Digg expands its ad voting system with ad network plans
Back when Digg started letting its users vote on ads in August, there was concern that users would vote down each ad they saw, rendering advertising on the site obsolete. But just two months later, Digg is seeing returns on its new system.
And the company is so pleased with its new policy that it's planning to expand its advertising platform into a network for other publishers. That sounds intriguing. Will it work?
Seven takeaways from the Jill and Kevin viral
If you haven’t seen the Jill and Kevin wedding entrance dance yet then now’s the time to take a look. There are a few things to takeaway from it, to understand why and how it went viral.
Uploaded less than two weeks ago as a way of sharing it to friends and family, the five-minute video is one of the biggest viral hits of the summer. It has attracted more than 13m views on YouTube alone, and has been rated by no less than 66,000 people (it has a five-star rating to boot).
YouTube gets users to rate its advertising
Video giant YouTube is still struggling to turn its impressive popularity into revenue for its parent company Google, and a new shift in advertising options may just get YouTube viewers to help the site figure out those profitability issues.
Part of YouTube's problem stems from its content and figuring out what kind of advertising makes sense paired with user generated videos. But starting today, the video giant is enlisting viewers to say what ads should go where.
YouTube is beginning to let users choose what ads they will see paired with individual videos. The switch will serve the same purpose of asking viewers to rate advertising content, and could go a long way toward figuring out what kind of advertising works on the site.
Ten reasons not to follow people on Twitter
I've just been working my way through a few Twitter emails from over the weekend, and deciding whether to follow people back or not.
Having initially followed the advice of Guy Kawasaki and automatically followed everyone who followed me, I have become more circumspect lately, to keep the content more relevant.
I also tend to make snap decisions, based on the bio, and the last few posts. Here are ten reasons not to follow people back...
Digg translates its strengths into advertising
Social news site Digg is introducing a new “social advertising platform” this week that
will allow users to vote advertisements up and down the way that Digg users currently curate news content. The approach may not be new – companies like Facebook and RazorFish have created similar ads — but the Digg community offers a lot of potential for the strategy.
For starters, Digg users are already in the business of rating content.
The A-Z of social media for brands
Here’s an A-Z braindump that I compiled in about an hour. It is aimed at providing a snapshot of what social media is all about, and what brands need to focus on before wading in.
You might be familiar with social media, but hopefully you'll give me a pass as some of this stuff bears repeating. However I think this A-Z is going to be more useful if you’re somebody who is trying to convince your boss that adopting a social media strategy is a good idea (it is). Good luck with that!
The Telegraph pulls in 75,000 visitors a day from social media
The Telegraph's social media strategy seems to be paying dividends, as its website now receives 8% of its daily traffic from news aggregators like Digg and Reddit, as well as Twitter.
The newspaper's Head of Audience Development Julian Sambles revealed this figure to Malcolm Coles on his blog, and based on the Telegraph's 28m uniques in March, this equates to around 75,000 visitors per day from social media.
BBC has the best headlines on the web - Nielsen
The BBC's descriptive yet concise news headlines are a great example of writing for the web, and are always written to the 'highest web usability standards' according to usability guru Jakob Nielsen.
He cites headlines like 'Mass Thai protest over leadership' and 'Iran accuses journalist of spying' as best practice examples, with the average news headline containing five words and 34 characters.
Digg tries to dig itself out of a hole
When Digg launched the DiggBar early this month, it wasn't immediately clear how people would respond.
It didn't take long, however, to find out what website owners thought about it as the DiggBar was met with immediate criticism, resistance and anger. From arguments that Digg was essentially stealing content to concerns about the impact of the DiggBar on SEO, many were voting to 'bury' the DiggBar.
Challenges from next-generation URL Shorteners
Digg recently released a URL shortener that doesn't take customers to your website. It wraps your website in a Digg frame instead. This presents a number of challenges.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
