Phil Leggetter - Real-Time Web Software and Technology Evangelist » Social Media

Thoughts on an SEO question raised in the Social Media White Noise podcast

Phil Leggetter — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 10:43:33 +0000

First, it’s worth having a listen to the Social Media White Noise Podcast episode.

You can also view my comment on that page but since I wrote quite a bit I thought I’d copy it here:

I’ve an opinion about the SEO point. Part of that is based on an annoyance at so many companies claiming to be SEO companies and “experts”. The annoyance is based on knowing that some companies do very little for their money e.g. just update a report template document with the new client details and do a couple of hours research and then charge hundreds of pounds for that document. They have managed to market themselves so well as SEO experts by simply jumping on the bandwagon first and by doing this have managed to make money purely on the basis that companies are blind to what SEO is and that they must have their website SEO’d. Big corporations are terrible in this regard. The same SEO companies are now offering social media services simply because companies now feel they must have a social media presence – another bandwagon opportunity. They charge for setting up Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs but do little else for the client when what they should do is teach clients how to use social media or offer a full managed service which will ultimately transition to an in-house service. The long term full managed services will never deliver any quality as the turn over of staff at big SEO, Digital Marketing or Social Media companies is too large so the service will never be any better than manufactured blog posts from paid bloggers and streams of nonsense from managing twitter accounts. Sorry, rant over.

Nick – you’re not wrong

Firstly, I’m reasonably sure there won’t be a massive amount of competition for “sweet shop horsham” or similar searches. Google returns ~12,500 results which isn’t a lot for a Google search.

I also have a really simple belief, maybe even naively simple, that Google are just much cleverer than any SEO company (maybe that’s my annoyance coming through again) and they know what the best result is for your search. No matter how much fake SEO is applied I hope that Google can see through this and will ultimately (it may take time) work out what the most relevant, and truly natural, results are for your search.

Google are very clever not only in knowing the most relevant result but also in the following way:

I’ve not read up on SEO for a good while now but I believe that the Google algorithm is publicly available so SEO companies with time and resource will always be working towards tricking (they’ll say “working with”) Google and if a client of an SEO company has enough money they probably can also pay for that trickery. However, eventually the Google Algorithm will update, the search results orders will change, the SEO companies will need to do more research and training (maybe at Google), the clients will need to pay more money to have more SEO applied and the search results ordering will update again. And so on.

I think it’s reasonably safe to say that “sweet shop horsham” is a bit off getting into that vicious circle so we’re probably getting the most relevant results. I believe this is largely thanks to the natural weighting applied to social media.

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Bookmarking sections of podcasts

Phil Leggetter — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:43:00 +0000

Just listening to the Social Media White Noise podcast and really enjoying it.
I got distracted by something else and then tuned back into the podcast. They were talking about taking digital media consumption away from the computer, which really interests me, and I wanted to jump back to the start of that part of the podcast. I couldn’t.

Is there a podcast player that lets the podcast author define time slices that cover certain topics? Can this be published as part of the RSS feed so all MP3/Podcast players can use this information?

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Real-Time Web Posts 03/03/2010

Phil Leggetter — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:12:45 +0000

I’m doing my best to keep up to speed on any news related to the real-time web. I follow interesting people on Twitter who tweet out links, I subscribe to RSS feeds and I’ve got Google Alerts set up on a number of phrases. Since I’m doing all this work I thought it would be a good idea to start sharing it by publishing the findings in an occasional summary blog post. I generally don’t like blog posts which just say “this is an interesting article” but sometimes, if it raises awareness of good articles, it can be useful. Hopefully it will be.

I tend to first post the links on the Real-Time Web Software and Technologies LinkedIn group so if you are interested on getting the news as I find it, or contributing your own real-time web finds then please join the group. Also feel free to Tweet at me or contact me via the website if you find anything interesting and relevant.

WebSockets

5 Signs You Need HTML5 Web Sockets (Part 1) – Kaazing – Part 2, 3, 4 and 5 are also available.
WebSocket Chat – A discussion about creating a Chat application using WebSockets – Greg Wilkins
Why we don’t need HTML5 WebSocket – a discussion on the problems with WebSockets – Martin Tyler

Real-Time Web in action

The Social Media Response to Disaster in Haiti – An article on how real-time web technologies were used in response to the Haiti disaster – Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared
When were you when Tendulkar scored 200? – Ok, this isn’t actually an example of Real-Time Web in action. But it should be! This is a great example of where adding a dash of real-time web to your website could actually help you scale (stop users hitting Refresh) – Martin Tyler

Real-Time Web technology

Building Real-Time web apps with Rails 3 – LakTEK
Using real-time web software and technology to distribute events – Phil Leggetter (that’s me)
It’s not just Twitter (who use Open Source real-time web technology) - Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
The Real-Time Web (a list of web applications that are built on or user Real-Time Web technology – or claim to) – Robert D. Hof (Business Week)
Lightstreamer 3.6 is out! – Lightstreamer release new versions of their components including support for Silverlight, Flex AMF, and Bidirectional Web Streaming

General News/Discussion

How real-time does real-time have to be?

Phil Leggetter — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:37:45 +0000

Last night, just over 12 hours ago, I attended the Gary Vaynerchuk Crush It event organised by Sprouter in London. I’ve already read Crush It and seen a lot of Gary online so I wondered if he would give out any information that I hadn’t already heard. On the way in I mentioned this to Ian Sanders who said:

It’s always different live. It’s like a gig.

This is a big statement considering the event is just a guy standing and speaking and taking some Q&A. However, Ian’s statement was spot-on. Gary oozes charisma and when he speaks it feels like he’s addressing you directly. This is clearly one of the reasons why he’s so popular and doing so well.

Gary Vaynerchuk at the Sprouter Crush It event

One of the things that Gary covered, and I’ve heard him mention a few times now, was small town rules. My take on what Gary means that social media has made a global community possible. He provided a couple of examples.

Example 1: Small Town

You can go out in New York, get drunk and get naked every night of the week and it most probably won’t impact your reputation. However, in a small town if you do this just once it will.

Example 2: Small Town effect through Social Media

The movie Bruno (I’m not giving it a link, I’ve heard it’s that bad) had one of the biggest attendances for an opening night in the states. However, the second night had the biggest drop off in attendances ever. This is because on the first night people left half way through and wrote on Twitter and Facebook how terrible the movie was. In 24 hours word had got out to avoid this movie at all costs.

What has this got to do with the Real-Time web I hear you ask? Well, in the first small town example it’s easy to see why and how news spreads so quickly. In a small town it doesn’t take long for news like this to spread. But in the second example the news spreads to a massive number of people because of the real-time web effect introduced by the immediate availability of information from networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

I managed to get a question in and asked Gary:

How real-time does real-time have to be? For example, the newly introduced Google real-time search checks every 20 seconds to see if any more relevant search results are available.

Whilst Gary said that 20 seconds was probably alright he did suggest that this would be fine until another site provided the results in 19 seconds, and ultimately 0 seconds. At which point expectation would be changed.

This has encouraged me to continue my push to encourage the uptake of technology to provide a truly real-time web experience. Data is available instantly so why not push it to users instantly. Is 20 seconds really good enough when technology is out there to allow that information to be pushed to us in closer to 0 seconds? My opinion is: C’mon Google, you can do better!

Wikipedia now has a definition for Real-Time Web

Phil Leggetter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:43:23 +0000

A while ago a wrote a blog article called What is the real-time Web?. At this time (19/04/2009) even Wikipedia did not have a definition for what “real-time web” was. It does now.

The definition is short and sweet:

Real-time web is the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced. Advancements in web search technology coupled with growing use of social media enable online activities to be queried as they occur.

A traditional web search crawls and indexes web pages periodically, returning results based on relevance to the search query. The real time web delivers the most popular topics recently discussed or posted by users. The content is often “soft” in that it is based on the social web – people’s opinions, attitudes, thoughts and interests – as opposed to hard news or facts.

At present there is no mention of the technology behind the real-time web. Nothing about Twitter and FriendFeed helping to form the definition.

Do you agree with this definition? What web 2.0 platforms do you think have helped define what “real-time web” is? What technologies do you believe have pushed the “real-time web” into such prominence?

Running in Hertford

Phil Leggetter — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:19:05 +0000

My girlfriend was out at the Take That concert at Wembley so I was left on my own this Saturday afternoon. Not knowing what to do with myself as the evening approached I decided to go for a run. Normally I find running quite difficult. As I run my mind tends to concentrate on my breathing which puts me off the run. The difference today was that I went exploring.

I commute in to London most days from Hertford East. Over the past few weeks taking the train journey has been quite painful for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the heat on the train is really uncomfortable and secondly because the train goes through a beautifully scenic area between Hertford and Ware called Kings Mead which makes you wish were out walking through the nature reserve rather than in a hot stuffy carriage.

So, tonight I went for a run around Kings Mead and really enjoyed it. I took a couple of Qik videos, some photos of St. Leonards Church which was en-route, and I’ve even created a map of my run.

43 Feet Stone

The stone that is shown right at the start of the video says “43 Feet” on it. It did have some other writing on it but I couldn’t get close enough to read it. The other interesting point in this video is the penalty of FIVE POUNDS for violating any of the rules on the sign. The sign could maybe do with being updated.

Crossroads

St. Leonards Church, Hertford

Run around Hertford Map

View Run around Hertford 04-07-2009 in a larger map

Bing.com round table

Phil Leggetter — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:56:53 +0000

On Monday between 19:00 and 21:00 I’m going to a Bing roundtable (round table) in London. The event is being organise by Colin Mercer and is described as:

a small round-table event to discuss Bing and since we saw your recent tweet regarding comparative search results between Bing and Google, we thought that you might be interested in coming along. The idea would be to get your initial thoughts and you’ll get an update on the future steps for Bing which are being developed specifically for the UK. During the session you’ll have the chance to talk with Microsoft representatives and other people from social media like yourself, who have expressed some early opinion.

It would appear the event is being attended by a number of web 2.0, social media, marketing and internet types.

Phil Bradley: Phil is interested in Internet searching, Web 2.0 resources, search engines and their development. Phil has confirmed. I recommend following Phil Bradley on Twitter.
James Barlow: James Barlow is an independent consultant specialising in information technology and project/programme management.
Tom Warren: I don’t have any additional information on Tom.
Chris Hambly: Chris lists himself as a successful Digital Media Entrepreneur
Josh Russell: Josh has tweeted that he’s going. He provides micro-consulting on web application strategy
David Stuart: David is going. David blog provides thoughts of a Web 2.0 research fellow on all things in the technological sphere that capture his interest.
Karen Blakeman: Karen’s blogs about search tools, Internet technologies and resources for business information. Karen has confirmed.
Neil Robinson: Neil describes himself as passionate about using the right technology to drive business forward.
Kevin Harrington: Looks like Kevin had some initial trouble confirming his attendance but I think he’s coming now.
Mark Sharp: Mark designs and runs a number of websites for myself and for other people and organisations
Andrea Giammarchi: Andrea’s profile says JavaScript Ninja and both PHP/ECMAScript Certified Engineer

We are being encouraged to “live blog” the event.

Please come armed with all of your thoughts, opinions and questions for the Bing team. This meet-up is about everyone getting the chance to have their say. We’ll make sure you’re able to live blog during the event

So, I’ll be armed with my laptop (for tweeting) and HTC Touch Pro (for video, if appropriate) and will try and ask as many questions as possible and get as much information out to the real-time web as I can. My personal angle will be one of technology. For example:

How Bing are pushing use of the Bing API and Bing developer centre.
What are they doing to ensure information is available to the real-time web as quickly as possible.

Please let me know if you have any questions that you’d like asked and I’ll do my best to ask them. You can do this in a number of ways. During the event the hashtag in use will be #meetbing. Prior to the event I’d suggest people maybe use #askbing. Failing that you can contact me directly or leave a comment on this blog post.