Following yesterday’s guilty verdict for three Google executives accused of breaching privacy laws in the Italian courts, will sites now have to be more accountable for the content that they host?
This could well prove to be a landmark ruling in the history of the Internet. The air of invincibility surrounding content hosts has been well and truly shattered. With high ranking executives being handed suspended jail sentences, any lethargy towards removing illegal or damaging content on sites has been forcibly quashed with one drop of a judge’s gavel.
But who exactly is accountable for content? Should the executives bear the brunt for something they’ve (most likely) never had any prior knowledge of? Should there be more blocks in place to ensure that any content that is deemed offensive or goes against the terms of use never sees the light of day, or at the very least, is removed quickly?
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Google are to launch a new social media tool that will be bolted on to their Gmail service. But has Buzz got enough to compete with Facebook and Twitter?
With the social media bandwagon continuing to gather momentum, Google have now thrown their hat in the ring. Not satisfied with integrating Twitter updates in their SERPs or introducing Social Search [see: Google's Social Search Adds Further Personalisation to SERPs], they are now getting in on the action with a new platform of their own – Google Buzz.
But with Twitter and Facebook seemingly cornering the market, is there really enough room for Buzz to get take a slice? Conventional logic would suggest not, but this is Google.
It would take a brave man to suggest that a Google product will fall flat on its face, and I’m certainly not going to buck that trend. But Buzz does have an uphill challenge. Facebook is the king of social media. With 350 million users and the second largest traffic stream (behind Google.com) of an individual domain, there is undoubtedly healthy competition out there.
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The world’s biggest social media site, Facebook, are to dump Microsoft adCenter as they prepare to launch their own advertising platform. But with the original deal not running out until 2011, full worldwide Bing integration appears to have been the real deal sweetener.
Evidently the Facebook site is a lucrative place for any advertiser to show their products and is equally effective in delivering money to the host – Microsoft. However, in something of a surprise move, Facebook have ended their agreement with the technology giant to manage their advertising system in-house.
With a year left in the contract, clearly Microsoft will seek something in return and it appears as though it may come in the form of Bing being integrated into Facebook as the default search engine, worldwide. Obviously the exact nature of the agreement is still largely under wraps, but it appears that Bing could be set for a huge promotional push, starting off with 350 million+ Facebook users.
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Google have been developing their Social Search profile for a few months now. Last week we finally saw the emergence of their latest endeavours, a new element within their blended results featuring related messages from your online social circle.
Social Search is now going to appear as an option within Google’s search results. Essentially it works by pooling the public information shared by your online friends and will show those that include the keywords used – in order of relevance of course.
So how does Google know who I’m friends with?
Well, the Social Search element will only appear for those who have a Google profile and are signed in. It collates the data from the links that you voluntarily supply. For example, your Google profile might include Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, with links to each of your related accounts. Google can then reach in and grab your public information – i.e. your friends or contacts list – and include them within your social circle – ready for Social Search integration.
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Social media has the Marmite effect; either you love it, or you hate it. General indifference seems hard to come by and as such this polarising effect has been reflected in the modern workplace.
Some businesses can’t get enough of social media. Employees are actively persuaded to get involved in online conversations and whole departments have been generated to work as a sort of sales/marketing/customer service/PR hybrid team of tweeters. Others though are quite the opposite. Employers are blocking access on office machines and handing down severe punishments for unauthorised usage.
Invariably, as you are reading this, you too will have your own opinion on the value of social media in the workplace. It is a seemingly very insignificant debate, but is one that has been thrust into significance due to the amount of coverage it receives. Again, this coverage tends to highlight the two extremes, one full of saccharine sweetness the other disdainfully sour; balance and neutrality are difficult to achieve in this debate, which is why it largely remains unresolved.
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Have we become too open to the idea of sharing information and what can be done to safeguard Internet users from an avalanche of spam in the future?
The Internet as it stands is acting much like the human heart. Whilst continuing to provide a lifeline for millions of individual cells, the arteries that feed it are becoming increasingly clogged by sediments of spam and useless information. If this allowed to continue, could it be on the verge of a fatal cardiac arrest?
Potential avenues of profitability have opened the doors to the scurrilous and the entrepreneurial; although with more emphasis sadly on the former. The Internet is now rife with automated content, worthless websites and endless empty conversations, all of which are combining to create a monstrous jumble. One of the biggest meeting points for the real world and Internet sharks is on social media sites. More…
Unfortunately not all websites are owned by companies with endless resources and a bottomless pit of money. Most in fact have tight restrictions when it comes to both time and finances. However all sites share a common desire, which is to be the most successful in their field, regardless of the strength of their competition.
To get to the top with limited resources, particularly for SMEs, is no easy task. It requires an acute understanding of your market and effective management of your priorities. Many businesses see SEO as a cure, others have heard about the emerging success stories emanating from social media, whilst some believe that Paid Search (PPC) will get them the targeted traffic they need. There’s plenty of evidence to support all of these viewpoints, but which will work best for you?
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Not all that long ago I wrote about the interchangeable roles of social media and traditional interaction [see: Is Social Networking Actually Harming Social Interaction?]. For many, social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have become a part of their day to day communication, for others it has all but replaced it.
Today, at 11 o’clock there will be a two minute silence in honour of those who have fought and died in conflicts since World War I. With troops still in frontline action today, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, this Armistice Day – or Remembrance Day – will no doubt be keenly observed in streets, offices and homes across the country. However, should that silence spread online?
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The idea of social SEO, or indeed an SEO social, has little or nothing today with gaggles of optimisers discussing the latest techniques. It instead reflects the convergence of two Internet superpowers, search engines and social media, in an online marketing mêlée.
Whilst search engines benefit from a longstanding tradition and user familiarity, social media represents a surging market and unique real-time capabilities. To some, the two are chalk and cheese, to others the differences are becoming increasingly blurred.
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It appears that real-time search could finally become a reality. Following our post earlier in the month, Twitter negotiating real-time search deal with Microsoft and Google, it looks like the ink is now drying on an agreement that will see the aforementioned search engines gain complete access to the social media site’s network.
This is a brave new world for search engines and could well change the way we view and use SERPs in the future. Bing and Google are now free to start developing ways to incorporate Twitter feeds into their searches, opening up unique opportunities for the respective engines and their users.
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This time last week, who can honestly say that they had any more than a passing knowledge of oil distributor Trafigura or reputation lawyer firm Carter-Ruck? Whilst there may be a few out there, I’m reasonably confident that those numbers have swollen significantly over the last seven days.
How about Jan Moir? As a former Outstanding Woman Journalist of the Year, respected food critic with The Telegraph and more recently a columnist with The Daily Mail, you’re more likely to have read her work or heard the name discussed somewhere. Although, that said, she was still far from a household name.
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When I posed the question, ‘How will Twitter monetise…?’, at the tail end of last week, I didn’t expect the answer to be quite so immediate. Today it has been announced that Twitter are holding talks with both Google and Microsoft to seal a deal that will see feeds being shown alongside standard search results.
This is a move that has been some time in the making. Bing stole a march on Google at the beginning of July by integrating the tweets of a select band of Twitterati royalty (as covered in our blog post, ‘Bing Unleash Real-Time Search’). Whilst Twitter has struggled to find a way to make money from its hugely popular service, the search engines have been seeking ways to tap into its real-time capabilities. A match made in heaven, surely.
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The $100million Twitter raised last week in venture capital appears to highlight two important things. Firstly, Twitter is still regarded as a growing business worthy of heavy investment. And secondly, it is still unable to monetise itself effectively enough to create its own revenue.
The social media site’s stance against integrating advertising is a bold one, but is it ultimately going to doom Twitter to financial failure?
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From the outset social media was created to link people together. Whilst Friends Reunited touted the idea of finding long lost classmates, Facebook was connecting students in Harvard. But somewhere along the line, boundaries between harmless conversations and prolific publicising have become blurred.
Nobody can argue that there are fantastic opportunities to be gained for businesses using social media and that their influence can be a positive one – providing discounts, useful information and a right of reply – but is there a danger web 2.0 overkill will eventually be its downfall?
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One major issue facing social media platforms is how exactly to monetise their services. Subsisting on investor funding isn’t sustainable, so turning the corner and making a site profitable is a significant priority, but one which many struggle to achieve.
For many years YouTube was a cash cow for Google. Whilst it was widely used and hugely popular, the video sharing site just couldn’t find a way to turn that into hard currency. In fact two months ago to the day, in a strange piece of social media circularity, it was announced that Facebook had 250 million users whilst YouTube were on the verge of making profit. Today, Facebook has reached 300 million users and is itself the one who is ready to start funding itself.
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