Delicious Declining ?

Michael at Techcrunch speculates on declining Del.icio.us user stats

Has del.icio.us tapped out its userbase of early adopters? Will social bookmarking fail to go mainstream?

I think mainstream users will want to use del.icio.us,...Some users call for a redesign…something flashier and bolder. I don’t think that’s the answer. Easier bookmarking and better tools for sharing seem like the right direction to me....

Better tools for sharing? How about a whole new layer of tag-o-spheric interactivity like the ability to pass tags between blogs, Freshtags style! Michael's right. The solution here isn't a flashier site, it is a continued migration of the features and functions off the site and into our links bars & sidebars. Most of the recent innovations (tagroll, linkroll, Firefox extension) have done that....

There have been a number of recent discussions about what it would take to de-geek Del.icio.us, and to see the recent bookmark list be as much about dog grooming as it is about programming. Let's also note, though, that Del.icio.us was the only game in town (or at least the stand-out choice) for social bookmarking as recently as 18 months ago when I started to tag my posts for categories. Now 3Spots lists more than 100 social bookmarking sites, with every imaginable topical and geographic focus. The middle and late-comers to social bookmarking have their pick of services, & will choose features that are important to them.

More generally... What is the next evolution in social bookmarking? My thought is that for this to catch on, online content has to become more important to more people, & that Aunty Sue has to choose to bookmark that cookie recipe at home & then visit the site again at grandma's, rather than writing it down or printing it & stuffing it in her purse... What do you think?
______

Related Update: Pete Cashmore at Mashable reports that Del.icio.us now has a sidebar widget like the "favorite me on Technorati" widget, that invites readers to add you to their network, and that they've also added the ability to see a list of "most active users" for individual tags, thereby allowing the casual user to see who is interested (& presumably authoritative) in a given area.

The sidebar widget is known as a Network Badge. It is customiseable in the same way as the tagroll, via a very clean interface that has a preview at the right. In addition to the default "add me to your network" link (which is the point,after all) the badge has custom options to show username, network count, fan count, & the option to choose no icon, or either a large or small icon. If your network or fan counts are 0, that element will not display. See what a network badge looks like in the preview column below:

Once again, Del.icio.us are getting people off the site, & getting the features & functions into your everyday browsing experience.... This tool also follows up the division of the inbox into inbox & network by amplifying the "social" components of the site.

Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company

Google Backlinks

Google Backlinks: What? Why? How?

What are Google Backlinks?

The first big post-footer gotta-have, in the heady days before social bookmarking caught on, was the "who links to this post" inbound link checker. The Technorati Cosmos checker for your post footer was everywhere, & was pretty much the only game in town for finding inbound links to single posts. Then came a number of other blog search services, including Talkdigger, & the emergence of Google's Backlinks service as an extension of their blogsearch. Where backlinks has the edge is that "backlinks" to referring posts appear right in your post footer, & not on an offsite 3rd party search results page. The only potential downside is that Google Blogsearch may not see all of the inbound links to a post, & so the listed backlinks may not be all of the inbounds for a given post.

Why do I need Google Backlinks?

Backlinks displays inbound links to a post within that post, right in your template, without you or your readers having to go off & chase down the related posts. The other significant feature is that you don't need to bookmark your posts anywhere. Since Google is finding the links through their Blogsearch tool, no bookmarking is required. Very useful. It's also pretty darn easy to install, all things being equal, as long as your blog hasn't been hacked about too much.

How do I get Backlinks?

If you've got a newer blogger template and you haven't messed with it to any great degree, you should just be able to turn on the backlinks. To do this, log in to blogger, and head to settings > comments. Set the backlinks radio button to "show," & make sure that the "backlinks default for posts" is set to "new posts have backlinks."

For more on this see Digital Inspiration and Blogger's Backlinks help article.

Older Blogger template? Custom template? To get into the code of the backlinks, see Blogger Help's Backlink Tag walkthrough. It is a pretty straightforward layout of the 2 blocks of code that you'll need to get default backlinks to work for you, with clear instructions about what to wrap the blocks in etc. It has to be said, though, that if you're a candidate for cutting and pasting, there are some great "Backlinks-Plus" user authored versions of this functionality that you might want to consider.

User-Authored versions, you say?

Why yes! There are four excellent user-enhanced implementations of backlinks that I know about, each of which will do a little something above and beyond the default version, and a little something different from the others:

Jasper's Custom Backlinks hack will work if your template is not an off-the-peg Blogger template, & if you have difficulty with the default code provided by Blogger.

Stephen's Backlinks will pop-up / expand & appear on the main page in response to a click on the Backlinks link in the footer of any post.
Greg's Recursive Backlinks shows backlinks for multiple linked posts on the post that you're reading. Drill down following the ~> to track backlinks across multiple posts.
Aditya's Asynch Internal Backlinks will load a preview of any internally-linked posts in an Ajax window on the post that you're viewing. If you link to yourself a lot, this is worth investigating.

If you know of other custom versions of backlinks, please leave a comment or trackback from the write-up on this post, and for more information, check out backlinks on the wiki. Aditya's hack isn't in there yet, but it is on the way....

What else can I do with Backlinks?

You can turn them on & off on individual posts, for one, by using the Allow New Backlinks on this Post option under "post & comment options" in the footer of the create post window.

If you have a Blogger account, you can use the "Create a Link" link in the backlinks section of a post that you're reading to launch Blogger's BlogThis! window, and write about what you're reading as soon as you see it.

As they say in the Google help article, you can subscribe to the feed of Google Blogsearch results for a search that includes the link operator, as follows: link:http://yourbloghere.com/ to get notification of new links.

Backlinks are a great way to start to see the connections between your blog & the wider blogosphere, & to present those links to your readers. Try them out!

Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company

Role Of SEO's Recognised

"Search Engine Optimizers" on the Cutting Edge
Robert Half International, a well-respected staffing firm, posted an article in MSN Careers titled "Four Jobs on the Cutting Edge." Alongside Information Technology Auditor, Forensic Accountant, and Intellectual Property Litigator, you will also find Search Engine Optimizer. Their description of a Search Engine Optimizer is as follows...

Search engine optimizers (SEOs) increase a firm's Web site traffic by improving its search-engine page rankings. This is an especially important task in today's Internet-driven world, where many customers first learn of an organization and its products or services through the Web. Because of a shortage of experts in this relatively new area, many top SEOs receive multiple job offers.

SEOs typically supplement their knowledge of how various search engines operate and determine page rankings with strong marketing skills, as well as the ability to communicate effectively and program using HTML. Most are self-taught, learning the trade by researching trends, attending conferences and seminars, participating in discussion forums, and experimenting with their own sites. Courses and certifications in this specialty are being offered by an increasing number of organizations; however, consensus on the value of these programs does not yet exist.

Although I appreciate the well-deserved credit, which has been increasing significantly as of late, I think the title “Search Engine Marketer” is the more appropriate designation. I was an "SEO" in 1998, now I am a sophisticated online marketer who specializes in search engine visibility, but you can call me an SEM for short.

Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company

Google Webmaster Central

Google Sitemaps Becomes Google Webmaster Central; Preferred Domain Tool Launched

Google Sitemaps has gained a new name along with new features. Google Webmaster Central is the new name of the former Google Sitemaps service, which now has evolved into a central place for Google to provide help information, statistics, reports and tools to help webmasters.

Google Sitemaps launched last year primarily as a way for site owners to submit lists of URLs to be crawled. Since that time, it has steadily gained features that took it beyond being a submission tool. It has offered the ability to view stats on how people are finding your site, verify robots.txt files and much more.

I've actually just come from Google's office in Kirkland, Washington, which is home to the Google Sitemaps team. Here's a rundown on some of the new features offered within the Google Sitemaps / Webmaster Tools component of Google Webmaster Central.

Preferred domain: Is your site available with and without a www prefix? Until now, the recommendation was to do a 301 permanent redirect of one to the other. But some people can't easily do this. Now sitemaps has a preferred domain tool that lets you pick which you prefer. Make your choice, and Google will list the domain you choose. Behind the scenes, Google will understand the two domains are one and the same for purposes of things like link calculations. Keep in mind that Google says it will take some time before the changes are visible. Also keep in mind that you'll still need to do 301 redirection for other search engines. Still, I'm thrilled to see Google has move ahead with yet another suggestion I've wanted, as have many others.

Crawl Rate: A small percentage of webmasters will see a new alpha feature under the Tools menu called "crawl rate." This will allow site owners to tell Google to crawl them at a particular speed: Fastest, Faster, Normal, Slower, Slowest. Feel like Google is hammering your server and slowing it down? Choose Slower or Slowest. Got a super server and want to help Google? Tell it that it can crawl you faster or fastest. Then it will crawl you more quickly and move on to other sites. And, if you've got so many pages that Google doesn't seem to be getting them all in the usual time it crawls, using a higher setting gives you a chance of getting more pages in. Note that Google says that many sites are already getting comprehensively crawled at a normal setting. "Ninety nine percent of website owners don't need to change this," said Amanda Teal, a software engineer on the Google Webmaster Central team. "This is for the tiny percentage of site owners who contact us with issues."

Summary Page Changes: The summary page has new icons and colors to try and highlight good things and bad things are going on with your site.

Better Crawl Error Reporting: The crawl error reporting feature now shows a full rundown on all errors that have happened over the past two weeks, and you can filter them by date, making it easy to see what errors have happened since your last check.

Manage Site Verification: This is a new tab that shows you all methods that have been used to verify a site you control. Huh? Let's say you manage a site, but others have access to it as well. You verify the site using your own Google Sitemaps account, but two other people in your company who can also insert meta tags or place files on your server as verify the site in their own names. This new page helps you understand that these other people have also verified. There's also a way to reverify all accounts associated with a site, even if you didn't originally do the verification. This is handy to wipe out verifications others may have done, if they are no longer associated with your company or site. For example, say one of those other people has left your company. Do you still want them having access to your stats? Probably not. The reverify feature lets you see exactly how they verified your site in their account. You control the site, so wipe out the verification file or meta tag. Then do a reverify. This will their access to stats from your site immediately, since the file or meta tag originally used can't be found.

Improved Sitemap Error Reporting: If one of your sitemaps has a problem, such as a missing XML tag or formatting problem, these errors are now better explained and reported.

Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company

Blogosphere Grows Exponentially

Blogosphere 100 Times Bigger than in 2003

David Sifry has updated his State of the Blogosphere and reveals what's been happening in the past 3 months.

Some of the new details include:

* Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs.
* The Blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.
* Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.

It's still quite amazing how fast blogging continues to grow. As a market grows, it becomes more and more difficult to show any percentage gain. While the blogosphere growth does appear to be slowing - doubling every 6.5 months as opposed to 5.5 months last year - it's still growing at a phenomenal rate.


Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company

Ebay Offering Airtime Ads

Advertisers, eBay to Test Ad Sales Idea

Aug 4, 6:03 PM (ET)

By SETH SUTEL

NEW YORK (AP) - Several major advertisers are teaming up with online auctioneer eBay Inc. (EBAY) (EBAY) to test an idea for selling television advertising in an electronic marketplace, the group announced Friday.

A group of marketers and advertising agencies wants to try what would be a vastly different way of selling TV ads, which are usually negotiated in closed-door deals between networks and advertisers.

The process has long been criticized as cumbersome and opaque, since the exact prices paid by different advertisers often isn't known, meaning that some will wind up paying more than others.

"As you look at the existing media buying and selling process, there is a level of perceived inefficiency in the system," says Bob Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers. "The marketers believe there may be a more transparent approach toward the buying and selling of advertising."


The test is still at an early stage, and Liodice emphasized that it was not intended to replace the "upfront" advertising marketplace, or the annual ritual every spring when the vast majority of TV advertising is sold in advance of the fall season.

The advertisers participating in the test include Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard Co. and Home Depot Inc. (HD)

In addition to the ANA, the pilot program is also being supported by the American Association of Advertising Agencies. The group wants to try out the test in the second quarter of next year.

It's not yet clear how the marketplace experiment might work, but Liodice said the idea was to sell advertising much like stocks are traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, with transparent prices for each item that are visible to all participants.

In a similar way, an electronic marketplace for advertising would match up buyers and sellers of ad spots electronically. Today, ads are often sold in complex deals, with discounting and other considerations taken into account based on the timing and amount of advertising being bought. Marketers with long-standing relationships with certain networks may also get better pricing than a new entrant to the market buying only a one-time ad.

---

On the Net:

http://www.admarketpilot.com


Technorati Tags:
business media blogger blog blogs blogging internet news webdesign webmaster google advertising marketing promotion seo search yahoo aol msn overture ppc advert killer app pr



The Killer App™ Company