Interesting reads for the day 29 February 2011

Has Google’s New Algorithm Really Cleaned Up Search?
Google made a change to its search algorithm last week that it said was designed to help users find more “high-quality sites.” Although Google never described this move as one aimed at tackling the problem of content farms, many observers have viewed the algorithmic adjustments as Google’s attempt to clean up its search results, following a number of complaints about the quality (or lack of quality) of the information in the sites that are retrieved and are highly ranked.
Read the complete article: ReadWriteWeb

JP MORGAN BUYING HUGE STAKE IN TWITTER
Well, that was fast. JP Morgan has acquired a significant amount of Twitter shares through secondary markets and is in talks with Twitter for a direct investment, the WSJ says.
Read the complete article: Businessinsider.com

Eric Schmidt Delivers the Opening Keynote at the 2011 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting

Interesting reads for the day 28 February 2011

How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success
Social Media is key for businesses small and large when using the Internet to drive success to their brick and mortar businesses. Considering the fact that brick and mortar retail businesses have been hit hard over the past few years, implementing a smart social media strategy can be more…
Read the complete article: Sistrix

Google Announces Massive Algorithm Change, Declares War On Content Farms, Including Demand Media
Google just changed its search algorithm and effectively declared war on Content Farms like Demand Media.
Read the complete article: Businessinsider.com

Social networks host 41% of UK display ads
Social networks serve 41.3% of all display ads, amounting to 29.4bn a month.
The research into the UK display ad market, part of ComScore’s European Digital Year In Review 2010, found the amount of ad impressions on social networks grew by 47% over the last year, while total display ad impressions grew by only 13%.
Read the complete article: New Media Age

Virgin America on Why Twitter, Facebook Are More Important Than TV
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — While discussing the rewards that Twitter and Facebook have delivered to 4-year-old Virgin America, Porter Gale, the airline’s top marketer, took to its Twitter stream to validate her point. “Further proof that Virgin America is incredible, it just sent me a $200 credit because my flight was delayed,” one excited traveler had just posted. “There’s a perfect example of using Twitter as a guest-service/customer retention tool,” Ms. Gale said. “Did we have to send him a $200 credit after seeing his original tweet about being delayed? Probably not, but this person is now going to be more loyal to us.”
Read the complete article: Ad Age

Interesting reads for the day 24 February 2011

The secret to getting 50,000 followers on Twitter
You need to do 5,000 things and each thing you do, on average, needs to gain you ten new followers.
(Unless you are already famous like Howard Stern who got 200,000 followers within a few weeks after he jumped on Twitter).
Read the complete article: Webinknow

The Return on Investment (ROI) Craze Won’t Last
For over three years, I have sat back and witnessed the resurgence of a concept that seemed to be largely ignored or only found in dusty marketing books: Return on Investment.
I am referring to the buzz (or is hype a better word?) around social media ROI. What I find interesting is that marketing management is requiring social media ROI to qualify its worth before implementing it.
Read the complete article: Theharteofmarketing.com

It’s Not Your CEO’s Fault He’s a Social Media Moron
“I can’t get my C-level exec team to buy into social media.”
It seems that this has become the mantra for so many businesses, particularly Fortune 100 businesses who ought to know better.
Read the complete article: Socialmediatoday.com

Blogging Is Dead Just Like the Web Is Dead
Blogging is on the decline, according to a New York Times story published this weekend — citing research from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life Project — and it is declining particularly among young people, who are using social networks such as Facebook instead. Pretty straightforward, right?
Read the complete article: GigaOm

Blogging Is Dead Just Like the Web Is Dead
Blogging is on the decline, according to a New York Times story published this weekend — citing research from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life Project — and it is declining particularly among young people, who are using social networks such as Facebook instead. Pretty straightforward, right?
Read the complete article: GigaOm

Customer Loyalty 3.0: The Future of Customer Engagement
With customers having so many different options to choose from for goods and services, developing long-term loyal customers is critical for brands and customers. Not only is it easier to sell more things to customers that already love you, but raving fans will tell other customers about your brand or company. When you factor in the expense of trying to reach new customers and the high lifetime value of each individual customer, loyalty needs to be a top priority for every business.
Read the complete article: Carolroth.com

Video: The future of media

The world is obsessed with Facebook

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

Launching Early beta

We are launching an early beta, need feedback and beta testers :)
Invitation code: FUZZY
Open your account here : Fuzzagent
(please share if you find our service interesting)

Interesting reads for the day 21 february 2011

Marketing shouldn’t be about shortcuts
Remember that one essay test you took in school. You meant to study. But for some reason you just didn’t have the time. Truth be told, you didn’t really read the book. But you skimmed over the Cliff Notes. And you did repent in the end — cramming the night before the test.
Read the complete article: Drewsmarketingminute.com

10 Fascinating YouTube Facts That May Surprise You
YouTube is huge. Humongous, even. More video content is uploaded to YouTube in a 60 day period than the three major U.S. television networks created in 60 years.
Read the complete article: Mashable

How to Create Your Own Social Networking Community
If you have a medium- to large-sized online network, you might have noticed some of your contacts have been developing their own communities in the form of private groups, forums or social networks that are a mixture of free or paid memberships.
Read the complete article: Socialmediaexaminer.com

Forget Bounce Rates, focus on Conversions
IMany web consultants look at bounce rates as one of the most important metrics of all. They will tell you that it is a very bad thing when people only see the first page of your site.
Indeed, bounce rates used to be very important in the past, back when the internet didn’t actually work. But today the world has change. The way we use the internet is drastically different. Focusing on bounce rates might distract you from your real goal.
Read the complete article: Beakdal

Study Reveals Top 6 Social Media Goals for 2011
In 2010, many businesses laid their social media foundations. In 2011, many wonder what social media marketers will tackle as their top priorities.
Altimeter Group’s recent research reveals that integration, staffing, advertising and measurement are all key areas of focus for social media strategists in 2011.
Read the complete article: Socialmediaexaminer.com

SLink Mines versus Link Farms
What is a Link Mine? It’s a place where you literally dig for links … and hopefully no one disturbs you while you dig.
What is a Link Farm? A link farm is a group of Websites that all link to each other.
Read the complete article: Seo-theory

Interesting reads for the weekend 19-20 february 2011

Who Gives the Most Trusted Recommendations?
“People like me” vs. the experts
Social media has put power in the hands of the consumer, giving everyone a publishing platform to push out their thoughts and feelings to the world at large. This has given great power to word-of-mouth, typically considered the most trustworthy form of marketing. But social behavior is changing as it matures.
Read the complete article: Emarketer

5 Sales Email Myths that are Costing You Money
Recently, I worked with Darren on some sales content—including launch emails—for the release of a new product at DPS. That launch email was tested against another version written by a professional marketer in a split test before the launch. In (what was to me) a shock result, the email I’d written achieved…
Read the complete article: Problogger

A Better Social Web Exists
A better social web exists. It exists within each of us.
Today, this social web isn’t popular, instead it has fascinating small pools and eddies of action and meaningful dialogue. But this can be The Social Web, a place better than a popularity driven attention sphere focused on the best looking unicorn (Bieber or Kardashian, take your pick).
Read the complete article: Geofflivingston.com

Let’s Create a Real Micro-Payment System: http://bit.ly/ggN53B (by @baekdal ).
Last week, PayPal announced their new micro-payment system. It is a pretty good deal compared to traditional payment systems. For payments under $12, the price is 5 cents + 5% per transaction. On top of this, the payment process is inline, so you never leave the product page.
Read the complete article: Beakdal

Facebook Posts Are 3 Times More Powerful Than Tweets
The group buying startup ChompOn has calculated the value of a Facebook posting in driving social shopping — at $14, it’s nearly three times what a Tweet is worth. And likes are worth $8.
ChompOn qualifies that its figures underestimate the values and have relevancy only for the company’s next sale of a group buying opportunity — the startup’s deals let clients completely brand the offerings as their own, in contrast to the co-branding strategy of Groupon and others in the space., and features deals on social media.
Read the complete article: Allfacebook

Facebook Posts Are 3 Times More Powerful Than Tweets
The group buying startup ChompOn has calculated the value of a Facebook posting in driving social shopping — at $14, it’s nearly three times what a Tweet is worth. And likes are worth $8.
ChompOn qualifies that its figures underestimate the values and have relevancy only for the company’s next sale of a group buying opportunity — the startup’s deals let clients completely brand the offerings as their own, in contrast to the co-branding strategy of Groupon and others in the space., and features deals on social media.
Read the complete article: Allfacebook

Inside Twitter’s Sales Machine: A Secret Guide for Advertisers (Video)
Twitter hopes to generate something like $100 million from advertising this year, but first it has to teach people how to buy its ads. Here’s how it’s doing that: A hand-holding how-to video, which walks through everything from pricing to dealing with angry users.
Read the complete article: Allthingsd.com

The top 50 brands in social media
We’ve been charting the performance of the top 50 brands on social media (and looks at why some brands have done better than others), and there are some interesting results.
So, the votes are in, the results have been verified, and we can now reveal that, according to our Social Media Reputation Index, the most social brand in the world is…. eBay.
Read the complete article: Econsultancy.com

Interesting reads for the day 18 february 2011

5 Sales Email Myths that are Costing You Money
Recently, I worked with Darren on some sales content—including launch emails—for the release of a new product at DPS. That launch email was tested against another version written by a professional marketer in a split test before the launch. In (what was to me) a shock result, the email I’d written achieved…
Read the complete article: Problogger

5 Sales Email Myths that are Costing You Money
Recently, I worked with Darren on some sales content—including launch emails—for the release of a new product at DPS. That launch email was tested against another version written by a professional marketer in a split test before the launch. In (what was to me) a shock result, the email I’d written achieved…
Read the complete article: Problogger

Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn’t Work
For almost four years, since the Facebook Platform was launched, I have been involved in delivering Facebook apps for top brands such as CBS, NBC, Lifetime, Universal Music, Visa and more. Here’s what we have learned doesn’t work, and more importantly, what does work.
Read the complete article: Read Write Web

Forbes Accused Of Link Spam, Plays Dumb, But Forgets To Delete All The Links
Ah, Forbes. They, along with eWeek, CIO Magazine and a whole lot of other sites, have long been in the business of selling links on their site. The links aren’t placed very prominently, but the buyers don’t care because all they want is the search juice. See, for example, the JC Penny paid links story from last weekend.
Read the complete article: Techcrunch

How Dare You Tell Me To NoFollow My Sponsored Links
I am getting upset, I rarely write stories when I am upset but hey – when you are in the heat of the moment, the writing should come out passionate, shouldn’t it?
The other day, I broke the story that Forbes got caught selling links and didn’t even know they were selling it. It turns out, it was a technical error and they apologized, removed the links and likely submitted their reconsideration request.
Read the complete article: Seroundtable

Crowdsourcing attracts the best advertising clients, and it all began with a tweet…
John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils, the world’s first crowdsourced agency, gave the opening keynote at our Future of Crowdsourcing Summit in September last November.
It was fascinating to hear about how he had brought together an extraordinarily talented distributed team, and convinced major brands such as Harley-Davidson, GAP, Levi’s, and Virgin America to use a crowdsourcing approach.
Read the complete article: Rossdawsonblog

Reasons why people “Unlike” brands on Facebook

Via Allfacebook