Good article in the New York times on how Facebook Aims to Extend Its Reach Across the Web- which is an example of how we don’t necessarily need more Social Networks as much as we need a way to call Social Network information into every site experience, according to the article.

While there really should end up being just a few repositories of the data - instead of a zillion networks, Facebook is the closest to realizing a cloud that can touch most sites:

MySpace, Yahoo and Google have all announced similar programs this year, using common standards that will allow other Web sites to reduce the work needed to embrace each identity system. Facebook, which is using its own data-sharing technology, is slightly ahead of its rivals.   I think that’s a good thing, at least, for now.

In the next few weeks, a number of prominent Web sites will weave this service into their pages, including those of the Discovery Channel and The San Francisco Chronicle, the social news site Digg, the genealogy network Geni and the online video hub Hulu.

Facebook Connect is representative of some surprising new thinking in Silicon Valley. Instead of trying to hoard information about their users, the Internet giants have all announced plans to share at least some of that data so people do not have to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites.

Supporters of this idea say such programs will help with the emergence of a new “social Web,” because chatter among friends will infiltrate even sites that have been entirely unsociable thus far.

Just wondering if it makes sense to do one thing Google wants vs. another?  I mean, there’s a new tool Google released 2 weeks ago that tells you all the keyword phases you could advertise on connected with a theme, that you are letting money on the table, by not advertising these words (which is good for Google).

On the other hand, assuming I did not advertise but just took the time to create meaninful content on these keyword phrases, maybe I’d get the traffic, except I would have to really streach what I’m writing about and maybe make up stuff I really don’t know very much about.

And I think that would be doing a disservice.

Or I could go and work on the Google Search Wiki for the keyword phases a care about and make sure I comment all over the place and make sure people know my point of view - and get traffic that way.

I would opt for the latter over the former - as this is the future of Search and is more honest and transparent, in my opinion.

Gee - TechCrunch had a post today on When Everyone Is A Blogger, Nothing You Say Is Off The Record.

In a way, isn’t that what we’re moving to?  With Google Search Wiki - I could pretty much comment on any url from any search result, and anyone else who wants to see my comments can.

Look, this story about a Belgian Diplomat and a New York Based blogger is pretty interesting in the level of “over reaction” that happened - here’s the story, according to TechCrunch:

Current Belgian Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem apparently stumbled into a Belgian bar in New York City on Monday evening with his entourage.

Ha, ha, guess he was drunk, or something … anyway - here’s the rest of it….

Following his visit, bartender Nathalie Lubbe Bakker blogged about their visit (in Dutch), talking about how disgusted she was of how drunk De Crem was and how embarrassed she was about his behavior. Worst part, she wrote, was the fact that one of the politician’s advisers admitted to her that the meetings they were there for on taxpayer’s money were in fact canceled because the UN was meeting in Geneva (which is about 330 miles from Brussels).

Clearly, one of the Diplomat’s advisers was out of line - and talked about a sensitive issue in a bar - which unfamiliar people.

He reportedly told her they had decided to come to NY anyway despite being aware of the cancellation because the policital situation here was ‘calm’ and that he’d ‘never visited the city anyway’.

A couple of days later, someone from De Crem’s office had a telephone call with Nathalie’s boss, after which she was promptly fired. This was initially denied by the politician, and it remains unclear if her termination was a direct result of the call or the blog post in question.

Somehow, the story was picked up and got a lot of attention from local bloggers and the mainstream media, which ultimately lead to the Minister having to defend himself about the NY trip in Parliament.

That’s how it is with Social Media happens - it’s the democratization of information - everyone can share - there is total transparency - and it can’t be controlled easily, if at all - but if people relax about it - it’s much easier to influence.

Yesterday, he made a statement to the Parliament admitting that a call was made but that there was never any insinuation about the girl getting fired from her job (which makes me wonder why the call was made at all then).

But then, the story unfolds some more and it ends us being blamed on the Blogger -according to what I just read in TechCrunch:

He also stated:

I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think about this.

De Crem added that he’s asked his legal counsel to see which measures could be taken to ‘defend his integrity’.

Needless to say, his statements indicating that ‘blogging is a dangerous phenomenon’ spurred a lot of angry (and funny) reactions in the local blogosphere, making the situation for him much worse than it already was (much like that German politician who blocked the local wikipedia.de website).

Let me just say this - is a blogger now sopposed to go out and get training on what he or she can or can’t say?

The TechCrunch Blogger Robin Wauters takes the point of view that it’s not Blogging that is a problem for the Belgian Diplomat, but that he comes from a culture and time that doesn’t know what to do with this kind of media - and treats it like a news story or news leak, when it’s sharing a personal experience in a blog.

People, and especially politicians representing them, need to wake up and smell the coffee. The world is changing, and blogging is now a big part of it, with all of its good sides as well as its bad ones. Live and learn. The sooner you get the hang of social media, the more you’ll see the opportunities in there rather than the threats.

To be totally honest, I would not be offended if there was some sort of Guidelines no so much what we can say, and what we can’t, but what information needs to be included.  For example, would it have helped if Nathalie Lubbe Bakker pulled at a Flip Digital Camera and filmed the statements?  Or would that be more damaging.

And if the Dimplomat’s party really felt pissed - maybe they should have been more open about it at home, instead of a Belgian bar in NYC - but that’s another story.

Hey, why don’t we just call the Google Search Wiki the Death of Seodanapalus

Personally, I’d be fine with the Death of SEO, as expressed in Marketing Pilgrim -

Google’s SearchWiki Is Here To Stay: Is This The Death of SEO?

Yeah, I’m so sick of Search Conferences that try to take the same gruel and, over and over again, repeat the “dogma“, the usual link stuff, content stuff, reputation stuff.

According to a report from Danny Sullivan it looks like Google’s much talked about SearchWiki is here to stay. Most of the clammer about this new Google feature is focused around a user’s inability to turn it off. While there are several browser plugins available to hide the SearchWiki functions, for most users the SearchWiki is now a permanent part of the Google search experience.

Google’s SearchWiki is a new feature that allows for users to organize search results and make comments. The reorganized results only show up for the user that made the changes, but the comments are made public.

While it seems that most are concerned about turning the SearchWiki off, few have highlighted the effects that this new feature will have on SEO.

At first when I read about SearchWiki I thought that this was the end of SEO. How am I supposed to implement the perfect strategy to manipulate SERPs when all users have to do is click arrows? But now, I think its anything but that.

Now that users are given the ability to reorganize search results it means that listings on the first page are much more valuable. Here’s why: after a user has selected a handful of listings that they send to the top of their SERP, they have effectively locked out the rest of the listings.

Also, the user’s selected listings are saved based on URL, meaning that if another search query is run where the same URL comes up, then the listing/URL is automatically at the top.

Meanwhile, Google is there, listening to whatever anyone is saying and then telling you to forget about 99% of it and just focus on content.

Well, at least, Google came up with a meaningful alternative in the Search Wiki - and it was just what the Doctor ordered.  I lost confidence in Google for a while - but with the Search Wiki - I gained it back.

For all the complaints about Google Search Wiki’s interface not being perfect, the overall sentiment about Google Search Wiki continues to be good (75% for it and 25% against) - all of this according to SearchWiki.

In face, of the 740 notes recorded for this searchwiki there were a lot more searchers voting results up than down.

I had a few thoughts flowing into my mind this week  - it had a lot to do with things going on in the background of my life, and of my experiences lately with an organization I belong to.

Here’s my thought - for what it’s worth - more, so I can write it down before I completely forget it.

I’ve noticed a lot of corporate work is not really about getting anything, in particular done - actually, it’s more about justifying one’s position; positioning.

One of the things I’ve noticed about myself, I really don’t like that kind of circumstance - the one that’s all about positioning - but not about really doing anything, much.

Now, in a way, I’m thinking that Social Media doesn’t seem to be on the top of anyone’s marketing list, lately, even though there’s been some pretty good case studies that say it’s effective, if done properly.

I don’t know - we’ll know  Social Media will become important in organizations when there will be people who will justify their existance by it (ha, ha, ha - haven’t heard anyone yet, being able to do that).

I was pretty excited by Google’s Search Wiki, launched the other day, and now a Google Experiment - as it might be the way to gradually make Social Media, the Wisdom of the Crowd, Collective feedback, as something that will drive organizations to start seeing ROI here - but as a Google Experiment - I’m not sure if the Google Search Wiki will get enough content to make it all that valuable - but then again - if even 1% of all Google Searchers have the Google Search Wiki Experiment enabled, maybe that’ll be enough.

By the way -here’s the posts I’ve written lately about the Google Search Wiki - Personalization and Google Search plus I’m liking the Google Search Wiki though some others, don’t and Google Search Wiki becomes one of Google’s Experiments

Like Arrington, I noticed Google SearchWiki Vanishes but I was able to get it back via Google Experiment - it’s one of the 4 experiments you can activate.    I went back and turned Google Search Wiki back on - but, I  am wondering, as a Google Experiment, how many searchers will bother to use it.

The point being, if there’s wide usage, the Google Search Wiki will accumulate a lot of information quickly  - but as an Experiment … not sure if most will bother with it.

Too bad, I think the Google Search Wiki was the most interesting thing that Google has done in a long time - too bad they scaled back and make it an Experiment - but I understand the negative feedback about the Google Search Wiki might have been too much for Google to ignore.

Now that I’ve had a chance to look at Google Search Wiki, I think it’s a lot of fun and really, the right direction for search to move in, but I noticed some who liked Google better without the personalization such as Andrew Goodman and Michael Arrington.

The main sentiment expressed by both is that Google is not broken, so why fix it?  In Michael Arrington’s own words:

Google says they’ve created a way to customize search results, and share (via the comments). They say they are striving to improve the search experience, and giving people tools to make search even more useful to them in their daily lives.

” … But Google search wasn’t broken. It’s one of the few things on the Internet that isn’t. I love it, as does 62% of everyone on the Internet. This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page. That doesn’t make my search experience more useful. It makes it move to another search engine.”

Now, I’ve looked at TechCrunch’s results in the Google Search Wiki - with all the results shownand right now - there’s not that much interesting - but imagine what you’ll be looking at in a month or two.  Imagine looking at Google to get information and see what other people are saying - and actually learning what people think - stuff you could never get, not like this, ever before.

Goodman, who I’ve met at SES San Jose recently thinks Google ought to turn the whole thing off and turn the clock back:

” …. It may be just a visceral reaction, but I’m with Arrington, who just pleads with Google to just turn this thing off and stop this cult of the amateur world from spilling over from YouTube into the one workable, reliable techno-thing that is for many of us truly sacred.”

On the other hand, John Jantsch seems to have a more open mind while Seth Godin thinks what Google has just done is the most signficant change in Search …. since Search Engine were launched!

“… If you’re a signed in user of Google, you’ll notice the most significant change in search since their launch.

You can now interact with search results, wiki style.

You can vote them up or down and leave comments. And they will be seen by others.

1. This is going to lead to an incredible rush by small businesses and social networkers. They’re going to go crazy trying to game the system.

2. Google is going to find that millions of people pay a lot more attention to their search results (for now).

Interesting to consider what happens after that. How do they handle the deluge? Does democracy matter when it comes to search? How do you filter out the gamed votes?

Also interesting to think about how a tiny change in a beloved interface changes the way you think about and use it.

Ha, ha, ha … Seth worries about Google’s new interface being “gamed” - but isn’t that what we had all along - thousands of people were gaming Google’s results every day -and as time has gone one - it’s gotten harder to plug the holes in Search Engines.   Spam?   Why… Google is trying to filter it out … but much of it is generated because of Google and the way it is - or has been.

Google Search has been broken for quite some time, and many people, including me, complained about the unfairness of Pagerank algorithm and that links are not the endorsement Google has claimed they are.

Besides, the Search Optimization Industry is, more or less, dead, anyway - Google killed it by improving semantic analysis, plugging spam holes, mixing in other types of content and harnessing all the information they’re collecting from Google Analytics, Google ToolBar, and now, the Google Search Wiki.   We can get rid of those things in a site that prevent Google from processing the information, we can increase the usability and we can learn to focus our content to better match what we really want to put forward, but the rest is really being figured out by Google and no deliberate attempt at SEO is needed, most of the time - and that has been Google’s message, all along.

Yep, all along, Google was sending their people to search conferences while they were also telling people to just focus on content and stop trying to deliberately optimize your sites - Google was had become smart enough to figure out your site content for you - and all you had to do was follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and Google would take care of the rest.

In fact, if you tried to hard to optimize your site, and Google saw that, they’d penalize it - which happened to a lot of sites, often unfairly.

Meanwhile, Google’s emphasis on automation ended up becoming a double edged sword - on one hand, automation allows for many of the routine tasks to be done well enough - but when there’s a problem or issue with the search results, it was difficult or almost impossible to talk to anyone at Google - you can submit a request - but you get back no direct response, since you had no idea who, if anyone, was listening, or cared, since most services Google provides are set up to run on automatic pilot (at least, they make is seem that way, even if it isn’t neccesary true).

And the other reason, the main reason why Arrington and Goodman complained about Google Search Wiki is they benefit much more by keeping Google Search as it was - since they know how to benefit and manipulate Google up till now - but would have a much, much harder time manipulating the Search Wiki (though Arrington is far better positioned than most to take advantage of Google’s new “Digg like” interface, and I bet TechCrunch, will.

Still, the new Digg like Search Wiki interface is far more “democratic”, believe it or not - much “fairer” way to rank results than what Google has been running for the last 10 or 11 years.

True, while Google Search worked OK for general types of queries, it’s not too good at specialized and niche types of  information, mainly because the index is too big.  One solution, gave rise to verticals with more qualified pages (i.e: I’m thinking of specific verticals for Medical, Auto, Pharma, Finance, etc).

But something else has been happening - the same thing that brought Barack Obama to the White House as been slowly corroding the quality of Google’s search results - and everyone else’s, more or less - and that was … the Searcher.    The Searcher is growing up. The Bar has been “raised” and search needed to evolve to become more “social” - because there is wisdom in the crowds.

Here’s some obvious observations - searchers are becoming more sophisticated in phasing Search Queries (the average search query  used to be 2 words 10 years ago, now it’s 4 or 5 words), the average searcher is much more sophisticated in knowing what they want and finding a much harder time going through Google’s massive search results index - the problem - now that more and more people are being creators and commentators on content, the original pagerank algorithm, no matter how much Google “improves” it - is not able to deliver helpful search results in the majority of cases, there is simply too much content and it’s too complex for them to know the meaning of it quickly enough or well enough - primarily because what we say and what we write, we often don’t mean - but the Search Engines are not smart enough yet to tell the difference - and it’s simply beyond the ability of any algorythm to figure out what we mean and what we really want.

Google Search Wiki is what I’ve been asking for all along, for Google to experiment with giving the community of searchers the means to decide what they see or don’t see, and in what order - and let others share in that decision.

I like that idea, I think Google ought to go all the way with it and let’s get to a point where the metadata around a search result is far more interesting than the actual search result.

But some have also noted the abuse that can happen, just as Digg was abused by “Digg Gangs”, including Marketing Pilgrim -Google Gets Personal.

However, just because abuse can happen, doesn’t mean it has to happen - Google, as Digg, knows who is voting and what IP Address they’re using - it also drops persistent first party cookies in your browser cache - Google can find ways to detect certain types of undesirable search behaviors and discourage them, as, in a way, they do now, with the various spam filters they’ve set up.

So… I’m not as worried as many seem to be about Google’s new Search Wiki - I say … bring it on - let’s go all the way with this - and look - maybe to help those who can’t handle this change - to have the old version of Google back - but for those, like me, who want it - let’s go full steam ahead.

Yeah, let’s bring it on and do the same thing to Google News and Google Hot Trends - especially Google News - that could be a great way to share information as it’s happening.  Yes, Google - this is an innovation of yours I’ve been asking for a long time  - and now you’ve introduced it - let’s quickly move forward and add it into Google News.

By the way, one more interesting observation, Google has now moved the “Seat” of commenting - away from the Website (the actual sites in Search Results) and onto Google, itself!

There’s a whole new industry that can be “farmed” by harvesting the information that people are putting onto Google - a new class of ranking tools and comment extraction tools could and should be developed, once this new change in Google has been more fully “absorbed”.

You must realize, that up till now, most comments you got about a site - were either on the site in question, or in some message board or blog - but now ….. now …… it’s in the Search Results.  Wow!

Enough for one post - now, I’ll go back and play with my search results - maybe I’ll learn something from them, finally!

I read Is YouTube the Next Google? in Read/WriteWeb tonight (the title is somewhat misleading as YouTube is owned by Google so it’s not really the next Google, it is Google - but YouTube’s search is much different than Google’s textual search) and the post reminded me that, at times, I searched YouTube and was surprised how many of my typical search queries had user generated videos that existed and were tagged for that phrase or a related phase.

Earlier this year I had a client that ran an OCD clinic in London and wanted to create videos for Google Video Ads, and found several OCD videos in YouTube.   It worked for travel too - even in some details of places - perhaps even unfamilar hotels in a foriegn city that I might book a room in (if such were available); but it never went beyound that.

However, it appears that younger searches are using video search via services like YouTube almost as a replacement for Textual Search that Google normally provides.

True, Google has put Universal Search in place that includes videos and images into the mix, but at the end of the day what might emerge is textual search will eventually be replaced by visual and voice search (the new Google iPhone Voice Search was just released today in the iTunes store - though I can’t seem to find it yet and download it).

According to Read/WriteWeb

“….. he mentioned that his son accesses the web through YouTube. At first, I didn’t get it and thought Ian was making a joke. But then I realized he was not. Whenever his son needed any information, he would open up YouTube, type in the search term and then just watch the videos that showed up as matches. He never Googled anything; he never went to any other site; his entire web experience was confined to YouTube videos. It was rather puzzling.”

Since I have access to Comscore Media Metrix, I figured, if it’s really true that younger people are replacing textual search with video search, then the demographics profile of YouTube.com of October  07 compared to October 08 ought to show some marked differences - and they did!

October 2007  YouTube.com Demographics

Then I did the same thing for YouTube Demographics October 2008

Usage of YouTube by pre-adolescents 9-14 jumped by roughly 500% over that last year - kids between 2 and 11 years jumped up even more!

Now, you have to wonder - are kids of 2 years old using YouTube? I don’t know, but, somehow, ComScore thinks they are.   Hey, maybe we should call them “eKids” or “eToddlers”, and they probably aren’t as likely to use textual search as video search, or image search.

Also, notice the % Reach has gone up quite a bit, as well.  For example, % Reach is calculated as the the # of Unique Vistors (000) / Total Internet Audience for a Category - Comscore takes care of the Categorization and maintaining all of that is part of the hefty pricetag.

But ……. if YouTube is getting more youngsters searching on it - shouldn’t Google Textual Search get less, or at least, grow less fast, relative to Youtube?

Google Search Demographics - Comscore - October 2007

Again, I ran the same report for October 2008 and ….

And sure enough, there’s not nearly as much growth - for kids 9-14 there were 8,019,000 Uniques in October 2007 and 11,707,000 in 2008, an increase of 45% vs. the 497% growth of the use of YouTube for  the same age group.

Now, I didn’t look if there was differences in usage based on gender, but I’ve seen enough to be convinced that younger people, the future - is in video search and not so much textual search.

If that’s true, it has profound implications, as Search continues to evolve.

Further on in the Read/Write Web post Is YouTube the Next Google?

” … Ian said that his son frequently searches for episodes of Bakugan, which come up perfectly. Another likely search for a 9-year-old, Lance Wataru (a Pokemon character), works well, too. More specific searches, such as Donkey from Shrek, work even better.”

All I can say is ha, ha, ha …  so as more content is generated and placed online, search results for Video will get richer and richer and that can only mean textual searches days are numbered (but we don’t know the number yet).

In the RWW post it’s mentioned the main reason for textual search is hyperlinks work better - but that’s gradually being replaced by hyperlinking images

“…The main reason that text rules the web today is because of hyperlinks. Linking pages via text links is what makes the web possible. Hyperlinking videos would be a harder thing to do. Not impossible, of course, because you can link objects and insert text in videos, but it’s just not as elegant as text. Besides the linking issue, not everything would be an effective video. For example, a research paper could be made into a video but would not be as easy to follow as the text.

I agree, not everything is meant to be turned into video or audio content - and honestly, I bet if we took brain scans of searches using textual vs. voice search (ie: Google’s new iPhone Search applicaton with Audio Search) we’d find different centers of the brain being used in a textual search vs. an audio search - and we might as well extend that to video and image search as well.

And if we do that - we’ll see the queries themselves will differ in subtle ways, between what we’d write and what we’d say, when entering the same query to a Search Engine.

Is it far fetched to say the newer generation is evolving past textual search …. ?  I don’t think it’s that much of a strech.

That’s going to be interesting … I mean …. this …. Google Is Taking Questions (Spoken, via iPhone); whatever you want to say about Google … they keep innovating Search - they just pushing the boundaries.  The other day they released data showing how Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread and just yesterday Google Exploring Old Rome Without Air (or Time) Travel.

I haven’t seen the iPhone application yet, it’s going to be available today.   It’s hard to say how much I’ll use it - but the fact they pulled something like Google Is Taking Questions on the iPhone is fantastic - beyond the scope of what anyone else could do.   Even the Google Earth for iPhone application is a stunning interface.   From The New York Times:

Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make available as soon as Friday through its iTunes store, can place the phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” or “How tall is Mount Everest?” The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.

The search results, which may be displayed in just seconds on a fast wireless network, will at times include local information, taking advantage of iPhone features that let it determine its location.

The ability to recognize just about any phrase from any person has long been the supreme goal of artificial intelligence researchers looking for ways to make man-machine interactions more natural. Systems that can do this have recently started making their way into commercial products.

And there’s been other innovations that I haven’t checked out yet, not so much from Google, but what Microsoft is doing where Microsoft Beats Yahoo and Google to Social Inbox 2.0

Thursday, Microsoft announced a complex new version of the Web sites and PC software that use the Windows Live brand. Over the next two months, the company will introduce dozens of upgraded features involving its e-mail, instant message, calendar, blogging and other services. It will also add some entirely new functions, including group collaboration and photo sharing.

A lot of the effort has gone into weaving the functions of social networks throughout many of these services. For example, the service has a “what’s new” feed, modeled after the Facebook news feed, that can publish short comments by users as well as links to when they take certain actions, like publish new photos. The feed will be displayed on the instant message client and on new profile pages for users. And after you send an e-mail to people who use the new feed, you will see their most recent updates.

Microsoft is also reaching out to draw in information from other sites.

I guess, what I’m saying is that Search is getting interesting again - no so much for the act of searching - but how one can search and also receive information - a lot of innovation happening - it’s almost like that innovation is coming in waves.