Judging by a sampling of Twitter last night, many users were unhappy with this sudden and unannounced change. Of course, Facebook users seem to revolt against any change just because it’s a change. But at least in this case, they could state a reason for their unhappiness. Most seem to fear an onslaught of incomplete or incoherent comments because inevitably comments will get posted before the author intended (e.g., when the commenter was intending to start a new paragraph). My take is that that will only be a problem for a short while; within a few days most regular users will probably be adjusted to the fact that “enter” now posts what they’ve written.

NOTE: You can still insert a new line into a comment by using SHIFT + ENTER.

In this case, though, where Facebook taketh away, Facebook also giveth. Along with the new “enter to comment” change, Facebook also gave users the ability to edit their recent comments. It’s  a feature that may be the biggest protector of relationships since browsers added private browsing modes. To edit a just-posted comment, hover your mouse to the right of the comment until you see an “x.” Clicking this “x” used to only give you the option of deleting the comment, and it still does, but now when you click it the comment goes back into edit mode. You may now either edit and repost it, or delete it completely.

The question remaining is why did Facebook implement “enter to comment”? My best guess is that it is a further Twitter-ization of Facebook. Many of the changes Facebook has implemented in the past couple of years appear to be efforts to create more interaction on the site, to keep things moving and changing. Many studies show that web readers routinely skip over long posts or comments. In response to that, on many forums such as Reddit, users deploy a convention known as “tl;dr” (for “too long; didn’t read”). On long posts or comments, they will add a one or two sentence summary at the end, labeled with “tl;dr,” to try to capture readers who will otherwise skip their contribution.

With enter-to-comment, Facebook encourages briefer, more rapid-fire comments that keep the conversations rolling. This keeps users engaged, which keeps them on the site, and of course, exposed to more ads.

Your LinkedIn home page is now centered around the shared updates from people in your network. Signal adds powerful search tools to help you dig deep into those updates.

With Signal, you can filter your search queries by network (for example, limiting to just your 1st or 2nd level connections), company, industry, recency, location, school, and Twitter hashtags. You can also save a search so you can check updated results later (useful for keeping track of a brand or employment offers).

A bar on the right displays trending most-shared headlines from various industries, including a link to show you who is sharing that news.

What do you think about LinkedIn Signal? Will you be spending more time on LinkedIn because of it?

To be clear, this is talking about the Like button placed on a non-Facebook web site, not the Like link found under posts and comments on Facebook.

What this means is that any Facebook user who clicks “Like” on one of your posts will now be automatically sharing a very visible thumbnail image, full headline, and post excerpt. Before yesterday, clicking Like only resulted in a one-line, non-bolded title with a link.

When a visitor clicks on a Like button now, he or she will also get a small popup in which they can add a comment to the shared link, similar to the function of the Share button.

The resulting post on the visitor’s Facebook wall (and the news feeds of his/her friends) looks like this (without added comment):

The result should be increased traffic to sites using the Like button, as a) visitors are more likely to click a Like button than a Share button and b) the resulting news feed post is many times more visible.

The old Facebook Share button will continue to function, but it will no longer be updated.

How to add a Facebook Like Button to your site

UPDATE: One drawback of the Like Button is that the user does not get to choose the thumbnail image that will be posted with the link. Facebook chooses it randomly. If you have several images on your page, Facebook could post a totally irrelevant image with the link. Here’s a great, simple WordPress plugin to fix the Facebook Like thumbnail.

Last week popular Twitter client TweetDeck announced a new service they are calling Deck.ly. Deck.ly–incorporated into the latest versions of TweetDeck for desktop, Chrome, and Android (iPhone & iPad to come)–automatically allows tweets longer than 140 characters. The tweets display in expanded form in TweetDeck apps. Readers encountering one of these Tweets in another Twitter client or at Twitter.com see the beginning of the message with a shortened link to the complete message, which appears on a unique page on the Deck.ly site. A user typing in the TweetDeck client, upon reaching 140 characters, gets a message that Deck.ly has been activated, and the character count changes color and begins counting upward.

Services that allow expanded tweets are nothing new. Twitlonger is perhaps the best known. What is new here is having the service incorporated as an integral part of the app. But that’s not all, or even the most intriguing novel aspect. The page automatically created at the Deck.ly site for each Deck.ly tweet is essentially a blog post. First, the tweeter can include multimedia such as photos and videos in the tweet/post. In addition, each Deck.ly tweet/post has a comment function, just like a blog would. Readers of the tweet/post can log in to comment with various services, including Facebook, Twitter, Disqus, and OpenID. Comments include Disqus-like features such as threaded replies and “like” buttons. A commenter can subscribe to a comment chain by email or RSS feed.

Extended tweet posted at Deck.ly

There are a few things I’d like to see TweetDeck build into the blog-on-the-fly aspect of Deck.ly. One would be the ability to auto-subscribe to comment threads on one’s own posts. At present it appears that the originator must visit each post on Deck.ly and manually click the subscribe option. Another would be the ability to connect to the Deck.ly site version of the Tweet from within the TweetDeck client. Since the client expands the 140+ character tweet (up to a limit), you don’t see the link to the Deck.ly site version (See Update 2 below for how to do this).

Looking at comments on TweetDeck’s blog post announcing Deck.ly, it is clear that not all users are happy with the new feature. Most of the complaints seem to be from Twitter purists who see the 140-character limit as part of the charm and utility of Twitter. They worry that a profusion of tweets requiring an extra click to read will become an annoyance to followers. In response, TweetDeck creator Richard Barley (Twitter: @richardbarley) said that this feature is overwhelmingly the most-requested one by TweetDeck users. Furthermore, he notes, those who don’t like it should simply not use it. Some commenters, worried that users might inadvertently create Deck.ly tweets by not noticing they had gone past 140 characters, have called for the ability to opt out of the service. (See update below)

By setting up Deck.ly not only as an app-integrated long tweet service, but also effectively a blog post creator, it looks like TweetDeck is setting itself up to have a run at other expanded micro-blog services, such as Posterous and Tumblr. In order to make that successful, they will need to incorporate the suggestions made above, as well as open an API so other Twitter clients can connect to it.

UPDATE: TweetDeck announced today an update to the DeskTop app that includes an option to disable Deck.ly posts. Download the update.

UPDATE 2: @richardbarley from TweetDeck kindly let me know that you can get to a Deck.ly tweet’s post on the Deck.ly site from within the TweetDeck apps by clicking on its time stamp.

By popular request, some of the notifications that used to appear in your feed but had been moved to a sidebar are now back in the Live Feed.

You can edit options at the bottom of each feed to choose who shows up more or less in the two feeds.

(UPDATE: This post was created as a Google Sidewiki on the Facebook homepage, but the new homepage format seems to have broken Sidewiki for the site. Can’t see my original post.)
in reference to: Facebook | Home (view on Google Sidewiki) ]]> http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/23/new-facebook-home-page-news-feed-vs-live-feed/feed/ 2 http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/22/marketers-get-ready-for-google-social-search/ http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/22/marketers-get-ready-for-google-social-search/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:22:00 +0000 Mark Traphagen http://www.virante.com/blog/?p=42

On October 21 Google announced at Web 2.0 Expo the coming-soon implementation of real-time Social Search incorporated into the regular search results page.

Results will appear at the bottom of the results page and will be culled from the searcher’s own social networks, the ones listed on his/her Google Profile.

Marketers who have been ignoring social web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed would do well to get on board now and start learning how to use them properly and building followings. Why? Imagine this scenario:

You run a website selling vacation packages for Tampa Beach, FL. One of your Twitter followers is looking for a good resort package deal for the coming weekend. It so happens that you’ve been tweeting about some great deals you’re offering for this very weekend. Your follower goes to Google to search for potential packages. Even if she missed your tweets, they will likely appear on her search page because she is linked to you via Twitter.

in reference to: BREAKING: Google Announces Social Search (view on Google Sidewiki) ]]> http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/22/marketers-get-ready-for-google-social-search/feed/ 0 http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/01/tip-use-news-feed-groups-to-filter-your-feed/ http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/01/tip-use-news-feed-groups-to-filter-your-feed/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:37:00 +0000 Mark Traphagen http://www.virante.com/blog/?p=41

Overwhelmed by your News Feed? Too much to read? Facebook allows you to create groups of your friends so you can temporarily just see who you want to see in your News Feed. For example, you might create a group of “Relatives” or “College Buddies.” To make a new group:

1. In the News Feed column, click “More”
2. Click “Create New List”
3. Name the list and select the friends you want to include.

Now when you visit Facebook, just click the group in your News Feed list, and you will see updates only from friends in that group!

in reference to: Facebook | Home (view on Google Sidewiki) ]]> http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/10/01/tip-use-news-feed-groups-to-filter-your-feed/feed/ 0 http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/09/29/new-facebook-feature-a-help-to-spreading-your-message-sort-of/ http://www.virante.com/blog/2009/09/29/new-facebook-feature-a-help-to-spreading-your-message-sort-of/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:03:00 +0000 Mark Traphagen http://www.virante.com/blog/?p=38 I wrote a couple of months ago about some elements of fail in Facebook’s Pages feature from a marketing standpoint. A recent new feature at Facebook solves the main gripe in that post…sort of.

Facebook now allows users to “tag” other users or Pages by name in a wall post or status message. Similar to Twitter, the feature uses an @username nomenclature. A very nice addition is that once you enter @ and start typing a name, a dropdown appears suggesting all possible matches among your friends. Any post or status you tag will appear in the notifications of the friend or Page thus tagged. This is similar to the tagging already allowed in Facebook for pictures, videos, and Notes.

This goes some way toward addressing one of my major gripes with Facebook as a means of spreading your message and brand: if someone clicks “share” on something you posted, it shows up in their Wall and their friends’ newsfeeds, but with no link or attribution back to the original. At least now you can encourage visitors to your page to provide a direct link, but they will still have to do this manually by typing in your @Pagename. You might want to include a line in your posts something like “If you share this, please add credit and link back to our Page by adding “@AcmeWidgets. Thanks!” (Of course, subbing your Page name for “AcmeWidgets.”

I’ll really sit up and pay attention the day that Facebook makes such linking automatic.

I’m speaking, of course, of so-called “negative keywords,” keywords that you don’t want your pay-per-click ad to show for. Negative keywords are perhaps one of the most overlooked–and yet most useful–ways of improving the performance of your ad campaigns. Why would you not want your ad to show? Isn’t any exposure good exposure?

In the “old days,” maximizing exposure was certainly the highest goal. When you’re advertising in print or broadcast media (TV, radio), you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping some will stick. You can’t micro-target your audience in those media, so your best hope is to expose your message as many times as possible, counting on the likelihood that some of those times potential customers will see it.

But one of the great advantages search-based advertising gives us (arguably its greatest advantage) is the micro-targeting that older forms could not offer. With finely-tuned keywords and ad text, an advertiser can have real hope to get his message in front of actual potential customers nearly each and every time it shows. Conversely, a PPC advertiser will want to have his/her ad not show to potential clickers she/he doesn’t want or need.

This is where negative keywords come into play. Say that you are marketing iPhone apps, but all the apps you’re marketing are pay apps. You should include the negative keyword “-free” in your ad campaigns because it is highly unlikely that anyone actively searching for “free iPhone apps” will convert on your pay-only app site.

Now here’s my suggestion to the folks at Google AdWords: Create a report in the new AdWords interface that displays the potential top negative keywords for any ad group. This shouldn’t be hard to do. The new interface already has an awesome report that displays the top actual search phrases that triggered a group’s keywords (very useful for discovering valuable phrase and exact matches you should be targeting). The only bad thing about that report is that it only displays phrases that actually resulted in clicks. Now that can still be a good source of potential negatives. But what would also be useful to know are the phrases that are generating lots of impressions for a keyword but no clicks. Those are CTR and Quality Score killers. So basically, the report I’m proposing would display the phrases that generated the most impressions with zero clicks, in descending order of impressions. That seems to me like a gold mine for some very positive negatives.

1. Newsfeed is now front-and-center and much more straightforward. It’s the flowing lifestream of your friends, as it is on the web version. (Request for future update: It would be nice to be able to filter the news feed by groups and to hide things as you can on the web version. The mobile version should recognize hides made on the web version.) UPDATE: Oops, my requested feature is already there in Facebook 3.0, just a bit hidden. Tap the “Newsfeed” button at the upper right while viewing your Newsfeed, and up pops a familiar iPhone roller wheel with all your groups!
2. Notifications are easy to find/view, and they now actually connect to the post they are notifying you about. That I was inspired to type that last phrase in italics points to just how inane the Facebook 2.0 for iPhone was.
3. You can now actually comment on and/or “like” posts in your Newsfeed or on friends’ Walls. This means that after two years at the top of the iPhone apps downloads rankings, Facebook for iPhone has finally actually become social.
4. Video, video, video. For some users, this might become the single most exciting upgrade in the new version. You can now upload video captured on your iPhone 3GS straight to your Facebook page. (Viewing videos in the iPhone app is not yet enabled, but Facebook says this is coming soon–which will be yet another revolutionary step of its own.) I was thrilled when iPhone 3GS not only added video but the ability to upload it straight to YouTube. But now I’m already ready to say “Buh-bye, YouTube.” Facebook’s new video upload from the iPhone is faster and easier than the YouTube version. Plus my videos go straight to where people I care about will actually see them. I predict that this addition will significantly increase Facebook’s share of the video social media market.
5. The most significant aspect of the Facebook iPhone makeover: (and why I titled this post “…Is Better Than We Think”) Facebook’s new iPhone app may be the best-yet, easiest-to-use social media interface for a mobile device we’ve seen. Since it is becoming increasingly apparent that mobile is the future of social media, the new iPhone app may go a long way in establishing Facebook as the leader in social media in the next few years. Look out, Twitter.