Happy Birthday, Gmail!

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

Wishing Gmail a happy birthday may seem like whispering into the wind tunnel: with all the accomplishments Google had racked up in the past few years, why stop to pay attention to any one anniversary? But looking back and how and why Gmail came about tells us a lot about how far we’ve come in such a short span of time. 

When Gmail was first introduced, a typical webmail account could only store about five megabytes of mail. I can vouch for this firsthand: my old Hotmail account was perpetually full, and I had to resort to saving treasured emails in a file on my hard drive. It was hardly time effective, and made managing mail a chore. Then came Gmail, offering a full gigabyte of space; for some hardcore users, this was barely an upgrade, but for the typical email user, even one gig opened up a whole new world of storage—it’s five happy years later for me, and I’ve barely cracked 4%. And I delete nothing. 

Gmail was designed with one group in mind: the people who racked up a lot of email, and thus, needed a lot of space. Much of common email interface were frustrating to the designers, so they started essentially with nothing, building their new intuitive interface from scratch. Their site architecture was a hybrid of HTML and JavaScript (this later became known as AJAX), which was smoother and faster. This becomes important when you keep in mind that broadband connections and 56k modems were still the norm.

In the years following, Google has developed any number of additions for the basic Gmail structure that ranged from the practical (an ‘Undo Send’ app, ‘To Do’ task lists) to the personal (design themes, custom date formats) to the funny (Google Goggles, anyone?). But by any rate, Goggle’s worked hard to improve an by all accounts stellar service, paving the way for even bigger improvements to personal email in the near future. 

Here’s one stat that can’t escape highlighting: today, thanks in large part to Google, it’s almost commonplace to a 20 megabyte attachment—making that one email four times the size of an entire webmail account in 2004. 

Photo from Official Google Blog entry. 

Facebook Lexicon Picks Your Brain...Sort Of.

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Here's a good indication of how social media has its finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Here's a graph of a certain keyword mention on Facebook from October of last year to February of this year:

The keyword in question? "Laid off." Unsurprisingly, it begins to peak right around the time that most major news organizations started reporting on the recession, something that has popped up in the top stories one way or another.

This data comes courtesy of Facebook Lexicon, which is more or less Google Trends for the Facebook crowd. It's a useful way to basically survey what words pop up most on the site, and an interesting way for Facebook to finally put all that data they've acquired to good use. You can even compare up to five keywords, separated by a comma.

It doesn't yet boast the comprehensive features that Google Trends does -- for example, it stalls on some two-word phrases or low-frequency words, and lacks a demographic spread that covers things like geography or language. But it's definitely a step in the right direction, and a great tool for someone trying to read the minds of Facebook users.

Incidentally, a glance at Google Trends for this same time period reveals a very similar spread, suggesting that reading the minds of Facebook's diverse users may be a good makeshift indicator for the feeling of the times.

Thanks to the Social Media Blog.

Twitter Gets Punk'd

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Word leaked yesterday that Twitter, long trying to construct a workable business model, had finally developed premium accounts for their most devoted followers. The account were split into four tiers:

• Sparrow ($5/month) – Users get 145 character limit, 5 extra random followers.

• Dove ($15/month) – Users get 160 character limit, 25 extra random followers, 1 random celebrity follower, auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" T-shirt.

• Owl ($50/month) – Users get 250 character limit, 100 extra random followers, 2 random celebrity followers, 30 minutes on recommended list, auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" hoodie.

• Eagle ($250/month) – Users get 500 character limit, 1000 extra random followers, 3 celebrity followers of their choice, 5 hours on recommended list each month, Twitter Concierge for Tweeting while user is asleep or busy (and more), auto-spell check, "Fail Whale" tuxedo, custom "Fail Whale" page when service is down.


The article cited co-founder and CEO Evan Williams as saying that "Celebrities and large corporations have begun flocking to Twitter for their social media needs, and growth has accelerated. Many users have expressed willingness to pay for accounts, and now we give them that opportunity."

But for any savvy reader, it became clear by the closing paragraphs that it was all just a joke (emphasis mine):

Users in any tier will be able to purchase an EmbellishTwit add-on for $100/year, which directs tweets to a well-educated offshore employee who will embellish tweets. For example, "Just had a whole wheat bagel and coffee for breakfast," becomes "Just got in from clubbing all night and Heidi Klum is spreading brie on a baguette just flown in on the Concord for my breakfast."


Rumors of an even higher level of service the secret "Black" account, which has J. K. Rowling, Stephen King and other famous authors write your tweets have not been confirmed.

With the reports veering quickly into the ridiculous (mandatory celebrity followers?) to the unbelievable (Stephen King penning Twitter accounts?), many appreciated the humor in this look at social media gone wild.

The really remarkable thing is how people reacted to this fake announcement. It picked up speed on Twitter, with people sending out Tweets questioning the post, with many more picking up that it was a tongue-in-cheek jab at Twitter. By midday, it had 3 terms on the search.twitter.com home page.

The cherry on the story comes when Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, caught wind of the story and posted it on his Twitter account:



Brian Briggs, the original poster, was thrilled at the attention and how quickly the story caught on:

Holy crap, the co-founder of AOL, Steve Case, just tweeted today's story link. If that's really him then that's totally awesome. OK, now Kevin Rose just retweeted it, and he has over 300,000 followers. Oh, and it's on Farktoo. Yippee.

And a happy social media fable comes to a close.

Microsoft Internally Testing New Search Service dubbed 'Kumo'

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Looks like someone's trying to get a piece of the Google pie...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft is testing a new version of its online search service internally under the name of Kumo.com, a spokesman for the software company said on Monday.

The service is not yet available outside the company, but may eventually form part of Microsoft's attempt to catch up with Internet search leaders Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.

The new service was unveiled in an internal memo sent by the head of research at the company's online services division on Monday. It did not provide details about the new features.

"Kumo.com exists only inside the corporate network, and in order to get enough feedback we will be redirecting internal live.com traffic over to the test site in the coming days," said the memo from Satya Nadella. "Kumo is the codename we have chosen for the internal test."

Coming on the heels of last year's attempt to buy up Yahoo!, this seems like a defensive move on Microsoft's to nip Google encroaching on their software business in the bud. Only time will tell how this project shapes up, but it's an interesting development indeed. Full story at Wired.com.

What is gooleads.g.doubleclick.net?

by Greg Pike, Applecore Web Developer

Last week, we were noticing some weird referrals listed under Google Analytics, our website statistics package. Being a naturally curious bunch, we wanted to get to the bottom of it. And so, after some research (which included trolling through online forums and calling up our Google contact), we determined these odd referrals were in fact coming from Google.

Last year when Google acquired DoubleClick, a digital marketing technology and services firm, it was integrated into their AdSense service. If you're running an AdWords campaign in the Google Content Network, you'll experience referrals from the domain googleads.g.doubleclick.net in your Google Analytics or equivalent stats package software.

These referrals aren't dangerous. Google has simply migrated much or all of their AdSense hosting to this network. Therefore, googleads.g.doubleclick.net referrals are just paid ads run through Google’s content network.

Privacy Issues: Facebook vs. User

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

They say bad things come in threes. In that case, Internet privacy is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Earlier this month, Facebook users were appalled to discover that the website’s Terms of Use had altered, basically giving Zuckerberg et al. more freedom in the legal rights they held over their users’ uploaded data, photos and videos.

The missing provision outlined the user’s right to remove their uploaded content at any time, which would also eliminate Facebook’s license to it. Left in its place was new language that gave Facebook full rights to any content uploaded by its users—even if the account it was uploaded to was terminated. The Consumerist, an online blog, was one of the first to point out the change, which superficially amounted to Facebook claiming that they can do whatever they want with your content. Forever.

It took three days and a lot of protest (to the tune of about 100,000 users), but Facebook eventually replaced the original Terms of Service, citing the need to rewrite to clarify exactly what the changes meant. Though the move calmed many critics, some consider that it even happened in the first place a warning sign. Says Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the New York Times:

 “This was a digital rights grab…Facebook was transferring control of user-generated content from the user to Facebook, and that was really alarming.”

Scary stuff, considering that according to their own Terms of Service, Facebook is under no obligation to notify changes to their terms—even when existing users are not asked to agree to the new terms.

Then, this past Thursday, the "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act of 2009," or SAFETY Act, was floated in both the House and Senate. It’s the second time this particular Act has surfaced (the first time being back in 2007). While its goal to protect children online is nothing short of admirable, some of the Act’s provisions have Internet privacy advocates concerned.

An excerpt: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

The basic idea is that any Starbucks, university campus, or employer would be required to keep a log of all data related to the IP addresses assigned to its individual users. Everything from email logins to search queries to site history would be retained. For two years.

What’s the current ruling look like? The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 set the precedent that ISPs based in the United States retain relevant data from a given IP address for at least 90 days—but only upon the formal request of law enforcement. 

Though its aim is admirable, the Act inevitably opens a whole can of issues related to privacy laws and the internet. Since it’s grown so fast and so big, drawing the line between public data and private data is blurry at best. This is especially true on a site like Facebook, where individual privacy settings vary considerably from user to user. Case in point—I don’t have my birthday, email address or even my relationship status on my Facebook profile, which is only viewable by people who are already my friends. But I know plenty of people who will not only publish all that data without thinking twice—they even add phone numbers, street addresses and employment locations. So what’s clearly private data for me is loosely-defined public data for someone else.

  

Want to know more? Here are some great links for further reading:

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know (Allfacebook.com)

Canadian Privacy Law Blog

Internet Privacy Laws in Canada (a brief rundown of current Canadian privacy rights)

Dissecting Facebook's Terms of Use (a detailed and jargon-free rundown of Facebook’s Terms of Use—it’s pretty eye-opening.) 

The New York Times—No More?

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

The big news this past month was the possibility that within five to ten years, heavyweight the New York Times could either be gone or drastically altered.

Way back in the 20^th century, that announcement would have been unthinkable—since 1896, the Times has been a sonic force in modern journalism. In 2002, the publication won seven Pulitzer Prizes, largely for their superhuman coverage of the September 11^th attacks (the standing record had been four). But these days, suggesting the New York Times’ eventual absence from newsstands is no longer an outrageous statement—in fact, it comes off as pretty tuned in.

Back in 2008, the paper had announced plans to borrow up to $225 million against its new Manhattan offices. Then, amid reports of faltering ad revenue and circulation, January 2009 saw a 48% plunge in the Times fourth quarter earnings, blamed on the natural decrease of advertising in a weak economy.

The Times is treading waters dotted with several scandals (see Jayson Blair, a Times writer who had faked at least 36 of his stories) and controversies—like the costly 2006 re-design, which decreased page size by half an inch and slashed content, hoping to make the paper more “reader friendly.”

The paper has slowly been shifting focus to its online division, and the numbers aren't lying: there are 1.1 million daily subscribers to the print edition - and 1.5 million readers online. Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of the New York Times, has made his priorities clear: "I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years...Internet is a wonderful place to be and we're leading there."

The New York Times is a high-profile example of a shift in print media which, depending on who you ask, means one of two things: reinvention or extinction.

Worried parties turn to the Internet for the real scoop—in particular, to voices like The Media is Dying. As a Twitter feed, it’s fairly straightforward: it reports industry lay-offs, big name agency moves and closing publications. And it does all this without adding an ounce of commentary or bias, relaying only the facts.

It’s created a lot of buzz in a relatively short amount of time—over 10,000 unique subscribers since its November 2008 inception—and has spawned a sister site meant to help the recently jobless (@themediaishiring).

On paper, things certainly don’t look good for traditional print media. But as the anonymous contributors to @themediaisdying will tell you, this looming change isn’t necessarily a bad thing:

Old media is not doomed but it certainly is changing, and fast. [New] generations are growing up with a myriad of technologies and options to get their news. . . social media [allows people to] get their news faster, easier and more personalized than ever before.

After the initial growing pains, while the economy is shaky and new media finds firm footing, this change will bring positive results. As the @TheMediaisDying creators suggest, it’s a demand that traditional media step up to meet modern technology, and enter a world where the gap between consumer and producer is smaller than ever before.

The Sides of a Golden Triangle

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

According to a Google-commissioned study performed by Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc, this is roughly how the human eye absorbs the information based on a first-time visit to a unique search query page. What follows is a heat map tracking a user's first viewing-- the darker the hue, the more time the eye spent on that area:

Notice that shape. It's what led to christening this pattern the Golden Triangle--a term that covers the area and order in which the eye reads and processes information. In the early days before this innovation, a big percentage of optimization was done on educated guesswork. But when the Golden Triangle was introduced at the Search Engine Strategies conference in 2005, it changed the way many designers, search engine marketers and users looked at how people use search engines.

The Golden Triangle doesn't just apply to Google—similar eye-tracking tests run against several other search engines, such as Yahoo or MSN, showed the same results:

So the big question: what does the Golden Triangle really mean? Well, it means that if your listing doesn’t fall inside that triangle, your chances of being clicked are drastically reduced, if not totally diminished. The top-three results draws 100 percent visibility, while result four gets 85 percent, and so on. Anything from result six onward has to fight for the remaining visibility of 50 percent .

Research like this gives real depth to the importance of search engine marketing, and how using Search Engine Optimization properly is key to any solid marketing plan.

Source: Eye-Tracking Study More Than Meets the Eye [Google Blog]

Social Awareness Goes Viral

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Ask anyone who didn't even know what a "Facebook" was two years ago: the social nature of the internet has exploded, turning the web into a collaborative, transparent place to share ideas, spread your message and reach a globe-spanning audience with the click of a button.

So it’s no wonder that spreading awareness – be it political, environmental or charitable – has been biten by the social networking bug. Here’s a handful of sites that do it best, courting innovation while they spread their message.

Political/Current events

Daily Kos – a collaborative political news blog that often recruits its readers to submit their own ‘diary’ entries—albeit under the safety of their screen names. Administrators and ‘power’ users have the ability to edit, delete, or otherwise prohibit diaries and replies (comments) posted by those who don’t have such privileges. [Daily Kos]

Digg—A site where users vote stories into the top spot (called ‘digging’) or ignore them in favor of others (called ‘burying’). Users have an exceptional degree of control over what stories see the front page. [Digg]

Citizen’s Briefing Book—A project of the official White House webpage. American citizens were invited to submit their concerns and suggestions in anticipation of Obama’s administration, with the compiled comments presented to President Obama. The Briefing Book only recently closed submission, and has given an amazing number of ordinary citizens the chance to participate in their government. [Citizen's Briefing Book]

Environmental

Cool People Care—Whether you have five minutes or five hours to spare, this website is full of countless little lifestyle changes for the better of the whole world. From alternatives to wrapping paper to taking four minute showers, this website is full of little gestures that add up to a big whole. [Cool People Care]

Make Me Sustainable—A website that offers you the chance to trace your carbon footprint with just a few clicks of a button—because awareness is the first step to change. Join a network of other users dedicated to improving their own impact on the world, and have an army of like-minded people behind your efforts. [Make Me Sustainable]

Recycle Now—the name says it all: tips and suggestions for integrating a recycling regime into your daily routine. Bright, simply designed and no-nonsense, this website offers so much easy to use advice that you’ll find using it no problem. [Recycle Now]

Charity

Your Luminosity—an online platform for setting up your own charity. It guides you through the process of creating your profile, setting up a donations page, and even provides a guide to filing tax receipts. [Your Luminosity]

Kiva - In this collective fundraising project, a single project of modest size (say, an Ecuadorian bread maker requesting $525) can be funded collectively through donors from around the world. The maximum bid is $25 on any one project, and when the money is repaid, the donor can either keep the money—or use it to fund another project. [KIVA]

TOMS Shoes- “For every pair you purchase, TOMS Shoes will match it with shoes for a child in need. One for one.” So says the motto on their homepage, and browsing their selection finds a variety of simple, well-made shoes that give so much more than you get. [TOMS Shoes]

Heard of any other sites using the internet to connect like-minded people in this way? Share!

The Mad Men Meet Twitter

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

Mad Men: it’s been called the reason for the recent pop culture fascination with (and glamorization of) the advertising business. For AMC’s critical darling Mad Men, success was slow-going, but once it came, it came fast. The show, based on the in and outs of an ad agency in the early 1960s, has been the centre of media mentions, high fashion photo spreads and near-compulsory appearances on year-end top ten lists. So it’s little surprise that that Mad Men, a smart, well-written character piece, also collected a number of devoted, very creative fans, who also happen to be very vocal.

A few die-hard fans began to create Twitter profiles (as well as advice columns) for characters on the show and assumed their identities, sending out “tweets” that closely followed the ongoing plot of the show proper. The trend took off quickly, until nearly every major (@dondraper, the office alpha male) and some very minor (@Xerox914, the office copy machine) characters had their own voice on Twitter. The tweets were all collected under one feed-aggregator, We Are Sterling Cooper (the name of the fictitious ad agency). All in all, a fairly tame way for fans to express their love of a show, and certainly not unusual in an online world where fans often have the final say.

But the really interesting part came when AMC (and their lawyers) intervened. AMC, in a knee-jerk copyright-minded reaction, moved to shut the Twitterings down, and within days, nearly all the fictitious Sterling Cooper accounts were disabled. The remaining few scrambled around the Twittersphere, sending out frantic tweets about their co-workers being "fired" and wondering how long they had left. 

Though later reports suggest that AMC had only wanted to discuss the accounts with Twitter for copyright reasons, not shut them down entirely, the effect was the same: AMC looked like the big, mean network trying to pull the plug on what had just been harmless fun.

To temper the outcry of angry fans, AMC moved to have the Twitter accounts reinstated and quickly issued a statement endorsing the trend, calling the tweets “…a great expression of the passionate fan base of Mad Men.” They even interviewed one of the original account holders (@BudMelman) for the show's official blog. The tweets gradually picked up their former activity, and built up a little community of insider interactions and conversations. 

What’s the lesson in all this? Well, if a fan/customer is engaging in your show/brand on their own time -- of their own free will -- then you should be counting your lucky stars, not rushing to stop the conversation. You’d put a halt to the kind of free, organic advertising that most marketers dream about. And worst of all, you’d end up looking the Big Bad Corporation who doesn’t understand social media or even the basic idea of fun. 

Social media isn’t a formula; it’s a flow. AMC had to learn that the hard way. 

Curious what all the fuss is about? Check out Applecore's Twitter feed. 

The first links of the New Year!

Just tossing out a few links for thought on this mid-winter's day: 

What Will You Miss When Newspapers Disappear? (Seth Godin via PSFK) 

Would a Greener Apple Make for Sour Grapes? (via Undercurrents blog) 

January 29th, 1895: Modern Electricity is born! (via Wired.com) 

>Free iPod/iPhone Wallpapers featuring rock stars through the decades (these guys always have great downloads like this -- check out the free handwriting fonts post from a few weeks ago). 

Britian Reports: Broadband for all by 2012. (via Brand Republic) 

How Typos and Factual Errors Could Be Killing Your Blog Readership (via The Blog Herald)

Tips to Stay Green Around the Office, at Virtually No Cost. (via Graphic Define)

Check out this barrage of Obama-inspired advertising: 

Tropicana Squeeze Hires Obama Lookalike and Kids. (via The New Advertising)

Pepsi Borrows a Slogan...and a Design...and an Entire Advertising Campaign. (via Debbie Schussel)

Coke Trades 'The Coke Side of Life' for the Chance to 'Open Happiness.' (via Business Week)

A Coat of Paint for the White House

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

It started on January 20^th, at 12:01 PM, as President Barack Obama rose to take the oath of allegiance (never mind that he’d be doing a repeat later). Perhaps only a little blip on the fast-moving radar of cyber-space—but a huge step for social media.

Launched mere minutes after the official beginning of Barack Obama's Presidency, the White House now has a blog.

The first entry was attributed to Macon Phillips, the Director for New Media for the White House. The list of entries—as of this posting—is modest, but just by existing it makes the point loud and clear: this is going to be a Presidency unlike any that’s come before it. 

The blog wastes no time in outlining exactly what its purpose will be: to support Obama’s commitment to “…making his administration the most open and transparent in history.”

To say this is an incredible step is an understatement. The President's executive orders and proclamations will be publicly published in a forum that everyone has access to, at least theoretically. True, within two hours of swearing in, President Obama had issued an official proclamation, posted for everyone to read. One aspect of the blog will be videos, sound clips and pictures from the President’s Administration, a promise quickly followed by having the video and full text of his inaugural speech up by the next day.

One important thing to notice about the blog? It’s filled with one word that stands out: “we.” And if that isn’t the perfect word to sum up social media, I don’t know what is. 

For the Sake of Facebook Friendship

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist


A recent Burger King viral marketing ploy lost steam before it ever left the ground—but not for lack of publicity.

The campaign, called “Whopper Sacrifice,” took the form of a Facebook application. In exchange for dropping ten Facebook friends, the ruthless user would get a coupon for a free Whopper. It was a cute, funny way to plump up Burger King’s brand, and more importantly, get their product in the hands of would-be customers.

But of course, that’s not the whole story. The campaign was taking off—a total of 233,906 users found themselves on the Whopper chopping block—when a little hitch appeared.

A key point of the campaign rested on informing the dropped friend that they had been “sacrificed” for the sake of a Whopper. Well, that was a clear breach of Facebook’s “de-friending” policy, which allows users to cull their friends list without fear that their former pals would be notified.

While Facebook only asked that the notification feature of the app be disabled, the agency (the controversial but attention-grabbing Crispin Porter + Bogusky) decided that the spirit of the campaign would be lost, and chose instead to shut down the whole works.

The Whopper Sacrifice website now reads that the "Whopper Sacrifice has been sacrificed." But clever Burger King has the last word: they’ve kept a feature that allows de-friending victims to strike back—with an official Burger King Angry-Gram.

The Inauguration in Real Time

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

The whole world—or at least, Western  media—is abuzz covering the first 100 days of Obama’s Presidency. But what was really neat was the seamless integration of the same kinds of technology that helped put him in the White House into the coverage of his first day on the job.  

CNN.com and Facebook teamed up to bring a live feed of the inauguration coverage into the homes of people around the world. The real hook, though, came in the presentation: while watching the proceedings of the inauguration, the video was spliced with a Facebook feed of status updates from users logged in around the world, updated in real time.

The linking of the two worked so well, providing a real-time reaction to what was going on and most importantly, capturing the zeitgeist of the day. Reading the joyful, almost giddy reaction of people who have never met but share a fantastic, powerful bond showcases the awesome heights that social media can reach---when done correctly. 

Who knows in what kind of direction this rapid-fire interactivity could take in the future? And what a perfect way to punctuate the first truly interactive election. 

*UPDATE!* Stats from psfk (emphasis mine): 

The inauguration prompted more than one million status updates during the event, averaging over 4,000 status updates per hour Tuesday morning and peaking at 8,500 updates every minute while President Obama was giving his speech. As of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, CNN had served 13.9 million live video streams globally since 6 a.m., according to Mashable.