Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

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Feedburner and FriendFeed: FailBurner

09.06.25

FailburnerFeedburner is probably one of the most-used services available for bloggers. Its RSS analytics, promotion and advertising features have made it a staple of many peoples’ blogging toolkits.

FeedBurner was also a first mover in the market, enabling it to attract a large number of people before viable competitors appeared. Thanks to its purchase by Google, it has been able to take advantage of the powerful Google Analytics system to enhance its statistical reporting.

That’s fortunate, because the team at FeedBurner seems to be doing everything in its power to alienate its users.

Inconsistent Reporting

On one hand you have the random blips in FeedBurner stats, where they tell you that half of your subscribers have disappeared overnight. That alone would be a significant issue for a service providing analytics – for sites publishing those numbers (especially those using those numbers to sell advertising) consistency is critical.

This problem is just that, though – a problem. Frustrating and unacceptable, yes, but still a problem that gets fixed.

Contrast that with the latest silliness.

FriendFeed? Huh?

In the last week, FeedBurner users may have noticed a significant jump in their RSS subscriber numbers. For this site, my total subscribers increased by 25%. On another site of mine, they jumped by 1860%.

This wasn’t caused by a technical problem. The reason for this is that FeedBurner now counts a person’s FriendFeed subscribers in their blog RSS subscription count.

Personally, I completely agree with David Spinks’ take on this. The fact that I subscribe to someone’s FriendFeed doesn’t mean I subscribe to their blog. It means I subscribe to their FriendFeed.

To me, this completely undermines the relevance of FeedBurner’s subscriber numbers. I get essentially zero referrals from FriendFeed, but this site now apparently has another 600 subscribers.

Communications fail

There was no direct communication to users around this change. The only reason I found out was because I noticed the big jump and looked closely at the stats. Where’s the option to turn this off? Where’s the communication with FeedBurber users?

Frankly, this could be the last straw for me. I’ve used Feedburner for several years now, but given that Feedblitz is taking a run at FeedBurner, they finally have a competitor. I may give FeedBlitz a try.

What do you think about this change?

Posted in: Google, social media, tools

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Be Careful What You Put In Writing

09.02.12

Ian Capstick wrote yesterday about an online bust-up between National Post technology reporter David George-Cosh and marketing consultant April Dunford on Twitter.

All of the gory details are over on Ian’s site; I’m not interested in piling-on to either side of this. However, it does raise one very important reminder, which I coincidentally posted on Twitter the other day:

Be careful what you put in writing

Given April’s comments on Ian’s blog post, I suspect (though can’t confirm) that both of them regret the incident (indeed, the National Post has apologized). However, they will now be captured in Google and it’s cache for a long time thanks to the blog posts that have sprung up around it and the widespread reaction to those posts.

Most of us have written, and subsequently regretted, things in the past. Perhaps not as bad as yesterday’s example, but this a useful reminder that:

  1. When you post something online, you’re not just talking to one other person – you’re potentially talking to tens, hundreds or even thousands of people.
  2. What you write may be out there forever, whether you like it or not.

What’s your take on this situation?

Posted in: Google, social media, Twitter

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SearchWiki: Six Implications For Public Relations Professionals

08.11.24

Google recently announced SearchWiki, a way for people to customize their search results by promoting, deleting, adding and commenting on search results. I see six implications of this change for digital public relations and marketing professionals if this becomes a popular feature:

  1. Another place to monitor
  2. Increased customer interaction
  3. Control by the customer
  4. Advantage goes to the existing players
  5. More expensive Adwords
  6. (Unconfirmed) SEO potential

First, though, a few basics for those of you that haven’t heard much about this yet…

What is Google SearchWiki?

giggle Essentially, Google SearchWiki represents the “diggification” of Google that has been discussed on sites like Googlified and Valleywag for a long time now. This, in its own way, turns Google search results into a wiki, where people can promote, relegate and comment on search results for every search term.

At a practical level, SearchWiki means that when you’re logged-in to Google you’ll see three new buttons alongside each of your search results:

  • Promote – moves the item to the top of the list of results
  • Remove – does exactly what it says
  • Comment – lets you leave a public comment about the result

There are also links at the bottom that let people add new sites to the results page, and allow people to see the notes that other people have made about their search results.

Why are they doing this?

I see a couple of reasons why Google has done this (and no, altruism isn’t one of them). Both of them relate to advertising:

  1. People are likely to spend more time on Google now – in the past, success for them was people finding what they were looking for and leaving Google quickly;
  2. People may come to Google (even) more as they can tailor the results for their commonly-used search terms
  3. People will increasingly see their own preferred sites in the search results, making Google Adwords an increasingly important way of getting noticed

Why should PR professionals care?

First, a caveat: I don’t know what proportion of Google users have (and use) a Google account. I suspect it may not be that high, but that’s just a suspicion. If the numbers are low, relatively few people will have access to these features so their impact may be limited.

Should Google SearchWiki take off, it has several important implications for public relations and digital marketing professionals:

  • Another place to monitor – The comments on search results represent another place where people can publicly comment on your brand
  • Increased customer interaction – For companies going beyond simply monitoring online conversations the comments on search results for your brand are yet another place to engage your existing and potential customers.
  • Control by the customer – Assuming SearchWiki becomes popular, it has some important implications for search engine marketers. For those working in good faith to legitimately optimize sites, they may see an increased return on their efforts. However, black-hat SEO people beware – if you somehow manage to ‘game’ the system but your site isn’t relevant, people will be able to simply remove the site from their future results. What’s more, while Google won’t currently use peoples’ voting when determining search results, there also remains the possibility that they will begin to in the future. Given Google’s data-driven nature, I’d be astonished if they don’t eventually do something with that data.
  • Advantage goes to the existing players – As people increasingly tailor their search results, the companies that are already in the game have an increasing advantage. The more results that people promote in their list, the harder it will become to break through into the first page of results.
  • More expensive Adwords – This directly relates to the previous point. The harder that it becomes for companies to break through into the first page of results, the higher demand will be for Google’s ads on those results, and the more expensive the ads for those pages will become.
  • (Unconfirmed) SEO potential: This may open up a whole new aspect to SEO – trying to optimize your SearchWiki comment results. There are just rumours and rumblings about this, though.

Conclusion

If SearchWiki becomes popular, it has some pretty important implications for digital PR and marketing.

I’ve outlined the six areas that I see implications for; what else do you see?

Posted in: Google, public relations, search

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Which Sites Are You Deeply Engaged With?

08.10.30

Last month, Yahoo and ComScore released the results of a joint research project which showed that our of an average of 85 websites that people visit each month, people are really only “deeply engaged” with about 1.5 of them.

Stopwatch The article got me thinking about the sites that I am really engaged with; the sites which I visit almost every day and on which I spend most of my online time.

I’m a little more active online than the ‘average’ person – I can think of five sites with which I consider myself “deeply engaged”:

  1. Google – without doubt, this is one of the sites I use the most. If Google didn’t function properly one day… well, I’d use another search engine… but aside from that I’d be quite put out.
  2. Twitter – whether I’m on the site itself (which I do with increasing frequency as I continue to have problems with Twitter’s API limits) or accessing the service through a desktop or mobile application, I probably use Twitter more frequently than any web service other than Google.
  3. Google Reader – usually the first website I check each day – I do still scan mainstream newspaper sites, but I pull most of my reading material into Google Reader. I spend more time actively using this site than any other.
  4. Facebook – I’m getting back into Facebook as time goes on and I increasingly look to use social media tools to keep in touch with my non-techy friends. Most of them use Facebook so I can still be a geek while staying in touch with them.
  5. Delicious – as with Twitter, I often interact with delicious in irregular ways (usually via the Firefox extension). However, I use it multiple times every day, whether I’m adding to my 1,000+ bookmarks or pulling resources out of them. I use it to track media coverage, to compile my reading lists, to save resources… the list goes on.

Does this resonate with you? Which sites are you really, deeply, engaged with?

(Image credit: Daino_16)

Posted in: facebook, Google, social media, tools, Twitter

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Why Your Small Business Needs To Get Online

08.08.20

No matter how small your business is, if you don’t have an online presence you’re missing a huge opportunity.

I’m currently helping to organize an outdoor event in Southwest Ontario for a client. I needed to find a company from whom we could rent a large tent for the event.

Where to start?

Google, naturally.

To my amazement, I couldn’t find any search results for tent rental companies in that area. I tried several combinations of keywords; nothing useful or still in business. I got a few results for the rest of the province and a few defunct companies, but nothing useful.

This isn’t to say there weren’t any companies out there. Soon enough, through a little leg-work, I found a company. By that point, though, every other company in the area had missed the boat.

One simple website, optimized for appropriate search terms (like “tent rental” and the town name), would have owned those search results and won the business for its owner (or, at least, won the chance to pitch us their services to me). Instead, all of these companies missed their chance.

Even if you’re a sole proprietorship, you’re missing out if your company is not online. It doesn’t take much:

  • Buy your domain name ([YourCompany].com, .ca, .org etc.) and establish your site (or pay someone else to set it up)
  • Add your business to Google’s Local Business Centre

I would also consider numerous social media activities depending on the situation and the business (blogging, social networking sites, community engagement, etc.), but two things above are an absolute minimum for even the smallest business.

Nowadays, if you don’t exist online you might as well not exist.

Update: Mitch Joel talked about this very topic – getting started online – in a recent episode of Six Pixels of Separation.

Posted in: Google, marketing, search

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Did Facebook Traffic Outgrow MySpace Last Year?

08.06.21

The web has been buzzing over the last few days about Facebook passing MySpace in worldwide traffic recently after the release of new Comscore figures, but did Facebook pass MySpace a while ago?

Google just announced Google Trends for Websites – a new feature of Google Trends that, rather than just looking at search trends, lets you view visitor trends for your favourite websites.

Here’s what the new service shows for Facebook.com and MySpace.com

Facebook v MySpace

(Source: Google Trends for Websites)

According to this chart, Facebook passed MySpace for unique visitors in November 2007.

This raises an interesting question – which of these services should we trust? What’s the difference between comScore, Google Trends, Alexa and Compete? How accurate are they?

Posted in: facebook, Google, MySpace, trends

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Wetpaint: Merging Wikis With Discussion Forums

07.11.11

I just discovered Wetpaint – a free wiki-hosting site that fully integrates a discussion forum into every wiki.

This site is very cool – it produces great-looking sites and has already attracted big names like CSI: NY, Food & Wine magazine, fuse.tv and Mythbusters as clients. According to a recent release, Wetpaint currently hosts almost 600,000 wikis.

The company announced last week that discussion forums are now integrated into every page of each wiki. As Techcrunch put it:

Posts can be tagged, the view expanded/contracted, there are email notifications of new messages, and the search feature works well. Any forum thread can also be turned into a wiki with a couple of clicks.

On top of that, all of each site’s posts (from every page) are also pulled together in one central forum, where you can view them by keyword tag.

Alongside the simple, easy-to-use interface and neat discussion forums, Wetpaint has a few other cool features:

  • Facebook Application: Lets users create wikis on their Facebook page
  • OpenID: Users can use their OpenID to sign in to any Wetpaint site
  • Google Analytics: Wetpaint helps users understand how their site is performing by tracking use through Google Analytics.

Ad-free wikis for educators are another nice touch. Wetpaint supports most of its wikis through ads on each site. However, they’ve introduced ad-free sites for teachers to let them use wikis in the classroom.

(One other thing – it looks like Wetpoint has a top-notch support team – a few people noted concerns through the comments on Techcruch’s coverage, and Wetpoint responded to each of them within a couple of hours.)

Why is this useful for marketers? Because it further reduces the barriers to consumer participation. By introducing a user-friendly, attractive interface and multiple ways to get involved, Wetpaint makes it easier to encourage contributions and start conversations.

Posted in: facebook, Google, social media, web 2.0, wikis

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California Wildfires – Using New Media to Communicate In A Crisis

07.10.23

Immediacy is one of the great things about new media/web 2.0.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the coverage of the devastating wildfires down in California recently.

I’m fully aware that crisis communications must focus on traditional channels – TV, radio, print – in today’s media environment. However, quick and responsive new media tactics provide the ability to communicate directly with citizens that those channels do not.

Allen Stern at CenterNetworks wrote a great post about web 2.0-based coverage of the fires on Monday. His post provides a useful list of the ways some people have used new media to post up-to-the-minute information on the fires.

I’m going to focus on my perspective of how corporations have used this technology to respond.

What The Mainstream Media Is Doing

Here are a few of the best examples of ‘new media’ use from the mainstream media:

What California Is Doing

To my surprise, the state of California has a very useful resource at www.calfires.com (although it seems to be up one second, down the next due to high traffic). However, while the resources are useful, I’m surprised at their lack of uptake of new technologies on the website.

The site does have an interactive map. However, on close inspection it turns out that the map is actually from the KPBS News site mentioned above.

Why didn’t California take the bull by the horns and turn its own site into a communications hub during the crisis? Why not do what the news outlets did and use this technology to provide up-to-the-minute updates?

What California Could Do

In addition to what the state is currently doing, it could :

  • Create its own interactive map with the latest updates from citizens and let news organizations embed that in their sites
  • Let citizens upload their own photos and integrate them into the map
  • Set up a blog and a Twitter feed (and integrate them) to give the latest updates on evacuation orders, all-clears, etc.
  • Create an RSS feed (or feeds) to push updates out to people
  • Aggregate news from mainstream outlets to provide a one-stop newsroom
  • Write clearer news releases
  • Do this all centrally, bump their generic information down or off their state’s homepage and give more space to updates on the fires.

Why?

Because they have the necessary website traffic

Google "California Wildfires." Two of the top five links are government websites.

Heck, we don’t even need to wonder if people are going to the government’s website – their CAL FIRE Incident website crashed under the increased traffic.

The LA Times twitter feed, at time of writing, has 96 followers. The San Diego Union-Tribute Help Blog doesn’t even have subscriber stats on Google Reader.

With the traffic going to government sites, they could push information out much more effectively to many times more people.

Because they have the necessary resources

Newsrooms have limited staff. The government, however, has far more extensive resources. Add in the potential for citizen contributions and you have a powerful tool for emergency information.

Because now is not the time to bury information

In a crisis like this, information should be front and centre. The less searching people have to do, the better.

This also goes for news release-writing. If you’re announcing a new toll-free hotline for donations, don’t bury the phone number in the third paragraph (however, check out how their ‘email/share’ button works – interesting). Put it right at the top.

Because no-one will complain about having to look a little harder for vehicle registration information right now

I’m not a crisis communications expert (although hopefully some of you are and I’d love to hear your comments). However, I do know that when the President declares a state of emergency for your state and 750,000 people flee their homes, your list of "highlights" on your home page should not include:

  • Small business seminars
  • A jobs website
  • A link to a DMV video on YouTube
  • A kids’ website

Sure, these are all valuable initiatives but I really don’t think they need to take up space on the homepage right now. While the crisis is full-blown, the state could dedicate a lot more real estate on its main homepage to providing useful information to its citizens.

——-

California is doing a decent job of providing information online to its population in the midst of a crisis. However, with a bit of innovative thinking, they could do a lot more.

Posted in: blogging, crisis communications, Google, media, social media, Twitter, web 2.0

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My Social Media Life And Why Walled Gardens Don’t Work

07.10.21

While out running recently, I re-listened to a Six Pixels of Separation podcast during which Heidi Miller talked about the social media overload in her life. I got to thinking about how I feel about social media overload and the implications it has for the tools I use.

I first dipped my toe into creating content on the web back in 2000 when I managed the website of a division of Hitachi Europe Ltd. I’ve maintained my own personal website since then, but I’ve only recently launched myself headlong into social media.

I can’t believe how much my life has changed since then.

I plotted a timeline of my adoption of web 2.0 tools this year. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s sufficient to make my point:

This isn’t a linear chart; if anything, the increase is exponential:

One look at my average day shows the central role that social media plays in my life:

I love this new lifestyle. I’m always connected. Nothing I do happens in a vacuum any more. I’ve met a tonne of new people. What’s more, my lifestyle accomodates my new-found passion, so I don’t have to sacrifice anything except time to accomplish all of this.

There’s just one cloud on the horizon – the chart above.

The line can’t keep going up. There isn’t enough time in the day.

I see three options:

  • Option #1: Burn-out
  • Option #2: Level-off
  • Option #3: Aggregate

Option #1: I can continue to use more tools and burn out (no thanks).

Option #2: I can stop using new tools, or I can keep using new ones and let a few less valuable ones drop off. I can see this happening, but it would be more through necessity than choice.

Option #3 Find ways to keep up with multiple tools through one interface. I like this option. A lot.

I already have a few tools to do this:

Twitku is a great tool that lets me watch and update my Twitter and Jaiku feeds at the same time.

Google Reader lets me keep tabs a bunch of sites. As a result, I only need to check sites like Technorati or Facebook occasionally.

iGoogle lets me watch Twitter, Gmail, Google Reader and GTalk while accessing my Google Notebook, TinyURL and Google Docs… all from one page. Vista’s sidebar does a similar job, although with less gadgets available for now.

What ties all these applications together? Information sharing.

In a world of information overload, walled gardens don’t work.

In the future, tools will only fit into my toolkit if they’re opened-up. I need to aggregate their information through other tools. RSS feeds, open APIs and widgets are essential.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe I’m the only one thinking this way.

Companies need to share information through these tools or risk falling into obscurity.

Posted in: blogging, facebook, Google, podcast, social media, social networks, Twitter, web 2.0

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5 Questions From ‘New Media’ Newcomers

07.10.14

I attended an IABC seminar this week where Cyrus Mavalwala and Joseph Thornley explored the transition from ‘old’ to ‘new’ media.

Joseph structured his presentation around some interesting questions posed by the audience. Five questions in particular captured my attention, so I thought I’d share my perspective on them:

Why Should I Care About Blogging?

I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this question – it will depend on you, your situation and your objectives. However, I don’t think there’s any question – if you work in PR or marketing, you should care.

Joe Thornley used the case study of Jeff Jarvis and his experience with Dell to effectively illustrate what can happen when companies don’t pay attention.

I’d like to focus on a slightly broader picture. In brief, here are five reasons why I think you should care about blogging and more broadly about social media in general:

  • Important: social media isn’t about the technology; it’s about people. Blogging, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku – they’re just technologies. Don’t focus on them. As PR pros, we need to focus on the consumers on the other side of the technology. Increasing numbers of them communicate through social media. You can’t control those conversations, but don’t you want to be part of them?
  • You might not care about social media, but does your company’s target market? If they care, you should
  • Social media gives you a chance to build a relationship with customers and thought leaders in your field
  • When something goes wrong, people go to your website. You need to be able to respond quickly; blogging allows you to
  • You can’t get instant credibility in the blogosphere – you need to build it up over time by engaging in conversations either on your own blog or on others. When something goes wrong, people will go to your website. You don’t want to have to establish credibility while simultaneously managing a crisis
  • It’s true, you can’t control conversations on today’s Internet. However, wouldn’t you rather conversations involve you rather than revolve around you?

Why Do You Do It?

I have two blogs – this one and The Toronto Runner. My motivations for each are different in most respects, but I’m passionate about both of them.

I use this blog as a way to:

  • Educate myself more about PR, social media and marketing
  • Stay on top of emerging trends that will impact public relations
  • Share my thoughts and perspectives on topics that I find interesting

I use my running blog to:

  • Share my passion for running with other people
  • Provide accountability – it motivates me myself to push myself harder
  • Pass on tips and routes for local runners

I Have A Podcast; Do I Need A Blog?

This leads me to a wider discussion of new media and how people view it.

I think it’s important for PR professionals to treat new media technologies as tactics, not strategies.

We shouldn’t look at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and their kind and wonder how we can make them work. None of them are one-size-fits-all solutions. If they’re appropriate to a situation, use them. If they’re not, don’t.

In relation to this particular question, it may well be that a blog would help the podcast. However, without looking at the bigger picture, you can’t know for sure.

For a great example of what I mean, check out this audio excerpt from How To Do Everything With Podcasting by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. They discuss using podcast to solve a problem rather than as a strategy by itself.

What Sources Do You Use?

Again, this answer is very contextual. I blog mainly about my thoughts on emerging PR tactics, not on mainstream “news.” Therefore, I tailor my reading accordingly:

How Do You Find Time?

There’s no avoiding it, staying on top of all the emerging new media technologies takes a lot of time. I’m fortunate in that I’m fascinated by it so it doesn’t feel like work, but sometimes I still have to consciously make time for life outside the web.

My job currently doesn’t directly involve any of these online activities so I try to work them into my day as seamlessly as possible:

  • I limit my blog reading to three periods each working day (I read the rest in the evening):
    • When I get to work
    • During lunch
    • When I’m about to leave
  • I listen to podcasts while commuting and when I’m out running. I run for between 60-90 minutes three or four times a week, so that adds up
  • I use Twitter via instant messenger on my mobile device so I can do it on the move

There’s no way I can, in good conscience, take time during my work day to write a blog post, so I do my blogging and social networking in the evenings.

So there you have it. Five questions asked by people new to the world of blogging, web 2.0 and social media, and my humble perspective.

Posted in: blogging, facebook, Google, podcast, social media, social networks, Twitter

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