Citing Sources on the Web

Published on 9 Sep 2011 at 5:19 pm. Comments Off on Citing Sources on the Web.
Filed under writing.

You are reading something that has been published on the World Wide Web. Recent trends have shortened this to simply “The Web”. The reason why it is referred to as The Web is because everything is connected via threads referred to as links. When you are talking about a topic it is very useful to link to a page that provides more information on a topic. But sometimes you need to extract content from the other page into your page to make your point, and for that you need to properly cite your sources. The Web  was designed to do this. (more…)

Go Streaking

Published on 11 Aug 2011 at 4:10 pm. Comments Off on Go Streaking.
Filed under Social Media.

Foursquare recently updated their point system to assign bonus points for users that are on a particular streak. While Foursquare has had a “3 days this week” bonus for some time, they have enhanced it slightly for users that go for visit a particular locations 3 days in a row. (more…)

Local Social Media

Published on 22 Jul 2011 at 5:55 pm. Comments Off on Local Social Media.
Filed under Mobile,Social Media.

Social media is a driving force behind content in the modern online world. Sites such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter are great means with connecting with people from all wakes of life. They have a great global presence, but what they bring to the table in the local social media arena is not very plentiful.

Local social media is about connecting people in a community. It can be about connecting individuals with their friends or connecting them with the businesses and services they enjoy. Most of these services use mobile applications and mobile Web sites as the driving force behind engaging users, so having a great mobile presence yourself will lend itself to a positive experience from the individuals.

The way I see it, most local social networks can fall into the following non-exclusive categories:

  • Let users display their location/connect with places
  • Let users find their friends
  • Leave reviews/rate their satisfaction
  • Offer limited time deals for users.

Letting users display their location and connecting with places is primarily done via mobile applications/sites that allow the user to check in to the location. There are many different social networks that offer this feature, but the primary ones would be Foursquare, Facebook Places, Yelp, and Google+/Google Latitude/Google Places. Foursquare is currently the leader in this arena, but recently it has been suffering numerous lengthy instances where the server goes down preventing users from being able to check in so it may lose some ground in the future.

The key to Foursquare’s success has been its game-driven mentality. Users gain points for every check in and encourage users to check in with friends. Check in more than anyone else in a 60 day period and you become the “mayor” of that location. Check in to certain types of locations (e.g. a gym, parks) enough times and receive a “badge”. Foursquare allows retailers the ability to offer deals to users based off of certain criteria such as the number of check ins, mayorship, etc. Radio Shack recently found that Foursquare users spend 3.5 times more than non-Foursquare users, so these are the type of users you would like to engage.

Yelp is a Web site that started out primarily as a review-driven site that only recently added check-in support. It offers the same type of features as Foursquare, only they use “duke” instead of “mayor”. Neither Facebook Places nor Google offer any type of game-like features at this present time, but check ins for Facebook Places allow you to tag other friends as being with you, and can be seen from the administration for your Facebook page, and deals are presently limited to select cities.

Check ins on Google+ allow you to leave a comment with the check in (similar to Foursquare and Yelp), but cannot presently be seen anywhere but on a Google+ user’s stream, not even in Google Places. I feel like this should be wrong, but I can’t find this data anywhere at the present time but am anticipating it once Google+ releases organization pages in the future.

Users can receive deals using Google Offers as set up in Google Places. Both Foursquare and Google Latitude have begun experimenting with Near Field Communication (NFC) based check ins. NFC is a technology where you tap your phone against a device and it will perform an action (e.g. make a credit card payment or check in to a location). NFC is in its infancy stage and not supported by many phones (presently just some Android phones). Foursquare also has support for check in via QR Codes.

Social networks such as Google Latitude and Gowalla are currently the top networks for allowing friends to connect with one another. They let you find where your friends are at a given time and can be useful for meeting up and finding new places. Google Latitude lets you check in and lets you rate and review businesses as you check in, so it is gaining steam with users.

Yelp is currently the dominate review driven site, with Google Latitude gaining heavy traction in this area. Yelp is the more business driven network of the two, as they allow businesses to set up deals such as “Get a $40 gift certificate for $25” that are displayed upon its Web page and inside of the mobile application which results in Yelp taking a 30% cut of the deal. Google has a free service such as this called Offers as listed under Google Places which is displayed in Google Maps and Google search results when it shows a business, and when a views the business in Google Places or Google Latitude via mobile device.

Deals seem to be a hot arena right now. As mentioned above Google and Facebook are currently getting in to the field. Like Facebook, Google has a service called Google Offers (not to be confused with Google Place Offers) that is currently only in select cities. Groupon is the number one one deal oriented service with the largest selection of cities available. There are also industry specific deal services such as OpenTable which lists restaurants that currently have an opening.

Each social network seems to have their own type of mechanism for verifying that you’re the owner of a business and have the ability to manage the listing on their service. Google Places sent out a post card to the address that had to be keyed in to verify the account ownership. Yelp’s primary mechanism is to call the phone number on file which was very useful in my experience. Foursquare is supposed to have a phone number verification system as well, but it seemed to be buggy when trying to call the last time I tried, so they sent out a place letter as a fall back.

Facebook ties in the location to the location on your Facebook page. This actually seems a bit too lax in my opinion and I hope that they put stronger restrictions in the future. We currently have three Facebook pages set up all using the same location and they all appear when a user tries to check in. With no formal verification in place anyone can create a page for a business and say they are the ones that are located at that place. I hope this changes in the future.

This post was originally published as Local Social Media for The BrandBuilder Company.

Google+ first impression

Published on 15 Jul 2011 at 3:56 pm. Comments Off on Google+ first impression.
Filed under Google,Mobile,Social Media.

Google+ logoLast week I was one of the many received a Google+ account. I have been using it for the last couple of days and I must say that I am thoroughly impressed it seems like a very nice, slick interface. It really feels to me like moving from MySpace to Facebook felt back in the day. A much sleeker, more intuitive interface that is free from crud. Google+ has already passed the 10 million user mark, so it is definitely a hit.

The Positives

Google+ introduced the concept of Circles. Circles allows you to categorize the type of relationship you have with the people you are connected to and is the driving force behind sharing in this social network. For instance, I have categories for friends and old college connections. While many of my connections are just in one circle, I have two people I met at college that are friends that I talk to every day placed into both circles. Whenever you upload a picture or video, or whenever you make a post or check in to a location Google asks you what circles you would like to share that information with. Think about how many people you’re connected to on Facebook that you see information on that you honestly don’t care about or need to be sharing info with? Yes, these things are technically possible with Facebook, but no one really uses them and most don’t even know they’re there. Additionally, using circles removes any fear you may have about connecting with a co-worker because you have very fine control over what you actually share with them.

Google+ also has something called Hangouts which can be summed up as simply “group video chat”. The fact that this is available today sucked the wind out of Facebook’s “awesome” announcement of one-on-one Skype video integration. I’ve tested this feature out and I must say that it is very good quality. The only thing I didn’t really like was that by default the video that you focus on takes up the entire width of the Hangouts window. Most people I know have older webcams that aren’t that high in quality, so you can really see the pixelation. Since you can easily change the focus of who you’re looking at it would be nice if you can set a fixed width on certain friends who cameras aren’t up to snuff since you might switch back and forth between two people where one has a great camera that can support a wide window, and the other might not look good there.

I have not yet tried out the Huddle feature, but this is supposed to be a super-fast group messaging feature. Another of Facebook’s “awesome” announcements that was included in Google+’s launch.

The Google+ Android mobile app just feels slick as heck. It allows you to check-in to locations which lets you connect with local businesses just like Google Places and Google Latitude allow. While I personally think Google needs to do a lot of work to improve on the local front (more on that in a future post), it’s good to see them thinking about it at launch. I have not yet tried the Google+ app for iOS so I cannot rate the experience there. From what I’ve heard it has a very different design, but the reaction I’ve seen has been positive.

The Negatives (or should we say Google- ?)

The most obvious draw back about an invite only service that just started up is that most people I know are not yet on it. Only having 5 people to share information with is not very social for this network. This is obviously going to change as time passes, but it for now it is a bit lonely. Facebook is trying really hard to keep people from leaving. They have updated their terms of service to ban Facebook Friend Exporter for Google Chrome, and Open-Xchange has been deactivated.

The next thing that I feel they need to improve upon is their attitude towards the business community. Currently Google+ does not work Google Apps users, but it is in the works. Since the service is not completely open to the world I can understand it, but it is annoying to me. When I got an account the first thing I tried to do was to send everyone in my company an invite and none of them received it. I had to ask for everyone’s gmail account. I later learned that it doesn’t have to be a gmail account, but it does have to be something besides a google apps account.

Similarly, the ability for businesses to create something like a Facebook Page and to extend Google+ with apps and games is a must for adoption. I am not a gamer, but that is why a lot of people user Facebook. Google+ needs its own farmville in order to really drive in users. Additionally, the business community is going to want to run their own ads like they can with Facebook.

This is just a pet peeve with me, I think their notification system is a bit too immediate. I use Trillian at home for chatting with Google services, and I have the Gmail notifier installed to inform me of new e-mails. I had Google+ open when I received my first chat reply ever and I received the message in Trillian, on the Google+ app, my Gmail notifier went off with a message of a new e-mail, and my Droid vibrated and played the notification noise. It was a bit of an overkill. I believe they have tweaked things slightly since then, but I occasionally get a couple of notifications that I don’t need.

All in all I am very happy with Google+. I think it is very good competition for Facebook. I hope to see more people on this service.

This post was originally published as Google+ first impression for The BrandBuilder Company.

Facebook’s “awesome” announcements

Published on 6 Jul 2011 at 6:06 pm. 1 Comment.
Filed under Mobile,Social Media.

Facebook recently announced the following:

  1. Group chat – basically the chat feature you already know and are used to, now with multiple users.
  2. A new design to display a buddy list if you have the browser width (most do).
  3. Video calling via Skype, but does not require the user to install Skype. Requires two click to set up, one click once it’s been done.

Maybe I’m just too technical, but none of that seems awesome to me. Gmail’s video chat always seemed superior to Skype to me. Now if they could do group video calling I’d be impressed and that would indeed be awesome. In the Q&A they clarified that group video calling is not possible yet, but hope for the future. Also clarified that you must accept a call before it will turn your camera on.

They basically side stepped any questions about Google and how this is helpful for Skype from a business perspective. For Skype all that was said was “Possibility of having Skype pay products as part of it”. The purchase of Skype by Microsoft was something that made Facebook feel really confident with the partnership.

Mobile will not video yet, but the group chat will be possible for mobile. This is funny since Zuckerberg called mobile the second biggest driver behind the growth in sharing.

The one thing that I found really interesting was that Zuckerberg sort of dissed the idea of placing users into groups saying that most people don’t do that. This is basically the concept behind Google Circles in Google+.

This post was originally published as Facebook’s “awesome” announcements for The BrandBuilder Company.

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