Even Google Employees Get Delisted

We all know someone or seen someone who’s gotten kicked out of Google SERPs. It seems like a significant proportion of these people (or at least just the vocal ones) feel this exclusion is as personal as it was in seventh grade—Susan G. didn’t like you, so she wouldn’t let you hang out with their group, and it must be the same thing with Google, right?

Tell that to the Google employee who recently realized his site had been delisted. Jason Morrison of Google Australia had his personal site removed from the index. But don’t worry, he’s not spamming or hiding keywords on a background—he just exceeded the bandwidth quota he’d set for his blog, and the server errors made Google think the site had been shut down.

In the spirit of Googly openness, Jason shares not only what was wrong, but how he discovered it through Webmaster Tools, and how he fixed it.

So the next time someone complains to you about Google being out to get them, maybe you can tell them about Jason’s case. Naturally, as TechDirt notes, this case doesn’t mean that Google never targets specific sites, but it is at least one more piece of evidence that most Google penalties are handled algorithmically.

Or maybe you should just confirm their suspicions. With their paranoia, they probably need that abuse.

What do you think?

Google Building Broadband Networks–Sign Up Now!

We’ve all seen it coming for a long time: whether Google was buying dark fiber, or bidding on the wireless spectrum, or hiring former telephone execs, we all love a rumor about Google setting up Internet infrastructure. But this time it’s no rumor: Google admits they’re building high speed broadband networks in select markets. But unlike their previous Utopian visions, this ain’t no free ride:

We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

So where are these privileged few communities? Google hasn’t decided yet—in fact, they’re asking interested parties to fill out a request for information (RFI) form. Presumably, communities with many people interested—and cooperation from the local government—will be among the test audience. (RFIs due by March 26.)

As always, Google is espousing principles of openness and novelty with this project. They’ll be looking at new apps and deployment, new ways of building fiber networks and an open access network with a choice of service providers.

And as always, Google includes a video for those of us who are visual learners, or too lazy to read:

What do you think? Do you trust Google with all your information? Or will you be opting out, even if Google comes to your town?

Google Buzz Launches 150+ Million User Social Network

How would you like to launch a social network and instantly amass more than 150 million monthly users?

Well, Google just launched Google Buzz and it’s going to be tied into its existing Gmail user base–all 150+ million of them!

How smart is that?

Google has failed to gain traction with any of its previous social networking efforts. How many of you are active Orkut or Google Wave users? So, instead of trying to build a new social network from scratch–and likely failing–it’s tying Google Buzz directly into its email offering.

Genius!

It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.

I added the bolding for two reasons. One to show you the features Buzz brings to Gmail, but the other is to point out the Jedi mind-trick that Google is pulling on you. You see, you thought your inbox was all about sending emails. Nah ah, apparently you’ve been sitting on a vast social network and–whether you like it or not–Google’s about to tap into that network.

Even more clever on Google’s part, is that it’s not reinventing the wheel. In fact, it wants you to bring all of your existing wheels to Google Buzz.

We’ve relied on other services’ openness in order to build Buzz (you can connect Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail), and Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. We’re building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and we invite developers to join us on Google Code to see what is available today and to learn more about how to participate.

Does this sound like any popular service you know that was recently acquired? *cough* Friendfeed! *cough*

Of course, like any new Google product, you’re going to have to wait for Buzz to rollout to your Gmail account. Fortunately, unlike the Google Wave invite fiasco, you should see Buzz automatically appear in your Gmail account over the next few days.

Speaking of Google Wave, is that now dead in the water? I mean, did anyone really ever figure out how to use the thing anyway?

It seems to me that Google Buzz is exactly what Google Wave should have been in the first place!

Check out the video below, then share your thoughts in the comments!

Business Analytics Gets Social at SAS

If you are aware of SAS, a company located in Cary, NC then you understand or have a need to understand business analytics. As the largest privately-held software company in the world, SAS often flies under the radar because what they do isn’t sexy. Instead, it is necessary.

Necessary business functions don’t get the same attention or play that the exciting new and ‘edgy’ companies get. SAS is OK with that though. If you’ve ever visited their campus and saw how they treated their employees, you may quickly value necessary over sexy. A result of this reverence for their employees, the company merited the top spot on Fortune’s Top 100 Best Companies to Work For list this year. Actually you can find the company somewhere on that list just about every year but this year it’s number 1.

So what does a company that provides some of the most advanced business analytics software and services do to better reach out to customers and prospects? Turns to social media. That’s right, it moves toward what many see in the B to B space as a potentially risky practice. If any company was able to assess risk though, SAS is it.

As part of a continuing effort to give our readers some real life examples of social media in action we are looking today into the B to B space. I have had the pleasure of getting to know the Social Media Manager for SAS, Dave Thomas (On Twitter he is @DavidBThomas). As a social media practitioner he is very good. Here are some insights offered as he guides SAS through the social media maze.

Frank: How did you get into the social media game and when?

Dave: I’ve been active in social media since 1994, when I joined my first Internet forum. My first experience blogging was in 2002 when I wrote the official blog for the Iceland Airwaves music festival, and started my own blog in 2003. I’ve always loved the openness and authenticity that social media brings to online communication. I started at SAS in 2007 as a corporate PR representative, and I now have the job of shaping and guiding our evolving social media presence for SAS.

Frank: How did SAS decide that social media is a good direction?

Dave: In 2007 we put together a group called the Marketing 2.0 Council to identify the areas we wanted to address. We came up with a short list that included blogs, social networks, video, podcasting, Wikipedia and content syndication. We realized that none of it mattered without good information to share, so we added content to the list as an overarching topic. We were looking at all of these before Twitter started to grow, but we’ve added it to the list since.

We created task forces to look at each of the areas and ended up with a comprehensive list of recommendations. The council also recommended the creation of a social media manager position, which is the job I have now, creating our strategy as well as implementation plans, and helping communicate the value of social media to all 11,000 SAS employees worldwide.

Frank: Only 11,000? No problem right? How has that come together over the past two years?

Dave: SAS has some definite advantages that help us in social media. We have a lot of incredibly intelligent and talented people who are experts and thought leaders in their fields. We also have a dedicated and enthusiastic base of SAS users all over the world who are really passionate about our products. Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more interaction among SAS employees and customers on blogs, in social networks and on Twitter, and most of that has grown organically, which is what you really want to see. We’ve grown from a few external blogs to 17 right now, and we’re working toward opening up external blogging even further. We also have a strong video presence on YouTube, and we’re working on new ways to make video more accessible and searchable.

One of the key things we did to help encourage all of this was to create a set of social media guidelines and recommendations, which we released in June of 2009. They’re not just dos and don’ts. They give examples of how to communicate effectively in different social media channels. They let SAS employees know we think it’s a good thing for them to be participating in social media as long as they’re smart about it and follow the standards of the online communities they visit.

Frank: What’s the biggest challenge for you?

Dave: There are so many areas that we could be addressing, and we need to make practical decisions based on our existing objectives, and make sure that our social media efforts integrate well with our existing marketing programs. So there are a lot of factors to consider when we approach a social media channel. We also have a lot of people who are interested in participating but already have a full plate. 2010 will have to be the year that we get serious about making social media part of everybody’s job description. Plus, when you are making big changes like this on an enterprise-wide level, there are a lot of factors to consider. I work with our legal department, our online strategy and services group, our internal and external comms teams, sales and marketing, tech support, and the people who manage our relationships with our user communities. Social media really does touch every aspect of a large organization.

Frank: What do you want the social media efforts of SAS to accomplish for the company?

Dave: One thing I’ve noticed in the two and half years I’ve been here is that there is a genuine amount of respect and affection among our employees and our users. You see that at events like SAS Global Forum, where thousands of users from all over the world come to interact with one another and with SAS employees. Social media provides the perfect tools to extend that kind of relationship and keep it going. The best thing SAS can do to promote our company and our software is to show people who we are and what we do and the value we provide our customers in a real and genuine way. I’m doing the best I can to facilitate those relationships.

Dave and I talked about a lot more. He is good guy who is dedicated to his craft. The desire to stretch and get better is probably one of the greatest assets that anyone who has social media responsibility for their company can bring to the table.

We are going to be keeping an eye on SAS and the programs that Dave puts together. The B to B space are less charted social media waters than the B to C space and there should be some fun in figuring out what works and doesn’t in reaching company goals on a case by case basis.

Look for Dave to be speaking and visit his blogs at http://blogs.sas.com/socialmedia/ and http://dbthomas.com/blog/

Thanks to Dave and we look forward to learning from him as we all progress through the brave new world of B to B social media.

Chrome Extensions Include Ad Blockers

Google must know something that we don’t. Why else would they be SO open in their new move toward transparency as to allow for extensions on Chrome that, gulp, block the very lifeblood of their money printing operation? Well, considering the market share that Chrome currently has (around 40 million users) and the mindset of someone likely to use (or even know about) this extension the thought of this kind of ‘allowance’ is probably bigger than the reality.

The New York Times reports

In a manifesto-like e-mail message sent last month to all Google employees, Jonathan Rosenberg, a senior vice president for product management, told them to commit to greater transparency and open industry standards. Rather than hoard knowledge to exploit it, he wrote in “The Meaning of Open,” share it and watch Google and the entire Internet prosper.

The resulting openness is allowing for ad blockers as extensions but this decision did not happen without a Mountain View trip to the revenue mountaintop for advice.

Speaking at a conference on Dec. 11 in Mountain View, Calif., Linus Upson, engineering director at Google, said there were many discussions before allowing ad-blocking programs “because Google makes all of its money from advertising.”

But he explained that the prevailing thinking was that “it’s unlikely ad blockers are going to get to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of the population wants to block it, then advertising should get less annoying.”

“So I think the market will sort this out,” he said. “At least that is the bet we made when we opened the extension gallery and didn’t have any policy against ad-blockers.”

That was a long quote but it’s the last sentence that was uttered by a company that is both loved and scorned at the same time. This is uttered by a company that some would think anti-trust is in their future in the same way it was for Microsoft and IBM. Letting the market sort it out is the only way to go in the long run. Sure there will be hiccups but the alternative (some form of regulation that reads real well but in practical use is just plain stupid) is not going to work. I think that there is enough evidence from 2009 for that one.

Similar extensions are currently available on Firefox, which has a much larger market share but has not exactly stopped Google in its tracks so that may be the evidence needed.

Oh and if you want to gain access to these blockers here’s their stories and a link or two for you.

As it happens, two 28-year-olds, Michael Gundlach, an independent programmer from outside Athens, Ga., and Tom Joseph, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Mount Sinai Medical School, separately went through the exact same experience. In telephone interviews, each told of excitedly looking to see if he could install a Chrome extension of his favorite Firefox add-on, Adblock Plus, which prevents ads from appearing on Web sites, whether bright flashing animation or the text ads that Google serves up after a search.

They did not find one. So, naturally, each spent a day or so creating a rough version of such an extension, with much more work to come. AdThwart from Mr. Joseph is now No. 2 in popularity among the more than 1,200 Chrome extensions; AdBlock from Mr. Gundlach is No. 8. Together, they already have more than 120,000 users.

Happy ad blocking!

LA Times Social Media Guidelines Lead to Much More

The LA Times has updated their social media guidelines for their journalists and there is the usual ruckus about everyone being too restrictive. Originally written in March of this year the update makes sense since the 8 months or so that have passed since the first take is like a lifetime in the social media world. In fact, the real story here may be that the LA Times hasn’t taken a ‘set it and forget it’ approach to their social media guidelines so please take note everybody.

Editor & Publisher and the Huffington Post are both talking about the updates. Interestingly enough, I heard about it from @michacha101 who is one of those people that I have no idea why I follow on Twitter but have gained value from doing so. Having said that (and given them a plug) I am learning more about the openness of the social media environment and the value that can be taken from it. Journalists drool over this kind of exposure and availability of information. Trouble is that for the sake of ‘objectivity’ or ‘political correctness or whatever there will always be rules and regs that restrict just how effective the medium can be.

The Huffington Post tells us that some of the LA Times policies include

Integrity is our most important commodity: Avoid writing or posting anything that would embarrass The Times or compromise your ability to do your job.
Assume that your professional life and your personal life will merge online regardless of your care in separating them.

Even if you use privacy tools (determining who can view your page or profile, for instance), assume that everything you write, exchange or receive on a social media site is public.

Just as political bumper stickers and lawn signs are to be avoided in the offline world, so too are partisan expressions online.

There’s a lot of detail that I am leaving out here and here’s why. I have to give the LA Times credit for being on the ball. You see the Huffington Post had only one comment but it was from Andrew Nystrom / L.A. Times social media guy / @AdNys who was completely transparent by saying:

Thank you for writing about our new Guidelines. For the record, here are links to:

- The full text of our revised Social Media Guidelines: http://latimes.com/socialmedia — our original Guidelines were issued in March 2009, before the WaPo or WSJ (and most other major media outlets) issued theirs.

- Our directory of 200+ L.A. Times(@lat¬imes)-rela¬ted Twitter accounts: http://latimes.com/twitter

- The full text of our 2007 Ethics Guidelines (currently under revision): http://latimes.com/ethics

Hope this is helpful. I welcome all feedback.

Nice move.

So let’s recap. As a result of the social media ‘world’ I got data from someone that was of interest, that was about information that can be seen both positively and negatively depending on your point of view but was ultimately made completely transparent by the source which ultimately reflects positively on them. Pretty cool.

So if you really think that people care about where you are walking and what you see it’s likely that you are just really enamored with yourself. What people really want is information that helps. Thanks to everyone who helped here.

Google Wave to Get App Store, Kill the iPhone?

Google Wave, an instantaneous/asychronous communication app (Okay, it’s IM+email) has been in beta testing for nearly a month. In that time, we’ve seen a couple “apps” developed for it (although they were really just stripped down browsers that helped Wave to run a little faster).

But these pseudo apps were so well received, apparently, that Google is ready to talk about an app store for Google Wave at the Google Wave Google Technology User Group in London yesterday. What kind of apps would they add to email+IM? Says TheNextWeb:

Already, independent software developers have built and tested Wave applications that handle such tasks as teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and multiplayer gaming, but while the Apple App Store sells software only for the iPhone and Touch, a Wave marketplace could stock in-Wave applications, along with desktop applications, browser extensions and a world of devices, from laptops, phones, tablets and more with built in Wave support.

Earlier this month, Wave co-creator Lars Rasmussen told Business Week, “We’ll almost certainly do a store.” That’s been upgraded to “definitely.” The Wave API has long be available, but support for a store would help developers make money off their efforts. (In the same BW article, Rasmussen mentioned revenue sharing with developers.)

TheNextWeb is very excited about Google’s prospects with apps in both Wave and Android, going so far as to say, “Despite Apple’s success, it is undoubtedly Android who will win on numbers, with developers swayed by Google’s open source values and the openness of the platform as a whole. With an app store specifically for Google Wave however, the potential for something as great, if not greater then than the iPhone App Store is a distinct possibility.”

It’s a possibility, of course, but as things stand now, that’s going to take some time. ComputerWorld says Android devices currently make up 2% of the smartphone market, with Nokia’s Symbian OS running on about half of all smartphones. The iPhone is currently #3 in the market, after Nokia and Blackberry.

These issues of scale are currently not enough to entice most of the iPhone developers I know to learn yet another programming language. By 2012, however, they may change their tune—ComputerWorld says the iPhone will slip—oh, wait, no, remain at the #3 OS slot. Symbian will slip to 39% dominance and all of the various Android devices will just edge out Apple for the #2 slot—by 0.8% of the smartphone market share.

That’s awfully precise for a 2012 prediction. (Should we pull out our “Year of the Mobile” sign again?) Considering that right now the iPhone has over 100,000 apps and Android . . . well, doesn’t, perhaps it’s a bit soon to be calling the iPhone out of the game. Who knows what Apple will do next?

What do you think? Is the iPhone on the way out, and is a Google Wave App store evidence of that? What apps would you like to see for Google Wave?

Net Neutrality: Business or Politics?

As the new proposals for rules and regulations start to show up regarding net neutrality moving forward it is apparent that politics and political wrangling will rule this one. A very real possible result of this could be that common sense is shelved. Why do I say this? Go ahead and read the article from Macworld discussing this very subject and see if you come to another conclusion.

According to the article the government (read: Democrats) say:

The rules are necessary to protect innovation on the Internet and preserve the openness that has allowed the Internet to blossom, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

“The problem is not merely that we’ve seen some significant situations where broadband providers have degraded the data streams of popular lawful services and blocked consumer access to lawful applications,” he said. “The heart of the problem is that … we face the dangerous combination of an uncertain legal framework with ongoing as well as emerging challenges to a free and open Internet.

“Given the potentially huge consequences of having the open Internet diminished through inaction, the time is now to move forward with consideration of fair and reasonable rules of the road,” he added.

While the other side (read: Republicans) say

But Commissioner Robert McDowell suggested the Internet has seen massive growth because of a lack of regulations. The proposed rules regulate network providers, but not Web applications vendors, while supporters assume new innovation will come from applications and not networks, he said.

“The Internet is perhaps the greatest deregulatory success story of all time,” said McDowell, a Republican. “No government has ever succeeded in mandating innovation and investment.”

New rules could inadvertently hurt the growth of the Internet and give a precedent to other nations that want to create all kinds of new Internet regulations, McDowell added.

So all this is saying is that to get through this process there will be more politics than good decision making. If it looks like I don’t believe that good decisions are usually born out of political posturing then you have read that correctly. When it comes to the Internet, which is, for the most part, one of the remaining areas that has created a lot of discussion but little legislation and regulation this could be troubling.

It is not my intention to create a political issue here at Marketing Pilgrim. To be fair then I will say that I have not been impressed with much government activity from either side of the aisle (meaning Democrat or Republican) over my lifetime. I don’t care if you bleed blue from a blue state or red from a red state we have plenty of evidence that the more control the government exercises the less logic and common sense presides. Having said that the likelihood of government regulation regarding the Internet is a bit scary.

This argument will be politicized to the nth degree with free market proponents saying that government regulations will crush the innovation needed to create jobs. The government folk, who claim protection of the little guy and his ability to function while big business ruins his life (while actually providing all the products and services ever needed but that’s another point for another day) want to make sure that no one is left behind.

While there are merits to both sides of this argument I can’t see how government regulation is going to help this. I also can’t see letting providers charge more for greater bandwidth requirements etc. So where is the middle and does anyone really play there?

So how will this play out? Slowly and painfully over time. Just yesterday it was announced that Sen. John McCain has introduced a bill to block net neutrality rules.

So let the games begin. Since it is likely that we will just have to sit on the sidelines with no real say in the end, let’s at least hear your opinions in the comments section here at Marketing Pilgrim. Please keep it civil since we know politics in this day and age is more about name calling than actually doing anything. We’d like to think we’re better than that here.

Facebook Rolling Out New Privacy Settings

Last week, we saw that Facebook was taking status updates public for selected test users (a la Twitter). Those selected users were ones that had already set their profiles to a high level of sharing—everyone could see their profiles already.

Now Facebook will make it so that all users will have a very granular control over exactly what gets shared with whom.

These settings can be applied on a message-by-message basis, but there will also be changes to the full privacy settings for every member. As paidContent points out this will eliminate the need to view at least six pages of privacy settings.

And now Facebook announces that they’ll be rolling out this change to the full site very shortly:

To make it easy for users to set their profiles’ level of “openness,” Facebook will be using a transition tool. Here’s the first step:

While some argue that Facebook is forcing us to be more public, these settings are too complex and the publisher settings should list “custom” first, overall, I think simplifying privacy settings and making them easier to set will help. The transition tool will force users who normally don’t change the default privacy settings to think about how much they want to share, at least once.

The full presentation (via David Berkowitz):

What do you think? Is this a step forward or backward for privacy on (and off) Facebook?

OpenX Raises Another $10M to Help in Its Efforts to Bring Down Google

It seems that OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan is doing something that he struggled to do at Yahoo–compete with Google.

The ad technology provider and marketplace has just announced a third round of venture capital with $10.4 million being added to the war chest, courtesy of DAG Ventures.

The company is certainly doing well to fend off Google’s own Ad Manager product–claiming an impressive 300 billion ads monthly on more than 150,000 websites across the web. The money will help OpenX further expand both the downloadable and hosted versions of its ad server, while continuing to grow its recently launched OpenX Market.

So, how is this small start-up able to stand head-to-head with the search giant? Simple. OpenX isn’t trying to fight Google on its strengths.

The threat of Google’s entry into the sector has prompted OpenX to tout its independence, neutrality and openness as distinguishing features, although Cadogan stressed that its ad server product is also more customizable than Google’s. “We couldn’t outspend them, so we’re trying to create a different value proposition,” he said.

Sounds like a good plan. In fact, with more and more start-ups taking the same approach, it makes you wonder if Google could end up the way of Gulliver.