Social Hot, yet Social Bad?
December 1, 2011
Will asking a human either directly or via monitoring be the solution to lousy precision and recall? We don’t think so, but we do pay attention to interesting ideas about the increasingly unhelpful search results available from ad-supported Web sites.
Network World questions certain poll results in “Half of adults believe social media sites hurt young people?” Writer Paul McNamara takes issue with Poll Position’s conclusion that 53% of adults say social media is harmful to young people. Even 46.5% of those in the 18-29 age range agreed, according to the organization’s recent survey. The article asserts:
The survey of 1,200 registered voters by Poll Position, conducted Nov. 13 via telephone using Interactive Voice Response technology, asked the loaded question: ‘Do you think that social media are helpful or harmful to the social development of today’s youth?’ . . . You might as well ask: ‘Have you heard and read more scary stories or more positive stories about social media?’
I see his point there. McNamara also questions the validity of Poll Position’s robo-call polling technology and cites this article at Politico. He further points out that the organization emphasizes provocative questions in its polls as a matter of course.
So, how much weight can we give these results? I agree with McNamara: take them with a grain of salt. And precision and recall? Not relevant to individuals who do not check facts and sources as part of the research routine.
Cynthia Murrell, December 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google and Media Channels: Google+ and the Football Demographic
November 27, 2011
I am not a TV type. My knowledge of Google+ is shallow. I watched the commercial using a link in the TechCrunch story “Google+ Gets A Thanksgiving Day TV Ad: “Sharing, But Like Real Life”. I could not watch the entire commercial because the phone rang, and I have the old fashioned type of attention deficit disorder. I do meaningful work first; I don’t watch stuff designed and delivered via boob tube marketing.
I have pieced together some thoughts, however.
First, as I recall Google is trying to create YouTube with “real” channels, which the “real” consultants explain thoroughly. These poobahs are probably more expert in couch surfing, the vast wasteland, and quips from Dancing with the Stars than I. The notion of advertising a Google service on a medium which Google is trying to supplant strikes me as interesting. I was tempted to use the word schizophrenic, but as a dinosaur type goose, I find psych-babble only slightly more confusing than TV advertisements. “How many people will watch the Thomson Reuters’ channel on YouTube?” I wonder.
Second, forget the cost of the time and the production. The notion of using a football game to pitch a social networking service is interesting. I thought the very core, the essence, the guts of social interaction was the viral function. My understanding, which as I have frequently noted, is flawed suggests to me that people fuel the take off of the hot social service. You know the “network effect,” the old n^n+1 network of fax machines argument. The signal flash in my braid suggested this question, “If Google+ is a social network, then it should be supported by itself.” Obviously an exogenous action was needed to jump start the viral effect. The issue for me is that TV ads may not trigger a viral effect. Unlike CNet’s “Google Takes on Facebook with Long Google+ TV Ad”, I did not think of this observation:
This Google+ thing, when it launched, seemed just a trifle more brainy. Now along comes this long disquisition that makes it seem, well, even brainier. Or at least, to the normal human being, not noticeably different from Facebook. Or, well, what is it?
Third, what online service has successfully advertised its way into my behavior patterns? GoDaddy? No, I remember the elephant killing thing, not the service. The grocery service. No, what grocery service? The pet thing? No, no, I buy dog food at the local pet store which does not advertise anywhere. The company has a sign, but it is next to the doc in a box, so I don’t pay much attention to ads.
What’s the “net net” as one of the financial experts for whom I used to do work used to say? My take on the net net is:
- Something has gone off the rails with Google+ usage when one advertisers on a holiday to football fans in the midst of some type of holiday function. At the Arnold’s this boils down to baking, booze, and bedlam. Embracing Google+ instead of giblets was not on the menu. For you, who knows?
- Google+ and its ability to self generate buzz is not doing the job against the arch enemy Facebook. Is the phrase “wave of failure” appropriate? I don’t think “buzz” will do the job. Google is a heck of a marketer, but is the challenge of boosting Google+ outside the capacity of Google’s own, formidable capabilities. Is there a place for old media in Google’s new world?
- Given the fact that Google is using old media (television) to promote a new media (social networking), has Google realized that it is just out of step with what is happening in the market. Why couldn’t YouTube or one of the other Google micro targeting services inject specific information about Google+ directly into the online experience of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of Google users? The thought that the reality is different from the perception of Google’s potency is interesting. Perhaps Google+ is a true consumer product just like contact lenses equipped with Terminator style displays?
Google is definitely a different company from the search oriented start up 13 years ago. I now say “hello” to the new Google which is its Google+ service, consumerization, and old media supporter.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook Still Tops Google Plus
November 23, 2011
Tech Crunch reported on social media news this week in the article “Report: 61 Percent of Top Brands Have Created Google+ Pages, But No One is Following.”
It appears that in the competition between Facebook and Google+, Facebook is staying in the lead. The SEO firm BrightEdge found that since the release of Google+ pages last week 61 percent of the world’s top 100 brands have signed up for pages, however, few people seem to be following them.
Despite the fact that Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results, the article states:
Ninety four percent of the Top 100 brands have a presence on Facebook. BrightEdge says that only 12 percent of the brands that created these pages displayed a link to them on their home page. About 53 percent of the Top 100 brands display a link on their home page to their Facebook page. And brands appear to be having mixed success at building social networks around their Google+ presence. In fact, Google had the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 65,000 fans.
If Google+ doesn’t gain a significant following soon, and Google+ becomes the “new” Google, we can most likely expect a big shift coming in usage patterns. Maybe the “old” Google should not have been thrown under the bus.
Jasmine Ashton, November 23, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google+ Benefits Debated
November 16, 2011
Everyone who performs a Google search, and honestly we all fall into that category, has noticed the +1 that appears next to certain Web sites. Despite the fact that over 40 million people have signed up for Google+ many people, myself included, remain suspicious of the role it will play in our daily lives.
While there has been some debate concerning the impact that Google+has on our personal lives, few would argue that it impacts our businesses. The Web Pro News article “Google+ Pages A Must For Businesses, But Come Off As Rushed” states:
Social and authorship are two big elements in ranking success these days, and Google+ plays to both of these. The +1 button, which we know influences rankings, is obviously a big part of the Google+ feature set. This is a signal that helps Google determine how good people think a piece of content or a Web site is, and now, perhaps even a business in general. Now, with the launch of Google+ Pages, businesses get to tie the +1’s on their Pages to the +1’s on their site (though this doesn’t seem to be working fully just yet), which should send a stronger signal of brand reputation to Google search.
While Google+ certainly has benefits for businesses, it’s far from a fool proof system. Google relies on fast-cycle product innovations. The idea that services for commercial organizations can be characterized as not “working fully” may be disturbing to some organizations looking to Google for industrial-strength services.
Jasmine Ashton, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Top SharePoint Tweeters
November 9, 2011
Protected: Is Microsoft SharePoint a Facebook Service?
November 2, 2011
Facebook and Semantic Search
October 27, 2011
Stories about Facebook search surface then disappear. For years we have wondered why Twitter resists indexing the urls posted by Facebook members. Our view is that for the Facebook crowd, this curated subset of Web pages would be a useful reference resource. With Facebook metadata, the collection could become quite interesting in a number of dimensions.
Not yet, but the ongoing social media war between Web giants Facebook and Google doesn’t seem to be stopping at social media.
Facebook was last spring beavering away to create a semantic search engine using meta data, based on the company’s Open Graph system and by using collected data on every user. Few companies have the ability to build a semantic search engine, but with Facebook’s scale of users (over 400 million users), the company has the ability to create something huge. We learn more on AllFacebook’s article, “Facebook Seeks To Build the Semantic Search Engine”:
There are a number of standards that have been created in the past as some developers have pointed out, microformats being the most widely accepted version, however the reduction of friction for implementation means that Facebook has a better shot at more quickly collecting the data. The race is on for building the semantic web and now that developers and website owners have the tools to implement this immediately.
The source document appeared in April 2011 and here we are in the run up to Turkey Day and no semantic search system. Now we are wondering if Facebook has concluded that search is yesterday’s business or is the company struggling with implementation of semantic technology in a social space?
We will keep watching.
Andrea Hayden, October 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Twitter as a Predictor
October 27, 2011
Rhyme and alliteration accompany Twitter. Example: Twitter trending topics are often a big hit or miss when it comes to reflecting evolving events, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement.
However, that isn’t stopping an emerging industry aimed at using tweets of millions of people to help predict the future. How is this possible? By following certain terms surrounding everything from disease, elections, and finance, you can gain insight into what may happen. For example, during the Egyptian revolution earlier this year, there was a high correlation between tweets and actual events. There is even a hedge fund called Derwent Capital Markets that makes stock and fund trades based on Twitter analysis, and it is actually fairing well.
“Can Watching Twitter Trends Help Predict the Future?” on GigaOM tells us more:
The theory behind all of this Twitter-mining is that the network has become such a large-scale, real-time information delivery system (handling more than a quarter of a billion messages every day, according to CEO Dick Costolo at the recent Web 2.0 conference) that it should be possible to analyze those tweets and find patterns that produce some kind of collective intelligence about a topic. It’s the same idea that drives companies to do “data mining” on their customers’ behavior…
Will this become a “must have” tool for researchers, medical staff, and politicians. Even the U.S. government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Unit is looking into using data from social media as part of its intelligence gathering. But is passivity better than active research? We think one needs both. Judgment helps too.
Andrea Hayden, October 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: More Cheerleading for SharePoint Social Functions
October 26, 2011
Google and the Perils of Posting
October 21, 2011
I don’t want to make a big deal out of an simple human mistake from a button click. I just had eye surgery, and it is a miracle that I can [a] find my keyboard and [b] make any function on my computers work.
However, I did notice this item this morning and wanted to snag it before it magically disappeared due to mysterious computer gremlins. The item in question is “Last Week I Accidentally Posted”, via Google Plus at this url. I apologize for the notation style, but Google Plus posts come with the weird use of the “+” sign which is a killer when running queries on some search systems. Also, there is no title, which means this is more of a James Joyce type of writing than a standard news article or even a blog post from the addled goose in Harrod’s Creek.
To get some context you can read my original commentary in “Google Amazon Dust Bunnies.” My focus in that write up is squarely on the battle between Google and Amazon, which I think is more serious confrontation that the unemployed English teachers, aging hippies turned consultant, and the failed yet smarmy Web masters who have reinvented themselves as “search experts” think.
Believe me, Google versus Amazon is going to be interesting. If my research is on the money, the problems between Google and Amazon will escalate to and may surpass the tension that exists between Google and Oracle, Google and Apple, and Google and Viacom. (Well, Viacom may be different because that is a personal and business spat, not just big companies trying to grab the entire supply of apple pies in the cafeteria.)
In the Dust Bunnies write up, I focused on the management context of the information in the original post and the subsequent news stories. In this write up, I want to comment on four aspects of this second post about why Google and Amazon are both so good, so important, and so often misunderstood. If you want me to talk about the writer of these Google Plus essays, stop reading. The individual’s name which appears on the source documents is irrelevant.
1. Altering or Idealizing What Really Happened
I had a college professor, Dr. Philip Crane who told us in history class in 1963, “When Stalin wanted to change history, he ordered history textbooks to be rewritten.” I don’t know if the anecdote is true or not. Dr. Crane went on to become a US congressman, and you know how reliable those folks’ public statements are. What we have in the original document and this apologia is a rewriting of history. I find this interesting because the author could use other methods to make the content disappear. My question, “Why not?” And, “Why revisit what was a pretty sophomoric tirade involving a couple of big companies?”
2, Suppressing Content with New Content
One of the quirks of modern indexing systems such as Baidu, Jike, and Yandex is that once content is in the index, it can persist. As more content on a particular topic accretes “around” an anchor document, the document becomes more findable. What I find interesting is that despite the removal of the original post the secondary post continues to “hook” to discussions of that original post. In fact, the snippet I quoted in “Dust Bunnies” comes from a secondary source. I have noted and adapted to “good stuff” disappearing as a primary document. The only evidence of a document’s existence are secondary references. As these expand, then the original item becomes more visible and more difficult to suppress. In short, the author of the apologia is ensuring the findability of the gaffe. Fascinating to me.
3. Amazon: A Problem for Google
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