Was trying to figure out what some of my Twitter friends like @chrissieb and @mknell were complaining about earlier today - but now it makes sense and yesterday, I saw the Twitter Blue Whale, just like everyone else did, who tried to use Twitter in the evening - and found it was down.

Read/WriteWeb has a post about what happened with Twitter yesterday in New Twitter Anti-Spam Bot Causes Chaos:

Earlier this week, ZDNet reported that many Twitter users were no longer able to add followers thanks to the new limits put in place to discourage spamming. Unfortunately, this action caused some major trouble for community managers, like Pandora’s Lucia Willow, for example, who stated her case over on Get Satisfaction. In addition to Pandora, Comcast, Jet Blue, and several others were also affected. In order to add new followers, they had to delete older ones - not a good idea for those that want to stay tuned into their community.

In addition to causing problems for community managers, there were even some cases of follower limits placed on those that had a 1:1 Twitter ratio. And although Twitter has not confirmed the cause of the dropped follower counts, it’s likely that the the new anti-spam bot is to blame.

When I heard that some firms are using Twitter for Customer Service, I rolled my eyes, not that it should not be done - but using a free service that isn’t 100% reliabable to support a paid service seems like it’s almost …”cheating”….

As we wrote earlier this year, many companies are using Twitter for customer service, meaning that they will be following people at higher rates than regular Twitter users due to the fact that they follow back those that follow them. This is certainly a legitimate way to use the service and one that should not be punished through a blind algorithm that can’t distinguish a community manager from a spammer.

It’s almost as if companies are  using Skype for phone, Twitter for their customer service, Flickr for their photo gallery, etc, and that’s OK, as long as you don’t overly depend on these services - but I’m wondering about businesses built on services that are not entirely reliable or secure.

I think it’s tempting to use Twitter and RSS to, say ….. keep in touch with customers -but if your going to build elaborate systems on top of it - you’d better hope Twitter, itself, is secure and stable, something that I don’t think it is - at least, not 100%.

The real reason Google is buying Digg ……. to use to power part of it’s Social Search - heard about the potential sale in TechCrunch in a post titled Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”

In fact, I wrote about Google’s new Search Interface that it’s been playing with in a post titled Future of Search Engine Optimization - Google’s New Search Interface recently and wasn’t as enthusiastic with the “Digg like” features as i was with the “Friendfeed” aspect of it.

According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch >>>>

Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source.

We first wrote about the Google-Digg negotiations in March. Despite a vigorous denial by Digg CEO Jay Adelson the negotiations continued, although Google’s Marissa Mayer reportedly cooled on the company for a period of time.

The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes. And while the major deal points have been agreed on, the acquisition could still fall apart. Microsoft, which was previously interested in the company, may be willing to step back in at a much lower price.

Well, it wasn’t unexpected - Know More Media - which publishes www.Webmetricsguru.com - is going to cease operations at the end of this month - obviously, I want to own the domain, just as I own The Analytics Guru - I’ve wanted to own it all along - and bring all that traffic - here.

Wish me luck.

But…. I’m if I’d ever be doing such a job, I’d be a much more “data analytic” driven than the typical person who is now being considered for such a role -  I noticed most people who end up being in this “new role” are of a communications and public relations “elk” which is not really my forte (though I do have a marketing management certificate - but I don’t think like a PR or Marketing Person, I see my self grounded in Web Analytics and Art).

The post on  Companies need Social Media Czars in Social Media Today is totally right on - and sorely lacking in most major corporations - though a few are beginning to wake up and smell the music .. including Ford, Intel and Pepsi, according the post on Social Media Czars, above:

“…how large Fortune 100 companies are starting to hire new kinds of leaders to help them navigate the social media space. Talking about Ford, Intel and Pepsi, the article discussed the trend towards hiring social media czars that coordinate social media efforts across the organization within and beyond the marketing departments. I believe it is just a matter of time before most organizations either have dedicated roles like this or push their employees (or specially identified employees) to go through a social media boot camp of sorts.

They way consumers communicate and interact has fundamentally changed.”

This is true - and most corporations haven’t figured it out yet - just go to almost any corporation and ask who “owns” social media and you’ll find out a variety of answers but little “authority” to go cross channel - anything that exists, I bet, is stuck in one vertical or another, or assigned to a particular project or set of projects.

There’s no that goes from one side of the company to the other - and unifies their social media strategy … that is, if the even have a strategy.

In an AdWeek article on Why Brands Need a New Kind of Leader it was said:

“…..If there’s a blueprint for newbies like Ford, it can be found in the IT industry. There, companies like Dell, Cisco and Intel have built up social-media teams over the past 18 months. At Intel, Bob Duffy leads a five-person team that is trying to change how Intel talks to its customers. Intel began the group in late 2006. For Duffy, the challenge is to move from a singular corporate voice to hundreds of voices of Intel’s greatest asset: its engineers. The company has embarked on an ambitious project to connect customers with its engineers. The idea: Intel will build credibility among the tough-to-impress IT crowd by putting its engineers out front, rather than a media-trained spokesperson. So far, 150 engineers have been selected to contribute as bloggers on Intel sites and on other tech sites.

“…They’re silo oriented and they don’t talk to each other.”

It was this realization that led Ford to bring in Monty to lead a five-person social- media team. Monty’s group will reside within corporate communications at Ford, but its work will extend into other parts of the company, said Day. The diverse charter of the group is evidenced in the 50 candidates he interviewed over the past six months: some were in PR, but many more came from marketing or even technology backgrounds.

The risk of specialized social-media czars is it becomes yet another marketing function, said Dachis. Indeed, some companies approach the role with a definite focus on finding new ways to market to consumers. Pepsi, for instance, describes its nascent social-media team in a job posting as “responsible for reaching new audiences, bloggers, Facebookers and other key influentials that live in the online world.” (A PepsiCo rep declined to make an executive available to discuss the role, e-mailing a statement that the company is “willing to put more resources into new media as it evolves to ensure that our message is heard.”)

I guess I’d enjoy the challenge of this kind of job provided I could remain a Web Analyst while doing it - because that’s what grounds me ….. rooted in data, not opinions.

But this goes along with my philosophy that Web Analytics Group could be the place to start, and grow this up and out …… why?

Because we, the Web Analysts, have the best shot at building a measurement platform that works - while communications and public relations will focus on marketing that may not, at the end of the day, translate into ROI Metrics.

I want to turn the key one more time here ….  and bring in a personal story - my work for the Web Analytics Association as Director of Social Media; my committee is the largest at the WAA and I built it from scratch when I was elected to the Board of Directors a little more than a year ago.

Recently I had a conversation with two of my peers on the Board and it came up what great work my committee was doing in Social Media … and how “social” we’ve been (we like to socialize … after all, you can’t have social media if you don’t want to have a conversation..right?  Makes sense to me).   The opinion others had was that Social Media is “social” while Research does “research” and Advocacy does “advocacy” while Marketing Committee does “marketing” … you get the idea.

But what I said is that every committee needed to exactly the same thing I’m doing with Social Media Committee - outreach, creating content which can be accessed, creating conversations that can grow … creating awareness and empthy for the work the Web Analytics Association does.

And you know what - the next day, after that conversation, I suddenly realized that Social Media is not an activity ….. Social Media is a “State of Being” … it isn’t a vertical - it’s a level … and it permeates every channel, every committee, every part of a company.

The fact that most corporations don’t have that awareness, and even the Web Analytics Association is only just learning this, highlights the need for “Social Media Czars” so that at least, some one “owns” all of this … because, without “ownership” and a budget to go with it … no one can buy anything or really accomplish much.

And one more word … sometimes, in an organization, there are individuals that are active in Social Media, and grow it from the ground up (grassroots) - and it’s great when a company or corporation sees that grassroots growth and fosters it - lets it grow.   Problem is .. without the “Social Media Czar” … who is the entity that’s responsible for letting grassroots efforts grow .. who is there to foster them?

The answer is too often … no one.  The grassroots efforts die … because they are neglected (corporations have other priorities and social media, might not be one of them) and those move on to other opportunities that are more purely social media.

But that doesn’t need to happen, and it shouldn’t - and the “Social Media Czar” and that group -ought to be aware of Social Media, grassroots Social Media, and help it grow, in fact, feed it with good social analytic data and a budget to go with it.

By the way, if you want to learn more about the work my committee does with Social Media within the Web Analytics Association - read this post

Social Media Commiteee Meeting 7-17-08

I meet with my Social Media Committee Members whenever I can and since I have 2 of my 3 committee co-chairs (I’m the Board Director) here in New York City, it makes sense for us to meet on a regular basis - but this is the first time we actually tried to do it.

Here’s a link to our meeting, which I can’t seem to embed here.  Also, feel free to join WAASOCIAL if you are someone who is into Analytics or Metrics of any way, it’s the Web Analytics Association’s own Social Network, and it’s powered by KickApps.

I got this message from Facebook today…

Eight friends have rated your trustworthiness:

* You scored 4.5 out of 5 (Highly Trusted).
* Your political power index is 36 (SOMEBODY).

Gee ….. so does that mean …. I’m somebody?

I tried to find out who thought I was so highly trustable - but the application doesn’t tell me and just tries to get me to install other applications that also don’t tell me what I really want to know ….

Why bother telling me that I’m Trustworthy if I can’t find out who thinks that - you’d think with Social Media there’d also be a good dose of transparency … but not here.

I see this as another example of tricking people into installing more stuff than they need that doesn’t help them - it’s the antithesis of real social media, real transparancy.

Maybe the Dow isn’t a lousy metric - but it doesn’t seem to be telling the real story - or at least, not isolating the fundamentals in a meaningful manor - I wrote a long rant about that today at Webmetricsguru.com Oil Demand falls but prices don’t change that much.

I usually write that kind of stuff here, but I want to make sure my stuff is seen by as many people as I can.

As you can tell, I’m into fundamentals - not this garbage stuff I read in Newspapers.

Not that the Dow Jones Industral Average isn’t important - it is - but it’s full of garbage data - it’s the same kind of issue we have as Web Analysts - we pull data - but there’s so much garbage that isn’t important and the real story - is hidden in the haystack of data - the meaninful information that you need to move forward…the mass of data is blinding.

In fact, I concluded the Dow going up this week just confirmed how bad things really are - they’re not improving …. they’re degrading - the World Economy is addicted to OIL - the reason the Dow went up late this week was OIL demand went down (because we’re broke … tell me that’s a good story) and as prices go down a 10 bucks (that is much now ?) the Stock Market goes up by a couple of hundred points.

But doesn’t that kinda tell us how bad things really are?

How Unstable they really are?

What happens if something bad happens in the Middle East - say….October?

I predicted that -  there are a lot of reasons why this could happen, even if Neocon’s did’t try to set it up - there are legit reasons out there).

What about if a storm comes and hits a major Oil Port?  What if an earthquake hits some oil refinery?   What happens to the World Economy ….. everything shoots up.

To me, the story of the Dow going up just shows us how bad things really are -  the World Financial Markets are running on Oil … driven by OIl. We’re addicted to Oil.

That is the Fundamental here - forget what the Dow says - unless we find a way to fix this energy situation - nothing is going to improve much - that’s my belief.

A real metric might be how addicted to oil the World Economy is … and how addicted to OIL each country is … if we can find a metric that measures the progress we’re making in Alternative Energy and tie that to meaningful progress -that would be a meaningful metric.

Read/WriteWeb has a post on Corporate Social Networks Are A Waste of Money, Study Finds; I found the Social Network for Cat Litter very interesting - though not many cats are joining:

Let’s face it, though. Social networks where a brand name product is what everyone rallies around are a dumb idea. They are stupid. No one should submit themselves to the indignity of creating a user profile and friend connections based on cola or cat litter. We have written before about the never ending market for niche social networks and we’re down with that. Hell, we like to read about countless niche social networks on the Ning Blog just for fun. If brand-centered social networks are failing, though, it’s probably because they are brand heavy and stupid.

The matter could probably warrant more thoughtful discussion, but instead we’ll leave you with this image, from Purina’s Breeze for Cats. It’s a “community” focused on cat litter. Ask yourself, is there hope for humanity?

I wrote about A Peak at Google’s new “Digg” like Search Interface on Webmetricsguru.com but I held back the most interesting part for here (because I own The Analytics Guru while I don’t own Webmetricsguru.com domain, Know More Media, does, and won’t sell it to me - I create the content for it, though, but personally, I do want to own it, someday, as well) - my predictions on the Future of SEO, given this new Search Interface from Google that is currently being developed.

Here’s the thing, once the new “Digg like” / “FriendFeed” like / “Twitter like”  Search Engine interface gets deployed (it’s not an “if”, but “when” and “where” it gets deployed - the current ranking systems are becoming more unsatisfactory each day, and I’ll explain why) Search Engine Optimization will have to radically change.

Before I go into my predictions for the Future of Search Engine Optimization - I have to state some caveats

1. What Google developed 11 years ago was brilliant at the time, but no longer works that well and is constantly being “patched” every month or so, or else search results would be come so full of spam the results would become almost useless.
2. Human beings - Searchers - have evolved over time and increasingly want more sophisticated search capabilities and have much more sophisticated questions than they did 11 years ago, when the Page-rank system was developed.  At the time Page-rank was introduced to the world, documents and search habits were unsophisticated enough that Page-rank worked very well to find the best information in the available, indexed, web pages - but that’s no longer the case, or even possible - given the growth of the Internet and the way people interact with it.
3. The Introduction and Evolution of Social Networks and User Generated Content, in parallel with the penetration of Broadband and resulting Rich Media/Flash - along with the rise of Mobile 3G networks and power devices (like the 3G IPhone) have made people now want to use Search in ways that were much different, or even, possible, when Search Engines first became popular 11 or so years ago.

Here’s the Future of SEO - Future of Search Engine Optimization:

• It will be as important to monitor “search comments” as it is to optimize the content - in fact, optimizing content will become “secondary” to reading the social media comments (the FriendFeed/Twitter part) and coming up with a set of actions to improve the comments.   In fact, the “comments” searchers leave about a search result will become more important than the content of the page, and the SEO person of the Future will need to “datamine” and “summarize” the comments.  Google will also try to evolve software to do some of this (ie: Sentiment Analysis) but it will be the voting of real, human, users, that will count the most.
• SEO will focus more on anticipating what comments people are going to make and coming up with a plan to have content / site owners, create experiences that will be “commented” on more “positively” than they might otherwise - this will become, the new optimization.  I expect to see people specializing in this new skill within the next two years - but it will start really taking off once the new interfaces are fully rolled out.
• New software will be written (largely super-seeding the current, very two-dimensional ranking software of today and yesterday) that will collect all the comments on search results for keyword phrases - along with the site information - these will be the new reports of the future.  In many ways, Keyword Research will become much more focused on extracting long tail information from the “commentary” via Social Media, than anything we have today.
• In terms of using Google Search - the clear market leader, combining Search History, Web History and the SOCIAL GRAPH will result in personalized Search Results that will also highlight commentary by a searcher’s “friends” - but the “commentary” will also be able to be filtered by location (ie: searchers who made comments on search results in a DMA Code, and Searchers, who make comments and also fall within a certain age/sex group, or a PRIZM Geo-Demographic Cluster Group.
• In many ways, the enhancements in Search will come from third party companies offering advanced data mining capabilities, such as a PRIZM Geo-Demographic overlay / segmentation of Search Results - and these packages will be used be Search and Web Analysts in the future - once they evolve.
• Search Engines, themselves, will become backend processors and service providers - much as Yahoo’s “Boss” interface is beginning to hint at - I expect this will become more apparent within 3-5 years.  By 2012, most of these changes will have taken place - Search will be totally transformed from anything we have today - and that’s just in 4 years from now.

I think you can see where I’m going with this - what we call “SEO” today, or even “SEM” (which I haven’t dealt with at all here) won’t disappear, in fact, it’ll move up the food chain, along with Web Analytics - but none of these things will be called by the same names within the next 4-5 years.

What I’m doing now is called Web Analytics - what it will be called in 2012-2013 - will be something else - it will a lot different - things are moving faster and faster, and yet faster.

We do need to move up the food chain - and I wrote about it recently in - I think I just figured out where the Future of Marketing is going- both Web Analytics and Search Engine Optimization are moving closer to the creation of the content - the creation of the campaigns, the conception of it - actually.  And, the Web Analyst is moving up (what ever they end up calling us) to be  a partner - we’re going to end up getting a “seat at the Table”  - in fact, we might end up being the Table - as, more and more, marketing results need precise measurement - we need to show results - and people need to learn from those results.

So, we’re moving up, the faster, the better - but it will be an evolution - as these improvements in Search roll out along with improvements in what we call Web Analytics today, roll out - we’ll have move up - we’ll become too crucial to be down 5 levels - I’ve worked in places like that, so I know of what I speak.

.. and that’s the future I see - probably there’s more to write here - but I’ve written enough for one day - plus seeing into the probable future, at least I think it’s the future, takes a lot of energy - I need rest now.

There’s a new show that’s appearing starting this week about Meet The Bloggers - Live premiere this Friday, July 18th 1pm ET / 10am PT that I’d love to see and maybe, be on, sometime.  I heard about the show from B.L. Ochman’s blog.

I can’t seem to embed the video here so here’s the url

http://meetthebloggers.org/?utm_source=rgemail

- you can go view it yourself.