Social Search Archives

You heard about the Twitter news from Bing and Google but did you see the video demo from Google's Marissa Mayer on how Google will handle searches within the social network of an individual? If Google knows who your friends and family are, they can make image search, product search, web search, much more personalized.

Want to see how? Check out this video of Google's Social Search labs project that hopefully will launch in the next couple of weeks.

For many, handing over such data to Google can seriously improve the 'relevancy' of many of their search queries. But those worried about privacy should realize that for Google to get this information, you probably need to provide it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Watching the search news yesterday was pretty interesting. First, there were tons of rumors that Microsoft will be integrating Twitter data into Bing. Then the news broke on that where Bing confirmed the news. It launched, in limited form, at bing.com/twitter.

Shortly after, Google also confirmed a deal with Twitter to get their data as well and the news sites went nuts.

Yes, Twitter is licensing out the "firehose" of the tweets to search engines. Bing was doing something like this on a limited basis with Twitter in Bing search on some searches. Yahoo was/is reportedly in similar negotiations with Twitter as well.

In summary, clearly the search engines find the content within Twitter to be valuable. For more on this topic, see the stream of reports from Search Engine Land:

• Google Social Search Is Coming & More On Google-Twitter
• Live Blog: Marissa Mayer Speaking At Web 2.0
• Google & Twitter Have A Deal, Too
• Live Blog: Qi Lu Speaking At Web 2.0
• Up Close With Bing’s Twitter Search Engine
• Bing To Do Deal With Twitter, Launch Its Own Twitter Search

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Bing Community.

As many of you know, Twitter had some issues yesterday. It wasn't just Twitter, but Twitter got the most hurt from the DoS attack. If you haven't heard the news then (1) you were away, (2) you don't use twitter, (3) you don't read or watch the news or (4) you aren't reading this blog. If you fall into any of those cases, pick one of the hundreds of headlines on this story from Techmeme.

I was watching the news last night, while holding my 3 month old baby, and up came the news about Twitter being down most of the day. This was on prime time TV. I know Twitter is incredibly popular, especially amongst us and Hollywood, but a serious one-minute spot on all the major news channels? I really don't get that - but what do I know.

When Twitter was down for me, I did what most people do, I worked. In fact, it took me a while to notice Twitter was down. I rarely use the Twitter web site, I use TweetDeck to manage my Tweets, without it, I couldn't use Twitter.

In any event, it is really nice to see Twitter get so much attention, I hope they work out these attacks and if you are on Twitter, make sure to follow me at @rustybrick.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you visit Twitter.com today, you may notice a brand new home page (if you are not logged in). The home page really has a strong focus on search. Here it is:

Why? Twitter said to help "people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved."

This is an interesting move for Twitter, clearly showing the direction Twitter wants to move forward with.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Facebook announced they will be adding usernames for profile URLs. For example, my current Facebook URL is http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=528950782 but hopefully sometime early next week, it will become facebook.com/barryschwartz. In fact, it will, since Journalists don't have to wait for the Friday night deadline to secure their username on Facebook.

How does this apply to SEO? Well, for public profile pages that want to solve any online reputation management issues, a nice URL with your name in it, might help a bit.

So what is the issue? Well, as I tweeted the other day, Facebook is opening the first come first serve username registration at the same time Sabbath observers (like me) cannot login and reserve our names. Facebook said, "starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you'll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/."

Do I think Facebook did this intentionally? No way. Probably just an oversight that will impact many Facebook users. Personally, I did not care that much, I just felt bad for some die hard Facebook users. Now, I can even less, being that I am a journalist and I reserved my name already. But I still feel bad.

Tamar FriendFeeded (is that a word) that she was upset she couldn't secure her name since she is also a Shabbath observer. Hopefully someone can help her out. I was told that /barry was already taken, I think by a Facebook employee.

A WebmasterWorld thread has SEOs and marketers already thinking of ways to use these username URLs for their benefit.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Sphinn thread has discussion around the topic of how much Digg might not like SEO sites or blogs.

Back when Digg was first getting started, SEOs flocked to it, as a way of driving traffic and ultimately links, to help promote the site in the search engines. In fact, this site was often features on Digg's home page, not because I gamed it or wanted the links, in fact, it often put stress on my server, which I didn't want. It was featured because, on occasion, we write something that is quality. The last time we were featured on the Digg home page was in June 2007 for a brief period until it was manually removed. Since then, hundreds of people submitted our content to Digg and none of it made it "hot."

Personally, I gave up caring. But there is no doubt, the Digg community doesn't like the SEO community. It is understandable and it is their community.

The Sphinn thread discusses some of those reasons.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Yesterday was a very interesting day for Twitter. In short, Twitter removed the ability to see @ replies. Then they brought it back but in a limited fashion. The Twitter blog explained:

We're making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account.

Read that a few times. Neither here nor there.

Well, you might be able to see people who @ reply you or maybe not, it depends. That is why you might want to conduct a Twitter Search for your name and subscribe to the results via RSS. I do for both @seroundtable and @rustybrick (feel free to follow both).

To catch up on the Twitter action over the past 24 hours, TechCrunch posted a quality summary of what took place.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and make sure to follow @seroundtable and @rustybrick on Twitter.

News.com reports that Twitter is working on making Twitter Search more useful and relevant. Former VP of Search Quality for Google, Santosh Jayaram said they will soon be analyzing the links and content of the links in Twitter posts to make the search results more relevant. They will also build a ranking engine to take into account a person's reputation and trending topics.

The article said that this might help Twitter become a "credible competitor to Google Search." What is the issue with Twitter Search now? "Currently, if you search for a hot topic on Twitter, the results may be swamped by retweets and low-value content from hundreds or thousands of other users."

True, it is hard to find "unique" content with all the retweets. Finding unique, useful and relevant content on Twitter via search would be nice.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Michael Gray has written a great piece at Search Engine Land on how stories promoted in a social media site have actually translated to higher rankings. He takes a bunch of unpopular domains (e.g. not Forbes, Jalopnik, or other known car sites) and shows how their rankings have improved after the particular stories have been submitted to a site like Digg. Then he looks at the keyword rankings for each of these stories. It becomes obvious that social media is an alternative to link building but that it's imperative to use your keywords that you want for ranking in the Digg submission.

Of course, there are links to be gained, but there's obviously a lot more -- direct sales, awareness, and then some.

So why is it that you haven't tried social media marketing yet?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

The Searchlight Digital blog has a detailed analysis of three weeks of Sphinn frontpage success. The analysis takes a look at the top contributor and the categories in which the stories became popular.

From looking at that data, the conclusion (besides being a power user) is obvious:

If you want to kick ass on Sphinn, there are specific topics you should be writing on, namely SEO, social media and Google.

Well, that may be true, but the Sphinn discussion says that the other sections (e.g. Usability) have less submissions overall so there's a higher percent change that the usability stories will frontpage versus a SEO submission (among submissions in the same category). At the same time, those topics don't have submissions in them because there's a lot less interest compared to more general topics.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Sphinn is a little over a year old now and the Problogger blog has a tutorial for beginners on how to take advantage of the highly popular Internet Marketing social news site. The article is broken down to history, how to get started, how to navigate the site, and how to submit an article. Some pitfalls are discussed, but ultimately the value of Sphinn is seen:

For users, the benefits are being able to locate internet marketing themed posts that hopefully have some value and can add to your internet marketing knowledge. For industry writers and bloggers, one of your stories being submitted and going hot on Sphinn can bring your site exposure and traffic.

Everyone knows that a site like Digg and StumbleUpon, being that they're both not as niche sites, can give you traffic. The question, though, is "is this targeted traffic?" Most people (and even the commenters on the post) don't realize that this is the biggest and most valuable type of traffic because people are specifically seeking out articles that address Internet Marketing and Search.

But in the meantime, while Sphinn rocks in its own regard, there are also conversations of raising the bar. Right now, it's fairly obvious to regular users that you need 22 votes to hit the front page of Sphinn. The problem is that this system can be gamed -- and yes, there's one guy who keeps asking me for Sphinns even though I wrote this for him over a year ago. Thus, it's currently being discussed on Sphinn to raise the number of votes to 30 so that higher quality stuff rises to the top and the low quality and gamed content doesn't make it.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and Sphinn.

Yelp.com, the review site, is reported to have been engaging in some shady activity with business owners. In one example quoted by the linked article, a business owner was told by telemarketers that if she paid $300, reviews can be rearranged where the negative reviews would be essentially placed "below the fold." However, Yelp doesn't actually allow that.

At Cre8asite Forums, it's suspected that Yelp.com's employees may even have a hand in writing bad reviews for local businesses to encourage them to purchase into the paid program. If this is true, that would make for a pretty shady operation, don't you think?

In fact, if telemarkers engage in a practice that Yelp obviously approves of (they're reading from a script, after all) and Yelp gets a negative review by business owners for actually engaging in these shady operations, is it legitimate for Yelp to remove those negative reviews? In another article, a business owner states that her negative review about Yelp itself was removed by Yelp.com. (But wait, she can't remove her own negative reviews, so why doesn't it work both ways?)

Is this practice extortion? Is Yelp.com legit? Is it time for a new company to take over and do it better and ethically without greed of money being on the mind?

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Update: We received an update from Yelp saying that reviews are purely algorithmic and that only one positive review can be emphasized. Reviews can come down if the person writing the review closed his/her account or the account was terminated due to violations. A third reason why reviews would be hidden is due to suspect behavior; the review is removed from the actual business but not from the reviewer's profile page.

Peter Da Vanzo poses a question on SEOBook asking if social media marketing is a waste of time. In it, he adds a few qualifiers including traffic (is the traffic to your page to see a monkey riding a bicycle worth it?), an uncontrolled message, a concern about the ability not to measure branding, the level of interaction isn't clear, it takes time, it's stupid and is a useless distraction, and it's difficult to scale.

This all may be true to an extent. EGOL recounts his own experience being Dugg: when the page was submitted to Digg, it had no inbound links. Within a few weeks, though, it had several hundred. Three years later, it's still on the top of the Google SERPs.

That said, it's not completely a waste of time.

I should add that this industry is very focused on Social Media Marketing as getting Dugg on the front page. That's not all there is to SMM.

One important thing to note, as shared by forum member glyn:

The thing with Social Media is the moment you get too specific with your advertising you scare the user base away.

Forum discussion continues at Crea8site Forums.

I'm inventing a whatchamacallit device that will enable me to run in circles, cut a chicken, and light up a lamp... or not. But what happens if you were enlisted to help someone optimize a website that performs activities that you never heard of or never meant to combine? A Cre8asite Forums member is running into this issue. SEOigloo says that she has been contacted by a company that wants her to optimize for a product that nobody will ever think to search for. How does one accomplish this task?

This is hard to say, really. If someone isn't going to search, perhaps search engine optimization is not the ideal approach for awareness. Instead, it may be better to consider social media marketing. Perhaps better, blogger outreach in relevant areas may be most beneficial for the product.

You can still leverage search engine optimization, however. Michael Martinez says that in terms of optimization techniques, you are the one who is able to "build a new query space." He explains:

You choose what the relevant keywords will be for the space, then optimize the site for those keywords. When the site ranks for the keywords, you start a branding campaign to teach people to search for those keywords.

The bottom line is that you can still utilize basic SEO tactics -- sure, you may have to be creative in terms of what keywords and queries you'll optimize for, but it's going to work after the initial investment. Additionally, social media marketing may be fruitful as well depending on the product and buzz.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 22, 2008.

In case you felt that the English version of Sphinn is not souped up enough for your needs, there's another version of Sphinn in Japanese for other internet marketing news. Danny Sullivan has announced that now there be no spam complaints when legitimate Japanese internet marketing posts get submitted -- and this is the suitable home for these posts.

As a note, if you're already a member at Sphinn.com, the user base is NOT shared so you'll need to sign up to Sphinn Japan to participate.

Now why are there no women under the "Special Users" box?! ;)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn (English!) ;)

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 15th.

The Live Search blog announces a partnership between Facebook and Microsoft for search and ads. You can now either "Search Facebook" or "Search the Web" using Live.com. Additionally, adCenter ads will be delivered alongside those search results.

So far, it's good to integrate search on Facebook with search on Live.com to prevent opening a second tab/browser to perform searches. However, as one forum member points out, this looks like an attempt for Microsoft do dominate the search realm.

Other implications of this search partnership will relate to the personal information Facebook has about you and how Microsoft should probably leverage that with this search integration. I'd admit -- if I'm searching on the Web using Facebook, I'd definitely want more personalized results than generic SERPs for any random query.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and High Rankings Forums.

Jordan Kasteler recently published a short 14-question quiz asking whether you're a social media addict. Questions range to "do you have more friends online than in real life?" to "do you ask your real life friends if they're members on your favorite social networking site?" to "do you spend more time on social media than your family?" Other questions include "are you afraid to admit how much time you spend on social media sites?" or "do you go crazy when social media sites are temporarily down?"

I'm guilty. According to the quiz, the answer is 89%, though I take offense to such a low number. (Sorry Jordan! When you breathe, eat, and sleep social media, you're a default 100% and you wouldn't be afraid to tell the world. You're also allowed to freak out when other sites -- not Twitter -- go down! When Digg did a few times, I went NUTS.) :)

How do you fare? Take the quiz.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

In July, Dave Naylor spotted a "Twitter loophole" in the bio section of Twitter: Twitter nofollows users' web sites but links in the biography were actually not nofollowed. When Matt Cutts read the post, he notified Twitter's staff about the issue. Consequently, Twitter made some changes to disable the links in the biography, a move that appears to have occurred yesterday.

The move has hardly been received well by the search community. In several blog posts, one by Kevin Gibbons and the other by Rae Hoffman, one wonders why Twitter decided to make this change and they suggest alternatives for how Twitter should best handle it.

The problem isn't necessarily the abuse of the system, which might be something that Twitter thinks can be a problem, but more about the fact that people who use Twitter are the ones propagating that profile and building up their solid account. As such, the mindset is that Twitter should not penalize users who have already established themselves as active community members.

Perhaps, then, Twitter should look for an incentive program for good contributors rather than penalize everyone. Kevin suggests a good compromise:

... in my opinion Twitter could learn a great deal from the way Sphinn and SEOmoz reward the active members in the community. Sphinn nofollow all submission links until they hit the homepage and SEOmoz nofollow profile links until you reach 100+ user points.

At this point, I'm compelled to agree. Nobody loses here. Twitter members who have been active for a certain amount of time or who have established themselves should not be impacted.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Last night, Yahoo announced that they opened up Yahoo Buzz to the whole web. When Yahoo launched Yahoo Buzz, it was only open to less than 500 or so publishers, for users to use. Now, Yahoo has opened it to any web page on the internet, allowing any of their users to submit and buzz up any content on the web. You can read more of the news at Techmeme.

To submit content, go to http://buzz.yahoo.com/submit/. To add Yahoo Buzz buttons to your own content, go to http://publisher.buzz.yahoo.com/about.

We have been a Yahoo Buzz publisher for a while, so you have been able to see the Yahoo Buzz buttons on the bottom of our posts for a while now.

A WebmasterWorld thread does point out that it is "Restricted to US only." But other than that, there is not much discussion around this Digg-like service.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

According to The New York Times, Microsoft will soon be advertising within Facebook. Perhaps this is because Microsoft currently has an ad deal with Digg and Digg might be acquired by Google soon, possibly nullifying the contract (though I don't really know the legal ramifications of such an acquisition).

There's no forum discussion just yet, but the writer of this article wonders how well-targeted those Microsoft ads are ... considering she used to see weird ads on Digg.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

CNET and a number of other blogs report that Google may buy social news site Digg for approximately $200 million. This has been something we've been eying for awhile, with Reuters photographing Digg CEO Jay Adelson with Larry Page of Google (as seen in Valleywag). As a former Digg addict myself (with an emphasis on the "former"), I guess I wonder what Jill Whalen wonders on a Sphinn submission: why would they want it?

Many other forum members are a little baffled by this. In my opinion, it is happening way too late. An acquisition last year would have been more beneficial with the dedicated userbase. One forum member calls this another "fascinating toy for Google guys" and that Google is pulling what Microsoft did years ago: they're acquiring without stopping.

Several forum members across many forums, however, say that they thinks Digg could do better than $200 million. Actually, I think Google could do better than $200 million....

Others think that the search engine takeover was a matter of time, especially since Google has been testing voting features within the search engine for some time. But is Digg really profitable? It might be, and that's because they force you to click twice to get to a page you want to vote upon (which was an issue of contention last September when it was implemented -- but they never responded to this -- since they were aiming for the monetary gain).

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Sphinn.

Debra Mastaler's Grab Your Profile Link Before Some Jerk Does points out almost the obvious, but when you think about it, many brands don't bother with it. I cannot express enough how important it is for you to secure your brand name on all the major social sites and communities, espesially those that may have an impact on your brand.

For example, do you think Paris Hilton secured twitter.com/parishilton or did some savvy web marketer grab it and is using it to promote their own site? But it can get bad or evil even. If someone who hates you grabs your profile and uses it against you, it can get nasty. So it is very important to try to grab all your social networking profiles and register them, even if you don't bother using them.

Which profiles do I recommend you obtain?

• Digg
• Delicious
• Twitter
• Plurk
• Linkedin
• Flickr
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Gmail account
• Yahoo Profile
• MSN profile
• FriendFeed
• Bebo
• MyBlogLog
• MySpace
• Netscape
• Pownce
• StumbleUpon
• Niche social sites (aka Sphinn)

I am sure I am missing some, but you should seriously consider securing your brands, names, products, trademarks and so on at these sites.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

A very cool post by Web Professor was published yesterday about the 11 1 most important stories about Sphinn ever. The post goes into detail about who the big community participants are, what the best posts about Sphinn are, and what kind of Sphinn discussions there have been since its launch last year.

This post goes to show the power of "social" media and how we're all united by a community bond of some sort. Plus, it's a great post that illustrates that many people share information about what they're passionate about.

If you're new to Sphinn, it's a great read. If you're old to Sphinn, it's also a great read. The links (111!) will tell you the ins and outs of who and what Sphinn is all about.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Dosh Dosh has just written an excellent piece on how to get more Twitter followers. He cites a lot of reasons, but drives it down to the power of your brand. Still, even if you're not a powerful brand, you can benefit from Twitter in the same way that many popular web celebrities do. For example, if you create a tool and promote yourself with it, you can gain a lot of followers. You can also use your website real estate to link to your Twitter profile, such as through banner ads, a Twitter link, and more.

Additionally, your friends can vouch for you or you can run contests. Really, the possibilities are endless and Dosh Dosh touches upon the surface. Your creativity doesn't have to run out with this one.

The article is a must-read (and so is the blog), and forum members think so too. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Before reading on, would you consider forums "social media?" This is the question that is posed on a High Rankings Forum post.

Many people find that the answer varies. Forums, after all, are inherently social -- they bring people together on common ground. But others disagree. Forums are not "social media" because they don't like the negative connotations of social media (such as being "poked" like on Facebook). In other words, the person finds social media as meaningless but forums are meaningful. Your mileage may vary.

Forums really do predate social media. If I'd give my insights, I think forums are not "social media" per se (the way we social media folks see it), but they certainly were a stepping stone and precursor to "real social media." However, of course, there's the other side of the coin: social media is, after all, the technology that people use to share their opinions and insights, and forums definitely provide that.

Yay or nay? Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Andrew Shotland aka Local SEO Guide has a very cool writeup on Facebook Pages and Local Search Engine Optimization. He explains that it's possible to do local SEO from your Facebook page and illustrates the process, which includes setting up your own blog, installing a Facebook application called SimplyRSS, keeping content updated regularly, and networking on Facebook very often.

Does it work? He illustrates that an accountant from the UK is using it, and it seems to appear pretty useful. However, with 8 fans, my bet is that they're not applying Andrew's fourth tip: "networking up the wazoo." In any event, with an RSS reader, you can embed your blog posts into almost any Facebook page that you can customize, be it your profile page or a fan/product page, and it's a very valuable tool to leverage.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

In an extremely unexpected move, AOL has acquired social site Bebo for $850 million. Bebo currently has over 40 million members, but nobody realized that AOL would go the acquisition route -- until it did.

Was it worth it? Some people think that the approach is the most important thing:

If they push for international recognition (AOL was mainly based in the US) they should be alright in the long run. If they are trying to promote it in the US more than they should, waste of money.

But in the UK, apparently, Bebo is a great social network, and as long as AOL focuses its efforts on where Bebo is big, it can work for them.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Do you all remember Digg's algorithm change in January? Well, it looks like I was right when I claimed that Digg jumped the shark. Pierre at Social Alerter actually provided an in-depth analysis of how the algorithm impacted the popularity of front page stories. In his post, Digg's Algo Change Cut Promotions by 38%, he shows data that supports this statement. Then he asks, "The question is, was the change worth it for Digg? Did the quality of promoted stories go up? Did it increase the number of users? Only Digg the company and the Digg users can answer those."

Let me give you a short answer: Digg became less of a tech-centric site and more of a mess of random junk. For example, did this story need to hit the front page? Thank you, captain obvious, but I like informational news, not junk.

As some people notice, however, the Digg stories that do get promoted get a lot more traffic. (Not from me, though.) And at this point, I think that Digg can't really have a "fan base" because it totally killed user morale--at least to some like yours truly.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Over at Cre8asite Forums, member Risa asks about the appeal of social media sites. She's tried StumbleUpon, Facebook, and Twitter, but hasn't used them more than once.

She's not alone. Autocrat adds that he also struggles to understand social media when used in conjunction with search engine marketing.

So what does one do? Well, speaking as a social media aficionado myself, it didn't happen overnight that I started understanding the nuances of social media. At first, I hated Digg. Then I fell in love with it. I've been a StumbleUpon member since 2005. I started using it aggressively in 2007. Twitter wasn't that appealing in 2006 when I signed up. It's now almost indispensable when I use it for advice and networking -- and it's a great tool.

Social media takes time and investment. It also takes understanding what works for you and your business if that is how you intend to use it. Build a profile on one social site and let everything else follow.

What others don't understand is that social media is not search. It is not something you should try in lieu of a decent SEM strategy. If anything, social media should complement it.

I'd also recommend that others should acknowledge that while there are hundreds (thousands?) of social media sites out there, it may be compelling to focus on a social media site that aligns mostly with your interests, but if it isn't a heavily-trafficked site, your efforts will probably not meet your satisfaction. A site like StumbleUpon is great because you can really drill down to your wants and needs and get served (and serve) pages that fit in with your interests. And if you're an active participant, people will become your friend which makes it a lot easier to network.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Colin Cochrane noticed that del.icio.us has blocked search engine spiders. He believes that it's not a simple robots.txt exclusion; instead, del.icio.us is serving 404 errors based on the User-Agent. Barry Welford confirmed this by changing the User-Agent himself.

How did he come across this? He was using a Firefox del.icio.us addon that and couldn't locate a page he had referenced before. It was only when he did the search directly on del.icio.us that he found it.

Not many people believe that this approach is a good idea. A 403 response code is better, says Pierre aka eKstreme. Pierre has noticed a bunch of errors lately within Yahoo, including JavaScript errors and pop-up alerts that indicate that something has broken.

Some folks have turned the thread into a rant about the competence of Yahoo at this point. Barry Welford puts it this way: "this may be a sign of a debilitating decline for del.icio.us and Yahoo! is in no position to invest massively in a property that has uncertain monetization."

I honestly hope that that is not the case.

But EGOL says something else. It is possible that many people are gaming their way onto the del.icio.us front page (heck, I've seen some pretty bad-quality sites there myself) and this is the way to not pass juice to them. It's not the most ideal solution, and it's a mistake to do this without being forthright.

Most people believe this is just a bad mistake made on Yahoo's part, which doesn't help since Yahoo has been having a difficult time lately, and this doesn't help matters at all.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

TechCrunch got a tip that Yahoo Search is testing integration Del.icio.us results in the search results. In my opinion, bad idea Yahoo.

Michael Arrington says it "Delicious search is one of the best ways of searching for things when a standard search doesn’t pull up what you are looking for." True, but Yahoo search users won't understand it. They simply won't get it.

We have discussion on this topic at Sphinn where SEOs and SEMs weigh in. One person said this will lead to more Delicious spam, "so begins the mass creation of Delicious accounts meant to spam." Of course, for bloggers and delicious users, we are happy, as one person said, "What a great step that would be, given word of mouth is a bigger influencer of our purchase behaviour than is any other variable." But as Michael said, "excellent idea, horrible integration, stumbleupon nailed it on the head, the delicious integration is is inferior hopefully they will bring it up."

Still, I don't think Yahoo searchers would get it. I don't even think most Google searchers would get it.

Yahoo just sent me a screen capture:

It should work for you on a search for JAVA, but it doesn't work for me in Safari.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Who are you? Google wants to know. This past weekend, we learned of Google Profiles, a way for Google to learn about who you are, what you do, and provide any information about yourself.

Google goes into further detail, explaining that a profile page is a way to "represent yourself on Google products — it lets you tell others a bit more about who you are and what you're all about."

Google Profiles are accessible to everyone but you can show as little or as much information as you like.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

If you're a user of the Sphinn social news network, you might be inundated by the folks who participate on a regular basis. So who should you know? A SEOmoz post (or rather, a YOUmoz post - it's in their user generated content section) posted by member bookworm-seo has a real in-depth article of the top 20 Sphinners and why you should befriend them.

So why? Well, they're seeking out some great content that you should read. And they're pretty interesting, as bookworm-seo says.

It's actually a nice read. I won't mention who is on the list since you'll have to look at it yourself.

So who are the top 20? And what do you think about such lists? The discussion continues on Sphinn.

One day, Matt McGee decided to take a deep look at Sphinn (as a moderator) and acknowledged 7 recurring mistakes that continually happen on the booming social news network. He listed them out and encouraged users to be distinct, different, and unique. Here's what you should avoid when pitching to a site like Sphinn or another type of social news website:

1. Avoid sales pitches disguised as "good content."
2. Don't submit your entire website. Social news sites don't need your "about" pages. They aren't directories.
3. Have a good headline. Seriously.
4. Make your description interesting. Don't you want people to vote on your article?
5. Give yourself a noticeable avatar. Stop blending in with the crowd.
6. Create a unique username.
7. Stay on topic and contribute articles that are pertinent to the categories you've submitted to.

(I feel like I've said much of this before and it still works quite well for other social networks. Thanks Matt!)

But what else would drive someone bonkers? Well, for a smallish site like Sphinn, you shouldn't submit more than 2 stories in a row (it's in the guidelines, people). That one frustrates a lot of people.

What would drive you crazy on a social network? Forum discussion continues on Sphinn.

Well, not quite, but forum members are noticing that people are shifting their focus away from forums and into blogs. Do forums have to adapt?

Not necessarily. Some forum members are not yet embracing the blogosphere. The audiences may stay the same.

And so, many think that forums can still coexist with blogs and newer social media. RuudHein adds the following:

By nature, I believe, all social media, including forums, are complementary.

Forum administrators often grapple with this problem. The discussion prompted Cre8asite administrator Kim Krause Berg to blog about it. Jill Whalen of High Rankings forums believes that both can coexist as well, as they're quite similar in what they offer:

But I really don't see forums as all that different from blogs that allow commenting.

Still, some people, like Barry Welford, do:

If you want a discussion with like-minded people, then a forum is the place to go. Social media sites like Digg, or even Sphinn, are like a whitewater river. There is little time to stop and look around. That isn't at all the nature of a successful forum.

Some people will move onto blogs, and others will stick with forums. Yet others will mix and match. There's nothing wrong with that, and forums don't appear to be going obsolete anytime soon. (If they would, Search Engine Roundtable would too, right? We only cover forum discussion, after all!)

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums and Sphinn.

As a result of StumbleUpon's newest update, a lot of folks are confused about how it's integrating into the Google SERPs. There are two new features, one of which actually isn't a new feature, but it looks like StumbleUpon has finally brought these options to the attention of its users.

Here's an example of what you see with the feature turned on fully. Don't ask me why they categorized one of these as "Car Parts."

It appears that it's just a matter of a recent update -- nothing more, nothing less. In fact, you can turn it off here:

StumbleUpon Toolbar > Tools > Toolbar Options > Configuration Tab > Uncheck "Highlight Recommended Search Results," "Show Names of Friends Who Like Search Results," and "Show Topics of Search Results." At that point, the page will look like it used to -- but you'll still see a "See StumbleUpon Friends Reviews."

Of course, many people are a bit concerned about the privacy implications. I don't mind; I'm a big SU user.

You can disable just about everything, which essentially restores your search results to the normal results you'd expect.

In any event, forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums thread is buzzing about social media, where a forum member asks if bounce rates are higher than from other traffic sources.

It really depends on the audience and the content. Someone might go to a site and want to know more. Others might just keep clicking the "Stumble" button repeatedly until their phone call ends. Others are intrigued by a headline on Digg, might then access the page, but will then return to Digg. A number of factors come into play here.

Some people are actually seeing lower bounce rates from social media sites (22% as opposed to 50%), which is substantial. If you have the good content, then take advantage of it. :)

But what else could be involved in that metric? It is possible that the searcher didn't find what he wanted for the particular search phrase since many terms have multiple meanings. When you're in a mode for performing a social search, you're likely to meander. Again, there are a lot of factors including the mindset.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Google is soon to launch OpenSocial, which I alluded to earlier this week. MySpace, which has recently lost a lot of users to Facebook, has joined forces with the OpenSocial developer initiative. Additionally, Bebo and SixApart have joined as well.

What does this mean for Google? Money.

I think you can be pretty sure that Google makes a profit on the spread between Adwords revenues from ad placed on MySpace and Adsense payouts to MySpace.

Can we expect the Google stock to rise to $800? Maybe.

Is it too late for them, though? Only time can tell.

And finally, can small players participate or is it also too late? Forum members are skeptical of the success of the small person over giants like Google and Microsoft.

Coverage is at Techmeme, and forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Want some cash? Got a Facebook application developed? Numerous reports to Facebook developers suggest that Facebook is looking for some cash, and they're willing to share. An application developer has received the following email:

Dear Facebook Application Developer,

Would you like to drive more users to your app? We've expanded our pay-per-action (PPA) beta test and would like to invite you to participate by creating ads for your Facebook application. [snip]

A WebmasterWorld member has pointed out that Facebook is intending to launch SocialAds next week so that advertisers can target Facebook users anywhere. Will SocialAds end up competing with Google AdSense if these ads can be viewed everywhere?

That's certainly a thought. Danny Sullivan suggests that Google is launching a competitive campaign of its own: OpenSocial.

Who do you think will win this battle? Facebook clearly has the lead in the social sphere. AdSense clearly has the lead in the advertising sphere. Will the tides change with the times?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

As many of you know, I'm a heavy social media user. I love finding interesting content that is typically determined by an audience of my peers who vote on articles on many different web 2.0 sites. A WebmasterWorld member, whose website is typically one of those frequently-voted-upon sites, is having trouble getting regular traffic because all of these links on social sites are nofollowed. He asks, "[I]sn't Google missing on a lot of that action by not taking this new web 2.0 dynamic into consideration?"

A few users suspect that these sites are actually the driving force behind some of the drops in PageRank from the October update.

Google might be missing out, but forum members suggest that other factors may end up causing the algorithm to shift in due time:

With all the "no follow" tags being used these days you'd think it would be nearly impossible for sites to get rankings. My guess is that google will be looking more at the volume of traffic a site gets. Especially if they use analytics.

That's certainly an incentive to use Google Analytics. ;)

Here's a thought: the users acknowledge that these social media sites can be spammed, but what about very popular pages? Should nofollow be removed when the stories reach a certain threshold of votes (assuming there are no negative votes as well--to keep out gamers)?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft and Facebook are new best friends. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Microsoft has invested a considerable sum of money -- nearly $250 million -- to provide advertising on the coveted social platform.

Microsoft Corp. agreed to invest $240 million for a minority stake in Facebook Inc. that values the social-networking site at $15 billion. As part of the deal, the two companies expanded their advertising agreement.

Forum discussion is mixed. Microsoft has valuated the company at roughly $10-15 billion. Facebook is only bringing in $150 million a year. How does it add up?

Others find that Microsoft screwed up.

Looks to me like M$ have got a great deal and FB have gone [nuts].

They've denied themselves any future bids from Google Yahoo! etc., and for what?

A little bit of development cash in exchange for a long term advertising deal - which will get M$'s money back in twenty minutes.

However, even others are happy for Microsoft since this is good exposure for them.

As for myself, I can't say I'm happy with the Microsoft-Digg advertising partnership (I am sick of seeing classmates.com advertisements) so I honestly am a bit skeptical about this relationship.

Additional coverage (lots!) is at Techmeme.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Since Google can, Google will. With their interest in Facebook (as Marissa Meyer said at a recent keynote at SES San Jose), Google has taken advantage of installing the Google News app on Facebook (account required).

One forum member believes that "two of the greatest internet sites working together" could be a great thing. I think so too... if using Facebook apps is your thing. ;)

Here is how Google News is being used on two different profiles:

By the way, Vanessa Fox wrote about the Google News Facebook application on Search Engine Land too.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

A couple days ago, Forbes wrote Digg This Headline, For Google's Sake. The article basically describes how SEOs are using Digg to build links. I have described how that works with my article named The Power Of Digg In Link Building on March 1st of this year.

The article covers news from the Search Marketing Expo - Social Media conference we covered this week. And yes, they quote many of our friends, including our very own Tamar Weinberg as saying:

Blogger and search marketer Tamar Weinberg suggested that users provided contact info with their Digg accounts, encouraging other users to contact them and thus building a network that can be used to float links higher on the site.

Other familiar names mentioned include:

• Cameron Olthuis
• Neil Patel
• Brent Csutoras
• Chris Winfield

Thanks guys for representing our industry!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Numerous reports indicate that Microsoft is looking to purchase a stake in Facebook and values the social networking site at roughly $10 billion. That's 5 times as much as Zuckerberg was originally rumored to have wanted to sell Facebook for in early 2006.

Forum members, particularly those at WebmasterWorld, are shocked that Microsoft has put such a high value on the social networking site.

So we're saying Facebook is worth $8billion... what a load of &*"!£$%^. That's more than some serious worthwhile businesses!

Actually, with many people using Facebook during work, the valuation might not be too far off. I happen to know a lot of Facebook addicts. Don't you?

Others aren't as enthusiastic that Microsoft will have access to all the user data.

Somewhere in this mess is a great truth that your personal data has value and that value will be squeezed out of it, lucky us.

Very true -- and very frightening.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, I reported that DigitalPoint Forums members were concerned that a new widget, BlogRush, might be in violation of Google AdSense. Today, a new DigitalPoint Forums thread has emerged from a member who asked AdSense support if it was safe to participate.

Google's answer is that they don't condone it.

Thanks for checking in with us. We don't encourage or endorse the use of a program like this Thus, we're unable to give specific advice regarding BlogRush.

It's kind of a non-answer, as forum members say.

While I can see the concern, I don't think that BlogRush would conflict at all with Google AdSense since there's no confusion with ads and nobody is asking anyone to participate in clicking on ads. A forums member puts it this way:

Isn't this just like some sort of blogroll when two owners of blogs link each other ?

Exactly!

However, in another DigitalPoint Forums thread, a more understandable response is given by Google:

Thanks for your email. I understand that you'd like to have more traffic visiting your site. However, while we're unable to comment on any particular program or service, we do not recommend the use of any program that artificially drives traffic to your site. Use of these programs may lead to activity on your site that artificially inflates an advertiser's cost or a publisher's earnings, which would violate the AdSense program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) and Terms and Conditions (https://www.google.com/adsense/terms).

However, as I said yesterday both here and on my personal blog, I think the entire BlogRush program is overrated; there's way too much hype about it, and the traffic generation, if anything, will be minimal. Despite this, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums (thread 1) and DigitalPoint Forums (thread 2).

Yahoo has released Yahoo! Mash in what appears to be the closest thing to a Facebook-MySpace clone that I've seen coming from Yahoo. Initial impressions seem to indicate that it's not much different than Facebook at all and many individuals are happier using the older social network.

On WebmasterWorld, moderator martinibuster points out from a NY Times blog that the differentiating feature of Yahoo! Mash is that profiles can be edited by multiple users.

The site, which began an invitation only preview Friday, is quite an homage to Facebook, but it adds one significant new wrinkle: users can edit each other’s profiles, redecorating, changing information, and adding features. Think the Wikipedia version of a social network.

Of course, not all users are enthusiastic about this feature. Would you want to find your profile altered in a bad way by friends (or enemies?) I wouldn't think so. I do have a Mash Pet on my profile though, and I see that my friends are taking good care of him. (Please continue to do so.)

But others think that this is a plus, because you'll only be adding true friends, not people who would blatantly edit your profile. Also, some elements of other users' profiles cannot be altered (I tried. No luck).

For those who don't have access yet, here's a preview of my profile.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Cre8asite forums.

Over the past few days, numerous bloggers have been buzzing about BlogRush, a new widget that allows you to get "free traffic" to your blog. It works like this: users (based on referral codes and traffic) get titles of their blogs listed on similar blogs.

By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs.

DigitalPoint Forums members think that this can be a violation of AdSense TOS. But it's really doing nothing but displaying titles, so others disagree with that notion.

I've seen similar traffic widgets which I've also used but haven't seen much traffic increase, so I'm skeptical about this tool bringing traffic to my blog. As it is, most people I know are using full feeds and rarely take advantage of widgets on the sidebar. So, to answer Li at Cre8asite Forums, I'd be interested in seeing if there's anything more than just initial buzz. Right now, the tool does have the right kind of spokespeople behind it and this has prompted a plethora of new signups, but is there anything else?

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums.

As you know, Sphinn, a social news site for lovers of search engines and Internet marketers, was launched last month. My personal blog has been featured on the main page twice and I've only gotten a combined 165 unique visitors from Sphinn.com as the referral.

Apparently, I'm not alone. Matt Webb, aka SEO Honolulu, at Cre8asite Forums, noticed in his analytics that he had a surge of traffic, but the traffic was actually from StumbleUpon, and not Sphinn. I actually recall stumbling upon that site that day. Thus, I'm not surprised.

I've been asked already if it's worth it to submit content to Sphinn and if there will be a good traffic flow to blogs or articles that are submitted. Given my experience and Matt's, I think that we're just watching a baby grow up. As Chris Winfield says, it's still brand new (less than a month old!), but the early adopters can shape it and word of mouth will drive additional traffic to it.

Sphinn is certainly in its infancy and the traffic is not going to blow you away by any means. I think one of the main benefits to it (especially for newer people to the industry or bloggers) is exposure. I came across your blog directly from Sphinn after seeing a few different interesting posts on Sphinn by you. Its also always good to be part of a community from the beginning (if you believe in it and think it will be successful) as you can help shape it.

I personally vouch for Sphinn, not because I help moderate the forum there, but because there is finally a site for people who have a true interest in SEO, SEM, social media, and search to find a community of like-minded individuals where you can actually feel at home. Matt McGee agrees. If you haven't visited yet, I encourage you to do so.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Yesterday, Digg made an announcement that it dropped Google as its advertising partner and has chosen to sign a three-year exclusive advertising deal with Microsoft. Search Engine Land quotes Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz about the move:

Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content. We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online.

DigitalPoint Forums members believe that this might mean that Microsoft will acquire Digg, but I'm not so sure.

WebmasterWorld takes a more rational approach. They have an understanding of the Digg community (Digg loves Google but is not so keen on Microsoft), and the story on Digg initially reflected that but people started simmering down as their comments got buried. ;)

Cre8asite Forums members echo the anti-Microsoft sentiment. And what Administrator Adrian said is very true:

I expect a lot of Digg fans will find some way to rationalise it. It's how they are, they're a big crowd of sheep in a way. If someone like Kevin Rose says "Microsoft's cool, we're going to use them for our ads", I reckon a decent sized portion of the Digg crowd would go with it.

I totally see that. Everyone follows Kevin Rose. Even I do.

On Sphinn, the story is a bit different. Search Engine Land writers had the story as did many other prominent blogs. But they were embargoed until 3PM EST. Did Kevin Rose break his embargo? It seems that he did -- two hours earlier. Oops.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, Cre8asite Forums, and Sphinn.

Chris Winfield at Cre8asite Forums poses an interesting challenge for those of us who use social networking sites religiously. Is it a threat to your security? This question is promoted by an article where opponents of providing personal information believe that it indeed is a threat:

According to credit information provider Equifax, fraudsters could make off with users' personal information in order to commit ID theft--and the company is urging Web users to limit the amount of info they post online.

Most forum members are cautious about volunteering a lot of information. I understand that. It is rather difficult, however, for the young users of sites like MySpace and Facebook not to volunteer their personal information. The sites encourage it (if you don't enter a birthday on Facebook, for example, you get prompted to do so every time you log in until you do).

Still, that doesn't necessarily work well for some users.

[S]ecurity is a frame of mind, a way of life. You're either secure or not. To give an analogy, why lock the windows if you leave the door wide open? Lock everything!

I believe that users need to exercise caution when providing intimate details about themselves online. There's no reason to share with the world the last 4 digits of your social security number, your mother's maiden name, your father's middle name, or the name of your first pet. However, if this poses a problem in the future, and I can see that it might, it becomes a matter of credit providers to evolve, because there are millions of innocent victims whose identities are at risk on these social sites.

Neil Munroe, external affairs director for Equifax, said in a statement: "The problem is that people don't realize the significance of the kind of information they are putting out on the Web and who may be accessing it." He cited details such as date of birth, e-mail, job and marital status as the kind of data frequently posted online by unwary users.

It's time that those "minor" detail requirements are replaced by lesser known details.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Social media is important, as I alluded to today. Many people are finding that mainstream social sites are not always sufficient to address certain interests. Digg is a technology site. Netscape is more politically oriented. Sphinn is a search marketer's dream. What about other sites? Barry Welford starts a discussion on Cre8asite Forums to find social networks that are most suitable for a variety of alternative niches, such as food/drink, household, animals, and gardening. Do you know of any sites that appeal to these interests?

A few great sites have been shared, so I wanted to pass them on:

• 17 Niche Social Media Sites that Send Traffic
• Wikipedia's Social Networking Websites List
• 1200+ Websites in 50+ Categories

That should get you started. I'd be interested in hearing about other successful social sites in other verticals as well.

Forum discussion continues at Crea8asite Forums.

Yesterday, Danny announced the launch of Sphinn, a brand new social site for internet marketing professionals. Features include a forum discussion, a story/comments voting system, and story submission somewhat like Digg. This time, however, you can submit your stories related to SEO without fear of the consequences. :)

I walked through some of the features of Sphinn to show you what it's like. First, the obligatory photo of the homepage:

It's not *only* about SEO, my friends. :) That top story fits in with the internet marketer's theme of viral marketing.

I then decided to submit a story, but as you can tell, you are able to start a discussion (without an associated URL) too.

You should then choose an appropriate eye-catching headline and description:

...then you preview it and submit it!

All in all, very good stuff. That story was submitted yesterday and is now a hot topic. :)

There's already an impressive list of members and even RSS feeds. Also, the Search Engine Land commenting system will support the logins from this system.

We will begin treating Sphinn as a forum and discussing the best topics from it, so stay tuned. Also, be sure to befriend me and Barry, because we love you. :)

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

On social media sites, do comments enhance or detract from the user experience? That's the question that has been brought up in a Cre8asite Forums thread. There's "utter garbage" that is being served to the community, so how does that make social media sites engaging and enjoyable?

Joe Dolson has some interesting insights:

I think you're absolutely right - but I think it's a criticism of the community which creates those comments, rather than a problem with accepting comments.

This is echoed by Kulpreet Singh, who says that it's different (and higher quality) on sites where you have a true personal profile attached. That's when you're most likely accountable.

Comments only work for sites that already have a community, and the members have a track record and some accountability.

An interesting discussion has also been brought up on the SEO Igloo blog, where Barry, Kim Krause Berg, Bill Slawski, Sophie Wegat, and Matt McGee were interviewed. The distaste for foul comments was unanimous. Many don't participate in these communities as a result.

In the Cre8asite Forums thread, Kim Krause Berg goes further to say that there's an age and gender gap in comments.

There's a definite difference in the content of comments depending on the age and gender of the commenter.

I couldn't agree more. I also think there's an acceptance gap, but if you are involved enough in these communities, you somewhat see where these commenters are coming from, especially on a site like Digg. Not all sites have quality commentary (YouTube is notoriously bad at it), but when you're deeply involved in the community, these comments make more sense to you, even if they are laden with immaturity.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks how Yahoo's image hosting service, Flickr, can be used in your SEO strategy.

I am a big fan of Flickr so I thought I give some examples of how it can be used to generate traffic, build links and increase your visibility in the search results.

Traffic Generation with Flickr:
In March I wrote a blog post named Traffic & Link Building With Flickr at my personal blog. I showed how much traffic one can get from images that become popular in Flickr. On the overall scheme of things, it is not a ton of traffic, but it is a nice amount of traffic for a new site. What do you need to do to direct traffic from Flickr to your site?

I typically add descriptive hyperlinks that encourage people to click from the image to the blog post. Yes, Flickr allows you to add hyperlinks in the description, which is very useful.

In the description box, you just enter in your html code like so.

Then when you click save, the description will look like this:

Matt McGee also recommends making your screen name your Web address. I personally don't like that, but it probably does work from a traffic perspective.

Link Building with Flickr:
As I showed above, Flickr allows you to put direct links in the description area of your image, to your site. Those links are currently clean HTML links, and there are not nofollowed. So they do pass some link equity. I assume, once it gets completely abused, things will change with that.

If I were you, I would use them in the manner of traffic building and not link building. This way, you are a bit more safe when it comes to "abusing the system."

Increasing Search Visibility with Flickr:
Not only do you benefit from the links you have to your site, but Flickr images also tend to rank well in the search results for a certain period of time.

For example, as I described in my pursuit to sell my monsey condo. I achieved pretty good rankings for the keyword phrases I was looking for, in order to help sell my condo. Not only that, the figured I would title my Flickr images slightly different to target a slightly different keyword phrase combination. And as you can see, at the time I am writing this, they rank in the top two for monsey condo:

Those are just some ways to use Yahoo's Flickr to build traffic to your site through search.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

As an example, here's a movie trailer for Behind the Mask:

All viewers have the ability to share the URL and embed the movie into their websites. They can also watch the videos in fullscreen mode.

MySpace subscribers, on the other hand, are allowed to vote (Booyah or No Way), participate in the discussion, save the movie to their favorites, utilize the "Email This" feature, bulletin/blog it, or add the videos to their MySpace profile. To access similar videos, users can subscribe to the video channel and be alerted when new videos are posted.

The services are largely similar, with some notable differences.

Both have the same pop dialog box that informs you that you have to log in to perform an operation:

This is how it looks on YouTube:

And MySpace's popup isn't much different:

Once you opt in for a subscription, it is verified. The notable difference here is that YouTube does not show how many users are subscribed to a certain channel, whereas MySpace does:

YouTube:

MySpace:

You can view your subscriptions and browse through them in a similar fashion on both services:

YouTube:

MySpace:

Rating is a little different as well. YouTube's rating system is out of 5 stars. MySpace's rating system is most like Digg -- you can either thumbs up the video or thumbs it down.

YouTube:

MySpace:

The other notable difference is the display of comments. YouTube does not feature user avatars in the comments system, whereas MySpace does. MySpace is already seeing spam posts, but I don't see a way to report them as Spam. YouTube has a Spam link on the page.

YouTube:

MySpace:

Forum members are largely excited and think this is a promising move:

...its nice to see a site become the full package.

Myspace could capture a lot of eyes from youtube if they cater to the music video providers. The video encoding quality is much better on myspace than youtube and the audio is in stereo.

Indeed, the quality of MySpace videos is better than YouTube's. I think that if they continue to focus on professional content, there is a lot of promise for MySpace.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread points to an official announcement on the eBay website about its recent acquisition: social search engine StumbleUpon.

From Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America:

Our intent is to support the growth and evolution of this community-based business, and StumbleUpon will run as a separate business unit within eBay Inc. Although there are no definite plans to share at this time, as the site evolves, we'll be exploring the possibilities for synergies between StumbleUpon and eBay marketplaces, Skype, and PayPal.

But this doesn't necessarily sit well with forum members who see this possible merge as a way of serving additional ads.

exploring == exploiting == ads, ads, ads, more ads, and ads

I guess this really is web 2.0 where the big get bigger.

Personally, I don't think so.

TechCrunch has more on the acquisition, saying that the product is not changing and the company itself is just adding an additional team member from eBay.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

An interesting discussion has arisen in the Cre8asite Forums where a member asks about the benefit of memes.

What's a meme, you may ask?

These are the "Why I Blog?", "My Favorite Charity", etc. blog posts that list the site owner's thoughts and then they tag others to continue the discussion.

Lately, a lot of interesting memes have arisen. There was the first one that I participated in which asked 5 things that you don't typically know about me. After that, there was the Why I Blog meme. I've been tagged by a few other memes, including in a "what offline magazine publications do you read?" and "what charities do you give to?" and I'm a bit overwhelmed.

I'm not alone.

Other Cre8asite Forums members feel similarly. Many feel that "after the first few memes they lose their appeal." As for me, I'm not sure if I am bored by memes, but I certainly feel an obligation to comply with the requests, even when I'm not sure what to say!

What do you think? Discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This article was written this past Tuesday and scheduled for publication on Thursday, May 24th.

What do you do if a forum moderator becomes hurtful to your forums rather than helpful? A WebmasterWorld thread asks this question based on negative actions performed by a moderator of his forum that resulted in loss of membership. Consequently, he also demoted the moderator.

What I’ve learned from this experience:

1)Never reward a member with a moderation spot just because they have been an active/long time poster. Find other ways to reward good members.

2)Look for warning signs that they might not be a good moderator. Do they get snippy or argue with other members? Are they very opinionated? Do they have an even temper? Have they been ‘know it all’ posters?

3)Avoid mixing moderators and friendship. When things go bad it’s hard to separate the two.

4)Make sure you have written rules on what the moderator job is and how they are expected to act and make sure the see them BEFORE you make them a moderator.

5)Chose a moderator as if you were hiring an employee. Will they represent you well both on and off the forums.

6)Remove moderators quickly if they are losing a forum.

Some people just take the power trip for personal gain. This quote by another member is so true for this instance:

" Power corrupts...

and absolute power, corrupts absolutely"

Appointing moderators can be a pretty sticky situation if they are biased in such a way that it is destructive rather than helpful.

Moderators who are immoderate and partial are very destructive, damaging users' trust.

You can lose a lot of core/good members when even one mod gets rude/patronising/personal or is clearly editing in a partial or biased way!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night, Digg hit a democratic milestone. The social site found itself consistently challenged by what was publication of sensitive information, and the staff tried to remove the questionable content, albeit unsuccessfully. A WebmasterWorld covers the topic in greater detail, and Danny also covered the Digg revolt on Search Engine Land.

A little background first (in case you don't read Danny's post): a sensitive HD-DVD decryption key was posted on a blog run by Boing Boing author and professor Cory Doctorow. After receiving an DMCA takedown notice, Cory complied, but it was already at a point where people themselves were spreading the key. The story got popular on Digg, and it was soon taken down. Again, someone tried to fight against Digg, and that story, too, was removed by Digg staff.

This didn't satisfy the crowd. For several hours last night, the entire Digg front page was covered by stories trying to promote the HD-DVD key, and democratic vote had won. It was obvious at that point that Kevin Rose, Digg's founder, had to give in, and he did. This goes to show the power of social search: if people want it, they will find it. If people want others to find it, they will make it popular.

That's how they felt on Webmaster World, at least:

It's a safe position to take - at this point. Cat's out of the bag, can't put it back. No legal threat any more.

What do you think about the impact this will have on the future of social media? What do you think about the revolt? As a user on WebmasterWorld puts it, "Is this web 2.0 democracy in shaping or union formation with in democracy? "

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Chris Winfield launched a discussion on Digg that's informative and easy to follow, especially for those of you learning about Digg or still warming up to the idea of social media. He describes what Digg is, and goes deeper into how to actually use it, and why. His emphasis isn't strictly marketing. Rather, it's a more natural progression that he describes, of getting to know the place, what it can do, how to "make friends" and what can happen from there.

Questions and additional comments by others, as well as an invitation to suggest more resources, make the discussion productive.

Getting Started With Digg at Cre8asiteforums.

In the Cre8asite Forums, moderator skore reports the findings that ads are coming to Reddit. He refers to their blog:

Part of the reason reddit was acquired was so that eventually it could be used to sell advertising. We wanted to delay ads until we could debut all the new stuff we're working on, but it's taking longer than expected, and the powers-that-be are getting antsy. So, sometime later this week we'll be flipping the switch to turn a few ads on.

He also adds:

One interesting thing to watch is they think they have found a way to track the ads so they can let Reddit users vote/comment on them (just like using the system).

A number of users are skeptical of this approach. Administrator Adrian does not think that ads will be well received and will be voted down regardless.

Heh, I bet a load of reddit users will down vote every ad going anyway.

Others, like moderator JoeDolson, wonder about the CTR effect of allowing ads to be voted upon:

I like the idea of voting and commenting on advertisements - but I'm sure people will also want to know the end destinations to take into consideration in their voting, which will require click throughs...

Users, like moderator eKSstreme, hope that the ads will be distinguishable from the rest of the text on the site:

I hope their ads will be clearly marked as that. Otherwise it's deceiving the community, which is not the best strategy to take.

What do you think Reddit will do? Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums has a thread asking if traffic from Digg can cause problems with your Google AdSense account.

There are a few reasons for concerns when it comes to getting surges of traffic. Now this applies from Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape and other traffic sources.

First, feel free to read our write up named Is StumbleUpon Considered Auto-Surf Traffic & Against AdSense TOS? In that article, we pretty much determine that StumbleUpon traffic is not against AdSense terms of service.

The same logic applied to that argument is applied here with Digg. Digg is not an automated traffic generation tool. It is not a network that was created simply to create traffic. So in Digg's case, I doubt you will get banned from Google AdSense for getting on the front page of Digg.

In addition, many sites with AdSense have hit the front page of Digg numerous times are were not banned because of it.

As we discussed in the past, there are possible down sides to getting on Digg. But I would like to point out a comment left by Lea de Groot who said:

One day of being hit by Digg doesn't matter, but if the ad supplier (in most cases Google Adsense) evaluates the traffic to show that your page is not as worthwhile because your CTR has dropped, you may be smart priced long after the diggers have gone.

Will Google know it is coming from Digg? Probably, so yes, this may not be a huge issue, but we don't know for sure.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

As reported by Kathy Sierra herself, in what could be her last post for Creating Passionate Users, severely abusive and threatening blog comments have forced her to cancel a speaking engagement.

As described in shocking detail, she has been publically verbally assualted with sexual and life threatening images and content, not only in her blog but in two other blogs.

For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs... blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you've probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy).

Kathy's writings reach out to many web related industries. She's earned a large, strong, loyal readership due to her keen insights into user habits, and wonderful sense of humor.
Cre8asiteforums is discussing this sad news.

Do you jump on the latest social media toy just because everybody else is, even if you have no idea what it's for?

An SEO at Cre8asiteforums stopped for a moment to ask, My Blog Log - Why Am I Doing This?

What am I supposed to do with it? Why is it good to have 'contacts'? I feel I'm missing something...or maybe really all it is for is the avatar thing.

While people commented on their various reasons for participating, my favorite one is the honest admission that although it may not be "mature", it's fun to see your friends' faces when they show up at your web house.

A Cre8asite Forums thread discusses the "problems with social media traffic." The thread creator lists three problems with the traffic.

Suggested Problems with Social Traffic:

1. Click Through Rate May Drop: If you increase your traffic and the traffic referrer base is not that targeted towards your content and offering, then your CTR will drop on your ads.
2. Surge In CPM Data: If you charge your advertisers on a CPM basis, the advertiser may not want to pay for that surge.
3. Poor Quality Links: The types of links gathered from a Digg or social linkbait attempt may be poor quality links from blogs and forums.

While I can possibly agree with points one and two, I very much disagree with point three. But let me throw arguments towards each point.

Arguments Towards Suggested Problems:

1. Click Through Rate May Drop: Sometimes you cannot control getting on the front page of Digg. You are just a great writer and someone Dugg you. You need to be prepared that your CTR may drop in these cases, these are outliers and the data can easy be extracted.
2. Surge In CPM Data: Same as above, if your advertiser is upset with the new exposure and branding, then give them a refund. Extract that data. But I know plenty of advertisers who would like to get their ad in front of thousands of new faces.
3. Poor Quality Links: Not only do you get great quality links from blogs and forums, but news agencies have a higher chance of picking up your site and content. The more links to your site, the more chances are that someone important will read your content and find it useful. If they become a long time reader, then you may get some awesome quality links time and time again, from that single Digg. Plus most of those blog links and forum links may be worth more than you expect.

So what is the down side of getting Dugg?

1. Server Issues: For some, their site, application and server cannot handle the mass number of visitors at one shot. For others, they can.
2. Negative Comments: Some Digg users can be harsh, very harsh. The first big Digg I received was almost two years ago when I announced First Ever Wedding Proposal via Search Engine. I had to watch the comments on my blog post throughout the day, to remove some of the very negative and hurtful comments from some of the Digg users. I did not want my wife to read them. Some of those comments are still available at the original Digg, I personally buried them back then, but it can be hurtful to some who don't fully understand the Digg user.
   

It is not all negative, check out my post on the power of Digg.

I am sure there are other negative aspects of getting social media traffic. Would love to see more at the forum thread.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

USA Today launched over the weekend, several layers of social Web 2.0 features to their site.

Some of the features include:

• Commenting on articles
• Digg-like feature where you can "recommend" a story
• User profiles named "personal space" with Avatars
• Photo submission area via "Shutter speed"
• A "Community Center" to keep up with friends
• Tagging
• More searching

This is a big step for a major news publisher, and I am sure many will follow suit.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums and WebmasterWorld (paid subscription required).

Digg members may despise or ban SEO's, but SEO's will get the last laugh. Digg is but a pebble in a large social media pond. Marketing and optimizing web sites utilizing social sites as tools and popularity injections requires knowledge of who the players are, the rules and policies for each one, finding logical matches and expertly manuvering many demographic groups at once.

Social media is a hot bed of debate and exploration, as evidenced by the first topics presented in the new Social Media and Tagging, forum, at Cre8asiteforums. Is YouTube breathing its last breaths? Are traffic bursts worth it? G-man asks:

Anyone got any good scripts for automating the social media and tagging process?

Thread: Automation?

New moderators, Chris Winfield and Liana Evans, host the new forum, where lively discussions have already begun.

Search engine optimization has become a legitimate industry, with companies spending thousands of dollars per year on consulting to effectively help climb search engine rankings. For the past few years, there have been rumblings in the community as to how SEO would deal with the increased use of personalized search, and for the most part, optimizers have maintained that adjusting to change is something that is already part of the game.

A recent thread at Search Engine Watch Forums discusses the concept of a special type of optimization geared towards Social Search and Networks, dubbed "SMO." The poster relates to the SEO industry, saying:

I think we SEOers need to take concrete steps to incorporate Social Media as a important element of WoM and SEO.

From an agency point of view, I can say that we in the SEO department are working together with Media and Paid Search teams to try to establish best practices in this growing area. Join the discussion and add your thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forums.

In case you are wondering, another thread at SEW attempts to answer the question: "What is Social Search?"