BUZZ3R, LOUD3R
I found an interesting new social networking site today. Actually, it found me…one of my Web 2.0 articles on another blog was indexed on the site, and showed up in my vanity Google Alerts. It’s called LOUD3R:
LOUD3R is a network of exhaustive, topic-driven websites. We gather and publish the best content from blogs, news and editorial sites, including photos and videos for any given topic. LOUD3R ranks the content, pushing the most important stories to the top. All the news is published by an automated semantic engine that is guided by human editors, user behavior and community feedback.
[...]
LOUD3R sites are created by assembling a source list of websites and a semantic glossary of terms that teach the content engine how to identify the best news stories, photos, videos, and other content from hundreds of Websites related to a particular topic. We use a combination of human editorial input combined with semantic software to assemble all the best content, from a web-wide perspective, for any given topic. The technology learns from user behavior, allowing the site to react to the community’s interests and preferences. We sift through the bad, so you don’t have to.
There are networks on LOUD3R for venture capital, wine, fashion, the environment, politics, video games, T.V., dogs, martial arts, and more (see the list, here).One of the LOUD3R networks our FreshySEO readers might like is BUZZ3R, an internet business & technology social network.
Today’s Hot Topics on BUZZ3R include:
1. Google
2. Mac
3. iphone
4. Facebook
5. Yahoo
6. Network
7. Platform
8. HTTP
9. OS
10. Steve Ballmer
11. Beta
12. Twitter
13. Developer
14. World Wide Web
15. AOL
To be sure BUZZ3Rs have access to your favorite reads, you can index a site, and/or submit articles. You can do this for your own blog, and any others you like. This morning, for example, I indexed FreshySEO, and added an article I did a couple of weeks ago about iRadio. BUZZ3R was able to automatically pick up relevant tags in the article submission, then gave me a place to add a new “iRadio” tag to its list.
BUZZ3R’s have the option, now, if they like my story, to comment on my story, share it on six of the larger social networks, e-mail it to a friend. If they don’t like it, they can flag it as being irrelevant, not making sense, or as spam. To search for more stories, readers have a plethora of options, in choosing the automatically-generated “releated stories,” or choosing from several different feeds. Stories receive points as users click, comment, and share them, and the stories which are “most popular” or “most interesting” (I’m still trying to figure out the difference) have their own feeds as well.
LOUD3R was just launched in April, and BUZZ3R was added in June, so it remains to be seen how much of an effect a “success” on the site will have on a blog’s overall SEO, but this is is definitely worth watching.
Google Pagerank Update
In case any of you weekend surfers are interested, it looks like Google has indeed updated the pagerank structure. FreshySEO.com now has a PR 3, which for some of us doesn’t matter one bit, but it’s good to know that Google is at least finally including us in their Pagerank ALGO.
One of the most interesting notes of this pagerank update is what happened within pages of Plurk.com. The homepage of Plurk was not given much notice, but the blog was launched right into a comfy PR 6. And even more noteworthy is the fact that user profiles, including mine, got quite a PR boost as well.
Of course, none of this really matters, as pagerank really doesn’t amount to anything. Like many, MANY people in the industry, I’ve seen PR 1 pages do far better in the SERPs as pages with 5+. That being said… it’s still fun to watch.
How did you do in this update?
-Eric Odom
Propeller Adds User Groups
I’ll admit… I’ve been slow to adopt Propeller as a regular daily stop of mine. Propeller, owned by AOL, has never really been that attractive to me for one reason or another.
The site, like Digg, Slashdot, R-igg, and Sphinn, uses an ALGO that creates an environment where users determine what news is hot and what is not.
It’s a good idea, but one that many others have already implemented and done a good job of. So Propeller hasn’t really brought anything new to the table. Until now that is.
Propeller just launched user groups. A feature that Digg hasn’t been able to put to good use, and a feature that may very well attract new users such as myself. There are already user groups for a plethora of interest… such as social media, search engines, satire, etc. I just started a group called Bloggers Lounge, and I’m looking forward to messing around with it and inviting some friends.
Overall I give the new groups feature two thumbs up, and I think it’s a good move on Propeller’s part.
Good stuff!
Eenie Meenie Miney Moe…Which Social Network’s best, I’d like to know.
I’m in Austin, at the Texas AFP conference, and on one of the panel discussions, David Almacy, former White House Internet Director and current V.P. of Digital Strategies at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, spoke about social networking and why it’s important. In the process of explaining social networking at its impact on the web, he provided list of the top ten social networks as of May of 2008. The list was compiled by Nielson, and includes only purely “social” networks, not social bookmarking sites (like reddit, del.icio.us, or Stumbleupon) nor social news sites (like Digg, R-igg, GOPHub, or Propeller):
Social networking is a good way to promote your online presence, including your blog. Also, I’ve found that having a profile on a top social network has helped me shoot right to the top of the search engine results under my name, the name of my various blogs, and best of all, in some cases, the subject matter of my blogs.
Obviously, we don’t have time to be involved in all of these networks, especially if we want to do anything else. So, how do we decide which ones to choose? One thing to look at is which ones are growing? LinkedIN, Imeem, Facebook, and Reunion have the largest growth rates over the last year, according to Nielson. I would prefer to concentrate on one or more of these, rather than ones that have had single-digit or negative growth rates recently.
Also, the content matter of your blog and your online activity might dictate which social networks will work best for you. For example, Imeem focuses on music and online technology surrounding music, and Penguin is for children, so these may not be the best places to network if your blogging about politics, or sports.
Finally, I would suggest finding a network that is forward-thinking in terms of moving into Web 3.0.. I have said many times that if a person only has time to learn one social networking site, it should be Facebook, because of its ability to interact with the other social networking sites, and the ability to manage so much of your online activity from one place, including blog promotion, communication, and growing a network.
Whichever one you choose, know that in order for the network to work for you, you’ll have to spend some time there, and interact with other users for other reasons that simply promoting yourself and your blog online. So, be sure it’s one that you will enjoy, and one that will accomplish what you need it to.
Who Are You?
It may seem like a strange question at first, but it is an important one for you to ponder. When I look at company’s websites often times they seem scattered and convoluted. Their problem usually comes down to this simple question going unanswered. Here is what I mean.
If you are an IT company and you are putting together a website, what do you want it to say about you? What is your specialty? Desktops? Servers? Routers? Maybe you are a one stop IT shop and you handle them all. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you have never really sat down and defined it, your message will lack focus. It you are a single point of contact for everything IT, say that.
The same principles apply to blogging. What is your blog about? Politics? SEO? Gadgets? Maybe it is just about you and your happenings. There is nothing wrong with that at all. I have a self titled blog that does exactly that, but you need to define that from the get go. Here is why.
If you have a knitting blog, and your visitors come to read about knitting and find two posts about your pet rock and a post about your favorite Chia pet, you risk losing them to a competing knitting blog.
If you take the time to figure out who you are and what you are about as a company or a blog, you will it will be very easy to spot yourself getting off track of your message. A consistent and congruent message will give you credibility, encourage people to own your product or service, or keep them coming back to your blog.
