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At a web conference in Beijing, Google unveiled its new “VisualRank” technology – a new way of ranking images and improving image search through more relevant results. Currently Google’s image search is based on the text associated with each image.
VisualRank is a blend of image recognition software, techniques for weighing and ranking images that looks similar as well as textual cues.
The New York Times says:
The company said that in its research it had concentrated on the 2000 most popular product queries on Google’s product search, words such as iPod, Xbox and Zune. It then sorted the top 10 images both from its ranking system and the standard Google Image Search results. With a team of 150 Google employees, it created a scoring system for image "relevance." The researchers said the retrieval returned 83% less irrelevant images.
And as always, Danny Sullivan does a top-notch job of describing how VisualRank works.
Search Engine Roundtable says that this could be the beginning of greater software technologies that will "index audio spoken in videos" and podcasts.
Today Kevin Ryan at Search Engine Watch said that we shouldn’t stop labeling our images just yet. But “you’d have to be foolish not to consider this potential change when "amping up" optimization and popularity gaining efforts.”
You can read the research paper here. (PDF)
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Is your company participating in the online conversation? Well, the Society for New Communications Research recently conducted a study of 300 consumers who were active Internet users. The report “Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media,” provides these statistics:
• 59.1% of respondents use social media to “vent” about a customer care experience
• 72.2% of respondents research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care in their decision to do business with a company at least sometimes
• 81% believe that blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously
• Search engines are the most valuable online tools for this research, according to respondents. Those rated of no value include micro-blogging sites like Twitter or Pownce (39%), YouTube (27%) and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (22%)
Customer care. Communication. Transparency.
Watchwords for the today’s savvy, connected consumer.
On the weekend I was catching up on some of my blog reading and read colleague David Rosam’s thoughts on SEO copywriting and why it is a discipline unto its own.
It got me thinking. As someone interested in “holistic” optimization – both optimization for people as well as search engines – user experience is a subject that fascinates me.
But, the thing I’ve noticed is that whenever user experience is discussed, it is usually relegated to design-only circles.
Why is that?
Great copywriting is not so much about the client’s product or services as it is about the visitor. Web copy is an equal partner in user experience design.
Just as the design, typography and other visual elements add to a user-centered experience, so do the words that are shared and join us together. The content is the journey. As Mark Bernstein wrote years ago, “We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense.”
And when it comes to optimized copywriting, we start, quite simply, with desire. Keyword phrases are a conduit of expressed desire. SEO copywriters conduct keyword research to see what people are looking for.
Writing for the Web is the ultimate act of “social media.” (Has any found a better term yet? Anyone?) Traditional media uses communication as a bullhorn, but when writing for the Web we have the ability (and obligation) to turn it around completely. To paraphrase Danny Sullivan, search engines are reverse broadcast marketing.
Using customer concerns, interests and needs as a starting point for copywriting allows for not only a more participatory approach to writing – but to user-centric design.
1) Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer? That's the premise behind the global experiment called Shutdown Day, happening on May 3.
2) Iain Tait from Crackunit.com is doing one better than Shutdown Day. He's going Luddite by doing without electronics for Mental Detox Week and documenting the ups-and-downs in a very creative way.
3) One of my favourite bloggers threw in the towel this week. Copyranter declared that he's done, saying that the blog takes up too much time.
Five days later, he announced that he was back with his intentions to blog for AnimalNewYork, and restart Copyranter, albeit with a less frequent publishing schedule. And the world is a better place again.
4) Are you a good story teller? Do you know all about customer experience? Like crunching stats? You're in luck, Edelman's Steve Rubel says you may be perfect for one of Three Emerging Digital Careers to Watch.
5) In Language and Mashups, Ike Pigott at Occam's RazR ponders whether the portmanteau (or Frankenword), like Freakonomics, is more pervasive in American English than elsewhere.
6) Speaking of Frankenstein, Collin Douma at RadicalTrust tells us about PETA Crowdsourcing In Vitro Meat offering a $1 million prize to the participant "able to make the first in vitro chicken meat fit to sell to the public."
7) Typesetting as an art has changed radically with the proliferation of digital publishing. While tiny drawers of little letters may be obsolete now, the concepts of how to make text is appealing to the eye remains. SmashingMagazine.com gives us 5 Principles And Ideas Of Setting Type On The Web.
8) Facebook launched its chat application to everyone this week, allowing you to see which of your friends are online and start a conversation. Mashable gives us the highlights.
9) Is it any surprise that Google was named world's No. 1 brand? The Guardian reports on research company Milward Grown's study of the 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2008.
10) If blogger outreach is part of your PR plan, follow-up is essential. Tom Pick from Socialmediatoday.com has some great advice to improve your chances of success.
Friday Fun
You too can sound scholarly with titles like this "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." Neatorama tells us about the Post Modern Essay Generator.
Happy Earth Day, all! I wanted to share my morning chuckle with you...
As the coffee was finally percolating away, I casually flipped over the coffee package to read the copy. And this is what I found:
1. Marketing Profs tells us how Pop Labs' Charles Lewis, a.k.a. the Poetic Prophet uses a rap video to spread great tips on Web site design coding for prime SEO. I first told you about this back in February, but it's definitely worth the revisit!
2. How can you make the ordinary stand out? Scott Monty from Crayon introduces us to Jim Kosek at AccuWeather.com in From Mundane to Engaging: How One Man Does It. The 6 minute video is worth the watch.
3. Scott Buresh gives us the lowdown on coding your pages for robots in All Search Engines Love Spiders: How Meta Commands Can Help You Love Them Too.
4. While we're on the subject, Copyblogger tells us Why Writing for Spiders is the Least Sticky Strategy of All.
5. Purina is using the long tail (*groan*) to aggregate and rate user-generated content about pets with PetCharts. AdAge has the scoop.
6. On April 12th Andrew Baron, founder of the popular Internet tech show Rocketboom, decided to auction his Twitter account on eBay, complete with more than 1,300 followers. Moments later, Chris Brogan posted Is Your Community For Sale?. The differing viewpoints expressed in the comments show what a hot topic this became. The eBay auction was pulled 3 days later. Mashable has the re-cap.
7. Smashing Magazine brings us Web Form Design: Modern Solutions and Creative Ideas and proves that it is important to provide a good user experience where site visitors provide feedback.
8. What to do when your competitor has a misstep? AdAge reports that Skyy Vodka Capitalizes on Absolut Mess in the debacle over the U.S.-Mexico border.
9. SEOMoz shares the lessons learned from trial and error using Digg in I Submitted to Digg But All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.
10. SEO is Not Free Traffic from SearchEngineLand.com debunks the claim that there is no cost to SEO.
Friday Fun
Well, maybe not so much fun, even on Fridays, for the kids that have to play in them. Check out these nightmare playgrounds amassed by darkroastedblend.com. Creepy!
Admittedly, the above title is a bit of an attention grabber. While it’s no secret that the SEO crowd can be in the “Flash is Evil” camp, the truth of the matter is that I don’t hate Flash itself at all. I just hate how some designers use it.
There is a LOT of great Flash out there – this Netherlands department store uses Flash brilliantly to entertain while showcasing its wares. And Schematic is a jaw-droppingly awesome example of Flash-driven navigation.
Flash can add a dynamic element, showcase a company’s creativity and originality and be a fabulous tool for embedding videos or tutorials, or presenting an interactive game or experience. It isn’t always the best for accessibility, for instance people with visual disabilities (as screen readers depend on HTML), people on dial-up or people who surf the net with mobiles or PDAs. So, like everything else in the world, it’s got its plusses and its minuses.
But here’s where the use of Flash really makes my blood boil:
- When it interferes with user experience (like making me hit a “more” button eight times to learn about the company.)
- When it is used as a Flash-only splash page or Flash-only site for a SME whose online objective is to gain visibility.
If you want search engine visibility, you need to have readable text on the page. Sure, the Gucci site is slick, but face it, what's good for the Gucci isn't always good for the gander. People will link to Gucci just because it’s Gucci. Shiny stuff that moves doesn’t cut it for the average SME.
So where does this little Flash-bash outburst stem from? I had yet another call from a very nice woman who is concerned that her site is not performing. You guessed it – a Flash-only intro and the interior pages in frames. (Yes, the best of both worlds!)
I hate being the bearer of bad news.
Most of the time you get what you pay for… the exception being if you’ve just paid for a Flash-only site when you want a usable, visible website.
Last word? Flash is an excellent tool, just make sure you understand your objectives before making a decision about your website.
Take a peek at this. This card was tucked in with my daughter’s mail order swim cap from a major U.S. retailer.
A leisurely swim is not an inherent quality of a bathing cap, and I don’t know how anyone could (with a straight face) pronounce increased scalp sweating a benefit. But, apparently someone could.
So this seems like a fine time to have a chat about writing benefits.
The MarComm folks always love to promote benefits over feature sets, as benefits make it far easier to get customer buy-in. Features are essential, but benefits are the irresistible offer.
What are the top three secrets to conveying a compelling benefit?
Customer Understanding
Who are your customers? What is “mission critical” in their world? What are their “pain points” and how does your product or service help solve their problems or make their day-to-day life easier? Knowing your customers’ motivation for buying is essential to establishing your benefit list.
Identifying the Meaning of the Feature
Features tell your customer what your product or service does, but benefits explain how your products or services HELP the client. Let’s say you’re a professional organizer…well one of the main features of your service is that you can clear away clutter and make your clients’ homes -or offices- tidy and neat. But what does this service feature mean to the customer? Time saved: Find what you are looking for in the blink of an eye. Reduced stress: With no more searching for lost or misplaced items or paperwork, you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of relief. The key question to ask yourself for every feature is, “Why does this matter to my customer?”
Authentic Language
Product and service benefits help distinguish your company from the competition. So, very simply, your language needs to resonate with your customers. They need to “get it” instantly; the terms and expressions you use must match those of your target market. People can sniff the stench of hype a mile away. Be honest. Be authentic.
Next time you’re writing some advertising copy, take the time you need to focus on your customers and create a solid list of benefits. Your response rate will benefit too!
1. David Armano brings us the The Top 10 Made Up Words of Web 3.0. This will be viruseful.
2. “Web Analytics is like Angelina Jolie: It’s sexy, it kicks butt, and is a goodwill ambassador!!” Avinash Kaushik, the Google Analytics Evangelist explains why in How To Excite People About Web Analytics: Five Tips.
3. While we’re talking stats, Jay Moonah from MediaDriving pushes home the point that The Data from Your Social Network Connections SUCKS!
4. Four Days; $700,000 Social Networking Works is an inspiration on how a family can can use the speed and reach of the Internet for an urgent and life-saving cause.
5. Watch the Olympic torch move around the world on its journey to Beijing thanks to Google's 2008 Global Torch Relay tracking.
6. Once again SEOmoz brings us some gold with The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO.
7. Andy Sernovitz gives us 6 Simple Steps for Word of Mouth courtesy of Marketing Profs.
8. Musician David Usher recently started CloudiD a blog on social media. When he changed his main music site from static to blog last year and began documenting the creation of his new album with social tools, it was clear that he was definitely drinking the Kool-Aid.
9. Mitch Joel from Twist Image takes his cue from a David Usher post in Note To Marketers (And Musicians): Online Social Networks Owe You Nothing.
10. Dave Fleet tells you how to get the most from this bookmarking tool in 6 Ways To Make Life Easier With Del.icio.us.
Friday Fun
The web is full of useless information and time wasters. To prove my point, here is the Longest List.
Due to a family matter I am out of the office for a while. However, my colleague and friend Adele McAlear of 99directions has kindly agreed to be my guest blogger for B(abble)log in my absence. So, without further ado, here is Adele...
Yesterday, Yahoo!-owned Flickr took the plunge into video. Now before you think that they plan to go head-to-head with Google-owned YouTube, there are some key differences that say it’s not likely.
Firstly, Flickr Video is only available to Pro users who already pay $25 per year for the photo service. But more importantly videos are limited to 90 seconds with a maximum file size of 150MB. Those criteria will eliminate many people more inclined to use YouTube’s free service to post longer clips.
So what is Flickr trying to do here? They’re recognizing that many people take quick videos with their digital cameras and camera phones and they are offering a way for users to easily upload and integrate them with their photos. By calling videos “long photos” and limiting the length to 90 seconds, Flickr is trying something new, differentiating themselves from the onslaught of video services that are springing up lately. And they are also appealing to their Pro members, already heavy users of the photo service, to try something new at no extra cost. (Flickr also doubled the size of photo files to 20 MB.)
At events I will often take short video clips at the same time as stills and I love the idea of integrating all of these images in one spot. As for functionality, it is much the same for videos as for photos; you can apply tags, geotags and descriptions to your clips to make them more searchable. You have the same privacy options that you use for photos, allowing you to make your clips public or private and you can apply Creative Commons licensing attributes. Last December, Pro users were given access to stats on visitors, views, favourites and comments on each item in their Flickr account, and now those analytics include videos.
Flickr Video has some different functionality from photo management as well. One great feature is the ability to play the video from the thumbnail so that you don’t have to navigate away from your search results. And of course, you can embed publicly shared videos elsewhere on the web or link them to your blog. The player is clean and streamlined and I found that the file loaded quickly and played back without buffering or lag issues.
It will be interesting to watch how Flickr Video evolves over the next 12 months with the release of their API allowing developers to build tools to integrate other applications and services. Also, to see whether Flickr succeeds in finding traction with their Pro users growing their paid service as a result.
1. Looking to build credibility with search engines? It’s all about quality link building. SEOmoz has some great advice in Ask Yourself... Do You Feel Lucky (about getting those links)? Well Do You?
2. Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research proposes that Social Networks could have more info about Generation Y than Government.
3. New media expected to get more ad dollars with spending on new digital and out-of-home media platforms estimated to rise 82% over the next four years. USA Today has the details on how this affects marketers.
4. If you use Twitter, you can claim it as a blog on Technorati. Here are the step-by-step instructions from Anne Helmond at BlogHerald.com.
5. SearchEngineLand tells us How to Make Your Content ‘Submit Worthy’ to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit.
6. AdAge reports on how agency Modernista Makes a Break With the Past by using readily available content on the web to make a radically different web site.
7. In Ads That Hit the Mark, Bill Imada from AdAge shows how BBDO and Grey Advertising created effective ethnic advertising without pandering to stereotypes.
8. Darren Barefoot examines the entertaining prose of food writing with The Grim Fascination of a Toddler.
9. With media catching on to online newsrooms David Jones from PR Works argues that PR departments have to take back the newsroom section of the web.
10. If you are responsible for monitoring your brand online, definitely read Marketing Pilgrim’s The Truths and Myths of Google News as a Reputation Management Tool.
Friday Fun
Neatorama reminds us about those cool illustrated fold-ins designed by Al Jaffee that Mad Magazine has been running from 1964 to the present.
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