All posts by Pierre

SEO

How Authorship and Google+ Will Change Linkbuilding | SEOmoz

Google’s relationship with links has changed over the last 15 years – it started out as a love affair but nowadays the Facebook status would probably read: “It’s Complicated”. I think Google are beginning to suffer from trust issues, brought about by well over a decade of the SEO community manipulating the link graph. In this post I’m going to lay out how I think Authorship, and Google+ are one of the ways that Google are trying to remedy this situation.I’ll move on to what that means we should be thinking about doing differently in the future, and am sharing a free link-building tool you can all try out to experiment with these ideas. The tool will allow you to see who is linking to you rather than where is linking to you, and will provide you with social profiles for these authors, as well as details of where else they write.

via How Authorship and Google+ Will Change Linkbuilding | SEOmoz.

journalism

Are comments ‘bad business’ for online media? | The Verge

A lack of overall substance and the fact that comments offer web publications basically no help in reaching profitability are cited as reasons for his stance. Most damning, though, is that Johnson — after conferring with industry colleagues — concludes that so few people actually take time to read the discussion threads that they’re not even worth implementing in the first place. Yet even after having said all this, Johnson resigns himself to keeping comments around at ANIMAL — at least for now.

via Are comments ‘bad business’ for online media? | The Verge.

Social networking

Facebook: a tool for interaction that breeds loneliness? | The Verge

Do the seemingly limitless interaction opportunities provided by social networks like Facebook make us lonelier? It seems contradictory at first, but as Facebook has grown to over 800,000,000 active monthly users, it’s a question that has certainly been floated more than once. The Atlantic has just published an in-depth report on the subject that starts with explaining how loneliness has become an epidemic, with more Americans than ever living alone (27 percent) and a staggering 25 percent of Americans in 2010 saying they have no one to confide in — an increase from 10 percent in 1985.

via Facebook: a tool for interaction that breeds loneliness? | The Verge.

video

YouTube opens Partner program to all: every creator in 20 countries can now monetize video | The Verge

YouTube’s long been a good friend to video producers who create popular content. They become Partners, gain exclusive privileges, and can choose to run advertising on their videos for a cut of the resulting profit. Only now, YouTube has dropped that “popular” requirement, as detailed on the YouTube Creators blog. If you’ve got a single piece of qualifying content and are in one of 20 countries now enrolled in the program, you can choose to monetize it immediately and become a Partner on the spot.

via YouTube opens Partner program to all: every creator in 20 countries can now monetize video | The Verge.

journalism

Woodward and Bernstein: Could the Web generation uncover a Watergate-type scandal? – The Washington Post

The gabby, gray-haired grand pooh-bahs of journalism sprang from the back flaps of their book jackets onto a real-life panel Tuesday afternoon in the air-conditioned guts of the Marriott Wardman Park, where the American Society of News Editors was holding its annual conference. The pooh-bahs oraculated, with both good humor and grandfatherly concern, that the Internet — while a purveyor and archivist of Truth — is not the mother of Truth.

via Woodward and Bernstein: Could the Web generation uncover a Watergate-type scandal? – The Washington Post.

journalism

Why the Enterprise Needs a Few Good Journalists – Forbes

I believe that Tom Foremski is right, that every company is now a media company. But his fine thought overlooks one painful fact: most companies are still very bad at being media companies. They write blogs that read like reception room brochures and they use social networks—the most conversational technologies in history—to do little more than push out marketing messages.

via Why the Enterprise Needs a Few Good Journalists – Forbes.

Facebook

Facebook tests new way to let users know which links come from social readers and whether their activity will be shared

Facebook appears to be testing a new feature to make users aware of their social reader privacy settings before they click on links that could end up being shared on their profiles.

Articles from social readers like the Huffington Post, Digg, ESPN, Yahoo News and others now include an icon to designate whether users’ friends will be able to see that they read the article. A green circle with a check mark means social reader activity is on. A grey circle with a check mark means a user’s activity will be private. When privacy settings are clear upfront, users are more likely to feel comfortable using social readers and other Open Graph application.

via Facebook tests new way to let users know which links come from social readers and whether their activity will be shared.