Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University student Eduardo Saverin.[1] The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League,[2] and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States,[3][4] corporations,[5] and by September 2006, to everyone of age 13 and older with a valid email address.[6][7]
In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg began writing the code for a new website, known as 'theFacebook. He said in an article in The Harvard Crimson that he was inspired to make Facebook from the incident of Facemash: "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many."[9] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.[18] He told The Crimson, "Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it as I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."[19] Zuckerberg also stated his intention to create a universal website that can connect people around the university. According to his roommate, Dustin Moskovitz, "When Mark finished the site, he told a couple of friends ... then one of them suggested putting it on the Kirkland House online mailing list, which was ... three hundred people." Moskovitz continued to say that, “By the end of the night, we were ... actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants."[20]
Just six days after the launch of the site, three Harvard University seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, but instead using their idea to build a competing product.[21] The three complained to the Crimson, and the newspaper began an investigation. Zuckerberg knew about the investigation so he used TheFacebook.com to find members in the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. He examined a history of failed logins to see if any of theCrimson members have ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. In the cases in which they had failed to log in, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members' Harvard email accounts, and he was successful in accessing two of them. In the end, three Crimson members filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg which was later settled.[21][22] U Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. Within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service.[23] Zuckerberg was soon joined in the promotion of the site by Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, andYale.[2] This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League and Boston-area schools. It gradually reached most universities in Canada and the United States.[24][25][26] Facebook was incorporated in the summer of 2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president.[27] In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[2] The company dropped ‘The’ from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[28]
Tuesday, 31 May 2016
What is White Hat SEO?
In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, white hat SEO refers
to the usage of optimization strategiestechniques and tactics that focus
on a humanaudience opposedto search engines and completely follows
search engine rules and policies.
to the usage of optimization strategiestechniques and tactics that focus
on a humanaudience opposedto search engines and completely follows
search engine rules and policies.
Monday, 30 May 2016
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.
10 New Facebook Features for 2016
A recent Cornell study describes how Facebook users are increasingly dependent on its utility. In fact, the study asserts that users don’t leave Facebook for lack of utility: they leave for fear of addiction.
While the propensity for Facebook to cause addiction is questionable, its utility most certainly is not. The Facebook ecosystem (which includes Instagram and WhatsApp) offer unprecedented social utility, and Facebook is expanding its native services substantially in 2016.
The changes to Facebook in 2016 are new to Facebook, but aren’t new to the social landscape. Facebook appears to be borrowing the best aspects of other popular services and integrating them into Facebook as a central hub.
For communication professionals, this means that the ways that you can communicate on Facebook are expanding and are increasing in complexity.
Imagine a platform with all of the functions of Facebook AND Periscope, Yelp, Google, Yammer, Uber, Amazon Marketplace, Evite and Razoo…that is the scope of increased utility that Facebook appears poised for in 2016.
1. Facebook Live Video (for all)
Usage of these apps remains low, which may give Facebook Live Video an opportunity to become the go-to live-streaming app rather quickly. No additional app is needed to use this feature: the Live Video content prompt is located in the normal “Update Status” prompt in the mobile app.
Introduced in August for public figures only (this service is called “Mentions“), Facebook has started asmall roll-out to US users, and just introduced the service to verified business Pages (to learn how to verify a Page on Facebook, click here). Expect the service to expand to more users in 2016 and for brands to begin experimenting with more live video content.
Multiple studies have concluded that video engagement is higher on Facebook than on any other platform(including YouTube and Instagram), so this is something to pay attention to in the coming months.
2. Facebook Professional Services
Comparable services: Yelp, Google reviews (aka Google My Business)
If you haven’t noticed, Facebook actively prompts you to review the places you’ve been. If you check in at or tag a location, odds are Facebook will ask you to elaborate about your experience…and (of course) this is purposeful.
Facebook wants to be a recommendation engine. Mark Zuckerberg alluded to this right before he rolled out the first iteration of Google Search suggesting that a Facebook user could search for a sushi restaurant and get inferred recommendations from their contacts.
Now it seems that the personalized recommendation may be generalized for a more Yelp-like experience.Facebook Professional Services recently did a soft-launch and the resulting product is currently more akin to Google reviews than to the robust reviewing community of Yelp.
That said, the utility is evident and for my search (Indian Restaurants in the Cincinnati area), there were more Facebook reviews than Yelp reviews (Yelp’s stock price decreased upon announcement of this feature).
3. Facebook at Work
Facebook at Work is Facebook’s (currently in beta) enterprise solution, and they have a pretty compelling sales pitch: an enterprise social solution with functionality that most people are familiar with.
For communication professionals, this means that in the near future you may perform internal communication in a closed Facebook ecosystem.
PR firm Weber Shandwick is one of the pilot beta testers and their initial impressions are that the Facebook at Work workflow isn’t as clearly delineated as it is with Yammer or Slack, though ease-of-use and scaled collaboration are aspects that are identified as its strengths.
Expect a lot of emphasis on Facebook at Work, as stockholders envision higher profitably with a strong enterprise-level product.
4. Improved Search
When Facebook quietly dropped Bing as the search provider powering Facebook’s Internet search, few people knew that Bing’s replacement would be Facebook itself.
In October, Facebook rolled out an improved search function opening up all public posts as well asimproved intelligence to inform personalized results.
For communication professionals, this means that public posts are more accessible to the Facebook community and that Facebook search may become a greater driver of activity in the future.
5. Uber/Lyft integration Through Facebook Messenger
While the communication implications of this additional feature are probably slight, it’s worth noting that Facebook users may start using Messenger instead of the native apps to use these services.
6. Facebook Shopping Tab
Comparable services: Google Shopping, (if scaled up) Amazon Marketplace
Back in July, Facebook added a “buy” button and allowed e-commerce partners to sell products on Facebook through Shopify. Even though the results of social shopping were disappointing for Facebook this year (as well as for Pinterest and Twitter), Facebook appears poised to expand their e-commerce offerings in 2016.
Facebook has begun to roll out a shopping tab to a small number of users, with paid results similar to Google’s shopping tab.
Communication professionals should be able to partner with marketers to leverage this feature for increased sales when it is rolled out on a greater scale.
7. Instant Articles
Comparable services: Apple News, Snapchat
In May of this year, Facebook introduced Instant Articles for iOS, a feature that allows publishers to have their content distributed and viewed directly within the Facebook app. Just recently, Instant Articles was expanded to Android devices as well. A feature designed to mimic Snapchat’s agile, unique content (provided through publishing partners), Instant Articles can be viewed in nearly all mobile devices with great reach than Snapchat or the similar Apple News app.
Along with Snapchat, Apple News and others, communication professionals need to understand that content may be consumed entirely on a third-party platform. This could have ramifications for measurement and monetization for branded content.
8. Events
Comparable services: Google Events, Yelp, Evite
The new Facebook Events allows you to do all of the following in a very user-friendly environment:
- Browse invitations
- Accept/decline invitations (public and private)
- Bookmarks
- RSVPs
- Schedules
- Calendar entries
- Ticket buying
- Check-ins
- Photos
For communication professionals that coordinate a lot of events, Facebook Events may be a straightforward and accessible way to manage them.
9. Non-profit crowdfunding
Utilizing the Facebook “donate” button and Facebook’s platform and distribution, nonprofits may be able to fundraise more effectively on Facebook than with other crowdfunding sites.
Communication professionals working with nonprofits should be aware of Facebook’s crowdfunding capabilities.
10. Music Stories
Comparable services: Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer
We’re introducing “Music Stories” today to enable better music discovery and sharing on Facebook. The new post format allows people to listen to previews on Facebook from Apple Music and Spotify. You can read more about it on Facebook for Media: http://media.fb.com/blog
Posted by Music on Facebook on Thursday, November 5, 2015
Facebook recently rolled out their “Music Stories” feature, which gives users the capability to preview 30-second snippets of music from Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, NPR and other sources. It is currently only available for iOS but will be available for desktop use soon.
While this may be of nominal importance to communication professionals now, there has been somespeculation that Facebook is interested in developing a streaming music product.
Any communication professional tasked to distribute audio content (Deezer, for example, streams audiobooks and podcasts, although it isn’t widely available in the US market yet) may want to pay attention to this Facebook feature.
Conclusion
There probably isn’t a more exciting social platform than Facebook right now. There are newer, shinier models, but none that can come close to the utility that Facebook has (and clearly wants to expand).
Some of their innovation may be derived from other platforms, but as is evident with Live Video – adding Facebook’s distribution to a product gives it a lot more power.
Hopefully I made the case that Facebook is a platform for communication professionals to keep up with in 2016. Despite its size and stature, it is one of the great utilities for communication and seems poised to increase its influence for the future.
What Is Search Marketing?
What Is Search Marketing?
Search marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through both paid and unpaid efforts.
Search Marketing encompasses:
- SEO: Earning traffic through unpaid or free listings
- SEM: Buying traffic through paid search listings
Originally called “search engine marketing,” the shorter phrase “search marketing” is now often used as the umbrella term over SEO and SEM. The longer phrase “search engine marketing” — or SEM — is now typically used to describe paid search activities.
Yes, we know that can be confusing — but that’s how things have evolved. Our article, Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?, explains the evolution in more depth.
For those who want to learn more about either SEO or SEM, see our guides below:
Search Marketing Advice At Search Engine Land
At Search Engine Land, we publish search marketing news stories daily, along with frequent in-the-trenches advice, tips and tactics from our expert contributors. Below, you’ll find links to our most recent stories on search marketing:
SEM Library Archives is an area of Search Engine Land that provides a collection of all stories we’ve written on the topic of SEM. We also have subcategories, including:
- Search Marketing: Branding
- Search Marketing: General
- Search Marketing: Landing Pages
- Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
- Search Marketing: Mobile
- Search Marketing: Public Relations
- Search Marketing: Search Term Research
- Search Marketing: Shopping Search Marketing
SEO & SEM Tools is another area of Search Engine Land with a collection of stories we’ve written about search marketing tools. It includes these subtopics:
SEM Industry is a section of Search Engine Land that focuses not on search marketing advice but rather the search marketing industry (which even has an industry group, SEMPO). Within our SEM Industry section are these subsections:
- SEM Industry: Acquisition
- SEM Industry: Awards
- SEM Industry: Community
- SEM Industry: Conferences
- SEM Industry: General
- SEM Industry: Organizations
- SEM Industry: Stats
More Search Marketing Resources
For educational search, social and digital marketing workshops and sessions, attend one of our SMX: Search Marketing Expo conferences. Our research arm and webinar site Digital Marketing Depot, also has SEM presentations available on demand, to anyone, for free.
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