Facebook continues to expand its offering on a monthly basis with recent releases like the Open Graph and “Like” button. They are now turning their attention towards local marketing. As with all of Facebook’s new initiatives, most of the online chatter is asking how Google intends to combat this and, more importantly, how it will position itself as a leading social decision making engine.

There is no doubt Facebook will put Google under pressure, but a lot of the claims regarding Google’s demise are wide of the mark. Although Google is losing market share to Yahoo and Bing, we shouldn’t forget along with their search dominance, they also have a 98% share in mobile and are banking on location based marketing for mobile being a considerable revenue stream.

In relation to search, there has been a lot of misinformation recently on how Facebook, Twitter and other social metrics are affecting search results. There is no evidence of metrics from these properties being used in the main algorithm however they may use social metrics when applying their QDF algorithm. Dave Harry has some great information on this subject in the post “The Evolution of Ranking Signals: Google is Getting Past the Link”. It discusses how Google can move towards behavioural data and social data. If the search engine results are based on those areas it becomes more difficult to rank a website based on spam tactics. You are not going to spam yourself (behavioural) and will not build a network of obvious spammers (social).

Google has its own social graph through user’s Google profile which, if connected to their Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and friend feed accounts, provides Google with plenty of social content which can then use to enhance a person’s search results. These ‘social results’ were rolled out recently in Google US and Google UK but are still in beta.

Alongside Google’s own social graph, it already has a wealth of information on users’ online behavior and tastes through their past search history. Personalised search means results are no longer the same for each user. They now include Google Maps, Google Places results, tweets, and forum results, all relevant to the user who is searching.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, explains that Google already roughly ‘knows who you are and where you are’, and from past searches what you like. Google’s goal is not to simply return a list of the best results for a given search, but to tell you ‘what you should be doing next’.

Tapedtogether is an experiment in crowdsourcing and online content curation resulting in a Summer Playlist for 2010 featuring an eclectic mix of artists from Frank Sinatra to DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, all put together on a website inspired by the iconic artwork of Saul Bass.

Similar to NBCs Olympic coverage, CNN brings you the World Cup Twitter tracker an easy way to stay up to date with the buzz about the games.

David Perez sold his soul for 1 week to Twitter. He wanted to go to the Advertising Festival in Cannes and Leo Burnett agreed to send him, the only condition was he had to partake in a social media experiment where he did everything his Twitter followers commanded him to. What would you get him to do? He’s already tattooed the ‘fail whale’ on his arm!

It’s summer and the weather is nice! Now is not the time to be eating in front of your work computer, get involved and take back your lunch while the sun is still shining!

Google is currently in talks with music labels about rolling out a song download store that will rival Apple’s iTunes and take a share of the US$4.3 billion digital music market. The service will be available for a growing number of devices that run on its Android mobile operating system.

Led by Andy Rubin, a former Apple engineer who is now the chief architect of Android, the scheme is expected to start off as part of a web store which uses Google’s search engine before it becomes its own subscription service in 2011. This is in addition to a music streaming desktop app that will allow Android users to stream music direct from their home computers to their phones through a dedicated internet service.

Big news at last week’s Google Developers Conference with Google announcing they are bringing search to your TV viewing experience with the launch of Google TV.

As more and more TV content is available online, and as homes move to digital TV, the actual convergence of these platforms is now a reality.

The impact on how we consume video content in the very near future will be immense and as Google ‘open source’ the Google TV platform this will stimulate significant innovation by developers.

You will of course need a set-top box to facilitate this and an Internet enabled TV.

Google will initially partner with Sony and the service will be available in North America later this year.

This Google animation explains it all quite eloquently

http://asherrothmusic.com/
The concept for this site was simple: Musician Asher Roth wanted a unique way to share his day to day experiences with his fans. The result: Asher carries around a card which has an illustration of the website printed on it. He takes on-location pics holding the card, with the resulting photos uploaded as the landing page for the website. Visitors to the site navigate using the card as the primary interface. What’s really nice is the use of FLARToolKit so the graphic elements change to match the colour of the card. Note: this concept is best explained by visiting the site for yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/drivetheateamvan
Always wanted to drive the A Team van? Now you can! Created to promote the new A Team movie, this game was developed using Google maps. On completion of a level, players receive a preview clip for the upcoming release.

http://www.work-club.com/blackboard/
Discover every single line ever written on The Simpson’s Springfield Elementary School blackboard! It only took 2 days, 20 white markers, 288 lines and 7,697 characters….

http://www.youtube.com/canneslions
The YouTube Cannes Young Lions Ad Contest is back this year with a brief for WaterAid. Each entrant had 48 hours to make their video and post it to the YouTube channel. They have a week to promote their ad to get public votes which will be taken into account to decide the ultimate winner. With two days left to vote, do your bit and vote!

Google’s mass roll out of personalised search is having a dramatic affect on both keyword positions and overall website traffic. Google recently announced they would provide more data in the Top Search Queries, making it a lot easier to track fluctuations in organic search positions.

The tool will now provide impressions and click through rates for those keywords driving organic traffic to a website. It will allow users to track how their keyword positions change on a weekly basis and what effect this is having on organic traffic to their website.

The new data highlights the importance of page title and meta description in driving free clicks to a website. Looking to the best performing PPC ad groups is a great way to optimize a websites organic listings.

Ireland’s Digital Media Future by Minister Eamon Ryan. from Cybercom on Vimeo.

Hello from the RDS, where the morning session of the National Digital Media & Marketing Summit has just finished.

Leonard Donnelly, Chairman of the Digital Hub Development Committee alongside Catherine O’Mahony, Media & Marketing Editor of The Sunday Marketing Editor, opened the summit, followed by the International Keynote Address from Josephine Pike, Commercial Director of Ad2one, UK.

Next up was John  Dunne, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Intune Networks who talked about the future of web services and the digital long-tail, referencing the ability for consumers to choose their own specialised local services. John believes that the future of marketing and advertising is the overlap between the global cloud and local networks, of which the Intune Networks will the first tuneable network. He also talked about the creation of a quality digital experience where you can watch digital content at high-definition. This experience is powered by a laser, developed by Intune, that is 100 times more powerful than the most powerful laser currently out there (compare the speed of a tricycle with that of a jet).

John also made us aware that of 33 countries, Ireland is being held up as one of the top four countries that could break through in the next generation technology and marketing field.  Intune managed to gain €122 million in private finace last year, the largest in Europe and they haven’t even launched their product yet! Very inspirational stuff for a Wednesday morning.

Next up was Jonathan Forrest, our own MD, who challenged the marketing community to rise to the challenge of positioning Ireland as a leader in the digital marketing field, followed by a fantastic presentation from Morgan McKeagney, MD of IQ Content who talked about the importance of design in creating memorable digital experiences. Tim Hurles of IO and Danny Meadows-Klue, Founder of The Digital Training Academy UK & Ireland followed, but more on that later. In the meantime, follow the summit in real time on Twitter with the hastag  #ndmms.

Great article in yesterday’s Sunday Times regarding You Tube’s decision to pay copyright holders a cut for every view of videos that contain their music. In this landmark licensing agreement agreed between Google (owner of You Tube), the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro) and the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Ireland (MCPSI), musicans will receive a cut every time a video is clicked on in Ireland, even if the music is only played in the background. This new digital revenue generating stream is great news for the Irish music industry, struggling amidst a drop in  CD sales.

According to the article, “The collection companies will receive a lump sum payment based on the number of hits to videos. YouTube has agreed to provide data on the hits so that Imro/MCPSI can decide how to distribute the fee to its members. It is understood the deal includes a retrospective payment for content which has been accessed since YouTube became available in Ireland in 2005.”

It is hoped that the Irish deal will see an end to bands demanding that the website remove its songs.

Get clicking folks and earn your fellow musicians some Easter euros!

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