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I started my computer life on an Apple II PC, my first gaming/entertainment electronics experience was the Lesiure Vision, and it wasn’t until high-school that I met my first IBM, an XT with an attitude. So in my years you can bet I’ve seen a few operating system ‘revolutions’, heck the first computer I paid for with my own money was the Mac Classic back when it was the first PC to have a mouse and ‘Windows’ (plus it could talk!).
Things have changed a bit since that 8mhz Macintosh with it’s single color 10″ non-upgradable screen. The 4mb maximum limit of RAM that was a selling point of my Mac isn’t even enough for a modern CPU cache, let alone an OS + applications, and ‘booting from disk’ has a totally different meaning.
Along comes Windows 8 and I really felt that I needed a new operating system like I needed a new hair in my nose, so I was in no rush at all to review it. The situation reminded me of a quote from Tron 2.0:
“..what sort of improvements have been made in Flynn… I mean, um, Windows 8?” .. “This year we put an 8 on the box!”
Well it’s not really that bad, in fact the more I poke at Windows8 the more I see it’s potential and I can see how it could be a game changer for a web based business. Here’s why:
The start menu is now a web page with tiled animated content including feeding from websites like XKCD.com:
– Do you have your website setup properly to feed the new start menu when people add your site there?
IE10 is the browser the OS uses, you can install another, but it won’t get loaded until you specifically load it
– Does your site look the way you’d expect in IE10? I know our aging site layout looks different in IE10.
There is no prompt to chose a search engine, you’ve got Bing and what more could anyone want?
– This could divide the consumer base among power users who have fiddled and those who just use things ‘as is’. Depending on your market this could change the way you look at Bing.
Clicking the “Make Google my homepage.” link on the google.com/.ca homepage currently causes IE10 to load a blank white page instead of the default home screen.
– Does your site use similar javascript? Will you have the same issues with IE10 users?
Built in applications for reaching social networks aren’t broad enough. “Socialite” program for FB only works with FB, and drops support for Twitter, Reddit, Google Reader, Flicker, Digg, etc..
– Speaking of which, how cozy are you with giving MS access to everything?
Mind you, with all the stink that’s getting raised over the UEFI secure boot protocol, the rate of adoption for Windows8 could be pitiful. If Microsoft’s hardware partners went ahead with the new feature it would lock out other OSes and force people to deal with one source for new OS installs/upgrades.
Most of us engage in social media everyday and a huge percentage of us are devout FaceBook users. You have probably noticed several particularly large sweeping changes over the last few weeks since the launch of Google+. Now that Google has completed beta testing and opened their new social platform to the public, many more drastic changes are anticipated from FaceBook in the coming weeks as the two giants continue to battle for market supremacy.
Mashable has reported that FaceBook plans to implement a major user profile redesign at its F8 Developer Conference tomorrow. While the specifics are vague, reports from two anonymous sources have stated that the redesign is "major" and will initially be focused on increasing time on site for users and to make FaceBook profiles a “nexus” for consuming content.
Other reports state that this roll out is just one component of a much larger roll out that will be followed with a music and media platform. FaceBook appears to have made several agreements with a number of companies to feed content from what users are watching or listening from around the web and feed this information into their FaceBook profiles in real-time to share this media with others. Spotify, Rhapsody, Vevo and Rdio are believed to be the first of FaceBook’s new media partners.
This appears to be only the first tier of major revisions coming to FaceBook. There are rumors of a FaceBook app store and that the redesigned profiles are part of a larger push into social ecommerce. Some sources believe that FaceBook intends to give FaceBook Credits more prominence as well.
The social media giant is reported to be working on something called "Project Spartan", which is a HTML5 version of its platform that would become a distribution mechanism for Web applications through Apple’s mobile Safari browser. At this point however, FaceBook has been very tight-lipped and has not confirmed any of these rumors.
Some of the more recent changes from FaceBook include:
View Shares button allows users to see how their content is distributed.
Updated lists and Smart Lists, which can auto-generate lists based on location or how people know each other.
Custom URLs for new Pages. Previously, 25 fans were needed before a Page could set their custom URL. Not anymore.
Poke Button has gone into hiding into a dropdown menu at the top right of a users profile.
Page Messages, users will no longer be able to send messages to fans as of September 30.
Many of us will be waiting the new changes with baited breath this Thursday to see what changes will be announced and to find out when they might be implemented. I know that many of my contacts cringe when they find out that FaceBook is about to, or has made changes to the platform, so I try to remind them that change in the social networking world normally brings about positive change…and that no, they will not revert back to the previous version no matter how many people sign a petition to change it back.
Google+ isn’t playing games with abusers of it’s policies and is cracking down on Google+ profiles that aren’t using legitimate names, odd characters, or contain misleading information.
I personally know what it’s like to visit sites like Facebook or MySpace where you’re looking for an old friend and you just can’t seem to locate them. Some time goes by and you wonder who this odd fellow is that’s chatting with all your friends. You dig into the profile and find a ton of funny images, culture references, and other stuff, but nothing that tells you why this person is chatting with all your friends. Finally you give up and send a message, yep, it’s that old friend you couldn’t find, he’s just using his on-line name because he’s unemployed and looking for jobs.
What a situation! Why does this fellow not have more control over his info so he can use honest information without worry? Technically, at this stage, users of FB/MySpace have the control, but when the companies are selling your info off to the highest bidders, would you blame anyone for feeling a bit shy? On top of that, making the changes needed isn’t clear or easy so can you blame people for trying to sign into Google+ with the same attitudes?
Google+ is trying to understand, they are avoiding outright bans on accounts with ‘nick names’ and issuing warnings well ahead of taking any actions. If an account is a clear violation of Google+ policy, spamming, etc., it’s closed instantly to prevent abuse of the system. They are also taking the time to clearly outline the policy, why you no longer need to hide behind an anonymous identity, and adding methods to include enough info to be found by maiden names, pseudonymous, alternate languages, etc.. should you choose to make any of that info ‘public’ and searchable.
For people who were derailed during the Google+ signup process, you’ll be glad to note that the signup process has been improved to explain your choices more clearly to prevent users from accidentally signing up under a pseudonym.
I have a friend that got fancy with the signup process in my circles, and it’s a bit odd watching his name morph as I interact with him and Google+ is picking between his profile name, his real name, and his GMail/GChat choices.
He’s expecting to get a warning letter soon asking him to unify his name selections with real info, but at the same time he should have the option under ‘other names’ to share his personality a bit.
Some folks on-line think Google+ is ‘missing the boat‘ on what users want, claiming that they won’t bend to Google’s rules to use the service. Personally, if I wanted to chat with a bunch of strangers, never giving up my info, I can name off countless places where that’s possible. Google+ is where I want to connect with real people, have real discussions, and skip all the nonsense that’s typically associated with the trust issues of the past.
If you have a Google+ account, this post even tries to challenge the legality of requiring a real name within the EU. While the fellow making the post does not seem to have fully read the user agreement when he joined Google+, missing the part where he opted to accept the rules, he may still have some merit in pushing Google+ to be as flexible as possible.
For what it’s worth, on the topic of trust, I didn’t share an image of my face publicly on Google+. To me that’s a private option because nobody is going to search for me by face, not anyone I’d like to have find me at least. If you’re in the right circles on my profile, you can gaze at my ugly mug all day if you want, just don’t be a creep and take pictures of me sleeping!
Like most, you are probably already feeling inundated with the amount of blog posts and media "buzz" (pun intended) regarding the release of Google social networking platform Google+.
ComScore Inc. has reported that fledgling social network has acquired over 20 million unique visitors over the last three weeks. This is especially impressive due to the fact that access to Google+ is by invitation only by current members in much the same fashion that Google launched Gmail by invitation years ago.
With the amazing adoption rate being shown, Google has not yet begun to market the new platform to the 1 billion monthly users of the Google search engine, Gmail and various services.
Google+ stands to rival the other major players in the social networking world, but Google still has a long way to go to reach the scale of giants like Facebook, which has more than 750 million users, and Twitter, which has more than 200 million registered accounts to date.
The data Google obtains about people’s interests could also help it change the way its Web-search engine works. Sites in its search results could potentially be ranked based on what users and their friends like or find useful,” Google engineers have said. Google is also hoping to have a service that will be a home for brands and celebrities alike.
Google states that they will eventually allow developers to create "social" games and other applications that would run on top of Google+, similar to Facebook’s successful platform for applications.
I had my first taste of Google Plus on the weekend and I have to say that I quite enjoyed it. The interface was clean and light while still giving me quick access to components that I want wanted. I have only used it for a few days so the quality of the streamlined interface will only be fully realized when it is in full use and populated by several hundred or so friends and associates.
I liked the ability to post separately to specific social circles like Work, Family, or Friends or to post to Your Circle, Extended Circles or Public. For Facebook users, there is enough similarity in the layout to facilitate moving over to the Google+ interface easily.
Google’s other social networking site, Orkut, will continue to operate alongside Google+ but it is uncertain whether or not the two mediums will be fused. Orkut has been around for about four years and has tens of millions of users in South America and India and currently ranks at 102 on Alexa’s list of most popular websites in the world.
Regardless, Google seems to be playing a cautious "wait and see" attitude in terms of integrating the two. While Facebook has certainly been the dominant force in the social networking world for many years many users have strong concerns over their privacy controls. Google feels they will take a substantial portion of the market away from Facebook on that basis alone with a social networking site whose privacy features are tighter and easier to configure.
In a possibly related story, Facebook may on the brink of a crisis and trapped in a MySQL “Fate Worse than Death.” The entire social platform is operating a huge, complex MySQL implementation that stands to cripple the social giant. According to Micahel Stonebraker the only possibility is to rewrite everything from scratch.
In Stonebraker’s opinion, "old SQL (as he calls it) is good for nothing" and needs to be "sent to the home for retired software." After all, he explained, SQL was created decades ago before the web, mobile devices and sensors forever changed how and how often databases are accessed.
The widely accepted issue with MySQL is that by virtue of its design, it was never intended to process the colossal amounts of transactions required for huge webscale applications and the huge amounts of calls that are required. The biggest problem with MySQL and other SQL databases is that they consume too many resources for overhead tasks.
Facebook has split its SQL database into 4000 shards in order to handle the massive amount of data and is currently running 9000 instances of memcache in order to keep up to the massive number of calls that the database must serve. In 2008, they were employing over 1800 server dedicated to MySQL and over 800 dedicated to memcache.
Google has done social media very well in Brazil, completely dominating the market with their Orkut service. So when people started saying that Google was nuts for taking on Social Media, it made me ask why?
I like Facebook.
I love GMail.
I share some photos and quotes on FB.
Google sees everything I do.
I use Google’s chrome browser to view FB.
I get most of my FB updates in GMail.
I am also a privacy nut.
To me, that’s not a fair fight when Google would need a blind fold, and one arm tied behind their backs for it to be a close race. So then it must be that the folks who are suggesting it will fail are actually trying it out and making some quick ‘first impressions’?
Here’s the link to get started with Google+. I think you’ll find that it’s rather unlikely anyone is speaking from a hands on perspective given how limited the service is right now. Heck it doesn’t even confirm you’ve been added to the contact list, likely because everyone is still trying to get an invite.
Even if you get an invite and go to the page you’re likely to hit this:
Plus if you are in the trial group, apparently the invites are limited to 100 just like GMail was. EDIT: If you add contacts to a social circle, and then send an message to the social circle, Google + will invite all those contacts to join, without counting them as invites. No doubt that this will only last a few hours before it’s patched however.
So for those without an account here’s some videos showing you what’s coming.
A quick run through all the features in one video for all you TL;DW types.
Social Circles are a brilliant grouping function. On FB we see people either suffering because they have no groups, or suffering to create and manage groups.
Google’s approach with Social Circle’s visual drag n’ drop couldn’t be more simple or clever. Now when you have something gross to share you can drop it on a circle of people that you know will be mortified by your image.
Want to crack an inside joke 90% of your friends wouldn’t get? Make a social circle for the folks who would get it and drop the joke on them.
If social circles was all you had, you’d find yourself making a ton and management would become a chore.
Enter Google + Sparks, an ‘interest’ manager that lets you tune into whatever sparks your interest. If you share something with Spark you can also invite groups of people to push your spark out to. Thanks to Google +1 if you are doing this properly you’ll see it come back in the +1 score.
Google Hangouts is essentially a group video chat. Anyone can start one and friends can jump into any open hangout with other friends. The selling point is ‘unscheduled’ social time, where anyone with any spare time can ‘hang’ together.
As tech gets better, sharing becomes easier. Instant upload is on the forefront of media sharing where all the heavy lifting is done for you, and you’re left with minimal effort to share what matters.
Have you ever planned something with more than 2 friends, quickly? Getting assigned as the ‘planner’ for anything can sometimes ruin all the fun of what you’re planning.
Huddle allows you to quickly pull everyone together and sort out the game plan without any single person taking on the task of planning.
After that really well composed tour I’m only left with a few issues.
Overlapping services:
- Do I use huddle to plan lunch?
- Should I go see who’s hungry in a hangout?
- Perhaps I need to start a ‘Bacon Cheeseburger Spark’ and see who’s interested?
We have to wait for an invite:
- Waiting really is the hardest part.
- Even if you get an invite you may not get in yet.
- Socializing with 2 out of 200 friends won’t work well.
We need friends to do things with:
- You read this far?
- Lets be friends!
If you’ve found some flaws or see some shortcomings of the Google+ service, drop us a line, we’d love to hear some solid insight into what isn’t great about the new service. I heard Dave on the radio show while I was working on this article, and they were discussing Google+ for a few minutes. Dave was trying to play devils advocate and it sounded like he was really having a hard time shooting it down which is impressive.
Once we’ve had some hands on time with the service we will have more of an SEO insight into what Google+ offers, but for now enjoy the videos and discussion.
A slender Steve jobs came out of medical leave to deliver the keynote address at the 2011 Developers Conference hosted by Apple.
Looking more like the South Park rendition of the man behind Apple, Steve was notably tired and unhealthy looking (much like the Canucks last night) as he delivered all the details on the new iCloud service:
- Works with iPhones, iPads, iPods, iMacs, and iBooks
- Synchronizes contacts, calendars, and files among devices
- Basic service is free (replacing the $99/yr MobileMe)
While the offerings are similar to free services from Google, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.., they are some firsts for Apple and will assist Apple users who have legacy audio on CDs.
For a fee of $25 (US) each year, Apple will scan the hard disk of a customer to seek out all non-iTunes music on the assumption they were converted from a CD the user owns. Music that is not already on iTunes will be uploaded to iCloud. If the music is already on iCloud then the song will be added to the user’s iCloud locker without the need to re-purchase music.
Apple mentioned that they are in talks with major recording companies to make this possible, which is a far cry from having those companies on board with such a consumer-friendly design.
Also announced was the Lion OS update for Macintosh. Consumers next month will be able to purchase Lion for $32 and can expect enhanced touch control features, like task switching with gestures, to be included.
iOS5 was also mentioned, as it will come with a new showcase for content that used to be the domain of printed materials, such as newspapers and magazines. Consumers are supposed to think of this as a digital newsstand, however there was no mention of how this presentation would make the content more accessible or interesting. Tweeting from photo apps and more social media connectivity with Facebook seems to be one of the biggest highlights, but we can expect more details closer to the release date.
PS: Don’t forget, tomorrow is IPv6 day, don’t miss your chance to be part of the test.
Bing has announced that they have created a whole new level of Facebook integration into their search results and have "designed a new way to experience search, focusing on great design, task completion, instant answers, and vertical categories like shopping and travel to help you make decisions faster."
Bing states in their blog post that Research tells us that 90% of people seek advice from family and friends as part of the decision making process. This "Friend Effect" is apparent in most of our decisions and often outweighs other facts because people feel more confident, smarter and safer with the wisdom of their trusted circle.
In October 2010, Bing formed a partnership with social networking giant, Facebook that would allow Bing to use the Facbook social data and integrate them into Bing search queries. Initially, Bing was slow to integrate the data. In February of this year, Bing took a step towards more complete integration but still was not utilizing the full potential of the data that was available to them.
With the new update from Bing, search results can now be tailored to your Facebook profile based on your friends and even the collective Facebook network (not your FB friends).
<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&vid=243216f7-9941-4f48-a2d0-2065e06a47b5&src=SLPl:embed::uuids&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing">Video: Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing</a>
Some of the biggest changes are:
Receive personalized search results based on the opinions of your friends by simply signing into Facebook.
You can see what your Facebook friends "like" across the Web
Incorporate the collective know-how of the Web into your search results, and begin adding a more conversational aspect to your searches.
You can quickly see what your friends like and are sharing.
Showing which of your friends liked the search results given by Bing via Facebook.
Bing will promote search results that are "liked" by your friends to the front page of the Bing personalized search results.
Google has used social media as a ranking signal for many months and continue to attempt to incorporate social media signals into their search results. Until Google has a popular social networking platform from which to draw data from, it looks as though Bing has taken the lead in personalized searches by utilizing Facebook social media data.
In a report from Reuters, it seems "Facebook and Google are separately considering a tie-up with Skype after the web video conferencing service delayed its initial public offering, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters."
The article states that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has been re-initiated discussions about a potential partnership or an outright purchase offer for the Luxembourg-based company, Skype.
As we reported in this blog post on March 8th, 2010, discussions between Facebook and Skype began back in September 2010. A Skype deal is expected to be valued between $3 billion to $4 billion, while Skype’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) is expected to raise about $1 billion. In August 2010, Skype filed a registration statement to go public, but the October 2010 appointment of a new CEO, Tony Bates, delayed the IPO till the second half of 2011.
In October 2010, Skype released Skype 5.0 that offered voice calling between friends but did not include a video chat feature. The integration was one-sided in that only Skype added some Facebook features to its client. It was speculated at that time that Facebook declined to offer any VoIP services since it would begin competing directly with other VoIP services that offer video calling such as Google Gmail and Apple’s FaceTime.
Google’s GoogleTalk service has offered the ability to video chat and VoIP calling for several months and is able to offer an all-inclusive package that offer email, voice & video chat, phone calling from a trusted source all for free. With the popularity of Skype waning and Facebook users demanding these features, it seems that Facebook and Skype are desperately trying to move forward to offer a more robust service.
Unfortunately it may be too little too late, as the Skype service may not be up to the challenge of offering a fully integrated service to the multitudes of Facebook and Skype subscribers. It is evident in the call-quality that the newer service (Google Talk) utilizes an up-to-date, better, technology. Skype will have a difficult time replacing the outdated and obsolete technologies currently used in their infrastructure in order to compete with GoogleTalk.
In an interesting article from ZDNet, it looks as though Facebook and Skype have resumed talks over a merger between the two online companies. If the rumor-mill is correct, you may be soon able to make a video call to your friends on Facebook. This appears to be another step between the migrations of the two technologies. They have been discussing a potential joining or partnership since September of 2010, but were unable to reach any agreements at that time.
Skype has had the ability to voice call your Facebook contacts since the release of version Skype 5.0 released in 2010, but it did not include video chat ability. While Skype has included some Facebook features into their software, Facebook has not reciprocated as adding any VoIP services on their website and mobile apps would instantly put them in direct competition with many other services that offer video calling such as Google’s Gmail and Apple’s Facetime.
Skype currently allows for video conferencing with up to 10 other people but it is only available on their premium package. Allowing this option would be a huge boost to the popularity of both Facebook and Skype. Google has been trying to develop a social network with its release of Orkut, but has been so far unsuccessful.
More and more subscribers use Facebook to conduct internet searches as they would in Google. As it stands now, Facebook places paid ads for localized searches on your Facebook page. If Skype owns eBay than any potential merger between Facebook and Skype opens the floodgates for direct and specific product placement from eBay. Adding a partner with an affiliate such as eBay seems essentially problematic if not completely unethical.
And now for the "SEO Spin":
As SEO’s we need to watch for these shifting usage patterns in an effort to make the exploit peoples search patterns. While Facebook does not offer much for the SEO to promote a client’s business, it may be that the best SEO efforts will be realized through a back door approach. What if an SEO’s client were to place their products on eBay in order to have them appear on your Facebook page when searching for relevant terms?
Further bulletins as events warrant.
