Alex and I are both big MJ fans, and were naturally upset by his passing last week. However, Alex and I are also both fans of Google, so it was interesting – if still slightly upsetting – to see what effect Michael’s death had online (besides the setting up of billions of decentralised “RIP Michael Jackson” Facebook groups, of course).

Taking a look at the last 30 days at Google Trends, well, some pretty clear results here:

Such was the increase in search volume (from index 0 to 10 in fewer than 48 hours!), that Google actually interpreted the influx of Jacko-related searches as a malware attack or similar. In fact, by the time I had managed to get to a computer (the news was broken to me midway through a wedding reception – poor form by the DJ, if you ask me), Googling “Michael Jackson” popped up an error message, telling me that my search looked like ‘an automated request from a computer virus or spyware application’. Well excuse me, Google, for wanting more information!

This graph from news.cnet.com shows the surge in Jackson queries in an hourly format:

Interestingly, Google received a massive increase in searches coming from mobile devices – not surprising since most Americans were at work at the time the news was announced – and they also set a record for visits in a single 24-hour period: over 16.4 million unique visitors. And with Michael’s penchant for breaking records, Google’s front page story covering his death was the most popular story to date.

Even at the time of writing – about a week after his passing – 9 of the top 10 bestselling albums in Amazon.co.uk are by Michael Jackson (10 out of 10 on Amazon.com)… his death has put his body of work out there to a new audience in ways I didn’t really expect, and I can only see this as a good thing.

Apologies to anybody reading this who is still suffering from Michael Jackson over-saturation – we just happened to think this was worth blogging. But what celebrity death won’t the media turn into a feeding frenzy these days? RIP Michael!

The Nieman Group at Harvard have done a great write up of The Guardian’s “crowdsourcing” experiment. The newspaper asked their readership to go through MP’s expenses claims and flag anything that looked suspicious, with great results. As of today, for example, we have learned that the average Lib Dem MP claim for gardening expenses is more than double the typical Conservative claim. But this figure may not include moat maintenance claims. The figures are also changing as more data is processed.

Read the article here:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the-guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/

If you want to do your bit for the cause, check out the link here:

http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/

Source: blog.facebook.com

Facebook have decided – some would say at long last – to offer personalised usernames on a first-come-first-served basis from 12:01am EDT (4:01am GMT), linked to the user’s profile via a vanity URL such as http://www.facebook.com/dave.upstream. The only limitations are that only one username is allowed per profile/page, it must be at least 5 characters, and it must be made up only of alphanumeric characters and, if you want, a full stop. Thank the Lord that they’re not allowing counter-productive usernames that proliferate sites when they allow ASCII usernames such as ´¯`°¤.¸.¤…Bøñd. Jåmê§ Bøñd´¯`°¤.¸.¤ , or (L)pÛÑk~PrïÑcꧧ(L) …

So what does this mean? Well, for a start it’s going to be easier to link people to your Facebook profile, so you won’t need to give out your full name in order for people you just met to add you as a friend. Most people find my surname impossible to spell (even though it’s only 6 letters), so this would be useful to me if I weren’t so picky about who I add as my friends in the first place. It also not only gives companies a great opportunity for branding on Facebook, but finally gives ‘normal’ users a chance to match their Facebook username with the handle they use on other social media and bookmarking sites. This may not seem like a big thing, but username consistency will also make it easier for people to find you (that is, if you want to be found).

In SEO terms, however – which is the interesting part for us – it may well mean that you can pick pretty specific keywords for your profile to show up in Google search, which has even further-reaching possibilities. As so eloquently put by Jeremiah from web-strategist.com: “If the Blog is the new résumé, then is “Google Me” the business card?”. Businesses may be able to make strategic use of this by registering their primary keywords as the vanity username for their page, and with the power of Facebook’s pagerank this could end up being a very useful – if a little morally grey – exploit. All of this, of course, depends on whether Google will index the new Facebook URLs; but with sites like Flickr, FriendFeed, Twitter and LinkedIn featuring prominently in search results for a while now, it’s fair to say that this has become the norm for social networking sites.

Happily, Facebook have issued the following caveat to prevent the all-too predictable abuse of the new system:

Think carefully about the username you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it. If you signed up for a Facebook Page after May 31 or a user profile after today at 3 p.m. EDT, you may not be able to sign up for a username immediately because of steps we’ve taken to prevent abuse or “squatting” on names.

Still, how much are you willing to bet that Facebook will be down within a few minutes of the floodgates opening for username registration…? If I could have gotten www.facebook.com/dave, I probably would have been willing to stay up until 4am on Friday night to try to nab it, just for the bragging rights. Damn their arbitrary 5 character limit…

Longstanding Upstream client H Forman and Sons – top in Google for Smoked Salmon – has recently moved to amazing new premises in London’s East End.

The striking, salmon pink building doubles as a unique, 600 capacity venue for parties, conferences and much more. It is also the closest venue to the rapidly developing London 2012 Olympic stadium (you can check out progress with the new stadium with Forman’s Fish Eye View webcam).

Among the delights on offer are an on-site restaurant with food from former Tate Modern chef Lloyd Hardwick. As Forman’ s is the UK’s leading salmon smoker, you can expect excellent fish on the menu!

After successfully working together for a number of years on formanandfield.com, Upstream Connections was the natural choice to create a visually striking website for the new venue. The results can be found at www.formansfishisland.com.

If you are interested in the venue, call 0208 5252390. If you would like a striking, new website, ask Upstream.

Several well-known sites have recently been discussing the proliferation of Web 2.0 companies, and, in the words of social media gurus mashable.com, “most web [2.0] companies fail”.

Though it might at first glance resemble the world’s most anarchic game of noughts and crosses, this image (courtesy of another social media expert, Meg Pickard from meish.org) represents the vast majority of Web 2.0 companies in the last three or so years, with their success (i.e. are still going, or were acquired by wealthy third parties) or failure denoted as a cross or circle over the site’s logo.

You can click the image for a larger version.

The important thing to note is that while 57 (wait… 55, 56, yep, 57) of these Web 2.0 and social media startups failed (or, in the case of some, failed dramatically), the other side of the coin saw several other companies being acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars. Like anything else; you win some, you lose some – just like in any other sector. Most startups fail – so why should the internet be any exception? It does seem interesting to note, however, that compared with the failure rate of most small businesses – whether on or offline – the failure rate of the web startups in the image is visibly lower.

Either way, it’s been pretty tough keeping track of all the Web 2.0 sites that have come and gone, so it’s nice at least to have some kind of reference point for the next time someone in the office looks up from their monitor and asks “Hey, whatever happened to _______?”.

Further observations from Meg Pickard on this graphic:

I think it’s important to note that
a) the failure rate is lower than the standard failure rate for companies – this is impressive
b) many, many more companies, services and applications have started up since that point and become fabulously popular and successful (perhaps it’s time someone made a brand new collage of logos?)
c) the number of companies which have managed to flip is impressively high

but perhaps most importantly, considering the context

d) the original image wasn’t comprehensive, and therefore any update of it is only ever going to be an update of a subjective set, rather than particularly revealing of wider business or economic trends. The original designer left out many startups which are still going strong, whose presence would make the graphic today look very different.

In brief: thanks for featuring my update of a famous graphic, but please don’t take it too seriously.

Affected US internet traffic drops from 15GBPS to 1GBPS!

The below graph shows average internet traffic across ten leading US ISPs when Google routed their services through Asian servers that weren’t up to the job. Google services including search, Gmail and Calendars were unavailable for two hours.

Is Google too powerful? Its services now account for around 5% of all internet traffic. Does this graph show how reliant we have become on one specific company?

Google’s argument that users are only one click away from choosing competitors instead may hold true for Search, but with every new service that the big G offers, are we not becoming more and more dependent on one company.

Check out more info here:

http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/05/the-great-googlelapse/

Facebook Fanatic?

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Bonkers for blogging?

Still tweeting?

We’re looking for a talented social media enthusiast to work in our Brighton office. Be quick though, as we’re interviewing at the moment.

Check out the job ad on Wired Sussex.

We do. They are the unsung heroes of SEO.

A 301 redirect tells your browser – and search engine spiders – that a web page has changed location permanently. They are often used when an old site is being redesigned and the content is being shifted to a new address.

So far, so good.

But, I hear you say, is this really enough to warrant a blog post of its own?

Yes it is!

As with much of SEO, there are two issues at the heart of this issue: user experience and backlinks (and they are closely related). Here, in a nutshell, is why creating 301 redirects when moving content around on your site is a good thing:

User Experience

Let’s assume your website has been live for a number of years. If you have products or content that people like, it is probable that they have bookmarked a subpage of your site, so that they can come back and purchase/admire at a later date. If you move this content to a new address without a hard redirect, suddenly their bookmark becomes useless and clicking on their bookmark will take them to a 404 error page.

What do you do when you arrive at a 404 error page?

I  go to Google and search for the content elsewhere. This leads to the possibility of finding a rival with a well optimised site. If you had redirected the old page properly, this nightmare is easily avoidable.

Let’s take this a step further…

Backlinks

What happens when a webmaster finds content that they like on your website?

Chances are they will link to it. Yes! Backlink! Woo hoo! That’s a good thing and will help build the reputation of your site with Google and friends. That link passes some of the value (usually classified as PageRank/PageTrust) from the linking website to the linked-to page.

If you move the content of that page to a new address without putting a 301 redirect in place, the PageRank that would have been passed to your site is lost, the link from the host site is considered useless and is liable to be removed when the webmaster realises and thus your site’s value is unnecessarily depleted.

The moral of this post: when you move content permanently, use a permanent redirect!