How Much Change is too Much? LinkedIn Makes Some Interesting Choices

Recently LinkedIn has added some interesting features to their site, as well as a few new acquisitions. These changes have many believing that LinkedIn may be shifting their brand image.

New Acquisitions

LinkedIn, a business-orientated social networking site founded in December 2002, has recently made some interesting choices in growing its business. It all started back in August with LinkedIn’s debut acquisition. They snatched up recommendation start-up m-Spoke, and people are buzzing that LinkedIn was on route to offering an IPO (Initial Public Offering).

LinkedIn plans to use m-Spoke’s recommendation technology to deliver relevant content, advertising and products to its social network users. The m-Spoke deal is the first in what the company expects to be a string of acquisitions that will aid a move to make its information more relevant to users and to increase its presence on mobile devices.

This was shown to be true when just a little over a month later LinkedIn acquired ChoiceVendor Inc., a website for reviews of business service providers such as accountants, call centers, and payroll services. To many, this second acquisition in as many months wasn’t just a sign of the business social site’s switch to a new acquisition strategy, but also that the company may be on the road to becoming public.

New Features

On the very last day of TechCrunch’s Disrupt Conference in late September, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner announced the launch of Signal, a filter for a user’s Twitter feed that displays only the tweets coming from the professionals the user is connected with on LinkedIn. And, on October 4^th LinkedIn and PwC announced the launch of Career Explorer, an interesting product targeted at the college graduate, or soon-to-be graduate who wants to plot a path towards their job of choice.

Is LinkedIn Going Public?

Investors and analysts have watched LinkedIn, along with Facebook, for a long time waiting to see if it launches an IPO, and with these new acquisitions it seems it may be time. Weiner has previously stated in a Reuters article, “an IPO is not in the front of mind”, but the company is rather focused on building business and executing its plans.

Weiner plans to use the small acquisitions and changes as a means to build LinkedIn’s business, not as a means for LinkedIn to become a publicly held company.

LinkedIn may be changing a bit too much, and people are now not only thinking the company may become public, but could possibly be revamping their overall image.

What is LinkedIn Becoming?

Moves like the acquisitions, along with other aspects of LinkedIn’s products, position them at an interesting intersection, somewhere between social networking and professional tool kit. With so many product launches and initiatives, many believe LinkedIn doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be and risk the loss of their user base.

Only time will tell if all these choices can lead LinkedIn to what they truly want: an increase in revenue and growth in their market share, while holding tight to their base and brand.

Geo-Location: Twitter and Facebook… A Promising but Murky Future- Part 2

To Tell-All or Not to Tell-All, That is the Question

In part I, the great marketing and business potential of geo-location was discussed. However, this promise hinges largely on the willingness of people to continue to broadcast their lives in great detail on social networking sites. We have all heard the cautionary tales of people losing their jobs over a post on their profile and the questionable online privacy practices of Facebook have been grabbing a lot of headlines lately.

“The marketing and business potential of geo-location hinges largely on the willingness of people to continue to broadcast their lives in great detail on social networking sites.”

Even though geo-location has the benefit of adding location-based context to people’s updates, will people feel comfortable letting a network of others (many of whom they may not know very well) know exactly where they are? There have been indications of user dissatisfaction with social networking sites’ privacy policies and greater discretion being taken by people with regards to their personal information.

These events clearly signal barriers that geo-location applications will have to overcome. Adoption of geo-location by the public will largely be a result of whether people will really want to share their location with others. Though people may see the merits of using geo-location features, the issues of privacy and personal information may be hard to surmount.

Sharing Useful Information, Not Just Location

Despite the threat that privacy and security issues pose to the success of geo-location in social media, the ability of this feature to let people share useful information may help it overcome hurdles to adoption. From citizen journalism to letting friends know about good deals, people appear to want to tell others about useful public information. Whether it be witnessing a public event or participating in a public happening like shopping, people may be more willing to share their locations with others.

In the end, the success of geo-location in social media may rely heavily on whether or not people start to rethink how much they reveal about themselves online and whether any possible uneasiness can be alleviated. The groundwork for businesses to leverage geo-location as a sales tool is being laid as it makes its way into social media, but will the people follow?

]]> http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/uncategorized/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues-2/feed/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:24:38 +0000 chas http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/?p=1463

Geo-Location: Twitter and Facebook… Promising but Murky Future- Part 1

Imagine reading someone’s tweet about the World Cup and being able to tell if they are watching the game on TV or are actually at the stadium. This is now a reality as Twitter announced on its blog Monday the introduction of a location identification feature to help provide context to tweets. Twitter Places essentially helps people know where a tweet is coming from and allows people to:

· Tag tweets with specific places

· Create new Twitter Places

· Click a Twitter Place within a tweet to see recent tweets from a particular location.

Unsurprisingly, its social media competitor Facebook was also making noise on the geo-location front Monday. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to the press that Facebook will be launching location-based features in the near future.

It’s clear that geo-location is becoming a very hot feature in social media, but the questions remain: what are its implications and will this trend catch on?

Geo-Location: Where the Money Is

One of the most promising applications of geo-location is for well, what else? Helping companies make money. Marketers will take keen interest in knowing where people are relative to their businesses or products. The ability to place highly targeted, contextual ads based on the real time location of consumers could be a real game changer. Companies could not only draw consumers towards their products, but also reach shoppers in a competitor’s store to try and draw them away. Geo-location integrated into social media will allow marketers to move people physically like never before.

“The ability to place highly targeted, contextual ads based on the real time location of consumers could be a real game changer.”

Companies leveraging geo-location will also be able to take advantage of the inherently viral nature of social media. Geo-location advertising is a perfect way to promote special deals or new products as companies could offer discounts, freebies, exclusive sneak peeks etc to people who are near their store or product. Then, if people wanted to share this useful information, they could go on Facebook or Twitter (or both!) and inform all their friends or followers of the promotion with their location automatically showing up on a Google Map.

In addition, geo-location has great promise for the marketing of unused or expiring inventory. Geo-location can help move people to buy an expiring product at a discount or attend an event they would not have otherwise attended. Opportunities include:

· Sporting Events. Geo-locally targeting people in sports bars or gyms and giving them unused tickets. This would help increase brand exposure for the team as well as bring in revenue from sources like concessions, souvenirs, etc.

· Hotels. Giving away vacant rooms so as to increase brand exposure and capitalize on potential accommodations like room service, mini-bar etc

· Destinations. Museums, zoos, and theme parks could give away free passes to people in the area and profit from any other sources of revenue like concessions, souvenirs etc.

What’s Next?

Companies are tapping and integrating into the highly influential social media platforms more and more. The big players like Facebook and Twitter are making serious forays into the geo-location game.

These moves clearly pave the way for an interesting future where businesses and marketers have a unique, highly targeted and potentially very effective way to sell their products utilizing highly contextualized ads and social networks.

As Twitter’s and Facebook’s recent announcements illustrate, companies and social media sites are anticipating big things from geo-location, but the big question is whether or not the public at large will actually utilize these geo-location features. Check back soon for Part II of this series where we will discuss likely factors that influence the public’s decision to use geo-targeted services.

YouTube has recently made interesting changes to their website that impact how users interact with the site, as well as the level of information available to ‘channel’ owners. The most notable introduction is YouTube Insight, a comprehensive video analytics program.

Google and YouTube partnered to create YouTube Insight. Users can now log into their account (channel) and view statistics on video traffic aspects. Members can view the number of times the video is watched cross referenced with geographical region. Channel owners can view their video’s popularity in comparison to similar video types over a given time period. Other features include measurement of how long it took for a video to become popular and when it reaches its peak viewing volume.

YouTube Video Views

YouTube Insight Video Analytics: Total Video Views

Breaking It Down

Each category has unique, simplified features. The main features of YouTube analytics can be broken down by a summary of all videos or by individual video. The categories include:

• Views
• Discovery
• Demographics
• Community
• Hot Spots
• Popularity

The following gives an overview of each category along with illustrations:

Views: Views uses a graph to display how frequently a video has been viewed in a given period of time. The timeframe on the graph can be adjusted, a beneficial feature if a user is looking to see how often a video was viewed in a day, multiple days, a month, or up to a year. In the Views section, a world map is also displayed. Users can see where the video is being viewed all over the world.

Discovery The Discovery option allows uploaders to see how users found their videos. A variety of options are available, including a YouTube search, no link referrer, related videos, Google search, external links, and an ‘other’ category. Insights breaks these down to percentage of total views as well as creates a stacked or line chart.

YouTube Insight Video Analytics: Total Video Links

Demographics This video analytics option breaks down the age groups watching a video. A pie chart displaying male and female viewers is also given.

Community The Community option allows uploaders to see how viewers engage with a video over time, including the geographic location, as a means to break down the statistics.

Hot Spots This Insight tool graphs the ups-and-downs of viewership. At any given time in a video, it can be seen if a viewer has left the video or replayed a specific section. “Hot” signifies that fewer viewers are leaving a video at that point compared to other YouTube videos of a similar length. This feature offers the ability to really fine tune video messages to the target audience.

Popularity This option is available on the Summary page, and allows uploaders to view how popular their video is in comparison to all other YouTube videos on a scale of 0 to 100. The popularity scale allows channel owners to once again break down by geographical location (country, state) to see how it ranks compared to other videos on the site.

YouTube Insights: What it Means for Online Marketers

Online marketers are constantly looking for ways to measure the impact of social media marketing and solid metrics can be hard to come by. Most businesses know the serious impact viral venues such YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have on today’s instant response culture. The problem has been finding relevant metrics to present to top corporate to gain budget, create a cultural buy-in to social media, and to fine tune campaigns to the audience.

YouTube Insight delivers lots of data that marketing managers can wrap their reports around. The tool is easy to work with, much like Google Analytics, and a welcome addition to the digital marketing tool kit that’s been long awaited.

Last week, Facebook announced that it’s making a slight change to it’s wording, with some potentially big implications. In the next few weeks, instead of a user clicking a button saying “Become a Fan” to start following a brand , users will simply have to “Like” them. The change is purely a simple word change, and won’t affect the your Facebook Fan Pages at all, so nothing to worry about there!

Facebook sent out a note to ad agencies that said it wanted to give the agencies advance notice about the change that could affect upcoming advertising campaigns or Facebook strategy. Part of the confidential e-mail read: “Over time, as users adapt to the language change, we recommend that you invite people to connect to your Page by saying ‘Find us on Facebook’ or ‘Like us on Facebook’. You may also choose to put more emphasis on your custom URL than you used to.”  The e-mail also explained how the new “Like” button will differ from the “Like” feature already already in place in it’s user updates.

Facebook is already ahead of it’s game and has done research analyzing use of the “Like” function, and shown that users click the new term nearly twice as often as they click to “Become a Fan” of a page.

Facebook has stated that by changing the wording, they expect users to be more comfortable using the word “Like” around brands and other Fan Pages. Facebook has also said that changing to “Like” from “Become a Fan” will help to streamline the functionality of the social networking site, so that users feel that their interest in post’s and page’s can be achieved in one universal language that they have already proved to be comfortable in using.

Here’s what Facebook has released explaining the change - Facebook Language Change PDF

For almost a year now, Facebook has been engaging in an open and transparent system of governance. They now post all proposed changes to their governing documents before they go into effect to give us, the people who use Facebook, the chance to give our feedback on these proposals and listen to our input.

Most online services and networks occasionally have to change their governing documents to accommodate for new products or services, they just may not tell you about those changes. Facebook however, is probably the only online service that actually engages its user and listens to their feedback..

Facebook is in the process of proposing another round of  changes to their Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities in order to make way for some new products that are currently in discussion.

Here are some of the biggest changes they are contemplating putting into effect:

Location

When Facebook last updated their Privacy Policy, they included verbiage describing a location feature they were planning on building in the future. Back then, they thought the primary use would be to “add a location to something you post.” Well they’ve now expanded on that and got some different ideas that are even better.

In place of the old verbiage they’ve added the concept of a “place” that could refer to a Page, such as one for a local restaurant. This is all we can learn for right now, however more details are to come, including new privacy controls.

Sharing and Connections

Facebook is pretty much for two things: Connecting with people, places, and things that are important to you, and sharing information that you post with your friends and other users. When you connect with a person through adding them as a friend, or with something through being a member of a group or a fan of a Page, that’s called a two-way public connection. You, the user, can control how the connection is presented on your profile, but it might be discovered in other ways, such as by going to another friend’s profile or being displayed on a group’s list of members.

When you post a link or a photo to your profile, however, that’s a one-way action. You have complete control over who can access that content through your privacy settings. You can block certain people or members from viewing certain information.

This is exactly how Facebook currently works, however they’ve added additional verbiage to make this even clearer to us.

Applications and Third-Party Websites

As Facebook continues to expand its platform, they are trying to give us more ways to connect and share information with our friends, not just on Facebook but all across the web.

Currently, when you use applications such as games on Facebook or connect to Facebook from sites across the web, you are able to find and interact with your friends. Some of these applications require some basic information about you in order to provide a more relevant experience. After listening and considering feedback users, they announced in August that we were trying to deliver more control and transparency to user, the user.

In the new proposed privacy policy, they tell us the possibility of working with some partner websites they are looking to work with in order to offer a more personalized experience each time you visit the site.

Other Changes

Facebook has also made a number of smaller changes to further explain in detail how the different aspects of Facebook work. For example, why invitations that non-users receive to join Facebook sometimes include the names of other people besides the person who sent the invitation. This is because those people have imported their own contact lists to Facebook, and those contact lists include the invited person’s email address.

They’ve also explained the “Everyone” setting in more detail. Users still own any information they post to Facebook, however the “Everyone” setting is designed to enable people to share content as broadly as possible, as opposed to just “Friends” or “Friends of Friends”  To enable this setting, they allow others to see, access, display, export, distribute and redistribute content set to “Everyone”. All they’ve tried to do here is make this even clearer.

Lastly, they explain how users can sync their contact lists, such as on a mobile or hand held device, with information they have access to on Facebook.

For a full list of the changes in further detail, visit their Facebook Site Governance Fan Page and read more. They want our feedback!

]]> http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/social-media/facebook/more-changes-to-facebooks-governing-docs/feed/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/search/google/april-fools/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/search/google/april-fools/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:56:54 +0000 lee http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/?p=1320 It’s that time of year again, April Fools Day!, and the online hoaxing is everywhere!

You’ve probably already seen them everywhere today. That amazing deal, or that new app that sounds too good to be true, chances are….it probably is — very few companies take April 1st seriously, but its all in good fun!

Here are some our favorites so far for this year:

Google is now  TOPEKA

Effective 1AM (CDT) on April 1, 2010, Google changed its name to “Topeka.” In case you haven’t heard, this is because Google has decided to repay the tribute due to Topeka, Kansas renaming itself Google as part of a stunt to become part of Google’s municipal broadband project.

Starbucks introduces 2 new sizes (Digital Surgeons Fav)

Forget about Tall, Grande and Venti, Starbucks has two new sizes: Plenta and Micra. The Plenta is a 128-ounce drink for caffeine addicts who can’t get enough coffee, and for those who need just a tiny sip, you can get the 2-ounce Micra. And don’t worry about all that paper waste from the new Plenta sized-cup, they’ve thought about the environment. Starbucks says you can reuse your gigantic Plenta cups in a number of useful ways including as a “planter, lampshade or yoga block”.

Google street view now available in 3D

Google added a cool new element to is street view maps today: 3D view! In any street view map you can drag the little man icon from the upper left part of the screen anywhere on the map. Get your 3D glasses out!

Google Translator available in any language….How about animal??

Google placed a link on their homepage today, advertising a new Google Animal Translator service to add to their Language Translator service. Clicking the link would take you to a page advertising an app for Android phones for the translator, with the tagline being “Bridging the gap between animals and humans”. http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

Once the app is installed on an Android phone it provides some amusing translations depending on the animal you select.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I24bSteJpw]

Ever wanted to swap your wife for a new one?

Wikipedia has hopped on board with the game today too! They featured an article on the homepage about the ancient English practice of Wife Selling, as well as strange but true news about a certain Japanese company that accidentally sent some of its customers back in time to 1999!

Justin Bieber: Bieber or Die?

If you plan on visiting the viral video site Funny or Die today, you’ll will be in for a surprise. This favorite comedy site of many has caught Bieber fever. The entire site is designed around the teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, after the singer bought up the site as a tribute to himself. As Bieber says in a video explaining his take over, “anything that’s not Bieber dies.”

Google Waves to Wave

Google Wave introduces humans that wave at you when Google Wave has been updated. With new “wave wave” notifications for Google you can find out if you have a notification in your mailbox, no matter where you are.

Hulu has a plan

Visit Hulu today, select a video and you’ll see an option to view content in 3D. You won’t need those special 3D glasses from earlier (or though you can try it), but you will go through the looking glass to see the horrible truth about Hulu and television itself. It turns out there is scientific proof that TV really will rot your brain, and the entertainment industry is filled with aliens (tell us something we didn’t know!)

The random comments and posts that show up on blogs and forums are a result of a webmaster trying to boost their site’s page rank. He or she exploits an innocent site, by posting links like “Try this for free,” or “Take a vacation of a lifetime” in hopes to get users to click and view their site.  

But little do these spammers know that this kind of technique is very bad for business. A once- reliable web page is loosing credibility with each spam post and the quality of the World Wide Web is dwindling.  No one wants to read random comments or message about free getaways or prescription drugs when searching for recipes or garage door openers.

 What Spam Looks Like

Links in comment sections on blog or forum pages that are unrelated to the site are most likely spam. Random comments (posts that are short, impersonal and generic) and hyperlinks about prescription drugs, exercise tips, hair loss techniques, vacation getaways and etc. are probably spam as well. If after you leave a trustworthy comment on a site and a quick response with a link pops up, then this site has been infected with spam.  These spam ads are just hoping to get clicked on, to get some attention and bring some viewers to their homepages. Don’t give it. Nothing good will come of this. 

Promote your site…without using spam

Believe it or not you can still promote your site without becoming a hated spammer.

Improve your site. Display informative, original content that will benefit an audience. Utilize good search engine optimization strategies so your site shows up in Google and Yahoo. If your site is user friendly, appealing and optimization with keywords and phrases, users will take notice of this. People will link to your site over time.

I don’t want spam on my site

Because comments and messages are a vital piece to any website-they bring users together, ideas are shared and improvements are made-it’s crucial these sections are made secure. To help eliminate spam and retain your site’s integrity, try taking some quick action: 

• Don’t allow anonymous posting
• Use a comment moderation
• Refuse hyperlinks in comments

Already been infected…

Don’t fret. Take some time and energy and clean up your site and get rid of the spam posts that made it your site. Also, you can enlist some of the security measures mentioned in the above list to stop the spam.

Guilty of spamming?

If so, click on the “your site on the web” section. Look at where you’ve posted your link. Are there any suspicious messages posted on blogs or forums? If so, delete them. If this doesn’t work try and contact the site manager for that page to get rid of it.

Everyone is talking about it on Twitter. Everyone is searching on Google and so far, everyone seems to love it!

According to several PC vendors, market acceptance of Windows 7 is already high - much higher than it was for Vista. This is good news for the new PC market and good news for Microsoft!

What are your thoughts on Windows 7, have you checked it out yet?

LA based blogger, Jessica Gottlieb and her 3 children were sitting helplessly on the tarmac at JFK airport waiting for their flight to take off, when she reached for her iPhone and decided to Tweet about her situation.

She wrote, “Dear Virgin Air, My children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.”

Pls RT meaning that she wants her over 10, 000 Twitter followers to “retweet” her posting. And just that they did! With only a few minutes passed by Virgin Air had called Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be fine.

“They contacted the gate agent manager and explained to us the entire weather situation,” she says. “Within 20 minutes of that conversation, the plane took off.” Gottlieb said.

This goes to show, social media sites that allow people to interact in the moment are changing how travel companies talk to their customers — and how their customers talk back.

The end result, the way you travel is improving.