The social web is rapidly growing and Google is trying to tap into this massive industry with the launch of Friend Connect. Released in a limited preview, Friend Connect allows web site owners to incorporate a number of gadgets to their site in an effort to improve the overall user experience.

Friend Connect helps webmasters make their websites more appealing, engage users, and help increase the average time on site. Incorporating a number of available social features is made easy, and does not require any programming skills whatsoever.

Webmasters select from a list of Google and Member gadgets, choose their colors and other options, and then simply cut and paste the code directly to their site.

When your site visitors opt in to use Friend Connect within your site, when they enter a review, post photos, or interact with your gadgets, notices are posted within their friends various social media accounts which can attract them to visit your site.

Currently Friend Connect is available only in a preview release, with select sites being accepted. If you are interested in participating, fill out the application form and cross your fingers that Google will accept you.

I am just on the way out the door but I caught this (opens in PDF) excellent news release by Nielsen/NetRatings stating that “one in four members of UK social networks use their phones to network.” Now considering that Europeans tend to be dramatically ahead of North Americans in cellular adoption this statistics release seemed worth of attention.

Here is a chart that really drove home the popularity of social networking via mobiles (click the image for a larger version):

Whats the point? Nothing all that fancy, this is just more great evidence of the power of social marketing; and it seems the more evidence to convince skeptics the better.

In my travels today I came across a few articles I just had to share.

• How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It
  Source: Popular Mechanics. April 16th, 2008.

  Excerpt: Such a prediction probably seems ridiculous when Google has a market capitalization five times that of Ford and General Motors combined. After all, Google has developed a superfast, highly efficient method of making sense of the most overwhelming mass of data mankind has ever created. What’s more…” read on
  

• 20 (Rare) Questions for Google Search Guru Udi Manber
  Source Popular Mechanics. April 16th, 2008.This is an excellent interview and it even covers a response (as shown below) from Guru to the concept that social media will kill search.

  Excerpt: (Interviewer) “While we’re talking on the subject of personalization, a colleague of mine said that search as you know it is falling to the wayside and changing dramatically as social networking comes into play—trending toward this MySpace-Facebook model where people look to their friends or their community as the take-off point. Do you see that as a bona fide trend? And, if so, does search become less important?” (Reponse from Guru) “Search has always been about people. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s not a formula. It’s about getting people what they need. The art of ranking is one of taking lots of signals and putting them together. Signals from...” read on

I hope you enjoy those two articles. It seems this week is a Google-fest over here at StepForth, what with our debut of “How to Optimize for Google, Part 1 of 3” just yesterday on our SEO blog and in our weekly web marketing newsletter. Oh well, the fact of the matter is Google is a monster company and the more light we can shed on the monster the less anyone has to fear it. Well, unless you taunt the monster… and I am recommending you don’t.

We are proud to announce that StepForth is once again rated one of the best blogs on the net by the BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs. Created and managed by respected web marketer Lee Odden of TopRank the BIGLIST is a comprehensive list of the best marketing blogs online – at least it is now that we are on it

All joking aside the StepForth team is proud to be recognized for their writing efforts in the search marketing space and plan to continue delivering the best work we can – or not at all. And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t stress that the StepForth SEO News Blog is comprised of articles from more than just myself – our team rocks!

Here is the entry as it is shown on the BIGLIST:

StepForth SEO News Blog – (Welcome back!) Since 2003 the StepForth blog has covered a range of search marketing industry news and sets a great standard for SEM blog writing. Kudos to Ross Dunn for a great job.

If you haven’t subscribed to our blog feed yet or our weekly SEO newsletter then just check out the links below to see what all the hoopla is about!

As posted at Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo has developed and launched a new website targeted at women. Unveiled on Monday, Yahoo! Shine “features the best writers and bloggers in women’s publishing”. It helps “connect like-minded women, share stories, and more”.

Shines editorial team features editors from Lucky, Jane, and the Wall Street Journal. They created Shine to appeal to a large demographic of women and give them a “smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info, and connect with each other”. Read more…

The evolution of the internet is anything but dull. It is a precarious world that is subject to the influence of both devious and altruistic actions. Just like any human society, there is chaos and there is order. Yet, what makes the cyberworld so unique is the opportunity for people to come together that may never have done so by traditional networks. Through communication on different websites and blogs, individuals can discover new ways to make mischief or find assistance in solving crimes. Read more…

Recession, recession, recession… I don’t know about you but I have had my fill of this doomsday word! It seems to me the panic caused by this word simply increases the chances of a recession occurring. Recessions, however, have a silver lining because they provide business owners with the opportunity to look long and hard at their expenses and this can provide valuable insight in strengthening the business long after a recession recedes. Some cut backs may become obvious such as eliminating frivolous office expenses and are a wise move but should business owners cut back on their web marketing? Lets look at the circumstances within web marketing where cutbacks may or may not make sense.

When You Should or Should Not Cut Back on Pay Per Click or Search Engine Optimization Campaigns
So what is unnecessary marketing? Logic dictates that any marketing that is not profitable is not worth keeping. That said, how certain are you that a particular form of marketing is not profitable? Perhaps the following questions and notes will help you decide Read more…

Have you ever wondered exactly when and where viewers watch your YouTube videos? YouTube Insight, a new tool has been created by Google’s engineering team in Zurich, to allow users to dive deeper into the statistics behind their posted videos.

Guardian.co.uk reported on the new addition Thursday morning.

“We know a lot of data about video consumption and we want to give some of that back,” Jacobi said. “A lot of bands use the site, and YouTube Insight is a very easy way to work out where in the world your fans are. That’s very important for planning, marketing and touring, and helps tailor their product.” Read more…

AOL Time Warner had acquired Bebo, one of the largest social networks outside of North America. Bebo is huge in both the U.K. and New Zealand. It’s the third biggest social network in the U.S. after MySpace and Facebook and for AOL it “positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers.” With 4.1 billion supposed to be spent on social network advertising by 2011 it’s understandable why the major players want to secure a spot on these sites.

Myspace mobile has been officially launched and people using this social network can use this site to connect with one another on the go.

Mobile phone search is reaching large proportions and search engine’s are well aware of this trend and are finding new ways of speeding up this process. This article has a good rundown of “a Google search plug-in that puts a search box on the “home screen” of the phone and reduces the time it takes to get there (to Google) and get results.”

Searches on question and answer web sites have risen by almost 1000% compared with use on these sites two years ago. “The popularity of user-generated media has helped to establish a category for social knowledge.” Helping on Q & A sites is also a web marketing strategy where sharing your knowledge of a particular subject can bring traffic and awareness to you because of your good answers.

Over the past couple years it has been impossible to avoid the buzz about images and their increasing role in search; such as universal search which is becoming commonplace among the major search engines. But universal search is only the most prevalent news and only the baby-steps of a new format of search that is about to take over the Internet. Do I have your interest piqued? I will now lay the foundation of my statement to hopefully get you as excited as I am about this unstoppable search evolution.

Evidence 1) Photosynth
If you have any technology mavens as friends it is likely you saw this incredible video presented by Microsoft at the TED conference last year discussing Photosynth. To quote Microsoft Lab’s Photosynth home page this software

“takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next. In our collections, you can access gigabytes of photos in seconds, view a scene from nearly any angle, find similar photos with a single click, and zoom in to make the smallest detail as big as your monitor.” Read more…