Hot on the heels of a posting titled ‘Differentiate (Your Avatar) or Die’ by Michael (aka planetc1) over at Sphinn, and following the unique experince had recently by one of the ladies here in our office, I was prompted to create an avatar experiment and then test it. Essentially, she (our female staff member) changed her StumbleUpon avatar, and upon doing so, her friend count increased very quickly with virtually no effort.

Now, I’m sure many of you have theories about this, but it certainly caused many of us at SEP to chat and theorize in the office. After much debate, we hypothesized that:

So Google blew past it’s numbers last week but it seems it still may have a ways to go in monetizing YouTube.

Not so, for Simon Cowell. Yes, that Simon Cowell of American Idol fame.

For those of you who may not know, Cowell is also one of the judges on the UK series Britain’s Got Talent.

Enter Paul Potts. Paul who? Paul Potts. Think Pavarotti. Think phone salesman steps up to microphone, blows audience away with Turandot’s Nessum Dorma, winds up with an instant career faster than you can pour boiling water into a coffee cup and over 40 Million YouTube views. No, seriously, 40 Million YouTube views.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Rule, is an interesting phenonenum that has many implications for those practicing search and social media. The concept is losely defined as; for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Its a truism so to speak, though its the rough concept that is important and not the absolute numbers. Some real life examples of this concept in action are:
a) in general, 80% of a hockey teams goals, will come from 20% of the players
b) often 80% of a company’s revenues will come from 20% of its clients
c) 80% of a country’s wealth will be held by 20% of the population
d) 80% of the postings on Spinn/Digg, etc. will be by 20% of the total number of posters
e) 80% of most tasks can be completed in 20% of the time

BBC, Jan. 25, 2006: “Google censors itself for China”

Official Google Blog, Jan. 27, 2006: “[…] creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People’s Republic of China. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results. […]

Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that.”

Estimate your site’s health by reading the wrong metrics and you get the wrong impression.

It’s as simple as that.

Whether it is for setting a price for on-site advertising or establishing some kind of baseline when negotiating SEO or SEM services, traffic measured in absolutes such as Page Views, Visitors and Unique Visitors has a hold on The Market it really doesn’t deserve.

Technology has surpassed most of these metrics.

Think about it.

You might be reading this in your feed reader. Are you a Unique Visitor? Does the Page View get increased somewhere? Or maybe you’re subscribed by email: same questions apply.

Hot off last August’s announcement that R.H. Donnelley (No. 3 Yellow Pages publisher in the US) had begun selling ad placements in Yahoo! Local, comes today’s news that Canada’s Yellow Pages Group will begin reselling Google AdWords advertisements.

Its agreement with Google allows Yellow Pages approximately 425,000 advertisers to appear alongside Google search results. Previously, Google Local or ‘Maps’ would display only names and addresses of Yellow Pages’ businesses next to results from searches on local information.

Yellow Pages Group has been working with Google since 2004, when they struck an agreement granting the Internet giant access to its databases and, quietly I may add, began embedding Google AdWords on its websites earlier this year.

Establishing a strong Social Media Profile necessarily means establishing networks of (professional) friends/relationships online (aka online professional relationships … OPR) that can be called upon to help you when needed. In some cases, your goal will be to befriend individuals that are influencers in a given sphere; when needed you can count upon them to use their powerful sites and networks to drive traffic and/or business to your site. In yet other cases, your goal maybe to enlist your network to stumble or digg particlar articles. Your effectiveness at each of these efforts is a function of the strength of your OPRs … since many require different levels of trust given the potential risk to the OPR. And yes, risks do exist! Accordingly, the remainder of this post will discuss our SEP interpretation of the stages of online professional relationships, and what OPR efforts can be expected at different stages.

So here you stand, a virtual newby to the world of social media, and it appears that you have the monumental task before you of scaling this towering mountain called developing a professional network online … developing your social media profile. But where do you begin … “my god this mountain is high” you think to yourself. There are so many possible paths up the mountain.

Online Reputation Management, and the accompanying Issue Resolution Process seems to be a very hot topic of late. There is much debate about the approaches to use in varied situations. That said, I thought I’d take a stab at trying to add some clarity to the process by creating a model to guide the decision making process. As it happens, I was so impressed with SEOMoz’s How to Handle a Google Penalty flowchart, that it occurred perhaps one should also be created in this situation … voila!

Loonie Surpasses the US Dollar

The falling US Dollar is certainly affecting more than just Americans, with its effects reaching far and wide into both the online and offline realms. With the Greenback being the most preferred currency for all transactions online, you can certainly expect changes in sales and demand in online businesses, as well as any revenue you generate online.

A Tale of Baguettes and Tears

There’s two sides of the coin to this story, and while is rather rosy, our’s is almost as bleak. While some of us are rushing off the States for a weekend shopping spree, others shall be working hard to recoup their losses in online revenue. A bit dramatic perhaps, but our Canadian exporters will surely share in lamenting this fluctuating dollar.