Google announced that it’s supporting authorship markup, which it will use in search results. The company is experimenting with using the data to help people find content from authors in results, and says it will continue to look at ways it could help the search engine highlight authors and rank results. More on this here.
    Search Queries Data from Webmaster Tools Comes to Google Analytics
    Google also launched a limited pilot for search engine optimization reports in Google Analytics, tying Webmaster Central data to Google Analytics, after much demand. It will use search queries data from WMT, which includes:


  • Queries: The total number of search queries that returned pages from your site results over the given period. (These numbers can be rounded, and may not be exact.)


  • Query: A list of the top search queries that returned pages from your site.

  • Impressions: The number of times pages from your site were viewed in search results, and the percentage increase/decrease in the daily average impressions compared to the previous period. (The number of days per period defaults to 30, but you can change it at any time.)

  • Clicks: The number of times your site’s listing was clicked in search results for a particular query, and the percentage increase/decrease in the average daily clicks compared to the previous period.

  • CTR (clickthrough rate): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click to your site, and the increase/decrease in the daily average CTR compared to the previous period.

  • Avg. position: The average position of your site on the search results page for that query, and the change compared to the previous period. Green indicates that your site’s average position is improving.To calculate average position, we take into account the ranking of your site for a particular query (for example, if a query returns your site as the #1 and #2 result, then the average position would be 1.5).


  • This week, we also ran a very interesting interview between Eric Enge and Bill Slawski addressing Google search patents and how the might relate to the Google Panda update.
    Back to the SEOmoz data. Do you think the results reflect Google’s actual algorithm well? Tell us what you think

    Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-ranking-factors-2-2011-06
    About Chris Crum
    Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

    Facebook Loses Members in U.S. & Canada, Still Dominates the World

    The good news for Facebook is that it is still growing. Over the month of May the social network snatched up another 11.8 million users. In April they gained 13.9 million new accounts. And according to Inside Facebook, the service is just a hop, skip and a poke away from 700 million total users worldwide (687 million by the beginning of June).
    So what’s the bad news that comes along with those numbers? Well, overall it’s that the growth is not exactly as large as Facebook is accustomed to. In the average month over the last year or so, Facebook gained at least 20 million new users. When you know that stat, 11.8 million new users in May and 13.9 million new users in April doesn’t sound as impressive.
    It also looks like some early-adopting countries may have run up against the wall.
    The United States apparently did not just have a slow growth month, but actually lost Facebook traffic. Facebook lost almost 6 million American users during the month of May, from 155.2 million to 149.4 million. Canadian users dropped less dramatically, but still significantly with a 1.52 million user loss. Other places like the U.K. and Norway also had losses, albeit smaller figures like 100K.
    Later adopting countries posted solid May users growth, however, with Facebook in Thailand growing 7.1%, Brazil 10% and Mexico 7.6%.
    What could be the reason for the loss of 6 million Facebook users in the U.S. over the course of one month? Has Facebook hit its peak in America, and so the only place to go is down? It’s unlikely that Facebook is becoming significantly less popular here, although the rise of other competitors for social media real estate could have some impact.
    When you look at the numbers, you have to think – just how much of a country can realistically be expected to join Facebook? Inside Facebook notes that their Gold Facebook data suggests a slow down when countries reach around half the population connected to the site. At the beginning of May 155 million people had Facebook accounts, and the total population of the U.S. is a little over 300 million. Did we simply hit the 50% threshold?
    But a couple million users loss in early-adoption countries shouldn’t be too troubling to Facebook, as they continue to take over the world. Seriously. Take a look at this map -
    See all that blue? Now, take a look at this one -
    These maps are courtesy of Vincos Blog, who has been analyzing traffic data from Alexa and Google Trends for the past few years. The maps show the top social network sites in each county. As you can see, Facebook dominated in 2009, but has continued to expand and take over in 2011. According to their data, 119 of the 134 countries studied are led by Facebook.
    Europe is now the most Facebook-heavy continent, with 205 million users. Also, next time one of these maps comes out, that big purple country in South America will most likely be blue according to the numbers.
    One more interesting find – Twitter and LinkedIn are on the rise. Since December of 2010, the two networks have moved into second and third place respectively in the States. Twitter is also now the second place social network site in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K.
    Is Facebook’s spot on the throne in any jeopardy worldwide? Definitely not. They will continue to paint the map blue in coming months. But it is entirely possible that Facebook has gone almost as far as it can go in countries like the U.S. When you claim half the population, it’s hard to ask for much more. Maybe the month of May was simply a blip, and Facebook will grow 15% in June, who knows? And the future? I’m sure their ultimate goal is right around 100% American membership.

    Source: http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-loses-members-us-still-dominates-world-2011-06
    About Josh Wolford
    Josh Wolford is a staff writer for WebProNews. He likes football, French New Wave cinema, and bacon. @joshgwolf on Twitter