Social Media - Eric Lander's Blog

Google’s Plus Sized Failure

August 8, 2011 by Eric Lander · 15 Comments

A month ago I was excited about Google+. It represented something new. Something shiny. Attractive. Google had finally created something that people outside of the tech industry could get on board with.

Today, just one month later, the once promising community has become useless to me. It’s just another proverbial flash in the pan on Google’s stove-top.

The only difference is that more than 25 million users have tried their hand at Google+. While impressive in their acceleration towards this scale – there’s little else to celebrate.

One month ago today I decided to bring my blog back from more than a two year hiatus. The reason I brought it back was quite clear — Google+ had created enough momentum that I couldn’t ignore it. My opinions began to form and I felt compelled enough to publish them for the purpose of initiating some discussions.

My posts then have been pretty direct. I started by sharing Tom Anderson’s words on Facebook’s inherent advantages in the social space. I then followed up by wondering aloud — How would Google+ be monetized? Then, as I forced myself to use Google+ more and more I realized that there were some serious issues.

I then made a (strong) case for Google+ Stream Modifiers and later proved how “power plussers” are killing the vibe.

After all that writing, thought, analysis and discussion, you’d think I’d check in on Google+ regularly, right?

Wrong.

I have to set a calendar item to remind me to check Google+ Notifications.

Ridiculous, right?

This is the monster that Google has created with Google+. It’s almost a perfect clone of Facebook. That alone is laughable considering Google has cried “foul” accusing Microsoft of stealing their search results. The only thing that Google+ hasn’t figured out that Facebook has nailed? Users. Community engagement. Branding. Games. Discussions. Hell, even noisy chatter.

What they have done is alienated early adopters time and time again.

The icing on the cake for me is that Google has gone out of their way not to integrate Google+ with their paying Apps for Domain customers. Rather, they have required those customers to go out and create separate accounts to continue using the Google+ service. So now, rather than getting instant notifications on updates, users have to juggle multiple logins or rely on the annoying amount of email notifications just to stay connected with Google+.

I know I’m not the only one annoyed by all this. I’ve seen many ranting and raving on the issue and Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz has shared his displeasure directly on Google+.

On top of all that the core community and experience in Google+ hasn’t changed at all. The Brogans, Pirillos and Scobles of the world still dominate Streams for all of their followers. Everything “social” about it has become old, stale and cumbersome.

With that in mind, the ball is squarely in Google’s court. What they do from here on out is up to them.

Filed Under: Ranting & Raving, Social Media ·

Google+ is Where the Rich Get Richer

July 15, 2011 by Eric Lander · 5 Comments

As the first couple of weeks wind down to a close, Google+ seems adamant on being more than just another flash in the pan. 10 million strong have joined the ranks at Google+ and Google co-founder/CEO Larry Page was certain to highlight these and other impressive numbers on the company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday.

The search giant though, known to favor large and reputable brands in the past, could be lending the same benefits in their new social network.

Identifying the Problem

In my previous post I made mention of how Google+ Streams can become overrun with updates coming from the same series of people.

The cause for this behavior in Google+ is due to user interaction on posts.

When someone with little to no following posts an update on Google+ it is often swept down the Stream because there is no one there to interact (+1, comment, share) the post.

When someone with a much larger following posts an update though – there are thousands upon thousands of people there to interact with the post. When they interact, the timestamp on the post is effectively changed, and the post then continues to stay at or near the top of your Stream view.

The Usual Suspects

Before I get into the list of offenders here, I want to say that I love these people. They are what make the Internet, our industry of search and social communities what they are. They’re not the problem themselves, they’re simply the poster children for it.

That said… Anytime I load up Google+, I’m guaranteed to see updates from Matt Cutts, Chris Pirillo, Robert Scoble, or Danny Sullivan.

I chose to see updates from these people in my Stream so if there’s anyone to fault, it’s me. The problem caused by the existing technology though is something I firmly believe should be changed or improved upon.

Class Structures & Celebrification

Intentional or not there’s a class structure created by the Google+ Stream system. On one hand, that’s okay. Online communities mimic offline communities and whether we like it or not, there’s certainly a class system in our offline society. On the other hand, I don’t believe that I should miss out on my connections’ updates and posts because more popular users are also active in the community.

Yet, that is exactly what happens.

In one of my Google+ posts tonight, Brian Chappel of Ignite Social Media presented the fact that celebrification in this social setting allows Google to push more traffic to Google properties – but at the cost of greater relevancy.

How the Rich Get Richer

The stats don’t lie.

Cutts, Scoble, Pirillo, Sullivan… These are all successful authors and their contributions to online industries are far reaching and have been for years. In other words, they’ve worked hard to get where they are today. They’re successful in life, in business… and in the Google Search Results.

The SERPs are where things come full circle.

Google+ and the +1 Button are all about personalized search results. If you’ve logged into Google Webmaster Tools recently, you’ve likely noticed that there’s some handy reports on the +1 button and how it has been used in conjunction with your site’s URLs.

Barry Schwartz describes these reports and highlights how popularity plays a role.

The Search Impact report gives you an idea of how +1′s affect your organic search traffic. You can find out if your clickthrough rate changes when personalized recommendations help your content stand out. Do this by comparing clicks and impressions on search results with and without +1 annotations. Google will only show statistics on clickthrough rate changes when you have enough impressions for a meaningful comparison.

The Activity report shows you how many times your pages have been +1′d, from buttons both on your site and on other pages (such as Google search).

Finally, the Audience report shows you aggregate geographic and demographic information about the Google users who’ve +1′d your pages. To protect privacy, Google will only show audience information when a significant number of users have +1′d pages from your site.

Note “significant number of users” and “how +1′s affect your organic search traffic.” In other words, the more +1 interaction, the more positive the influence on organic traffic. Rest assured, the most popular users in Google+ are also benefiting from having a more “significant number of users” accessing their content.

Highlighting this late Thursday night was Jason Calacanis who noted how much more traffic Google+ sent compared to other networks when it came to his shared content:

Google+1 is crushing Facebook and Twitter as a traffic referrer to the LAUNCH blog. It’s just insane the difference!

With 100k twitter followers I’m getting half the clicks as from Google+ with 10k followers. That’s 20x the effectiveness.

I’m getting 10x the traffic from google+ than Facebook and i have 5k facebook friends. That’s 15x more effective.

Same Old Battles Wage On
Five years ago webmasters and site owners put their energy into building quality backlinks. Today, those same people are putting more energy into the social marketing of their content. It’s all for the same reason, too – to climb the organic rankings and gain more exposure.

Unfortunately, larger sites are led by more popular people. In both cases – backlinks for sites and social interaction on Google+ posts – quantities will be higher for those already having that celebrity stature.

The end result remains the same.

Google employs an algorithmic imbalance that rewards bigger brands with broader reach and discards smaller organizations and individuals.

–
I’d like to thank Matt Crouch of SEO Video Corp for his observations and comments that helped lead to this post being written in the first place.

Filed Under: Search Optimization & Marketing, Social Media ·

A Strong Case for Google+ Stream Modifiers

July 13, 2011 by Eric Lander · 5 Comments

Having already eclipsed the 10,000,000 user mark (including more than 2 million in the past 32-34 hours) – it’s clear that Google+ has more consumer support and interest than projects like Wave, Orkut and Knol.

With an incredible start out of the gate my mind has continued to race with thoughts as to how Google could innovate social experiences online through Google+.

The late Dr. Carl Sagan once said, “You have to know the past to understand the present.”

In the spirit of this quote I would like to present a case for how Google+ could use something successful from their past to improve upon the Google+ experience… Search modifiers.

The Background on Modifiers

Years ago when search modifiers were introduced on Google, they were primarily used by marketers and webmasters trying to perform research and analysis. Over time, savvy searchers also began using modifiers to shape the SERPs and find what they were looking for more quickly.

In no time at all, search modifiers were being used to do a number of things, including:

Locate Top Pieces of Content on Domains
Research Changes in Domain and URL Records
Check Indexing Status on Content
Locate Backlinks & New Link Opportunities
Find Duplicate Content and Plagiarism
Search for Specific Phrases & Strings
Exclude Keywords/Phrases from Results
Hone in on Domain Types (.gov, .edu, etc.)
Search for Specific File Types (PDF, DOC, Images, etc.)

Over time, Google’s Advanced Search page adapted to fit these needs and now anyone has access to those modifiers with the help of Google’s interface.

Google+ Streams

As new users jump onboard with Google+ they may find that their streams are different than they’d expect. It’s not a direct clone of the Facebook “News Feed” contents and in many cases old content you’ve already seen can bubble back up to the top. This happens most frequently if you’ve chosen to follow people with larger numbers of followers like Zuckerberg, Page, Brin, Scoble, etc.

As an example, my connections on Google+ are predominantly from the search or social industry, so I see Danny Sullivan and Chris Brogan appearing most often in my Stream.

For the sake of this discussion the Stream in Google+ is our search result page. It’s great, it works, and it provides with access to the top pieces of content. It just doesn’t provide us with refinement opportunities – and I can see many cases where users will want that.

Examples of Stream Modifiers

Here are some examples of Stream modifiers that I can see being introduced:

Search
I’m always amazed when Google products are lacking search functionality, so let’s start there. Streams are populated with all of your circles by default, so it’s easy to see what your connections are up to when you’re checking out the default Stream.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see what your users were saying about particular topics though? Using current headlines as an example, it would be great to search for these items across all of my circles to find and participate in discussions on certain topics:

World Cup
Hugh Hefner
Obama
All Star Game
Murdoch

Having a simple search query box would be an excellent way to provide this to Google+ users.

Time & Date Filtering
Twitter is all the rage when news is breaking. Real time hash tags and trending topics allow users to see that something abnormal is happening and actively being discussed. Think about how many news items Twitter has made you aware of. From celebrity deaths to impending natural disasters, Twitter makes it easy for people to see what’s happening now.

Google+ doesn’t quite do that, but it’s not because Google doesn’t know how. Even logged out Google SERPs allow you to customize the date range of the results you view when you search on Google – so why not provide something similar in Google+ Streams?

Display Toggles for Update Type
When it comes to Streams, there are five types of things you can share:

Text Updates
Photos
Videos
Links
Places

It would be great for Google+ to allow users to see all links shared in their Stream, all photos, videos, check-ins, etc.

Likewise, it’d be nice to filter out some of those updates to reduce the amount of noise when you’re trying to see what your friends and connections are up to.

The Users Interface

Here’s an example of what the Google+ interface could look like with integration of search and Stream modifiers:

Modified Google+ User Interface (Click to Enlarge)

What Stream Modifiers Would You Like to See?

Share your thoughts on what you’d like to see below in the comments.

Filed Under: Social Media ·

Tynt’s CEO Derek Ball Responds to SEO Community Concerns

September 11, 2008 by Eric Lander · 17 Comments

My lengthy blog post last night regarding the concerns webmasters and search engine marketers have regarding the new Tynt Beta service was met with cult-like following. While my post received attention from sources like Twitter and Sphinn, where many shared my views – it also helped Tynt to understand concerns and prepare a response plan.

Talk about proactive brand management, right?

I can’t steal any credit here. I spoke with Scott Polk earlier today as he prepared to have a phone call with Derek Ball, CEO of Tynt. Derek was interested in what Scott had to say, and based on the research and efforts that Scott (as well as many others) provided – Derek and Tynt were prepared to respond thoroughly.

Before diving in too far, I’d like to draw your attention to a few resources, cited accordingly:

Derek’s comment on my first blog post (available here)

Hi Eric and crew. Eric, you’ve put a lot of energy and concern in your posting and I want you to know that we are listening and not trying to be a huge thorn in your side. We’ve been thinking through many of the points that you (and others) have raised to our attention. I’ve written a more detailed response on our blog for those who are interested at http://tynt.wordpress.com/ . From your comments I fear that Tynt in its beta effort has already registered so deeply negative in your mind that I do not know if we can win you back, but I do want to let you know that we want to be valuable and useful members of this community and would welcome input on how you believe we can do this.

Derek Ball’s comment to the Sphinn Community

Hey everyone. We’ve put some of our thoughts from Tynt on our blog. If you are interested, please check out http://tynt.wordpress.com/

And of course, Derek’s complete response to the SEO community. In the interest of space, please read Derek’s full post on their blog. Click here to open it up in a new window and not lose your place. :)

First, A Note of Thanks & Appreciation

First off, I need to thank everyone who read and weighed in on this issue. My approach was rushed as more information became available – and I know that it was not a great representation of me or my full take on Tynt’s intentions.

I apologize for that.

Reputation Management in Action

In our little niche industry, “reputation management” typically refers to pushing out some negative listings and promoting positive information. That’s skewed because of our professional background though and I want to recognize Derek and others at Tynt for being proactive. They not only responded quickly, but they were willing to listen to what we had to say.

Tynt may still cause concern for many content owners, but the fact that they’re willing to listen and provide resources for us to accomplish what we’re after is commendable.

I think it’s great that Derek not only commented here on my blog, on Sphinn and on the Tynt Blog; he actually took time out on extremely short notice to work with Scott and schedule a call where concerns could be aired.

A Review of My Core Issues with Tynt

Tynt replicates your site and does so in order to allow it’s users to markup your page visually. Whether users add notes or clipart-like graphics, or simply cover things up… It’s all fair game. Since they’re actually visiting tynted.net when they do this, it doesn’t affect the general visitor to my domain. I get that.

Unfortunately, search engines do not. Or at least have not. Not yet, anyway.

In my original post I referenced a Google Search for “site:tynted.net” (quotes removed). At the time I mentioned that there were results being served up from Apple Insider in those search results, too. If you click on the screenshot I provided you’ll notice that in addition to being indexed, the pages on www.appleinsider.com.tynted.net also had their content cached.

And that’s a problem for me and other site owners.

When a user accesses a domain on tynted.net, they’re effectively having the visual overlay of Tynt appear over the page they’re browsing. The content on the sourced domain is still being served up by the fully qualified domain being viewed.

If you review Google’s Cache of pages indexed though (such as this one from Apple Insider) you will see that the text from the sourced page is now, in the eyes of Google, owned by Tynted.net.

This creates opportunities for confusion, as site owners now have to battle tynted.net as original soruces of content and information. I know that it’s unlikely that a site as large as Apple Insider would be effected, but that doesn’t create any less of a risk for them or other, more vulnerable content publishers.

Now, Derek speaks a bit to this point in the post on Tynt’s Blog:

…we have been very publicly accused of being ‘content-thieves’ and scraping content from other sites, storing it in our own systems, and serving it up for our own benefit and revenue. When the Tynt plug-in is used, we only ever visit the original site and all Tynt content is simply layered on top of the existing site…

That is incorrect. Once the text cached Google believes the content is indeed that of tynted.net subdomains. While Derek may not have realized it, Google is absorbing the content as if it were served up by Tynt as the cached version of pages show.

It’s worth noting too that last night images, css files, robots.txt files (thanks to Rae for pointing this out) and even webmaster’s sitemaps (ex: domain.com/sitemap.xml) were all able to be served up through Tynt.

Michael Gray Weighs in on Copyrights, incrediBILL Takes a Stand

Everyone in the search marketing space knows Michael Gray. I found one of his Twitter updates earlier this evening to be quite telling:

heh @tynt points for reaching out and trying to fix things http://is.gd/2vCh but I think you are wrong

My personal stance on Tynt is still a bit undecided as I can see the pros and cons of the service. Michael however carries a lot of influence and his opinions are not only respected – but also believed in by many unwilling to form judgment of their own.

Michael continues with two more updates (one in response to muunkky who disliked my approach in my previous post):

Update #2 — if there are any copyright lawyers following get in touch w me I actually have a full legal copyright on some sites be fun 2 see what happen

Update #3 — @muunkky showing copyrighted material without permission on a domain they own

His argument is simple and powerful. If site content is held under copyright, what legal abilities exist for Tynt to replicate that and permit markup on their own site?

If you’re familiar with Brett Tabke‘s WebmasterWorld you are likely familiar with incrediBill (Twitter, WMW Profile), the moderator of the Search Engine Spider Identification Forum and Cloaking Forum. Bill published a post on his blog called Exploring The Tynted Web which featured statements including the following…

Many webmasters take their livelihoods and reputations very seriously and don’t like being [expletive] with so there needs to be a way to detect the use of Tynt and or a way to opt-out of Tynt before this happens or it could get very ugly.

All very telling of his stance.

I remain surprised that Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Land and others have not discussed this topic yet.

What I Believe Tynt Needs to Do

There are many folks out there who are unwavering in their criticisms and concerns of Tynt. I applaud those people for holding onto their values and defending their stance.

For Tynt though, the time is now. As an emerging brand, company and service – Tynt will forever be challenged by this in a socially driven space.

It’s up to Derek and others at Tyne to make the right decisions moving forward. The key for Tynt is to move on with this same approach by being proactive, responsive and willing to listen. Assuming they do this with the same open mindset demonstrated in the past 24 hours, I’m confident they will find more success.

They will need to get the right people involved though. Also, there’s a risk/reward with being engaged with critics and industry representatives. Being all of those things can take an incredible amount of time, money and planning.

I hope that Tynt understands this. Based on some personal emails exchanged with Derek Bell, again, I will say that I am confident in their abilities.

My Opinion of the Response?

I openly applaud Derek and Tynt for being responsive to the concerns and criticisms at hand. At the same time, I applaud Michael Gray, Edward Lewis, Scott Polk, incrediBILL, Rae Hoffman and everyone else who has weighed in on this discussion in the past 24 hours.

But, I simply cannot form any immediate opinion of Derek’s response. To do so now would be taking things out of context. Tynt, to their credit, is a BETA service at this time and restricted to a particular number of users for testing purposes. I will observe, quite closely, everything Tynt is up to.

But to further form an opinion now (as I did last night) would be unfair.

Follow The Tynt Twitter Discussions

Here’s a list of the people I have seen weigh in on the Tynt conversations on Twitter:

Apologies if I missed anyone.

You can always use Summize to search for tynt, but keep in mind that protected feeds like mine will not appear in those results.

Filed Under: Odds and Ends, Ranting & Raving, Search Optimization & Marketing, Social Media ·

Pages

Connect

Recent Posts

Post Categories

Archives