Twitter and the Evolution of the Internet

When Twitter was first created many people couldn’t understand the point and proclaimed, Twitter sucks!. Many still don’t see the point of it. It’s ridiculed as lazy blogging, pointless drivel, a waste of time, and the end of the world as we know it. With things like potted plants and grocery stores tweeting, the derision of Twitter grows.

Many things that break new ground are often misunderstood or greeted with skepticism. Twitter has begun to evolve into a huge part of the web, and more and more people are using it for all kinds of things. The skeptics just haven’t found their niche yet, or are too stubborn to open their eyes and see what’s evolving. They’re distracted by the noise, spam and useless information; All common problems across the Internet. There have been polls that suggest 40% of all Twitter traffic is basically useless information. Is this out of character for the Internet? Look at all your emails for a day; how many of them are spam, newsletters you never read, and forwarded chain letters? Poke into any random forum post about any topic and you’ll likely find 40% of it is just reiterating what’s already said, unrelated tangents, and one line agreements with the the original post. If you just take a quick glance at a couple of twitter pages and don’t find the information to your liking doesn’t mean that there is no value there. Tweets are fleeting, and they reflect present time much more than they provide any archival value.

Even what’s deemed useless information or a waste of time might be helpful to someone. Maybe checking out what others are having for lunch will help you make your own decision about what to eat. Maybe you’re in a basement somewhere but noticing tweets from people you know are nearby about the crazy thunderstorm that just rolled in reminds you to bring an umbrella when you go out. Other people’s meaningless tweets could serve as restaurant reviews, traffic alerts, or a note about a nice sale at the mall. Twitter is by no means the be all and end all of social media. However it’s an important first step in what will eventually be one big integrated redevelopment of how we use the web.

Twitter reflects the stream of consciousness of the Internet, and sometimes the Internet contains noise, spam, and junk. There is also value if you know where to look. If you are tuned into Twitter, news will come to you without having to search it out. Once you build a solid group of followers with a diverse subset of interests stories and news and information that is actually pertinent to you will come across your Twitter screen. Instead of having to hunt down information, often when you don’t even know that something has happened, you check Twitter and everything is there for you. Rather than have to listen to news reports or radio stations, news and events that may be relevant to you or your day can be accessed via Twitter.

Twitter is just like what you would discuss at the water cooler in the office, except you’re discussing it with everyone, at every water cooler, at every office, in every part of the world. If a major sporting story, such as a no-hitter in baseball or a player getting traded, chances are you’ll first hear about it on Twitter. If a celebrity dies, a new movie trailer comes out, or a band adds a tour date to their schedule it makes it’s way around the world via Twitter and everyone that’s interested finds out about it. For those further interested, a simple search on Twitter will reveal all sorts of chatter and discussion around the topic. You can here anything anyone has to say about it, instantly. You’ll see statistics mentioned, highlight plays, discussion on the player’s attitude, and just about anything anyone has to say. On a broader scope, you could follow big events like the NFL draft, a presidential press conference, or the World Series of Poker as they are happening. This is what’s called trending topics, which are basically the hot news of the hour. If you search for these trends you’ll see a continually updated stream of people weighing in on the topic. Some of it will be from experts or authorities on the topic, and others will just be the thoughts and word of mouth of other people that are interested in what’s happening. Instead of tuning to a news channel or going to one news website, you’ll be tuned into the stream of consciousness from interested parties around the world. If someone 3000 miles away happens to hear a tidbit of information in his own corner of the world, he can instantly tweet that data and suddenly everyone knows it. This information gets propagated and retweeted throughout Twitter until the insight of one individual is carried across the globe.

From a marketing standpoint, Twitter can provide some instant feedback on your product. You can conduct surveys and interview people and find out what people are thinking, or you can type in your product’s name into Twitter and find out what people are saying. One quick search can tell you what people think about a new movie release, a new commercial, or a new piece of software. Faster than any RSS reader Twitter can alert followers to a new post on a blog.

Twitter is a part of the future of the Web. Even people that don’t tweet are affected by Twitter because it’s become a concept more than any one site. It’s about the propagation of information, and that propagation continues beyond the website when users repost what they’ve learned into IM away messages, email, IRC chat rooms, Facebook, or by word of mouth to the person sitting next to them. This concept has been there all along, and Twitter just streamlined it. As more and more people and companies start using Twitter it’s only going to continue to redefine how we use the web.

The Problem with Frame-Wrapping URL Shorteners

A new URL shortener from Digg wraps your website in a Digg frame instead of taking users directly to your website. This results in a number of obstacles for the website owner.

Digg is not alone in utilizing this process. A platform allowing companies to manage Twitter profiles, HootSuite, uses ow.ly to shorten URL’s in much the same method. StumbleUpon will soon release su.pr which may also make use of the same frame-wrapping tactics.

Let’s go through some of the obstacles presented by these frame-wrapping methods:

First, let’s look at analytics as they perhaps take the biggest hit. Because digg.com’s URL shortener always wraps your site in a digg.com frame, it always appears that it is digg.com requesting your site. All traffic is cloaked making it impossible to see where it is originally coming from.

Therefore whenever digg.com’s URL shortener is used, no matter if it actually coming from Twitter.com, a rival’s site, an affiliate or Digg itself, many analytic solutions will always credit digg.com as the referring site.

It may even get more complicated if your social media campaign uses referrals from social sites as a metric. Through this route it can appear like digg.com is driving traffic to your site without your site ever even being submitted to digg.com.

Affiliates will also have an interesting role when this frame-wrapping technique is utilized. Most affiliates are prohibited by affiliate terms and conditions from frame-wrapping merchant sites in order to protect brands.

Since a frame-based URL shortener doesn’t always show the URL, or the full URL, of the site being pointed to, that site domain will end up hidden. For example, HootSuite’s URL shortener, ow.ly, link for bigmouthmedia shows the URL as http://www.zmogo… with the remainder of the address hidden.

So, as the URL’s become further muddled, the tracking codes of the affiliates may end up being passed around when the shortened URL is shared. It then becomes possible when the next gen URL shortener is used in combination with a site like digg.com that a large amount of traffic being driven to your site would benefit the affiliate.

It is important to point out that many affiliate tracking forms will be instantly visible if the URL shortener shows any of the full or long URL.

And next, SEO campaigns will also be affected negatively by the frame-wrapping URL shorteners. The elite first gen URL shorteners assign a 301 redirect from themselves to the initial “long” URL.

In the case where a link from a trusted site to another site counts as a vote from the trusted site to the other then the 301 redirect safeguards that as much of the vote passes through to the intended site as possible from the URL shortener. In circumstances such as this Google requests that 301 redirects be used.

Such is not the case when the frame-wrapping URL shorteners are utilized. The link’s worth is not passed through to the target site in this situation. The worth of the link remains with the URL shortener.

So what now for the website owner and/or internet marketer… complain about it? Seems like there are 2 options: find a way to adapt, or boycott those that implement shady wrappers.

Turning off the DiggBar:

There are two ways in which you can disable the Digg Toolbar. Go to your settings page and select “Never Show Diggbar for external links”.

The above preference is only available for people who are members of Digg. If you don’t have an account at Digg, open this page and hover your mouse between the “close” button and the feedback button on the Digg toolbar. Click the drop-down arrow and select “Always hide the toolbar”.

For an in-depth analysis of the Digg Toolbar, see: The Digg Toolbar Exposed; What’s in the code?

WordPress plug-in to block the Digg Toolbar

Behavioral Targeting and the Privacy Debate

From credit card companies that rate based upon where you shop, to pay-per-click advertisements based upon Google searches, behavioral targeting has become an ubiquitous, if effective marketing tool. This issue has become a hot button topic for many publishers, advertisers, and privacy protection groups like the IAB and NAI. Even the FTC in Washington has taken an interest.

Critics are concerned whether or not behavioral tracking agencies are effectively disclosing how the targeting works, and whether or not they are offering consumers the ability to escape their radar by opting out of tracking. Despite numerous discussions on the regulation of behavioral marketing, no solution has been found that satisfies all parties.

Behavioral targeting agencies claim that their actions are legal, due to the privacy policy information located on websites. Most of them contain links that allow consumers to opt out of tracking. Sites like Bluekai and Google have listed ‘reference pages’ where web users can register in order to list what types of behavioral tracking they will allow. By far, the most common option is simply to list this in a site’s privacy policy. The problem is, this information is generally buried within the service provider’s site, where the likelihood of a consumer finding it is slim. A consumer purchasing goods on a retail site will have no way of knowing that the retail company provider may use their browsing history to target them with relevant ads on another site within the provider’s network. The only way for a consumer to track behavioral targeting advertisements is if the advertisers themselves disclose that information.

Until this point, privacy disclosure enforcement has fallen to the networks, behavioral marketing publishers, and providers. While some progressive efforts toward transparency have been made, there is still a long way to go. Advertisers, however, have not met any restrictions, while at the same time reaping an obvious benefit. It is long past the time for advertisers to disclose their behavioral marketing practices, and allow customers the option not to participate. There is a lot of debate on the most appropriate way to do this. Some options are to tag each ad with an opt out feature, or to place a disclaimer on the manufacturer’s page, with a full explanation.

There is still no solution on how the advertisers can best disclose this information.

One company, Fetchback, has asked advertisers to fully disclose tracking information in their privacy policy, and insists that they provide an opt-out link via NAI, so that consumers can choose not to participate in the retargeting network. This is a necessary step for all behavior marketing advertisers to take, in order to become more transparent. The behavior tracking industry will fare far better with self-regulation than it will with government regulation.

Social Networking: Going Beyond the Trend

Today’s ‘have to have it’ flavor of the day in the marketing and advertising industry is the need for a social networking strategy.

With the proliferation of sites like Facebook and MySpace and the creation of methods and philosophies to strip the bones clean of all the information therein, it appears that all that is lacking to complete this cycle of the next big thing (after User Generated Content) is a short, but sweet, acronym a la UGC, of course.

But kidding aside, one need only to look at who is actually using these social networking sites to realize how deep the impact may run. Obviously there are high school and college kids, but the users go on to include their parents, teachers and the business community. While these communities have come to encompass nearly all of us, perhaps we have too quickly developed a case of social tunnel vision.

These social platforms gained their popularity because they were sites of the people; often very smart, observant people. The masses have noticed these networks being taken over pixel by pixel by ad space and drop-downs and they are being vocal in their disapproval.

The social networking phenomena popped up rather suddenly and, if marketers and advertisers aren’t careful, can disappear just as quickly. Part of the allure of these sites is the ease and quickness with which they can be inhabited. It is with the same ease and quickness that they can be left and created elsewhere.

It is true that brand loyalty is not completely dead and once enough people have joined the brand it will not disappear overnight. But the heartbeat that marketers and advertisers want to tap into is not something that can be walled off and contained. This is why, with the rise of all of the agencies aimed specifically at social networking sites, there is very little action in way of effective execution and insights.

The key, in this creative’s humble opinion, is not to approach this field with the media planner’s arsenal of banners, drop-downs and sky scrapers, but to focus instead on the account planner with their ears to the ground listening to the drums telling of what’s to come in order to create for that.

Social Marketing is Intelligent Design

In today’s highly connected, media-driven world, it has become very apparent that creative thinking and design matter immensely in marketing strategies. Most important in these campaigns is the ability of marketing talent to correctly gauge consumer interest based upon quantitative data generated from market research.

The true debate begins in the data vs. creative aspect of social marketing. Anyone can read data, but it takes a true critical thinker to read that data and correctly anticipate what consumers will respond to. Caroline McCarthy (“Facebook, Google, and the Data Design Disaster”) predicts an upswing in the attention marketers pay to creative art resources over strictly following data charts of past market research.

Design will feature prominently in the current and upcoming campaigns of online marketers on the web. In the social age of Facebook and Myspace, attractive ads that people will want to share and pass on will be highly preferable to the old advertising methods that consumers are now desensitized to. In the past, marketers have relied heavily on data reports, but these reports don’t tell the entire story of why the consumer purchases, only what they purchase. Marketers will need creative teams of critical thinkers who can plug this data into the social world of the web in such a way that it gives them new answers on who the consumers are and what they want. It is vital that customers are given new and exciting forms of advertising, and this cannot be done by following old formulas based on outdated information.

Consumers now are incredibly connected to one another. They share links, videos, images, and all forms of media available through the net. A successful marketing strategy will take this into effect, and create intriguing and even viral marketing to further embed themselves into the social culture of the web.

Marketers often lack the ability to adjust their strategies mid-campaign. Much like a movie that is doomed to be a hit or a flop even before release, marketers often rely on predetermined strategies that cannot be altered once the ball gets rolling. The most successful marketers in coming years will be those that can adapt to current market trends on the fly, and adjust their campaigns accordingly, using the information they get during the campaign.

Campaigns that rely simply on market data are doomed to fail, because they cannot change course mid-stream. They are based on old formulas that the consumer will overlook, because they are inundated with similar advertisements every hour of their waking lives. Only creative and fresh approaches will spur any kind of interest from a numbed audience. Only excellent and unique design can win over the jaded consumer.

Only during the campaign will the most effective strategies reveal themselves, and if marketers wait until the end of the campaign to implement new ideas, it will already be too late. Advertisers must act while the consumer is still engaged, rather than taking the approach that it will work next time, rather than implementing the new technique now.

Social design means using a strategy that people will want to share with others, and one that can easily be shared. It will allow people to interact with one another by promoting topics of conversation or interest. It is also a design that is easily translatable to other media, and can pass to and from different formats easily. This does not always translate to good artwork. Good social design is based in ideas that can be passed easily from one person to the next.

Niche – Misunderstandings and the Market

You’ve probably read a hundred articles on subjects such as the ‘top ten tips on choosing your niche’ or ‘how to make a load of cash from this niche’ and they are all probably much the same.  So instead of providing a re-hash of all of these same articles, which are of dubious use to the budding internet entrepreneur, I’m going to use a little deconstruction here to get to the much misunderstood root of the how’s and why’s of developing your niche.

First, as this is a deconstruction of the concept, it is important to define what it is we are talking about.  A niche, in purely marketing terms, is a concept that has been around for countless years, and describes the exact position of your product in ‘the market’.  A good thought experiment is to imagine the world’s biggest shoe shop, selling every conceivable type of shoe and footwear.  There are sneakers, there are brogues, wellingtons, galoshes and flip flops, and we have, in fact, a store which is the size of seven football stadiums.  As a customer you cannot be expected to trawl through miles and miles of shoe racking to find the pair of shoes you want. Shopping for a pair of shoes would take you a number of days.  So the store has, quite sensibly, developed a number of sections and sub sections for different types of shoe.  Broadly these fall into categories such as ‘dress shoe’, ’sneaker’, ‘work boots’ and so on.  Imagine that you are after a pair of good stout work shoes and, thanks to the clever organisation of the store, you are able to find the work shoe section easily. But as this is the store which sells every shoe available on the planet it is a pretty big section even so, about the size of half a football stadium.  If the store wants its customers to return it will have done a few things to this section, it will have broken it down into a number of sub sections.  Imagine further, that the shoes you want are steel capped, full ankle boots, with non-slip soles and made from black leather.  I think you will agree that this is a fairly specific requirement.  I would imagine that the store would have divided the section into capped and non-capped fairly early on in its organisation of work shoes, so we are now dealing with an area a quarter of the size of a football stadium.  Within this section there would probably be a distinction between shoes and boots, roughly half again, so now we are dealing with an eighth of a football stadium, and so on until you find, with relative ease, the small section selling the shoes you want to buy.

The niche you develop works in exactly the same way as the above example, it allows you as the vendor to create a very specific online presence, for a very specific internet user.  This, the difference between the creator and the user, is the second part of the deconstruction.  In creating your idea you will inject an enormous amount of yourself and your own personality into it.  Whatever your niche is you will choose it in part because of what you believe you can bring that’s fresh and interesting.  Web media lives, or more often dies, on its content, and if that content is not fresh, interesting and unique, you will not retain your customers.  Whilst page rank and SEO are important aspects of web marketing, having content that keeps bringing people back to you day in day out, will ensure that your site goes from strength to strength, and generates the all important word of mouth, or viral presence.

So, the question is do you generate content that you find interesting, or that you think your users will find interesting?  The answer lies somewhere in between, as your niche should appeal to both yourself and your end user.  If it does not appeal to yourself you will never create or edit the quality of content that you need. If it is not appealing to the user, no one will visit.

So where does this short deconstruction of the niche leave us?  With two important points, I hope.  Firstly, careful consideration needs to be undertaken to understand where you’re going to place yourself in ‘the world’s biggest shoe shop’, for this is what the internet has become.  Particular emphasis needs to be placed on not only how you place yourself, but also how easy it will be for your user to find your ‘place’.  Secondly, when you have found your place, you need to fill it with content that works from your perspective – in that you feel the passion and interest in the subject —- never forgetting that it is the end user who must ultimately judge you on the content of your site.  This is not an easy job, and I wish you luck.