While I was at the Personal Democracy Forum After Party tonight I spoke to many people, including a few employees of Linkfluence, research software used to categorize websites for political affilation.
You can see an example of Linkfluence software at work in the Presidential Watch 08 website
I found the software interesting in it's potential use to categorize websites as Democratic leaning or Republican leaning before they declared themselves - mostly by looking at backlinks and where they go and analyzing textual content of the pages.
I don't think the charts reflect traffic, nor can they, at this point - but I can imagine several enhancements which, could improve the software. I like what I saw, though.
Looking at the Trends for Obama vs. McCain, right now, Obama wins, but it's closer than one might think - and it will be very, very interesting to watch this trend chart change after Labor Day and into October 2008.
I believe Technology will have a strong inpact in this Presidential Election - but I don't yet know if it will alter the outcome - that remains to be seen.
Here's video I took tonight about Linkfluence at #pdf2008
One of the things I'll talk about when i present (moderate this session, in fact( in Search Engine Strategies San Jose later this summer- is that Social Media is a lot of work!
Track: Social Media Social Media Analysis and Tracking Social Search can be used to drive Traffic, Conversions and Increase ROI by monitoring conversations happening in cyberspace, often in real time. By using Buzz Monitoring tools such as Buzzlogic, search professions can be very effective in finding influencer's within online conversations and reaching out to them. As one example of a few that will be presented, learn how Military.com leverages social media and Buzz Monitoring tools, together with solid understanding of business goals, to increase profitability.
Social Media is not easy - because even when you get the intelligence - your just beginning - you still have to figure out how to use the information - and that … is .. well, not easy - not a slam dunk.
Still MarketingVox has a post on How-To: Gathering Market Intelligence from Social Media to remind us how much work Social Media really is - just read the article; it makes SEO work look easy - because much of this stuff isn't that different, but it's more intensive and involves data-mining "conversations".
"…
Nielsen BrandPulse. This enables you to tap into forums, boards, Usenet newsgroups and blogs that may be discussing your company, brand or product.
Google Trends. What's more popular: The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal? Google Trends lets you pit them against each other and graph the results. A broader product, Google Zeitgeist, tracks what users are querying most on the Google search engine.
UPDATE: Google recently launched Trends for Websites, which enables marketers to compare a site's traffic against industry rivals. It also reveals commonly-queried keywords and related websites visited.
BoardTracker lets marketers search for mentions in discussion boards. The homepage also features a dynamic tag cloud, so you can find out what products, brands and topics people are discussing most today."
To show you what I mean, I'm using Radian6 today to monitor the Personal Democracy Forum, which I could not attend, but it's happening here in NYC, and I'll attend a Tweetup shortly with some of the people who are attending plus some, like me, that didn't.
I looked for Influentials in the conversation happening on the Tweemes page http://twemes.com/pdf2008
It seems to me that a lot of the sites, above, in the Radian6 New Influence Viewer Widget, are obvious choices - and yet, there's gold here …. but what to do with it - how do you actually forge relationships?
I can get to the Influential publication/blog, even down to the influenctial post, even down to the influenctial sentences - and the respondents - BUT …
There's no shortcut in Social Media, like there is in Search Marketing … you have to speak to people … you need to start and maintain conversations - you have to join the groups and gain the confidence of the people who your forging relationships with.
That's what that the MarketingVox post on How-To: Gathering Market Intelligence from Social Media misses - you can do all the data-mining in the world - but you still have to talk to people - your not speaking with Bots … you speaking with people - people who want to be "engaged" - who need engagement.
The reason why the price of Oil per barrel is going to continue to go up has little to do with us, anymore, and that's what has fundamentally changed from the World Market that was to the World Market will live in today. The New York Times tries to explain the price of Oil in Why Is Oil So High? Pick a View
For example, it took five years, from 2002 to 2007, for oil to go up by $60 a barrel. In just the last year, it galloped another $60 higher. For the first time since oil drilling began in the 1850s, the price has climbed for seven consecutive years.
If Oil goes to 165 dollars a Barrel, we'll continue to cut back (United States) but China and India, and the rest of what used to be called the "Third World" due to the spreading and redistribution of Global Wealth, won't. That takes Economic Theory, the kind Economists use to forecast stuff, and Governments use to decide policy, out the window - The World Economy is not going to act according to Supply and Demand - because there is no way to lower Demand - it's growing, no matter what we do - and it's the success of redistribution of wealth, of the Internet, of Global Entrepreneurs, or rising living standards, that's caused this.
According to a source that Paul Krugman quotes in his blog (Vertical specialization and the impact of oil prices on trade), the CIBC study suggests that Global Trade, which fueled the increases in living standards, may slow down, as a result of higher energy prices - especially in certain sectors (higher costs won't affect everything equally).
Actually, if you look at the Google Trend chart above, it's hard to argue that, at least at the perception level, interest in Global Trade is going down as the Price of Oil is going up:
Food inflation isn’t about the US economy any more than triple-digit oil prices are about motorists driving on interstate freeways. They’re instead about hamburgers replacing rice bowls and millions of new Tata and Chery drivers on traffic-choked roads in China, India and the rest of the emerging market world.
Oil will continue to be consumed, at a fast and faster pace regardless of how much the United States cuts back consumption; even if we drill offshore, it's not going to many any real difference in our prices -(unless we just produce Oil for ourselves and don't buy it on the World Market - but I don't think that's possible - there's probably a zillion trade treaties against that kind of thing - besides the fact we could not produce enough Oil to supply this country based on what is under the ground in US Properties).
The cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container from East Asia to the US eastern seaboard has already tripled since 2000 and will double again as oil prices head towards $200 per barrel (see pages 4-7).
Unless that container is chock full of diamonds, shipping costs have suddenly inflated the cost of whatever is inside. And those inflated costs get passed onto the Consumer Price Index when you buy that good at your local retailer. As oil prices keep rising, pretty soon those transport costs start cancelling out the East Asian wage advantage. They already have in steel. Soaring transport costs, first on importing iron to China and then exporting finished steel overseas, have already more than eroded the wage advantage and suddenly rendered Chinese-made steel uncompetitive in the US market.
There's no way out save gradually moving to a new energy source (not Coal, that's just going backwards).
But first we have to figure
out what that new Energy Source is going to be (it may not have been invented yet, or maybe it has).
BTW, Google Trends was just released for Websites, and I wrote about it yesterday in
I tried to look at Google Trends for Websites in terms of the price of Oil, but that would not be easy to do, unless we associate the demand for Oil to a specific set of websites - which I don't think we can do (unless some one has some ideas about this, let me know).
I was thinking about Oil a lot lately (who hasn't?) and had read somewhere that the higher prices of Oil are going to change many things, but most of those changes sounded rightfully negative with Paul Krugman The world gets bigger putting forward that higher fuel prices are putting the brakes on globalization: if it costs more to ship stuff, there will be less long distance travel and shipping.
"We may turn increasingly to video conferencing or other kinds of electronic media in order to avoid having to travel."
"…So how does that help the web? More home workers, means a larger market for applications designed to help remote workers collaborate. Things like Google Docs, Basecamp, Dimdim, and PalBee will all benefit from a larger contingent of home workers."
Maybe, we'll also, finally, stop looking at more drilling for Oil as the answer, even short term (especially for the short term, it's not the answer since nothing done now would really kick in for a few years - but it would be just a trickle.
But the real reason - the must fundamental reason, why we need to move away from Oil as energy source is the instability it introduces into the World Economy - which Krugman deals with in a post titled Embedded vs. non-embedded inflation
"…Imagine that there are two entrepreneurs, Harry and Louise, both of whom change prices only at fairly long intervals — say, once a year. Other things equal, Harry want his average price over the next year to be about the same as Louise’s; Louise wants her average price to be about the same as Harry’s. But their price setting takes place on different dates. (This is a metaphor for the real economy, in which people setting prices have to think about the prices of many competitors and suppliers that will prevail until they revise the price again.)
In this situation, inflation can feed on itself: Harry raises his price above Louise’s, because he expects her to raise her price in the future, and she does the same thing when it’s her turn. It looks like this, with Harry in red and Louise in blue.
Once expectations of inflation get embedded like this, it’s hard to get price stability back. In practice, what happens is that central banks deliberately cause a recession. This makes Harry shave his price increases a bit, and then Louise does the same, and over time both start to notice that the other’s price increase keeps falling short of expectations, and eventually inflationary momentum gets wrung out of the system — but at a high cost. In the 1980s, it took double-digit unemployment to get rid of the embedded inflation from the 1970s.
But how is this relevant to current events? Well, the problem of embedded inflation applies only to prices that are set at fairly long intervals — especially to wages, which are usually set only once a year. There’s no comparable problem with commodities like wheat or oil, where the price changes minute by minute, and goes down as easily as it goes up. It may sound perverse, but embedded, hard-to-reverse inflation is only a problem for parts of the economy with relatively sticky prices."
And then, any time there's hostility around an Oil Field, like there was today Stocks Down on Bank Woes and Oil Price Increase the price of oil spikes up by 5 to 10 dollars a barrel - usually it drops down again - but imagine what would happen if a tactical strike on an a large oil field succeeds?
Can you imagine what will happen if Iran gets invaded - or there's more instability in the Middle East? Think $200, maybe $250 dollars per barrel of oil.
We have to get away from Oil - there's no turning back - things will never be cheap again, until we move towards another energy source - hopefully one that does not pollute the planet like Oil does.
I attended the tail end of WidgetWebExpo late this afternoon to hear the Widget Analytics presentation (see marketing information below):
The What, Why, Where and How of Widget Metrics What is possible to measure with respect to widgets? What do the different networks offer in terms of analytics? What can a widget-serving platform that is network agnostic bring to the table? How are organizations using widget analytics to drive their widget strategy? What are the new metrics that are evolving as a result of widgets and applications? Metric Standards - what is evolving and who is setting the standards?
Jodi McDermott, Director of Product Management, Clearspring Technologies Albert Lai, Founder & CEO, Kontagent
I know Jodi McDermott from the Web Analytics Association and wanted to speak to her anyway - and I had a press pass to the conference (but there wasn't any internet connectivity provided by the hotel so I could not work or report from there, and decided not to attend most of it).
BTW, Albert Lai's presentation on Viral Analytics … very interesting - I filmed much of it but be asked me not to publish it yet - and I respect that, so I'll wait for a little bit (it must be pretty advanced…I found his talk…intriquing).
Here's a video I made of Jodi's talk on Widget Analytics:
WAA Webcast Series: Understanding Customers Through Data: Web Analytics, Audience and Advertising Measurement
Thursday, June 19, 2008 12:00 PM EDT/9:00 AM PDT
Learn more about the metrics, methods and tools used by online marketing analytics practitioners, online advertising media and audience measurement organizations. Find out how to use these metrics and tools to better understand your customers, your website’s competitive standing and overall website value. WAA members feel free to invite fellow web analysts who are not currently members!
Judah Phillips, Director of Web Analytics at Reed Business Information, will moderate a discussion among our panel of expert members.
In another one of my ideas - which I hope to mention at the Webinar, and which I already mentioned today in the rehearsal to Josh Chasin, head of research at ComScore - is about developing a closer relationship between Audience Measurement tools based on panel data like ComScore, Nielsen and Web Analytics platforms (referred to as Site Side Analytics in the Online Advertising Playbook).
For example, ComScore MyMetrix already provides core reports on categories such as "Conversational Media" and "JobSearch" - these are based on sites (and specific pages within a site) the panel visits each month - why not make it easier for those URLs to be used as segmentation in Web Analytics, as well?
If my traffic from "Conversational Media" (Social Networks, Blogs and Message Forums) is 5%, according to ComScore (which doesn't, by the way, make it easy to come up with that information - you have to export the data into Excel in order to mash up the information with a Source/Loss report for the site your interested in) why can't the Analytics Platform running on my site tell me how much cookie based traffic I got from Conversational Media - and compare the two?
Actually, what I'd like to see, is Google Analytics do it first.
Why? Google Analytics is already doing Benchmarking and a large number of accounts are participating and here's an area where Google Analytics could play to it's strengths.
What to see what percentage of traffic your site got from any category that ComScore or Nielsen provides? All Google has to do is take the URLs published in MyMetrix, for example, and create a bunch of custom definitions, filters, updated monthly, and then allow the data it's already collected to be segmented (if the account holder wants that) as a benchmark.
Anyway, I hope you'll register and attend the Webcast, or, if you read this post after the Webcast, go and listen to in the archives.
Since the Google Toolbar can track every site you visit, that data could theoretically be used to target ads served by Google (including DoubleClick display ads anywhere on the Web, or to further refine search ads). For instance, you could browse a Lumix digital camera on Amazon, and then see ads for digital cameras when you land on an unrelated travel site that happens to serve up DoubleClick ads. Or perhaps the next time you do a search on Google, it will push a Lumix ad out to you. Google could also use the data to create a Web measurement service that competes with comScore, Quantcast, Hitwise, or Compete.
Up to a point, some of the improvements that Web Surfing and behavioral targeting - are wanted - when an ad is shown to us we really want to see - when useful information is actually display at a point in the decision process when we are ready to act on it (say, information on travel, or buying a camera - when you really want to buy one).
I'm just wondering if it's too much - too much control in one place - too much information, and it's not regulated either (not that regulation solved anything - but , at least there's some limits - whereas Google doesn't really have any, except the limits it puts on itself).
The other day I wrote about Conversational Measurement Toolbox from Federated Media - I was trying to find out what the Conversational Measurement Toolbox looked like (I'm not an advertiser or publisher with FM … so how do I actually see it?) and parts of the information that is fed into that platform by Buzzlogic(I interviewed Todd Parsons last month in San Francisco while at Emetrics - see linked videos).
I also spoke to Rob Crumpler and Valerie Combs of Buzzlogic recently, and met both last week in New York at an IAB Conference on User Generated Content.
Here's what I think is going into the Conversational Measurement Toolbox platform from Buzzlogic - how that all gets integrated with everything else FM is pulling in … I don't yet know.
According to Valerie Combs (I have a video of Pete Cashmore - who I saw a few times last week in NYC along with Valarie talking about Wine) of Buzzlogic:
Essentially, we’re capturing all of the activity occurring across blogs within specific conversations, and demonstrating for advertisers where there are shifts, spikes, etc to help them inform and optimize campaigns..
Assuming this chart and the table below refer to influencers already isolated by the BuzzlogicPlatform (or, would the site volume refer to Federated Media properties where an ad is running via the Buzzlogic platform, and how the traffic from influencers on the topic of the ad is impacted).
Interesting chart and table below - my guess is this information I just presented is for the Federated Media Advertiser.
I'm assuming the "conversions across all publishers" is a number that's going to be supplied by Federated Media to the Advertisers.
The next chart and table, I think, is geared to the Federated Media Site (ie: Smartmobs.com runs Federated Media, and I have, on occasion, written for them, not so much lately - but I can see where you'd have to provided two sets of metrics, one for the Advertiser and one for the Publisher - and what I think the chart below does is give the benefits to the publisher - but maybe I have it wrong, or mixed up - happy to be corrected here).
Now, maybe, this chart is not for the publisher - but it could be for the site that is doing the advertising - which means that Buzzlogic (or FM, in this case) has a tag based solution for tracking the analytics - my next discussion with Buzzlogic or Federated Media, will give me the extra context I need to read these charts properly - but if any of my readers want to chime in, feel free to.
I put a lot of information in this post and the links in it - perhaps I haven't absorbed all of it, myself, but one thing stood out - hidden in a press release about The Conversational Measurement Toolbox(which I repeated, below):
".. FM also announced that Battelle, a member of the IAB board, will join an IAB taskforce on measurement in social media, and will work to align FM’s work with the IAB's. "
That's interesting because it puts John Battelle right on an intersection with the work of the Web Analytic Association, specifically the Social Media Committee that I direct, the Standards Committee, as well - in fact, I hope to have a few "Web 2.0 Standards to release, in draft form, at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose.
FEDERATED MEDIA INTRODUCES CONVERSATIONAL MEASUREMENT TOOLBOX
Launches Industry’s First Open Platform for the Exchange of Conversational Media Metrics
SAUSALITO, Calif., June 10, 2008 – Federated Media Publishing (FM) today introduced the Conversational Measurement Toolbox to leading media and marketing industry executives at the Conversational Marketing Summit: New Brand Way in New York City. The toolbox consists of a suite of campaign measurement, planning and reporting tools offering marketers greater control and insight into their conversational marketing efforts.
"One of the greatest barriers that we’ve seen for marketers in social media has been a general lack of standards and tools for campaign measurement and reporting,” said Debra Aho Williamson, analyst at eMarketer. “There are, of course, vendors who supply disconnected data points, but it has so far been up to the marketer to wade through this sea of data themselves. What is needed is a single device or methodology that aggregates relevant data in an easily digestible form.”
The integrated suite of tools and services is built on an open, scalable architecture used to collect, aggregate and report data from internal reporting, third-party tracking providers and social media application developers. The data is then available via an automated, easily accessible campaign-reporting dashboard that informs the delivery, engagement, amplification and equity sought by marketing partners. The data will also be available via API/SDK to social application developers who want to use and exchange rich conversational metrics.
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“Prioritizing a focus on measurement is key in the social media space,” said Daina Middleton, SVP Sunao, Moxie Interactive. “We were encouraged when we heard FM was rolling out a conversational media measurement methodology and toolbox and are looking forward to the insights that the new service should produce.”
The toolbox was created specifically to build visibility and accountability into today’s eclectic media and marketing mix consisting of IAB advertising, sponsorships, video advertising, widgets, social networking applications, conversational media hubs and more. FM will roll out the newly-minted Conversational Media Measurement Toolbox in conjunction with several major brand marketers and leading digital media measurement firms who have been enlisted as beta partners.
“The Internet has become a vast network of socially-connected content, which paves the way for advertisers to go beyond the final click when measuring and understanding digital media performance,” said Rob Crumpler, CEO of FM partner BuzzLogic. “The conversational nature of the Web enables advertisers to recognize consumer engagement across multiple touchpoints, and leverage this data to fuel an online ad strategy – before, during and after a campaign.”
“Digital media and marketing has come a long way in the last few years,” said John Battelle, IAB board member, executive producer of the CM Summit and CEO of FM. “The success of online advertising can no longer be defined only by direct response metrics. Today’s brand marketers are focusing on an entirely different set of parameters. This toolbox was designed specifically for the needs of the brand marketer looking for the power to leverage the conversational media space in the most effective and efficient way possible.”
FM also announced that Battelle, a member of the IAB board, will join an IAB taskforce on measurement in social media, and will work to align FM’s work with the IAB's.
About Federated Media
At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We're in the business of supporting those voices by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that let authors focus on what they do best: make compelling media. In so doing, we are creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms. Current federations include Sports, Technology, Automotive, Business & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Video Gaming, Graphics Arts, News 2.0, Lifestyle, Parenting and Green. For more information, please go to http://www.federatedmedia.net.
Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
I'm shocked - but not in a good way, at the news that Tim Russert Is Dead at 58 as reported in the New York Times today. It reminds me that you never know what your last moment is going to be - or when you number is up.
Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of NBC Nightly News, came on the air at 3:39 p.m. and reported that Mr. Russert had collapsed and died early this afternoon while at work. He had just returned from Italy with his family.
“Our beloved colleague,” a grave Mr. Brokaw called him, one of the premier journalists of our time. He said this was one of the most important years in his life, with his deep engagement in the network’s political coverage, and that he “worked to the point of exhaustion.” Mr. Brokaw said Mr. Russert was a true child of Buffalo and always stayed in touch with his blue collar roots and “the ethos of that community.”
It makes me wonder if Tim Russert could have done something to prevent his own death or was his number just "up". Sure, if he had know of a developing health condition and had been able to have it treated well … but what if he just felt lousy or just didn't feel anything - till he suddenly, collapsed and died?
I guess it makes me think about weather our lives, as they move faster and faster, also leaves us open to "depletion" to just running out of fuel, or what ever "life force" is called.
While I didn't follow Russert all that closely, I was definitely aware of him, and he was a strong presence on the news scene -and in the presidential race.
Must be weird that Tim Russert's father outlived his own son - that's one of the biggest fears a parent can have, that their children will pass on before they do - it's not supposed to be that way - but sometimes, life throws what appears to be "curve balls".
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