Google's social side hopes to catch some Buzz | Relevant Results - CNET News
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google is determined not to be left behind by the social-media revolution.
The company wants to take what it does best—organizing Web content by relevancy—and apply it to social media, perhaps the most disorganized segment of the Web. Google Buzz is its most ambitious attempt to do just that, marrying the Gmail Web interface with status updates and media-sharing technology in an attempt to convince the social media addicts of the world to spend more time on Google’s sites than on competitors like Facebook or Twitter; generating valuable data in the process.
“It has become a core belief of ours that organizing the social information on the Web is a Google-scale problem,” said Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager, demonstrating Google Buzz at the company’s headquarters a day before Tuesday’s event. An astounding amount of social-media content is produced every day, across Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and personal blogs, and Google’s faith that it could one day index and organize the entire Internet has been shaken by this explosion in Web content.
Somebody has to try, according to Google engineers. “A lot of the world’s information is what’s happening with my friends,” said Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product management at the company. “We can’t achieve (Google’s) mission unless we solve these parts of that problem.”
However, they see not only an opportunity to unify the social Web and make things easier for users, but a chance to erode Facebook’s advantage in the reams of user data it has amassed behind closed walls that Google—and Google’s advertisers—can’t see. The only way they’ll be able to do that is by creating a system that is as compelling and easy to use as Facebook.
Google is attempting to do this by taking Gmail, one of its more popular products, and integrating Buzz directly into the Gmail interface. Users can link their Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, and Google Reader accounts to their Buzz streams to see information produced by friends on those networks, as well as updates posted directly to the Buzz stream.
One of the selling points for Google Buzz is a “recommendations” algorithim that Google says will help you organize social media content. (click for larger image).
(Credit: Google)Google thinks it can build a competitive advantage in social media by focusing on relevancy and ranking within a social network. For example, Buzz users will be able to see all the content produced by those who they are following, but they’ll also be able to see content produced by people they aren’t following if their friends “liked” or commented on that content.
They’ll also be able to train that algorithm by clicking “Not interested” on these “recommended” status updates if they don’t wish to see that particular type of update again. Google thinks users might see an advantage if they can lower the ranking of oft-repeated types of content—such as the what-I-had-for-breakfast update—without having to banish that friend’s content from their feed.
The idea is to take the thinking behind core Google concepts such as PageRank and quality score and apply it to social media, and Buzz is an early example of that process at Google, Jackson said. Expect to see further updates, as Buzz fits right into Google’s classic strategy of launching a product as soon as possible and making constant updates.
Getting Buzz when you’re on the move
And on the mobile side of the world, where social media can be combined with location, Google wants to allow phone users to see a wealth of data about what’s happening around them and get in on the location-aware services bandwagon.Google Buzz for Mobile will essentially be a competitor to services like Foursquare and Gowalla, allowing users to “check in” by updating their Buzz status with a Google Maps link to their location. You’ll be able to do this right from Google’s mobile home page, and Google is also releasing a Web application for Google Buzz that will work on iPhones and Android phones.
And within Google Maps for Mobile, the company’s improved mapping application, users will be able to see public Buzz content posted from mobile phones around their location, said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google. That includes quick reviews of restaurants in the area, updates on traffic snarls further along the route, or anything else imaginable.
For those who haven’t drunk from the Foursquare pitcher just yet, bear in mind that the location part of a Buzz status update is opt-in: you’ll have to manually declare your location, and can post Buzz updates without having to share your exact whereabouts.
This brings up a key factor in how Google is pitching Buzz. In order to attract users, it has to offer enough privacy safeguards to allow them to live their online lives in a semi-private fashion. But it also wants to open up that data to the wider Web, where it can be analyzed and dissected to glean information about trends that advertisers demand.
One of the issues with a service like Facebook is that so much of its content is walled-off from search engines and the general public. That’s nice for users, but bad for search engines and marketers, and so Facebook has gently tried to encourage its users to open up their profiles.
Buzz users can choose to make a new post public or private before publishing. Public messages are distributed to one’s followers, but they are also posted to one’s Google Profile, where they can be searched, indexed, and viewed by anyone. Private Buzz messages can be sent to an unlimited number of subgroups within one’s follower list, separating work contacts from drinking buddies, family and groups of friends that don’t travel in the same circles. That would appear to give enough cover to those who want to make their online lives semi-public, but also placate Google and its advertisers’ hunger for data on how people are spending their time both online and offline.
Buzz will take some time to gather the momentum that other social media sites have enjoyed. For example, one key omission is the inability to update those external service from within the Buzz stream: you can’t update your Twitter feed with your status with a Buzz post, even though you can see what your Twitter contacts are doing in Buzz.
Google said it was working on that feature, but declined to say why it decided to leave that out at launch. Presumably, the company would prefer to build a network within Buzz that keeps those updates in house, at least at first. But those who have already established themselves as frequent Twitter users might not see a lot of value in a service that doesn’t allow them to post to Twitter.
2010 is an important year for Google’s social media strategy. The company has hired several veterans of the social Web to build out a new team, and executives promised a lot more to come with services like Buzz over the course of the year to erase the memories of Google as a social-media also-ran.
The problem, however, will be the increasing backlash Google is seeing from the general public over how much data the company already controls on their online habits. Will they want to take it a step further? If not, Google’s social skills will have taken another hit.
Networked Insights — SocialSense Listening Platform
FOUR MARKETING FUNCTIONS FOR SOCIALSENSE
Campaign Designer
Discover new themes and ideas for campaigns that will resonate with your target audience. Use to inform and execute integrated campaigns. Learn the language of your customers. Equip your creatives and writers with the words and phrases used by targets and influencers. Agencies can quickly identify themes for new-business pitches.
Campaign Evaluator
Track the ideas, conversations, and words most important to your campaigns. See which brand attributes are owned by you and which by your competitors. Benchmark shifts in awareness, attitudes and behavior—and increase your agility with constant feedback. Quick and accurate intelligence allows you to double down on successful campaigns, tweak good ones to make them great, or fail fast.
Digital Ad Spend Adviser
Determine the most efficient and effective distribution of your digital advertising budget. SocialSense provides a contextual approach — finding the conversations that matter — to placing digital ads on social media sites. Combining with demographic and other site data produces the best sites to reach desired targets. Agencies can use to quickly inform proposals for new-business pitches.
Innovation Driver
Put your smartest, most loyal customers right into your R&D Department. Whether it’s a groundswell of support for an entirely new product in the white space or subtle improvements to an existing product’s features, SocialSense allows you to access the wisdom of the many. Innovation has applications beyond product development: Improve services, change store design or offerings in a retail setting, and more. Agencies can use to quickly inform proposals for new-business pitches.
HOW SOCIALSENSE’S ANALYTICS WORK
It’s not a small world, after all…
You can’t read and summarize every post that’s relevant to the brands you manage. But SocialSense can.
Gain processing power, lose bias
Our superior analytics, in a highly automated process, create a platform that thrives on virtually limitless amounts of data. SocialSense processes posts from millions of blogs and tens of thousands of forums. The platform uses Artificial Intelligence — Natural Language Processing, Sentiment Analysis, and more — to quickly process information it would take your whole office days or even weeks to get through. A natural benefit of that reliance on algorithms is the loss of human bias often introduced by traditional marketing research.
Tell me something I don’t know
SocialSense automatically generates Discovery Insights: buzz around the things you didn’t know to look for or ask. Clustering technology intelligently groups words and phrases into themes. And that’s a profound source for fueling insights.
Read more… —>
Link Building Strategies: Checklist | Search Engine Journal
Link Building Strategies: Checklist
What are your Link Building Strategies? Do you have any? If you do have any, are you following them? Do you have a link building checklist to follow?
These are some questions that you must ask yourself if you want to build quality and quantity links to a website or webpage. With Google using around 200 data points to size up your website, we all know that links are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. The problem lies in the actual taking action to gather links.
If you are not willing to spend some labor intensive time link building, then I suggest you outsource this part of your search engine optimization to a reputable SEO firm that specializes in getting links. It just might be worth the investment. If you do decide to go down this road by yourself, then make sure you dot your I’s and cross your T’s. I suggest you find a consultant or firm that has experience. Be specific about the results you expect.
If you are willing to spend time and effort getting quality links, then here is a suggested link building checklist:
1. What is the purpose? Decide what your link building is for (choose one) –
- More traffic
- Better rankings
- Get a web page indexed
- Make you feel good
- Other?
2. Map out your strategy. (Part 1) Who and When? –
- Who is going to do the work?
- When is the work going to start?
- Is the work ongoing? or
- Is there a date that the work should be finished?
- Who reports to whom? Is there a reporting process?
3. Map out your strategy. (Part 2) What and How? –
- What web pages are the links directed to (in importance)?
- What keywords (anchor text) will be used in each webpage?
- What types of content/websites will be targeted to get links?
- How will the content/websites to get links be found?
- How to approach the content/websites to gather links?
4. Map out your strategy. (Part 3) Where will the links be gathered? (ideas) –
- Your own sites
- Internal Link building strategies
- Friends
- Competing websites
- News sites
- Forums
- Relevant blogs
- Related specialty sites
- How-to sites
- Social sites
- Social groups
- Social lists
- Social profiles
- Directories
- Widgets
- Guest posting
- Reviews
- Local and business links
- Article syndication
- Press Releases
5. Follow the ACT system. Using the list above it is now time to ACT. Start networking, exploring, and researching and take action today.
- Ask – be bold and simply ask for links!
- Content – create valuable relative content. “Modern SEO is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to make note of it by linking back to you, thereby increasing your trust and authority and attracting links to the pages you want to rank well for certain keywords.” – SEO Copywriting 2.0 by Brian Clark
- Timing – plan and build a process that works for you.
Conclusion
Whatever your link building strategies, you need to have a plan and a checklist. If you don’t you will either never begin or you just might get off course. Link building is about determination not necessarily knowledge or creativity (although they help). Focus on the strategies but spend most of your time implementing the plan you have set forth.
Garrett Pierson is Founder and President of New Generation Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in search engine optimization, social media, website conversion, and success. He is the creator of Building Social Equity 2.0 a “SEO Meets Social Media” training course. Garrett can be followed on Twitter @garrettpierson
Like This Post? You’ll LOVE These Related Tutorials from SEJ :
- Link Building Strategies: Time to ACT Everything in life that is worth anything takes a …
- Organizing Your Link Lists for Effective Link Building Sending a (good) link request via email is one of …
- Building A Well Rounded Backlink Portfolio Everyone in the SEO industry knows and understands that most …
3 Comments
Early did not pay any attention to it, but it is obvious that clear thinking over all these items will no longer be the majority of issues in moving the site.
This was a great article and right on target for developing strong SEO strategies. SEO is an art, just like playing a musical instrument. Different musicians can play the same song yet one just creates a result that is more fulfilling than the other. Remember that you must practice and be patient.
If you are new to SEO do not be discouraged by the length of the check lists mentioned above. Once you develop a technique that works for you (and there will be some trial and error) it becomes very addicting and absolutely one of the most rewarding things that a developer can achieve.
Thanks for the GREAT info!
Link Building is a strategy I strongly recommend in my blog. Now I need to build my own plan and check list. Thanks for the help.
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Winning
View comments0 Comments / by Rah-Shell
This year has started off with a bang. I have already won tickets to 3 events and the first month of the year isn’t even over yet. It appears this year is lucky for me and that is AWESOME. In celebration of all this winning I have created a page here on my site named, “Winning“. I will list all my different winnings and who I won the goodies from on that page.
Today Kidd Kraddick in the morning is giving away $1,000. I believe they call it $1,000 Thursdays. I won this $1,000 in 1998 and it felt amazing. This year wasn’t my only lucky year. Truth is I just have to admit to myself I am lucky. This luck follows me when I fully embrace it. It can be a cheeky bastard when I am all confused and in a state of complete wonder. I have to surround myself in sparkles and glitter and BAM! winning is just a ballot or phone call away.
I am embracing you, Win. May you find me cheering, sitting in awe and complete blissful in your fantastic goodness. Are you a winner?
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