Below you can see the new one-line sitelinks for the search term nutrition.  The first three search results all have three one-line sitelinks for each listing.

When I searched for computers I found that the new one-line sitelinks only for the first search result.  This time the search result displayed four one-line sitelinks, but only for the first search result.

When I searched for dwi.com I still get the traditional sitelinks.  I see the standard two columns of four sitelinks in each column and a link below the columns for "more results from dwi.com." 

On April 16, 2009 Google posted the article One-line sitelinks on the Official Google Webmaaster Central Blog.  I predict that we will start seeing more of the one-line or mini sitelinks over 2009.  The one-line sitelinks I think will be a good thing for the potential visitors of the sites.  The one-line sitelinks will allow the visitor to navigate directely into the pages of the website.

Tell us what you think about the one-line sitelinks by posting a comment below.  I look forward to hearing from you.

• Search Engine Optimization Versus SMO (Social Media Optimization) - Kevin Davis
• Internet Marketing Consultants Be Prepared - SEO is Moving In-house! - Butterfly
• Twitter 2012 - Robert Scoble
   

See this TechCrunch article for more detail on Google and Twitter …

If you stop and think about this, it just makes sense to some degree. Google dominates in the area of search. But they don’t do ‘real-time’ search of conversations and that’s where Twitter is strong. If you haven’t used the http://search.twitter.com — do so and you’ll see the power of this new era. Type a few keywords in and watch as it updates for you in real-time, listing the Twitter conversations going on with those keywords.

We’ll see… rumors are rumors.  But just because it makes sense to a bunch of bloggers doesn’t mean it will happen.  Personally, I’d like to see it occur provided Google doesn’t sit on Twitter like it did Blogger and slow the development of the platform.  But I have my doubts Google will make the leap because there is so much in flux right now. New developments in social media and social networking tools are happening almost weekly from startups and the majors.

For example, where does FriendFeed fit into the picture with their announcements this coming Monday (April 6th) for major changes?  I’m personally more interested in these developments because it’s a more powerful communication tool then Twitter.  And what will Facebook do?  My goodness; there are so many changes occurring in the social tools space that 2009 is an exciting year of unpredictable change for most of us. Hardly a new concept though considering the last few years, but that’s another more philosophic topic.

Robert Scoble seems to be leaning away from the idea that Google would buy Twitter. As you know, opinions are like noses, everyone has one. What do you think?  Kara Swisher is reporting that there is no Google deal under discussion to buy Twitter.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

Mike McDonald of WebProNews sat down with Bruce Clay on camera at Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York and discussed behavioral search or as Bruce calls it personalized search. The video is under 15 minutes and is worth grabbing a cup of coffee and watching.   Bruce also discusses how his new free tools and SEMToolBar will help you faciliate behavioral category of the query as well as allowing you to do proxy serving of the query.

Tell us what you think of the video by posting your comments below.

I did a Google search this morning looking to see if Sprint was any closer on coming out with the new BlackBerry Bold.  My search was blackberry bold sprint and the first two results were from infosyncworld.  They showed that the AT&T version was released in November of 2008 (we already knew that), but show that Sprint, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are to release the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 in May this year. 

At first I find myself wanting to believe the release date, but I checked a few more of my Google results and intomobile.com has BlackBerry Bold From Sprint Coming in First Quarter of 2009.  The problem with that is today is March 23, 2009, so I don't see that happening in the next week.  Even cnet news reported back in early January BlackBerry Bold rumored for Sprint. 

I have become very frustrated walking into a Sprint store or calling the 800 number asking the employees about what new phones are coming out and the two standard responses I get are:

"I don't know, check online" and "we are the last to find-out"

Now that is customer service at its best!

If anyone knows of a different release date please post a comment below.  Thanks.

-Bill

Google has announced a new 'interest based' standard for its AdSense marketing platform. The browsing, shopping and viewing habits of internet users will be analyzed, and on-line advertisements will be matched to their patterns. The intent is to feed pertinent ads to viewers, rather than the current, mostly random loading of on-line ads. For example, if you frequent dog oriented websites, the ad may feature a special on dog food. Google cites efficiency and improved user experience as motives for the new ad program.

Advertisers are excited about the concept, saying the more targeted ads should yield more click-throughs. Investors also warmed to the idea, sending Google stock up 3 percent after the announcement.

Opponents are concerned about an ad strategy based on user habits. Privacy advocates say it is an unwarranted intrusion and liken Google to a big-brother type spy. The Federal Trade Commission calls the new program 'behavioral advertising', a less complimentary term than Google's. Congress has investigated companies practicing user tracking, such as NebuAd and Phorm, and the US House of Representative's Energy & Commerce Committee has expressed concern over Google's strategy to have users opt-out of interest based ads. The combination of legislative and privacy pressures may make Google change to an opt-in format.

Yahoo unveiled a similar ad strategy three weeks ago, prompting expectations of a Google response.

Tom Parish posted a great article over at MarkesOfConversation.com titled 13 Tips to Make your Time at SXSW More Productive and Fun.  It's a great read and worth the short investment of time.

If you attend SXSW Interactive please drop back by and post a comment to let us know what you thought about it.

-Bill

Facebook is undertaking a redesign of its page in an effort to keep up with the surging popularity of Twitter. While widely acknowledged as the leading professional networking engine, Facebook is concerned by Twitter's recent success in guerilla/viral marketing, evidenced by its increased use by large corporations and celebrities.

Speed and ease of updates, along with functionality, are considered some of the keys to success for a social network site, and Facebook's new page offers a clean layout, removal of the 5,000 contact limit and news updates in real-time. In an effort to become a broader tool, the page also breaks down the distinction between private profiles and public pages. That has led to concerns over uniform access to information that may be perfect for family yet inappropriate for office contacts. In response, Facebook offers filters for different sets of networking groups.

Twitter has attracted publicity and a niche crowd that would make any social networking site envious. Facebook's recent update is seen as a move designed to counter being interpreted as a single focus site just for professional contacts.

Satya Nadella, senior vice president of research and development for Microsoft's online services division sent an email Monday to Microsoft employees encouraging them to begin testing the revamped search service that has been dubbed kumo.com.  The testing of Kumo is only available on the internal network at Microsoft.

Mr. Nadella stated that he feels 40% of all searches leave the searcher empty handed and that Kumo was designed to organized search results in a way that would save the searcher time in finding what they were actually looking for.

In the screen shot of Kumo below, you can see how a search for "Taylor Swift" would be categorized by images, songs, lyrics, biography, music, albums or videos.

This interview is 7:45 in length. We chat in my studio about SXSW 2009 this year, the rise in people suddenly adopting ’social media consultant” titles, and comments about his book “Social Media One Hour a Day”.

This was shot with a rental camera I was testing and I didn’t get the focus as razor sharp as I had hoped. That’s how it goes sometimes when you’re testing new gear.  Anyway, it’s the content that counts so enjoy the conversation. Dave is easy to connect with, a good friend and one heck of a smart social media dude.

Here’s Dave …

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

Now that the site is has been upgraded we should be posting more content on the site.  Working on the upgrade of the site took longer then expected and took us away from posting new content for the past few weeks.  We are planning to be adding a "true" mobile site just like what we did for DUI.com (m.dui.com) and DWI.com (m.dwi.com).  We also are working to bring more functionality similar to WordPress that visitors have become use to seeing.

Again, I would like thank Volodymyr and his team at QuintaGroup. They truly did an awesome job on the site.  Below is an image of the site as it was released.  We will still be doing minor updates on the site as we iron out last minute changes on the look and feel.  Enjoy!

Here in Austin we have a social media guy who published a book in 2008 that is full of practical advice. His name is Dave Evans; his book is “Social Media, An Hour a Day”. Fifty-five practical, hands-on exercises walk you through a step-by-step process to an effective social media plan built by you, for your organization.

if you’re just getting started in social media, consider getting yourself a copy of this book. You’ll find yourself on firm ground as you focus on social media-based projects for yourself and others.

Another book, this one an e-book, is a must have for understanding how Facebook works, especially from the perspective of marketing. “Facebook Marketing Bible” comes in PDF format. As Facebook is continually evolving, I recommend getting the version that comes with updates. I refer to this little gem often.

Reading is learning and my next tip is more reading, this time a blog. Are you following the accelerated trends in use of smart phones? Better do that. Social media and social networking systems that do not incorporate user engagement with smart phones are going to miss the real boom coming soon. I know a mobile apps company with a blog about trends in the mobile industry (versus talking about themselves). You’ll want to follow these guys because they are backend systems agnostic – meaning they don’t focus on just Microsoft or just Linux systems. They create mobile applications that work on all phones. Endeavour Software Technology is a very smart group of people. Add their blog to your RSS reader and you’ll stay current on mobile trends. Keep reading.  Keep learning.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

Another and very important way to always be learning is to always be teaching. Have some tools at hand that you can quickly use to show someone else how your social media site or social networking system works. It’s called screencasting and below there are three fun and fast tools that are worth some attention. These tools are invaluable for helping people visualize how things actually work, especially when you’re going for funding.

www.JingProject.com - works on PC and Mac. Simply amazing and completely worth paying for the Pro version. I use it weekly and also assist my clients in its use. This is a good tool to show employees and/or others how to use new features in a system or how to explain/show a new idea to the inside group. One example is demonstrating how to use a new tool to save time.

iShowU - Mac platform. Fast and easy. I haven’t used it but it looks promising.

ScreenCast - My favorite, but this one has a ’slightly’ higher learning curve then the other two. But that’s ok right? You’re open to learning. What I remind myself –compared to what it would take to create this screencast using tools like Final Cut Pro, Screencast.com is a snap.  It produces an extremely polished look and sound in the final results.

Ok, so have you looked into SXSW2009 to figure out what panels you’re attending? I’m starting that process myself for Film and Interactive. Think about it. Check it out. Help others learn how to be successful.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

Let’s start with right attitude of ABC and ABL. Always be creating and always always be learning.

The number of existing  web-based social media tools and new ones being brought out each month can feel overwhelming. Ever visit www.Mashable.com? Subscribe to that feed! And read www.ReadWriteWeb.com or www.TechCrunch.com? Monitor them for tools that help you become more aware of what’s possible with the systems you’re using. Tools like Sharepoint, WordPress, Facebook, Google and others can make life easier after surviving the learning curve! No you don’t have to learn them all. Pick the ones that are worth exploring. Test them. Use them. Throw out the ones that are of no value but remember to cycle back.

Watch how you dig in and justify that you know enough already.  Are you saying – ‘no more’ I don’t need this social networking stuff? I don’t have the time. I’m too busy. I can’t keep up anyway. Take notice when you get into that line of thinking and just let it go. You’re not in a Catch 22 situation. You CAN both learn and ‘be’ who you want to be and have control over your time and what you share with others. I remember when I worked for a major US corporation for 12 years all through the 90’s and early 2000’s. I felt trapped. Middle management was like being stuck. Can’t leave, paid too well. Can’t advance; not in the inner circle.  Don’t have time; always too busy just trying to stay even. Then… I got laid off.

Last night I watched Catch-22, the movie by Mike Nichols.  Take some time and watch it again. Watch carefully for who gets out of the catch 22 and most importantly ‘why and how’ he did it.

Always be creating. Always be learning. These are your unalienable rights.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

Let’s explore that a bit, because part of the change we’re going to see in 2009 and in a big way in 2010 is the evolution of social networks to allow you to bring your social graph (meaning your social connections) from place to place without have to start over every time. (It’s optional, of course, so don’t let your mind get carried away with privacy.)

Surely you’ve felt frustrated and even defeated at times with the onerous task of rebuilding your identity and your friendships every time you join a different system: LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, Facebook and the list goes on. These days more and more of us have constructed and are participating in social networks, and though that’s rewarding it’s a hassle to access and update everything or share ideas and news info with others in your ‘address book’ … your social graph.

But let’s do some base-setting here on what this social graph term means and how it might apply to you as a user and as a business owner, B2B and B2C. Here are two useful slide presentations to illustrate these points. Many thanks to Robin Grant of “We Are Social” for posting this originally and spurring my thinking. I’ve been wanting to find a way to illustrate these concepts better to my community of readers.

We’ll begin with Alisa Leonard-Hansen’s presentation What’s the Social Graph Got to Do with It?

And now let’s look at Jesse Pickard and Shiv Singh’s presentation, Portable Social Graphs - Imagining their Potential, using the example of Facebook Connect:

OK, so you got that? Let’s take a look at some already-in-place implementations. Here is a list of ‘10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect“.

Some are better than others. If you know of more, send me a note.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

This morning I heard on Fox News that NSA has come up with a cell phone that is untraceable. Can't wait to see pictures of this high tech phone.

I'm going to take some liberties here and poke a bit of fun at traditional marketing, for the sake of making a point. Traditional marketing efforts in B2B have been largely focused on driving traffic to a landing page with enough enticements to move people through the long sign-up form in hopes of a payoff, such as a white paper, at the end. I once heard a presenter says that it’s analogous to what we do in Texas with cattle at branding time: We try our best to get ‘em to move through a chute with various enticements and prods in order to count ‘em and brand ‘em so we know our total worth in beef.

What’s on offer now is a perspective that lets the most interested or qualified prospects through the filter, but does it in a different manner. Think about all the traffic interested in visiting your site (a product site or social networking component of your site, or your media content, now spread all over the Internet). This traffic falls into one of three types: Yahoos, Bluebirds or Shy Yesses.

The Yahoos are a small percentage of people on the left side of the bell curve that are lost or kicking tires or whatever, but you’re not marketing to them.

The Bluebirds are the visitors who come to your site on purpose and engage directly. You focus on moving them into the sales process directly. You’ve been a Bluebird, haven’t you?  When you just call up and order something directly from a company–no salesman contacts you–that’s a bluebird sale. It’s the small percent of the bell curve on the right-hand side and, regardless of their numbers, you’re really not marketing to them either.

In the middle of the bell curve of behavior is the Shy Yes traffic. These are all the people coming to the website or bumping into the hundreds of podcasts and blog articles your company has distributed all over the Internet for the last few years. These people have some particular interest. Likely they have a need brewing on the horizon but the last thing they want is a sales guy calling, and they sure don’t want to tip their hand by filling out a long form just to get a white paper and then have someone start hounding them.

Long before a salesman comes into the picture, your company gets involved in a scoping or planning session to do something and wants to figure out how to proceed before getting vendors all hot and bothered.  This is the makeup of a Shy Yes. I’m sure you can think of other behaviors of people finding your content and hovering over product pages, checking things out.

What’s needed are ways to entice or engage the Shy Yes with small pieces of interaction … what you get is more and more of his/her attention by satisfying their need to learn more, to ask questions without worrying about a sales guy calling, to be better informed about making budgeting decisions on projects.

I think of the social media (audio podcasts, video podcasts, blogs, comments, and so forth) and social networking (being a member of a community to exchange useful perspectives and information on pertinent topics) as a kind of birdseed.

Remember when you were a kid and you went to the park? You’d put a few pennies into a seed dispenser so you could feed the birds. At first you would just run and throw the seed at the birds, thinking you were giving them what they wanted, but the birds would fly away. Over time, however, you noticed people who were sitting patiently on benches and had birds eating out of their hands. You noticed that the people got up slowly and put food down in small, separate portions, giving the Shy birds the seeds and space they needed to build trust. Over time the birds developed enough trust in that relationship to come right up to the person on the bench.

Social media and the container for engagement/social networking are the birdseed. They are what will draw the attention of the bulk of the web traffic poring over your site each month. This is the Shy Yes traffic, picking up information piece by piece, engaging more and more with your company. They spend more time on your site, which is garnering more of their attention during the day, and maybe in the evenings on their iPhones and iTouches. You’re there, and when they are ready they start to communicate with you because you’ve made it easy.

There are so many more ’seeds’ of engagement now with social media and social networking, compared to the old days of only one landing page per 45-day sales campaign. And now every touch point can be counted and used for gentle encouragement to offer help or for the Shy Yes to contact you when they want to know more.

As I’ve said many times before, none of this replaces traditional marketing efforts. Those will always be with us and always have value. I’m simply introducing a new perspective on other ways to find qualified prospects from the web using the various social tools now at hand.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

B2B companies that already have a fairly well-defined traditional marketing group think a particular way, so it’s important to align your thinking with their current focus on product announcement dates, press releases, white papers, conferences, and so forth. If you can position your social media strategy to align with what they already know, you’re more likely to get them thinking about what’s possible instead of putting up roadblocks. All too often their worrying comes after you explain ‘how and why’ to use a variety of social media channels like Twitter (micro-blogging), blogging, audio and video podcasting, and various RSS tools to help with Internet visibility (and engagement, if they have a social networking site already or plan one soon).

One of their concerns is how in the world will they come up with content for all those channels (not to mention, who’s going to do that) and another is when to use all those social media channels of distribution. I have a simple way that gets folks enrolled.

A traditional marketing person’s ‘style’ of thinking is often calendar-based, meaning they look at least 6-12 months out (especially given they have a yearly budget to spend). I suggest that they consider two ‘types’ of content workflow, one that somewhat synchronizes with the scheduled marketing events for the year, and the other being more asynchronous, to fill in the gaps. Big waves and little waves, I call them.

The big waves utilize variations of existing content to repurpose and retransmit the news about the product release/update into your blog, Twitter, and one or more audio/video podcasts (either at your site or ‘with’ others who podcast about your products to their audience).

A specific scenario might be: Collaborate with the Product Marketing manager who knows everything about the product to get the typical white paper that is such a part of traditional B2B marketing efforts. Think about the subtopics discussed in that white paper and write one or more blog articles which relate to, and link to, the white paper. Consider some creative way to write short, text-based interviews with the white papers’ author(s) or related industry experts. This is a great way to start and gives you a segue from yammering on about the technical nature of the product to actually focusing on how ‘users’ are adopting the product. Keeping a keen eye on comments and emails will guide you in the direction to take those blog articles.

And remember, every time you blog also post a Twitter note about the blog(s) and, where appropriate, mention the availability of that white paper with a URL to it.

Next, schedule an audio or video podcast on the product (or service) release. Just have a conversation about the product, not a word-for-word redo of the white paper. Think about how Robert Scoble does his interviews with product managers and CEOs of smaller companies. It’s just 10-20 minutes and they talk about topics relevant to the product and how it makes life easier for the customer in some fashion. You will, of course, post a short blog article with a summary of the podcast and a link to it, as well as a Twitter with a URL to the podcast and/or blog article.

An important strategy to keep in mind: Whether you’re doing podcasts yourself or with a outside vendor, make certain they show up well in the search engines. Make sure the RSS feed is syndicated to all the major RSS aggregators so you get maximize visibility of that content. If you’re expecting a lot of traffic and comments you may want to configure a ROOM in Friendfeed.com or some other tool for monitoring the comments.

The idea here is to post content that’s fairly synchronous with your existing marketing activities. I say ‘fairly synchronous’ because it’s critical that the posts be thoughtfully timed. There are often reasons to post slightly before or slightly after the event. For example, traditional marketing activities include real-world social events you attend, like mixers, conferences and so forth, that are planned for the year. These are always good opportunities to blog, Twitter, post pictures, capture short videos and so forth, all aligned with your existing calendar of activities.

Now for the little waves of social media content. Just think of these as ’salt and pepper’ to keep alive the listener’s ear. If you already have one or two posts regularly coming from your big-wave planned marketing activities, then you might not see the need to sprinkle in little-wave blog posts and Twitters. But if your product release dates are, say, once a month or less, then you’ll want to find ways to talk about what’s going on in the industry, find out what other bloggers are saying about your product or company (setting up a custom room in FriendFeed may help here) and repost the ones that have some bearing on the product, especially those that mention creative ways to use your products and services.

As an aside, give the following a read for helpful hints in Tweeting news about your company.

Keep in mind that anyone who is reading RSS feeds like blogs and Twitter is reading a number of them at once. They are often scanning for news of interest and, at times, resending what they find to others. Regardless of how often you post for your company, make it educational, directly useful and/or highly interesting. If you don’t have anything that day or that week, breathe, relax and focus on when you will have something. I know that the mantra is post often and be regular, but I don’t think that’s all that useful, especially for B2B-type companies to be that stringent. It’s better to focus on quality of what you’re creating versus quantity. This isn’t a race it’s about educating and engaging with others and this is what will get their attention so you’re remembered.

If you have any questions or have a different opinion, be sure to let me know.

Tom

Reposted with permission from MarketsofConversation.com ©2009

The video is about 20 minutes long but worth taking the time to get a cup of coffee and sit back and listen to. It's amazing how much of the video is just common sense that is taking for granted.

Click here to view the slide show of Preventing Blight.

Credit for this find goes to Matt Cutts Blog Video of my "Preventing Virtual Blight" talk."