September 2006 saw just about one out of every twenty US Internet visits hit a social networking destination. That activity had an impact beyond the social networking arena, with sites seeing a substantial runoff from the MySpaces of the world.

October's data showed the same figure for online activity leading to the world of goofy pictures, embedded music players, and too many people who think it's funny to put red text on a blue background. Hitwise USA research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a report distributed today how visits to places like MySpace had an impact beyond their domains.

"In September 2006, 2.4 percent of visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites came directly from MySpace," Prescott wrote, "an increase of 83 percent since March 2006. Other industries receiving increased traffic from MySpace in that period were Telecommunications, Banks and Financial Institutions, and Travel."

Shopping & Classifieds subcategories visited from MySpace reflected the interests of its members. In September 2006, MySpace users visited sites for Music, Ticketing, Apparel and Accessories, Auctions, and Video and Games.

The gap between MySpace and Facebook, the top two social networking sites based on market share as measured by Hitwise, could not be much wider than what it was in September. For that month, MySpace took nearly 82 percent of the market share, while Facebook claimed 7.24 percent.

The next four sites, Xanga, Yahoo! 360, BlackPlanet.com, and Bebo, each managed a little over one percent market share. None of the next 14 networking sites could claim a higher share figure than Classmates.com's 0.85 percent.

Friendster, which started the whole category back in 2003, now languishes in 13th place. It's still doing better than Windows Live Spaces (15th) and Google's Orkut (16th), but only by a few hundredths of a percentage point.

As the younger membership of social networking sites return to school, those sites see changes in their traffic. Dips they experience in late summer turn into October's gains. Prescott charted trends for Photobucket, Youtube, Wikipedia, and Facebook to demonstrate this.

"Not only is entertainment consumption and social networking affected by the academic year, but so is photo hosting, a tool for social networking," she observed. "Visits to Photobucket also declined in September, but recovered in October."

Online video, the hot buzzword of today, had its trends illustrated by YouTube. The video sharing site not only drew Google's $1.65 billion acquisition offer, which it accepted, but a vast market share of visits. From March to September 2006, the market share of visits increased 249 percent. It was the 26th most visited site in the US in September.

"There are currently many competitors to YouTube, but none has emerged to capture user attention in the way that YouTube has," Prescott said.

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Tags: MySpace, YouTube, Social Networking

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Not all are cell phone providers are bad. In fact, some might even care about their customers. A recent agreement between Leap Wireless International Inc. and Google has made that apparent.

In a move that should please subscribers of Leap Wireless Cricket cellular service, the company has announced an agreement to let subscribers access Google services for free on their cellular phones.

The deal will enable the customers of Leap's Cricket cellular service to access Google features such as GMail, traffic reports, local listings, and the company's search engine. GMail attachments, including photos, PDF files, and Microsoft Word documents may also be opened.

Along with being able to access all of the features that Google has to offer, the content of the site will be formatted to fit the smaller screens of mobile devices.

The agreement is notable due to the fact that the majority of cell phone companies use internet applications that they can charge customers for.

According to Doug Hutcheson, chief executive officer and president of Leap, "Keeping mobile content both simple and unlimited for our Cricket customers is a continuing priority for the company,"

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Subscribers to Verizon wireless services will soon be able to carry YouTube with them thanks to a deal to bring the popular website together with V Cast.

In an attempt to compete with cable companies, the marketing department at Verizon is in currently in negotiations to carry YouTube exclusively on their premium V Cast service.

Verizon, along with other phone service providers, feel they must compete with the rapid expansion of services now being offered by cable companies. "We're seeing increased line loss related to cable competition," Rick Lindner, chief financial officer of AT&T, said in an October 23rd interview.

Results from the last two quarters show that by packaging services, more new customers are acquired.

With that in mind Verizon is planning to launch a cable service, which will feature YouTube as an OnDemand service alongside YouTube videos on V Cast.

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Google has announced changes to its method of assessing the quality of landing pages as part of its AdWords service. The guidelines for landing page evaluation, however, still remain somewhat of a mystery.

Advertisers beware, Google is stepping up efforts to enforce it's interpretation of "quality" landing pages correlating to your AdWords.

Here's an except from the Inside AdWords blog concerning the announcement:

In the next few days, we will be making two changes to how AdWords evaluates landing page quality.
First, we'll begin incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for your contextually-targeted ads, using the same evaluation process as we do for ads showing on Google.com and the search network. Advertisers who may be providing a poor experience on their site will notice that their traffic across the content network decreases as a result of this change.
Second, we're improving our algorithm for evaluating landing page quality and incorporating landing page content retrieved by the AdWords system.
While Google offers some landing page and site guidelines, the company admits that there are no "hard and fast" rules for creating a high quality landing page.

Even more interesting, however, is the fact that Google sheds absolutely no light on just what types of content would constitute a low quality landing page.

Why is all this so important? Simply put, a site's quality rating will have a direct impact on its minimum bid required for its ads to run; lower quality equals a higher minimum bid.

Google provides no specific information on its quality grading scale. Are sites only classified has high quality and low quality, or are there scalable levels of measurement. If so, would these levels have a proportional impact on the minimum bid? In fact, how is the minimum bid penalty even calculated?

What steps can a webmaster take if he/she feels that their website has unfairly been deemed to have a "low-quality" landing page? Does Google have a resolution system in place for such an occurrence?

Questions upon questions abound in the face of Google's announcement.

One would think that Google would offer a clearer picture of its criteria, given that the impact of its seemingly arbitrary method of quality rating will have a concrete impact on the financial bottom line for its advertising partners.

Google representatives, however, have declined to comment on the AdWords changes thus far.

Tags: Google, AdWords

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Industry analysts have been watching the worldwide web closely over the past few months to see how political ads fared in Election '06. Surprisingly, it appears that many politicians do not see the value in paying for Internet advertising.

It doesn't have anything to do with the cost of placing ads on the Net because they are downright affordable when compared to what it can cost for prime time television ads and even local TV commercials that are placed in a decent slot.

Everyone would naturally assume that politicians would fully embrace the worldwide web and all the cutting age ways a person can promote their cause. Everyone from rock stars to teenagers looking for attention are using places like Myspace and Youtube to promote their views and gain some sort of coveted notoriety. Even in freebie areas like this, politicians didn't seem to have the presence that they could have.

Politicians somehow haven't realized that Internet presence numbers not only are comparable in reach to TV ads, but with the Net, they will be reaching out and connecting with the much-coveted younger voters that are sometimes more difficult to reach.

The Rimm-Kaufman Group, LLC completed a study that had some very interesting results. They observed political advertising during the final hours of the '06 elections and came up with some surprising conclusions: Political pay-per-click advertisers preferred using Google, most of them staying away from Yahoo. Search page results for most candidates returned less than four ads per candidate. Republicans were more likely to bash Democrats in their ads but the Democratic ads focused mainly on all the negative things that their competitors had done while being in office.

One oddity included the fact that very few political ads actually linked to videos, which is very perplexing considering how popular streaming videos now are on the Net.

It's obvious that political advertising on the Internet is in the very early stages and will most definitely grow in the future. As a matter of fact, the Rimm-Kaufman Group stated that "political advertising on search engines is still in its infancy."

This will no doubt include more use of streaming video and more search engine marketing.

Tag: Political Web Ads

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Microsoft's MSN Music store customers may soon be singing a different tune if they attempt to use a Zune portable player from the company.

If you were planning on using your shiny new Zune to download your music from the MSN Music Store, you should probably develop a Plan B. Microsoft announced that it will no longer be selling music from the MSN Music Store starting November 14th, when Zune goes on sale in the United States.

While the MP3 player is built to work with the MSN Music Store, Microsoft's newly purchased tracks will not be compatible with the player itself.

The problem stems from the tracks being compatible with the Plays For Sure initiative, but "Since Zune is a separate offering that is not part of the Plays For Sure ecosystem, Zune content is not supported on Plays For Sure devices.", says a spokesperson from Microsoft.

Users of the MSN Music Store may still access the music which they have purchased through the site, under the conditions that they burn CD's for their own use or download the music onto compatible players.

As the big Web 2.0 event changes from "Conference" to "Summit," the whole Web 2.0 meme may be approaching "old and busted" status; so far the "new hotness" to replace it has yet to emerge.

Writers receive press releases, and lots of them. If I'd printed out every one I've received over the past 18 months I could fold my way to a horde of origami warriors and take over the world. Until some killjoy steps up with a grin and a flamethrower, but you can't be big without thinking big.

Web 2.0 as a concept has become big in the online world. I was told by a CEO the first day of the conference that some people were buying sponsorships to the Web 2.0 Summit just to obtain coveted passes to the show.

That's a pricey ducat. It illustrates the pull that the intangible and frequently unexplainable Web 2.0 concept has on the tech world (but Monkey Bites has Tim O'Reilly's explanation.) An example of that came to GigaOM founder and long-time Business 2.0 writer Om Malik, in the form of a press release from Level 3 Communications:

The Web 2.0 conference hasn't even begun, and you can feel the fatigue. You can almost predict the marketing "spin" coming over next few days, that is enough to make you groan.
A perfect example is this news from Level 3 Communications, touting the fact that they had won the contract to provide bandwidth to fast growing photo-video hosting service Photobucket.
It is all spin and a blatant attempt to get a little Web 2.0 pixie dust. In fact, Level 3 is spending liberally to get it. They are sponsoring the Web 2.0 conference, and paying top dollars for it.
Level 3 provides what might be called plumbing around the Ted Stevens household. They provide communications infrastructure. In the seemingly anything-goes world of the Internet, Level 3 is the missionary position in a Web full of chocolate-covered contortionists.

There is nothing wrong with being a plumber, whether it's Web 2.0 or "the house is flooding" variety. But it's not exciting. It's not sexy. It is essential, otherwise Photobucket would not have needed the deal with Level 3 to gain access to its potent bandwidth.

Web 2.0 has been promoted as the place to be in the online world. If you aren't Web 2.0, whatever you think it means, you may suffer from the desire to belong. It's no different than wanting to hang out with the cool kids in junior high school; these days the cool Web 2.0 kids are named Battelle, O'Reilly, and Arrington.

Level 3 wants to hang out too. Aspirations can be good things. They give people goals to strive toward, regardless of the obstacles placed before them. Maybe Level 3 just needs to be certain its goals, and those of its shareholders, won't be clouded by pixie dust.

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Tags: Om Malik, Web 2.0 Summit

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched an initiative to help increase awareness of countries that actively censor the Internet, and singled out Yahoo's Jerry Yang for specific complaints about his company's dealings with oppressive governments.

The organization has offered a three-step process for people to make a statement against the Internet censorship practices engaged in by 13 countries. Their "Twenty-Four Hours Against Internet Censorship" encourages people to stand up for the freedom of expression.

Site visitors can "vote" against countries that have become what RSF calls the Internet Black Holes. As examples, RSF cited the ban on broadband connectivity in Iran and China's continued filtering of websites among the thirteen countries cited for their oppression.

RSF provided a list of those countries - Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Podcasting News noted how RSF kicked off their 24-hour protest in France:

In Paris, Reporters Without Borders projected a gigantic world map of online censorship onto the city's monuments. The press and passers-by saw the map projected onto the facade of Saint-Lazare station, onto the building that houses the French headquarters of Yahoo!, and onto the Bastille Opera. The organizers' aim was to encourage the public to get involved in the fight to defend the right to online free expression.
China's actions and Yahoo's assistance in the prosecution of journalist Shi Tao has been a continual sticking point for RSF. In response, they encourage visitors to the Twenty-Four Hours site to record a voice message for Yang. "A simple 'Shame on Yahoo' would do," RSF said.

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Tag: Reporters Without Borders

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Intel Capital, the investment arm of the global semiconductor leader, brought together a number of companies into SuiteTwo, a hardware appliance containing several collaborative software applications.

One could almost preface the SuiteTwo announcement from the Web 2.0 Summit with a Sesame Street-like "this has been brought to you by the letter S." Just look at the companies involved:

SimpleFeed
Socialtext
SpikeSource
Six Apart
Newsgator

Like I said, "almost." One of these things is not like the other, etc.

All of these companies have Intel Capital in common as a contact point, bringing them together to create SuiteTwo. Each provides software stemming from their area of expertise. This means enterprise strength wikis, news aggregation, RSS feed creation and distribution, blogging, and a platform to integrate them all comes in a single hardware appliance.

Mark Carlson, CEO of SimpleFeed, said in a phone call from the Summit that Intel's global sales channels plan to target small- and medium-sized businesses with SuiteTwo. He quipped that, for Intel, "$500 million is a medium-sized business."

Carlson told me their involvement with SuiteTwo began with a shadowy call from Intel last winter, to gauge his firm's interest in the project. Through May and June, the project jelled into the SuiteTwo concept as the different companies continued talks and development through the summer.

"The last few weeks have been frantic," Carlson said, with some relief evident in his voice.

Sales should begin in the first quarter of 2007. The launch price had been a secret (and is subject to change), but according to Carlson someone blurted out it would be $175 per user for SuiteTwo.

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Tag: SuiteTwo

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Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen held his tongue when an Apple-sponsored study correlating high productivity with larger computer screens was released. But when Computer World published an article about it (seven months after we did), Nielsen felt he needed to put a stop to it.

WebProNews coverage of the study in March related France's Pfieffer Consulting's findings that worker productivity increased with the size of the computer screen.

But Nielsen cried foul recently after Computer World decided to get around to covering it. Dr. Nielsen, formerly a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer, is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with former Apple research veep Dr. Donald A. Norman (just in case you needed the credentials).

Nielsen called Apple's sponsored study "meaningless" because, frankly, it was done wrong. From his blog post summary:

A study of the benefits of big monitors fails on two accounts: it didn't test realistic tasks, and it didn't test realistic use. Productivity is a key argument for workplace usability, but you must measure it carefully.
If the method could be trusted, he says, which it can't, even Pfieffer's numbers were out of whack. "Reducing task time from 42.6 seconds to 20.7 seconds is actually a productivity gain of 105%, not 51%," he said.

But that's moot because the study focused on tasks, rather than operations (I know, now we're getting deep into splitting nerd hairs, but he seems to have a point).

Apple's study focused at the wrong level of work. Pasting spreadsheet cells is not a user task, it's an operation at a low interaction level. More meaningful productivity has to be measured at a higher level, where users string together a sequence of operations to achieve their real-world goals.
Nielsen also points out that researchers tested rote memory operations that had been practiced and perfected before hand, which was not a "realistic" representation of how users operate. "Skilled performance almost never happens on the Web, because users constantly encounter new pages."

So while trust in the Apple study is out the window, Nielsen does redirect the theme of productivity to Website usability. He recommends Web designers stick to simple, standard designs that users don't have to relearn in order to digest the sought-after content. While it is unclear that big screens are better than little screens for productivity (they may very well be, he admits), ease of use certainly does have an impact on productivity.

Tag: Usability, Productivity

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