I used to be very active on Yelp. I hadn’t added any new reviews in a while, but yesterday I wanted to give a little love to the taco stand where I’ve been getting lunch lately so I added a review and while I was there thought that I’d update my friend list. I go to the friend page and these are the options I get:

Yup, it’s all email based. I can add email addresses or link with my Windows, Yahoo, AOL (people still have AOL email accounts?) and finally GMail, but there is no option for connecting with other social networks. I have a lot of friends on Twitter and Facebook that I would be very happy to connect with on Yelp as well, but I don’t have many of their email addresses.  I could get them if I needed them, but it would take some digging and I’m not going to put in that effort for Yelp.

Limiting the means of connecting with your existing social graph to email is going to be a significantly limiting factor leaving many potential connections unlinked.  All those folks I met at SXSWi and who I’m following on Twitter are probably on Yelp and posting reviews that would be useful to me and drive me back to Yelp, but without a way to merge these social graphs the opportunity is lost.  In addition those connections from other social networks are more likely to engage with another social network than the general population in your and my address book.

My takeaway in 140 characters: Help members import existing connections to a new network with multiple ways to reconnect; Twitter, Facebook & email

For Social Network Success Provide Multiple Ways To Reconnect Your Social Graph is a post from: Trumblog

The big three search engines posted their top search terms for 2009 earlier this week and results are below.

Top Search Topics 2009

When reviewing the results keep in mind that the top search terms are not computed in the same way by each search engine so this is not a wholly accurate comparison.  The results say as much about how each search engine is used as they do about how the search engines think about themselves. Bing seems like a soccer mom concerned about current events (Swine Flu, Stock Market, Cash For Clunkers) and using celebrities (especially dead ones) to ease that fear (Farah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays).  Google’s the techie hipster with it’s love of social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Hi5) and some TV (Hulu, Glee).  Yahoo’s the middle American with their love of  WWE, American Idol, NASCAR and Britney Spears.

It’s fascinating that only 1 term appears in all 3 search engine lists, Michael Jackson and only 2 others, Twitter and Farah Fawcett, appear in 2 search engine lists.  That’s a total of 26 terms across the three search engines.  Interestingly Bing and Google have the most similar results, while Yahoo! has 9 completely original search terms in their results.

What does this say about us in 2009?  Only one search engine has the key current events of the year reaching the top 10 search results and none include the inauguration of Barack Obama which is arguably the most important historical event of the year (maybe we were just so over it in January after the political furor of 2008) not to mention 2 wars, the great recession and the health care debate.  Are we turning to entertainment as a diversion from our stress like they did during the depression or are we just a celebrity obsessed society?  What to make of the impact of dead celebrities?  Was this really the year of social media or are the appearance of social network names in the result of everyone over the age of 35 finding their high school friends?  And then there’s Britney Spears.  Will we ever drop her from the list of top searches?

Finally, what would a 2009 trending topics from Twitter tell us and will that be released.  I sure hope so.

2009 Top Search Comparison is a post from: Trumblog

Earlier I wrote about the 350 campaign and the global event on Saturday October 24.  While the ultimate goal of 350 won’t be achieved until CO2 levels are lowered, the short term goals were achieved at over 5200 events in 181 countries.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Events around the world generated thousands of pictures, millions of tweets, thousands of blog posts all spreading the word about  the impact of climate change and setting an easily understandable goal for us to achieve.

The Boston event that I attended was a great success with thousands of people attending in wet suits and snorkels to show that we understand the need to stop climate change and encourage our leaders make agreements to do so in Copenhagen. You can see my pictures from the event on Flickr and I posted a video of us assembling for the picture and of Rev Fred Small singing.

Results from the 350 Campaign is a post from: Trumblog

If you haven’t read the point counterpoint on search engine optimization by Derek Powazek and Danny Sullivan from this week, you should, that is if you’re into that sort of  thing like I am.

Like in most arguments they are both right and both wrong.  So I thought that I would pull what I thought are the right parts from each (editing out snarky bits as necessary) and then stand back so that Derek and Danny can shake hands sing kumbaya and see the good in each other’s ideas.

If you are remotely involved with a website or online marketing this should be hung on your wall in 60 point type.

It’s not your job to create content for Google. it’s their job to find the best of the web for their results. Your audience is your readers, not Google’s algorithm.

Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.  Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again. And again. You’ll build a reputation for doing good work, meaning what you say, and building trust.

It’ll take time. A lot of time. But it works. And it’s the only thing that does.

Tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog. (Don’t have those things? Start them.) Tell people who give a shit – not strangers. Tell them why it matters to you. Find the places where your community congregates online and participate. Connect with them like a person, not a corporation. Engage. Be real.

Build a site for visitors. Have great content. These are the keys to success, not just with SEO but with anything you want to do.

The most important SEO tactics are obvious and easy:

Look under the hood of any SEO plan and you’ll find advice like this: make sure to use keywords in the headline, use proper formatting, provide summaries of the content, include links to relevant information. All of this is a good idea, and none of it is a secret. It’s so obvious…

Just because the most important SEO tactics are obvious doesn’t make it easy to everyone :

I know, I know — that’s so obvious. But it is NOT to him. His job isn’t to do web development. He’s not you or I with 14 years of having learned all this stuff along the way. He actually deals with things like ordering the products, overseeing workers and doing an array of offline marketing.

Meanwhile, his web developer clearly did NOT have any SEO thoughts in mind when building the site. That’s all too common…But the reality is that a good SEO working to help direct the web developer could solve the site’s problems quickly. It’s called teamwork, and it’s awesome when it happens.

The dark side of SEO is not worth the risk

Occasionally a darkside SEO master may find some loophole in the Google algorithm to exploit, which might actually lead to an increase in traffic. But that ill-gotten traffic gain won’t last long. Google changes the way it ranks its index monthly (if not more), so even if some SEO technique worked, and usually they don’t, it’ll last for a couple weeks, tops.

And when they do reindex, if they determine that you’ve been acting in bad faith (like hiding links or keywords or other deceptive practices) they’ll drop you like a hot rock. So a temporary gain may result in a lifetime ban.

In the end, you’re sacrificing your brand integrity in a Faustian bargain for an increase in traffic that won’t last the month. And how valuable was that increase, anyway? If you’re tricking people into visiting your site, those visits are going to be bad experiences.

But not all SEO experts are from the dark side

There are bad SEOs out there, who give the entire industry a bad name — just as there are bad bloggers, bad designers, bad cops, you name it. There are also excellent SEOs who work inside of companies as well as through agencies for hire. Don’t tarnish an entire industry that actually helps many, many people in ways I’m sure you would agree with.

If you want to read the source posts and comments (and if this has interested you at all you really should, it’s good stuff).  Here are the links and a tease of the more more snarky stuff there.

Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

An Open Letter To Derek Powazek On The Value Of SEO

If I wanted to be snarky, I could do an entire post on why web developers are a waste of time and you should just employ SEOs who can also build web sites.

Both Derek Powazek and Danny Sullivan Are Right About SEO is a post from: Trumblog

I added a custom Twitter landing page the other day.  This an idea that I got from @Pistachio who has her own custom page.  Since Twitter does not have profile pages where you can explain a little about yourself or include links to other social media sites, the point of the custom landing page is to introduce myself and the blog  in a more user friendly way and promote some of my better posts.

I’ll add a video to the page when I have some time later this week.  If the response is good maybe I’ll make custom pages for other social media sites and comments?  I’ll keep you posted.

Custom Twitter Landing Page is a post from: Trumblog

In Spanish there’s a word “antojo” which means a little thing that you want, not because you need it, but because you just want it. I’ve got three. They are all around the $150 price point and perfect for Father’s day if you ask me.

1. The Netflix Player by Roko – the new set top box for Netflix that allows you to stream movies from Netflix.com to your television.

Do I need this? We rely on the DVR a lot, use Comcast’s On Demand like crazy and watch shows online. We don’t use our Netflix subscription nearly as much as we should; I have one DVD from them that was shipped 6 months ago back in November. I’ve watched videos streamed from Netflix maybe twice and the number of available videos is pretty limited.

So why do I want this instead of flipping around until I find Taledega Nights again? It’s just such a damn good idea. It’s so logical I can’t believe that it wasn’t done before. The beauty of the idea alone makes me want it.

2. The Chumby – this is the mini monitor with wireless access that will display just about anything that you that’s online. So it can be your alarm clock, be a picture frame, a radio, a video player, an updater of news or weather or social network or weather or just about any other information that you can find online .

I have a home theater system, a smart phone, a laptop, why do I need this when I can get access to any of this content through so many other channels? The neat factor. This small window into the particular part of the web that you want is just enough functionality to push your creativity into new ways to use it.

3. The Flip – a no frills video camera that you can whip out to capture life’s little moments with hardly any startup time. The flip-out USB arm allows you to download and share video just as quickly and easily. Tres-cool.

With my background in film and video, and my wife still in the business, we actually have a few video cameras and this does not surpass them for features, video quality or anything else except for size. We also have several digital cameras, each of which will record video, which I imagine is roughly the same quality as the Flip offers, and phones with cameras too. I am not lacking for video options.

Why does another video camera that offers no benefits interest me? I don’t know, but it does. Back in the 80s there was this kid’s video camera that shot poor quality video on an audio cassette. PixelVision’s low tech, low quality, cheap source made it interesting to experiment with for us just out of school film geeks. This little thing evokes memories of that for me.

Those are my three geeky antochos, What are yours? What have I missed?

Geeky Gift Ideas is a post from: Trumblog

After a seeing a couple of mentions yesterday on TechCrunch and Bub.blicio.us I downloaded the new IM client Digsby in order to give it a try over Trillian which I had been using. Digsby is nice upgrade.

Like Trillian, Digsby is a multi protocol IM client, which means that it gives you simultaneous access to several IM accounts and if you don’t have multiple IM accounts, that’s the reason why I do. Some folks have MSN, some AIM, some Google Talk and they don’t all play nice, so I have a few accounts which means I can chat with you no matter what account you signed up with. I’m nice like that.

Registration with DIgsby was easy and functionality is exactly what you expect for IM. TechCrunch and Bub.blicio.us posted about Digsby because it supports Facebook Chat as well as AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber. Having Facebook Chat is great and a good out of the starting gates feature that gives Digsby some buzz, but that alone won’t keep me with Digsby since I imagine that it’s just a matter of time till Trillian, and the other IM clients like it, do to.

But here’s where Digsby takes it up a notch. It also includes social network updates and email notification. Bam!. You can set up notifications from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and also email notifications from any email address that you want; Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL/ AIM Mail, and POP and IMAP accounts. Your Facebook status, alerts and news feed are available with a quick rollover that includes easy links to Facebook and updating of your status directly from Digsby. Your Tweetstream is available in the same easy way and you can update it from Digsby too.

I’ve only got Gmail running on Digsby so far and Digsby’s giving me popup alerts of email messages and rollover access to a list of emails in my Inbox with click through to read them on Gmail.com.

Pulling all of these notifications in one place is incredibly handy because I can rely on one program for all of this social and messaging data that I had been culling from and adding to using a variety of sources. It’s also nice for consistency’s sake to have similar notifications of tweets, emails and IMs. Downloading was fast, but installation was slow due to a few components that needed to be updated on my laptop, but once that was done I was up and running pretty quickly.

Digsby also doesn’t seem to be sitting on it’s laurels. They have a nice wish list going, seem to be looking to expand into notifications from additional social networks and are adding themes, skins and emoticons if you’ve got the time and need for that. I expect that there will be updates and expansions for Digsby on a regular basis that will give the Flock people sidebar that I’ve been enjoying lately a run for it’s money.

Looks like I’ve got a new IM client.

Digsby Social Network, Email and IM Client is a post from: Trumblog

Enjoy the following links to data for online activity in 2007.

comScore 2007 U.S. Internet Year in Review
Surprise surprise, Facebook was the fastest gaining social media site, politics had the biggest gain as a category and Google had the greatest number of searches.

Google Zeitgeist
What were we searching for on Google last year? One word; iPhones. We were clearly also digging into social media last year since Facebook, Webkinz, YouTube, MySpace and Club Penguin were all in the top ten fastest rising search terms in the US.

Yahoo Buzz
Yahoo breaks up their top searches into categories; news, environment, celebrity, technology, consumer recalls, sports, send-offs, del.icio.us and kids. Which leads to the odd combination of Saddam Hussein, recycling, Britney Spears, YouTube, pet food recall, NASCAR, Harry Potter, design and games.

Ask Top Searches for 2007

Is Ask more honest about their search traffic than the other search engines? Their top ten results are:

1. MySpace
2. Dictionary
3. Google
4. Themes
5. Area Codes
6. Cars
7. Weather
8. Games
9. Song Lyrics
10. Movies

Yes, that’s right the number 3 search on Ask is to another search engine and the rest of the list is full of the pedestrian queries like, dictionary, area codes, weather and movies.  I suspect that they are.

And Live Search? They don’t publish their results. And by the end of 2008 I doubt that they will either, or if they do they will be do it under a different name. Yahoo!

Online Activity for 2007 is a post from: Trumblog

While digging out from the mounds of email and posts that went unread while on vacation last month and taking care of the end of the year craziness I came across this little nugget that reinforces the value of social marketing.

Chris Cunningham at Freewebs dug deeply into Pew data on internet usage pulling out the facts that while less of the 35-44 year old “Family Decision Makers” demographic uses social media than the 18-24 year old group, because there are so many more of them the actual number of Family Decision makers using social media is much higher; 12.9 million versus 8.6 million. It’s not hard to assume that the amount of money that they are spending is also higher. In addition the 35-44 year old demographic also leads in page views against the content that they create and are loyal to their social networks of choice.

So putting this all together now:
Consumer-written product reviews are generally positive, extremely popular and lead to sales. Family decision makers use social media more than other groups both as a larger population and through greater engagement as measured by page views. As the name suggests, family decision makers also control family spending. Therefore social media is an excellent tool for accessing the family budget. It’s not just teens on MySpace. It’s not just the disposable incomes of young adults. It’s everyone, every budget, everywhere influenced by social media.

Targeting Family Budgets With Online Media is a post from: Trumblog

It works! Read feeds and post to your blog while mobile.

www.litefeeds.com

(( litefeeds )) mobile RSS is a post from: Trumblog