Twitter Finds Its Melody With Ping

Social network being the most lucrative and beneficial channel of communication currently has attracted a lot of attention and innovative platform from big such as Microsoft, Google and recently…Apple.

Although it is not a surprising move from the multi-billion organization, Apple has successfully established a social network for music called Ping. Like other social network, user can interact with friends, ‘Stay up to date on who, what, when, and where’. However, Ping differs from other social network by focusing heavily on music. User can follow their favourite artists, on ‘what their favourite artists are playing — and when and where they’re playing it’ Apple explains further on the site by stating that you can ‘set your inner groupie free by following your favourite artists on Ping’

Following the trends of social networks platforms, Ping also joined with Twitter to launch a cross-platform integration. This allows users to access their twitter accounts and directly share their activities on Ping as ‘tweets’.
This makes Apple the new additional company to enter the growing list of brands’ alliance within the internet marketing industry. The list consists of Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, & Twitter.

The latest Twitter alliance with Apple means that the Twitter will now be able to place iTunes song previews on their site, inclusive of supporting song purchases and downloads via tweets. The features are accessible to only users residing in countries where iTunes is available.

The Ping features will be set on by defaults; however, users have the options to disable the twitter features from Apple’s social network platform. Once Ping users are connected to their Twitter accounts, they will automatically share Ping posts, likes and reviews on Twitter.

Twitter’s communication team explains the reason behind this collaboration as an approach in making twitterer’s experience richer, following Twitter’s new version that gives users the ability to access photos and videos on the platform.

 “Last month, we launched a new version of Twitter that gives users the ability to see embedded photos and videos directly through the details pane. Adding the ability to listen to music previews makes that experience even richer,” says Carolyn Penner of Twitter’s communication team.

This benefits both platforms by increasing their user’s interaction more intensely. Ping users can connect and find their followers, which amplifies the social network status. Twitter uses are rendered significant in the growth on the Apple’s social network.

Interestingly, Ping could potentially expand its growth with the social media industry once affiliated with other social network such as Facebook; however, these two companies are intertwined over a dispute which has not yet been resolved. Therefore, Ping users are only limited to twitter until matters are resolved.

Some of us at Pipon Search Solutions think that this collaboration, including all similar others, are a very good to establish strong platform interaction and better user engagement. In the social marketing sense, this alliance would be beneficial to those in the music industry, such as artists, producers and music labels etc.

However, this could also be potentially valuable to companies dealing in music trading, HMV, Amazon, and other retail store such as Asda, Tesco, and Sainsbury in the UK. 
In utilizing this cross-platform as a social marketing tool to they can engage with users to create a presence in the industry and additionally acquire data and information on the latest musical trends.

Google Preview Through The Looking Glass

Google’s last search feature, Google Instant, created a big commotion in its introduction within the search marketing industry, with numerous internet marketers dubbing it the SEO killer. However, Google recently has taken a further step in developing its search engine by creating a new search feature, ‘Google Instant Preview’.

This new feature works within the same conceptual approach as their previous search feature, which is to produce a search query’s result faster and easier.
Google Instant works by producing results as a user key in their search query, on the other hand, Google Instant Preview works by illustrating a preview of the website to the user whilst they skim through the search results.

The new feature is activated, once a user clicks the magnifying glass icon placed beside any organic results. Once activated the user would only have to scroll through all results and each will produce a preview of the site. Additionally, the preview also features a passage from the website, such as a quote. However it is unclear whether this feature is limited to only certain site.

Google mentioned on the blog the three beneficial points this new feature will provides to users;

• Quickly compare results - A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.
• Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you're looking for.
• Interact with the results page - Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.

Google also mentioned that they are aware of the new features limitation and issues, which they made a statement declaring that it just temporary and would be resolved soon; “ Currently, some videos or Flash content in previews appear as a “puzzle piece” icon or a black square. We’re working on rendering these rich content types accurately. So we hope webmasters aren’t rushing to get rid of Flash – this is temporary!”

Here Pipon, we like the new feature, it gives the search engine a little bit more flare and personality. As user this tool is fascinating, it helps find specific sites faster, and avoid certain sites.The feature de-masked those sites hiding behind clever URL to attract traffic, as an SEO marketer, this feature just enhance the importance of well-designed landing pages as this would certainly affect those seeking traffics with a core keyword focus.

We notice that although its effect on the natural results is beneficial, it is the complete opposite to paid search as it hides ad text. A comment made by SEL (Search Engine Land) suggest that it doesn't affect paid results because if a user " decides they want to focus on editorial results, they're already ignoring the ads". Here at Pipon we disagree with that notion, the reason being is the instant preview clearly appears in front of ad text, which should clearly affect the CTR, and therefore the paid results.

'Topics' Makes YouTube Search Smarter

Last week, the industry witnessed YouTube trialling a new search feature on TestTube, a YouTube platform used as a testing ground for all their “recipes and concoctions that aren't quite fully baked”.
The latest trial feature, Topics, produces search results through an algorithm descriptively similar to video tags, comments, viewing patterns and shares.

The new feature works by using generic keywords inserted by a user, which then follows on to search videos related to the topics of the keyword with potential interest to the users. It is also capable of retrieving the exact video a user is searching or possibly a video of interest to a user that he/she didn't know they were seeking.

The concept behind this new feature was to keep YouTube users on the site longer, as the current time a user spends on the site has been reported at 15 minutes a day by the BBC; watching content and videos inclusive of ads on the platform.

Regardless, YouTube continues to witness growth within its platform. It just recently announced a significance increase in its uploads, which is more than 35 hours of video per minute on the site.

Here at Pipon, this new feature raises the importance of the social media marketing. Utilising video as a social media marketing tool can produce significant results to a well strategized and this new feature could potentially expand a campaign’s audience. However this would require is severe and specific video optimisation. 

We recommend trying the new feature, as it produces very interesting results.

Clash of The 'Project Titan', Gmail Vs Facemail?

A lot of people within the industry have witness the bickering battle between the dominant brands within the industry; Google and Facebook.

The dispute was over email exports and imports, which started with Facebook refusing users the ability to export their contact and friends data using Gmail. Google retaliated by banning Facebook from importing its users’ email contacts. 
However Facebook responded by establishing and letting their users know of a method to add their Gmail contact, which consist of by saving the email addresses on user’s hard drives first

This fight between the two rivals have apparently cross over from online to offline. Facebook apparently has been reported offering deals to Google’s Engineers to leave the organisation. Additionally, other reports surrounding Google 10% pay rise to its employee has been implying that in fact this was due to hold on to its engineers affected by Facebook’s offer.

Currently rumours surround the industry on Facebook’s response to Google’s latter action. Facebook has since then sent out an invitation about a special event in San Francisco which it will host. 
The rumours, originating from this announcement, suggest that Facebook is planning to unveil a new messaging system to challenge Gmail in retaliation.

This new venture, which apparently is codenamed ‘Project Titan’ and referred to a ‘Gmail killer’, is suspected to capably over take the email market, surpassing not only Gmail, but also AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo. This is believed to be possible due to Facebook’s 500 million-strong user base.

Currently the most powerful brand in the email market is Microsoft’s Hotmail/Windows Live with 361.7 million users, followed by Yahoo’s 273.1 million users and then Gmail with 193.3 million.

Although this is buzz is still referred to as a rumour, and Facebook has not made any comment surrounding this, some believe that Facebook’s wealth of information on its users would be their irresistible proposition in offering their email services.
However, it is still unbeknownst to the availability and limitation of this service, if introduced that is. For instance, it is unsure if the email service would available to only Facebook Users.

Here at Pipon, we believe in love not war, however if this rumour surrounding a new email service by Facebook shade any truth, then the industry should witness a major shifts from Google, Yahoo & Microsoft’s Hotmail.

The reason being, Facebook already holds a strong fan based and user based, and introducing a new mail service would be easily transit their success over to the new market.

Would you still use your Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail, if you could have an email address integrated with your Facebook profile?