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French Make It Illegal for Broadcasters to Mention Facebook and Twitter

posted on June 7, 2011

In one of the most laughable cases of ‘government gone wild’ ever, France has made it illegal for broadcasters to mention the words Twitter or Facebook in broadcasts (other than if it’s actually a part of the story they are covering). While I usually don’t look to the French for something that makes sense, this maneuver is as bold as it is silly.

Time’s NewsFeed tells us

Radio and television anchors in France are no longer allowed to use the names of the social networking sites promotionally in their broadcasts.

The script has become cliché – the phrase that begins “Social networking sites like…” is almost always followed by the words “Facebook and Twitter.” But as of May 27th, the French are turning up their noses at the mention of those names on TV.

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Allowing Fans to Post Leads to Higher Facebook Engagement Scores

posted on June 6, 2011

This August, Facebook is going to make a change that will force all brand pages to allow user comments on their Facebook wall. While this move is concerning some, it’s actually a good thing when it comes to engagement.

A recent study by digital think tank L2, shows that companies who do allow fan posting had a considerably higher Facebook IQ score than those who didn’t. What’s FB IQ? It’s a nifty little number L2 whipped up to measure the effectiveness of Facebook brand pages. It takes in to account, not only the number of fans, but the number of comments, growth rate, posting frequency, content variety, search engine visibility and more.

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New Study: Sharing Accounts for 31 Percent of Referral Traffic

posted on June 6, 2011

ShareThis has released a new study about. . .surprise, surprise, internet sharing. They took a look at the 300 million monthly users who click on one of those ShareThis buttons and here’s what they found out.

  • Sharing accounts for 31% of referral traffic and 10% of website visits come from sharing.
  • Shared links on Twitter are clicked an average of 4.9 times each. Facebook 4.3 and email only 1.7.
  • Facebook accounts for 38% of all sharing referral traffic.
  • Email brings in 17%.
  • Twitter brings in 11%

TechCrunch delves a little deeper and adds:

  • Shared links lose ground as they move further from the source.
  • 80% of people share within one category and 70% will only click on one category with entertainment and shopping ruling in the Facebook arena.

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Google and China in Internet Shoving Match With No Real Punches Thrown…..Yet

posted on June 6, 2011

Google and China are like oil and water. They just don’t mix and with each passing day it seems less likely that they ever will.

In the latest dust up between the massive Internet market and the chief Internet marketing enabler, China has not taken kindly to Google’s accusations that hacks against its Gmail service last week emanated from from Jinan, the capital of China’s eastern Shandong province and home to an intelligence unit of the People’s Liberation Army.

According to Reuters

Last week, Google said it had broken up an effort to steal the passwords of hundreds of Google email account holders, including U.S. government officials, Chinese human rights advocates and journalists. It said the attacks appeared to come from China.

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Insights Into Why SMB’s Are Using Social Media More

posted on June 6, 2011

As you know, I write about the SMB space on occasion. Why do I do it? It’s because while big brands and the Internet are important and interesting, life happens at the local level. As a result, the little guys should be important. Plenty is written about but the SMB space is an elusive one to catch regarding the Internet. Even Google is finding that it takes quite a bit of effort to get and maintain the SMB’s attention which, in turn, leads to them spending money with you.

Some data for the SMB space comes from Pitney Bowes and is reported by eMarketer. It shows that social media is making its move on e-mail in importance to the SMB.

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Cup of Joe: Believe in Yourself and Rock On Everybody!

posted on June 4, 2011

Since we last chatted, the Niagara Falls uprooted itself and relocated inside my nasal cavity. As a result I have been coughing, blowing, and sneezing my little rear end off. In between being sick and trying to manage my clients, I haven’t had time to write a proper editorial this week. So I figured I would have the little guy above stand in for me. Because sometimes when you feel your worst you need to be reminded to believe in yourself and to just keep rocking on.

Tune in next week where I will talk in length about how stupid we are all becoming! (seriously, its gonna be a doozie!)

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Bing, Google and Yahoo Collaborate on a Single Search Language

posted on June 3, 2011

If you think about it, search engines are pretty smart. They can look at a block of text on your website and make a decision about whether you’re discussing the Stanley Cup playoffs or your grandmother’s chili. But as smart as they are, they can’t always pick up on the nuisances of a page and that’s where Schema.org comes in.

Google, Bing and Yahoo! have all announced their participation in the program and that’s gotta be some kind of landmark, right? Like Mr. Macy and Mr. Gimble shaking hands with Santa Claus? The idea is to develop a singular markup language for microdata sets that will allow all search engines to pick up on like bits of information across a variety of webpages.