5 Reasons Why Facebook 3.0 for iPhone Is Better Than We Think

Facebook's long-awaited total makeover of it's extremely popular yet notoriously horrible iPhone app finally arrived in the app store yesterday. By all accounts I've seen, everyone's thrilled with it. Finally, it just works. The new interface resets the bar for how a social media app for a smart phone should work. After staying up way too late last night playing with it, here are the things I'm most thrilled with (hint: read through to the last one to find out why I titled this article "...Is Better Than We Think," and why this might signal a social media revolution.)

1. Newsfeed is now front-and-center and much more straightforward. It's the flowing lifestream of your friends, as it is on the web version. (Request for future update: It would be nice to be able to filter the news feed by groups and to hide things as you can on the web version. The mobile version should recognize hides made on the web version.) UPDATE: Oops, my requested feature is already there in Facebook 3.0, just a bit hidden. Tap the "Newsfeed" button at the upper right while viewing your Newsfeed, and up pops a familiar iPhone roller wheel with all your groups!
   
2. Notifications are easy to find/view, and they now actually connect to the post they are notifying you about. That I was inspired to type that last phrase in italics points to just how inane the Facebook 2.0 for iPhone was.
   
3. You can now actually comment on and/or "like" posts in your Newsfeed or on friends' Walls. This means that after two years at the top of the iPhone apps downloads rankings, Facebook for iPhone has finally actually become social.
4. Video, video, video. For some users, this might become the single most exciting upgrade in the new version. You can now upload video captured on your iPhone 3GS straight to your Facebook page. (Viewing videos in the iPhone app is not yet enabled, but Facebook says this is coming soon--which will be yet another revolutionary step of its own.) I was thrilled when iPhone 3GS not only added video but the ability to upload it straight to YouTube. But now I'm already ready to say "Buh-bye, YouTube." Facebook's new video upload from the iPhone is faster and easier than the YouTube version. Plus my videos go straight to where people I care about will actually see them. I predict that this addition will significantly increase Facebook's share of the video social media market.
5. The most significant aspect of the Facebook iPhone makeover: (and why I titled this post "...Is Better Than We Think") Facebook's new iPhone app may be the best-yet, easiest-to-use social media interface for a mobile device we've seen. Since it is becoming increasingly apparent that mobile is the future of social media, the new iPhone app may go a long way in establishing Facebook as the leader in social media in the next few years. Look out, Twitter.
   

TwitBlock: Best Tool Yet for Fighting Twitter Spam

It was inevitable: as fast as Twitter became the fastest-growing social media outlet, it also became a primo target for Internet spammers. Most people I know on Twitter who use it regularly have said that they've noticed a sharp uptick in the amount, persistence, and outright obnoxious-ness of Twitter-spam in the past couple of months.

It used to be that most Twitter spam was generated by over-eager but (relatively) honest Internet marketers simply trying to build as large a following as possible as fast as they could by following as many people as they could, regardless of any possible real relationship with those people. The next and more annoying wave of such spam came as various robots and apps were developed that auto-followed people based on keywords they had tweeted. The latest wave has two characteristics: the pornographers/prostitutes have found Twitter, and auto-generated Twitter accounts (the ability to create dozens or even hundreds of accounts from which to launch spam attacks).

Twitter spam has reached a volume level where I've seen people quitting Twitter because of it. Until now, cleaning spammers out of your follower list was a laborious process, made horrible by the clunkiness of Twitter's following listings. But no more.

Twitblock (http://www.twitblock.org) to the rescue. TwitBlock uses a combination of several red-flag factors to evaluate any Twitter account for possible spamminess, assigning it a spam score. The higher the score, the more likely the account is a spammer. TwitBlock's simple interface gives you two key functions:

1. Right on the homepage, you can enter any individual Twitter account name to get its spam score. You can even enter your own, and then tweet your score (assuming you haven't been tagged as a spammer!)
   
2. To see the real power of TwitBlock, log in using your Twitter account. TwitBlock will scan all your followers and then display them by their spam score, worst offenders at the top.
   

You can block accounts you believe to be spam right from the TwitBlock listing with one click. TwitBlock wisely advises you to block carefully, and allows you to see the rationale behind their analysis before you decide. (TIP: right-click the analysis link and open it in a new tab or window; if you open it in the same and then go back, you have to wait for TwitBlock to rescan your list.)

A very nice feature of TwitBlock is that user blocks are figured in to the spam score. Thus you're blocking serves the whole TwitBlock community. To balance this, you can also mark any account as "not spam" (TwitBlock acknowledges that it is possible for an account to have a high spam score but not really be spam. For example, some automated Twitter services have very "bad" follow-follower ratios--because they don't need to follow back anyone--but provide a useful service.) TwitBlock claims that, so far, this system has not been "gamed," but promises they will be diligent in watching for that.

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Update on SEC's Bad Call

RE: My post yesterday "The SEC Makes One Hell of a Bad Call"

The New York Times reports today that the SEC has clarified their rule. Turns out they weren't really after Joe Bleachersitter sending his blurry phone cam picture of pinpoint-sized outfielders to his Facebook page. The real targets of their rule, they say, are the bloggers and web site owners who capture video, images, and descriptions of the games and then post them on their ad-supported or subscription-based sites. In other words, people who are making money off what the SEC and its schools seek to (exclusively) turn to profit. And it's not just the lucrative TV contracts that are at stake; they also worry about losing their monopoly on game and season highlight reels through DVD sales.

All ethical or legal considerations aside (such as whether it is right for sports leagues to maintain a monopoly over images and descriptions of their games), I'm still left wondering if the bad feeling raised by such ultimately unenforceable policies will end up being a bigger loss for the SEC than any actual dig into revenues by bloggers and fan site owners (paging the RIAA).

The SEC Makes One Hell of a Bad Call

College sports' Southeastern Conference (SEC) has probably had to overrule a few bad calls by umpires in its day. This week it was forced to overrule one of its own calls.

The conference had actually proclaimed a ban on any and all social media postings about its games by fans at the games. This meant no posting about anything happening on the field to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, wherever. The main target was uploaded video, as the SEC feared endangering its lucrative television contracts with CBS and ESPN, which forbid the producing or disseminating of "any material or information about the event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information.”

Not surprisingly, the conference is now strongly considering rescinding this ban (as reported by the Charlotte Observer), citing unfavorable media and social web attention.

This is yet another indication that although we are many years into the social web revolution, many established entities still don't get that the world has changed. Those who are winning now are organizations which have decided to join and encourage rather than attempt to ban. The simple truth is that you will be unable to stop people from talking about (and posting media from) your organization or events. What was not indicated in any of the articles I saw was how the SEC even thought it could enforce such a ludicrous policy.

By contrast, the Big 10 conference has an official social media policy that encourages fans to post from games. Social media is the true "information super-highway" of our day; it is where the buzz happens. You can't "beat it"; but if you try, it just might beat you into the ground. On the other hand, encouraging the flow is the ultimate leveraging of the old dictum "there is no such thing as bad publicity."

Google Wants to Eliminate Keywords?

Google is contemplating eliminating keyword-based search and advertising results in favor of "just let Google decide who to connect with your ads."

So reports Rebecca Lieb at clikz.com from Google AdWords' team head Nick Fox's keynote at the recent Search Engines Strategies meeting in San Jose. Fox imagines a world in which "seach ads just...happened. You tell us what you're selling, we do the rest." In this world (apparently already under development by Google engineers), Google will not only match your selling proposition with prospects using its search service, it will even create the ads for you. Fine (maybe), but what about my competitors asking to sell the same product or service? Fox promises only that their new technology "will somehow be fair and objective enough to make everyone happy if and when all this comes to pass."

If you're an AdWords advertiser, this announcement should be making at least the following hairs stand up on the back of your neck:

• "Fair and objective treatment" of competition sounds a bit too much like a bit too much like the old visions for a socialist utopia. Online advertisers are inveterate capitalists. They don't want fairness with competitors; they want to do better than them. I don't see advertisers willingly releasing their freedom to try to be smarter than their competitors to the Google politburo.
• Fox seems to put forth a fairly flat vision of why entities advertise on Google. For example, in the same address, while advocating a cost-per-action over cost-per-click payment model, Fox said, "Leads, schmeads. We want to more closely align advertising with performance." Sounds good, but will Google really be able to precisely define and measure every possible "action" for which advertisers place ads? To some of my clients, generating "leads" is far from "schmeads."

I do see one positive in this announcement: a recognition that the present keyword system quickly becomes hopelessly complex for anyone but the smallest advertisers. The number of variables that have to be evaluated and managed in a large account quickly approaches impossible levels, at least for hands-on human management. To me, a better thing for Google's geniuses to be spending their time on would be developing more and better keyword management, reporting, and feedback tools.

The good news is that Google has opened up a feedback forum for advertisers to discuss this idea. I'm betting they'll get an earful as this becomes more widely known.

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For intelligent Google advertising management that has you're goals and interests in mind, check out Virante.

Westward Ho! for Google Ads

We noticed yesterday a subtle change in the layout of Google search: the column of paid ads has been shifted into a fixed space, more to the left than they were before. Whereas previously the ads were aligned with the right edge of a fixed-width page, they now float with wherever you place the right edge of your browser. In other words, it is impossible to make the ads disappear (unless, of course, you're running ad blocking software).



If you squeeze your browser down to less than a few inches in width, the organic results actually get pushed down below all of the ads.



It will be interesting to see how much of an effect this has on click-through rates. Anyone out there doing Google CPC noticing anything yet?

Tr.im Trimmed Itself - But It "Got Better"

URL shortening service tr.im wasn't turned into a newt, but it did very suddenly make a self-enacted disappearance yesterday. Citing inability to come up with a revenue model (and inability to compete with the virtual monopoly granted bit.ly as Twitter's default shortener), owners Nambu announced they were immediately shutting the service down.

But they "got better."

Just one day later they resumed service, explaining that an overwhelming response from users made them reconsider. No other conditions have changed: still no revenue model (that they can live with) and still discriminated against by Twitter.

Such a drastic move by a fairly popular service (especially occurring on the same day that FriendFeed was absorbed by Facebook) should give those whose business model is heavily dependent upon social media pause. If that's you, you should...

1. seek to diversify your social media "portfolio." Don't build all your business or promotional channels through one (or even a few) SM outlets. Very few have yet found viable revenue models; nearly any of them could disappear at any time.
2. keep backups of any data (such as analytics) or post archives generated on any SM sites over which you have no direct control.

In the meantime, it will continue to be interesting to watch how (or if) the plethora of free services that grew up around the social media boom of the past few years are able to create acceptable and profitable revenue models.