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News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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5 top finds - number 30! »
It's the 30th 5 top finds in the series, and we're celebrating with the new EU directive on cookies, Google's descent in the popularity rankings, pure internet gold(fish), the save Herne Hill velodrome campaign and web addiction is bad for you shock.
1. (Un-edible) cookies (with an illogical direction)
If you've not heard the EU directive (and now UK law) that's made the majority of websites in Europe illegal, don't worry. You've got until May 2012 to comply with what is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous laws ever. As of May last year, all European websites have to...
"gain consent for the use of cookies or similar technologies to comply with the law."
Or face a fine of up to half a million pounds. Wonderful!
To explain what a cookie is and why the law is entirely flawed (you can't track that a user has requested your website to not use cookies without using cookies), we thoroughly recommend watching the entertaining video above.
2. Google face a bit of an uproar with Search+
If you've not been following the repercussions of Google's announcement about integrating content from (only) Google+ into search results, it's worth reading through some of the responses.
Ex-TechCrunch boss Michael Arrington writes of how Search+ is reminiscent of Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows (which led to antritrust lawsuits) in the 90s; Harvard advertising law specialist Ben Edelman writes about the (il)legal implications of Google's initiative and "search engine guru" Danny Sullivan explains what's wrong with Search+. All well worth a read.
3. Goldfish, but not as you think they are
We like fish (if you hadn't noticed) here at Hoop – so when we saw the video above we knew it'd somehow end up on the Hoop blog. Truly amazing stuff from Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori.
4. Save Herne Hill velodrome
As well as liking fish, you may have noticed us Hoopsters are pretty keen on bikes. When we spotted this post on the Brooks blog, about 91 year old (1948 Olympic medallist) Tommy Godwin returning to Herne Hill velodrome and riding the race-winning bike again we then discovered an audio interview with Tommy on the Guardian travel section. Both are well worth reading!
5. Addicted to the internet
Ever struggled stealing yourself from reading updates on Facebook or staying on top of the latest tweets? According to preliminary research from Chinese scientists; there may be such a thing as 'web addiction'. The sample size is tiny (only 17 addicts sampled) but this research could potentially pave the way for treatment for those of us who just can't get off Facebook.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Bikes, facebook, Fish on Fridays, Google, Google+, SEO, Social search, User Experience
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Search, plus Your World »
Google's latest announcement about forcing Google+ into live search results poses some interesting questions; but is the initiative as bad as everyone's making it out to be?
We've covered Google's apparent attempts at becoming social at length here on the Hoop blog; but have always been a little suspicious of their true motives. When we discussed Social Search back in October, we concluded the post with the following:
It's the '+1' button that is going to make or break their attempt to become social. Google+ is just a novel way to encourage people to sign up for a Google profile – which then gives Google access to users' social data but more importantly the '+1' in search. A 'truly social' search experience.
On Tuesday, Google Fellow Amrit Singhal (the engineer partly responsible for the algorithms that Google's search engine is based on) published a blog post entitled "Search, plus Your World" – which is summarised below.
- Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
- Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you're close to or might be interested in following; and,
- People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.
Over the next week, Google are rolling out the above three features (which we'll call Search+ for now); all of which result in personalised search results to live search queries. These features will be available to the 40m users with Google+ accounts; producing individual results for each user's query, populated with content from (only) Google+.
On the one hand, the (opt-out) Search+ intiative is wonderful – and will provide Google+ users with truly personalised (and relevant) content from their social circles. It's also worth noting just how much Google appear to be supporting social data. Just think how (much more) useful Google would become if it were to feature content pulled from every one of your social networks! But then on the other hand, Search+ raises some interesting questions.
- As Search+ won't include results from Facebook (which blocks Google from crawling it) and priorities Google+ content over the publicly available results from Twitter, is Search+ anti-competitive?
- Will Search+ cause Facebook and Twitter to open up and allow Google to crawl their non-public content – or simply deepen the animosity between the three companies?
- Will the personalisation of results from the world's most popular search engine (by market share) have consequences on how we discover information?
Facebook has always been a closed platform, denying Google the right to crawl its databases – although some public posts are available to the search engine. But then Facebook and Google have never really been best buddies.
Twitter did have the 'Realtime Search' agreement with Google, where the search engine's crawlers could access tweets and profiles. But then, for some reason, the two companies couldn't see eye to eye when the agreement came for renewal. So it wasn't.
It has been suggested, although this is a long shot, that Search+ is an extremely risky move to get Facebook (and to an extent Twitter) – its serious competitors in social – to open up (to search) or face the same antritrust procedures that are currently being leveled at Google. Given the history, it's extremely unlikely this is going to happen.
So what's wrong with Search+? Yes, it's a little anti-competitive and will probably lead to a slap on the wrist from an antitrust inquiry – but it'll do little to clear the air between Google, Facebook and Twitter. Search+ won't cause Google+'s competitors to open up their databases either. It's Google's focus on personalisation and their departure from delivering relevant and unbiased results to queries that is causing the issue – an issue explained by Eli Pariser in his TED talk below.
Google's job, as one of the best and most popular search engines in the world, is to deliver unbiased, un-prioritised results to its users. Even if those results do include Google's competitors.
By forcing Google+ into the results page and skewing the relevancy of results, Google is ultimately moving away from what made Google successful in the first place.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Content strategy, Digital strategy, facebook, Google, Google+, Reputation, SEO, Social search, Twitter
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5 top finds #26 »
A new logo for London 2012, Facebook's mobile phone is apparently a failure (and it's not even finished yet), Google's take on iTunes, i(can't)Message, chasing deer and chasing investment. It's 5 top finds...
1. 2012 gets a facelift
There was quite a bit of consternation when Wolff Olin's logo for London 2012(™) was unveiled in 2007. We were a little surprised to see the consternation continuing – with an alternative logo being submitted to Logo Design Love just last week (with an accompanying dig at Wolff Olin's attempt). venturethree's version is actually rather good!
2. Poor Buffy's not doing so well
There have been rumours drifting around the internet for years about the possibility of Facebook producing a phone. Or rather Facebook writing the software and partnering with a hardware producer like HTC or Samsung to produce a mobile.
Tech blog AllThingsD recently published a story revealing that FB are actually in the process of producing such a phone running on a HTC handset with souped-up Android. Apparently, according to Inside Mobile Apps, things haven't been going smoothly...
But, on a more positive note, all is apparently not lost. The Wall Street Journal is reporting Facebook are looking into filing their elusive IPO "targeting a time frame of April to June 2012 for an initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter" – in which the company is looking to raise $10bn.
Which would value the company at around $100bn...
3. Spinning in control (as long as you live in America)
Google launched their attempt to steal the digital music crown from iTunes (Match) last week. The imaginatively titled (but rather awesome) 'Google Music' lets you upload up to 20,000 of your own tracks to the cloud (for easy listening on any device), share your music tastes via Google+, access your music anywhere and discover new music via the Google Music recommendation system.
Which all sounds great, but it's as of yet unavailable in the UK...
4. To iMessage or not to iMessage
When Apple announced iMessage, their version of Blackberry's BBM service, back at WWDC in June, we all jumped for joy at what we thought would be a (free and) fantastic, SMS-killing service.
But, as is often the way, all is not as magical as first advertised. Entrepreneur Matt Galligan eloquently described what we couldn't. Well worth a read.
5. Chasing deer and rapping for investment
We've two videos in this week's 5 top finds:
1) Benton (no relation to the author, for those of you who were about to ask; who the Sun is reporting is actually called 'Fenton') being admonished – but taking no notice – for taking an afternoon jog with a herd of deer.
2) An intriguing way of marketing your startup and asking for angel investment (but it seems to work).
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Apple, #Benton, Buffy, facebook, Google+, iMessage, iPhone, London 2012, Mobile, Music
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Search goes social »
What is social search and why is it important?
Google doesn't like Facebook and the feeling's mutual. Both Silicon Valley heavyweights are competing for supremacy and, to start with, it looked like Facebook had won the first round. But we're not writing Google off just yet...
Facebook are without a doubt one of the biggest companies in the technology space. They've got the biggest social network in the world with 800m active users – and they predict they'll be the world's first 1bn-strong network by the end of 2011. Facebook were (and, to an extent, still are) pretty much unrivalled in the social space until Google launched their latest attempt at a social network in July.
Prior to launching their social network, Google rolled out the '+1' this April – which was seen by many as an attempt to compete with Facebook's 'Like' button (which, after being released in April 2010, is currently used on around 2bn posts a day).
Google described the '+1' as:
"...digital shorthand for "this is pretty cool." To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1's will then start appearing in Google's search results."
Earlier this week, Google announced that their '+1' button is being "served 2bn times a day", which may not match Facebook's 'Like' button statistics (the 'Like' button is actually being used 2.3bn times a day) – but it's close. This isn't just Google encroaching on Facebook's social space; the '+1' button hints at something bigger.
Google+ has only been open to the public for just over a month, but it's already doubled its user base from 25m to 50m and is growing at 4% a day (with a predicted 2m new users signing up every day). Admittedly, Google+ is quite a way off Facebook's numbers, but Google might not be after Facebook's crown after all. When we first covered the social network on the Hoop blog we said:
"If Google can fit the rest of their portfolio (search, advertising, mobile, video, blogging to name but a few of their other services) into this social venture, they'll have something that none of the other networks have. A truly social all-web encompassing experience."
Google aren't pinning all of their hopes and dreams on Google+ (although it's fair to say it's important to them). The social network will do them well, but it won't ever become their primary source of income. Advertising is, and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be.
It's the '+1' button that is going to make or break their attempt to become social. Google+ is just a novel way to encourage people to sign up for a Google profile – which then gives Google access to users' social data but more importantly the '+1' in search. A 'truly social' search experience.
Google thinks this is the future; personalised results to each and every search query – with results (paid and organic) ranked using recommendations from people in your social circles.
Because, after all, you're just asking Google a question. And they want to give you the right answer.
So is the +1 button the key to unlocking Google's future; or is social search a flash in the pan? Feel free to leave us a comment below or let us know in via email or Twitter.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Content management, Content strategy, Digital strategy, facebook, Google, Google+, SEO, Social search, User centred thinking
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5 top finds #16 »
It's Monday so we've lined up another 5 top finds for your enjoyment. This week sees us exploring photographic innovation; Spotify under the spotlight; the next round of Google v Facebook; Square mobile payments and the Tweet Olympics.
1. Some photography loving
We're huge lovers of photography here at Hoop, so we were bowled away when we stumbled across Dear Photograph. The premise is simple, revisit the location of old photographs and overlay the old with the new. A wonderful idea with superb execution in submissions from all over the world.
We've been talking about the rise of mobile for a while now, and with that we've been keen to follow the rise in popularity of 'iPhoneography' apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic (two of the most popular). We recently noticed this superb Hipstamatic photojournalism experiment from the war in Afghanistan on Foreign Policy – we thoroughly recommend checking it out.
We also found this wonderfully divisive opinion piece on why Instagram is ruining photography the other day – it's an oldie but definitely a goodie.
2. Patent and IP trolls
If you've been following the launch of Spotify in the US, you'll have no doubt heard that even though they've already amassed a reported 70,000 subscribers, they've already run into legal problems – just a week after launch. They've been issued with court papers for patent infringement by a 'wireless multimedia platform creator' called PacketVideo. TechDirt have all the details and you can read the court papers in full here.
This is the latest in the alarming trend of patent and IP shell companies suing the innovative tech companies and developers – a market that's reportedly worth $6bn in litigation fees and $50bn in IP rights and licensing. The Guardian has an interesting article on the influence patents have on innovation. Definitely worth a read.
3. Google+ and Facebook Business
The ominous rivalry between Google and Facebook took an interesting turn this week. Google have been booting company and pseudonym profiles from their new Google+ social network without warning and Facebook were quick to capitalise.
The Palo Alto company launched the new Facebook Business section as an "online education centre" aimed at getting small businesses to utilise Facebook pages, ads, sponsored stories and the social plug-ins. It might not be an obvious swipe at G+ but we reckon it's a swipe nonetheless. GigaOm has the details.
4. Lets all get Square
We love Twitter here at Hoop - and you can find us all (or most of us) on it. So when we heard Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had started a new venture, we all got a bit excited.
Square is a revolutionary new mobile payment system that turns your iOS or Android device into a cash register and a credit/ debit card reader. It seems we're only ones getting excited about the programme, the company's already shipped almost 350,000 card readers and had $135m transacted through its programme way back in April. Unfortunately, it's not yet available outside of the US but we're sure it will be soon. Pretty damn cool!
5. Olympics competitive tweeting
On July 27th, London 2012 announced the fairly self-explanatory 'One year to go' campaign. Yes, we're only 12 months away from welcoming the Olympics to London and we couldn't be more excited! To celebrate the countdown, London 2012 announced a competition to see which competing country had the biggest social fanbase which is judged by the number of tweets, photos uploaded to flickr and videos to YouTube marked with each country's 3 letter code.
It seems Twitter shares our enthusiasm for the upcoming Olympics. In 48 hours, there have already been 85,853 tweets with the #1yeartogo hashtag, putting the USA at #1 position with 16% of the votes (at the time of writing). Head over to Mashable for more info and get voting!
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Apple, facebook, Google+, iPhone, London 2012, Mobile, Patent Law, Photography, Social media, Square, Twitter
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Google+ or minus? »
Does Google's latest social venture follow their past (failed) endeavours or is it 'the new Facebook'?
There's one thing that Google has always struggled with. The company is primarily built around search, its complex algorithms and engineering (although their repertoire has grown significantly since their stint in a Silicon Valley garage) – so it's no surprise they've never really nailed social.
However, we think that's now changed. It's worth noting that not everyone shares this view – but we think Google have made a decent (if not awesome) attempt at producing their own social network. And as we've already mentioned, the numbers seem to be backing this up.
A month ago, on Tuesday 28th June, Google rolled out the first few invites to their new social network; the rumoured half a billion dollar Google+.
It's fair to say Google+ is the topic of many a conversation. The above video (courtesy of the talented people over at Epipheo) surfaced on the web at the end of last week and is one of the best introductions to the new Google+ product we've seen. Even Paypal's co-founding CEO and Facebook angel investor Peter Thiel has been writing about it.
So, first thoughts when using Google+.
Award-winning developer Andy Hertzfeld (of 1980s Apple Macintosh fame) was part of the UX team behind the product's development, so it's no surprise that using Google+ is a pleasant experience. Its killer feature is Circles – Hertzfeld's primary contribution. Facebook has become the go to social network, with 750 million active users, but anyone and everyone is on there. Yes, the functionality to group Facebook friends into select lists does exist, but like the FB privacy settings quagmire, the whole process is more pain that it's worth.
Google+ circumvents the lists issue by making it simple – a theme that runs throughout the product. When creating an account, you simply drag and drop contacts together into friendship Circles who you can then share content with. So instead of sharing content with every contact you have, as on Facebook, you simply choose which Circles you want to share with. You can also view each of your Circles' content via the Google+ Stream (a bit like the Facebook News Feed). There have already been a few arguments about privacy and content sharing (oh, and plagiarism) but, in our opinion, G+ trumps FB on this one.
There are other standout features from Google+ which promise to be extremely useful once the floodgates are opened to the masses (G+ is still on a closed field trial) – and all the bugs are ironed out.
Hangouts – video chat for up to ten people (which could be hugely useful for companies who can't afford expensive videoconferencing software), and Huddles – a group chat messaging service via the Google+ mobile app (currently Android and iOS) are just two of the impressive functions Google+ has.
Then there's Sparks – a way of filtering search content that is relevant to you. Sparks is one of the big clues of how Google could actually make Google+ work – and beat all the other social networks into second place.
So is Google+ a Facebook killer? No, in its current iteration it isn't, and the lack of open access is one of its biggest weaknesses. We've noticed a lot of the platform's current users are already complaining about a lack of other users – which may drive them away from the product before it's properly ready.
As Matthew Ingram on GigaOm points out, Google+ is more likely to damage Twitter than it is Facebook. Google+ is also currently hampered by a lack of integration into other social networks (although given the recent Facebook vs. Google spat that's unsurprising) – which will slow its uptake to the mainstream.
The incentive (or lack of) to entice users away from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks of note will make or break Google+.
So how does Google do that?
If Google can fit the rest of their portfolio (search, advertising, mobile, video, blogging to name but a few of their other services) into this social venture, they'll have something that none of the other networks have. A truly social all-web encompassing experience. The future of the internet or a step into the world of 1984?
If you have any thoughts on Google+, or anything else you've seen on the Hoop blog, let us know via email, Twitter or in the comments below.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Apple, Digital strategy, facebook, Google+, iPhone, Mobile, Social media, Social search, User centred thinking, User Experience, User Interface Design
