Creative SEO News UK, Search Engine Optimisation & Search Marketing News » Social Networks

Twitter Launches Geo Tagging Update, Expanding its Location sharing service.

Creative SEO — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:03:27 +0000

Last August Twitter announced the launch of a new location sharing feature which allowed users to tag there Tweets with their Geographical location, this was only available as part of the API, until now.
Twitter will be adding the new functionality to its website, allowing Twitter users to tag their Tweets with their location, so what does this mean? Well on the one hand the prospect of real time search results which are based on location does seem very exciting. To be able to monitor and predict trends and public opinion based on location could offer some extremely valuable data. But is this new technology opening up a “Can of Worms”, with personal security potentially at stake, will 2010 be the year of the Stalker? Luckily the new service can only be enabled by physically opting in to location sharing. This will naturally police the situation and should hopefully prevent any potential security issues with location sharing and privacy.
Quite interestingly IE and Safari Users will be disappointed as the new location feature will only work on Firefox and Google Chrome at this time.
“Let’s say I’m at my office and I hear a loud boom. It sounded serious, so I search Twitter for “boom.” Among the first results could be someone who tweeted “Boom go the fireworks!” This could be anywhere in the world. However, if that person had activated the new tweet location feature then the neighbourhood data under the tweet would read, “SoMa.”

Now I know it’s just fireworks going off in my neighbourhood. Boom! Plus, the word “SoMa” is linked to a Google map so I can explore a bit more. There are many ways location data can be useful when paired with tweets.” Taken from the official Twitter blog.

It’s an interesting new technology and we would love to hear your thoughts?
Article by Creative SEO

Twitter Adds Its own URL Shortener

Creative SEO — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:43:33 +0000

There has been an ongoing issue which has affected a large proportion of twitter users. Twitter users have been victimised by phishing scams through links in direct messages. In order to protect its users and to combat the issue Twitter has announced the launch of its very own URL shortener.

“Today, we’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. Even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able to keep that user safe.” Twitter said.

Twitter will be initially focusing on Direct messages and notifications but its believed the new service will be rolled out to all areas of Twitter.

Author: Creative SEO

Google Launch Fast.Forward, a Marketing Innovation and Information Resource

Creative SEO — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:45:44 +0000

Google have partnered with the Wharton School to launch a brand new resource for Marketers to share and learn about the ever changing world of Marketing. The site is called Fast.Forward and is based as a YouTube channel. It features hundreds of valuable and informative videos from some of the world’s top marketing academics and leading experts including Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Lauder Professor at the Wharton School, Jerry Wind, Nancy Hill, CEO of AAAA.

“As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren’t doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world.

To address some of these questions, we have partnered with The Wharton School to launch our Fast.Forward. Channel on YouTube, which highlights insightful perspectives from industry experts and academics on how marketers can stay ahead in the changing landscape. (You might have seen a similar site launched by our UK marketing team in partnership with London Business School earlier this year.)” Taken from the Google Biz Blog.

This is a great source of information which will only improve over time and is well worth a visit.

Article by Creative SEO UK

YouTube Rumoured to be in Talks with Sony & Lions Gate to Offer Film & Movie Rentals

Creative SEO — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:26:48 +0000

YouTube, the social networking video sharing community, is said to be in discussions with Sony & Lions Gate Films to offer a Film & Movie Rental service through the YouTube portal.

YouTube, one of the internet’s visited websites, recently announced that it would be offering premium, professionally produced content onto its network in order to attract more users and increase advertising revenue. Last month, as part of an agreement, Time Warner, CNN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim added older content to the YouTube Network. At present the majority of YouTube content is user generated or uploaded. The addition of paid content will see a dramatic change to the existing site, offering new sources of revenue and advertising opportunities.

“Google’s trying to find ways to better monetize this very good asset,” said Andy Miedler, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. “As long as the economics make sense, I certainly applaud them for trying to increase the revenue stream.”

Chris Dale, a YouTube spokesman, declined to comment on “rumors or speculation.”

“We hope to expand on both our great relationships with movie studios and on the selection and types of videos we offer our community,” Dale said, without being more specific. The Wall Street Journal reported the story yesterday.

YouTube has also reported that it has come to a final settlement with PRS for Music and Music Videos will shortly be available to view in the UK once again. PRS requested a large royalty fee from YouTube for playing and distributing Music Videos and related content. YouTube announced that the Fee structure was too high and that advertising revenue would not fund such high charges.
After lengthy discussions with PRS, YouTube announced back in March that it would be blocking music content until a settlement could be made in regards to license fees. Nearly 6 months on and the service will finally be renewed.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Digg adds NoFollow tags to reduce Spam

Creative SEO — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:14:52 +0000

Social Media bookmarking site Digg is said to be adding NoFollow tags to site links in order to reduce to volume of spam listings in its network. The links which will be directly affected are within user profiles, comments and unpopular posts. The addition of NoFollow tags will mean that Digg will not pass on link juice and page rank to any link which qualifies for the NoFollow tag.

Many Digg users create and submit content to Digg just for the links back to their sites. Quality content will drive high volumes of direct traffic to a website, through the Digg network, but many users are more interested in creating poor quality content in order to generate as many links as possible.

Digg have not explained how popular a link needs to be in order to qualify to have the NoFollow tag removed, the Digg blog announced the change but did not detail the criteria.

Digg have said that they have been working with leading members of the SEO community to come up with an effective and fair rule. No names have been given but you have to hope that this is not a result of pressure from Google.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Commercial Twitter Accounts with Premium services and Business Tools to be launched.

Creative SEO — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:29:46 +0000

Twitter is preparing to launch commercial accounts designed specifically for business users, could this be the long awaited introduction of Twitters new Revenue generation model and what services will be available on premium business accounts?

Twitter, the Micro-Blogging phenomenon, has grown to massive proportions over the last 12 months. Real Time search has become a key new player in online marketing and Twitter continues to pioneer the technology. It seems that Twitter was looking to establish the micro-blogging service with high user levels and popularity before considering the introduction of an advertising model to start generating revenue. The introduction of Business Tools and Premium accounts is the first sign of Commercial Monetization of the business.

During an interview with VentureBeat, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone is reported to have discussed the first phase of rolling out commercial accounts and the introduction of business-orientated applications, API’s, which would add a “commercial layer” to the social network. Biz Stone said:

“Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it.”
“But we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

Last month some important Twitter documents were leaked to the public, they included detailed information and concepts about the monetization of Twitter which included; search ads, integrated Adsense, sponsored tweets and an analytics suite of tools. Twitter also announced the launch last week of a new Twitter Geo-tagging feature which will allow users to configure their Twitter account to display their exact Tweeting location. It’s evident that the new Twitter premium accounts will be extremely feature rich, it’s still unclear when the new service will be launched as no formal launch date has been released.

Article by Creative SEO

Google’s YouTube will Share Ad Revenue with Eligible Users and Film Makers

Creative SEO — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:56:02 +0000

YouTube, the Google owned video sharing social network, announced on Tuesday that they will begin sharing advertising revenue with users who upload extremely popular, high profile clips and videos.

The YouTube partnership program will be extended to include individuals who are deemed eligible based on the number of views and the depth of sharing of their video content. The partnership program has until now allowed regular producers of videos to earn revenue from YouTube advertising. YouTube claim this can be Thousands of Dollars. Under the new system, if a video becomes popular, possible due to its viral nature, YouTube will email the user and invite them to “enable revenue sharing”. It is unclear as to exactly what YouTube will define as “Popular” but YouTube has acknowledged that they will only sell ads against the clip if the user agrees.

The new program will only be available in the US to start but will be rolled out to other regions. This new program is part of YouTube’s ongoing development of its revenue generating abilities.

“We think there’s tens of thousands more partners that we can generate through this content,” said Tom Pickett, director online sales at YouTube.

Article by Creative SEO

Twitter Makes Inglourious Basterds a Box Office Hit.

Creative SEO — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:31:51 +0000

Quentin Tarantino’s new war epic took over $64.1 million in the opening weekend making it Tarantino’s most successful movie to date. Hollywood industry experts have concluded that Twitter massively contributed to the success of the film in its opening weekend.
The first people to see the film we quick to Tweet feedback about the movie which created a Twitter buzz about the film. Positive feedback flooded Twitter as the weekend progressed. Feedback about the Second World War epic quickly grew in momentum which maintained a massive level of interest and excitement about the film.

“the movie actually held its ground and even picked up steam as the weekend went on, as even Saturday twitterers enthusiastically tweeted and re-tweeted their approval… Finally, a Twitter effect that benefits a movie instead of hurts it.” Taken from the Hollywood Reporter.

This is another example of the power of real time search and social networking, it’s clear that based on the success of this film more emphasis will be placed, by movie promoters, on marketing Twitter audiences in the future.

Article by Creative SEO

Twitter add Geo-Tagging, Tweets searchable by location, Local Community Twitter.

Creative SEO — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:00:42 +0000

Twitter is the king of social media, a micro-blogging wonder that has swept the world leaving even the most ardent sceptic interested in how such a simple concept has become so addictive to such a large number of online users. Twitter has now acknowledged the launch of a new Geo-Tagging feature that will allow accounts to be filtered by location. Is this the beginning of a more community based Twitter experience? Could Twitter communities be based around local areas?

Twitter is adding an easy to use Geo-Tagging option to all Twitter accounts. Users will be able to update their location via an API. Developers will be able to tag latitude and longitude coordinates to all posts allowing real time, location based blogging.
“We’re gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information. “ Wrote Biz Stone on the Twitter Blog.

I think what is particularly exciting is the possibility of generating real time opinion based content, which is not only current and user generated but also is based on a location. Imagine the possibilities, trending public opinion based on location, country and subject, simply amazing. The main issue is Privacy. Twitter have addressed this with the option to enable the service from within the user settings and all accounts will have the service turned off by default.

Potentially Twitter could bring back the voice of local communities, a modern day equivalent of a town meeting place. We have lost a key element of social living which made the UK great, maybe social networking could potentially reintroduce the concept of localised communities?

We will have to wait and see what amazing mobile applications are launched on the back of this new service. You have to wonder, will Google Latitude come into the equation and is this the first sign of a Twitter Google collaboration? We will have to see, but the prospects are very exciting.

Article by Creative SEO

Facebook Real Time Status Search to challenge Google, but what about Privacy?

Creative SEO — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:53:04 +0000

Facebook have announced the launch of a new search facility which will allow users to search the last 30days of Real Time status updates for users who have public profiles.

“You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.” Taken from the Facebook blog.

Facebooks existing search is terrible and the news of a new real time search facility will be a great addition to the service and open Facebook to new opportunities. Our biggest concern is the content of the status updates. Unlike Twitter, Facebook is a very personal service; users tend to be a lot more open and personal with their individual status comments. With Twitter you are aware that you are Tweeting to your selected audience, it feels a lot more public, but with Facebook a user could be under the misconception that they were only Tweeting to their immediate friends, especially if the user has not correctly updated their privacy setting. This could result in personal status updates being publicly viewed. Obviously this is an existing issue with the service as it stands now, but a new search could massively increase this problem, bringing unwanted exposure to unknowing Facebook users.

Real Time search is a great addition to Facebook and we are really keen to test the service as soon as it’s available.

Article by Creative SEO UK