Netizen

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

I have never doubted Facebook will make gobbles of money. And I have been perfectly comfortable with their scaling the service first. Scale it first, worry about revenue later. None of Facebook's early investors have come across as impatient. Zuckerberg himself came out a few days earlier saying he is in no hurry to take the company public. That perhaps is a nod to the bad shape economy, but also to the fact that with or without the economy Facebook is not ready yet.

Facebook Faceoff Firefox

Facebook is different from Google and it is different from Twitter. Facebook came after Google and before Twitter in the genealogy of things tech.

I think the Facebook site is pretty nifty in terms of technology, I mean look at that font size. But Facebook's number one contribution is not the technology, it is the social graph, as the Facebookers like to call it. It is not search like it is for Google, it is not the stream like it is for Twitter, it is the social graph.

Facebook does not compete with Twitter. Facebook is better off taking the social graph concept to new levels. Okay, so I can stay in touch with my friends through Facebook regardless of if they are in the same town or country or not, but can I deepen my existing friendships through Facebook, can I have social concentric circles? Not all friends are equal. Some are inner circle friends, some are not so inncer circle. Can I have that on Facebook? Can I have a core of status updates meant only for immediate family?

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

In digging through the data and making sense of a user's social connections and social activities, Facebook stands to create that special ad space. Google's attitude is, if you did a search on smartphones, maybe I should show you ads on smartphones, and you will click on one of the ads and make me some money. Facebook's attitude will be, you have been interacting with Iqbal and 10 others more frequently than with any of your other 500 Facebook friends, and Iqbal just bought a smartphone, I think you will too if given the opportunity, what if I show you an ad for a smartphone, or better, what if I get Iqbal to show you an ad for the very smartphone he just bought? Let him brag about it. Let me stay out of it.

What Should Facebook Do

That is lucrative ad space. Facebook will keep getting a better and better idea of any user's social graph over time. And the better it is, more defined its ad space is, and more lucrative that ad space. It is new and it is different. It sure is early stage. But once they get onto it, I think they are going to be minting money. Facebook is going to take the idea of online shopping to a whole different level.

TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook

I for one can imagine Facebook becoming bigger than China. It might take a few years, but it will get there. It is okay if it takes more than a few years, if it takes a decade, that's fine too.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived

My long held Facebook fantassy has been that it should not just be a place where you keep in touch with people you are already friends with, it should also be a place where you meet new people to become friends with. Facebook added a Like button. How about adding a Hello button? We might not know each other, but what if I want to say hello?

The Unfacebook
Facebook

And how about Facebook Enterprise? Could the site offer team building tools?

Facebook needs sociologists, and ethnographers and anthropologists and social activists as much as it needs programmers and technologists. It is a social graph company not a tech graph company.

In The News

Learning, and Profiting, from Online Friendships BusinessWeek Companies are working fast to figure out how to make money from the wealth of data they're beginning to have about our online friendships ...... For social scientists, Watts says, this flood of data could be as transformative as Galileo's telescope was for the physical sciences ..... Tailoring offers based on friends' responses helped lift the average click rate from 0.9% to 2.7%. Although 97.3% of the people surfed past the ads, the click rate still tripled. ....... Friendship data promise insights into not only the marketplace but also the corporation. Researchers can trace the hidden networks ........ One key laboratory for IBM is its internal social network called Beehive, in which nearly 60,000 ........ Each new friend plugs an IBM worker into another sphere of knowledge and human contacts. ...... while each of us likely will switch jobs seven or eight times in our careers, we continue to build a network of friends that can sustain us. ...... LinkedIn's Hoffman ..... has 1,864 contacts on LinkedIn. ..... the contacts outside of our close friendships are more likely to lead us to new opportunities. Their networks have less overlap and extend into different areas. ........ trading information, creating alliances, doing favors ....... the value in online friendship is poised to grow.
Netbook Sales Keep Quanta Competitive
'Super Angels' Shake Up Venture Capital
Unemployment Up in 44 States
Jobs: What a Rebound Will Look Like
America's Backdoor Layoffs
Help Wanted: Why That Sign's Bad
The U.S. Has 3 Million Job Openings
Unemployment: Worse Than it Looks
Is the Jobs Panic Justified?
Layoffs Flood a Weakened Unemployment System
Unretired: Retirees Are Back, Looking for Work
The Coming Pink Slip Epidemic
Unemployment: How to Slow the Bleeding

Friday, May 22, 2009

Netizen Is No Spam Blog

A Google robot flagged my blog, a Google human unflagged it. All's well that ends well.

Google: Tweet Me Baby One More Time

Best Way To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

Mark Penn says in his famous Wall Street Journal article that at 100,000 unique visits per month, a blogger hits 75K in income. There is a suggestion that there is a direct correlation between how much traffic you get and how much you make as a blogger. So how do you go about increasing traffic for your blog?

There are three kinds of traffic:

Search Traffic
Referring Sites
Direct Traffic

If you focus solely on content creation and engage in no other marketing effort, all your traffic is going to come from search engines. If you become inactive for any length of time, you are still going to get residual traffic. Most of that likely might be search engine traffic, except if you get residual traffic of the other two kinds from your previous marketing efforts.

It is fundamental that you use Google Analytics or a similar tool to see how much and what kind of traffic you are getting. The tool also tells you of the keywords people use to feed the search engines to end up at your site, and what pages they visit. This helps you discover your niche, and to create ever more content for that particular niche. For me right now that seems to be Android.

More specifically "donut android" and "cupcake android." For those two phrases my blog for now shows up on the first page of Google search results. That is prime real estate. The reason I have to hone in that niche makes sense at many levels to me.

When I write new blog posts on Android, content creation and marketing are not two different activities. They are one and the same.
Android is no cottage industry. It is not some sub sub sub topic. It just might end up being the top technology news for this year.
Android so totally fits into my IC vision and my startup. The more I learn about Android, the better for me. I don't mind getting paid to learn. (Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures) I plot every day to go back to working on my startup full time. Android is fundamental to the IC vision. The ground - operating system - itself has to move for the vision to become reality.

I feel lucky that the topic in technology that I find most fascinating right now is also my blog's prime niche according to Google Analytics. And I got told of that niche right after my first Android blog post. I find that amazing. My respect for Google's algorithms grew. And when Google gave me the number two spot after my first Donut Android blog post, my respect for the search engine really grew. (Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android)

Search engine traffic I think is the best kind, but working on the other two does not take away from your search engine traffic, quite the opposite, so don't ignore the other two either.

If I am a tech blogger, it makes sense that I visit TechCrunch, for example, or Mashable. And if I am going to visit anyways, why not participate in the comments sections? It takes but a few seconds. And because your name gets hyperlinked to your blog, those comments sections start sending a little traffic your way. What is there to complain?

Contrary to the stereotype, blogging is a social activity. You have to belong to blogging and online communities around your interests. You have to forge friendships in the blogosphere. And forging friendships with bloggers who are not so big name increases your chances of them putting you on their blogrolls. After traffic, those backlinks are what jack up your google rank. Those backlinks are key. And content creation alone will not do the work for you, especially during the early stages when you are still wondering how you hit 1,000 page hits a day.

Twitter is micro-blogging. And there is another: that would be the comments sections of other blogs. Got to participate.

Twitter is another great place to socialize. Don't just have a list of people you follow and followers. Got to make some time and visit their profile pages and respond to some of their tweets. These are real living, breathing people. Get to know some of them, or many of them if possible.

And there is direct traffic. Feedburner lets you put a box at your blog that gives visitors the option to subscribe to your blog with their email addresses. Seth Godin claims that mailing list is how he gets most of his traffic. But he probably became a star blogger first. But before you become famous and other people know you, when you are a small fish blogger, there are people you know. Once in a while it is okay to send out emails to people you know sharing a blog post or two with them. Look Ma, no hands!

Focus on great content creation.
Find your niche, and create great content for that particular niche, but also constantly be diversifying. You don't want to go out of business when one rainy day Google revised its algorithms and your blog ended up in Siberia.
Blogging is a social activity. Be in a habit of visiting other blogs and participating in their comments sections in meaningful ways.
Strive to generate a band of loyal visitors, people who want to lap up every blog post you put out because, oh, you are just so wonderful.

Google: Tweet Me Baby One More Time
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
What Does Your Resume Look Like Today?
Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Content Is Queen
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
Spamming Om Malik

Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
Blogging Several Times A Day
Blogging Tips
A Blogger Is Also An Editor
Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Sites That Pay You To Blog

On The Web

SEOmoz | 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
The Best way to increase traffic to your site
Whats the best way to increase traffic? - Authority Blogger Forum
What's the BEST way to increase traffic to your blog? // Blogging ...
Blog Traffic - 15 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic
WikiAnswers - What is the best way to drive traffic to your website
Web Site Marketing - Lead Generation and How to Increase Traffic ...
How to Use Blog Sites To Increase Traffic To Your Blog | eHow.com

Pages

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

Friday, May 22, 2009

Netizen Is No Spam Blog

Best Way To Increase Traffic To Your Blog