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Liveblogging: Twitter CEO Evan Williams Keynote at SXSW

We're here at SXSW Interactive waiting for the keynote with Twitter CEO Evan Williams who will discuss "The Next Generation of Social Media." There has been some speculation that an announcement of Twitter's ad platform could occur at this event, but that may or may not happen. We'll see.

Either way, I'll be liveblogging the keynote below. Please forgive the inevitable typos.

Williams will be interviewed by Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab."

Liveblogging starts

02:00:

Google Hires XML Co-Inventor

Today, Tim Bray started working for Google, and had the search giant just put out a one-sentence press release stating this fact, the development would be worth reporting.  But what makes this move especially noteworthy is that Bray announced it in a 1,260-word blog post mentioning an absolute hatred of the iPhone.

Bray is a rather important person in a lot of tech circles.  Two interesting details regarding his accomplishments: he's the co-inventor of XML, and spent several years serving on the W3C Technical Architecture Group.

Here's what the respected developer had to say about the iPhone, though: "The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what.  It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger. . . .  I hate it."

In turn, Bray's a huge fan of Google's mobile operating system.  He wrote, "The reason I'm here is mostly Android.  Which seems to me about as unambiguously a good thing as the tangled wrinkly human texture of the Net can sustain just now."

So it looks like the Android-iPhone war is about to get a lot more fierce.  Although for what it's worth, Bray was careful to say that his opinions don't necessarily reflect his new employer's stance on anything.

Google, China Edge Closer To Face-Off

The odds of Google keeping its Chinese search operation running are starting to seem quite small.  The Chinese government has started advising Google's partners to prepare contingency plans, and one anonymous person who's supposed to be close to Google even said the company is 99.9 percent likely to shut things down.

The "99.9 percent" comment, which we first mentioned over the weekend, comes courtesy of two Financial Times reporters.  One of them, Kathrin Hille, is even located in Beijing.  These details lend credence to its authenticity, even though it would of course be nicer to have a quote attributed to some executive or authority.

As for the information related to Google's partners, the situation's similar.  Sharon LaFraniere spoke to an "industry expert . . . . who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation by the government."

Then LaFraniere reported for the New York Times, "The Chinese government information authorities warned some of Google's biggest Web partners . . . that they should prepare backup plans in case Google ceases censoring the results of searches on its local Chinese-language search engine . . ."

The only thing that might prevent a showdown at this point is Google's concern for its employees in China, perhaps along with the company's desire to keep its advertising and mobile operations alive.

How the Crowd is Changing the News (SXSW)

Here at SXSW, we attended the session "CrowdControl: Changing the Face of Media or Hype?" At the end, one of the speakers asked the crowd, which they thought it was. Almost everybody responded with the former, while maybe one or two raised their hand for hype.

I think it's pretty clear that citizen journalism, the real topic of this discussion, is changing and has already changed the face of media. There are varying opinions on if that is for better or for worse, but the very fact that these opinions are able to be voiced is a testament to the stength of the crowd.

On the panel were Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, Lila King from CNN.com, Jason Rzepka from MTV, and Joseph Kingsbury of Text100 Public relations.

Much of the conversation was centered around trust. Who can you trust? How do you know you can trust them? How do you know these citizen reporters don't have an agenda? Things of this nature.

Cashmore says brand still plays a role in trust, and that you should have some level of skepticism when a story comes from something like Twitter (assuming you are unfamiliar with the source). His point is accentuated by the fact that here at at SXSW, a massive Twitter hoax regarding Conan O'Brien was perpetrated from Digg's SXSW party the other night.

"People need to become more educated consumers of news" and "learn what you can trust and what you can't," says Cashmore. That is probably easier said than done, and possibly asking a lot of the average person that doesn't reside inside the news industry, but he's right. If people don't want to be misled or misinformed, they need to not only consider the source, but acknowledge multiple sources before totally abandoning the grain of salt.

This actually reminds me of something Andrew Lih said in another session I attended this past weekend about Wikipedia. His advice to journalists (as well as students) was that there is "no better starting point" than Wikipedia, and "no worse ending point."

Cashmore made a point about Wikipedia in that it is controlled by a few people, so it's not exactly the crowd like Twitter is the crowd, or like the Blogosphere is the crowd, but I think the point runs parallel. A tweet may be a great starting point for a piece of news, but it should not be the ending point in acceptance of fact.

The crowd is there for balance. The more viewpoints that are available, the more a reader is able to take away from a story. When points are debated, more info is revealed, and even if some of that doesn't sit well with you, you can use your own judgment to assess where you come down on the subject at hand. This comes back to Cashmore's statement about becoming a more educated consumer of news. Perhaps we only need to strive for a better educated public in general, and the quality of so-called citizen journalism will grow.

That should be easy.

For more from SXSW, check out our exclusive interviews at live.webpronews.com.

Liveblogging: SXSW Keynote: Valerie Casey

I'm sitting here in Exhibit Hall 1 waiting for the keynote to begin. I will be liveblogging/paraphrasing what is discussed (please excuse the inevitable typos).

Bio from the SXSW Booklet: Valerie Casey works with start-ups, governments, and companies all over the world on challenges ranging from creating new products and services to transforming organizational processes and behaviors....She is the founder and executive director of Designers Accord.
 

Liveblogging starts:

2:05: Introduction begins...

2:07: Delighted to be here.....despite the fact the interactive community has been absent in conversation about sustainability...the commuinty will take the greatest leadership role moving forward...

Narrative

I find that a lot of the interaction designers are fixated on narrative and story telling ....you can take any story from film/literature/politics...and plot them on the axis of good fortune/ill fortune and time from beginnign to end

03:11: You can take any story from test to John Grishm, or Jennife Anniston...

Shows three different graphs.

Things you see in the news all the time - heart wrenchign pictures: child sitting in ewaste dumps

gives stats about these stories...horrific

Shows image of baby albatross, taken on midway where albatross mate...the finding of these babies...nothing has been done to them....the mothers were flyign out around the ocean to find food for their babies, and they mistook pieces of plastic for food and fed them to their children...grotesque...perverse to think about the effect we're having on bio diversity...

political corruption....

Why does a salad cost more than a big mac (slide)

it's because the usda - the food triangle supports one version of a recomendatino and the government does somthing entirely different...millions of dollrs through lobbyists going to meat and dairy....out of control agricultural indsutry...

Bizarre corruption between health and politics...

Burn pits in Iraq/Afghanistan....set up by gov. contractors like haliburton..

02:28: Shows picture of Haiti devastation - scientists linking natural disasters with climate change...

Talks about more political corruption....snowballing effect of sustainability

What are we supposed to do with all of that? "It turns out you don't have to kill yourself."

Designers Accord to respond to doom and gloom...

bringing the creative community together, we can look at sustainability ...bring optimism...there's no one of us that can make real change by ourselves.we have to depend on collective wisdom.

personal accountability to colletive accountability.

Share my stories about not only my successes. industry ishellbent on successes....talk also about failurs nd compromises...thats what collective action is about.

Not just  a digital network....we have town hall meetings....i want the ability to ask questions...

Each week in case studies in fast company - tell the story of sustainaiblity...not about a checklist its about a constant struggle...

try to educate product/interaction/communiation designers, and architects...

School by Design initiative (open source)

try to think about taking sustainabilit out of ghetttoized....

639 design firm adopters, 33 educational adopters, 32 corporate adopters, 100 countries, six continents, all design disciplines

despite fact that media still talks about sustainabiliy in very green terms...

the truth is that the converstions become much more complex and interesting....

someties miss the point.

even if you're in the interactive community...

02:26:  We have to recognize that there's a consequence for everything we do.

I believe its the interactive community thats going to lead this movement next. thinking about systems problems

A system is more than the sum of its parts.

02:30: We cannot just focus on one part...it has to do with environmental, cultural, economic, etc.

Feedback delays plus bounded rationality equals design traps

Bounded rationality - i can only make decisions based on the knowledge right in front of me. barely looks at other groups or teams.. a design trap is when you design for the symptom rather than the problem - looks at dell studio hybrid. - I am a supporter of what dell is trying to do, but it's a classic case. misses the point that we should not be designing another desktop computer...when will we stop thinking that less bad is good.

There is no such thing as a side effect.

Sometimes we arbitrarilly design what we're resposnible for...global taco shed - students went to a taco truck and decided that each one of them would be responsible for tracing origin of ingredients..all for one taco had traveled over sixty four thousand miles....there's this underlying movement that says local is better. global is bad....but what these students did is also discover that salt and cheese were local, avocados were from chile...they combatted the idea of the polarity between global and local by looking at embodied energy in each ingredient. they learned a lot when comparing them.

02:36 Creating the right measurement of success

The Gross National Product 

U.S. indicator of prosperity - but that indicator has nothing to do with health and wll being  and relationships. out of sync...all sorts of inconsistencies

 02:40 Selecting the correct lever for change

IN systems thinkng - people identify the wrong thing to change when theyr'e trying to change something.

mythology is all about lone inventor and silver bullet - they don't really exist....we continue that mythology and we need to change the rhetoric we use...

Talks about Naked Pizza...

02:44 The priority is to use the scale of concept to tackle people on their own turf...

what is the lever we use? the counter-intuitive one ?

Enabling new models by recognizing the relationship between structure and behavior...

She says she'll tweet references for all the stuff she's talking about....probably a good idea to check those out if you're interested....(to understand her points better)

02:47 No difference between a structure and the behavior that comes from it. when a new president comes in and you have all these hopes for change, and nothign really changes...its because the structure hasn't really changed

02:48: Talks about HUB...

02:49 Issue - attention cycle : degree of awareness is inversely correlated to the degree of productive action

Rising of public awareness about a problem...when the public starts to get greata attention around an issue, there's actually a point where the degree of product action is inversely correlated...

When you get a couple of hundred thousand people interested in a topic it has a tranquilzing effect...people think i don't need to do anything because there's already so many people doing it...

people believe someone else is looking after it.

A system is a collection of elements and interconnections that ar e highly organized to achieve an overall goal or purpose

if you change the purpose of a system you can effect change....

the interactive community is the one to do it we are architects and product designers and communicators all wrapped into one.

How can we change the narrative? What would happe if your purpose was oriented toward cultural sustainability instead of commerce? 

What if social media was actually about social impact?

The interactive community is the connecting tissue...

SXSW: Some Options for Making Money From Your Online Videos

At SXSW, Rob Millis and Will Coghlan of the newly launched Dynamo Player talked about different routes online video producers can take to try and make a buck. While the discussion ultimately led up to the duo's demo of its new product, it was not above representing some different options fairly. The two talked about some of the pros and cons of advertising, such as:

Pros

- Fosters dramatic growth (financed first forty years of TV and last 15 years of Internet content)

- Blip.tv and YouTube define a stable market

- Reliable high quality programs...

Cons

- High value advertising demands high value programming (production). Costs a lot up front - higher costs to return

- Content can be unreliable, too hot to handle, or simply unappealing to advertisers. Short films, docs, r-rated or controversial content can't get high value CPM.

- Advertisers can't depend on a certain number of viewers

- Random advertising can damage brand while paying little to nothing

- Must have very, very large audience

- Can put a plane crash next to an ad for Delta or something to this effect

So the question is, will people pay for video online? They talked about how a lot of people are already doing just that through services like iTunes, which the pair say "changed the marketplace."

When deciding whether you want to ask people to pay for your content, you should ask yourself the following questions, according to Millis and Cohlan:

- What content do you pay for now?

- Have you ever quit halfway through a payment or subscription process arrangement?

- How often do you click away because of pre-roll ads?

- Are you willing to download software?

"Asking your audience to pay for your content is about eliminating these 'why bother' factors," they say.

Then ask yourself:

- How do you want to sell your content?

- Does it need to happen now or are you willing to wait for  approval?

- How much do you need to charge, and how soon do you need to get paid?

- How much info do you want to ask your viewers for?

- How technically savvy are you?

- How important is image quality?

- Do you want your viewers to go to your site to watch or somewhere else?

- Do you want to be able to embed your video?

- Do you want to allow your viewers to share?

- What kind of content do you have - serial, one off, short format, feature length?

- How much publicity do you want/need?

"Ask these questions before you commit to a solution," they say.

One option is what they refer to as the Ze Frank model. This is a show that used drop.io to package shows that are otherwise free, and sell them together, so viewers can take them and easily watch them on their iPods.

Another option is to work with a partner like re:frame or NewVideo, which will work with you on getting stuff into iTunes or Hulu.

Then there are sites like MyContent.com and IndieFlix. With MyContent.com, you get choices like free streaming, rental streaming, and selling through the site as a paid download. They are your partner, and they only pay you after costs are covered. They have a revenue share deal. MyContent.com will take 35% after costs, and they charge a small monthly processing fee, according to the Dynamo guys.

With Indieflix, you can upload content through them, and sell it as a DVD or make it available as a paid stream, but they're fairly selective about their content.

Another option they discussed was Amazon's Create Space. Advantages of this, they say, are that Amazon's a leader in cloud computing - they can store and serve content more efficiently, and at a lower cost, they are a well-recognized brand, and they're connected to a lot of TVs and living rooms. They'll list films on IMDB for you, and stream stuff to the XBox. However, they take 50% of royalties, and you can only suggest a price for your video.

Then there are YouTube rentals, a system Google introduced not too long ago, at Sundance. They let content creators set the price and viewing window, and they have the obvious huge advantage of social media for promotion. It doesn't hurt that YouTube is also the second largest search engine, behind Google itself.

YouTube lets you use Google Checkout, which is easy enough, and content streams quickly. You need to use an AdSense account, and as you may know, Google is not up front about how much revenue sharing they do, although it's supposed to be "the majority".

You can read about Dynamo's own option here.

Dynamo Player - Instant Monetization Tool for Videos Unveiled at SXSW

Rob Millis and Will Cohlan, the pair beyond the web show Political Lunch, gave a presentation at SXSW called "Beyond Advertising: Can Online Video Finally Pay?" The discussion led to the unveiling of a tool for online video monetization called Dynamo Player.

The goal (short-term at least) of the tool is to simplify the process of uploading a video to the web, making it portable, and quickly getting viewers to pay for it.

WebProNews pulled Millis and Cohlan aside after the presentation to discuss Dynamo Player a little bit more:

Dynamo's slogan is "Powering independence." This concept comes from the idea that the product lets content producers have more control than with other options. Users can set their price, upload the video, and publish it anywhere on the web, and start making money immediately. Each time a viewer pays to watch your video, the money is deposited directly into your account.

For payments, the Dynamo player uses PayPal. Viewers are asked to pay, when they press play, right from the player. Of course, you'll have to provide content that people actually want to pay for, and Millis and Cohlan made a fair case as to why paid online video content will likely become more accepted by users (with sites like iTunes already paving the way).

Dynamo is not about competing with a site like YouTube, as far as offering a destination for users to go and watch online video (at least at this point), although they did say a future option could be to present featured videos on their site. Dynamo is geared more at the producers themselves, to put their videos wherever they choose.

Content producers who want to give it a spin can send an email to the guys at beta@dynamoplayer.com, and let them know.

 

CNN President "Really Afraid Of" Social Networks

Over the years, there have been more than a few arguments about whether online news sites are killing newspapers.  Now, due to some almost startling comments made by the president of CNN, it looks like the next round of old media-new media disputes might concern social networks and cable news organizations.

According to the AFP, Jonathan Klein's remarks on this subject were in no way ambiguous.  He said at Bloomberg BusinessWeek's 2010 Media Summit New York, "The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites.  That's an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us."

Klein then explained, "The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. . . .  Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news.  We don't want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you. . . .  So I'm far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox."

That's an interesting take on the power of social networks.  It implies - at the very least - that CNN anchors are going to spend a whole lot more time referencing Facebook and Twitter from now on.  An ad campaign and new apps could follow, too.

On a broader scale, Klein seems to be saying that social networks' users can easily - even unwittingly - make or break major corporations.

Microsoft Talks Google's Privacy "Fails" at SXSW

At the keynote today at SXSW, Microsoft's Danah Boyd placed a lot of emphasis on Google's privacy "fails" with Buzz. The topic of the keynote was the relationship between privacy and publicity, and she certainly covered much more territory and social media in general, but it was interesting that Google Buzz was essentially the first thing talked about.

A lot of people will love Buzz, and will use it, but that doesn't mean Google didn't mess up in terms of privacy, she said. She says that the company did nothing wrong technologically (there were multiple ways to opt out), but that Google managed to find the social equivalent of the "uncanny valley".

Google got in trouble by integrating a public facing system inside of one of the most intimate (Gmail), she said, adding that a lot of users believed Google was exposing their private email, even though this was never actually the case.

Google also assumed that people would opt out if they didn't want to participate, she said. She said she gives the company the benefit of the doubt, but she can't help but notice that more companies are starting to think it's ok to expose people and then back pedal once people flip out.

She said she kept meeting users who thought if they opted out, it would cancel their Gmail account.

With regard to Google's handling of the situation, Boyd says they "foolishly" told users what they wanted to hear rather than asking them what they wanted to hear.

Make no mistake, the point of the keynote was much larger than pointing out Google's failure, and it was quite a thought-provoking talk. Still, one can't help but notice the excessive amount of jabs at Microsoft's main rival, and emphasis placed on a very young product (the remainder of the speech's focus was mostly placed upon Facebook and Twitter, with a little bit of Chat Roulette).

 

Liveblogging: Danah Boyd (Micosoft Research) SXSW Keynote

I'm sitting here in the exhibit hall at SXSW getting ready for the opening remarks keynote, which is getting ready to get underway. It will be delivered by Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research

Her SXSW Bio: One of the world's foremost authorities on social networks, boyd works at Microsoft Research New England and also serves as a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Note: Please forgive he typos that are sure to occur in this liveblog. Also keep in mind that this is paraphrased.

Liveblogging starts:

02: 08 She takes the stage.

2:09 Humbled to be here.

SXSW first and foremost about the people...passionate about what they're doing. there's a lot of trouble that goes on but that's part of the joy.

2:10: Have a good time, but avoid the tequila....

I'm a social media researcher....spend most of my time trying to understand how people use social media in their daily lives. reflecting how to make that material public. blogging for 13 years. believe in being an activist.

What keeps me up at night is how social media transforms society.

Goal: sit back and think about a specfic set of puzzles. All of you are seeing how these tools are shaping society....

Intersection of privacy and publicity.

2:12:  privacy isn't dead. people very much care about it online and off. what privacy means may not be what you think. it's about control...understanding a social setting. and context. how to behave. understanding what the architecture will let you do....

people feel they don'thave control and they feel violated.

Recent privacy fail: Google Buzz

A lot of people will lvoe buzz and use it, but it doesn't mean that google didn't mess up in terms of privacy.

They're aking a hit.

2:14: Gives background of how buzz works....

2:15: NOthing the buzz team was technologically wrong. there were all sorts of opt outs....shows a slide referencing "F--- you Google" ...

Deconstruct what acutally happened:

2:19: Talking about engineers looking at "ASL" in chat rooms...there's something radically different than responding than going into their profile and looking.

Ask users to share with their friends....It's not the idea of getting that info. it's the ritual of letting them know how the info will be acquired.

Google managed to find the social equivalent of the uncanny valley...

Personal networks are when you talk to people about what they spend time with

Personal - listing contacts, etc.

Behavioral - networks with people in the same room.

What Google did was collapsed these...

Just because people put material in public doesnt mean it was all meant to come together and be aggregated.

 

What they did wrong:

1. Google got in trouble by integrating a public facing system inside of one of the most intimate (gmail)....juxtaposing private with public...a lot of users believed google was exposing their private email..this was never technically the case, but it created confusion. people flipped out. google had to spend a lot of time and pr...

2. GOogle assumed that people would opt out if they didnt' want to participate. gives google benefit of the doubt, but cant help but notice that more companies think its ok to expose tremendously and then back pedal...

Easier for users to flip out rather than to actually go and undo things...

I kept meeting users who thtought if they opted out, it would cancel their gmail account.

You need to ease them in. give them a way to understand...

THey "foolishly" told users what they wanted to hear rather than asking them what they wanted to hear.

Just because people want something publicly accessible doesn't mean they want it publicized.

Shows slide of Onion article mocking Google

2:23: We see gossip being spread in all sorts of ways. We don't always navigate privacy with people so well...we hold the architcture around us accountable. The Walls have ears. there is always the possiblity of eavesdroppers.

Talks about being in a cafe...public place, but you expect certain types of people to show up. you expect people from the community but not your high school cheerleading team. When people asses a situation, they develop menal models...they need to know so they know how to "best behave".

online environments are not nearly as stablized...we're still trying to work through what we can trust in terms of architecture and people.

02:27: Digital architecture doesn't just have ears. also has a mouth. people aren't good at managing when the system changes the rules on them.

Recent privacy fail number 2: facebook's privacy changes in december

Gives a rundown of all of that.

02:28: Asking non techy users: tell me what you privacy settings are? I have yet to find a single person who actually knows. That's not Good knows. Facebook is known for privacy.

Tells story of teen with abusive father...set up facebook account...found out that her content was made public. is her fear of what might have gone wrong acceptable? 

Big difference between publicly available data and publicized data. I worry about this and who will get caught in the crossfire.

PII vs. PEI PII - personally identifiable information vs. personally embarassing information

02:32: When tech comes along and changes rules, it's a huge fail

Conversations that happen in social media are public by default, private by effort.

What we see with teens is that they're thiking through this. THey make conscious decisions.

Critical to realize effected by age, life role, etc.

People make material publicly accesssible, but they dont' want the world to see it. there are poeple that they specifically don't want to see it.

02:36 "Making something that is public more public is a violation of privacy."

People can adjust to change, but you have to think about those who get in trouble during the process.

Compares to paparazzi. Shows slides of britney, lindsay lohan and Princess Diana.

Publicity: Twitter has become a space for celebs, micro-celebs, fans of all sorts. 

FB is about communicating with the people you already know, Twitter started out this way, but it's evolved to follow people who have audiences...

02:39: Issues of intimacy good and bad...cause of trouble for some  celebs. Talks about Miley Cyrus quitting Twitter. Quotes from her rap about it.

Twitter isn't just for celebs and followers. People all over the globe engage with it as specific kind of public space.

two kinds of trending topics: those that start because of external factors, and those that are generated on the site.

02:41: Trending topics also highlight that not all users are who you think they are. Shows Justin Bieber...in trending topics for 18 solid days. For all the conversations of teens not tweeting....all of his followers not all that old.


Lot of racism and classism on Twitter. Shows slides of white people using the N word...

Many have benefited from speaking in public on social media. It's easy to take things for granted: the right to challenge authority, the right to be heard, seen, the right to go into public without losing my rights, etc. seek pub of own accord...not what everybody gets. Imagine you just left an abusive relationship, but you're biggest fear is that you ex will find you....how public are you willing to be?

People kicked out of jobs, military...

Your kid's teacher: how public is she allowed to be online? Religious? Drinking? ALlowed to be a lover and a friend in a public setting? What we see over and over agin is that we expect the teacher to always be the teacher, but that's a lot to ask from people.

02:46: Public by default: not the great democratizer. 

Seeking attention, part of what makes engaging online fun. Quotes Jon Stewart The internet's like Meixcan food. every sites' got the same ingredients, just different combinations...talks about chat roulette.

02:49: Why do people engage on this site? What you'll find is heartwarming and heartbreaking. Many there for entertainment, boredom, find pesonal connections, etc. THere are others hoping they might find a celeb.

It's an odd combo of privacy and publicity...situated in private spaces (bedrooms, offices), but becomes publc. People are having fun geo-locating people who are participating.

CR may be a fad, but the idea of pub andprivacy getting mixed up is not. New rules will complicate the boundaries...

Tech will continue to make a mess of both.

You need to know that there is now magical formula for understanding privacy and publicity.

If you expose people, you may lose you reputation...

For marketers, its an exciting time of publicility, but just because you can see somebody, doesn't mean they want to be seen by you. And just because you think you've interpreted something, doesn't mean you've done it right.

Wants to see more policy grounded in what's going on. A lot of numbers can be misinterpreted. What we're measuring isn't peoples' sense of privacy. Wanting privacy isn't about having something to hide. It's about wanting control...

There are good reasons to engage in privacy and good ones to engage in publicity.

A lot of people are sharing more publicly to maintain other stuff privately.

Think about people's intentions and what it means to invade their privacy. Make sure you're creating the future that you want to live in.

Possible Scenarios for Google in China @ SXSW

After a long morning of travel and SXSW preperation, WebProNews popped in on an interesting talk from writer and tech watcher, Kaiser Kuo (here's his bio) about what might happen with the whole Google/China situation, which has essentially remained at a stand-still for the past two months, since Google made its famous announcement about a "new approach to China."

Kuo said right out that he doesn't have the "inside dope" about what's happening within Google, but he did give a fascinating history of Google's efforts in China, as well as a look at some possible scenarios that could play out. Some he listed specifically, include:

Worst Case Scenarios

- Blow up: Google decamps in atmosphere of acrimony
- Google.com blocked, possibly even Gmail, Gtalk, Google Docs, Buzz, etc.
- All google products exit from China (partnerships with mobile companies end)

Moderate (and according to Kuo, most likely) Scenarios

- Google.cn shuttered
- Google.com, Gmail, Google Docs, etc. unblocked
- Google research and development and sales continue to operate in China
- Google continues mobile partnerships

Best Case (and not very likely, but not entirely far-fetched) Scenario

- Google.cn stops censoring and still stays in china
- Pigs fly over a frozen hell scape

The session was not without a sense of humor, but that's not to say Kuo doesn't take the situation very seriously. In fact, he appears to be putting much more time into looking at the big picture than anyone I've seen (at least those outside of Google itself and the Chinese government).

Perhaps the most interesting part of Kuo's talk was about how  the wetern media's attention focuses more on one of two kinds of censorship going on - the "Great Firewall" censorship, where many sites are blocked at the ISP level. He says it's fairly simple for Chinese Internet users to "hop" the Great Firewall through proxies and VPNs. The other kind of censorship going on in China, according to Kuo, is the kind that really matters. This is "self discipline", which is carried out by Internet companies themselves.

If companies don't follow through with this kind of censorship, they face the risk of being shut down, having servers seized, etc. Some have been shut down permanently in the past, and others have been shut down long enough that they lost most of their users anway.

"Sad story indeed," Kuo calls it.

As far as the Google situation, "Google is going to have to shit or get off the pot," says Kuo. "The ball is very much in Google's court right now." Bejing realizes it has nothing to gain by pushing Google on the issue or being openly hostile towards the company, he says.

This week, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong reportedly had this to say: "I hope that Google will abide and respect the Chinese government's laws and regulations. But, if you betray Chinese laws and regulations, it means that you are unfriendly, irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences." He also said, "What needs to be shut down will be shut down, what needs to be blocked will be blocked."

Kuo says this is just more of the same stuff we've been hearing from China for the last 2 months.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said, "Something will happen soon." Days ago, Google gave a congressional testimony saying they still intend to stop censoring results, but as Kuo notes, shutting down Google.cn would be a very involved process with large logistical challenges.

Update: The Financial Times is reporting:

Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.

Stay tuned to WebProNews.com for more SXSW Interactive coverage as the event continues into next week. Watch for live streaming interviews with industry professionals at live.webpronews.com.

Nielsen: Online Video Usage Significantly Up YOY

Glass-half-full and glass-half-empty types, prepare to be split.  New stats from Nielsen indicate that February of 2010 was a great month for the online video industry compared to February of 2009.  Last month was a little bit rotten compared to January of 2010, however.

The chart below shows how the big-picture data categories played out.  "Unique Viewers" and "Total Streams" made the most progress year-over-year, even as "Total Streams" and "Streams per Viewer" slipped the most month-over-month.  You'll see the YOY gains are generally bigger than the MOM losses, at least.

As for how some specific brands performed between January and February, YouTube lost ground in terms of unique viewers, video streams, and time spent per viewer (-3.4 percent, -10.7, and -3.6 percent, respectively).  Hulu only slid in terms of unique viewers (-7.4 percent), while making small increases elsewhere.

At the same time, Facebook pulled in some more unique viewers (4.7 percent), and is actually coming somewhat close to matching Yahoo in this category.  Also, the CNN Digital Network and Microsoft's sites racked up big gains on the unique viewers and video streams fronts (20+ percent in both cases).

Finally, on a somewhat related note, WebProNews will be generating some video of our own as we're in Austin to cover SXSW.  Look for live video in addition to our traditional recorded coverage.

Facebook Makes Austin Expansion Official

Austin, Texas - which already plays home to tech companies Freescale Semiconductor and Dell - will soon boast a Facebook office, too.  A $1.4 million incentive package we reported on in late February has been approved, and Facebook's decided to establish a team in Austin as a result.

Grady Burnett, Director of Global Online Sales and Operations at Facebook, said in a statement, "We are delighted to formally announce that Facebook will open an online sales and operations office in Austin.  The area's world-class educational system and talented workforce give us the means to quickly establish a strong outfit."

"Strong" works out to at least 200 employees, by the way, making the new office a rather significant investment.  It'll represent a fair amount of growth, too, since Facebook's actually supposed to hire 200 Texans instead of just relocate a lot of current employees.

Burnett acknowledged, "We look forward to building our team here in Austin and enjoying all the wonderful things the city has to offer."

Finally, in other Austin-related news, don't forget that SXSW has begun.  WebProNews is on hand to bring you live video coverage along with the usual articles and recorded interviews.  This promises to be a fun (and informative) conference.

Chinese Minister Hints At Consequences For Google

Despite weeks of talks that have supposedly taken place behind closed doors, the Chinese government still seems unwilling to compromise with respect to Google and censorship.  Indeed, it may be growing hostile, as a minister talked about "consequences" today.

The BBC reported that Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong adopted a tough stance during a legislation session.  "I hope that Google will abide and respect the Chinese government's laws and regulations," he said.  "But, if you betray Chinese laws and regulations . . . it means that you are unfriendly, irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences."

As for what those consequences might be, it almost sounds as if China's ready to force Google out of the country whether it wants to leave or not.  The Chinese official stated at one point, "[W]hat needs to be shut down will be shut down, what needs to be blocked will be blocked."

This is less than good news for anyone who was hoping Google would be able to keep operating in China.  Considering that Eric Schmidt recently said "something will happen soon," it may even represent the end of the road, rather than just another outburst of rhetoric.

Or not.  Investors on both sides have failed to flinch, with Google's and Baidu's stocks up about equal amounts so far today.

Google Gives Wave Another Push With Extensions Gallery

Google Wave didn't do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz's privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after.  But now that Google's addressed most of Buzz's faults, it's trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave.

Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of functionality.  Also, there are just 18 extensions listed at the moment, and Google's suggested design tweaks are on the way.  We'll let you decide whether the company's gotten ahead of itself or made a smart move by involving developers and users as soon as possible.

As for what's available, the extensions represent an interesting mix of useful and fun/frivolous stuff.  One's called Wave Sudoku, while others function as poll gadgets, phone and video chat aids, and a weather forecast provider.

Anyway, Dan Peterson, Google Wave's Product Manager, explained on the Google Wave Developer Blog, "The gallery is simply a set of waves containing extension installers (the puzzle pieces).  The first wave, 'Read me first' contains an introduction to extensions and how to use them.  In many cases, those particular waves won't maintain their read/unread status in Google Wave preview; we're working on this."

It should be interesting to see how long Google takes to make its tweaks, and how quickly the extensions gallery is populated.

Yahoo Makes Strides In Entertainment Search

If Yahoo has its way, it'll soon be the place to go for information about movies, TV shows, and the celebrities who star in them.  Yahoo announced several upgrades to its search engine this morning, and they're all meant to make entertainment-related queries turn up much better results.

A Yahoo representative told WebProNews, "Today Yahoo! Search is unveiling new ways for people to explore information on their favorite celebs and TV shows by providing the most comprehensive and up to the moment entertainment news and content.  With Yahoo! Search's celebrity shortcuts, people can see news, photos, movies and even the celebrity's official tweets right on the search results page."

What's more, "Yahoo! is also introducing a TV shortcut so people can search for their favorite TV shows and see videos, episode lists, schedules and ratings from Yahoo! TV."  And "we are launching new celebrity-related suggestions on the left-side of the Yahoo! Search results page for entertainment queries, with links to results for related people, movies, etc."

You can see an example of how this all comes together below.  The results page packs in a whole lot of information, but still manages to not look overly cluttered or messy. 

Yahoo appears to have leapfrogged well ahead of Google and Bing with these upgrades.

Facebook Provides Insight Into D.C. Employees' Jobs

Last week, we reported that Facebook wanted to hire two people in Washington, D.C., and then dissected the official descriptions of the positions as best we could.  Still, the bullet points left a lot unclear, so it's noteworthy that Facebook provided some clarifying paragraphs today.

Adam Conner was the first member of Facebook's D.C. team, and a post he wrote for the company's internal blog was actually promoted to its public blog this afternoon.  Conner - who also deserves applause for being a Conan supporter - did a good job of explaining some of his responsibilities and favorite moments.

Here's one excerpt that reveals just how politically connected Facebook may be: Conner wrote, "The week of January 11-17 was pretty cool, helping to pull together the Global Disaster Relief Page in just few hours.  I went on vacation that weekend and was on the phone in Mexico convincing President Clinton to plug our Facebook page as part of the relief efforts."

As for the more day-to-day stuff, Conner described his duties by writing, "I get to sit in meetings with vaguely important and occasionally actually important people and explain why Facebook is like the wheel or fire and how not using it really isn't an option anymore."

It sounds like the social network's well on its way to being omnipresent in Washington, then, especially as it adds two more employees.

YouTube Solicits Ideas For Partner Program

YouTube Partners are, pretty much by definition, some of YouTube's most important users.  They create original content, don't violate copyright laws, and have huge audiences.  It makes sense, then, that YouTube is now looking hard for ways to improve its Partner Program.

The hunt has taken the form of a crowdsourced project.  Just as the Ideas Page for YouTube was created not too long ago for the sake of the whole site, the new Product Ideas Page for the YouTube Partner Program covers this single subject.  People can submit ideas and vote on which ones they think are best.

It's an effective process.  On the YouTube Biz Blog, Filipe Lima noted with respect to the first effort, "It was a success, receiving almost 3,000 ideas and more than 300,000 votes.  We even launched a few features that directly addressed some of the requests - namely, an HTML5 Beta (there were many HTML5 advocates who participated) and a sneak peek of our new cleaner video page (some desired a 'less cluttered' YouTube)."

So now we'll see where round two takes us.

The deadline for both new submissions and votes is April 12th.  If you have any suggestions, get them in earlier, though, for the sake of giving them more time to become popular.

Google Product Search for Mobile Showing When Items are in Stock

Users of the mobile version of Google Product Search can now see if items are in stock at a local store from select retailers. These retailers include: Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm.

Product listings from these retailers will have blue dots that can be tapped to see an "in stock nearby" link, which takes you to a seller's page where it will either say "in stock" or "limited availability". In addition, these pages will show you how far away the store is from your location (assuming you have My Location enabled or have manually specified your location).

The feature is available for iPhone, Palm WebOS, and Android users in the U.S. Users can hit the "more" link, and select "Shopping" or find the "Shopping results" section in Google's Universal Search results when searching from Google.com.

Google offers a form for retailers who are interested in participating in this program. Google says to make sure you have your Local Business Center data up to date and to ensure your Product Search data is in "great shape."

Gowalla 2.0 Launches for iPhone

Gowalla is a service that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. If you're not familiar with it, it's a location-based social networksing service that comes in the form of mobile apps. Gowalla announced today, the availability of Gowalla 2.0 for the iPhone 3G and 3GS platforms.

Gowalla highlights the following new features with this version:

- Design – Gowalla developers have created a fresh new experience that is more flexible, readable and usable.

- Photos – Gowalla 2.0 gives users the ability to not only check in and create new spots; they can also upload a photo after checking in, browse photos from friends and see photos taken at that spot.

- Checkin Commenting – Now when a friend checks in someplace, other users in the community are able to tell that friend what they think.

- Multiple checkin messages – Users now have more opportunities to add messages even after they’ve left a checkin spot. Skipped typing a message? Come back and add one.

- Hot spots – The most popular spots nearby will be highlighted for users in a particular area to discover.

- Browse friends – and friends of friends. Browsing friends’ bookmarked spots and creating trips are two new features put in place by Gowalla’s developers by popular demand.

- Facebook, Twitter and web links – Building your Gowalla network is easier than ever with more ways to stay connected with friends through Facebook, Twitter and web links.

- Spot details – Address, phone numbers, Twitter names, Facebook pages and website will now be available in several checkin spots.

Gowalla will be heavily involved in SXSW (of which WebProNews will be covering the Interactive portion). Gowalla has updated its SXSW mini-site that details all of the SXSW initiatives the company will be rolling out, including: real world rewards, competitions, challenges and events.

 

Critical: Improve Your Mobile Search and Advertising Strategy

A Google exec recently said, "In three years' time, desktops will be irrelevant." That's debatable, but there's no question that mobile use will have grown much more than it already has. Based on comments in a recent keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer doesn't seem to think PC use is going to drop too much, but he did say, "Mobile queries are just going to keep going up and up and up."

Do you think desktops will be irrelevant in 3 years? Share your thoughts here.

A study released last month found that the number of mobile phone subscribers is on track to increase from 4.6 billion to 5 billion globally by the end of 2010. Another study found that consumers are getting more comfortable with mobile shopping.

Mobile Search

Google has dominated the search market for a long time, and while this still continues to be the case, it's important to note that search in general changes with mobile. People are searching in different ways than just using their favorite search engines. They're using different apps. They're using their voices. They're scanning barcodes for instant access to product information. The number of ways people are finding information with their phones is only going to keep increasing. On mobile, it's not just about Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

That's not to say these three aren't still incredibly important to mobile. In fact, the search share among these top search engines may even become more greatly divided as time goes on. We're seeing different mobile carriers and manufacturers making deals with these companies, which affect the default search options for various devices. As we discussed before, mobile search engine use may be largely dictated by device popularity, which is (in my opinion) one of the biggest things Bing will have going in its favor in terms of market share - Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 phones will come with Bing hardware keys, meaning the most convenient way to search on these devices will likely be to hit a single button taking the user to Bing. If these devices become popular, it could be huge for Microsoft in search.

As far as Google indexing and mobile sites goes, Google's Matt Cutts says, "If you can find a way where your existing site will work well in mobile browsers, we're not worrying about supporting two completely different sites."

To learn about this subject in more detail, read the Google Webmaster Central Blog posts: Help Google Index Your Mobile Site, and Running Desktop and Mobile Versions of Your Site.

Mobile Search Advertising

When it comes to AdWords, Google says to create separate, mobile-focused campaigns so you can optimize keywords, ad text, and landing pages for people using mobile devices. Google shared an interesting case study this week looking at Razorfish's mobile AdWords approach. They shared the following details:

- The Razorfish team started by duplicating the existing desktop campaigns and switching the settings to target mobile devices with full internet browsers.

- Since their client had a well-known brand name, they focused on branded keyword terms with enough traffic to help them learn quickly about what was working best for their campaigns.

- To measure performance, they tracked several conversion metrics including whether a mobile user looked up the brick and mortar store location or downloaded a coupon from the website. Right away, they saw a 7.5% lower cost per conversion on mobile devices, encouraging them to test ways to optimize their mobile campaigns.

- Razorfish tested whether variations in the campaign's landing page would affect conversion rates. The team hypothesized that mobile users might be looking to take a specific action, and by starting the user's experience closer to that action, the client would see better results. As it turned out, for this client, they saw much higher conversion rates when the user was directed to a landing page that showed nearby store locations.

- Finally, they tested variations in the ad text. Four versions of ad text were tested, including the original copy used in desktop campaigns. Each of the three new versions provided over 9.3% lift in conversion rate over the strongest performing copy in their desktop campaigns.

When it comes to Yahoo and Microsoft search advertising, things are about to get more appealing here in general, and presumably, that includes mobile. Microsoft and Yahoo advertisers will have the audiences of both search engines to view ads once Yahoo and Bing get their integration done.

Wrapping Up

One of the most important things any search marketer can do with regards to a mobile strategy, is to simply keep up with the latest mobile trends and innovations. This space is rapidly evolving, and new apps are released frequently. Pay attention to hot apps, and how your target audience is engaging with them. What devices, operating systems, and browsers are hot? Monitor studies and surveys that delve into demographics. Try to stay ahead of the curve.

Do you have a mobile search strategy? What suggestions do you have for improving in this area? Comment.

Google's Blogger Users Can Now Customize Their Designs

Google has launched the Blogger Template Designer, a way to customize the look and feel of your Blogger blog.

"Over the past few years we've worked to scale Blogger and ensure that it is capable of handling hundreds of millions of pageviews per day," Google says. "But we also believe that blogging is about self expression and that an important part of expression is creating a custom design that expresses your unique voice. So last year we started working on a tool that would allow everyone to easily customize their blog’s look and feel, and today we’re proud to introduce the Blogger Template Designer."

Features of the template designer include:

- 15 new templates (with more on the way)
- Custom blog layouts with one, two and three columns
- Hundreds of background images courtesy of iStockphoto
- Customizable colors, fonts, and more.

"While alternative offerings force users to choose among a limited set of rigid template designs, Blogger provides an intuitive yet powerful interface so anyone to customize their blog's design & layout - putting the user in complete control," the company says.

It's interesting that this kind of customization has not been available from Blogger until 2010, as Blogger itself is over a decade old, and has been Google-owned since 2003.

The Blogger Template Designer is available through Blogger in Draft, Blogger's testing ground/sandbox site.

Twitter Changes the Update Button to "Tweet"

When Twitter users go to post a new tweet, they have in the past used a button that says "update" (at least from Twitter.com...that varies when you get into all the different apps Twitter users use). Now, that button says "Tweet".

We're not sure exactly when the change was made, but it appears to have been very recently, as there is quite an outpour of Tweets from users mentioning that they are now seeing the "tweet" button. Perhaps this is Twitter way of asserting some kind of ownership of the word and the brand that it carries.

Twitter made "retweeting" an official feature last year, after the community-born practice grew to mainstream use.

Interestingly, Retweet.com just sold for $250,000 this week.

The tweet button isn't the only new thing going on with Twitter's website this week. Twitter is currently in the process of rolling out geolocation features on the site, after having had such capabilities available via the API since November.

Twitter CEO Evan Williams will be speaking at SXSW early next week (WebProNews will be there covering it). We may get more interesting news from the company there (some expect an ad platform to be announced).

Update: Looks like some have noticed this for at least a couple days.

Twitter Location Features Rolling Out

Last fall, Twitter started including geolocation information in its API, but it was not available through Twitter.com. That appears to be in the process of changing now.

This week, Twitter has been rolling out (it appears to still be in the process) geolocation info on tweets at Twitter.com. Various reports from users have been circulating, with those who have access to the feature pointing to a little blue icon by the tweet source on individual tweets, which when clicked, shows location information on a Map (powered by Google Maps).

The feature (as most new Twitter features do) is already receiving some criticism from users who have access to it. For example, Kim-Mai Cutler with VentureBeat says Twitter's geotagging is "far from what Twitter needs to be a real player in location."

Cutler adds, "First, the new maps feature isn’t turned on for Twitter’s search results. The whole point of location-based search is to be able to find what’s actually happening around you right now. Instead, Twitter tosses a few such tweets into a wash of noise..."

Earlier this week, news of Facebook readying location features surfaced. The company is expected to launch something along these lines at its f8 conference in May. Location players getting the most buzz currently are Gowalla and Foursquare. They you have Google, of course. This may be the most interesting space to watch as the year progresses. It will be quite interesting to see how mainstream location sharing becomes when it comes to consumers.

Are you seeing the geolocation information showing up at Twitter.com? Do you intend to share your location when tweeting?

Street View Nears Omniscience In The UK

Pick a road, any road.  So long as it's in the UK, there's a good chance Google will be able to provide you with pictures taken from it.  Today, the search giant made much more Street View imagery available, meaning its photographs now cover about 238,000 miles - or 96 percent - of British roads.

The figure below tells most of the story if those numbers don't do it for you.  As you can see, just about every street in the UK has been navigated by camera-equipped cars (along with an assortment of trikes), leading to nearly total coverage.

Google did all of this rather quickly, too, considering that the first pictures of the UK were only released in March of last year.

Of course, Google's face- and license-plate blurring technology is in full effect, so privacy advocates shouldn't have too much to worry about.  Many people in the UK are instead viewing this accomplishment as a positive thing, with tourism officials especially excited.

Meanwhile, there's still a concern that the European Union will force Google to keep Street View images for just six months, as opposed to one year.

Motorola Goes Bing on Android-Based Devices

Motorola has announced a "global" alliance with Microsoft, which will see Bing used as the default search engine on Motorola Android-based devices. The move begins in China, where obviously there is some turmoil between Google and that country, but again, this is being called a "global" alliance that is "launching" in China.

Motorola says that users will get a pre-loaded Bing bookmark on their mobile browser, and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration, though users will be able to customize their devices and select their own search provider.

"We believe that consumer choice is one of the most critical components to ensuring a rich and seamless client experience," said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobile Devices. "Motorola and Microsoft have enjoyed a longstanding collaboration and the addition of Bing services to our Android-based smartphones in China is another important step in empowering our end-users."

"Mobile devices continue to be a critical place for customers to access location-based services such as local search and mapping," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Services Division at Microsoft. "We are pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Motorola to bring powerful Bing location-based services to Motorola's innovative new mobile devices, providing consumers with more choice and flexibility in mobile search."

This is the second time in about a week Motorola has made news by offering non-Google search options on its Android-based devices. The recently launched Motorola Backflip comes with Yahoo.

Bing search and maps will be available on Motorola Android-based devices in Q1 2010 in China. No other expansion of this has been announced, but the phrase "global alliance" certainly leaves room for speculation.

FTC Takes Closer Look At Google's AdMob Deal

The "Facts about Google's acquisition of AdMob" page Google established in November of last year apparently hasn't satisfied the Federal Trade Commission's curiosity.  A fresh report indicates that the FTC has stepped up its investigation of the deal by seeking sworn declarations from third parties.

This isn't a good sign for Google.  Todd Shields and Dina Bass heard about the FTC's move from "people with direct knowledge of the matter," so the affair appears to have developed beyond rumor stage.

Also, after talking to Stephen Calkins, a professor of law who used to serve as General Counsel of the FTC, Shields and Bass reported that the FTC tends to seek declarations "'when they think there is some significant chance' the agency will ask a court to block a merger, or seek to modify a deal."

Google's been running into more and more antitrust trouble as of late.  From the problems with its book digitization project to a European Commission probe, the search giant's been held up on several fronts.  It wouldn't be surprising if something - such as this AdMob deal - becomes a breaking point.

Still, asking for sworn declarations isn't the same thing as strongly objecting.  It remains possible the FTC will give Google's acquisition of AdMob a green light.

StumbleUpon Launches New Advertising System

StumbleUpon has launched a new advertising system, which the company says helps cost-effectively deliver advertiser content to targeted audiences, while increasing the opportunity for content to go viral.

StumbleUpon finds and recommends ad content it deems relevant to targeted audiences' interested based on demographic and topic areas. StumbleUpon users by simple nature of the site choose the content topics of interest to them, and are delivered random content based on this). This makes for an interesting way of delivering ads.

"With StumbleUpon Advertising, we’re solving the challenge of how advertisers can get more content that is relevant and impactful in front of their targeted audiences," says StumbleUpon CEO and Founder Garrett Camp. "We are dedicated to providing the tools that help advertisers identify and reach their audiences, measure campaigns effectively and gain real-time user feedback."

"After testing the StumbleUpon Advertising system for eight months, we know it's an extremely cost-effective way to drive qualified traffic and let the content speak for itself," said Jason Clement, Director of Findability at Wieden + Kennedy. “Since StumbleUpon Advertising targets content to users based on their personal interests, we can be confident that our content is reaching the most receptive audience possible. And when an audience enjoys our content, the reward is a healthy amount of free, organic traffic."

"StumbleUpon Advertising makes it easy and cost-effective to deliver the right content to a new audience of our target users," said Ben Tider, Assistant Director, Audience Development at Time Inc. Lifestyle Digital Group. “With streamlined campaign set-up and management, we can better optimize ads and recommend content based on the individual user. Because readers can self-identify the types of content we show them, they are more engaged and likely to share it with friends."

"StumbleUpon Advertising enables brand advertisers to serve up compelling content while users are searching or ‘stumbling’ around the Web," said Josh Spear, Founding Partner of Undercurrent. "With StumbleUpon Ads, an advertiser’s content is not an interruption, but rather a fully integrated experience that affords an opportunity for additional exposure when audiences like or respond well to the content. It is comparable to a banner that becomes more cost efficient based on positive viewer feedback. The new user interface also greatly enhances the service by delivering advanced analytics and more detailed campaign management tools."

StumbleUpon claims to generate nearly 600 million recommendations per month for its community of almost 11 million members.

Related: About a year ago, we interviewed StumbleUpon's VP of Business Development about advertising on the site.

Google Scores Major Italian Book Deal

Google Books has done it again.  Despite heavy opposition to its book-scanning project, another deal's been established, and this time, the agreement involves the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (along with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome).

Up to one million out-of-copyright works may be digitized as a result of this arrangement, which is one reason it's important.  There are probably some academics who would kill for access to just 20 or 30 of them, never mind such a huge number.

Two other interesting facts are that Google's never before worked with a ministry of culture or any Italian libraries, meaning it's done extraordinarily well on this first try.

Anyway, on the Official Google Blog, Gino Mattiuzzo, a strategic partner development manager, hinted that more deals are on the way, writing, "We believe today's announcement is an important step, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners.  We envision a future in which people will be able to search and access the world's books anywhere, anytime."

That short statement also makes clear that Google doesn't see any lawsuits or new regulations putting a stop to its digitization project.

More Than Half Of March Madness Fans Will Watch Online

With the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament starting next week (March 16), it's no surprise the majority (83%) of fans will watch coverage on television, while 44 percent will go online and 10 percent will use a mobile device, according to a new survey by Unicast.

Among those planning to follow the tournament online or on a mobile device, a majority will visit ESPN.com (69%). Other branded popular sports sites fans plan to visit include Yahoo Sports (42%), Fox (24%), CBS (29%), and AOL (17%).

More than a quarter of fans following the tournament (26%) will visit NCAA.com, while 17 percent will type in the URL for their favorite team.

Fans will also gather information on the tournament via search engines (22%), social networks (18%), or newspaper/magazine sites (20%).

"On the heels of the extensive online coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament offers online publishers another premium sporting event that will generate high traffic from consumers looking to follow the tournament outside their living rooms," said Bryan Hjelm, VP of Marketing for Unicast.

"Digital innovations like iPhone apps, online bracket tools and streaming video are bringing basketball fever to a growing online audience of fans.

"Sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports will dominate traffic due to their inherent sports fan user base, which make them prime real estate this month for marketers targeting the typical visitor - men aged 18 to 35."

The most popular online activities for those following March Madness include:

        *58%    Monitor scores
        *54%    Watch games live
        *53%    Check the status of brackets
        *49%    Watch game highlights
        *42%    Fill out brackets/participate in a pool


 

 

Schmidt On China: "Something Will Happen Soon"

Two Google executives have again assured onlookers that the company is dealing with the situation in China.  While in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt indicated today that something will happen sooner rather than later, and Nicole Wong told politicians in D.C. that leaving China is still an option.

Unfortunately, not a lot of other details and/or promises were forthcoming.  Eric Schmidt's exact words, according to Jerry Dicolo, were "something will happen soon," and whether that's "soon" as a five-year-old would perceive it or in terms of continental drift is hard to say.

We should note: it's already been almost two months since Google stated in an official blog post, "[O]ver the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

As for what Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the company, had to say, there was less wiggle room.  The AFP reports that she maintained, "We are not going to change our decision on not censoring results anymore."  Also, with respect to abandoning the country, Wong added, "We are prepared to do that."

Google and Baidu investors are sure to remain on pins and needles until the situation is resolved.

MySpace Launches New Games Site

MySpace launched a new gaming experience at myspace.com/games today. The company says it empowers developers with new tools, analytics, and opportunities for driving usage and revenue.

"Gaming is core to the overall entertainment value of MySpace; we are replicating our success from MySpace Music for this next round of platform improvements," a representative for MySpace tells WebProNews. "Nearly a third of MySpace users engage daily in games and there are more than 28 million active app users on the site." She says the site "offers users discovery and sharing of games in a simpler and cleaner experience."

"Nearly one-third of MySpace users engage daily with games. We believe the new experience will empower even more of the MySpace audience to discover, share, and showcase games, which along with music and movies, are core to our content strategy," said MySpace Co-President Mike Jones. "We've been working with our developer partners to understand where they’d like to see MySpace go; based on that feedback we started rebuilding MySpace Games. These are the first steps in offering robust tools for developers to help their businesses thrive."

MySpace says developers can now:

- Review application-specific analytics via a new API, including invitation conversions, active users, notification responses and demographics.

- Build games in rich, 3D-like quality with Unity's powerful 3D engine and allow MySpace users to access the games with a new plug-in. For example, Paradise Paintball utilizes this technology.

- Encourage cross-platform competition with Scoreloop, which allows games on different platforms to share the same high scores, achievements, challenges and buddy lists.

- Utilize GroovyCortex, which is a cloud-based solution for onsite application developers, to provide low latency push data for multiplayer games.
 
- Track the source of application invitations and utilization to learn how users are finding and choosing specific games.

Along with the new MySpace Games site, MySpace announced a MySpace Games iPhone app, nine new social games, and a Gallery. Earlier this week, MySpace announced that it has the most popular social app on Android.

It appears that the new MySpace Games experience hasn't fully rolled out yet. 

Online Media Key For Local Consumers

Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products or services locally, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat.

Among consumers surveyed, 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.

"The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers' local commercial activity," said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey.

"The data suggest we're at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online."

The study found on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services locally, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, indicating an increase in audience fragmentation.

Additional finding include:

   * 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
   

 * 19 percent of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service).

"The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers," said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director, Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey.

"These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going."


 

Google, Bing Make Small Gains

February was a quiet month for the search market; we're not going to suggest any companies either break out the champagne or fire their CEOs as a result of the small changes that took place.  Still, for those who are curious, comScore believes it was Google and Bing that came out looking like winners.

Google managed to increase its share of the U.S. search market to 65.5 percent, up from 65.4 percent in January, according to comScore's data.  Bing, meanwhile, accomplished a more impressive feat (in overall terms, and especially in relation to its size) by grabbing 0.2 percent of market share.

That put Bing in control of 11.5 percent of the market, up from 11.3 percent the month before.

Yahoo's share of the search market then decreased, heading from 17.0 percent to 16.8 percent.  Which is embarrassing, but not yet catastrophic, as the company's partnership with Microsoft moves towards completion.

The interesting thing will be if Bing and Yahoo keep trading share.  Also, of course, if Google keeps increasing its dominance.  We'll be sure to cover comScore's next report to see if any trends have emerged.

YouTube Launches New Mobile Ads

Google is launching ads on the home page, search page, and browser page on the mobile version of YouTube in the U.S. and Japan.

"This is a great way for advertisers to reach YouTube viewers across multiple platforms," says Google Strategic Partner Development Manager Taylor Cascino. "In fact, at launch YouTube will immediately provide one of the largest audiences for a mobile ad campaign anywhere on the mobile web. And because YouTube mobile attracts early adopters, the site can deliver to advertisers a coveted demographic of tech savvy trendsetters. We've already seen some early campaigns run on YouTube's mobile site by advertisers like Sony (for the DVD release of "District 9") and Kia, both of whom were able to easily reach their target audience, no matter where they were looking for video."

YouTube's mobile site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, and you can probably expect that growth to continue along with smartphone usage. Don't forget that YouTube is the number 2 search engine on the web. That's a lot of people searching for videos.

"The increased usage of high-end devices like the iPhone and Android is also making mobile advertising easier and more effective for advertisers," says Cascino.

Ads on the YouTube mobile site will come in the form of banner ads sold on a full-day basis. YouTube tested the mobile ads with brands like L'Oreal and Land Rover, and the company says these showed strong results in terms of click-throughs, user experience, and brand awareness.

Google Maps Now Has Biking Directions

Google has partnered with Rails-to-Trails (RTC), a nonprofit focused on creating a network of trails from former rail lines, to add biking directions to Google Maps.

Google Maps now has biking route details for more than 150 U.S. cities covering more than 12,000 miles of trails and bike lanes. Google says it plans to continue to add new trail information to Google Maps and is requesting feedback from riders via the "Report a Problem" tool.

The new feature allows Google Maps users to type in their destination and receive directions for the best bicycling route. Google says its algorithm is weighted to prefer routing on trails instead of roads open to automobile traffic as long as it won't take cyclists too far out of the way.

"We're thrilled to be working with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to make RTC's extensive bike trail data available through Google Maps and Google Earth," says Shannon Guymon, Product Manager for Google Maps.

"Bikers all over the country now will be able to explore new trails or find specific directions in their local community with just a few clicks of their mouse."

 

Twitter Inspects Links To Prevent Spam, Abuse

Clicking on links that different people send can often be a cross-your-fingers experience, considering that there are malicious tricksters, unknowing victims, and hijacked accounts to watch out for.  So Twitter's attempting to make the experience less dangerous by checking (and sometimes rewriting) the links found in direct messages and email notifications.

Del Harvey, Director of Trust and Safety at Twitter, explained on the official corporate blog, "[W]e're launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks.  By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter."

Harvey later continued, "For the most part, you will not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but you may notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and email notifications."

This move is bound to ruffle a few users' feathers - changing the text in private messages is a sort of bold step - but on the whole, it should prove welcome enough.  A safe environment is in just about everybody's best interests, from regular users to marketers to Twitter itself.

Let's just hope the new feature works well and doesn't create a false sense of security.

Actor Corey Haim Reported Dead

Actor Corey Haim, best known for roles in movies like the Lost Boys, License to Drive, and many others (a number of which also featured Corey Feldman), has reportedly been found dead of an apparent drug overdose. 

>>> You can leave your condolences on FamousDead.com.

The LA Times reports:

The Los Angeles Police Department said Haim, 38, was pronounced dead after 3 a.m. at a Burbank hospital. He had been living in the San Fernando Valley.

Details of his death were not immediately available. The L.A. coroner's office was investigating. A police spokesman said more details would be available later.

Haim connected with his fans through social media, specifically a MySpace page, which currently has 4,253 friends.

The "about me" section reads:

The real Corey Haimster here! I asked Jenny J to set this up for me, so here it is. I'll be checking in to read all your shout outs & when I get the time, I'll leave a message for you all. Thanks for hitting my MySpace page!
Love & peace out,
Corey

"Actor Corey Haim" and "Lost Boys" are currently both trending topics on Twitter.

Haim's latest movie American Sunset premiered in Las Vegas in January. He had also been seen in the realty TV show The Two Coreys with Feldman. More on Haim here.

Google Apps MarketPlace Greatly Expands Google's Enterprise Offerings

Last night at Campfire One, Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace, where developers can create apps that integrate with Google Apps and sell them to users. According to Google, they can reach over 2 million businesses and 25 million users.

Right off the bat, the Google Apps Marketplace launched with over 50 applications from companies like Intuit and Atlassian, with more coming soon from companies like NetSuite and SuccessFactors, a Google spokesperson tells WebProNews.

"Once installed to a company's domain, these third-party applications work like native Google applications," explains Google Apps Marketplace Product Manager Chris Vander Mey. "With administrator approval, they may interact with calendar, email, document and/or contact data to increase productivity. Administrators can manage the applications from the familiar Google Apps control panel, and employees can open them from within Google Apps. With OpenID integration, Google Apps users can access the other applications without signing in separately to each. The Google Apps Marketplace eliminates the worry about software updates, keeping track of different passwords and manual syncing and sharing of data, thereby increasing business productivity and lessening frustrations for users and IT administrators alike. That's the power of the cloud."

This is the 2nd big move by Google regarding the cloud and Google Apps in less than a week. Late last week, the company acquired DocVerse, which "makes Word, PowerPoint and Excel Work like Google Docs," as the DocVerse title tag explains.

Developers can get more info about the Google Apps Marketplace at Google's Developer Programs site. The company will also be talking about developing apps for the enterprise at Google I/O in May.

Google Suffers Market Share Stumble In The UK

While we normally don't comment on market share fluctuations that occur in places other than America, some recent changes in the UK may bear mentioning.  According to the AT Internet Institute, Google's share of the search market slipped by 1.6 percent between January and February.

That's a significant amount.  Indeed, as the slightly upsized figure below shows (sorry for any blurriness), if Ask and AOL had suffered similar losses, they'd have been wiped out, hitting zero.

Of course, that didn't happen.  Instead, both Yahoo and Bing benefited from Google's dip.  Yahoo gained a not-bad 0.6 percent, and Bing increased its share by an even-better 0.7 percent.

Google's still in an extremely dominant position, but given that Microsoft's about to spend $2 billion on Bing commercials in the UK, these changes are noteworthy.  Microsoft might not be throwing its money away, as some people have speculated; there's now the possibility that it could extend or accelerate this growth trend.

We'll be sure to write again about the UK search market next month if anything out of the ordinary happens.  In the meantime, it should be interesting to see how those Bing commercials are received.

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