Search results for "digg"
Digg Trends: Experimenting with Users Choosing Homepage Stories
Ok, so technically Digg users do choose homepage stories by voting up submitted links. But Digg Trends is an experiment in being a little more explicit. Users who see the test might see a submitted story at the top of their screen. Their will be a countdown clock, showing how long until a story is set to appear on the homepage. The user can say whether or not they think the story belongs on the homepage. Here's a screenshot per the official Digg blog: Digg has set up a Twitter account for the experiment. Follow @digg_trends to see which stories...
Digging into Google Analytics for Mobile Applications
Last week, Google Analytics expanded to offer reporting features for mobile applications on the iPhone and Android. But how does it work for mobile applications (or parts of mobile apps) that don't render HTML pages? Google says mobile app developers can tell Google Analytics what actions taken by users would trigger the analytics tracking. Google uses those triggers to determine views, session lengths, and bounce rates. Developers can also use Event Tracking to track actions such as watching a video, clicking a button or conducting a download. The data provided by Google Analytics for mobile apps can be highly useful...
Social Media Press Release Blown Away in Hail of Bullets
This week, I saw an optimized press release blown away by Google News because it was mistaken for a social media press release. It fell under a hail of bullets, an innocent victim of a formatting decision. Before I share this tragic story, let me provide some background. Two years ago, I asked, "Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?" I had just finished reading Seth Godin's book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?, which defined "meatball sundae" as "the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas." And I answered my rhetorical question by accusing the...
At TC50: Crowd Sourcing the Neighborhood Watch
I'm at the TechCrunch50 show where Google and Microsoft yesterday announced new visual interfaces for news and image search, respectively. Today, I'm on the hunt for interesting mobile & local companies. One that just demoed, City Sourced, falls into this bucket, giving users a chance to report local crime and vandalism. The way this works is through an iPhone app that lets users take pictures of things like graffiti or old couches on the street. Using the phone's GPS and compass reading, the app tags that content, wraps it up and sends it to City Hall. On the other end,...
Trade Show Exhibtors at SES San Jose 2009 Have Good Stories to Tell
A month has passed since SES San Jose 2009 -- and you might think that all the good stories to tell have already been told. But most of the press and blog coverage focused on the conference side of the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo. And the trade show exhibitors also had a lot of news to share over on the Expo side of the event. Now, instead of uploading all the videos from SES San Jose to YouTube in the same week, we've learned that it's better to upload a few each week to SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube....
Digg Goes Nofollow to Reduce Spam
Social bookmarking site Digg is incorporating the Nofollow tag to a bunch of links in order to reduce spam. Links on user profiles, comments and not-so-popular posts will get the nofollow tag, meaning it won't pass along link juice. Many have submitted content to Digg just for the links. Of course, the more popular a link is, then there's the added value of a traffic bump. In their blog post announcing the change, Digg was not specific on how popular a link would have to be in order to get the Nofollow tag removed. Digg said it worked with leading...
Delicious Founder Regrets Yahoo! Sale, Launches Twitter Tool
Ben Parr over at Mashable dugg up the news (no pun intended) on Delicious founder Joshua Schachter regretting ever selling Delicious to Yahoo! He said: I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would rather work on a big, popular product. With all due respect to Schachter, who by the way now works at Google, even if he never sold Delicious to Yahoo!, there's no guarantee the social bookmarking site would have grown to be anything more than it has become. Let's face it. No social bookmarking site has...
Digg Begins Rolling Out Beta Version of New Ad Platform
Digg will begin rolling out an early beta version of its new ad platform. Most Digg users won't see the ads, as they will only be rolled out to a small subset of users initially. The ads will appear along with submitted content, except they will clearly be marked as sponsored advertising. The more an ad is voted up, the lower cost-per-click (CPC) the ad will enjoy. The more the ad is buried, the higher CPC. Digg announced its new platform earlier this summer. The announcement came two months after canceling its exclusive ad contract with Microsoft. What do you...
SES San Jose 2009 to Feature Search Engine Foosball Smackdown Rematch
If you attended SES San Jose last year, you may have seen the Search Engine Foosball Smackdown. It was a heated event between Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! Each search engine sent some of its best foosers to see who would dominate (well, at least who would dominate the foosball table). Microsoft was knocked out in the elimination round, although that was before Bing. This left Google and Yahoo! to battle it out in the finals. The Yahoo! team of Daniel Wong and Jake Rosenberg took home the coveted Stonetemple Cup after a tough finals match. Check out the photo by...
Microsoft Online Services Division Sees Loss from Stronger Dollar, Weaker Online Ads
On a day when the stock market rose above 9,000 and everyone but the short sellers were in good spirits, Microsoft provided reason for pause. Their quarterly earnings were painful. Recently, Google and even Yahoo! earnings plus non-search and non-tech earnings seemed to show that perhaps the we've-seen-the-bottom pundits just might be right after all. Quarterly revenues declined 17% to $13.10 billion. Quarterly net income declined 29% to $3.05 billion Diluted earnings per share declined 26% to $0.34 Digging into the Online Services division, quarterly revenue declined 13% to $731 million. Online ad revenue decreased 14% to $529 million, primarily...
Marketers and Optimizers and Videographers! Oh, My!
Imagine a room full of internet marketers, search engine optimizers, and professional videographers! Oh, my! And I'm not talking about the room where Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, will give his opening keynote on the first day of the SES San Jose conference, which will run concurrently with the Social Media & Video Strategies forum on August 11, 2009. No, I'm talking about last night's meeting in Dedham, MA, of the National Professional Videographers Association of New England. It featured a presentation on social media by Tom and Reiko Beach of TRB Design, Inc., followed by a sneak...
But Twitter is no Google
Twitter's real-time search capability has great appeal to anyone wanting to get the pulse of what people are actually tweeting about. Media entities are taking note; companies are using it to deliver fast customer service responses. But I'm still not using Twitter search for my news and information. When I search for news, I stick with Google (and starting to experiment with Bing). Google generally finds what I'm looking for and I don't necessarily need "real-time" search results. I do want quality over quantity. Microsoft's Bing might give me more of what I want. But I'm still not motivated enough...
Three Lists from SES Toronto's Social Media Panel
In the "Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?" panel at SES Toronto, it turned out that the three presenters each offered a checklist of sorts. Though they shared more insight than just this, it's a handy way to sum up some of the knowledge they shared. First, we have 5 Myths of Social Media, from Mark Evans: Social media is free -- not when you count your time, money, and resources. Social media is easy -- it's not. Social media is about the tools -- but tools are worthless without a clear goal of what you want them to...
Digg to Launch In-House Advertising Platform
In April, Digg pulled out of its advertising contract with Microsoft. There was speculation at the time that Digg would launch its own advertising platform. This week the social bookmarking site announced that rumor will indeed come to fruition. Digg Ads will launch as a pilot program in a few months. Ads will be in the form of content you would normally see on Digg, but clearly labeled as "sponsored." Digg members can vote on sponsored content just like they vote on submitted stories. Digg says the more an Ad is Dugg, the less an advertiser will have to pay...
Digg Removes 'Shout', 'Blog This' Features in Favor of Other Sharing Options
Digg is removing two sharing features from its lineup: the controversial 'Shout' feature and the not-used-so-much 'Blog This' feature. But you can still share content found on Digg. The new (and also controversial) DiggBar enables email, Facebook and Twitter sharing. Digg also launched Twitter feeds a few months back, which means you can ReTweet links in order to share content as well. The DiggBar launched last month, and it's a toolbar that frames content instead of installing in your browser. As a result, DiggBar uses Digg URLs, which stirred up opposition from the SEO community. Digg quickly responded by saying...
Google Friend Connect Launches Recommendation Widget
One of the foundations of the social web is viral content, which is, at its core, based on recommendations. It's why sites like Digg are so popular. That's why it's no surprised to see Google Friend Connect launch a recommendation widget. Via the new widget, sites using Google Friend Connect to enable social networking now have a vehicle to support content recommendation. This can help give the networking on a given site momentum - and act as a magnet to attract new and repeat visitors. Here's a video explaining more:...
Twelve bloggers blogging about SES Toronto 2009
I know, the above headline above looks like a parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and it's only May! But I've seen a dozen bloggers blogging about SES Toronto, which will be held June 8-10, 2009, at the Sheraton Centre Toronto. So, I can't get the song out of my head. Maybe if I focus on what they're writing about, then I won't slip into "11 tweeters tweeting...." It all started innocently enough when Andrew Goodman wrote, "My Top Three Tips for SES Toronto 2009." See, when he said, three "tips are 100% guaranteed to help you get the...
Digg Pulls Out of Exclusive Ad Contract with Microsoft
Digg is ending its 3 year exclusive online advertising contract with Microsoft a year early, according to ClickZ. Starting in July, Digg will form its own advertising deals. Microsoft will be kept in the inventory reserve. Don't expect there to be bad blood between the two parties. There was always an expectation that Digg would take this course, according to what Mike Maser, Digg chief revenue and strategy officer told ClickZ. For its part, Microsoft is looking to expand ad blitz opportunities like the one it just did with Discovery Channel and the "Deadliest Catch" season premiere. Robin Domeniconi, VP...
Digg Tweaks DiggBar Again in Response to Continued SEO Criticism
Despite Digg's attempt last week to defend the DiggBar, many SEO's are still upset about the URL shortening and potential for reducing link juice. In response, Digg's next move is to 301 redirect anyone who comes across a page with a DiggBar on it - IF they are not signed into Digg. Digg users can also disable the bar, though Digg says very few have. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this won't appease SEO's. This almost feels like an admission by Digg that perhaps their DiggBar isn't quite as SEO-friendly as they hoped. I can...
Digg Search is Now Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Digg has introduced an updated search to their social bookmarking site. Design head Daniel Burka outlined the changes in a post on the Digg blog. The updates include: Filtering by factors such as Digg count, topic, time, etc. Advanced shortcuts to search for specific promotion characteristics. Add +p to your query for only promoted stories, +u for upcoming stories, and +b for buried. Common search tricks - quotes for exact match and a negative sign before the term to keep that term out of results A graph demonstrating the historical trend of a term Searching for stories from a particular...
