Back in December, I blogged about how Facebook was planning to have a major redesign to their website and it looks as though that day is finally here. According to Facebook, they started rolling out the the new design changes to 80 million users last night. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the lucky 80 million users (but somehow Jeff Hilimire was one of them). I got to take a look at his Facebook page, and although it will be a shock to most of the Facebook community at first, these changes will make “Facebooking” much easier.

Below are my top 3 things I like most about the new redesign:

1. Email Message Inbox – now you can check your messages and send messages without having to leave the homepage
2. Instant Messaging – your IM contact list will no longer be hidden in a popup menu in the bottom right corner of the page and has been moved to the left sidebar
3. Search – larger and more prominently placed search bar

What are your thoughts on the changes? Do you think it will improve your experience on Facebook?

I have begun a series of interviews of thought leaders here at Engauge. These interviews are short and to the point, covering topics that are highly relevant to CMOs, VPs of Marketing, Marketing Directors, Marketing Managers, and other marketing professionals.

In this episode, I interview Ed Hill, who is the Search Engine Optimization Manager for Engauge:

Questions that are answered in this video include:

• Why is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so important to the marketing mix?
• What are some of the most effective methods to influence your rankings in the search engines?
• What are some effective ways to measure the efficacy of Search Marketing programs?
• What are some tips to help sell the benefits of Search Engine Optimization up to the management team?
• How can one predict the effects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by leveraging blogs, link building, social media, or other marketing methods?

If you think that the topic might be relevant to a colleague, then pass this link on or you can tweet this message with the link at the top right:

http://www.Search-Engine-Optimization-for-Business.com/

Please let me know if there are other topics you would like to see us cover, by leaving a reply below.

There’s rarely a day that goes by where Microsoft and Google don’t challenge each other. They battle to control every aspect of our digital world, including email (hotmail vs. gmail), the browser (IE vs. Chrome), the desktop (Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs) and of course search (Microsoft Bing vs. Google Search). While Google has continued to gain ground on Microsoft, Yahoo and others, a new search competitor called Twitter has emerged.

Why Twitter? Well, besides serving as a social networking tool for celebrities, Twitter also provides a stream of breaking news and real time events. For example, if I am looking to learn about the latest developments in SharePoint, I avoid the search engines because the news that I’ll read there will be at least 24 hours old. Instead, I search for tweets with SharePoint as a word or hashtag in Twitter. The search results present me with a list of links on the latest SharePoint developments.

I’ve got to imagine that both Microsoft and Google recognize that they lack this capability. And Micrsoft Bing has jumped in with both feet with the recent announcement that tweets from Twitter will now be indexed and served up alongside Bing results (source). While details are still murky, it seems that Microsoft is trying to impart on us that Bing is the leader in search engine technology. Search behavior is being influenced by Google’s dominance of the market place so Microsoft has to challenge Google. This is not the first time that the Bing team has been innovative: they’ve released advancements in both image search capabilities, where you see an endless set of results, and video search capabilities, where you can play a video without having to leave the results. But with Twitter integration, they now have a leg up on real-time search results. By regaining ground, Microsoft puts the hurt back on Google because 97% of Google’s revenue is dependent on search.

The upcoming advancements also has ramifications beyond the worlds of Google and Microsoft. For example:

• Search engine marketers could use their web analytics package to determine if Bing or Twitter drove users to your site.  But once tweets are served alongside search results, it is going to be tough to give credit where credit is due. In other words, was it Twitter that brought me to the website or was it a search term in Bing?
• Search agencies have previously ignored tweets because the “nofollow” directive has no influence on rankings. They could leverage other techniques, such as Google Universal Search to improve site rankings. But with the upcoming change, they have to game Twitter to get their clients to the top of the page. NOTE: This Bing-Twitter deal may turn Twitter into a SPAM wasteland. Yikes!
• Developers have been able to leverage the Twitter API to create interesting mashups. Twitter hired Pivotal Labs last year to help fix their infrastructure last year (source). With Microsoft now in the game, the Twitter platform will be put to the test and hopefully it can withstand the additional strain. NOTE: Microsoft may also use this relationship to influence Twitter to use their server technologies and that would hurt the open-source movement.

The additional challenge that Google faces is that they have lots of irons in the fire, including the Android mobile platform and the Wave Collaboration platform. These are areas that Google needs to succeed in if they wish to loosen their revenue dependency on search. Since Google is in a dominant position, they can either sit back and let it all shake out or respond by following Microsoft’s lead. Based on the above, it seems that they better swiftly react.

NOTE: You can now search the latest tweets using the new Bing Twitter engine (source).

Twitter's New Homepage

It’s no secret that I’ve been critical of the way that Twitter has marketed itself to date. Want to know why most people aren’t interested in Twitter? It’s because they don’t think people will want to know that they just ate soup. No joke, that used to be one of the status update examples Twitter used on their website to encourage sign up. Technology geniuses, yes. Marketing wizards, no.

Now they’ve redesigned their homepage and its a baby-step in the right direction (so far its only their homepage — when they update the rest of the site I’ll upgrade them to an adult-step). The new design has the line, “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world“. I love that line so much more that “tell the world what you’re doing”. And they’ve added search to their homepage, which to me is incredibly critical.

Twitter presentation in Austin, TX

The secret sauce of Twitter is their search. When I speak to marketers about Twitter, as I did yesterday to a great group in Austin, TX (thanks Jenny for the pic from the event!), I find that most people weren’t really aware of the real-time search engine that Twitter has created. Truth be told, when I start talking about Twitter ushering us into the new world of the Real Time Web, my excitement perhaps goes a little overboard. I think this because someone in the presentation yesterday sarcastically commented, “It’s like the invention of the microwave!”. She was kidding, but I kinda like the analogy

Starting people off by educating them on the possibilities of real-time search will drastically improve the retention rates that have plagued Twitter thus far in its growth (still its the #1 growing social network, however). People will start their experience with Twitter seeing immediate benefits rather than feeling like they already use Facebook for status updates (Twitter is VERY different than Facebook, if you disagree let’s talk).

So, well done Twitter, keep the forward progress going. Now if you could just stop the spammer-guys that constantly follow/unfollow me in order to get my attention, you’d be on a roll.

Have you ever needed the answer to a question immediately? Ever been frustrated because you are away from a computer or Google is just not producing the results to the search you are looking for? Now the answers are at your fingertips anytime and anywhere. I recently discovered the site www.chacha.com. Cha Cha is a service that will answer any question you ask within minutes of asking.

Q: What is a baby fox called? A: A kit

Q: What is the name of the red teletubby? A: Po

Q: What should I blog about? A: You can blog about recent news, political figures, sports, actors and actresses or the war.

And the hardest question yet….

Q: What does Engauge Digital do? A: Engauge Digital, formerly Spunlogic, is an internet company that takes their client’s ideas and expands them to attract consumers.

You can get any question your heart desires answered by visiting the site or by sending a text to chacha (242242). The best part about the whole service is its FREE! The next time you are in a store wondering which brand cat food is the best to buy (which by the way is Natural Balance Ultra Formula according to Cha cha), just shoot a text to cha cha and it will promptly send you the answer, right back! Check it out and see if you can stump it.