Cher Monsieur Rose,

J’ai publié un article sur un blog il y a de cela quelques jours Une fonctionnalité sur Digg est brisée… Ohhhh, Ca fait mal, mettant en lumière quelques uns des problèmes auxquels je me suis heurté. L’intention, comme vous le remarquerez n’est pas de taper sur Digg en aucune façon, mais seulement de mettre en lumière ces problèmes que j’ai eus avec ce site, et la solution que j’ai trouvé pour contourner ces difficultés jusqu’à ce que ces problèmes soient résolus d’une manière ou d’une autre.

 
Image courtoisie de ScottBeale/ Laughing Squid

I’ve been running Search Engine People for 7 years now, and am just finally getting the company to the point that I know it could run perfectly without me in the picture at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning on leaving or going anywhere. Its just that now, I can focus on working to my strengths, and taking the company to the next level of its evolution. We’re currently a 15 person organization, and if everything goes according to plan should have slightly more than 30 people at the same time next year.

I would imagine there must be several dozen Digg clones out there. Most would argue that with so much competition and a formidable runaway leader, it would be difficult for a newcomer to break through. Having said this, there was a ton of buzz surrounding Mixx at Pubcon so I spent this week checking out the site. In a nutshell, Mixx allows you to discover “personally relevant” media/news and interact within networks that you create based on interest and location.

This week I take a look at Mixx, by the numbers.

The Beginning:

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

Image source: pcweenies.org

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).

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.

Admittedly, I’m not a Twitterer however during last weeks Pubcon in Las Vegas, virtually every Social Media session I attended mentioned the micro-blogging service which allows users to send instant updates to a network of friends. Their passion for Twitter was infectious. As such I decided to take a closer look.

This week I’ll review Twitter, by the numbers. Note to Twitterers, it’s not limited to 140 characters!

The Beginning:

Suivant de près la sortie de l’article intitulé « Différencier ( Votre Avatar) ou Mourir » par Michael ( alias planetc1) sur le site Sphinn, et suivant aussi l’expérience unique vécue par une des dames ici à nos bureaux, On m’a chargé de créer une expérience avec un avatar et de le tester ensuite. Essentiellement, elle, ( ce membre féminin de notre équipe) a changé son avatar à StumbleUpon, et ce faisant, le nombre de ses amies/amis a augmenté de manière très rapide avec, à toutes fins, peu d’effort.

Maintenant, je suis sûr que beaucoup d’entre vous avez maintes théories sur le sujet, mais, celui-ci a incité plusieurs de nous ici `a SEP à bavarder et théoriser. Après de multiples débats, nous avons émis l’hypothèse suivante :

L’Hypothèse:

Un avatar de “jolie femme” résulterait en l’addition de plus d’amis, si l’on y met le même effort, qu’un avatar représentant une femme absolument splendide, parce qu’il apparaît plus probable que cette femme serait conforme à son image dans la réalité et l’avatar non pas créé pour attirer plus d’amis.

Nous avons aussi émis l’hypothèse que les deux avatars féminins engendreraient l’addition de plus d’amies/amis qu’un avatar représentant un gars.

Alors… nous avons pensé créer une expérience pour vérifier notre théorie.

L’image est une courtoisie de la 20^th Century Fox provenant du film « Deux filles et un gars »

L’Expérience:

1. Créer 3 profils séparés sur StumbleUpon avec 3 différents avatars, un pour chaque personnage :

We recently had a Digg submission go Hot. This is the first one that I was personally involved with. Given that I didn’t have anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon, I thought that it might be fun to Chart the # of Diggs and resulting traffic to see if we could draw any interesting conclusions.

Here is what I saw…

A friend submitted the Digg article. It got a few Diggs however I didn’t really pay too much attention. I knew that it was really good content but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.