Month: March 2009

Categories
Search Engines Tech

Google Insights for Search

Hands up who’s heard of Google Insights for Search? My hand is staying down which as a discerning tech lover I probably shouldn’t freely admit? It had apparently launched last August though fact fans which in Google world is a long time ago. So what is it? Let’s essentially think of it as a stripped down version of your very own Google Analytics but for search. It’s actually pretty useful on getting a more detailed picture on what people are searching for, where and when.

Much like Google Trends, you can use Insights for Search to analyze search volume patterns over time, as well as related queries and rising searches. You can also compare search trends across multiple search terms, categories, geographic regions, or specific time ranges. Insights can help you can analyze everything from interest levels in rival football teams (I’ve chosen my home town team of Nottingham Forest Vs bitter rivals Derby County but you see how it works. Take note @tim_whirledge) Or maybe even the relative popularity of politicians? (In this case Barack Obama Vs Gordon Brown)

In the last few days, additional features have been launched that allow you to see what the world is searching for beyond Google Web Search, by adding new data sources including Google News, Image Search, and Product Search. The new Insights lets you break down search data in several ways. For starters, you can take a look at the rising News searches over the past 7, 30, or 90 days

You can also view the popularity of a given query across different geographies, from country-level down to individual metropolitan areas. For journalists and newspapers, this feature could be a useful tool to gauge interest levels in different subjects among a reader base.

For example, with the Formula 1 season coming back in to action at the weekend kicking off in Melbourne, Australia, I was curious to see where in the world interest in Formula 1 was highest. I initally thought it would be highest in Australia with all the mentions stemming from the fact that the first race is in Melbourne and everyone would be really excited about it. I was wrong. Australia was down in 8th place for regional interest. How did I find that out?

I tried a search for “Formula 1” and used the ‘Google Web Search’ filter over the past 7 days. Interest was found to be highest in Spain, passionate and vocal F1 fans, with Costa Rica and South Africa running closely behind as you can see on the map below:

Regional Split

Of course, Insights for Search can’t quite explain these search asymmetries, but they’re interesting to note nonetheless!

Interesting stuff I’m sure you may well agree. It’s not a revolution, more an evolution. It might just give you that bit more granular level of detail when you’re doing a search so for that, it comes highly recommended. Start exploring right away on the Google Insights for Search homepage or head on over to the Inside Adwords Blog to find out more.

Categories
Social Media Twitter

Social graph of your Twitter followers.

What does your Twitter network look like? Via Lolly Borel, I found out about a visualisation of who Mailana thinks you speak to the most. I’ll be honest and say it’s not 100% accurate, some of the people pictured I’ve spoken to once or twice for example. Check out yours here.

My top 3 according to Mailana are accurate however, Paul being my boss along with Jed and James who I’d say are actual *offline* friends.

1. Paul Borge

2. Jed Hallam

3. James Whatley

LitmanLive's Network

Categories
Analysis iPhone Mobile Retail Tech

Mobile phones are the most searched for consumer electronics product; Apple the top brand

Below is a guest posting on the Hitwise blog by Richard Seymour, their UK intelligence analyst and resident gadget expert.

I found the below a pretty interesting read so hope Hitwise don’t mind me reposting. The hot consumer electronics list is full of insights so the webinar linked to below is a recommended click.

We have developed a tool to analyse the consumer electronics search data – The Hitwise Hot Consumer Electronics List. For the most recent week’s data (week ending 14/03/09), we can see that mobile phones are the most searched for products online, accounting for almost 30% of all consumer electronics searches. The top phone is consistently the Apple iPhone, with approximately 1 in 12 mobile phone searchers currently searching for all variations of the iPhone. The iPhone has so far only been surpassed on the odd week or two during the launches of new phones. For example, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic which launched on 23rd January 2009, took top spot during w\e 14th Feb, picking up 6.6% of all mobile phone searches. However it fell back to second spot the following week, where it remains with 4.7% of all mobile searches.

Mobile_phones_video_Games_computers_software_televisions_cameras_game_consoles_mp3_players_sat_navs_toys_hobbies_hitwise.png

1 in 10 searches are for video games – over twice as many as for games consoles in seventh place – with Resident Evil 5 the most searched for video game last week. Computers and software sit in third and fourth places, and televisions are the fifth most searched for gadget with 4.5% of all searches last week. Cameras, Mp3 players, Satellite Navigation systems, -dominated by TomTom – and Toys complete the top 10 most searched for consumer electronics product types.

Lego is the top Toys and Hobbies brand, accounting for almost 1 in 8 Toys and Hobbies searches. However, the Danish company doesn’t make it into our list of the overall top 20 most searched for consumer electronics brands. These are highlighted in the treemap below, which shows the most popular brands in the Hitwise Consumer Electronics List. The size of the box represents its relative size to the top 20, with the top 10 represented by their logos.

apple_nokia_samsung_dell_sony_sony_ericsson_lg_hp_panasonic_nintendo_hitwise.PNG

We can see that Apple leads the pack, with 12% of all branded searches – almost twice as many as Nokia. As we saw above, Apple’s iPhone sits ahead of Nokia’s phones in the mobile phone market, but it is iTunes and their iPods that really sets the company apart from the rest of market in terms of searches. In the top 10, Samsung, Sony, LG and Panasonic all compete amongst multiple product ranges (most notably televisions), whereas Dell and HP share their involvement in the computers and printers categories. As we can see, the Hot Consumer Electronics List allows us to compare brand share amongst brands that would never normally be compared based on their niche product ranges, such as Blackberry, Dyson, TomTom and Nikon.

Another great use of the tool is to identify and gauge interest in new products, brands and fast-moving product areas. For example, we were able to track the increase in searches for netbooks in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and the continued interest in them as more models enter the market. The chart below, made up of portfolios of search terms for netbooks extracted from this consumer electronics search tool, allows us to see that not only is the Samsung NC10 clearly the most searched for netbook, but also that the new Archos 10 has shot from nowhere to be one of the most searched for netbooks, and the 6th most searched for computer overall.

samsung_nc10_acer_aspire_one_archos_10_hp_2133_mini_note_asus_ee_hitwise.png

We have also been able to identify seasonal consumer behaviour. For example, there was a 31% increase in searches for garden products last week, with lawn mowers and especially the Bosch Rotak 34 the products of choice. There was also a 10% increase in searches for vacuum cleaners, lead by the Dyson DC25 as the Spring cleaning bug starts to hit.

The question is, are retailers and manufacturers already optimised for these products as we approach Easter? If you want to know more about the Hot Consumer Electronics List and see how it can help you, we’ve put together a short webinar describing how it works in more detail which you can watch here. If you have any further questions, please feel free to use the comments box below.

Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter.

Categories
Goodies Social Media

Justifying Social Media in a Recession.

The presentation below was given by all round friendly chap and serial tweeter Dirk ‘The Cow’ Singer at the Social Network World Forum in London on 9th March 2009. They are now incidentally advertising for the 2010 event which isn’t until March 15th 2010 but that’s forward planning for you! The presentation deck is all about Justifying Social Media spend in a recession to ‘internal clients’. Well recommended to anyone working in any way shape or form in that thing we know and love called Social Media.

Justifying social media to internal clients

View more presentations from Dirk Singer.
Categories
Goodies Social Media

The Micro-Sociology of Networks

This is a brilliant presentation on how networks and sociology combine together. According to David Armano, though technology doesn’t change human nature, it changes human behaviour. It gives us the capacity to communicate effortlessly and instantly. This gives rise to networks, and networks have increasingly taken more of an important role in society.

What I mean by that is you can go to Twitter, to Facebook, to message boards when asking questions. Human search engines, far more powerful than any search engine algorithms. For breadth of content, Google still wins, that’s for sure. Social networks are populated by human people, the answers they provide to questions have influence and their own currency.

One not to miss – It explains detailed concepts with thought provoking illustrations and in an understandable way. I’ve started a ‘Goodies’ category on the blog for slideshow’s like this to go under so from here on in, any content that I find of use can be found within ‘Goodies’.

The Micro-Sociology of Networks
View more presentations from David Armano. (tags: behavior human)

Categories
Goodies Social Media

The Periodic Table of Social Media Elements

In Rick Liebling’s own words –

“Social Media really is a lot like chemistry. There is a huge pool of elements you can choose from and an infinite variety of combinations you can create. Twitter + sharing + commenting will give you a different result than blogging + LinkedIn + Flickr. Then of course there are the active ingredients – the people. A dash of Chris Brogan plus a big helping of David Armano and the whole thing changes again.

Well, this got me to thinking. It would be handy to have a Periodic Table of the Social Media Elements. So, I created one: (click for larger version)

A lot of this is going to be old news to Social Media practitioners, but if you have friends, colleagues, parents, students or bosses who are having trouble keeping all the elements of Social Media straight, you may want to download/print this chart out for them.”

Periodic Table of Social Media Elements

What do all the abbreviations stand for?

Here’s the key:

Social Media Behaviours: (These are the positive things you choose to do)

Sh = Share

Mt = Monitor

Fr = Friend

Cv = Converse

Cu = Customize

Li = Listen

En = Engage

Di = Dialogue

Social Media All-Rounders: (These are the people you can find all over the Social Media landscape)

Mc = Mack Collier (The Viral Garden)

To = Todd Defren (PR Squared)

Lo = Lee Odden (Online Marketing Blog)

Dr = Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)

Mj = Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation)

Ds = David Meerman Scott (Web Ink Now)

Pe = Peter Kim (Being Peter Kim)

Bs = Brian Solis (PR 2.0)

Sz = Shel Holtz (A Shel of my Former Self)

Rb = Rohit Bhargava (Influential Markeitng Blog)

Gl = Geoff Livingston (The Buzz Bin)

As = Andy Sernovitz (Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That!)

An = Andy Beal Marketing Pilgrim

Ad = Andy Beard (Niche Marketing)

Al = Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)

Cc = C.C. Chapman (The Advance Guard)

Nb = Noah Brier (Noah Brier)

Cr = Connie Reece (Every Dot Connects)

Kp = Katja Presnal (Skimbaco Lifestyle)

Da = David Armano (Logic + Emotion)

Jc = Joel Comm (Joel Comm)

Ls = Liz Strauss (Successful Blog)

Jh = Jackie Huba (Church of the Customer)

Vm = Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent)

Cg = Chris Garrett (Chrisg)

Ah = Ann Handley (Annarchy & Marketing Profs)

Jj = Joseph Jaffe (Jaffe Juice)

Ju = Joe Pulizzi (Junta42)

Ng = Nigel Hollis (Straight Talk)

Nh = Neville Hobson (Neville Hobson)

Bl = B.L. Ochman (What’s Next)

Si = Shel Israel (Global Neighbourhoods)

Ni = Nick Burcher (Nick Burcher)

Social Media Tools: (These are the applications and tools essential to Social Media)

De = Delicious

Su = StumbleUpon

Td = TweetDeck

Fe = FeedBurner

Dp = Dopplr

Tu = TinyURL

Tb = Tumblr

Fb = Facebook

Lk = LinkedIn

Te = Technorati

Fk = Flickr

Ms = MySpace

Go = Google

Dg = Digg

Social Media Practices: (Do these to maximize your Social Media experience)

Fl = Follow

Ht = Hashtag

Po = Post

St = Status Update

Sp = Spread

Se = Search

Hp = Hat tip

Fd = Feed

Rt = Retweet

Ud = Update

Cm = Comment

Jn = Join

Up = Upload

Tg = Tag

Tc = Tag clouds

Dm = Direct Message

Rx = Remix

Ln = Link

Mu = Mashup

Sb = Subscribe

Rf = Refer

Sr = Stream

Re = Reply

Rc = Recommend

Sn = Syndicate

Pk = Poke

Pm = Promote

Ib = Imbed

Social Media Live: (Bringing the Social Media experience to the real world)

Pf = Piers Fawkes (Likemind)

Rd = Russell Davies (Interesting)

Cb = Chris Brogan (PodCamp)

Sg = Seth Godin (Seth Live)

Ha = Peter Shankman (Help a Reporter Out)

Facebook People: (Power users of the Social Media Networking platform)

Jp = Jeff Pulver

Zf = Ze Frank

Twitter People: (Masters of leveraging microblogging)

Gk = Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki

Wl = Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee

Aa = Aloha Arleen @AlohaArleen

Sm = Scott Monty @scottmonty

Jo = Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang

Sa = Sarah Evans @PRSarahEvans

Sc = Robert Scoble @scobleizer

Zp = Zappos @zappos

Sq = The Real Shaq @THE_REAL_SHAQ

Bo= Barack Obama @barackobama

Pc = Laura Fitton @pistachio

Tm = Warren Sukernek @warrenss

YouTube People: (Pioneers in developing content for social media video)

Ij = iJustine

Jl = Judson Laipply

Blog People: (Consistently intellingent, thought-provoking & educational)

Sy = Shoe Money

Ar = Ad Rants

Mp = Micro Persuasion

Aw = Ads of the World

Sj = Search Engine Journal

Cf = Common Craft

Cp = CopyBlogger

Ba = Brand Autopsy

Sd = Search Engine Land

Dd = Dosh Dosh

Gv = Gaping Void

Ma = Mashable

Categories
Twitter

Have you got Twitterhea?

The unstoppable urge to tweet.. Yep, I’ve got it.

hubspot-twitterhea

Categories
Mobile Twitter

Celebrities tweeting backstage at the Oscars, taking us closer to the action than ever before.

A side note – This was first written on Feb 24th but left as a draft and because I suck, unfortunately only now, in March have I picked it up again. I pondered scrapping it entirely as the currency of the article may not be as prevalent now but I still believe it brings up some interesting issues for discussion. It may also seem sensationalist alluding to the fact that now we have Twitpic we don’t need the paparazzi but this simply isn’t the case. I’m certainly not saying this is the end of the print medium, merely musing around it’s future and how it can combat the immediacy of the web.

Hands up who didn’t watch the Oscars, are going to watch the highlights at some point or who instead chose to read an article on the likes of BBC.co.uk for example which featured amongst other things all the winners? Along with all the above I read on my travels home this evening in the London Paper who rated the celebrities walking down the red carpet by who they thought wore the best and worst outfits. It’s clear we’re a nation who love celebrities and how they live their lives. We clamour for what dresses they wore, what they ate and drank, what freebies they got and who they mingle with. Before, we used to have to guestimate and imagine what it might all be like back stage.

Not any more.

Now we have Twitter. Now we have Twitpic.

It’s as if we’re there, a front row seat, you can almost smell the excitement. This is where the print medium will never be able to replicate the immediacy of user generated content and blogs. Celebrities are now even sticking two fingers up to the paparazzi themselves. How? They are snapping pics of themselves and their fellow celebrity mates and putting them up on the internet, for free. Yep, for free. Don’t believe me? See a few examples below.

It wasn’t just photos that slebs were creating though.. Using the Qik video online service, Ashton Kutcher posted two amateur videos during the party, one of P Diddy dancing to Prince’s Kiss and another of Demi Moore. He also published a clip of the couple relaxing at home before the party.

The postings humanised the stars, who are typically seen only in an immaculate, staged environment. We’re seeing a side to them that we would never normally have seen before.

Moore, meanwhile, published two pictures from her Oscars party, one modelling her backless black dress and another with Kutcher.

“I am so tired 2day & my feet R killing me from dancing but I think it was rockin’ shindig & everyone seemed 2 have a gr8 time! Nap time?,” Moore wrote once the festivities were over.

As the night dragged on and more alcohol was consumed, Combs decided to run a bubble bath.

“I’m holding an oscar rt now and takin a bubble bath!!!! God is great!!! Let’s go people,” Combs wrote on his Twitter page.

Hollywood reporter Ryan Seacrest tweeted his observations from the red carpet, including that Kate Winslet was nervous before the show (“she clinched my hand so tightly”) and that Mickey Rourke wore a picture of his dead dog around his neck.

“Ever wonder what happens if someone has to go to the bathroom on the carpet? Theres a portapotty behind the fan stands. Now you know,” Seacrest wrote.

Jane Fonda penned a few tweets herself throughout the evening, praising Hugh Jackman’s good looks and said she loved the documentary Man On Wire.

“Well, Heath’s winning and his family accepting on his behalf made me cry,” she wrote

Other celebrities particularly active with Twitter accounts include Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elijah Wood, John Cleese, Michael Phelps, US President Barack Obama, MC Hammer and basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal.

Bringing online and offline together rather brilliantly, O’Neal recently had lunch with several of his Twitter fans after posting that he was at a Pheonix diner.

What I do find fascinating about the aspect of immediacy is that for example here this photo was at it happens posted within the last few minutes (and nearly 4,000 people have viewed already). It shows me in black and white who is on a programme that isn’t on until tomorrow and somehow because of that I feel more compelled to watch Friday Night with Jonathan Ross because it’s as if I’m part of it all now.

Below are a few images that are public for all to see via Twitpic. Some are from the Oscars, others are from celebrities in general. This is simply a cross section of what’s around from a very brief search and am sure it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Any that you think I’m missing that deserve a mention?

NB – I thought instead of merely updating the numbers below which were up to date as of Feb 24th, the increases are visible in brackets.

Bruce Willis just chilling out 44,240 views. (+5,794)

Russell Brand & Jane Goldman 29,957 views. (+1,609)

David Walliams 25,441 views. (+1,154)

Publicly berating the paps 24,460 views. (+5,763)

Ashton Kutcher. 22,425 views (+24,752)

Jonathan Ross 22,473 views. (+1,250)

Danny Wallace & Eddie Izzard 22,079 views. (+1,037)

Chris Martin 19,492 views. (+987)

P Diddy holding two Oscars in the air. 19,292 views. (+20,133)

Wossy’s Study 18,075 views. (+1,222)

Tim Lovejoy & Danny Wallace 3,961 views. (+429)

Richard Bacon 3,766 views. (+885)

Links for further reading –

Mashable -And the Oscar more most social media buzz goes to..

New Media Strategies – Oscar Night Buzz Report

Categories
Funny Social Media Twitter

You know it’s reaching a tipping point when comic strips start appearing..

Words cannot do this justice so here you have it. I’m obviously flattered.

socialmediablogpost1

Categories
PR

The Top 10 in PR listed in The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies 2009.

49th It’s with great pleasure to announce that for the 8th year running Consolidated PR has been named as one of The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies 2009, the 49th to be precise! It’s a particularly notable achievement considering no fewer than 565 small companies sought a place in the top 100. Of that, only 10 were classified as being in the ‘Public Relations’ sector. You can see the full list here.

To be “the industry’s hottest property by 2011” is the goal we’re all striving to achieve and it’s an exciting time at the moment with some brilliant clients, great people to work with and a forward thinking MD who really gets all this new fangled online stuff.

Along with being ranked 49th overall, we were ranked as 28th in ‘Giving Back’, 33rd in ‘Belonging’, 66th in the ‘Leadership’ ranks, 68th in ‘Personal Growth’ and 86th in ‘Wellbeing’.

So what does that even mean? How do you define belonging for example?

Giving Back – How much Companies are thought by their staff to put back into society in general and the local community in particular

Belonging – Feelings about the company people work for as opposed to the people they work with

Leadership – How employees feel about the head of the company and its senior managers

Personal Growth – To what extent staff feel they are stretched and challenged by their job

Wellbeing – How staff feel about stress, pressure and the balance between their work and home duties

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The top 10, in fact, the only 10 from the ‘Public Relations’ sector are:-

(18) Blue Rubicon – New entrant

(20) Nelson Bostock Communications

(23) Brands2Life – New entrant

(29) Text 100 – New entrant

(33) Shine Communications – New entrant

(41) The Red Consultancy – New entrant

(49) Consolidated PR

(94) Golin Harris

(96) Trimedia

(100) Lexis Communications

Interesting to note that of the 10 entrants, there are an equal amount of new entrants compared to agencies who have consistently remained in the runnings. Well done to Nelson Bostock, Consolidated PR, Golin Harris, Trimedia and Lexis Communications along with all the new entrants!