According to Technorati

Over the holiday break we found and fixed a bug that inflated authority counts for certain blogs. The blogs affected were those on domains that also have linked-to sub-domains. The links to the sub-domains were erroneously counting toward the blog authority of the blog on the parent domain. Since Technorati Authority is a calculation of how much attention is being paid to a blog and the posts beneath it, we do not include sub-domains. Sub-domains are treated as separate entitities and often are references to tools, utilities, features, and other non-blog resources.

Examples:

http://chinese.engadget.com

http://desktops.engadget.com

http://hdtv.engadget.com

http://storage.engadget.com

Well, we fixed the bug yesterday. The impact of this change is mostly limited to the Top 100 and the overwhelming majority of the blogosphere is unaffected. Thanks for bearing with us while the Top 100 experiences some turbulence.

We’re always thinking about how to improve and develop new meaningful metrics for the blogosphere and we welcome your feedback on these issues.

I’ve never had faith in Technorati. I’ve certainly never paid any attention to its ranking. That’s not to say that the top 100 don’t deserve to be there. They probably do.

Take Segala’s blog for example (trust me, I don’t keep an eye on figures, I don’t even know how many RSS subscribers we have). Our entire Web site, including this blog, is based on WordPress. When a blogger references me, or a post that I’ve managed to slapped together, they tend to link to Segala.com, my profile page, or this blog. Technorati sees these as three separate ‘blogs’ and as such, doesn’t rank ‘the blog’ properly.

I don’t really care much for rating a blog based on inbound links alone anyway. Different types of blogs attract different types of people. For example, a blog which attracts a large non-blogging audience, will not rank as highly as a blog which attracts an early adopter type audience, of which many blog and link back.

Shouldn’t Technorati be intelligent enough to recognise everything after segala.com/ as one blog? I’m not entirely sure they’ve fixed a bug as many blog networks will have entirely different blogs on subdomains. One of the main benefits of a subdomain is to create separate sites.

Read what TechCrunch has to say.

Technorati blog.

Thanks to Chris Brogan for the link via Twitter.

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Do you read both blogs and if so, do you mind the duplication of stories covered on both? Are there specific topics you’d rather I covered, or didn’t cover on either of them? Any feedback you provide will be greatly appreciated. Until I received feedback, I’ll continue to post what I think is relevant, to both blogs. Thanks to Dennis Howlett for advice regarding this matter.

Now onto the article you came here for…

I picked up from TechCrunch this morning that Robert Scoble, one of the most influential bloggers in the world, has been banned from Facebook for breaking its terms and conditions.

Apparently, Robert tried to run a script over Facebook to export all of his contacts in one go. Those of us who know Facebook rather well, know that this will break their terms of use. He would have known that this was likely to end in tears. That said, perhaps Robert was pulling a PR stunt knowing that everyone would end up not only talking about it, but rallying behind him.

I must point out that I like Robert, a lot. I think what he does is brilliant and his contribution to industry is nothing short of fantastic. So, my post isn’t directed at Robert, but the Facebook conversation that’s taking place in the social arena that is Twitter.

If you break the rules, you should expect to be treated like everyone else. Just because Robert has thousands of connections and is very well known to millions, it doesn’t mean he should be treated any differently to anyone else. I have a friend who sent me a text message whilst I was on holiday as her account had been disabled. I just happen to know the VP of PR & Marketing and the VP of Sales so she thought I could exercise my connections in her favour. Her account was probably canned due to the number of event requests she sent out each week – there was a lot, but people signed up to her notifications. I must add that they were very exclusive events too.

Everyone who considers themselves as a ’social media’ guru should know that Facebook is closed and that you’re not permitted to use scripts to remove contacts. So, you should either join the club and abide by the rules, or leave. Right?

Well, yes and no. You shouldn’t break the rules and not expect to be punished. But, we should try to persuade Facebook that being closed isn’t good for industry as a whole. We should be able to retain ownership of our data. If you’re still unsure about what I’m talking about, try to export your friends’ email addresses. You’ll notice that it’s impossible because email addresses are made up of images. To comply with basic industry best practices, email addresses like everything else, should at least be text. To take this a step further, they should come in the form of a Microformat. You’d then be able to download email addresses automatically to a client such as Outlook.

Oh wait, making it easy for people to export hundreds, possibly thousands of email addresses… wouldn’t that make it easy for unscrupulous companies to harvest and then SPAM? You could argue that Facebook is helping to protect the vast majority whilst upsetting the minority. Personally, I think it’s just a matter of time. Facebook only opened it’s doors to non-universities a year ago. The business community has only started to flirt with it since the summer with London boasting the largest geographical network in the world.

What Facebook does well, is very small iterative changes to improve the user experience. You’ll notice that it’s not inclined to make huge changes to the platform – that’s probably because they’ll upset a lot of people if they get it wrong. Given that it’s still early days, getting major changes wrong is more likely. So, perhaps opening up email addresses is on the long ‘to-do’ list and will only be executed when they’ve figured out how to protect users from themselves.

I was one of the first employed by AOL in Europe in 1995, when it was a small startup, so I get the whole ‘walled garden’ thing. I don’t think it’s healthy for industry in the long term. But it is a necessary evil at the beginning to ensure users have a positive user experience within an environment where they are protected.

However, there comes a point in time when you need to knock down the walls. I’m not sure when that time should be for Facebook but one thing is for sure, their decision is not going to be influenced by early adopters. They’ll most likely listen to audiences which include influencers with a lot of connections, who would follow them to a competitor.

I believe it’s a little harsh to automatically ban users from Facebook. This should be done manually after humans have first given a warning and second, made sure that they’re making the right decision. If AOL could do it more than 10 years ago with millions of users, I’m sure Facebook can today given the technology available to staff.

Read some interesting article on this topic

Hear what Robert Scoble has to say

Hear what CentreNetworks has to say

My source: TechCrunch

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What’s worse, is that most developers force you to install their application just for someone else to use it with you. For example, if you want to add me to your best friends, I need to install the application, even if I have no intention of adding anyone. This is down to poor insight to human behaviour and a huge assumption that this approach will guarantee mass adoption.

Could the new Google approach attract more developers to build more compelling applications which in turn, will encourage more users to join their networks. One thing is for sure in my mind, we’re likely to see some good vertical social networks come out of the Google camp.

Source TechCrunch

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If you’re a brand guardian, have you ever wondered how to respond to bloggers who make negative comments about your products or services? Have you wondered whether to react at all? If you’re an agency, have you thought about how to answer this question when your clients start to ask?

Well, one thing is for sure, you should never tell bloggers that they should remove comments about your brand or you’ll take them to court. This will only encourage them and other bloggers to highlight your silliness on their blogs. This results in a pyramid marketing campaign of bad publicity which can easily spiral out of (your) control.
The only way to influence a conversation about your brand is to get involved in that conversation. You do this by listening to what others have to say and then do one of three things. Let’s call it AED for short.

1. Apologise and explain how you will make change
2. Explain your position and solicit their feedback on your explanation
3. Defend yourself, providing constructive feedback

Damien Mulley, who’s flying in from Ireland to speak at our next Breakfast Bite and who I’ve invited to be a guest writer on this blog, was on one end of this conversation today. Take a look at Damien’s natural reaction to a marketing agency ripping off his content and their reaction to his blog post.

You don’t learn when talking, you only learn when listening.

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John Burns’ response to a disgruntled recipient should have been an apology. Instead, he stupidly wrote

These email addresses are part of a networking list from www.itcork.ie and are all available for everyone to see.

I do appreciate your concern chris, (i will keep my eye out for the bloggers!!!)

This is a guy who clearly doesn’t understand the data protection act. He also doesn’t understand that what he did was simply bad practice and dumb.

I regularly get spam from recruitment agencies. It doesn’t actually bother me but it does add weight to my argument for not using them. I’ve got vast experience on both sides of the fence in terms of being a client and candidate. Generally speaking (in my experience) they’re unprofessional and back stabbing at best. On the rare occasion, I ran into a great bunch of people such as those at PriceJamieson, but this doesn’t happen often.

Disclaimer Ann Jamieson is the founder of PriceJamieson and is a member BIMA’s Advisory Committee, which I Chair. This in no way had any influence on my tone used throughout this blog post.

So, if you work for a recruitment agency and come by this site to harvest contact details, don’t bother because you’ll only end up in the bin where you belong.

Origin Tom Raftery’s blog.

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Paul is calling upon his friends to explain what they’re doing/thinking in 1 word.

Whilst I received a personal message on Facebook from Ant Clay via his blackberry, Elizabeth Varley, Kathryn McMann, Chris Rawlinson and Lee Thomas wrote on my wall. Did Tom Jordan, Lisa Rodwell, Richard Sambrook and Aoife Brennan change their status update as a result of this wee game? It’s likely to be a coincidence.

Anyway, I wasn’t in the mood for writing a serious post tonight (as I watch the World’s Biggest Boy on Channel 4) and am in the mood for being a little silly.

Can you sum yourself in 1 word. I’d describe myself as an ‘opportunist’.

[Update] I got so bored waiting for my backup to finish, so I decided to create a Facebook group for this rubbish. Get silly and join now.

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Thanks to Steve Clayton for the link on Twitter. I’ve always said that Facebook isn’t a social network like Bebo or MySpace. Facebook is more of a platform/technology which we use to connect with people we know within our network. We can then build communities using our social network.

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft Corp. is in talks with Facebook Inc. about making an investment in the social-networking startup that could value Facebook at $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter.

The talks set up another likely face-off between tech titans: Google Inc. has also expressed strong interest in a possible Facebook investment, said people familiar with the matter.

This is a brilliant opportunity for Facebook to expand it’s application development by taking advantage of Microsoft’s already huge partner network. Microsoft’s partners could also provide additional technology-savvy applications to help improve the overall functionality of Facebook within a short space of time.

So, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to want to own part of Operating System 2.0, which also has Google on it’s toes! It also makes sense for Facebook to share a piece of the pie with Microsoft, in return for extra ad revenue and accelerated application/core platform development.

Read the original article on the Wall Street Journal Web site.

Could it be true? Does it make sense?

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I asked the question on Twitter and at least 5 people kindly responded. Twitter restricts each message to 140 characters though, so it’s not conducive to long conversations. So I’ve decided to take it to a more traditional medium, this blog. I’ll probably ask the question on Facebook too as I’m likely to get quite a few responses there.

So, earlier in the week I reported my mobile lost. Thankfully, O2′s insurance (as brilliant as it is!) not only replaced the mobile, it also sent me all the accessories (now I have 2 of everything). I’ve never experienced such a good service. I’m so happy not to be with Carphone Warehouse anymore.

As soon as I switched my new phone on, I noticed the software looked different. It also has additional ring tones for profiles. I actually prefer the new software. However, the battery life doesn’t appear to be as good as the one I had in my original phone. I knew before buying the mobile, that the battery wasn’t great. However, the original one was fine.

Either of the following must be true:

1. I didn’t charge it as well as I should have
2. The battery has also changed and isn’t as good as the one I had previously

If they have been changed, I could have either the new or old versions. I’m sure the phones they have for replacements aren’t as new as the ones in the shop.

Can anyone please confirm if the software and battery has been replaced. Also, it would be great to know whether I have the old or new version.

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We’re looking for a volunteer to design a one/two page flyer for the BIMA Facebook Debate event which takes place in a few weeks. So, time is of the essence. Check out the Facebook event page here.

This invite is open to agencies, freelancers and students. All we ask is for you to put your name forward along with a few examples of your work. Nothing long winded required and no formal pitching will be requested.

We’re not entirely sure how the winner will be picked. What we do know, is that it will be very informal and very quick.

So, please volunteer now and get your brand noticed by the huge audience that’s talking about the event. We’ll promote your work on the flyer so everyone will know who designed it!

We’ll also give you 2 guest passes and 2 limited edition t-shirts. The event is completely sold out and the t-shirts haven’t even been designed yet.

Please get in touch by emailing paul@segala.com

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As posted on the BIMA blog, I’ve been asked to Chair the MAD.co.uk upcoming event entitled Social Media for Business. Check out the Web site for more information and to view the programme and speakers. I can recommend speakers until the cows come home but I’d like to solicit your opinion. Do you know of a suitable speaker for this event?

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