Archive for the ‘social networks’ Category

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How to use Twitter to prove you’re an absolute moron.

Posted by ben on July 28th, 2009

There’s been an overwhelming amount of love for Twitter this year, but Larry King might be single handedly responsible for starting my disenchantment with the most recent installment of the seemingly annual progression of the latest and greatest social media wunderkinds.  To be fair, my disenchantment began a few months ago, but a tweet a few days ago (2:58PM on July 26 to be exact) from Larry King’s official Twitter account (@kingsthings) sealed the deal:

Larry, I’ve got some news for you. For at least three reasons Twitter is the absolutely, positively WRONG medium to use for finding out why a Marathon is 26.2 miles.

First off, Larry, it demonstrates what we’ve kinda been suspecting all along – namely that you’re a no-talent, hack who’s risen to your station through merely the arbitrary caprice of fortune.  The standard answer to this question is pretty much conventional wisdom. I’ve taught middle school kids that could answer it.

Second, Larry, you can actually get your answer faster by using this crazy, new technology called a search engine. I’m sure this whole Internet thing is probably brand new to you and has to be pretty confusing (in fact, it’s probably pretty safe to assume that you’ve got some ghost writer Tweeting on your behalf to solicit the questions for your interview with Colin Powell that you’re unable to prepare on your own). But just in case you actually do get on the Internet someday, I created a demonstration of how this new-fangled thing called a “search engine” can help you find answers to life’s persistent questions.  Just CLICK HERE to see how it works!  Then, to get your answer click on the blue, underlined text at the top of the page that says “Marathon – Wikipedia the free encyclopedia”.

Third, Larry, the answer is actually more nuanced than you might think at first blush. Turns out that the distance from Marathon to Athens is shorter than 26.2 miles.  Turns out that primary historical sources disagree about whehter or not the first “Marathon runner” ran before or after the battle of Marathon.  Turns out that the 26.2 mile distance was the result of a series of last-minute changes made to the first modern marathon route established for the 1908 Olympics in London.  Maybe you knew that the standard answer wasn’t 100% accurate (I doubt it). But even if I stretch my imagination beyond the comprehensible and give you this benefit of the doubt, the fact still remains that crowd sourcing via your celebrity Twitter account is the least effective and most time consuming way to actually get your answer.  Just take a look at the overwhelming volume of responses your question generated by CLICKING HERE. You’ll notice something pretty quickly: a lot of people know some version of the standard answer, but nobody agrees on the more nuanced details.  If you’re really into crowd sourcing your answer, you should just cut to the chase and go to Wikipedia where the crowd sourcing has already been done for you.  Plus, Wikipedia has at least a modicum of editing that’s gone into their content.

Which brings me back to how Larry King finally brought about my disenchantment with Twitter.  In short, Twitter has become filled with crap and wading through all that crap takes more time and effort than regular people should have to put into it.  It takes a considerable investment of one’s time to follow Jeb’s advice about having a meaningful online converstaion and craft your Twitter network to a manageable level so that it’s actually useful and doesn’t become a ridiculous time sink.  What we need first and foremost in an answer is “correctness”. I have yet to find a better way to get “correctness” than by identifying an authority that can be trusted.  It’s way too easy to present the appearance of authoritativeness on the web without actually being an authority.  Just look at all the self-proclaimed authorities who wound up giving Larry a technically incorrect answer to his question.  Finding an authority is hard work (even off line).  Crowd sourcing via Twitter doesn’t get you any closer to an authoritative answer.  It just compounds the problem (especially when you use a celebrity account).  I know it’s tempting to think that crowd sourcing via Twitter is the way to go when it’s been so successful for Wikipedia, but Twitter just doesn’t work like Wikipedia.

I used to think that Twitter was pretty cool and pretty useful before the proliferation of celebrity accounts from the likes of Larry, Oprah and Martha.  So it looks like I am now beating Jeb to the punch in writing his next latest-social-media-fad-jumps-the-shark-blog-post.   Why is it that all these social media sites go through the same cycle of explosive growth that eventually brings about their demise? I suspect it’s because no one’s figured out a really good way to make the hard work of identifying authorities become easy. Finding an answer “that works” by playing a numbers game through social media sites can work OK for a while so long as the numbers stay fairly small.  However, once they reach their critical mass these social media fads just implode. Plus, playing the social media numbers games just skirts the fact that the answer is by no means guaranteed to be authoritative.  In attempting to make finding an authority easy, Twitter seems to have thrown their lot in with the celebrities. Or have the celebrities high-jacked Twitter?  Either way, that celebrities have made a good thing bad should be pretty self-evident.  I hate to say it but it seems that counting backlinks and other artificial “signs of trust” like the search engine algorithms do is the best thing we’ve got going so far.

So, Google don’t be worried by Jeb’s post that opined whether Twitter is a Google-slayer.  It isn’t and it won’t be.  In fact, it’ll probably be something our kids and grandkids reference when making fun of our generation.  I can already hear my daughter incredulously asking her friends, “Can you believe our parents spent their time at work reading ghost writers typing ‘In da house ATL!!!’ on some rapper’s Twitter account?”.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  So feel free to flame me in the comments below for being so hard on the beloved institutions like Larry King and Twitter. But be forewarned: I’ll probably be just as snarky in my responses as I am now.

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Posted in google, search engine optimization, search engines, seo, social media, social networks, twitter | 14 Comments »

Web Kitchens

Posted by jeb on May 4th, 2009

Ever notice how everyone ends up in the kitchen at a party? It may not be the most comfortable place or the biggest space but it has one big advantage- food and drinks!

What usually happens is that the kitchen gets too full and people start breaking out to other rooms- the basement, porch, living room etc. Usually these migrations are headed up by individuals who assess the crowded scene and decide to head out with the handful of people in the current conversation.

So what does this have to do with the Web?

The Web is full of “kitchens”. Places people congregate, hang out, exchange content, etc. A “kitchen” is somewhere you go pretty much every day. The conversation is meaningful (the “food” that brings you there). Even if some of the people there may be strangers you know them through associations so it is easy to start up conversations.

What are some examples of current Web “kitchens”?

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (still for musicians), Ning communities, Blogs, etc. All these sites attract people on a daily basis.

What happens with these Web “kitchens” is analogous to what happens in real kitchens at real parties. Too many people crowd into the kitchen and soon the conversations becoming shouting matches and begin to lose their value. This forces people to splinter off and find new places to congregate.

We saw this with My Space, for normal users, about 2 years ago when there was a mass migration to Facebook. We now see Facebook being threatened by new platforms (not really “sites” per se) like Twitter and FriendFeed.

The challenge is to walk the line between reaching critical mass (enough people involved to get things rolling) and being over-crowded (a virtual shouting match).

The sites and Web platforms that recognize and respect this delicate balance will win the day.

In my opinion Twitter is best positioned to walk this line since you can really create a fine tuned environment enabling a sustained meaningful conversation. Time will tell.

Where is your “kitchen” on the Web?

Here’s where I hang out-

twitter.com/jebbanner (business)
facebook.com/people/Jeb-Banner/525557352 (personal)
musicalfamilytree.net (music)

Posted in social media, social networks, twitter | No Comments »

MySpace Autopsy and Analysis of Facebook’s Success/Vulnerabilty

Posted by jeb on February 26th, 2009


My how the mighty have fallen! The once ubiquitous social networking site MySpace.com is well on the way to becoming the next Friendster.com. Who’s Friendster.com you ask? Exactly. The above graph compares the three social networking sites. The little green line at the bottom is Friendster. Barely a blip on the radar. But four years ago Friendster was the next big thing. Late Night TV had regular Friendster jokes. People were reconnecting after years of being out of touch. Everything was going great then MySpace came along.

MySpace wasn’t really any better than Friendster, in fact it was, and is, much worse! But it had some advantages.

First, it was built by web and email marketers (translation- spammers), so they knew some stuff about getting traffic. In fact MySpace was started by email spammers, eUniverse, as a way to get around spam filters, gather demographic information and find a new marketing venue for their clients. They made up a bogus story about “Tom” and the rest is history. Informative article on MySpace.

Secondly, it had band profiles that allowed bands to easily upload, for free, music that could be streamed by anyone, anywhere. Bands loved this (I was one of them, signing on in 2004 before the site really took off). They invited all their “fans” (translation- friends and family) to “friend” them so they could announce shows, etc. So bands flocked to MySpace leaving GarageBand.com and other sites in the dust.  Soon almost every band had a profile on MySpace and their friends were milling about finding other stuff to occupy their time. Friendster really dropped the ball on this opportunity and I think only added this functionality way after the traffic shift had happened.

Third, MySpace didn’t care what you did to your profile. You could embed videos, change the look (leading to a cottage industry of people who would charge to “pimp” your profile) and pretty much do whatever you wanted. You could set up business profiles. Run scripts to “friend” everyone in the world. Create false personas (leading to a glut of questionable folks signing up and the subsequent backlash). The site was very much a wild west for the first few years.

So MySpace rolled along, got bought by Rupert Murdoch, continued to grow and generally rested on their laurels while striking up ad deals and other stuff that was more about money than about people.

Then it happened, in the course of only a few months MySpace jumped the virtual shark. Everyone was friends with everyone (translation- friends with no-one), spammers had started to exploit the site and half the messages were from spam bots, child molesters found a perfect forum to pursue their evil deeds, scams were everywhere, account hijacking was out of control and the site had more “unexpected errors”, slow servers and downtime than any other site on the web, ever. It was a complete mess.

Along comes Facebook, the night in shiny blue armor! Here’s a platform that doesn’t let you mess up your home page, discourages businesses from joining, closely polices activity, has almost no downtime, is easy to use and just feels right.

Thus begins the great MySpace migration. Just as others had made the harrowing trek from Friendster to MySpace, they now packed up and headed to Facebook. They were in search of the ever allusive meaningful conversation. They had it, briefly, at Friendster and MySpace, but now saw Facebook as the last great hope. The next best last stop on the social networking road. “Just give me a place to hang out with my friends, leave me alone and don’t let the freaks and spammers in” was the battle cry. Facebook got it so they got the traffic. So far they are keeping it and growing, but it won’t be easy.

Now the challenge for Facebook is to maintain the environment where a meaningful conversation can continue to happen between the members BUT also find a way to sell ads AND compete against upstarts like Twitter and Ning that are increasing threats to their membership base and in particular, their member’s time on site. They are still nowhere near Facebook in traffic but if we have learned anything from the recent social networking wars is to not discount an upstart.



My advice to Facebook is the remember the lessons of MySpace and Friendster. Yes, functionality is important and Yes, you need to make money at some point. But don’t forget that people are there because they find and take meaning from the experience. That is your golden goose, don’t poke and choke it in an attempt to keep up or get paid. If your growth slows, don’t panic, go to your members and have an honest conversation on ways to improve the platform. If you listen to what they want and put the better ideas in action they feel they have ownership and that will propel your continued success.

Posted in online communities, social media, social networks, technology | 2 Comments »

Twitter Is The New Google

Posted by jeb on February 11th, 2009




Graph from Compete.com showing Twitter’s growth.


Do you use Twitter? If so how do you use it? The further I get into Twitter the clearer I see it as a threat to Google. It is also encroaching on Facebook, CNN, Linkedin, Email and SMS text messaging.

Where do I go when I need to find out how to do screencasts? Used to be Google, now I send out a “Tweet” to Twitter and within seconds I have a number of responses with links to suggested services.

When I need feedback on an idea I used to send out an email to a select group of friends or associates. Now I post it on Twitter and get a flood of great ideas flowing back in.

How do I keep up with my friends and business associates? I still use Facebook for this but I have seen a marked decrease in my Facebook time as I use Twitter more and more.

When I want to send someone a message I still use email but more and more I am sending direct messages via Twitter and having a fast, real time, conversation via Twitter.

Where do I get leads for my business and start relationships? I’ve set up Linkedin, Plaxo and other business networking accounts. None them bore any fruit. But after only a few months of being active on Twitter I am connecting with companies in a meaningful and comfortable way. Twitter is not a meat market which appeals to my style of doing business.

When the plane crashed in the Hudson I didn’t hear about it from the news or CNN, I read about it on Twitter. News spreads like wildfire there.

The funny thing about Twitter is that they don’t seem to know what they have here. The platform is barely developed. Seems that more companies are setting up businesses along the Twitter highway and making money off the platform more than Twitter itself!

So watch out Google, Facebook, CNN, Linkedin and all these other companies that seemed so secure in their online positions only months ago. Twitter is chipping away and soon you will be scrambling to keep up.


Posted in google, search engines, social media, social networks, technology, twitter | 1 Comment »

Time To Get Serious About SEO – 3 Tips For Good SEO

Posted by jeb on February 7th, 2009
First off let’s not assume you know what SEO is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s often used as a catch-all term for all the things that go into getting a website listed on a search engine for specific terms, usually industry terms. For instance if you sell Widgets you will want to show up for Indianapolis Widgets right?

So why is it time to get serious about how your company’s website shows up in Search Engines like Google? Bottom line is that 72% of all purchases now include research online. How do you think people research? Most will have their first stop at Google.com and their search will probably look something like this…

Are you at the top of the listings when they type in that search? If not you are losing out on business, probably on a daily basis.

How do you get to the top of your listings? Here are the three basic elements of SEO, do these well and you will probably be on page one for your local industry search.

  1. On-site keyword optimization. This is mostly title tags (what shows up in the browser) and on page content. Don’t stress out too much over Meta Tags, do them if you can, they aren’t too important anymore. Use tools like Google Adwords Keyword Suggest to find out what keywords you should be using. Here is a screen shot of some of the results for “web design” a search we compete for locally. Note that it shows the volume of searches on a monthly basis. In general you will want to optimize your site for the searches that get the most traffic.
  2. External links. Make sure your site has lots of good links from other sites including relevant industry directories. Be wary of companies offering to sell you links. Google usually recognizes these links and it can actually hurt your rankings. Not sure how many links your have? Use good research tools like SEO for Firefox to help. Once you have it set up, search for your company and then, with the tool turned on, you can easily see how well your site is doing. Here is what we look like with SEO Firefox turned on when searching for “Small Box”. 
  3. Update your site regularly. A good policy is to update your site in some way at least once a week. To do this you will need a good Content Management System. If you have to use a web company to update your site then you probably need a new web company! A good company will build your site wil a CMS so that you can easily make the changes without having to pay and wait on them everytime you want to update the site. This leads to sites never being updated which is a big no-no. Here is what our CMS for this site, smallboxweb.com, looks like (only partial view but hopefully you get the idea). You can demo our CMS by contacting us.

Obviously there is a lot more to SEO but these are great starting
points. Obviously this is what we do at Small Box full time. Everything
we do relates in some way to SEO. We obsess over it for ourselves and
our clients. We would love to obsess over it for you! Want to see how
good we are? Search for “Indianapolis SEO Companies” or “Indianapolis Web Design” and see for yourself.



Posted in internet marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, social networks | No Comments »

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