Archive for critical approach to online media

5 reasons you should be scared of Google

Aug 4 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media
1 Comment

You should be scared of Google. I’ve been saying it for years… here are 5 good reasons from Cracked.com

Some people think that ‘Google’ exists to… help them.

These same people think Facebook is a way for people, to, like connect with each other?  In their worlds, Schmidt, Page and Zuckerberg are just cool people who got really rich by creating really useful stuff.  They don’t care what it means.  Jeez, stop getting all serious about it and just, like, use it, mkay?

If you’re one of these people, you couldn’t be more wrong. Sorry to poop your party. Google stopped being about ‘just finding things’ the second Schmidt and Page worked out that being able to know what people were looking for was the goldmine.

The same applies to Facebook. For about five minutes, it was about a guy just trying to be popular with girls. Pretty soon, it was about harnessing that same basic desire in everyone else to create a world that people would pay – a lot – to sell into.

Both these organisations are now so powerful they (along with others like eBay and PayPal) are effectively laws unto themselves, effectively free from control by any body, nation or even groups of nations.

I’ve never visited Cracked.com (strapline ‘America’s only humour & video site since 1958′) before and I came across this piece about why you should be afraid of Google by accident but it’s worth a read.

All I can say is that I hope we’re going to live long enough to regret allowing Google and Facebook to do exactly what they want.

Down the rabbit hole of online reputation

May 14 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media, marketing
2 Comments

Following the online reputation White Rabbit leads me to ask questions of yet another online business directory

This is what I love about the internet. Follow any White Rabbit that passes, and before you know it, you’re falling down a rabbit hole that leads to only one place: Dodgyland.

Come with me on a journey.

It all begins with noticing a tweet on my Twitter search widget (over there on the nav bar) about ‘online reputation management’.  I click the link which takes me to a blog page about managing your reputation by creating fake identities and fake content to test the ‘Google’ visibility of certain platforms and directories. Mmmm ok. I have views on that, but another time. Read on.

I note the name of the poster: Ehud Furman. A quick Google search shows Ehud is the founder of a service called ‘LookUpPage’ a service that seems to offer you a business web page with a claim that ‘95% of LookUpPage Pro users are featured on the first page of Google’. Uh-oh. That’s torn it – you went and triggered my ‘online directory’ alarm! Blast it – now I’ve just got to go and have a closer look :-)

So I delve into the business directory, determined to test the benefits on offers to a random premium (paying) member.  I scroll down to find our lucky winner, one Mr. Jimmy Petruzzi who appears to be a NLP practitioner in Manchester.

So, first of all, I take a look at Jimmy’s LookUpPage page. I notice he’s attached a custom domain name to it. First thing that strikes me is that it’s all a bit messy, but, hey, if it provides useful Google visibility for his business, then maybe it’s worth it?

How can I tell if it’s worth paying for a premium listing in an online business directory?

You can use my time-honoured Deek-O-Matic Online Directory Tester:

1) First I search Google for “nlp trainer manchester” – the kind of basic search phrase you’d think Jimmy would want prospects to find him for. However, neither his own website or his LookUpPage appear on the first couple of pages for that phrase.

2) I then look at his LookUpPage header to see what key phrases are in it and then do a search on ‘Jimmy Petruzzi’ and ‘NLP centre of excellence‘ both of which return his LookUpPage on P1 of Google.

It appears that for his money, all Jimmy gets is listings on P1 of Google for two completely uncompetitive terms: his own name and that of his company. Waaah. He could – and in fact, does – achieve this same result with his own website. Doinggg???

There’s an important point to make here: the average directory punter who doesn’t quite get how Google works thinks that this is a result. It isn’t. The whole point of search engine marketing is to be found in Google search results for the keywords that the prospects you want to do business with actually type into Google. Being found for your own name or the specific name of your business ISN’T an achievement for two simple reasons: 1) because they’re not hotly contested key phrases and 2) because people typing them by default already know you and your business exist. Doh.

Anyone giving you the impression that getting your name / business name into P1 of Google results will generate business for you is seriously misleading you – not least because you could just as easily do this yourself (as Jimmy already has).

So what is the benefit to him of paying for this service? You tell me.

Conclusion

This test shows that a premium listing with this directory brings Jimmy no real-world benefit at all because it doesn’t offer him any Google visibility to new prospects (people who don’t already know him & his business). 

But it points to a bigger problem: that customers of this kind of directory, by definition, don’t understand the distinctions I’ve just made. With that in mind and coupled with sales pitches that strongly suggest increased business as a benefit of membership (as was the case in a recent well-document case on this site) it’s hard not to conclude that this lack of understanding suits online directories.

You can tell I’m being restrained here. To be blunt about Google marketing, there’s no easy or cheap way to get your products into the public eye in a competitive market.

Something else I don’t think Jimmy understands is that LookUpPage adds a final, self-serving twist to his premium listing:

You can see the company that sells the listing has used half of the meta description to promote itself. Nifty.

I’ve been doing this common-sense test for years now, and the majority of the online directory services I’ve tested don’t appear to offer any benefits.

If I’ve got it wrong, please let me know. I don’t mean come here and get angry and defensive; I mean come here, read my critique carefully then respond in testable, black and white terms exactly what the benefits on offer are.

Jimmy, if you’re reading this, I hope business is going well. If you have a view on anything I’ve written here then please feel free to comment.

User reviews into Adwords??

May 1 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, critical approach to online media, culture, feedback
1 Comment

What’s Google doing adding reviews to Adwords listings in search results?

For some time I’ve been thinking that the anonymous user review + the competitive environment of Google search = a disastrous formula for all concerned.  Why? Because anonymity pretty much guarantees that reviews end up being used to ‘game’ the market. This isn’t me being negative about human nature, this is just pragmatism.  If 97% of all email sent everyday is spam…well, you get what I’m saying.

Now, Google is going to put user reviews into the search results beneath paying advertiser’s ads. But which reviews? Apparently, those that come from a ‘closed’ system provided by a partner,  Bazaarvoice.com.  According to this report, review information will only be added from a review system if the organisation using it agrees.

(picture from Earthblog News)

So who’s going to want truly open and potentially critical reviews turning up in the search results next to their carefully crafted, paid-for Google ads?  Er, no-one. They’re going to want nice reviews that will make their ads look more attractive. Bye bye transparency.

All of which continues to make a mockery of the noble ideas about feedback and transparency that social media pundits like to talk about. The true value of feedback in business (as in life) is its role in driving learning, development and change but Google – like every other business dealing in ‘user generated reviews’ – is only interested in feedback as a commodity it can trade to businesses seeking competitive advantage.

So what’s Google doing adding reviews to paid ads in the search results? Just more of what it’s always been doing from the start: converting human knowledge into cash via the technology of the ‘keyword’.

Don’t be evil? Don’t make me laugh. I can’t help think that Google has been nothing but – and that we’ve colluded with it every step of the way ;-)

The Anonymous Review spells the end for online feedback, reviews and recommendations

Apr 25 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media, review
8 Comments

Is the ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ being destroyed by the anonymous review?

Of all the things that the internet promised, increasing transparency was in many ways the most promising.  Fans of ’social media’ enthuse about how micro-blogging networks (like Twitter, Facebook etc) bring the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to bear on big corporations and organisations – and force them to listen and change their ways.

The ‘user review’ is now an integral part of most consumer-related websites: from Amazon, to eBay, to TripAdvisor, to Plebble, to Unvarnished, to coworker.com and countless more. And if you read the statistics, it seems that the reviews we find there make a difference to what we choose to do.

The problem is that this dream is already turning sour – and for one reason: the anonymous review.

The backlash is already underway.  The reputation of TripAdvisor has been sliding downhill for the last year because it cannot (or will not) take more steps to ensure the identity – and accountability – of its reviewers.  The resultant misuse of the review system, as hotels attempt to gain an advantage over their competitors, has degraded trustworthiness of the site.  And in the news just yesterday, we heard of the UK history Professor who admitted to faking positive reviews for his own books at Amazon (at the same time as slagging off those of his peers).

Today, I did a quick test of Plebble.com – another of those apparently well-meaning ‘consumer review’ websites.  I signed up using an alternative email address and created a fake company called ‘My Imaginary Competitor‘ and then proceeded to review it  – see pic above.

Plebble.com’s system picked up that I used some potentially ‘defamatory’ words, but left me to make the choice of whether or not to continue and publish – which of course, I did.  But ask yourself: if I was hell-bent on damaging My Imaginary Competitor, would I care, hiding behind a hotmail address from my local Starbucks that my remarks were defamatory?

Now imagine if I’d just gone on and posted that review about YOUR company.

The first you’d know of it would be an invitation from Plebble.com to join their community. And that’s how it works – and how it’s going to be, more and more – as review sites like this use ‘user reviews’ to pull unsuspecting businesses into their worlds.

And if I had posted that review about your business,  do you think Plebble.com would respond to your requests for it to be taken down without you having to resort to legal threats? I don’t know but – if TripAdvisor is anything to go by – I doubt it. Their entire business model would collapse if they gave in to pressure to remove bad reviews, it’s as simple as that.

I’ve not singled out Plebble.com for any other reason than their MD followed me on Twitter today and that reminded me they existed. I was curious to see whether or not they had put in place any controls to ensure the veracity of what their reviewers post.  They clearly haven’t. In allowing anonymous reviews, they, like most (if not all) the other review sites guarantee their system will be corrupted by reviews designed to damage or gain advantage.

And before the guys at Plebble.com (or TripAdvisor for that matter) get prickly at having criticism levelled at them, they need to remember that by soliciting reviews from a businesses’s customers, they give that business no choice about whether they want to be featured or not.

Here’s the problem: while companies like Plebble put such a lack of accountability at the heart of their business model, it’s hard to imagine how they’ll ever be willing to be accountable for the consequences created by that business model.

I’m a great fan of feedback. It’s where we started out with our business – and where we’re coming back to in the work with online reputation. But feedback doesn’t work when it’s disconnected from the giver and the receiver – and that’s the mistake that the review site people continue to make. Why? Because meaningful accountability would seriously mess up the monetization process and we can’t have that, can we?

The issue of anonymous reviews is discussed in today’s Guardian here.

Is this latent semantic indexing at work…

Apr 19 | by Sam Deeks | WARNING!!, critical approach to online media
No Comments

..or just that Google simply doesn’t care what things mean?

Lols.

Here’s a nice surprise for me in my web stats today.

Eww.  If you run a blog (or intend to), pretty soon you’ll get something similar to this appearing – leaving you wondering two things: firstly, “who’s searching my name like that?” (depends on how many unsavoury and vengeful people you’ve cheesed off) and second “why does Google return my site when that word isn’t anywhere in it?”

Is this the result of Google’s famous ‘latent semantic indexing’ at work? That clever algorithm that makes connections between words with related meanings? What’s true is that I have in the past blogged about protecting kids from unsavoury people online.  Is Google saying to me “Hey, since you’ve blogged about pornographers targeting kiddies via YouTube, we’ll return your site when someone searches for your name + …….. as a special favour”?

Why, thanks, Google.

Incidentally, the last item on that list (above) is an example of the same thing at work. Last December, a Google search for that phrase started to return my site – even though that phrase didn’t appear anywhere (either literally OR semantically!!).  The result? A lot of their dissatisfied customers looking for a place to share their experiences, plenty of revealing comments, a good deal of reputation pressure, some refunds – and finally a threat of legal action against me ;-) How did that occur? I had written a post about them a year earlier.  Add that (as Google clearly has) to the fact that I also write some posts about scams on this site and hey presto – a reputation crisis.

So, the moral of this story is that in GoogleWorld, you should expect to be guilty by association at some point or other – no matter what you have or haven’t done.

Ning withdraws free social network platform

Apr 17 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media, online networking
No Comments

Ning’s withdrawal of free social networking begs the question: was it going in the wrong direction from the start?

The fact that Ning has just announced that it is withdrawing it’s free (‘ad-supported’) social network platform will come as a shock to many people who accepted Ning’s invitation and invested time and energy into building their own social network based on the Ning format.  Existing members will be offered the opportunity to pay or leave.

Clearly the ‘ad-supported’ model isn’t bringing Ning the return it expected or needs.  I’m not surprised. I almost never click on Google Ads and nor does anyone else I know.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this can’t bring the kind of returns on investment that people are looking for.  So out goes the ad-supported model and in comes the ‘pay for service’ model – and that can’t be good news for the Google Ad model.

If Ning made a mistake with its business model, maybe it made an even bigger one in its underlying assumption that people want to create, populate and control a social networking environment when in fact, all they want to do is participate in the ones that are already out there, fully populated, like Facebook and Twitter.

How to complain…. about PayPal or eBay?

Apr 2 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, critical approach to online media
4 Comments

Look at how PayPal and eBay deal with this question online.

Then look at how other ‘real world’ companies deal with it.

A little over a year ago, following my brother’s experience of a ‘buyer dispute scam’ (buyer receives goods, claims they’re faulty or not as described, gets refund from PayPal, keeps what you sent them and returns whatever they feel like returning) I tried to research who regulates PayPal.

I spent the best part of a day talking to people at the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service and posted their best advice (which frankly didn’t amount to much) in the form of a step-by-step guide for readers to follow if they needed to complain about PayPal’s conduct.

Continue Reading…

Social Computing: social media inside a walled community

Mar 19 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media, what do you think?
4 Comments

Is Microsoft’s Sharepoint an example of social media  inside a walled community?

The idea of ’social media’ within a firewalled community strikes me as both logical and incongruent.

Logical, because I can of course, understand why an organisation only wants social networking to occur within its own walls. Who wants to give away knowledge and insight to a competitor, right?

So where’s the incongruence?

For me, its in the tension between social media’s inherent tendency to break down walls, increase connection and transparency and the need of business to use that effect locally in pursuit of a competitive advantage.

If there’s one message coming through to us in the 21st century – a cold, wet fish-slap-in-the-face – it’s that, as a species, we really may be close to the end of that ‘win-lose’ way of doing things. Are we as a species ready to look at that? Will we – and our ideas about business – be able to evolve into something sustainable for the human species?

And does social media really have a role to play in that process?

What do you think?

James Belvoir – get yourself a new agent :-)

Feb 27 | by Sam Deeks | GRRRR!!!, critical approach to online media
No Comments

If you’re going to fake testimonials, at least try to make them stand up to 10 seconds of Googling..

I really dislike Facebook and its advertisers.  Facebook ads are generally exploitative and very often fall apart with the slightest critical inspection.

Occasionally I click one just to remind myself just how much I dislike them.  This one made me chuckle this evening – featuring a ‘testimonial’ from a rather miserable-looking young male model.

A quick Google search shows no-one by that name, anywhere.  Either James Belvoir has a really rubbish agent or this is an example of yet another FB advertiser faking testimonials.

Call me old-fashioned, but I find the cynicism of a business that fakes testimonials to sell junk to youngsters struggling with hair loss revolting.

Pleaserobme.com: a great way to make a point about social media

Feb 18 | by Sam Deeks | critical approach to online media, what do you think?
No Comments

www.pleaserobme.com demonstrates just how uncritical many social media users really are

Just came across this story on BBC website about a Dutch youngster who built a site that uses Twitter information about peoples’ locations to pintpoint empty homes.

The site’s makers say that they did it to make the point that anyone with half a brain can misuse the kind of personal information that people readily give for free every time they create content or sign up for a new ‘app’ in a social networking site. Continue Reading…

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