Social Networking

To start off a new blog after months we're going to play a little word association. Completely blank out your mind, and tell me the first word or thought that pops in your head when you think - 'social network'. I'm going to venture a guess that most of you thought of things like: family, friends, connection, marketing. Asking Jonathan Klein, president of CNN, he might think of things like: worry, competition, campaign.

During a BusinessWeek Media Summit, Klein was quoted as saying, "The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites. That's an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us."

He then elaborates as to why he fears social networking, "The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. . . . Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news. We don't want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you. . . . So I'm far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox."

Reading his comments, I think Klein is worrying over very little. If anything, I would be ecstatic for social networking if I were a news source. First, I don't know anyone who's out in the world trying to uncover scoops to post on their Facebook accounts. Until we all become investigative reporters I wouldn't worry too much about people solely receiving their news through their social networking contacts.

Instead of being fearful of the social world, adapt to it like other industries are. When people link to news they find online, make sure they're directing it to your source. Instead of losing viewership, you've just used social networking as a means to gain viewers. Nothing to be scared of, right?

I did a bit of digging to see how much a presence CNN has on social networking outlets. I was astounded to find what little presence they have on Facebook. They've only posted one link on their Facebook page, while their site has a slew of news to scour through. Don't even bother trying out their Facebook app, which has the latest news occuring on February 20th. Their Twitter account is much better handled, with more stories being posted. And a ton of retweets going their way.

Scared of social networking? Come on Mr. Klein, there's nothing to fear but fear itself.

Happy December everyone!

In exactly 3 days it will be Christmas. If you have kids, just remember to wrap Santa's presents with different paper (a tip from your friendly, neighborhood Mowaffaq Tahir :). Ok, moving on, it's time to present this week's Moment of Zen. For our moment we'll be looking at Netflix, and a new lawsuit the online movie rental company will be combating soon.

I'm guessing at least some of you reading this have a Netflix account. If so then you should know the company is being sued for sharing private information with other users, and anyone on the internet who's interested. If the lawsuit proves successful, it would mean Netflix violated fair-trade laws, and federal privacy law, not to mention their own privacy policy. A trifecta, indeed.

This all started with a contest, where Netflix gave 50,000 contestants an opportunity to make the company's recommendation algorithm better. A honorable enough pursuit, however, it's within the execution where things get muddled. In order for the contestants to develop the algorithm, they were provided data from 480,000 customers which contained - movie ratings, date of rating, a unique ID number, and movie info.

Ok, so no names were provided and it appears anonymity was protected. Unfortunately, this didn't turn out to be the case. Here's a direct quote on how users were able to be found with the information provided: "So it wasn’t surprising that just weeks after the contest began, two University of Texas researchers — Arvind Narayanan and Vitaly Shmatikov — identified several NetFlix users by comparing their “anonymous” reviews in the Netflix data to ones posted on the Internet Movie Database website. Revelations included identifying their political leanings and sexual orientation."

Yikes! The lawsuit was presented by a Jane Doe, an 'in-the-closet' lesbian who's afraid she could potentially be outed due to this information. I have to say researching this story taught me how personal people take their movie renting, and rating habits. The real kicker is that the information is now out on the public web for marketers to get a hold of, and you can bet they're going to use this information for financial gain.

I'm not a mind reader but I truly believe Netflix wasn't trying to be nefarious in this. They were however irresponsible with how they handled information, and when you're a corporation that big handling private information should be handled with complete discretion. I am glad someone has stood up and held them accountable, as this could be a good lesson for them moving forward.

On a personal level, I honestly could care less if it's my info which was used. Here's my Top 5 Favorite Movies of All Time: Braveheart, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Batman (1989), The Incredibles, and The Lion King. If you can devise some kind of marketing strategy, or discover something on a personal level from my favorite list, then I applaud you. I hope everyone enjoyed their Moment of Zen today, and have a great holiday.

Bing and Ping

Bing, are you a fan? If you aren't a fan then you might have some incentive to become one, on Facebook that is. If you do decide to 'fan up' on Facebook then you'll be privvy to Bing's latest project - 'Bing and Ping'.

What is 'Bing and Ping' you ask; well I'd be happy to explain. Microsoft has this crazy notion that social media and search can fuse together and work off each other. Is it crazy enough to work though? Ok, actually it isn't crazy and I have to say it's pretty savvy of the big house of M to give it a shot.

So, how it works is that when you search for something on Bing you'll be provided an option to share your results with others. On their community Blog, football and flights are used as an example. So, if you're searching for a flight time and want others to know when you're leaving you can share it through Bing's search results. Right now they're showing four options, Facebook, Twitter, Email, and a simple copy.

I think that the idea for this is novel in concept. Bing can only stand to gain from this in my mind. First, you're in better graces with two of the most popular websites on the internet. Secondly, you're in a way virally marketing the Bing name. If one person shares something, then that person will link to someone else. Before you know it people are binging and pinging all over the place.

The one problem that I have with this idea is the name. Bing and Ping? Do we really need it to rhyme? What happens when they add more features like having the ability of a friend to reply back, will it be a 'zing'? Or if you provide the ability to text message a search result, 'ring'? Before you know it you've got yourself a rap song: Just got on Bing, gave my friend a ping, just hit me back with a zing, figured I'd give my other boy a ring. :) Yea, let's not do that.

AP Charges $12.50 To Quote 5 Words

If there's one word, or thought that has really changed in the past decade it's 'journalism'. Ten years ago you thought of a journalist as someone who was on the TV reading you the news, or a reporter writing in a newspaper. Nowadays, anyone can be a journalist. Hell, you can almost call what I do journalism.

You can bet that this change of cultural definition concerning journalism has many of the traditional outlets upset. Don't believe me? Check out this story, reporting that the AP is going to start charging for having their content quoted. For example, if I wanted to quote something from the AP here and it was 20 words long, then I would owe them $12.50.

I almost couldn't believe this story when I read it. I could understand them charging if the person quoting them wasn't linking back. I guess it really comes down to how much they value their incoming links. I really don't want to relish on this too much, as it has been known for awhile that the AP really has no clue how to handle the online arena.

The story that really has me interested is from the New York Times, and it concerns YouTube. Earlier in the year, YouTube launched a service called 'News Near You'. It's a platform that generates videos concerning news in your nearby area. It's still relatively new, so not many affiliates have signed up yet. Where I live, only one news affiliate has posted videos on the channel.

This scenario is interesting, because station owners have a decision on their hands. Do they try and build traffic to their own site where they receive greater revenue? Or dance with the YouTube devil and get their company name out there and take a hit for ad revenue? Talk about some tricky market analysis; have fun with that one you experts.. ;)

How To Identify If Your Website Has Been Penalized

In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), there are 2 definitions for the sanctions that can be placed on your site by a search engine. The first is a penalty, and the second is a filter. Each one has different causes and remedies, but if you've dropped out of the first few pages of results then there are SEO issues that need to be addressed.

What is a penalty?

Generally speaking, a penalty is one of the worst sanctions you can get from a search engine. It can involve losing all of your page rank and essentially having your site "de-listed" from the search results. Penalties are caused by violations of search engine guidelines including cloaking, keyword stuffing, spamming, and using prohibited or "black hat" optimization methods. A penalty is more difficult to fix than simple filtering.

What is a filter?

A filter is considered any factor applied by the search engine that moves your actual ranking below the position it should occupy. For instance, if you normally had a #1 ranking but a search engine wanted to penalize you for over optimization, you could end up in the #30, #95, or #950 position on the search engine. Normally when the filtering factor is changed or removed, your search engine ranking will go back to its proper position within a few weeks.When a site or page is filtered, you are still getting indexed and cached by the search engine.

What Causes Filters to Get Applied by Search Engines?

• Duplicate Content - Pages on your site, another site owned by you, or a competitor's site have substantially similar or identical content. Even if your site had the original content, a search engine may consider it to be duplicated if it was found on another website first.
• Over Optimization - Obvious optimization tactics can trip up a search engine filter, sometimes even unintentionally. If you have too many keywords, too many links pointing to a page with the same anchor text, too many instances where site content elements (Title tag, Header text, and regular text) match up with anchor text, or keyword stuffed internal site linking, then you can be tripping up an over optimization filter.
• New Site - Also known as a "sandbox" filter, new sites are generally filtered by search engines. This filter has been put in place to keep people from spamming search engines with multiple new URLs containing questionable content. Essentially, your site will need to earn the trust of the search engine, and time is a factor in trust. In some cases a new site can avoid this type of filtering, but usually the factors involved are beyond even advanced optimization.

What kinds of filters can get applied to my site?

There are 3 Major Filter Types:

• Keyword filters - If you find yourself filtered for only a few key phrases, and especially the ones for which you are using heavy anchor text linking practices, then a keyword filter may be to blame.
• Site wide filters - If your whole site has been impacted, than there is a factor that is causing your whole site to lose rankings. If your site is new, it is likely filtered.
• Link filtering - Links to your site may have lost popularity. Search engines continually reevaluate all sites on the internet, and link popularity involves hundreds of factors. If a powerful site linking to yours lost its trust for any reason, the link to your site would lose its value and you would see a rankings drop. Therefore, it is always best to diversify your inbound link popularity.

The benefits of Firefox and Internet Explorer

I find it humorous that something as simple as a web browser has such a profound impact on people. Some people live and die by a certain one. I've gotten into heated discussions with people regarding the benefits of Firefox and Internet Explorer. Depending on who I'm arguing against, I'll take one side over the other. Just because I'm a huge fan of debating.

I've heard all the compelling points for browser support. IE displays content in a way that is more pleasing to the eye. Firefox has security measures that you won't find on any other browser. Those are just a couple of arguments I've heard before.

The truth I find is that the more I use various browsers, the more I find that they're the same. Of course there are some subtle differences. If you're a very particular person then Firefox has a slew of add-ons to take advantage of. However, that doesn't make it the great escape from IE that everyone makes it out to be. At the end of the day, both products bring us the glorious internet.

The debate of web browsers in my eyes paints a perfect picture of the idiocies of human behavior. We become so engrained in thinking a certain way, or staying with a certain product that we can't be told anything different. I believe I've mentioned it before in my writing, but think about the debate between Coke and Pepsi. Which one is better you ask, well that depends on who you talk to.

Along with Firefox, and Internet Explorer there are a slew of other browsers out there. All of which do primarily the same thing -- act as a portal for the world wide web. So, what little things keep you from using one web browser over the other? Are you a designer and hate all the browsers, with the intricacies you have to mind when designing a site? Come on, I know you're out there.

Client Management (for Web Designers)

I've noticed that some design studios or web design companies offer private client areas, whre the clients can login and do some things. Having never actually been into any of these areas, I've always wondered what kind of information or what kind of special resources you would offer your clients in such a client area where they would have to login?

I'm considering having some kind of web-based client management system to better service my clients and be able to keep all of my web design related communications in one place instead of scattered in my email inbox among other things like personal emails.

Additionally, your client may actually be a group of people more likely than not, say for example if you're doing a job for a company where the President, VP or director of sales all want a say in the design process. Having a client management system would be a better way to centralize communications for everyone involved.

My question, for web designers, is what kinds of features would you make available to your clients in this client management system to most effectively service them. Some things that immediately come to mind is:

- Some kind of messaging system, that would work just like emails, just all consolidated in the system

- A progress bar that I can update manually to show them at what percent I believe their project is complete, with an ETA of their web site.

- Scheduled Billing system, set up to properly charge the client on their quoted invoice. (Like for example, charge 50% of the total invoice when 50% complete, then require the client to pay the rest, then make their files available in the client area once paid)

Anything else? These are just the basic things I deal with for any client via emails.