Real-time search – the missing piece
Shifting the problem from finding content to finding people for search, discovery and filtering is not enough.
The evolution of finding new and engaging content:
Step 1: We started by searching for engaging content using search engine like Google or blog search engine/directory such as Technorati. These search engines operates web crawlers scanning the web for new information, then index (categorize) and rank web pages using different algorithms. As time went by we started adding blogs feeds (using the RSS and ATOM protocols) to our feed reader of choice like Google Reader.
Results: with some effort we managed to find great bloggers to follow, but new content was slow to arrive, it was slow to discover, and even after awhile we ended up with not enough variety. No wonder it was a dead-end!
Step 2: step #1, plus finding the people behind the content, following their feeds on social media tools (twitter, FriendFeed, facebook etc.).
Results: initially, we got faster and richer content , but it got messy very quickly (especially when we auto follow back), it was also overwhelming at times, and lots of people share the same content (whether it is lame or great). Add to the feed stream cacophonies the fact that people are using these channels for chatting with their peers, sharing thoughts and feeling, promoting their business/products/services and we end up with yet another dead-end!
Step 3: step #2, plus lists. Now we can group people into categorized twitter lists, and follow their tweets.
Results: Now, the content is a little less messy because we have more control over the data filtering. The process for building your own list is very slow and tedious at the moment, but you can use other’s lists via listorious or tweepml. On the flip side it requires coming up with a new process for scanning the lists timelines (how frequently? whom to give more attention? adding/removing tweeps), and you can easily end up with too many lists. The worse part is that the people on the list not always share just about the subject that matches the list category. Bottom-line, it is somehow better than step #2 but not by much – another dead-end?
Content by people
In steps #1 we let the crawler to find and categorize the content and it was up to us to find it. In step #2 and #3 we shifted to people search and then we let them drive content to us. This time the crowd took care of the categorization tasks; finding and matching people to domains of knowledge. People categorized themselves and others, built many great lists, follow other lists (indication of popularity) and shared them for us to grab.
The shift
In the process from #1 to #2 we shifted the content discovery problem to people discovery problem. Due to this shift we gained big time in scale, arming the entire web community to search for new content. We accelerated discovery and knowledge gain. We also gained speed over RSS or the web crawler. Among the changes, going from steps #1 to step #3, the focus shifted from filtering content to filtering people (lists).
Small pause to recap: we have categorized content thanks to search engines and tags, we have people grouped by categories thanks to the people, but we still have a lot of noise.
The missing step
In my opinion, we are missing a step. I think that we ought to get back to the computerized categorization. We need a crawler, to categorize and rank the data in the context of the list.
I would like to be able to filter list timeline view by: links only, discussion threads only, and even more important by content that matches the list’s definition in the first place.
If I follow a list that discuss mobile phone technology I want to see only mobile phone technology related content.
Picture credit orangeacid
Twitter lists feature – do you see what that I see?
This week, Twitter opened the new twitter lists features to the public. I had a chance to play with lists for some time now (I was fortunate to see it a little early). In my opinion, it will take some time to fully understand the true meaning and implications of this new feature, the same way that it took us time to understand twitter. Basically, twitter added another level of abstraction between users and their following timelines (now, it is one to many) and that made things a little more interesting. Here are some of my initial thoughts.
What lists show us?
- Now we can see what the others see. Before lists, no two twitter users shared the same timeline view. This new capability opens the possibilities to do remote, join tweeting looking at the very same timline.
- Now we can see how our tweets are seen by others – maybe we over tweet? or a misfit? try following a list containing your twitter user name.
- The list name shows how people categorize us (how are they thinking about us). Check the lists that you are listed on: Authors/readers/reviewers, thought leaders/journalist/bloggers, funny.
Other observations about Twitter lists:
- Lists value depreciate with their size - a small focused list will provide better content than a long list ( a long one is not much better than your timeline)
- Counter intuitive to item #1 – for some reason bigger lists gain more followers
- If you spent the time building a great focused list then upload it to Listorious (kudos for the quick turnaround of this website). It could help to promote your username adding to your twitter presence. Tag it appropriately to be found.
- Lists are another great example for the huge power of crowdsourcing when it comes to organizing large amount of data (the grid computing paradigm). In comparison think about the TweetDeck twitter groups creating feature. Creating a list is a tedious process, keeping those private is a waste. Thanks to Twitter lists and Listorious we have a kind of new and organized real-time search engine in under a week.
- Are we going to see #ListFollowFriday meme soon? E.g #ListFollowFriday @ravenme/iphone The best iPhone app developers
- The next step is making list creation easier. I like to see a merge list option. The merge will create a new list that is a set of users from the original two lists.
- Another next step is adding to the best twitter desktop clients out there the option to upload lists.
- Getting a little wild here: in Twitter Search Advance Options, add search by lists, and search with the option to exclude list or lists.
All in all I think that the twitter lists feature is great. Lists will help getting rid of spammers, finding new communities, getting better content quality, and will introduce an infinite tweets timelines to follow.
Your thoughts?
Picture credit to Irargerich
GO LISTS
HALLOWEEN POST: Haunted tags for you
Halloween via tags
Happy Halloween! Recently, more than ever before, an increased number of people participates in content generation. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the many other content publishing tools enable endless sharing about the coming holiday. I decided to gather some of the celebrating Halloween voices, from all around the web, in the form of tags.
Twitter Search
- Trivial: Halloween #Costume #candy #pumpkin #Decorations
- The scary stuff: #vampire #witch #ghost #Frightened #spiders #webs haunted #cemeteries #horror #bats #zombie
- Search combinations: haunted house, Halloween + recipes, Halloween+Costume, Halloween + Decorations, #Halloween + #movies, #Halloween + #parties
scary costumes zombie film Halloween - Spooky all year round: #Paranormal #Wicca #wiccan #Pagan #Magic #Spell #occult #tarot
Observation/tip about hashtags: For the most part, I got better results on Twitter Search not using hashtags. I got a lot of spam tweets using hashtags. For instance, the search for haunted yields better results than #haunted. There is no need to ignore Hashtags, those are very useful in some scenarios like conferences, meet up, and integration with other media channels that broadcast simultaneously (this is for another blog post, I guess), but apparently, hashtags are too easy to take advantage of.
Blogs and Discussions
- WordPress: blogs about haunted
- BackType: blog comments about Halloween and haunted
- UberVW: discussion about Halloween and haunted
People
Follow @HauntedHouses or find more Halloween tweeps on wefollow and twellow
Website and blogs
- Here is a cool directory if you are looking for haunted houses experience in your area.
- More Americans believe in haunted houses than global warming : A scary Halloween tale. via OneRiot
- Video – America’s Paranormal History via LazyFeed (and the book)
- photo credit Jimmy_Joe
- This old house is not haunted just beautiful!
Google Insights for Search
Looking at few Halloween search patterns in the last 30 days, using Halloween related keywords, revealed that the people in Idaho seems to care the most about Halloween, the people in Utah search the most for Haunted house and Pumpkin, and the people of Connecticut are looking for Halloween costumes more than others, at least based on Google’s data.
Happy Halloween!
The influencer’s five qualities – S.W.A.R.M
In an effort to understand the new Influencers Marketing phenomenon, I decided to try and identify some of the influencer’s characteristics and skills. This information is based on my experience, observing several individuals whom are perceived as influencers by me and others in the online world.
I can envision few derived action items possibly taken following this information:
- Building influencer’s self training curriculum
- Learning to identify upcoming influencers
- Learning how to influence the influencers
The influencer – SWARM
I came up with the SWARM acronym to help remembering them, because it reminds me the metaphor for describing the human behavior following an influencer call for action; like a swarm of bees reacting to environmental change.
| Virtue | Underline Skills | Impact | Tasks |
| S – Storyteller | Know how to tell a good story. Hers and others. | Vision, Inspiration | Collect inspiring stories to share. Focus on possibilities and not on constraints. |
| W – Well-rounded | Technology, Marketing, Selling, and Communication savvy | Respect | Read outside of your domain. Work on turning week points to strength. |
| A – Ahead | Patience, Analytic, Confidence, Distinctive | Leadership | Be curious. Make very little assumption. Ask questions and look for answers. Reverse engineer. Try to write, and explain how it works. |
| R – Resist | Can see outside the common thinking. Extract signals from a lot of noise. |
Priorities | Read a lot before making an opinion or taking side. Read a lot to build solid baseline for comparing it with new information. Read Seth Godin – reading his blog posts regularly is a good training for counter thinking. |
| M – Motivating | Know how to break it all to manageable tasks so other can execute. | Education | Design a plan from one point to the next including tasks, milestones, and objectives. |
How can we use this knowledge for Influencer Marketing – ideas:
Your thoughts about influence?
What do you see as the key virtue and skill for becoming an influencer? How do you plan to find rising influencers in a new niche? As a marketer, planning to leverage an influencer’s call for action in order to convey your message, how do you plan to approach her?
Picture credit: umjanedoan
Cognitive Dissonance post: Does social media made it hard to share?
Mashable, Techcrunch, Gizmodo and Huffington Post posts are re-tweeted over and over again. Brian Sollis, Seth Godin and a couple more bloggers’ posts are all over Twitter and other social media channels. Even traditional news and media publishers now have vast social media presence. I can only praise the great quality of these bloggers, thinkers, thoughts leaders, reporters and analytical brains. I have one small observation: lately, social media and twitter in particular, are making it actually hard for me to share yours!
Few observation:
- It is hard for me to share links from the sources mentioned above. When I see it, the link is already shared so many times, and across so many social media outlets, that there is no point for me to share it again. It seems as if these blog posts are everywhere almost as soon as they come out.
- It is getting hard to find the second and third tier of bloggers. Maybe here lies the new potential for services like blog and twitter search engines. Give me the option to exclude the top 10, 100, 1000 most known/shared blogs.
- This is why I don’t like Digg but I do like StumbleUpon!
- I like to get to know some bloggers from the new long tail – the bloggers from the old one seems to move up to the bell area and joined the mass media.
The irony is that sharing is one of the Social Media corner stones.
Cognitive dissonance (from Wikipedia) – is a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one’s beliefs, or from experiencing apparently conflicting phenomena.
Do you share more or less lately? How do you find more interesting bloggers?
picture credit oddsock
BOOK REVIEW: Inbound Marketing by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan
This new book just came out (October 19, 2009) but I think that it is becoming the Marketing department’s new baby. The book covers many areas of Internet Marketing practices, including content creation and management, SEO and product awareness, Social Media, Leads and customer conversion (including Landing Page optimization and Call to Actions page construction).
What that make this book really great is not specific chapter or topics it covers but the many great useful tips that are encapsulated within the text.
I read a lot of blogs and more than few books about Social Media and Internet Marketing over the last couple of years, but I did discover something new to try in almost every chapter that I’ve read (I did not read the entire book yet, I’ve read selected chapters only from lack of time). Sharing what works, what doesn’t and what worth trying is probably one of the secrets for success in the “How To” publishing business whether it is blog, eBook or book . In this book the two authors Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh) and Brian Halligan (@BHalligan) did a great job suggesting lots of small fruitful actionable steps to take. The book also comes with relevant real-life examples to learn from.
Inbound Marketing was acknowledged by Chris Brogan the blogger and Trust Agent bestselling author among other Internet Marketing and Social Media gurus.
Here are couple of great quotes that are quoted in this book:
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer” Peter Drucker
“In God we trust, all others bring data” W. Edwards Deming”
Summary: if you are new to Internet Marketing and Social Media, then reading Inbound marketing and learning from these authors’ experience will save you months of wondering in the long tail desert. If you are savvy I+S Marketer, then expect to learn few new tricks and to get reinforcement to some of the things that you’ve already noticed.
Thanks to Twitter we are buying the future!
I was recently amazed to see how many books on the Top 100 bestsellers list are ready for pre-order!
What is the twitter connection?
Just search on Twitter Search for pre-order+amazon+book. By the way, books are just one of the many items that are available for pre-order on Amazon. Apparently twitter helps to close the sale cycle faster, even before the product is actually available. Twitter helps to quickly raise awareness to the upcoming products. I also think that Amazon is doing a great job sharing this information here.
I wonder how that list looked few years ago in the pre-twitter era.
So maybe the real-time web is not just about the present but includes the near future too?!
picture credit: aussiegall
I’m also proud to have a book on Amazon Kindle store! My new eBook is available in Kindle version here: Timing the tweet
Twitter tip: treat yourself to a tweet
I want to follow more people on twitter so I can see more interesting tweets or gain more influence (if they follow me back) but I need to be patient!
Robert T. Kiyosaki wrote in his bestselling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad (not an affiliate link), “Pay yourself first”. In some way, what that he meant was the opposite of treat yourself first. Basically, it was about saving money first, and after making sure that this money is invested and yields more profit, then it is OK to spoil yourself buying luxury things. There are few other good lessons in this book but lately this one resonate in my mind when I think about following others on twitter.
In order to be twitscally (fiscally) responsible I’ll need to earn new followers first before I can go and follow more.
Why do I recommend this network building approach?
- It make you motivated to come up with better content so you can get more followers and then follow more great resources.
- It helps you to build a more reliable and sustainable twitter account. I find it hard to follow twitter accounts with high follow/following ratio (i.e. way more following than followers).
- It can help you to put a value for great twitter users. Example: I tell myself that if I’ll get two more followers I could follow one more (maybe an upcoming new thoughts leader in my niche).
And, yes, it takes more time in the same way as it takes to grow your saving account, but this is the way in my mind to build valuable network. A trustworthy network that can be leveraged for influence, community building, and revenue generating. Treat your followers following spread like your equity and build it overtime. Alternatively, having a twitter account that is follows lots of people, and very few followers is like having an over extended credit card account.
Does it make sense to you? Do you follow blindly? Do you have process for deciding whom to follow?
If you like this tip and want to learn more about building high value twitter accounts for marketing, selling, networking, influence or any other purposes please consider reading my eBook: Timing the tweet
And, yes, I know that it is almost Halloween: so treat yourself to a great tweet!
How do you take your blog?
The most significant change to my reading habits since I started reading blogs is that I started reading a lot more blogs. What that I lately realized is that there are growing number of different options for getting blog posts streamed to my browser.
Email subscription
- Pros: Since I check my email regularly I know that I will not miss it.
- Cons: I will probably get the post few hours later and if there is something “hot” to share it might get cold by the time that I will see it.
- Use: This subscription option is only reserved for few blogs that I know will provide information that has value (above and) beyond the day of publication.
Reader subscription (RSS)
- Pros: Fast to receive and fast to read. Especially, if you are using GoogleReader and invest the time to learn some of its cool shortcuts.
- Cons: You have to know what to look for. It takes time to build and organize reach blogs list. There is only a little room for serendipity.
- Use: It is a great way to keep half open eye on lots of blogs. It is also possible to see it like a magazine start page via feedly.
Tag based real-time subscription
- What is Tag based Real-Time subscription? Using new technology and real-time protocols like RSSCloud and PubSubHubBub, blog service like wordpress, can notify us about new blog posts as soon as they are published. Let’s leave the buzz word for a minute because in my mind this is only half of the big news. The second half of the change is that it is tag based. If you don’t know what tag and tagging is please read Wikipedia explanation here. Let’s go for a use case to explain the value of this new capability. Let’s say that I like to read about Social Media. The way that I did it in that past was to Google “Social Media”, or to set a Google Alert looking for web pages with the “Social Media” keyword. I could also check the Wordpres tags page searching for the Social Media tag. These option are all either slow or tedious.
The new real-time RSS protocols are tag based. In human language it means that it is possible to retrieve new blog post by tags.With the adoption of these new real-time protocols and the fact that they are tag based, it is possible to get new blog posts while they are still “hot and fresh” into your browser. Service like LazyFeed let you list several tags to listen to. You can read more here. Now, back to our use case. I can add the socialmedia tag (no space is allowed) to my tag list and start reading new fresh blog posts about this subject.
- Pros: I don’t have to know the blog name, url, or feed url like in the Reader subscription case. I can just listen to certain tag(s). I get new blog posts as soon as they are published. I get a chance to lean about new blogs and blogger that I can later promote to one of the other subscription way. Tags are not hierarchical but they are associated somehow (some times hierarchically) so I can drill down to switch listening using related tags.
- Cons: Not all blog services adopted this protocols yet. Some time it is just too fast. I would like to see more invested in the usability and scalability on the client side. It would be nice to be able to combine both the Reader and Tag Based Real-time subscription in a single tool.
- Use: It is a great way to learn about new blogs and bloggers. It is a great way to find new content for sharing on Twitter.
These are only few of the ways to find and read blogs. There are many more, like using Twitter, Twitter tools (like twitturly), Facebook feed, delicious and other social sharing web-sites.
Just remember that blogs reading leads to more blog reading:)
So, how do you take your blog?
Four ways to deliver value in your short tweets
Here are four simple ways to create tweets charged with valuable information.
Valuable tweets
- Share news
- New tool, addon, web-site – like the mini launch of a new online real-time community, cliqset, or the re-launch of Pijoo as a purely content-driven service.
- New book, movie, album– the new Dan Brown The Lost Symbol (the bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code).
- Stats – up, down, on top – for blogs, for book, movie, album. Maybe how much a movie made in its first week.
- New Trending Topics – this is another way to break the news. Just look at TwitScoop tag cloud or Twitter Search Trending topics.
- Winning a prize – like announcing Hilary Mantel as the Man Booker Fiction 2009 winner
- Connect the dots
- For new book, movie, album – add link to previous work done by the same creator. Example: similar to the way I just did with the Dan Brown’s example above. I made the connection to his previous work (it is not that obvious in many other cases).
- For a person add link to multiple places where she has presence on the web. If we take the Hilary Mantel as an example point to her Facebook page
- For a book, movie, album add link to coming event – something that take a little longer than Book Signing, The Dan Brown Way
- For news – add other items that can help understanding the context better. This is especially useful for sport event. Having the context make it a lot more interesting.
- Connect people/Introduce
- For new band, author, producer, or actor, provide their twitter username (include the @). Example: The book the Lost Symbol has a twitter account @lostsymbolbook (administered by his US publisher, Doubleday)
- Point to hot discussion. Example: If you like book talks check #litchat
- Active #hashtag – not just the most active (and some times abused) from the Trending Topics. Find others from one of your twitter timelines or twubs.
- Engaging blog – blogs with lots of comments activity – use BackType. Example: I found this blog post Kiss “Sonic Boom” Review with 45 comments (the last one I saw was from October 6, 2009 at 10:25 pm). I searched BackType for CD review.
- Popular item: bestseller, popular on Glue, Amzon, B&N. Example: This is fairly trivial. Here is Amazon Bestsellers in Book page (hint: check how many days the book is in the top 100 – look for the more recent additions).
- Compress (encode/decode) greater knowledge into short messages
- The best example that I could find is @cookbook – tweeting tiny recipes condensed by @Maureen. The owner of this twitter account built a @cookbook glossary that helps to convert the encoded recipes to real one.
- The second best example is StockTwits – here too, people found a way to communicate more than what the 140 characters allows.
Why?
- Because delivering value can really help you to get more followers on twitter
- Because if you use Affiliate Marketing links you can truly assist in the buying decision.
- Because it is a little more interesting than seeing the same 5 or 10 top bloggers being retweeted over and over again.
The secret for building valuable tweets
Closely examining my examples above, there are three key value drivers:
- Search – finding the data. Access to great and trusted content sources is value.
- Tying a couple or more data points together into a single piece of information (tweet). Association is value.
- Timing. Relevancy is value.
Additional ideas for building valuable tweets: attention, and help.
What other ways do you see for charging tweets with value?
If you liked this post please consider buying my eBook on Scribd: Timing the tweet
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