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What’s Not to Like About Twitter’s New Retweet Feature?

Twitter is of course in the process of rolling out a new retweet feature. The feature adds a retweet button to each tweet on your timeline, much like the “reply” button that has always been there. However, one distinct difference between these two buttons is that where the reply button fills out your form with the proper information (”@username”), the retweet button sends the initial tweet to your followers’ timelines without giving you your own tweet.

Do you prefer the old way of retweeting or the new way? Share your thoughts here.

In other words, you don’t get to add anything to it, you’re just duplicating a tweet that came to you and sending it to your followers. You’re forwarding it.



There are things to like about the feature. For one it’s more convenient if you just want to pass on an interesting tweet. If you’re the one being retweeted, it puts you in the spotlight in other people’s streams rather than the person who retweeted you. It kind of feels like you’re getting more credit for your tweets, although if you are just tweeting a link to someone else’s blog post that might not necessarily come off as a positive. Twitter CEO Evan Williams put up an interesting blog post last week defending the feature before it even had much of a chance to get torn apart by users. He knew it would be controversial, and he even acknowledged that fact.

As happens when any heavily-used site makes changes, some people get upset about it. Lisa Barone at outSpoken Media made a list of “things that suck” about the new retweet feature, and she brings up a number of good points, but her biggest peeve seems to be that of the avatars of people she doesn’t know showing up in her stream.

“Showing the unfamiliar avatar does not give me ‘more context’ for the tweet. It gives me less because I don’t know this individual,” she says. “If I were to see Rae’s avatar, I’d know to trust the content. I’d know it already passed the snuff test. When I see someone else’s avatar, I’m thrown off and confused. Will I get used to it? No, I’ll simply learn to ignore things from people I don’t know.”

She has a valid point in that seeing unfamiliar faces can be a bit off-putting, but aren’t the retweets still passing the “snuff test” since they are still being retweeted by people you follow? It’s not like these “strangers” are actually coming in and spamming us. It’s just a visually different way of presenting them. Whether or not we like that is one thing, but it’s a retweet from someone we’re following just as it was before in this regard. A great many Twitter users probably don’t even recognize half of the people they follow anyway.

That said, there are a number of other issues with the feature, as Barone points out. Some of the ones she touches on are:

- Can’t add own commentary (what if you don’t agree with what you’re retweeting?)

- Plays down user’s visibility in own network

- Changes the definition of retweeting (makes it more like a Facebook “like”)

The feature is still in limited beta testing, so regardless of what you feel about the feature, there is a possibility it will change. Even still, if you don’t like the feature, you don’t have to use it. You can still use the classic “RT” method just as you have always done. You just have a new option now. Depending on how many of the people you follow use the new feature, your Twitter experience can be affected more or less by it.

Are you getting the new retweet feature yet? What is your opinion? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it. Tell WebProNews readers what you think about it.

Related Articles:

> An Equation for Getting More Traffic from Twitter

> Wonder What Percentage of Tweets are Retweets?

> More to Retweeting Than Meets the Eye for Businesses?

If You Care About Search, You Must Care About Social Media

All of the search engines are rushing to incorporate more social media elements into their interfaces. Examples of this are evident in things like Google and Bing’s deals with Twitter and Facebook. You can see it in Yahoo’s new Twitter tab for news results. You can see it in Google’s Social Search lab. Really you can see it in everyday search results.

Do you consider a social presence an important element to your search campaign? Discuss here.

A lot of Internet users spend a great deal of their time socializing or using social media sites in one way or another, whether that is to connect with others or simply to obtain information. Information is a key component of social media that often takes a backseat to communication in discussion of social media tools.

The fact of the matter is that more and more people are getting more and more of their information from social sites. That could be in the form of following a news publication on Twitter, following company updates on a blog or a Facebook page, or something as simple as a friend sharing a link.

Given that people are getting more info from social media sites, of course search engines want a piece of that, because their whole reason for existence is naturally to help users find what they are looking for on the web.

So, it stands to reason that if you want people to find information that you are producing, it can help a great deal to publish information and participate in conversations on social media sites. Never mind that users of those particular sites will have access to it. The general public will as well by way of search, regardless of whether or not they are a part of any particular community.

In an interview with WebProNews, Vanessa Fox, who used to work for Google, talked about reasons that businesses should be thinking about social media with regards to search. It’s about visibility. If you are having discussions out there about relevant topics, they could appear in search results not only in real-time search, but further down the road as well.

In other words, if you have a conversation with a peer on Twitter about some topic related to your niche, there is a good chance the resulting tweets of that conversation could appear in search results for that topic on Google, even a year from now, if that tweet happens to be relevant enough. That’s just an example (note: it’s hard to say at this point, just how tweets will impact search once the Google-Twitter deal starts showing results).

There are a variety of ways in which a social campaign can contribute to your performance in search engines, regardless of what these recent deals might produce. Like Lee Odden of Top Rank Online Marketing recently discussed with WebProNews, you can optimize your social content.

The web went blog crazy a few years back. Marketers found out that blogs were great for achieving search engine visibility because of the content and links that can come from them. It’s not that different with social media now. The web has largely moved into a social media-heavy phase, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Search engines obviously know this and care about it.

As Fox says in her interview, it’s getting to the point where more businesses are starting to realize that they need to be involved with social media. However, surveys still frequently suggest that many are reluctant, and even if they do engage to some extent, they are still holding back, and not reaching the potential they could be.

You know search is important to marketing on the web. Really, it’s important to marketing, period. If you operate on the web or off, your customers are on still online, as Fox noted. Social media is growing increasingly important to search. And search is only one aspect of online marketing. There are many more benefits to social media than that.

How important is social media to search? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Social is Only Going to Become More Important to Search

> Where Social Media Fits Into the SEO Equation

Report: Microsoft, News Corp. Plotting Against Google

The companies behind search engines sometimes try to attract more traffic by advertising.  Establishing a partnership is another strategy, as is improving the actual search results.  Microsoft might be ready to try something a little different, however, as a new report’s indicated that the company is interested in making Google’s results worse.

Remember the days when arguments about search engines centered on the size of their indices?  Well, according to Matthew Garrahan and Richard Waters, Microsoft does.  “Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to ‘de-index’ its news websites from Google,” the pair reported.

They then continued, “Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.”

This idea seems plausible enough, given that Microsoft has a history of paying for users (think of its popular and long-running cashback program).  There’s also the simple fact that Microsoft, with its market cap of $263 billion, could possibly outspend Google (which has a market cap of $181 billion) if a bidding war erupted.

What’s more difficult to say is whether the idea is any good.  There’s no word on how much money News Corp. and other publishers would receive, and it’s anybody’s guess how many searchers would switch engines to retain easy access to their content.

Related Articles:

> 80% Of Consumers Would Not Pay For Content

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: ”I Think We Will”

> Google Okay With Blocking News Corp.

Google Doesn’t Know if Your Site is in the Cloud

Google’s Matt Cutts discussed how the search engine handles sites that that are “in the cloud” with regards to how listings are affected. Matt’s explanation was a response to the following user-submitted question:

Can moving my website to “the cloud” harm my listings? Say my server’s in Germany and I move the website to Google’s App Engine or Amazon S3. Does this harm my listings for German results – or is it enough to set the “geographic target” in GWT to Germany?

Matt broke the question down into separate parts to answer them. First, he took on the part about moving a site to “the cloud” harming the users’ listings. His answer for this is basically that Google doesn’t even know if your site is in the cloud, so it can’t use that information to affect listings.

“We don’t know what is happening on the side of your web server. Your web server could be running Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby on Rails,” said Cutts. “All we know is what the web server returns. So your web server could be running code that would go talk to Amazon’s cloud or Appspot or anywhere else in the cloud, but we wouldn’t even know that. We don’t even know whether a page is dynamically created or statically created. All we know is what the web server sends back.”

He says if your site is talking to the cloud behind the scenes, there is now way for any search engine or bot to know about that. Watch the video above to hear Matt’s explanation for the second part of the user’s question.

Related Articles:

> Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010

> Google May Change Your Page Titles

> Where Google Stands on the “Keywords” Meta Tag

MySpace Reaches Deal With Another Music Label

The “virtual fifth label” is now friends with MySpace.  Merlin, an organization that represents independent music companies, is supposed to have signed a deal with the social network that should nicely complement MySpace’s existing partnerships with EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner.

Merlin’s association with indie artists and late arrival to the music scene (it launched in January of 2007) set it apart from the so-called Big Four.  Just the same, Merlin’s a major force, with members in more than 25 countries, and names like Cat Power, Tom Waits, and The White Stripes linked with it.

So it’s quite noteworthy that, according to Andrew Orlowski, a Merlin spokesman stated, “After more than a year of negotiations, MySpace Music has finally offered Merlin a deal that is acceptable to its members, members who represent 10% of the global music market.”

What’s more, “The same eligibility and level of participation will be offered to all independent labels licensing content to MySpace Music.”

Of course, the details of the arrangement haven’t yet been made public, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered.  But it looks like MySpace, which acquired Imeem just yesterday and launched MySpace Music Charts the day before, is really on a roll on the music front.

Related Articles:

> MySpace Picks Up Imeem

> MySpace Launches New Music Charts

> MySpace’s “New Moon” Webcast Brings In 3m Viewers

eBay Completes Skype Sale

It looks like the eBay-Skype spectacle has finally come to a close.  Despite all of the arguments (legal and otherwise) that cropped up at one point or another, representatives of both companies announced last night that the sale of Skype to an investor group is complete.

Josh Silverman, the president of Skype, adopted a rather enthusiastic approach when breaking the news.  He wrote on the Share Skype Blog, “Great news – we’ve closed the deal with the new investors. . . .  Our journey continues: say hello to the future!”

And that future appears to be a bright one, by the way.  As had been agreed earlier, the transaction valued Skype at an impressive $2.75 billion (impressive if you ignore the fact that eBay bought it for $2.6 billion in 2005, anyway), and $1.9 billion in cash actually changed hands as the investor group acquired a 70 percent stake.

What’s more, the investor group (which was led by Silver Lake) includes such interesting organizations and people as Andreessen Horowitz, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Joltid Limited, and Skype’s original founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

This would appear to make it much more likely that SkypeIn service will expand into Canada, and there’s no telling how else the new owners will try to grow and improve the company.

Related Articles:

> eBay And Skype Settle Litigation

> Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

> eBay Sells Skype, Which Is Worth $2.75 Billion

Americans’ Social Media Habits Highlight Business Potential

Euro RSCG released some interesting findings from a study exploring the different ways Americans are using social media to “redefine their lives.” The study looked at 1,228 social media users in the United States.

“Word of mouth has always been the most powerful marketing tool; what social media has done is dramatically increase the scale, velocity and immediacy with which people can influence each other and create the biggest revolution to hit our industry since television,” said David Jones, global CEO of Euro RSCG. “One of the interesting findings of the study is that it’s the combination of online and offline experiences that creates the biggest impact.”

Other findings include:

- Even though 53.5% of respondents have met new people through electronic media, face-to-face interaction is still the “gold standard”

- Consumers are engaging more in multi-way exchanges of ideas and opinions among consumers and brands

- Consumers are not only move involved with family and friends, but they have increased involvement in political and humanitarian issues.

- 40% agree that social groupings online can be truly social, while only 14% disagree. According to Euro RSCG, figures varied little across age, gender, ethnic, or income groups.

“Online social networking has become part of our culture so quickly, it’s easy to forget just how new it is and how much it’s a work in progress. People are still experimenting with the different options and finding ways to make it part of their life,” said Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America. “Forget the images of sad antisocial types. Smart consumers are mixing and matching the tools that come available to meet their social needs. Electronic tools are making them even more socially active, just as the telephone did back in the day.”

Perhaps more interesting than the statistics provided by the firm, are the key takeaways it cites. This includes things like the fact that social media is an important consideration for any communications strategy, and the fact that it’s impossible to predict how bits of communication will spread across social media.

The firm also says that even though the web is world-wide, its emerging power is hyperlocal. This is because this is the space where online and offline most often meet. That is a key reason why businesses, particularly local businesses should not ignore social media.

Related Articles:

> If You Care About Search, You Must Care About Social Media

> A Few Guidelines for Drafting Social Media Guidelines

> Businesses Benefit From Reviews On Their Website

Excuse Me, But Where Did Google’s Organic Search Results Go?

In the past many SEOs have called organic search results the results on the left side of the page and the pay-per-click / AdWords results as the results on the right side of the page. As Google has grown more aggressive with promoting vertical/universal search I think a better way of defining the portions of the search result page are ABOVE THE FOLD and BELOW THE FOLD.

As recently as yesterday Google stripped the phone numbers off of non-sponsored map listings, even if you were doing a navigational search! And that shows that the primary goal of the maps is as filler content (rather than utility).

Update: it looks like Google claimed the phone number removal was a bug, but weird timing that the bug appeared at the same time they started selling premium local ads that appear on the regular search results.

So lets redefine these search result pieces as they are…

• AdWords Ads: the ads at the top of the search results and those which run down the right rail of the search results.
• Universal Search Results: filler stuff to put in the search results to a.) drive the organic search results lower down the page, while b.) driving additional incremental click volume to other Google properties which display ads.
• Organic Search Results: the results on the search result page that are determined algorithmically and appear below the fold. On some larger monitors a listing or 2 from this category may appear above the fold, at least for the time being.

In the future A LOT of verticals (movies, music, books, news, ecommerce, travel, etc.) are going to look more and more like local, where Google in some cases has at least 15 ads above the fold AND filler pushing down the organic search results…quietly building a backdoor portal that sends Google the second click if they were not able to monetize the first one.

To me this screams the importance of working the tail of search, because the more obscure a search query is the greater the risk to Google if they pollute it with junk from vertical search databases.

As Google gets stingier with their traffic that will increase the importance of relationship development and lead capture, as well as developing distribution channels outside of Google.

This new search result layout also highlights the importance of being #1 for your most important keywords…if only 1 result is going to show above the fold then there is little point being #2. So that will really help/force you to decide which words are practical to target and which words are not. If you have some valuable #3 or #4 listings you better start marketing them today before they end up below the fold tomorrow.

The last important thing this search result signals is the importance of increasing conversion rates and lifetime customer value…if/when search becomes pay-to-play in your market, will you still be able to compete? If not, what can be done to help bridge that gap?

Facebook Sends Cease And Desist To Friend-Seller

uSocial is a controversial advertising company that specializes in social media.  For a fee, it promises to get stories on the front page of Digg, direct followers to a Twitter account, and/or find someone Facebook fans (among other things).  But Facebook’s put at least a temporary stop to the sale of friends.

The BBC reported this afternoon, “Facebook sent Cease and Desist letters to USocial claiming that the way the marketing firm operates violates its rights by sending spam, using web tools to harvest pages, getting login names and by accessing accounts that did not belong to the marketing firm.”

As a result, “USocial defended itself against Facebook’s claims, saying that it did not spam users or use web tools to gather information about profiles. . . .  However, in response to the legal letters, USocial said it would delete the login information it had collected and broadly stop offering to sell Facebook friends.”

This is an interesting development insofar as, three months ago, Twitter also tried to crack down on uSocial.  Its back-channel methods apparently didn’t succeed, but now that Facebook’s established a precedent, we might see another attempt.  Delicious, Digg, and Reddit could well join the fight, too.

Of course, the hubbub around such a scuffle would act as free advertising for uSocial and might spread the notion that these social media sites can be gamed, so it’s also possible that absolutely nothing will occur.

Related Articles:

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy In Users’ Hands

> Facebook Blocks Popular iLike App

> Want More Facebook Friends?

U.S. Broadband Speeds Still Lacking

The average download Internet speed in the United States between 2007 and 2009 increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009, according to a new report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

The Speed Matters Speed Test, a project of the CWA, measures the speed of a user’s Internet connection. The 2009 Speed Test found that only 20 percent of those who took the test have Internet speeds in the range of the top ranked countries including South Korea, Japan and Sweden. In addition, 18 percent do not meet the FCC definition for basic broadband as an always-on Internet connection of at least 768 kbps downstream.

The data revealed where a user lives is a good indicator of Internet connection speed. Users who live in a Northeastern or Mid-Atlantic state, are most likely to have a good high-speed Internet options. The fastest five states are: Delaware (9.9 mbps), Rhode Island (9.8 mbps), New Jersey (8.9 mbps), Massachusetts (8.6 mbps) and New York (8.4 mbps).

Users in Southern or Western states are less likely to have access to high-speed Internet. Mississippi (3.7 mbps), South Carolina (3.6 mbps), Arkansas (3.1 mbps), Idaho (2.6 mbps) and Alaska (2.3 mbps) have some of the slowest Internet connection speeds.

Larry Cohen
President, Communications
Workers of America

“Every American should have affordable access to high-speed Internet, no matter where they live. This is essential to economic growth and will help maintain our global competitiveness,” said Larry Cohen, president, Communications Workers of America.

“Unfortunately, fragmented government programs and uneven private sector responses to build out Internet access have left a digital divide across the country.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act calls for a national broadband plan by spring 2010 and $7.2 billion in broadband grants for unserved and underserved areas. The CWA says a national plan to improve America’s Internet connections speeds should:

Establish a national policy goal: A reasonable initial goal would be to construct an infrastructure with enough capacity for 10 megabits per second (mbps) downstream and 1 mbps upstream by 2010. New benchmarks in succeeding years should expand the number of households capable of sending and receiving multiple channel high-definition video and reach the global standard of 100 mbps.

Encourage Public-Private Partnerships: Successful efforts-like ConnectOhio-to increase America’s Internet speeds and capacity are important. These kinds of efforts are well-suited to assess needs, create state broadband maps and technology plans and share knowledge about successful initiatives. If encouraged, they can help simulate high-speed broadband demand, deployment and adoption nationwide.

Reform Universal Service: We need subsidies, low-interest loans, and tax incentives to support broadband deployment in high-cost rural areas, and help make computers and Internet access more affordable for low-income families.

Monitor Progress: Broadband public policies should support the growth of good, career jobs as a key to providing quality Internet service and require public reporting of deployment, actual speed, price and customer service benchmarks.

“Improving broadband deployment, connection speeds, and adoption will help facilitate job and business growth,” said Cohen.

“By continuing these efforts we can make sure that America benefits from the information age.”