Admit it. On the news, in the office, in your favourite program… you have heard that your workmates are using Twitter, that famous chefs, singers and tv presenters have been tweeting?  Has the world gone crazy? Many answers come to my mind here.

Put in simple words, Twitter is the way of letting the world know what you are up to (or what your business is up to). It is a free social networking and micro-blogging service but if you are new to tweeting here is the very basic information you need to start familiarising with Twitter:

- Tweets: Messages (known as tweets) which you can post in your Twitter account. At the same time, you will have access to millions of tweets posted by other users which might interest you or your business.
- Twitter followers: Other Twitter users who have decided to follow your tweets (because your messages are original, because they know you/your company, because company/user x follows you, etc.)

Remember: the more interesting and original your tweets are, the higher the chances of increasing the number of followers. If you tweet for business, having a Twitter account and keeping it up-to-date can be key to move your business forward but it is also important to choose carefully who you are going to follow.

Attracting quality followers will add value to your Twitter account as well as to the social network you are starting to expand. Let´s try the following formula:

If company/user x is being followed by company/user xx then their tweets/messages have got to be interesting and it is worth checking out their products. For this reason I, company/user w, I want to follow company/user x too.

Does the above formula sound too complicated? Then simply keep in mind that Twitter is the current version of a very old way of advertising: word of mouth (but online!). If your product is good, if your message is original, say it loud!… but if you want to increase the number of followers ask yourself the following questions:  why should people be interested in what you have got to say? How are you adding value to other companies/users?

If you are thinking business, Twitter may or may not be the best service for you but the best way to find out is trying it out yourself. Do you want to explore its possibilities? You can start now: create an account and start tweeting today.

The Telegraph is reporting that Channel 4 and YouTube have formed a partnership where full length Channel 4 shows will be hosted on the Google-owned site.

As the furore about free content and advertising revenues rumbles on, the two companies appear to have settled upon a deal that is beneficial for both content provider and content host. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out as it is the first significant UK deal between a television channel and YouTube.

The deal will allow Channel 4 to sell the advertising space around its content. If successful, this could form the blueprint for similar future deals.

According to the latest data from Hitwise, Facebook now makes up 14.5% of all UK internet page views. You can see the latest figures here:

This is interesting as it shows that Social Networking is still in the ascendency; the figure is up 85% on this time last year. It may also go some way to explaining why Britain is in it’s current financial condition. If everyone is on Facebook, who is doing the work?

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…

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.

Facebook Fanatic?

Dippy about Digg?

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.

Samsung have made some questionable advertising decisions in the recent past. See:

But they’ve got it spot on with this new viral video for their SSD drives:

This is currently top of Reddit and is likely to be doing the rounds for a good while yet. Just goes to show that social networking people aren’t entirely against big brands as long as they approach viral advertising in the right way!

New figures from Hitwise show that social networking behemoth Facebook is now the most searched-for brand in the UK and the second most visited website overall. Only Google itself had more UK web traffic in  the last  quarter.

YouTube was the second most searched-for brand, followed by Ebay, Bebo and the BBC.

According to the stats, one in every forty-two searches in the UK include the phrase “Facebook”. This nicely illustrates  a couple of trends that have been developing in the UK in recent years. Firstly, our unquenchable thirst for social networking sites (Brits devote more time to these sites than any other nationality). To put this in context, social networking sites received 13% more traffic than retailers during the measured period and over 27% more than adult sites.

This demonstrates the rapidly-changing way that people are interacting with the internet and how comfortable the British public are with online social transactions. Compare this with the stigma of having an internet-based “social life” even five years ago and the societal shift we are seeing is huge.

Secondly, these figures show the number of searchers who would rather type a brand into a search engine than type in the address bar or click on a bookmark.

This second fact is something that we have watched develop with our own clients’ sites. This is arguably bad news for the bigger brands as it allows smaller rivals to piggyback on their names through AdWords. This said, perhaps it’s time Google gave the smaller guys a break; Aaron Wall recently added a fantastic post on his SEOBook blog about Google’s recent tweaks in favour of household names – a trend that we have been tracking closely at Upstream.

Internet super-brands such as Google and, to a lesser extent, Facebook, are now among the most recognised in Britain. Unlike traditional brands, we actively interact with these online services on a daily basis. And the most important factor with all of these super brands? It is our information that makes Facebook work, it is our information that Google search results provide. Brand interaction just doesn’t get better than that.

Upstream Connections started as a specialist SEO company in 2003. We recently celebrated 5 years in business… which is a long time in this industry.

I started working here as a freelancer way back in 2005, when Upstream operated out of a small office in the Brighton Media Centre. Since then, we moved to a bigger office, then an even bigger office and more recently to an even bigger office in Hove. During these years, we have been very privileged to work with clients in a huge range of industries, from language schools to power tools, via mobile phones, secured loans, tourism and financial software.

A lot has changed in those five years. When we started, most people would be slightly baffled by the mention of “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimisation“. Fast forward five years and the mainstream press is full of Search-related stories, journalists are given SEO training (which sometimes leads to bizarre coat tail grabbing headlines like this) and a little huddle forms at parties when you mention that you know how to get sites performing better in Google. The final point is not necessarily a good thing.

We are, first and foremost, an SEO company. But did you know we offer a whole range of internet services?

As you may well have seen on our homepage, we regularly design websites for clients. One big advantage of an Upstream-designed site is that you needn’t worry about whether it will be search-engine-friendly. You can be sure of it.

You can see some examples of our design work here and here.

We have a dedicated team of designers and programmers. We also work with a selection of highly talented freelancers, who can give a different perspective on a project.

Having great search results is only one part of doing business online. If users are not convinced by the site they arrive at, they will not want to do business with it. People are more trusting of quality websites now that they were even a couple of years ago, but are arguably less trusting of sites that appear dated or in any way suspicious. It is very important to keep on top of your image.

One of the great attractions of doing business online is being able to attract custom from around the world. To really connect with different cultures, you need to be sure that your website expresses exactly what you want it to. Our in house translation agency can ensure that you get a quality translation for a competitive price.

With the Pound set to struggle against the Euro for the forseeable future, now is the time to start appealing to overseas clients. Quality, localised text on your site is a big step forward. The next step is…

Upstream Connections offers SEO in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

Britain has one of the most developed internet economies in the world, but continental Europe is not far behind. If you want to make the most of your potential customer base in the coming years, you may want to look to the other side of the channel.

If you would like to see some examples of our work, get in touch and we would be more than happy to show you what we can do.

Links to your website are still a very important part of search engine optimisation. There are a number of ways that you can acquire these links, but the best way is to create quality content that people want to link to.

We have a specialist team in place to promote quality content in the places that bring the best return in terms of links and visitors. Check out our accent game and evolution of mobile phones video for a couple of examples.

So…

Making money online is a matter of providing the right service at the right price and making sure the right people can find you. Sounds familiar? The methods may be slightly different to traditional business, but the bottom line is just the same. If you want our help in making your website profitable, get in touch.

Last Friday Jose and I attended dConstruct 2008 in Brighton, an annual conference aimed at those “designing and building the latest generation of social web applications”.

Held at the Brighton Dome, there were hundreds of people in attendance, representing companies and web startups from all over the world; and in terms of insight into the increasingly social nature of the web, the conference was a tremendously informative and constructive way to spend a Friday!

Amongst the speakers on the day were Daniel Burka (creative designer at Digg and co-founder of budding social network Pownce), Matt Jones and Matt Bidulph (the co-founders of Dopplr, a social network for ‘intelligent travellers’, Steven Johnson (co-creator of FEED, plastic.com, and most recently, the particularly interesting ‘hyperlocal media site’, outside.in), Tantek Çelik (ex Chief Technologist at Technorati), as well as several other experts in the rapidly-growing field of a phrase we heard all too many times during the day: the social web.

Some of the more interesting revelations during the day for us included the concept of microformats, a simple, open data format built upon the web standards, which (amongst many other uses) combine with widely-adopted web standards to help create a ’semantic web’. One example of a useful bonus of microformats would be an address listing on a web page – if marked up as such, you can find this address on one of the popular mapping sites in a single click, rather than having to copy-paste and bring it up on a separate site.

outside.in was a particularly interesting idea for me – making the web more geographical. Since everything else we do in life is centred on where we are, it stands to reason that the internet should become more like this as it evolves. Whilst it’s still in its relatively early stages of development, I definitely recommend checking out the site and seeing how it works – it’s far too intricate to go into any level of detail here!

Finishing off proceedings was an extremely interesting talk on ‘the system of the world’ from acclaimed web developer (and deep thinker, clearly) Jeremy Keith, who spoke mainly about certain patterns found in nature and how they relate to social interactivity, the ‘wisdom of crowds’, and how today’s web developers can encompass these concepts in design and functionality. At least… that’s what I got out of it.

While Jose and I felt very much out-nerded by an entire auditorium of people clutching Macbooks and iPhones (we made do with an Eee PC and an N95), there was certainly a lot to take in; and there was plenty of transferable knowledge for us to work into our site designs, web apps, and overall understanding of social bookmarking and networking sites.

All in all, an extremely interesting day, with plenty to remember, and plenty to have forgotten thanks to the constant deluge of information… thankfully dConstruct have been kind enough to deliver all the sessions thanks to the magic of podcasting – take a look if you’re that way inclined, or perhaps if you’ve just got a few hours to burn!

Check out the dConstruct08 group on Flickr for photos of the event!