Google recently launched its own version of Digg called “What’s Popular”. This tool is an addon for your iGoogle page if you have one. Within What’s Popular, you can view the most recent, most popular or the most relevant stories, images or videos based on your preferences. Each link gives you the option to vote (called pops) for the site.  The more “Pops” a site gets, the higher it is on the list (much like Digg/Reddit). Submitting a link to What’s Popular could not be any easier put a link in and click add and you are done. Now you do have the option to change the title and the description if you would like but it is not a requirement. Google of course has an algorithm in place that decides what to display for you in your window which can be a good thing and a bad thing depending how they figure this out. Some say it is based off your search history which makes sense but that can be a bad thing depending on if you’re searching something different every day.

The few questions on everyone minds are:  Will most links fall by the waste side similar to Digg, Reddit, Mixx ect or will there be something special in place that may help a link get shown more even if it doesn’t have tons of “Pops”? The one thing that seems to frustrate many people is the fact that it is the same sites that are topping the “Popular” tab on Digg and half the time they don’t seem to belong up there but somehow get up there. Will everyone have a chance to be on the top of this list or will the same thing happen that happens on most social sites.  What does this “What’s Popular” mean for SEO… Well we do not really know yet. We do not know if it will provide a backlink or more importantly how much traffic it will generate for us and for our clients. Only time will tell.

Most, if not all, reputable SEO companies tout the benefits of social linking for a website. If you’ve ever wanted to see some proof – or a breakdown of what exactly social media will do for you – I have just what you’ve been looking for.

MarketingSherpa (a reputable research organization that specializes in tracking marketing trends and has been praised by The Economist and Entrepreneur.com) recently conducted a case study on the effectiveness of social media in a couple different arenas. As anyone familiar with social media and search engine optimization would expect, the results put a very positive spin on social media and the value of linking.

Social Linking Effectiveness Breakdown

As you can see in the chart, social media has been shown to influence brand reputation by 39% and increase brand awareness by 37%. Social media helps improve search engine rankings by 38%. In all instances, social media was considered at least somewhat effective.

Social media can incorporate blogging, posting websites and information on networks such as Digg and StumbleUpon, directory submissions, issuing press releases and more. It increases your website’s visibility and presence on the internet, making it more likely for your site to rank well in search engines. Naturally, increased visibility and presence means increased website traffic as well.

Qualified SEO companies will help you strategize and develop a social media campaign that specifically targets your market audience and best publicizes your particular service or product. 

There is currently a fierce competition underway between Google, Facebook and Myspace for the best full-service social networking hub. Google, as always, is striving to dominate user services from email, chatting, blogging and now social networking. Facebook and Myspace have also been competing to become the point of origin for all user activities.

What this means is that Google, Myspace and Facebook all want to be the point of origin from which you visit and view other sites. Facebook has recently upped the competition by announcing a new and improved Facebook Connect application. Facebook tried to release Facebook Connect about a year ago, but there were problems with maintaining security and user privacy.

Facebook Connect will partner with sites including, but not limited to, Twitter, Hulu and Digg. Once users log on to Facebook, they will be able to coordinate many of their favorite sites in one location. This will keep people logged onto Facebook for hours at a time and allows Facebook to collect valuable information about user browsing habits. This information will allow for more targeted ads, marketing and future services that will be better received by the user.

Google and Myspace are still in the running, however, with Google’s newly released Friend Connect program. It functions much in the same way as Facebook Connect (notice a similarity?), and although Facebook was first to come out with the idea, Google’s gargantuan web presence may give it an upper hand in the competition.

My money is on Facebook. Facebook has experienced steadily increasing user numbers for years and is better known as a social networking platform. Also, with Facebook’s third-party applications that users can now add to their profiles, they have already become a much more convenient way to stay current on sites such as Digg, Twitter or blog feeds like PostSecret. Third-party applications were an instant success and now almost every respectable website has a Facebook application that allows Facebook users to receive updates in their newsfeed. Facebook Connect is just one more step in the right direction.

–Rachel

On November 7th LinkedIn announced that they are launching a new feature: LinkedIn Events. This feature combines social networking and search with a unique twist for business professionals to find events that may be most beneficial to their networking endeavors.

How it Works
Members will receive notices on their Events home page about events that are recommended based on their interests (preferences already established with the creation of a LinkedIn account). Events can also be searched for by location, date and even specific industry.

Why it’s Useful
Even with a valuable tool such as this, it wouldn’t be social networking without providing the capability of a somewhat “mass appeal”. Therefore, LinkedIn also allows users to see who will be attending a particular event. Users can additionally indicate their own attendance status - basically a social RSVP.

Those who indicate interest for a particular event can keep track of updates. Plus, after the event, can check back to see all that took place up to the event: those in attendance, discussions, etc.

Overall, the LinkedIn Events feature benefits the target audience of LinkedIn users: business-oriented individuals looking to do some professional social networking. The site, founded in December of 2002, has more than 30 million registered users and spans 150 industries. With such an “in-demand” audience, LinkedIn is sure to create even more exponentially helpful tools and features like LinkedIn Events real soon…entrepreneurs (and business-minded professionals alike) take notice!

For more information on social networking (or linking) check out our Social Media Marketing blog category or visit us at MorePro.com to learn more.

Brittany Passante

In a test of how powerful internet users are on social networking and media sites, rising social media site Digg.com has learned the hard way that their site is run by the users and for the users.

A recent cease and desist order caused Digg moderators to remove all posts containing a secret encryption key hack that would allow anyone to copy HD-DVD’s, something the entertainment industry does not want to see happen.  While Digg did not receive a notice directly, they felt it was in their best interest to squash all posts containing the encryption key, as evidenced by the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose’s comments at 1pm yesterday:

This has all come up in the past 24 hours, mostly connected to the HD-DVD hack that has been circulating online, having been posted to Digg as well as numerous other popular news and information websites. We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.

Whether you agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law. Digg’s Terms of Use, and the terms of use of most popular sites, are required by law to include policies against the infringement of intellectual property. This helps protect Digg from claims of infringement and being shut down due to the posting of infringing material by others.

Our goal is always to maintain a purely democratic system for the submission and sharing of information - and we want Digg to continue to be a great resource for finding the best content. However, in order for that to happen, we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down.

This is really where the power of Digg’s users comes into play.  Not long after this post, Digg members begin flooding the site with random submissions containing the HD-DVD hack key.  It wasn’t isolated to just the technology categories even - the entire site was slowed to a crawl and new posts were delayed significantly due to the overwhelming chaos that moderating Digg posts had caused.

Digg users quickly “dugg” all of the posts w/ the encryption key in order to get them on the front page of Digg.com and it worked very well.  At one point, every story on the homepage was about the HD-DVD hack - either a post containing the hack itself, a post bashing Digg for removing posts, or other related posts.

By 9pm the Digg management team had changed their stance on the censorship and issued the following statement:

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

The actions by Digg yesterday highlight the power that we, as web users posess.  Digg member’s posts and comments literally changed the moderation policies and legal standings of one of the web’s hottest social media websites.