Social media : Distinction from traditional media

Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media themselves. Social Media Optimization is improving the linking structure of the websites by making it highly visible in social media searches.

Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. The social media sites typically use tools like message boards,forums,bookmarks, communities etc.

Social media has a number of characteristics that make it fundamentally different from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio. Social media does not have a finite limit: there are no set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments or even editing the stories themselves. Content in social media can take the form of text, graphics, audio or video. Different formats can be mixed. Social media is typically available via feeds, enabling users to subscribe via feed readers and allowing other publishers to create mashups.

Social Media is a term that is used for a broad spectrum of topics, and has several different connotations, however in the context of internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties that primarily driven by the users. For example, blogs, discussion boards, vlogs, video sharing sites and dating sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get one's content more widely distributed across multiple Social Media networks.

There are two sides to Social Media, the first side is known as SMO as stated above. This refers to on-page tactics that a webmaster can do to improve their website for the age of social media. Such optimisation includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and for these services.

Social Media Marketing on the other hand is the off-page characteristics of Social Media. This includes writing content that is remarkable, unique and news-worthy. Marketing this content can be done by trying to get the content 'popular' on the services mentioned or even creating a video that is likely to be viral on the likes of Youtube and other video sites. Social Media is about being social so this off-page work can include getting involved in other similar blogs, forums and niche communities.

Source: http://www.searchengineoptimiser.biz

Google Takes StarOffice For Its Pack

Google is adding Sun Microsystems' StarOffice suite to Google Pack, its freely downloadable collection of productivity software. The software is available immediately.

Google Pack is quite a collection that includes Google Earth, Norton Security Scan, Google Desktop, Firefox with Google Toolbar, Adobe Reader, Skype, RealPlayer and other Google products.

StarOffice is Sun's commercial version of OpenOffice, the open source office suite that is available from Sun for $69. The $69 fee gets you product and technical support from Sun along with indemnification from any legal action.

"That's really what you're paying for," Mark Herring, senior director of marketing for Sun, told Internetnews.com. "If you couldn't care less about support, then Google has a distribution for you."

He added StarOffice also has a few extra features OpenOffice does not have, like an extra spell checker, Web search and some conversion filters. Both support Open Document Format (ODF) and can read Microsoft Office documents.

Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft, thinks this is more of an effort to get the low-hanging fruit than a real effort to take a chunk out of Microsoft's bread-and-butter Office business.

"Google has been competing with Microsoft at the low end of Office for some time, so this is a further expansion of Google's strategy," he told internetnews.com. He said StarOffice has some shortcomings and is not a worthy replacement for Office in a business/enterprise market, but it's perfect for users with fewer demands.

"I'd say [StarOffice] is not so much a competitor to Office today as Works, the free software a lot of people get with their PCs," said Helm. "Of course, they would love to sneak into the enterprise market, but considering the functionality StarOffice is offering, I don't think most enterprises would look at it seriously."

Mostly, he sees StarOffice as a way for Google to get into the desktop, and perhaps extend its Web-based application offerings, Docs and Spreadsheets, or perhaps create some connection between StarOffice and the online applications.

Source:www.internetnews.com

Mobile Social Networking on the Rise

Mobile media authority M:Metrics today released its first ever measurement of mobile social networking, revealing that 12.3 million consumers in the United States and Western Europe accessed a social networking site with their mobile device in the month of June.

Not unexpectedly, America had the largest audience for mobile social networking sites with 7.5 million (3.5% of all subscribers) accessing a social networking site from their device at least once in June. The U.S. was followed by Italy (2.8%), the United Kingdom (2.5%), Spain (2.3%), Germany (1.9%), and France (1.7%). MySpace and Facebook were the most popular sites accessed in the United States and United Kingdom, while MSN reigned in the rest of the countries surveyed. MySpace’s U.S. and UK numbers were 3.7 million and 440,000 respectively, while Facebook came out to 2 million and 307,000 users, respectively. YouTube was third the United States with 901,000 mobile visitors, and Bebo rounded out the top three in the UK with 288,000 mobile users. Unsurprisingly, those under 25 are the most active users - the 13 to 17 demographic reigned in France, German, Italy, and Spain while the 18 to 24 college crowd were the most active in the U.S. and UK.

Of course, a lot of these numbers are dependent on the availability of these social networks across operator portals. MySpace had strong distribution, appearing on the Amo’d, AT&T, Helio, and NExtel decks. Facebook was distributed on Spting, AT&T, Virgin, and Amp’d decks and YouTube was available on the Verizon deck. YouTube’s numbers are likely to go up because of its inclusion in the iPhone deck, which was not released at the time of the survey. In the UK, MySpace has distribution on Vodafone and Bebo on 3, but interestingly MSN is not offered on-portal anywhere. This shows that while there is strong correlation between popularity and being on-portal, off-portal activity is emerging as well.

It’s clear that the industry is noticing the compatibility between mobile devices and social networking sites. Some more on this from Mark Sullivan at PC World:

“Still, a lot of people believe that mobile social networking is going to be huge, especially as faster wireless networks become available. Meanwhile, mucho venture capital continues to flow into mobile social networking tech in its many forms.

What is it about mobile devices and social networking that make them a match made in heaven? Is the urge to social-network so strong that we simply can’t wait to get home to do it? Or will new mobile social networking services simply do things that static, desktop-based sites cannot? Will mobile devices take social networking to a whole new level? If the future is really ‘unwired’ and ‘always on’ as they tell us, then people will demand it.”

We’ll have to keep our eyes open for the next advances in mobile social networking. Pretty soon we may see contact lists consolidated between Facebook and your phone book, for example. Either way, if you’ve ever felt that getting home to check who just posted on your wall takes too long to bear, rest assured that you’re not alone.

Source:www.searchviews.com

Social networking evolves

"Evolution is fascinating to watch"
Shana Alexander

We are an electronic civilization and as it spreads deeper our family, professional and social lives are getting increasingly electronic. While sms today speaks the language of our personal and professional relationships, the web and internet are increasingly driving our personal and professional lives. Consider the case of social networking. Orkut probably has been the largest facilitator of getting old friends and family together in the recent history. Perhaps Google itself didn't anticipate the revolution Orkut would bring about and has only recently started taking the "Orkut business" seriously. Social networking has become such a huge revolution that by the time I write this there must be atleast a good triple figure clone of social networking sites on the web. It isn't any longer about just a forum where millions of Internet users connect, express themselves and communicate. Social networking is now evolving to another level and getting into areas as interesting as jobs to food and much more. Revenue models unknown before are evolving around social networking sites.

Food on your network - iFood.TV

How about a site where you can connect with other people with diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and countries, make friends, chat about shared interests etc. All this sounds quite mundane for a social networking site, right? Ok then how adding an ingredient of culinary traditions and culinary curiosity. IFood.tv does exactly that. It's probably the only site that focuses on connecting people through food. What's more you can load and create your own videos, you can use text (blogs, comments) or pictures or video to interact with other foodies. Hence people who love food can create their own online food channel, it could be either textual (blogs, comments), pictures or video. There is more you can upload your own recipes along with learning and sharing with others foodies. iFood.tv goes further you can even view multiple channels or simply decide which cuisine you want to focus on. According to the iFood.tv founders Nitin Agarwal, Sharib Khan and Alok Ranjan "The common thread is simple- share and spread your love for food."

Online Recruitment gets a social networking twist

The growth of social networking can be gauged by the fact how it is spreading into our social and professional lives. If iFood.tv was about taking food on the network and a bit on the personal front then on the professional front sites like techtribe.com and yellojobs.com are adding a twist to online recruitment by combining a social networking angle to it.

We all have heard about job sites. Techtribe.com and yellojobs.com have brought the power of personal referrals in recruitment. While techtribe.com has a program called 'frontfoot' which they claim is the world's first referral recruiting service of its kind. A simple successful referral could earn Rs 10,000 plus more for other referrals. Plus they have a quality control mechanism to keep the weed out.

Yellojobs.com on the other hand recently introduced a referral driven online recruitment service, called YelloRewards, under which employers can offer cash rewards to those who refer their friends to the posted jobs. The company hopes to place over 50,000 candidates annually by this model. The revenue model is also a bit different in terms of subscription. While other job portals charge a subscription fee from companies, yellojobs.com allows them to place ads for free, provided they pledge to pay cash reward to the referrer when they hire a candidate. The reward amount could be Rs 5000 or more.
Taking social networking seriously
Social networking is about serious business now. Consider the case of Google renewed emphasis on Orkut and the activities it is conducting there now. Earlier this month Google conducted an opinion poll on the Orkut site to celebrate India's 60th Independence along with its users. The seriousness can be gauged from the fact none other than Google India's Managing Director, Shailesh Rao sent a message to its users saying, " We are proud to be a part of India's 60th Independence celebrations and know that the energy, enthusiasm and conviction so apparent throughout Orkut communities will be on display as we ask users for their opinions through this poll. Orkut has always been associated with youthfulness and zeal and w e are very pleased with the response and affection that Indian users have shown towards Orkut."
On the other hand the success of these sites can be seen from the fact iFood.tv is about to launch a new feature called the ifood explorer based on a p2f2p (person-to-food-to-person) concept. According to the founders "The purpose of this is to simply reflect the interconnections or the links between multiple individuals in the network, a host of foods, food products, restaurants and relevant information."

The Last Word

Social networking with a twist is the new mantra in the world of ecommerce. As our friends, jobs, foods get transformed into their electronic avatar one wonders what's next on the agenda.

Source:www.hindustantimes.com

Google is Being Hacked Using this Technique

According to a fascinating release from search marketer Dan Thies, Google has been aware over a year now (that he knows of) of a method to destroy a website's ranking. The method is called proxy hacking.

What is a Web Proxy?
First, it is important to understand that in their simplest form proxies are servers that act as a relay for Internet requests. Web proxies are often used to allow people to surf the net anonymously by forwarding their requests for content and then delivering the content to the users. This is similar to sending mail to a person through the post office except that in this case there is no return address or any identifying information. For a more detailed explanation here is Wikipedia's definition.

Here is essentially how this Google hack works:

1. All is well; your website is www.xyzname.com and it is currently listed in the top 10 in Google for 'xyz'.

2. A hacker comes along and decides that your listing for 'xyz' needs to be removed (perhaps for competitive reasons or out of spite). So the hacker gets Google to spider your website through a proxy. The address that Google would be given to index might look like this:
www.proxysrus.au/proxy/www.xyzname.com/

3. When Google indexes this new URL it looks legitimate and Google's filters will soon recognize that the content being indexed is exactly the same as www.xyzname.com. As a result, in the cases that have arisen so far www.xyzname.com loses its ranking and the freshly indexed proxy URL has effectively eradicated the competition.

So how is this hack technically accomplished?
Well I am with Dan Thies on this one, I have no interest at all in sharing the specifics because the last thing I want to do is enable more evil in the world. In addition, since I have never seen such a thing done I can only postulate how it would be accomplished. That said, I think it is reasonable to share the problems that would need to be surmounted to make such a thing work:

1. When the proxy URL is requested the server would have to provide the search engines with zero suspicion that a proxy was delivering the information. This includes URL syntax, URL length, server header information and latency.

2. The proxy URL would have to appear authoritative.

3. The proxy would need to be able to thwart the proxy hacking prevention measures that Dan has laid out within his informative article. At this time it appears the only proxies that are having some success are the ones that strip all browsing information so that the 'hack proof' sites cannot tell whether the traffic is legitimate or not. If they can't tell then they will not know to block Google from spidering their site through the wrong URL. Again even that attack has been rebuffed by Dan and his team by enabling noindex and nofollow tags on his client's sites UNLESS a verified search engine is visiting.

Source:www.stepforth.com

Esther Dyson: If Google Is the New Microsoft, Facebook Is the New Google

Well known Silicon Valley start-up investor Esther Dyson appeared on Charlie Rose a few days ago to give her reading of the current tech space. It turns out that Dyson is actually more interested in space and biotech these days, but she did offer an interesting comment regarding the social media business. Asked if Facebook is the new Google, Dyson said, “[It is] if you think Google is the next Microsoft.” So, is Google the new Microsoft? Dyson said, “It could well be.” I’m one of Dyson’s biggest fans from way back, so I always find her insights valuable. But in this case, I think she got part of the equation right.

There is no doubt that Google is the new Microsoft. The company's global reach, revenue and cash war chest prove that to anyone paying attention. I also agree with Dyson that what Google really wants to do is make search so highly personalized that the company will be able to “predict” what you want to: find, buy, watch, etc. But due to privacy concerns, Google is waiting for smaller companies to normalize the idea of personalized search and let others bear the initial brunt of privacy concerns highlighted by special interest groups. Where Dyson, in my view, gets it wrong is with Facebook. As one of the Wired team accurately pointed out weeks ago, unless Facebook becomes truly open, it’s really just the latest hot online club until the next one comes along.

Possibly the strangest moment during her appearance came when Rose took the opportunity to tap into Dyson’s mind as a tech consultant and asked how he could use the Web to raise money for his show. Her answer, in short: Put a PayPal donate button on your website. And—bang!—just like that, Rose saved a $50k Web consultant fee.

Source:www.wired.com

Google's AdSense to distribute videos

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Short Internet videos from the creator of the animated TV show 'Family Guy' and Raven-Symone, star of the Disney Channel show 'That's So Raven,' will be distributed over Google Inc.'s AdSense network, it was announced Thursday.

Media Rights Capital, the financing company that backed last year's film 'Babel,' is supporting the two projects. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The programs will appear in a video box that a user would click on to start. The box will be packaged with banner advertising and video ads that will appear either before or after the programming.

The videos will be distributed to numerous Web sites served by AdSense, which places targeted advertising across the Internet. AdSense signed a similar distribution deal last year with Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks.

Media Rights Capital will work with Google to target Web sites most appropriate for its content, the company said.

'We feel this partnership answers the question of how best to reach viewers online, because the Web is fragmented into millions and millions of viewing destinations,' said Asif Satchu, co-chief executive of Media Rights Capital.

Seth MacFarlane, creator of 'Family Guy,' will produce short videos featuring new characters, while Raven-Symone will be in a 'how-to' show, the company said.

The company said the distribution deal was preferable to aggregating content on one site. Distributing content through AdSense means the videos reach a broader audience, which would include new sites as they pop up.

Source:www.abcmoney.co.uk