The HTC One's Zoe is ideal for Google's new Auto Awesome

At Google I/O yesterday Google+ enjoyed a wave of updates. I've always been fond on the network, especially the communities and it feels like Google is making steady progress with the platform. I suspect most people will have the new edition already but, if not, I posted some screenshots of new plus last night.

One of the new features is Auto Awesome. This is an automatic layer to Google+ that improves photos and one of the features is Auto Awesome motion. If Google detects you've uploaded five or more similar photos in a row then it'll (may) animate them.

As it happens, the HTC One has a feature called Zoe which takes a short video/series of still images in an "uber burst". When you have auto sync on then all these images are uploaded from your phone to Google+. It's been a bit quirky until today. Now it has a practical application.

The HTC One's Zoe feature makes it easy to trigger Motion Photos in Google+. There's a sample below... and you'll see it's not quite right.



The car is clearly out of phase. Now, as it happens, the motion photo has been created in the order the pictures were uploaded. This screen grab shows what I mean. So it's not as if the Auto Awesome decided to drive the car in a crazy way. The snafu here seems to be in the order the HTC One with Zoe passed the pictures over to Google+ for automatic uploading.

It's also worth noting that the image is given the file name "IMAG0162_ZOEVIDEO-MOTION.gif".

Screenshots from the new Google+

I'm in the UK. Returning home tonight I found myself logged out of Google. Annoying when that happens, right? Logging back in I quickly discovered a whole new Google+.

It feels very responsive but the panels fly around somewhat; especially when you start writing a new post.

A key new element seems to be YouTube. That's right, the integration between Google+ and YouTube is even closer now as the smart money had been placed on some time ago.

Reviews, for local, are equally integrated. It feels that Google will sort out EU and US' FTC agreements and work closely to push Local.

Google serves my very own birthday cake doodle

Ever since Google announced the death of Google Reader my default search engine is Bing. I still use Google, though, I have to; it's work. This means I do see the doodles; just at 10am, rather than 9am.

Today I noticed a new doodle. A lovely birthday cake. I clicked on the doodle (always best practise for work) and wound up on this page. Odd?

Ah-ha! This is my own personal doodle. Google's given me a birthday cake. It's a silly reason to use Google+ but it's a nice way to say thank you for doing so.



I call this: doodle cake.

Why I signed the Modern Marketing Manifesto

Econsultancy have been working hard to collect, compile, understand and distil all the digital marketing wisdom that passes through their roundtables, events, blog posts and training sessions. The result is the Modern Marketing Manifesto. You should read it. You might even want to sign it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of digital marketing, especially the areas I’m deeply involved in; paid search, natural search, affiliates, display and various “social” media activities. It feels like I’m over due in getting some of these thoughts out of my head and on to paper, PPT or even blog posts. It’s not easy and that’s why I recognise Econsultancy’s success.

In particular I wanted to pull out a few YES, that’s it snippets from the Modern Marketing Manifesto and attach a word or two of my own brain juice.

It is a mindset rather than just an executional approach. If you do not ‘get digital’ then you cannot be a modern marketer.

Very much so. I call this the battle of Product vs Service. I strongly believe that digital marketing is not a product. It’s not defined by the processes and then delivered exclusively through excellent execution. Although excellence is always important.

Digital marketing is a culture.

We believe the internet has forced transparency upon brands and businesses. Brands no longer control the message, consumers do.

The word “story” is powerful but often used incorrectly. Brands can no longer dictate how people should perceive them. Brands determine how people view them, assign attributes to them and react to them by the way brands behave.

We believe technology is an enabler rather than a solution in itself.

And

We believe we need creativity just as much as we need technology.

Digital marketing operates in the digital medium. Technology and creative wonders are important assets. The production and deployment of media assets is no substitute for a media/marketing strategy.

We believe social media is about changing our business culture, the ways we work and the ways we engage with our colleagues and customers. It is about creating businesses that have social in their DNA.

You will not succeed if your business cannot evolve to modern standards.

Agile - we must be responsive and adaptive. We embrace change. We believe in flexibility and iteration.

We must find a balance between speed and risk while recognising that a lack of speed is sometimes a catalyst for greater risk. This means brands need to think about sign-off and approval processes. Agencies need to think twice about ECDs being used to approve tweets.

To see the whole Modern Marketing Manifesto pop over to Econsultancy and you agree with what’s been compiled then consider signing. Stick your neck out.

YouTube hinting at paid channels versus branded, sponsored, content

We're getting hints that YouTube might introduce paid channels. I'm in two minds about that news; I certainly want access to more legal streaming but YouTube always been so open.

I suspect we'll see a rise of nicely sponsored videos. This week we've already seen IGN Direct sponsor Walk off the Earth's cover of Material Girl. There's also branded content which is exactly the same except the other way around.

For example, this video from Sony is out today and promotes the Xperia Z range. It features the band the Pyyramids, Damian Kulash of OK Go and photography from the Xperia Z smartphone experly handled by Martien Mulder. The piece is called From Under Other Stars.



Disclaimer: client and a LBi production.

WolframAlpha shows Reddit some love; graphing the reddit curve

The knowledge engine WolframAlpha is pretty clever and full of tricks. Here's one I didn't know about until recently. WolframAlpha will graph the Reddit curve for you.

In other words, the company were Sergey Brin was an intern before launching Google, launched a search engine which draws Reddit logos. That's what what I call a geeky ecosystem.



If you're thinking that shape might have been hard to plot... yes. Yes, it was! Want to see the full formula? You'll need to click to enlarge.

Hating Google is bad for your SEO

The SEO industry, such as it is, is a creature of fashion. Right now my perception is that it’s a fashionable time to be down on Google.

This is understandable. There are questions around the company’s tax policies. They killed Google Reader. They killed the Google Affiliate Network. They didn’t even try to sell any of those assets.

At the same time SEO is evolving. The number of people who refuse to accept the change to an earned media approach, with links and other signals secured through engagement (be that creative, outreach or a combination of the two) are dropping in number. That doesn’t mean the situation is resentment free. After all, who likes being dragged out of their comfort zone?

I believe a healthy scepticism is best.

Digital marketing professionals – those in and outside of SEO – need to critically analyse anything Google does. It’s right to ask questions like “What’s the motivation behind Enhanced Campaigns?”. SEOs need to avoid being fed lines by any search engine.

That said; hating Google is bad. In fact, hating Google is harmful to your SEO.

Take Google+. The platform was disliked by many SEOs from early on. Sure, some of those SEOs perhaps didn’t want or couldn’t handle yet another social layer. Other SEOs couldn’t see how Google was likely to use Google+ and so overlooked it. Some SEOs decided, as a matter of principle, not to engage with it. Some didn’t want Google to succeed in “social”.

I believe that was a mistake. The concept of authorship is now established and even if Google are coy, suggesting no advantage in SERPs, for now it’s hard to imagine there’s no signal to be found in the quality of the author. Those SEOs without Google+ experience are at a disadvantage to those SEOs with it. Brands without Google+ success are at a disadvantage to those who have found it.

In this scenario it’s clear to say that disliking Google so much as to avoid Google+ was a tactical mistake.

Equally, if you can’t imagine what Google might do to improve the quality of the search results (perhaps you can only imagine what Google will do to improve income) puts you at a disadvantage at future proofing your SEO strategies.

SEOs must be interested and excited by Google. They must maintain the passion to try out Google’s new initiatives and inventions. SEO must also keep their eyes open. Failure to do so; either by design or by chance, reduces their effectiveness as a digital marketing professional.

Image credit: Mean Old Goat by Eirewolf Creations at Etsy.

An eye on ionSearch 2013

I was at the first ionSearch last year when it was a one day event and the chat was how SEO had evolved from the mathematics of building links to the strategy of earning trusted links.

This year ionSearch was much bigger. It was a two day event, had tools and technology from around the world, sessions and panels on SEO and PPC. I was lucky enough to feature on three panels; Affiliates and Search, Local Search and Big Brand Search. You can see my Tweet coverage here.



The big talking about this year was around the role of Creative and Outreach. What matters most in a successful SEO campaign? We had PR agencies (partnered with SEO agencies) get up on stage and argue it was the content, creative idea and execution that mattered the most. We had content marketing agencies that got up on stage and argued that it was the outreach that mattered most.

I asked the question to the final panel; “If you had £10,000 to spend would you split it £2k on creative and £8k on outreach or £8k on creative and £2k on outreach?” The final answer? Andy Atkins-Krüger, the moderator cheated a little (okay, a lot) by saying he would spend £6 on research and then £2k on each of creative and outreach.

The point there is that the creative idea absolutely has to tie into the audiences you intend to outreach too. The audiences you outreach to absolutely have to have some investment in the idea or message you are bringing to them.

It’s hard to imagine a Search conference of 2006 would have this sort of discussion. A few years ago the mantra “a link is a link” might have been heard. This year we had that expression denounced and trounced.

SEO has changed.

In fact, outside the official sessions there was chat on the name “SEO”. Does it still apply? People gossiped over whether – when – brands like SEOMoz or SEOGadget would rebrand. Andrew Dumont from SEOMoz did hint at a secret project but wouldn’t be drawn on branding. The secret project? Likely to be another technical innovation from the Mozzers.

Of the three sessions I spoke in it may have been the last one (and the 9am on day 2) panel that I enjoyed the most. This was a return to Local Search.

I got to speculate on the impact of the FTC ruling in the States (no scraping Yelp) combined with the fresh EU ruling (highlight your own results). I think the two may combine so that Google needs to collect data into their own system (to remove the need to take/index/crawl others) and then are told to prominently highlight those results if/when they appear in search results! I ask you; does that sound like a terrible thing for Google?

The audience in the session didn’t think so and my fellow panellists (Aleyda Solis of Seer Interactive and Daniel Bianchini of SEOptimise) kindly agreed with my suggestion that G+ Local was an “in it to win it” for a quick win local strategy. We all agreed that bigger brands needed a broader approach for the long term.

Next year? Already looking forward to it.