Last Week in Search – Part 3
Last week in search we saw a huge amount of social network news with Google+ opening up registrations and Facebook announcing a slew of new features at it’s yearly f8 developer conference.
The feature war between Facebook and Google+ heated up early in the week, with Google preemptively announcing a host of new features as Facebook’s f8 developer conference loomed. New Google+ features announced include video-chat additions, search integration, SMS notification & messaging support, improved +mentions functionality, +1 to comments and a few other minor changes.
Google’s been keeping count of its feature rollout and for it’s hundredth feature opened the floodgates on their social network project, which until now has been behind an invite-only system. Google chose the perfect time to take Google+ off its chain, allowing it to capitalise on Facebook user dissatisfaction by offering the only alternative that’s been available since the Myspace days. A highly unscientific poll of my new Google+ friends (or is it circle-additions?) showed that most made the switch because of Facebook changes but would be keeping both social networks until more of their friends make the jump.
Jim took a more in-depth look at Google+’s new search feature in this weeks video, exploring how to rank in Google+ search by placing relevant keywords into your Google+ content, generating social sharing signals and creating regular content that prevents you from fading away in Google+ search. As Google replaces the link graph with its shiny new social graph, expect Google+ search to be an important area for SEO.
Facebook didn’t take long to respond, rolling out a quick series of updates a day later that most expected Facebook to unleash at f8 later in the week. With a revamped news feed designed to improve the signal to noise ratio and a new real-time ticker that removed all friend interaction from the main news feed, Facebook fired a few shots of its own as it headed into their big day.
It was at f8 though that Facebook pulled out the big guns, announcing some of the most important changes to the social network in some time. First up was a radical redesign of the Facebook profile in the form of Timeline, an attempt by Facebook to represent more about your life, all the way from since you were born to the last place place you went for dinner. Resembling an online scrapbook of sorts, Timeline is a chronological look at everything you’ve ever shared on Facebook, providing your Facebook friends with a better idea of not only the person you are, but how you got there. It’s clean, minimalist and incredibly useful, allowing you to go all the way back in time to your first status update or explore everywhere you’ve every been checked in at.
We’re an impatient lot when it comes to new products, so when we discovered that Timeline was only a few clicks rather than a few weeks away, we created a quick tutorial to get you ahead with a sneak peek of Facebook’s latest feature. Learn how to unlock Timeline on your own Facebook profile here, but be aware that it is still a beta product that still has a few bugs to be ironed out before launch.
Facebook followed up Timeline with the announcement of an exciting new developer platform named Open Graph that gives Facebook application developers a whole host of new social tools to build with. It’s a hard concept to get your head around, but Facebook’s open graph is essentially an attempt by Facebook to become the internet and install social signals as the new hyperlink, something Jim picked up that Google were also onto last month. Expect a host of innovative new applications using Open Graph to be heading your way soon.
In case you missed it, Stew Art Media CEO Jim Stewart has been taking on telemarketers with a new series of videos called SEO vs Telemarketers. Take a look at them on Jim’s YouTube channel and keep your eyes peeled for new additions on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!
Thats it for Last Week in Search. See you next week!
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
