Webfusion

As news corporations find it harder to make big bucks in the digital world, competing against the citizen journalists of the social media world, the debate around the potential success of paid-for content increases.

Of course some have already committed to it. Yet, none with great conviction. So the latest rumors given credence by a report in the New York Post, could set the debate alight with even bigger flames.

The rumors are that with Google keen to push it’s premium content program for YouTube, it may look towards a pay-wall and paid-for viewing to entice some of the biggest players in traditional tv into online. Nobody expects YouTube to suddenly start forcing every user to pay per view – Google’s business heads know the importance of free content to drive audience for other paid-for services. What it may very seriously be considering is premium content available for a fee and it may follow very familiar broadcast models to dip its toe into the water.

Just as now you may pay a ‘box-office’ fee to watch the big fight, or perish the thought have to watch the big game on your traditional cable box, YouTube could soon be offering similar sporting options at a pay-per-view online. Makes sense doesn’t it. And with YouTube’s popularity ever high, you can see it working quickly and effectively too. Traditional broadcasters who see these pay-per-view options as great money-spinners, could soon find their party hi-jacked.

For a viewer looking for a wider range of events – possibly live concerts, live debates too – this could be great news. No need to watch at home, you could watch on your phone or tablet, and with more competition hopefully the end cost to the viewer should be lower too.

We will wait and see.

From the Official YouTube blog this weekend came an announcement aiming to put small businesses on a level footing with the big boys.

Google AdWords for video has been about in some form for a while but is now available to all. Like the pay-per-click scheme we all known (and love?) you can now set a budget and work out how to target video advertising. You only pay when someone chooses to watch you ad, meaning you can work on creating and managing campaigns that fits with the rest of your marketing model.

As part of the launch push Google / YouTube are giving away $50 million in free Google AdWords advertising. The aim is to help 500,000 businesses get into video and show them how they can match bigger competitors. New to AdWords? There’s a $75 credit upon sign up.

For those needing help in creating their first video, there is the YouTube Advertiser Playbook plus My Business Story – a free tool to create your first video.

More information on the new scheme can be found in this video too.

The answer could be a real eye-opener after Google this week revealed its next big move is into the realms of Augmented Reality and computerised glasses.

Augmented reality is nothing new. Canadian Steve Mann,is credited with developing some of the first systems back in the 1980s since used to various degrees in industrial, medical and military application. Ever since the invention of Sci-Fi too we’ve been awaiting the first true wearable computers, but Google believes Google Glasses will finally make that a credible possibility and one we will take to en-mass.

Effectively augmented reality allows overlays to be seen over any screen. So in terms of the glasses, you could be watching your favourite online tv series and still see your search results popping up in your vision as you carry it out.

The cynics suggest the fact that these Glasses will need to be powered by a Google Android Smartphone is simply a half-hearted attempt at making the Android system more appealing than Apple’s iOS – yet Apple are also known to be looking at similar projects too.

The fact that augmented reality will play a bigger part in our lives in the future is not in doubt. Each of the major smartphone app stores is packed with various applications using the technology to some degree and ‘smart-places’ are probably only a few months away as museums and entertainment venues look to exploit the latest technologies. The big question is whether wearing a set of glasses is the way we will be using them – probably the biggest failure of 3D television.

Yet if anybody can turn something to gold it is Google, so perhaps we will wait and see.

With the deadline for timeline adoption (March 31st) rapidly approaching, all the focus appears to be on making the cover image work for your business – a tough job considering the ban on call to actions, URLs etc. However, a closer look suggests that as well as keeping your design department busy, Facebook Timeline for Businesses could cause a crippling extra load for those overseeing social media in companies.

The latest release of Facebook is supposedly offering functionality that business users have asked for that they have so enjoyed with their personal profiles. One of these is the ability to use private Facebook messages. Facebook claim this will enable your brand to respond quickly and more personally to interaction from your customers. It’s a feature they are pushing heavily too with a prominent message button at the top of pages. However, while the functionality may be welcomed the practical realities could be a massive increased workload. A popular brand could realistically receive thousands of messages per day and the nature of those ‘personal’ messages will mean people sending them will be expecting prompt and personal responses. Who will sort out the spam and timewasters from the important ones? Will companies be willing to invest in the time and resources this could require. Being taken offline can be good for those complaining but in the social media sphere companies are normally looking for visible engagement not secretive conversations.

Added to the potential pitfalls of private messages, Facebook Timeline simply isn’t designed for business, it is designed to showcase a person’s individual timeline and development. When Facebook originally launched Timeline it was all about pushing the evolution of a personal “life experience”. Brands don’t usually match up to that. Peaks, troughs and even stability don’t translate well in a timeline for business. A business is also always about today not where you have been, consumers in particularly want to know what you can do now not what you did 10 years ago. The Timeline also risks giving a showcase to spam. Facebook Timeline selects the prominence of comments for you. A comment from a critical customer may be ‘chosen’ by Timeline to sit atop your page for all to see. Again the only combat is for additional resources to be invested by a company to constantly monitor pages, deleting problematic posts as quickly as they may appear.

In all, the burdens Timeline places on businesses seem to far outweigh the benefits. The fact that there is no choice in adoption and little warning could prove a poor move by Facebook at a time when it was finally beginning to convince people Facebook could work for businesses. How it will affect that we will have to wait and see.

Of course, education is important and the grades have a massive impact on how people, including potential employers see you, but whatever it says on a piece of paper, how you utilize that information you have been credited for is the part that will make you – or your employer – a fortune.

Too often recruitment campaigns are based on matching up checklists, “do they have this?.. yes, do they have that? … no”. That can make picking up a job difficult but another way of being spotted is by standing out from the crowd. In the internet era, never has it been so easy to create a resume that actually shows what you can do. Creating your online portfolio can take just a matter of hours, but it could land you a job that rewards you for years to come.

Even if you got the top grades – and even if you didn’t – if you can quickly and at a glance show potential employers what you can do, you will stand out from the rest of the candidates. It may be that you can pitch this as part of your initial application letter, but if not, it is also a great tool to have up your sleeve at interview. “Here’s what I can do” not only presents it on a plate but also shows you have been more organised and forward thinking than the rest of the applicants.

All this works for candidates (whether you are a web designer, coder, artist, or pretty much anything) but it also works for employers too. If you are looking to recruit, don’t focus on what qualifications the candidates have, concentrate on what they have done in practice, what they could do for you. You won’t be setting them exams or coursework, you will be expecting them to work and earn you money, so you need people who can do that without referring back to their textbooks. If you are recruiting try setting a task as part of the application. It will have an impact on the amount of applicants you get for the role – that may be a good thing – but you will know that at least all those that apply really are interested in what you do.

Remember qualifications are great but skills are what make money and make success.

The spread and growth of the internet continues to astound and no more so when you drag it down to bare facts.

This great infographic from Pingdom.com really hits home at how important the internet is not only here but across the globe. It is not just the first world either. Of the near 7 billion people on the planet almost a third are now connected to the internet!

That figure is growing rapidly too. Based on InternetWorldStats.com data from March – December 2011 the internet is growing at a massive 19,136,415 users per month – effectively 8 per second. If you were wondering about setting up an online business, that’s a no-brainer with a potential market growing faster than you could type their email addresses in.

Makes you think.

Too much, too irrelevant and too relied upon, that’s the findings of a study from Online IT Degree, about Atos – a company that banned email.

Yes, banned email. Well at least they tried, but still they were only able to reduce the volume of email by 20%!

To show how they have tried to ban pointless email OnlineITDegree.net have created a flowchart – and the obligatory infographic to go with it

It’s an interesting study with some interesting points and well worth looking at to see if you can adopt some of the tips to improve your own business efficiency.

Just when you begin to think that maybe Facebook isn’t for business, they seem to find a new winning element.

The latest wave of media apps built and launched via Facebook’s Open Graph Thursday look set to follow the success of the Washington Post Social Reader and The Guardian‘s social news app which have both been driving traffic, increasing engagement and helping the media giants reach new demographics – have you noticed them popping up consistently on your timeline.

The latest set of apps include Huffington Post (technically launched in November 2011) and Mashable, already big points of call for news for many, but now even easier to track from within Facebook. The interesting thing is the change to the sharing experience. With default settings the share is automatic, no need to click anything more than the headline of the story you want to read, before it is shared with your followers. The show-offs in us love it, and the first set of stats back that up.

Since the launch of the first wave of apps last year Yahoo News has seen 25 million people choose to opt into its Social Bar and the app now has some 2 million daily users. The Guardian‘s app has been installed 5 million times and with 50% of users ages 24 and under, has had a massive impact on the demographic reach of the UK-based newspaper.

With news paywalls still in the balance, the success of these first Facebook sharing apps may see more and more news outlets looking to follow. With news so readily available, the share of the branded news is the aim, so spread the word and show value to advertisers.

Are you using any of the new media apps?

You’ve probably heard it before, but site quality is the way to make your site popular, drive traffic and convert to sales.

But what makes a quality site?

Well it does need good SEO – getting a higher rank on search engine results pages, will always help you make your site more popular and usually with relevant traffic, but that doesn’t make it a quality site.

Content is king, but in the modern world, being honest, king’s are little more than figureheads and just a part of the overall package. Of course your content needs to be well written, etc but good content is not necessarily the only or even main factor required to make a quality site.

In fact, even an authoritative voice behind your content, offering pages and pages of relevant content, fully optimized for SEO will not mean your site is the best of the best. It will be a site of some quality but not the top quality.

The real key behind a quality site and the ultimate rank for site quality is the customer experience. Usability used to be a big buzzword in the web design world and with tweaks and changes to the Google algorithm it is once again becoming the most important part of your site design.

That’s not to say it is just a robot-pleaser. Obviously a site that is easy to navigate, easy to use, and easy to share, will become more popular too. visitors are much more likely to return to a site they enjoyed using rather than one, where they were frustrated by the need to over-click or needed more mouse moving than a playful cat.

Google includes the time spent on your site by visitors as one of its ranking ratings. So making sure visitors enjoy their visit is also likely to ensure they extend their stay.

Site load time is also a factor for Google and for your visitors. The modern internet user is less patient than ever and if it is taking too long will click away, further affecting your Google rank.

The Google factor and search engine pleasing factors are important but remember they all flow from and as a result of a good customer experience. So as you redesign keep thinking customer, keep testing and also get it tested by less techie people than you. Make that work and your site will become more popular, more successful and more profitable.

This season the big game is set to be bigger and better on the internet than ever before.

Superbowl XLVI will be the focus of the nation as ever but while the majority will still huddle around the TV hosting parties and the like, many will be relying on the internet both those at home and those having to work. Of course there will be play by play updates, commentary and the odd bit of punditry but the web this season is all about support.

Where once every party had a statto amongst them. The geek who knew the yards, the turnovers, and every statistic man could want to know – and many men really shouldn’t want to know – this year’s final will see everybody with a smartphone capable of giving stats and records within seconds. The web is a leveller more than any nerves affecting players.

The internet is expected to be dominated by football related searches and traffic during the game, but already in the lead up it is showing its klout.

The Yahoo search blog has released a stattos treasure trove of all things Super Bowl, and it suggest that of web search volume has any influence this one is all wrapped up for the New England Patriots. Yahoo’s stats are based not just on the immediate run up but the whole year and show that the Patriots had 50% more searches this year than the New York Giants. The Patriots also win in the mobile stakes too with stats suggesting their fans to be the most mobile savvy of the two sides battling it out in gridiron’s big match.

In terms of players, Quarterbacks understandably are topping the charts and there the figures are a bit more based on performance than sheer support. Throughout the season Tom Brady has received double the searches of those for Eli Manning (and that figure rises to four times if you look at the regular season only). Yet Manning’s play-off stats are remarkable and trumps Brady in search volume during the play-offs only as the Giant’s rise through the play-offs caught the attention. It’s not just their playing ability too. We live in celebrity-led world so perhaps it is no surprise to see search terms like “Tom Brady baby” (up 1,109%) and “Eli Manning girlfriend” (up 1,201%) proving popular. In terms of coaches Bill Belichick trumps searches of Tom Coughlin five-fold.

As we’ve said it’s not just the football that is getting people searching. Half-timer entertainer Madonna has seen a dramatic increase in searches but fellow performer Nicki Minaj is said to be proving even more popular in search terms. Post event expect Kelly Clarkson singing the national anthem at Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN become an instant YouTube hit too.

Yahoo also reports and uplift in party-related queries. “Super bowl recipes” as a search is up 210% and just in case you wanted to know here are the most searched dips this month:

Buffalo Chicken dip
Spinach dip
7 Layer Mexican dip
Spinach Artichoke dip
Crab dip
Taco dip
Guacamole dip
Chicken Wing dip
Cheese Dip
Shrimp dip

However and wherever you watch or take in the game, if you’ve read this we reckon this will be the biggest ‘net’ affected Superbowl ever. What do you think?