Its official, Facebook’s Toronto network just surpassed the 1 million member mark (see screen print below … I captured it at the moment it hit 1,000,000 just for dramatic effect), and is growing in excess of 1500 new members per day. Toronto is the first city in the world to have this unique distinction. Here are the member numbers for some other significant cities:
New York City - 606,000
Chicago - 462,000
Los Angeles - 384,000
Atlanta - 280,000
Dallas - 235,000
Miami - 118,000

"So in order to not make any more sales during Christmas, I don’t need to do anything?!"

I shook me head.

"Nope. Nothing. Just leave your site as-is and your sales will remain more or less the same."

"Amazing…"

He was clearly impressed, both with my knowledge of search engines as well as their highly advanced AI-like technology.

My ego got the better of me and I decided to share some stories from the trenches.

Image Credit : Torchondo

Lay Down Google Analytics. Analyze Your RSS Growth Instead

A recent analysis by 45n5 states that the average RSS subscriber syndicated to an Internet Marketing| SEO | Make Money Online niche is worth about $31 in intangible value. While this number may be debatable, there is no doubt that growth in RSS subscriptions are the life blood of any booming blog. In fact, next to figuring out the number of Returning Visitors, and Time on Site, I’d say that RSS is the best metric to evaluate the ’stickiness’ of your content.

Image source: pcweenies.org

While most of us were at Pubcon last week, Google put on a by invitation only Local Symposium. This meeting was to go over Google’s rules and best practices, and to discuss some of its ongoing efforts with call reporting, mobile ads, printable coupons and website analytics.

Peter Krasilovsky reported that while it was “not very revealing”, it was “pretty helpful”. He went on to provide the best synopsis of the event I could find:

Codicil: Anyone who knows me know I’m the second last person in the world to suck up to the boss… (I’d say last but that’s too much like aspiring to a recognizable title, which I don’t as a rule do.)

I would like to think I’m a good employee, showing up on time, putting in an honest day’s work, playing nice with all the other kids, telling all the other kids where I got my toys (cause let’s face it, no one really likes to share).

Organic search can sometimes be difficult for a marketing person to get their head around. This is because Organic search doesn’t follow regular business rules. It follows Google’s Rules.

In business most of us are familiar with the rules of engagement. Barring everything you learned in Economics, HR, Strategic Planning, Finance, it all boils down to this: If you have enough money, talent and time, you can have basically anything you want. And executives are used to this.

Its true! Let me explain. While I was at Pubcon in Las Vegas last week, I sat in on a couple of sessions about video optimization, and had this revelation that almost certainly will come to fruition. Search optimization of videos will become a very important component of movie, video, and television production going forward. Accordingly, I want to ensure that our company is prepared once this inevitability occurs … so Stephen Spielberg, I want to throw our name into the short list of potential SEOs of Record now. Here’s why you’re gonna need us … soon! You can reach me directly at jeff (at) searchenginepeople.com (hehe).

Alex Iskold opined on Read/Write Web why there’s no money in the long tail of the blogosphere.

Here’s one of the reasons why he’s wrong.

It’s Not About the Money

Alex looks at the shortest possible route: Long Tail → Money.

In that view only massive traffic (Amazon) makes a buck.

Point is, you don’t sell to the long tail — you leverage the long tail for SEO.

Reinforcing Page Themes with the Long Tail

Every long tail post adds keywords, key phrases, to the main site. It’s the basic pattern of reinforcing the meaning of a page, category or whole web site.

LinkedIn is Evolving

Social Networks evolve organically as their member bases grow, and communities become more engaged with the media they interact with. MySpace’s evolution was ‘tacky’ at best, and sadly, Facebook is headed down the same road with its advent for user created facebook applications that are made to amuse ADD ridden users (myself amongst them). However, one network is doing thing right, and evolving in a direction that is not only productive, but integrative to deeper engagement among its users.