By Ben Haber
If you go to Google.com or Wikipedia today, you’re going to find that something’s missing (or in Wikipedia’s case – everything is missing). That’s because these two Internet giants are protesting the Protect Intellectual Property Act that’s under consideration in the Senate, and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that’s under consideration in the House of Representatives. This pair of bills, which is backed by the motion picture and recording industries, are intended to eliminate theft online once and for all – and would (for the first time) place restrictions on information and content shared via the Web.
Clearly, Google and Wikipedia are against this legislation, and aren’t afraid to make their stance clear to Congress. But whether or not their protest is successful, remains to be seen.
January 18th, 2012
By Brittany Falconer
How’s that for alliteration? This week, Google began incorporating Google+ content into search results naming it Search Plus Your World – poetic, I know. Said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow who oversees search: “What you search today is largely written by people you don’t know; we call that the faceless Web. Search Plus Your World transforms search and centers it around you.’’
I’m not sure I like this idea. When I want to find my friends and their content, I’m going to go to the online source, be it their blog, YouTube page, Google+ profile (rare as that may be), or Facebook page. When I go to Google, I want the faceless Web. I want Google to provide me with searches that are as unbiased as possible, with most relevant/popular links showing up first – not some exchange I had with my second cousin on Google+. A real-life example: I like to periodically Google my name to see where I stand in the World Wide Web. Which blog posts come up, tweets, event attendee lists, competitive ballroom dance results and convicted doppelgangers are going to make their way to Page One (and yes, all of those things have been or are on Page One)? Today, I saw a whole bunch of my own posts via Google+. Not exactly useful to me.
Google did say that Google users will be able to toggle between integrated posts, just personal posts and just standard, but unless Google suddenly gets access to Facebook content and can cache the entire social web in search results (which will likely never happen, because why would Facebook and Google cooperate, and if they did, how much of a privacy fit would that cause?), I still don’t see the point.
What do you think of Google social integrating with Google search? Good? Bad? Huh?
January 12th, 2012
By Brittany Falconer
A recent compilation of research on eMarketer shared that – surprise! – people don’t like being ignored by brands on social media. I mean, people don’t like being ignored in general, but when it comes to business-to-consumer offenses online, it can have some noteworthy repercussions: research firm Conversocial found that more than a quarter of survey respondents would no longer do business with a brand if their questions went unanswered on Facebook or Twitter. And let’s not forget the ripple effect: only 11.7 percent of survey participants said they wouldn’t care if they saw other user questions ignored online. Almost half said they would be far less likely to buy anything from that brand in the future, and the remainder said they would think twice (but recognized that there are other factors to consider).
That’s a big angry chunk of the pie. I know that I’ve had both positive and negative experiences with brands on social media that continue to influence my willingness to give them my money. And yes, some of those negative experiences have been when I had a problem and no one on the brand side ever acknowledged it (*cough*cough*Southwest Airlines*cough*cough*). While I’m a huge advocate for brands being on social media, they need to know that “getting a Twitter” just isn’t going to cut it. Once you go social, you need to be social; there’s no private office to hide from customers. While it’s not possible to respond to all feedback, questions and complaints merit timely acknowledgements – even if it’s a request to redirect the conversation to another, more manageable channel. Otherwise, it becomes worse than being on-hold for 20 minutes, because at least there, it’s initially a private frustration – until the angry customer blogs about it later, anyway, but that’s another story.
January 10th, 2012
By ncolwell
By Nicole Colwell
The RaceTalk Blog has gotten an injection of West Coast flavor! With multiple clients heading to CES this year, I’ll be reporting from the show, kicking off my stint as the West Coast correspondent. Vegas better watch out; here comes Racepoint Group!
In preparation for my trip, I’ve been researching a few “tips and tricks” for surviving the show… an astounding, albeit grueling, “Nerd-vana.” Below you can find what I will consider my lifeline for the next week:
- Remember to wear comfortable shoes, and if you do not want to wait for the long taxi / bus lines, consider renting a car. It’s easy to park at the free parking lots at any of the hotels / casinos.
- As anyone who has attended CES in years past can attest to, the showroom floor can be quite overwhelming. Check out this interactive floor map from CES veteran and Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff for “14 Essential Stops to Make on Your Tour of CES 2012.” Click on the map image to check out the interactive version on the Mashable Website.
- Of course, don’t forget your tech. Smartphones and tablets are becoming increasingly integrated into the show, from QR codes to applications. Make sure you grab your chargers before you dash out to make your flight. And remember to bring a wireless card for your devices, as connections in and around the show can be spotty.
- If you’re wondering if you’re allowed to use cameras, yes you can, although some exhibitors may restrict camera use on occasion. One good tip to avoid long lines is not to carry bags when possible as they are subject to search.
- Don’t forget about the CES Follow Me App, the official mobile app which enables you to build a schedule, plan your time, see interactive real-time floor maps, get late-breaking CES news and more. Details of app are at this CES link.
- Give up your New Year’s resolution until January 15th. Trust me on this one.
I hope you enjoy CES 2012 whether you’ll be with us on the ground in Sin City or following news announcements closely. Check back on the RaceTalk Blog for updates on CES news and be sure to leave your “tips and tricks” for CES 2012 in the comments below!
January 6th, 2012
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Emily Matthews, who is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S. She loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature, and lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.
The folks at Facebook seem to always be tinkering with their formula, and within the last couple weejs, Facebook introduced a new type of profile: Timeline. It’s quite a change from the old type of profile, with your picture in the left-hand corner and your wall covering the majority of the page. Now you can essentially chronicle your entire life, from birth to the present.
The first most obvious change is the cover photo that spans across the top of your profile. This seems to be a change that makes your profile more like a blog with a header image. Your cover is to “fill this wide, open space with a unique image that represents you best. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your timeline.” You can choose from photos you have already uploaded in your albums or upload a new image from your computer. For my cover photo, I decided to go with a Wordle image that I created from one of my pieces of fiction. Perhaps use an image from Flickr as your cover photo if you’d like something artistic. The cover allows you to customize your profile to a greater extent than Facebook has allowed before.
The next most obvious change is the wall. The wall has disappeared and been replaced by your stories, with staggered boxes on the left and right with your status updates, photos, friend activity, and everything else that was normally posted to your wall. It’s a little busy in its layout; your eyes bounce from one side to the other, trying to figure out what should be read or looked at first. Facebookers dislike change, and messy change is often the first to frustrate.
The third most obvious change is the timeline itself. Facebook has always fallen short in its ability for a user to go back to older posts. Now you can click on the year you want (right-hand side) and go back to posts from years ago. Enjoy déjà vu when yuo read status updates and friends’ posts from five years ago or more (depending on how long you’ve had a Facebook. I have had my Facebook since my senior year of high school, so reading posts about dinner reservations for prom brings back great memories. The timeline feature also allows you to post “life events” within the timeline, such as moving to new places, attending schools, getting married, having children, earning a degree, etc. You can post photos to accompany these events. Your timeline even includes a post of when you are born! Although I would, perhaps, stay away from posting an actual photo of your birth.
The new Timeline profile is available now if you would like to play with it, and it’s a rather fun new entry in Facebook’s incessant tinkering. Some days I rather wish for the old school profile and news feed (remember when the news feed didn’t even exist?), but the Timeline is interesting enough to play with that, hopefully, not too many people will complain once they are forced to switch over.
January 6th, 2012
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter at@MandyMayM.
For those that weren’t A+ students with your AP Stylebook, there’s new hope for you. The Associated Press just released AP StyleGuard software that helps edit your documents to ensure content meets style guidelines. While at face-value, this seems like the saving grace of a tired over-caffeinated reporter, PR professional or procrastinating college student, I’m a bit skeptical of the new technology.
Remember back in the day when you used to have to write out your spelling words on PAPER with a PENCIL? If you misspelled something, a red squiggly line didn’t pop up. The only red line on that paper was the grade your teacher wrote. In later years of English class, a green line didn’t suggest replacements for fragments. Today, I hear of students using computers to ‘write’ their spelling words. Must I go further on this “Back in my day…” spiel?
This somewhat ties back to my earlier post on if technology is eliminating jobs (Are Watson and His Tech Buds the Reason for High Unemployment). Are we innovating ourselves out of work? Of course we create new technologies with the intention of making workflow more efficient, but does this not clearly illustrate that technology is taking away our talent and moving us down a notch on the food chain of employment?
I’ve worked with some extremely talented copywriters in my short time span in the ‘big kid’ world, and I know for a fact they didn’t have any of these programs in the years they have been working. What do programs like this mean for the future? Of course they can catch funny typos, but will it come to the point where a copywriter position won’t even be needed? Will skills in AP style not even be appealing on resumes? What other technologies in other industries are eliminating the need for a human workforce?
December 16th, 2011
By Guest Author
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter at@MandyMayM.
In case you haven’t heard, there are a few sex scandals going on in the world of collegiate sports lately. The national media first placed the spotlight on Penn State and later on Syracuse, not to mention others that likely popped up consequentially. Sad news continued with the recent shooting at Virginia Tech which wasn’t the first tragedy to strike the university in the past decade.
While the stories at hand are truly sad, it poses an interesting question of how university officials handle university image beyond a crisis situation. Does negative media drastically affect enrollment? After all, even though an academic environment, higher education is a business and has to meet a bottom line. Of course, a vast majority of income flows from the athletic department of universities and colleges, but there is also the thousands that pour in through tuition and fees. Given the challenge of ‘selling’ a school to student (and the likely paycheck parents), how can universities best position themselves as a safe and enriching environment following the close of a negative news cycle (or cycles for Penn State)?
It doesn’t take a degree to notice that the bad media and negative attachments of crisis situations sticks with a university for some time. Should staff ignore the negative image attachments in hopes of going away? Should they change their brand and position entirely?
It’s a tough spot to be in given that in cases of shootings or scandals, officials don’t want to ignore the issues at hand, making it seem that the community doesn’t care about the accusations or tragedies, but at the same time, it’s not exactly a bruise they want to flaunt to the public.
I believe it comes back to branding, however drastic or minimal it is. As much as many would like to quickly move on from these situations, it’s not a realistic goal to assume a quick turnaround with branding. Engagement is also key, especially in very delicate situations such as those listed above. This provides a prime spot for an organization to utilize social media, especially give the college population is so active and engaged on these channels. That being said, staff will likely want to evaluate the level of engagement, depending on the situation.
What are your thoughts? Is there a solve-all for these situations? Do you feel any of these universities or others in similar situations have handled their challenge in an ideal way?
December 12th, 2011
By Taylor Pepe
You have contacts in high places.
Your freshman year roommate: Executive producer of Mad Men. Your childhood best friend: CEO of Jack in the Box. Your ex: modeling in Milan. With your own jet-set lifestyle, keeping track of where your friends are can be quite an undertaking.
Thankfully, two ambitious blokes from Harvard have harnessed the power that is Google Alerts and created a service called Newsle, now available. Think of it as refined version of Google News that only shows you updates for your specific friends and contacts, instead of random internet people with the same name (thinking of you Michael Bolton).
Working the site is pretty simple, once you log on, set up an account and import your Facebook and/ or LinkedIn contacts. After that, you have the option to browse a list of celebrities, athletes, and public figures you can follow (awesome, Wendy Williams and Dave Couiler news at the same time).
After that, your account will begin showing you a newsfeed involving the friends you’ve imported. Looking to research (stalk) a reporter who just approved your friend request on LinkedIn? You’ll now be able to see everything he or she does that’s newsworthy surely giving you an advantage the next time you want to pitch them on behalf of your client. Remember that classmate you had to do that one project with your sophomore year? Newsle makes it easy to see how their blossoming NBA career is going (time for that winter visit to Miami).
The coolest factor is Newsle offers a tool for measuring everyone’s Fame Factor, so you can see how you stack up in newsworthiness against your friends.
Fairly confident Rondo has you beat.
December 8th, 2011
By Ben Haber
Love them or hate them – no one can deny the power politicians have to inspire passion and fuel engagement. Obama’s 2008 election campaign proved that with the right social strategy, that power still has room to grow to unprecedented levels. Now it seems that every politician has embraced social media as a means to build a groundswell of support to impact change.
Yesterday morning, I sat down with MITX and Avectra to run through details for an upcoming webinar (Planning for 2012: Attracting and Inspiring your Audience like Today’s Savvy Politicians) we’re hosting to discuss just that. We asked each other – what can we learn from today’s politicians to inspire and engage our own audiences, memberships and constituents? Where do they get it right, wrong, and everything in between?
From mobilizing your ground forces to identifying and understanding your influencers, it was clear to all of us that it’s not about how many Fans or followers you get in a week – it’s what you do with them – that it’s not about what tools you’re using – it’s the strategy behind how you use them.
And don’t think that I just opened the kimono on what’s to come from the webinar – I have a strong feeling that this 45 minute call barely scratched the surface. So with that said, please join Larry Weber, CEO and Chairman of Racepoint Group; Debi Kleiman, President of MITX; and Richard Davis, CEO of Avectra on December 12th at 2:00pm EST to learn how to initiate and execute your social engagement strategy to make 2012 your most successful “campaign” yet.
Click here for more information on the event and registration details.
December 1st, 2011
By Taylor Pepe
You’re a person of the world. You can flourish in any culture. One day, you’re chatting it up with your buddies in Boston. The next night, you’re discussing the finer points of architecture in Spanish in Barcelona. The day after, you’re wooing foreign directors in Cannes. Good thing you’re able to tweet in multiple languages.
Twitter and other micro-blogging sites that were originally huge in the States are undergoing a rapid transformation that is paralleling a much larger internet trend: it’s becoming less Anglophone.
A recent study indicated “unique” Twitter users based in the U.S. decreased from 62 percent in June of 2009 to just over 50 percent in January 2011. Who then is taking charge of the Twitterverse?
It turns out the Dutch are not only great at brewing beer and making chocolate, they’re also phenomenal tweeters. The study pointed out that just over 22 percent of the entire Netherlands’ online population is using Twitter. Coming in right on their tail are the Brazilians with just under 22 percent. Indonesia ranks in at 19 percent. So, where’s the U.S.? Oh that’s right, coming up strong with about 8 percent of our online population engaging on Twitter. Being no statiscian, it’s pretty safe to assume that out of the 200 million+ tweets generated a day, many are not in English.
But what languages are now taking charge? Google’s Compact Language Dector (CLD) embedded in the Chrome browser can tell you what language the web page you’re on was originally written in. In a brilliant move of late-night decision making, Mike McCandless extracted this software and a guy named Eric Fischer applied it to Twitter.
The map above shows a sweet aerial shot of Europe and where people are tweeting. That’s cool and all, but the coolest information we can derive from it is what language people are typing in. For example, Belgium tweets in Dutch and French, and Switzerland tweets mainly in German with a smidge of French sprinkled in.
Some areas are all sorts of unexpected. Catalans, for example, tweet in their own language and not in Spanish. German seems to make up a large portion of Central Europe, but out of nowhere, a large portion of Austria seems to be tweeting in Italian – as do multiple dots in France.
Wondering what the U.S. looks like? It’s straight forward English with a few exceptions along the Tex-Mex border where Spanish is the language of choice, and also around St. Lawrence where a strong contingent of French makes an appearance.
That’s fascinating and all, but I’m interested in the blue Danish dot in the Jordanian desert, why no one is tweeting in Lithuania, and if Spanish is becoming the dominant language in Bermuda.
November 22nd, 2011
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