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Introducing Trove: Already The Best Facebook Search Around & Set To Tackle Other Social Networks Next
It’s no secret that Facebook’s existing search engine is bad; that drum has been beaten to death. But you don’t have to wait for Facebook to make it better; there’s a pretty darn good Facebook search engine out there now. It’s called Trove, and it’s officially launching on Tuesday. But you can connect your Facebook […]
Zuckerberg On Search: “At Some Point, We’ll Do It” & Be “Uniquely Positioned”
Waiting for a Facebook search engine? Eventually, it’ll arrive, says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But it might not be what you expect. Speaking in an interview today at TechCrunch Disrupt with Mike Arrington, Zuckerberg said that Facebook is doing a billion searches per day, “and we’re not even trying.” Most searches are, as we’ve heard […]
How Facebook “Sponsored Results” Search Ads Aren’t Like AdWords At All
Search marketer ears likely perked up to hear that Facebook launched search advertising this week. But anyone who’s expecting it to be similar to AdWords or adCenter is going to be disappointed. Actually, it’s more akin to other forms of Facebook advertising, despite appearing in search results. Consider these typical AdWords ads: They appear above […]
Developing Better Search A Key To Facebook’s Future
During last week’s Facebook earnings call COO Sheryl Sandberg argued that the company could and would compete for marketing dollars “throughout the entire marketing funnel.” That is, from branding and awareness at the “top” of the so-called funnel to “demand fulfillment” at the “bottom.” Below is the quote in broader context: We believe we are […]
Facebook: No Sense “To Even Begin To Think About Doing Web Search” Now
Facebook is working on improving its search engine, but a company executive says it doesn’t make sense “to even begin to think about doing web search” right now. Lars Rasmussen, Director of Engineering at Facebook, made the comments in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. He told the paper that he’s “working on something […]
How “Facebook Search” Could Help Google Escape The Antitrust Noose
Last week in the Chicago Tribune former judge and scholar Robert Bork (who is also a Google advisor) penned an opinion column arguing that by the accepted standards of antitrust law Google has done nothing legally wrong. Bork says, “There is extraordinary competition in the search engine business. Look at the proliferation of what are […]
How Serious Is Facebook About Search?
An article in BusinessWeek suggests that Facebook is planning a deeper push into search. Will that be limited to improving search for the site — or will it be something more comprehensive? It’s clear that Facebook needs better internal search. Right now the search function at the top of the page is not very useful. […]
How People Power (& Personalize) Bing’s Social Search
The good folks over at Stone Temple Consulting released an in-depth interview with Bing’s Principal Group Program Manager for Bing Social Search, Paul Yiu. The Bing social search team integrates social content and indicators into the search results to add both personalization and relevance to the search results. Bing currently ties in data from both […]
Bing Posts To Facebook Timeline If You Use New “Linked Pages”
Yesterday, Bing rolled out a new “Linked Pages” feature that looks interesting. But using the feature gives Bing permission to post to Facebook on your behalf. That’s a lot of permission that seems necessary only as a way for Bing to pimp itself. It also means your friends might soon be posting Linked Pages to […]
Under Threat Of Being Blocked Google, Facebook Comply With India’s New Internet Censorship Rules
After China and the US, India is the third largest internet market in the world. But India has philosophically aligned itself more with China in pursuing a policy of censorship toward publication of content deemed “offensive” or “objectionable” by individuals, groups or the government. A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from […]
Report: Social Media Spending Threatens To Overtake Paid Search Among SMBs
Borrell Associates has come out with an extensive new report about small business (“SMBs”) and social media adoption. It contains forecasts and spending estimates as well as other data about SMB usage of social media as a marketing tool. There’s a great deal of data already in the market about SMB adoption of social media. […]
Free Speech Battle In India: Google, Facebook Summoned By Court Over “Inflammatory Images”
According to a report from Chinese news agency Xinhua, a judge in India has ordered a broad range of online companies, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo, to “delete ‘inflammatory’ images of religious figures” from their sites. Though not identified in news reports the images were deemed offensive or blasphemous under a sweeping law enacted earlier […]
Facebook Ranked #3, Google #5 For Best Places To Work
Glassdoor.com, a job and career web site, announced their annual best places to work in 2012 study. Facebook tops Google with the number 3 listing, whereas Google moved up for their 2011 spot of 30 to number 5. In 2010 Google was rated number 14, and in 2009 Google was rated number 7. Glassdoor.com developed […]
Facebook Downplays Significance Of FTC Privacy Settlement
Facebook and the US Federal Trade Commission announced their formal privacy settlement today. Facebook and the federal agency each put their spin on it, with Facebook saying it was very similar to “agreements” previously reached with Google and Twitter: Recently, the US Federal Trade Commission established agreements with Google and Twitter that are helping to […]
New European Law ‘Targets’ Personalized Ad Targeting On Facebook
A new directive by the European Commission may stop advertisers from leveraging users’s information when advertising on Facebook. The Telgraph reports that the EC is looking into the way that Facebook “eavesdrops” on users and how personal data is made available for ad targeting. This new legislation will be introduced in January and will be applicable […]
Now It’s Facebook’s Turn For 20 Years Of FTC Privacy Audits
According to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal the world’s largest social network is nearing a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that will subject the company to 20 years of “privacy audits.” A nearly identical punishment was imposed earlier this year on Google over “deceptive privacy practices in Google’s rollout […]
Facebook’s Zuckerberg To Charlie Rose: “We Just Do One Thing”
Asked to reflect on the cultural differences between Google and Facebook, current Facebook COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg told Charlie Rose that “Google is fundamentally about algorithms and machine learning . . . We start from a totally different place. We start from an individual: Who are you? What do you want to do? What do […]
Report: The Top Brands On Facebook & Key Brand Success Factors
In a new whitepaper from Covario, a search marketing firm and SaaS SEO provider, Facebook brands were analyzed and monitored in a quest to find the top brand. Additional stats were provided including brand goals, and key success factors and Facebook search for brands.. Social Media Goals One of the most interesting tidbits in the report was the […]
Taylor: “The Majority Of People On Facebook Have Modified Their Privacy Settings”
Speaking at Web 2.0 Summit today, Facebook’s chief technical officer Bret Taylor said that people do change their default privacy settings on Facebook — most of them, in fact. “The majority of people on Facebook have modified their privacy settings,” Taylor said. “If you talk to a college student, they know exactly what their parents can see […]
Demystifying Facebook’s “People Are Talking About This” Metric
Earlier this week Facebook announced features and functionality that were mainly geared toward pages and ads. One of the newest metrics released is the “people are talking about this” for pages. The goal of this number is to track conversations happening around specific pages. However, we have seen more users becoming confused as to what the […]
Facebook “Frictionless Sharing” Creating Friction With Privacy Advocates, Regulators
Mark Zuckerberg at F8, the Facebook developer conference held last week, exhorted people to “tell their life story” on Facebook via its new Timeline feature. Facebook also promoted new Open Graph apps integration and so-called “frictionless sharing.” But frictionless sharing is already creating a great deal of friction for Facebook in privacy circles and with […]
Zuckerberg Passes Brin & Page On Forbes’ Rich List
Scoreboard: Facebook guy – 1, Google guys – 0. Or, more accurately: Facebook guy – $17.5 billion, Google guys – $16.7 billion (each). Those are the estimated net worths of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as reported in the latest edition of the Forbes 400 Rich List — […]
Newspaper-Inspired Facebook Layout Will Deliver More Interesting Stories & A Real-Time Ticker
In a move that shouldn’t surprise anyone, Facebook is re-organizing users’ homepages. The new look homepage will allow users to “see the things they’re most interested in.” The main elements that will power the new layout are, the revamped Friend Lists, the new Subscribe button, and a real-time ticker. One notable change is that the […]
Facebook Plays Nice With Twitter, Will Allow Users To Turn Wall Posts Into Tweets
It has been reported by the BBC, that Facebook will soon be allowing users to sync Twitter accounts with their Facebook updates. Previously only Facebook pages or the use of third party applications had this type of linking ability. Of course, the odd man out in this revelation is Google+. Facebook and Google+ haven’t been […]
Facebook Adds “Subscribe” Button, Other News Feed Options
On the heels of its announcement about Smart Lists, Facebook is giving users more options for sharing and managing their content, including letting individuals share public content with people who “subscribe” to their feeds rather than “friend” them. The most important change is probably the introduction of a “Subscribe” button to each user’s profile. (This […]
Facebook Lists Get Smart With Automation & Suggestions
Today Facebook announced enhancements to lists, including the release of “smart lists.” This new functionality helps to auto-generate lists for users, a task that was somewhat arduous in the past. Smart Lists The new smart list feature gives users assistance in list creation. Facebook will actually be auto-generating lists based on user attributes. for example: […]
Facebook Social Deals Done After Four Months
Facebook is backing off from the local/small business space — or at least parts of it. A few days after dropping its check-in service for Facebook Places, the company is now getting out of the deals business. In a statement reported by Reuters, Facebook says its Deals product will go away “in the coming weeks.” […]
Facebook Takes Aim At Instagram With Photo Filters Feature
New Facebook features have been released rampantly as of late, the newest taking aim at Instagram. The New York Times reported that Facebook will be introducing a dozen photo filters, similar to Instagram’s vintage & washed out effects: Instagram is a free app for the iPhone allows users to modify and enhance photos by applying […]
Facebook To Step Up Acquisitions: Report
There was a time before the “Great Recession” when a cluster of companies were seemingly always bidding against one another to acquire the hot startup of the month. The core of that group consisted of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, AOL and News Corp. But while AOL and Yahoo still buy companies — AOL bought HuffingtonPost […]
Study: 27% Of Referral Traffic To Facebook Pages Comes From Google
A study by PageLever, an analytics tool for Facebook, showed that search engines are major traffic drivers for Facebook pages, making up 34% of all external referrals. Google was the leading search engine sending 27.57% of all external traffic to pages. This study analyzed 1000 pages, with a minimum of 10,000 fans each. Surprisingly, Yahoo! is sending […]
Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button Declared Illegal In Germany
Citing violations to the countries strict privacy laws, the Independent Center for Privacy Protection (ULD) called for all Facebook ‘like’ plugins to be removed in the German state of Schlewsing-Holstein. The ULD stated that the Facebook ‘like’ plugin infringes on the Telemedia Act and the Federal Data Protection Act as Facebook transfers data back to the […]
Bing’s Facebook Fans Do 68% More Searches Than Average Bing Users
Bing’s Facebook fans really “like” searching. And they like searching on Bing, it appears. According to a recent comScore white paper, Bing’s Facebook fans do 68% more searches (on Bing) than the average Bing user. And it extends out a bit further, too: The friends of those fans do 27% more searches than regular Bing […]
Facebook Adds Targeting By Zip Codes To Advertisements
Up til now, Facebook Ads could be targeted by Country, State/Province and by City. Yesterday Facebook added an additional targeting type, by zip code: This is a big deal for Facebook marketing, as it is now much more attractive for local businesses. Local business owners can now target the exact zip codes where they draw from, […]
Facebook Launches “Messenger” App To Compete In Mobile Messaging Space
Today Facebook announced the release of Messenger, an app for mobile devices that allows for messaging to “friends and small groups.” This app allows for messaging to both Facebook friends and phone contacts, something Google+’s Huddles doesn’t do. Messenger acts as an extension of Facebook messages, so you can view your full history of mobile […]
Facebook Now Grouping News Feed Stories By Topic
Today Facebook announced that changes have been made to the way that the news feed displays similar updates from friends. Facebook will essentially group posts together in the news feed if they are on the same topic. This will operate very similarly to the grouping that occurs when multiple friends share the same link. The […]
Report: Only 15% of Small Business Facebook Fans Are Actually Local
A new study released today by Roost, a technology company that helps companies with social media, determined that: “…only 15 percent of the average local business’ fans are actually in the city where the business is located.” This data was uncovered using proprietary scorecards that analyzes audience distributions and other SMB business metrics. The report […]
Facebook Launches In-Depth Guide For Businesses
Late yesterday Facebook announced “Facebook for Businesses” providing users clear and concise directions for properly marketing on Facebook. This is very similar to last month’s “Twitter for Newsrooms” as both are official resources for entry level participants. The variety of marketing options on Facebook can be daunting for new marketers, but this guide does a great job explaining […]
Report: 58 Percent of SMBs On Social Media Sites, Most Have Only Limited Engagement
There’s been a boatload of survey data released in the past six months documenting the adoption of social media by US small businesses (SMBs). The numbers range from about 40 to 70 percent of SMBs reporting they’re using social media to some degree. Yet survey data aren’t always accurate because it’s challenging to get a […]
Report: Facebook Like Button Most Used, Google +1 Button Surging
Today BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, released a report on the adoption of social sharing plugins on websites and links to those sites. The findings show that about half of the top 10,000 websites have a link to their Facebook pages from their home page, 40% link to their Twitter pages and when it comes […]
Facebook Announces Video Calling, Group Chat & Redesigned Chat
Facebook announced three new “awesome” changes to the Facebook platform during a press event today. A great deal of Facebook information was displayed along with the announcement of three new elements . The new features and functionality include: Video Calling Facebook’s biggest announcement today was the partnership with Skype which will allow for video calling from within Facebook. This […]