Archive for the 'Web 2.0 Search' Category

Google Unveils Realtime Search Interface

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Ian Smith
on August 27, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith and Web 2.0 Search
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In December 2009, we posted “Google Integrates Realtime Search Results“, Google’s initial initiative to deliver content from social media platforms such Twitter, Facebook,  YouTube and other Web 2.0 tools with other web query results.  Figure 1 illustrates how Google presents realtime results (highlighted in yellow) when a broad search query is conducted using the keyword “Twitter”.

Figure 1: Real-time Search Results Amongst Web Search Results
Click On Image To Enlarge

Recently, Google has unveiled a brand new search interface that will allow users to enter their keywords.  Figure 2 presents the Google Realtime Search interface.

Figure 2: Google Realtime Search’s Interface

The results from a query using this specific interface is presented below in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Google Realtime Search Results For “Twitter”
Click On Image To Enlarge

The result page is composed of the following  three parts:

  • Trending bar chart - Know how hot the topic is over time.
  • Search results - Access relevant content on Twitter, Facebook, etc as they are placed online.
  • Top links - Get to know what are the most popular links that are being posted.

To access the Google Realtime Search Interface, click here.

Is Gathering Social Intelligence A New Concept?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on July 7, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
. 1 Comment

From Google’s collection of search and alert tools to dozens of dashboard applications, marketers are quickly adopting practices to gather information from social networks.  Recently, Nielsen has partnered with McKinsey to introduce social intelligence consulting.  In short, the offering entails gathering social media data and providing analysis.

After reading this announcement, I said to myself, “is this just another segment of the market intelligence pie being chopped into another slice?”

Although the initiative of gathering social intelligence on Web 2.0 sounds like a new and ambitious idea from a strategic point of view, the practice has been around for years.  Since the introduction of Usenet in 1980, internet researchers has had the ability to search, read and extract text from discussion groups on the web.  One of my first mandates in 1998 dealing with competitive intelligence research had me searching for comments regarding a specific drug for osteoporosis.  The client was interested in the negative comments especially when it came to long term side effects.

There is no doubt that the web has evolved since 1990.  From Web 2.0 based sites as sources of information to content monitoring applications, access to marketing intelligence is becoming easier for researchers and analysts.  A solid grasp of internet intelligence search methodologies and tools will provide an advantage to individuals who would like to avoid costly consulting services to collect and analysis of social conversations, mentions and real time information.

Is there a huge difference between “social intelligence” and “competitive intelligence” regardless of how information is gathered?

Your thoughts?

Social Media Monitoring With FPinfomart Heartbeat

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Ian Smith
on June 21, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
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As content increases on Web 2.0, the need to implement a social media monitoring system is essential for competitive intelligence functions within large and small companies.  As seen in the posts, “Simple Monitoring Of Social Networks With Google Reader” and “Social Media Monitoring With Radian6“, there are applications available to cull strategic details about competitors and their products or services.  Recently, I had an opportunity to take FPinfomart Heartbeat for a test drive.  FPinfomart is a Canadian media monitoring and corporate information service providers.

FPinfomart Heartbeat is an application that allows user to participate directly in social conversations and monitor the conversations through one interface.  Once an user logs in, a dashboard is provided to access to information regarding the keyword(s) that are being tracked across multiple social networks, including forums.  Figure 1 presents the dashboard for the keyword, “Tylenol“, where the latest information on the amount of mentions per social network is posted.

Figure 1: Heartbeat Dashboard For Mentions of “Tylenol”

Individuals interested in the amount of mentions for alternatives brands of Tylenol, Heartbeat supplies statistics as seen in Figure 2.


Figure 2:  Share of Mentions of Alternatives to “Tylenol”

To begin investigating the content gathered by the tool, users can click upon one of the icons representing the Web 2.0 applications.   Figure 3 illustrates the results or “Your Heartbeats” from blog posts that mentions, “Tylenol” and filtered by the tag, “side-effects”.

Figure 3: Filtered Heartbeats by “side-effects” Tag for Tylenol, Motrin and Advil

Heartbeat provides a wide array of metrics to measure mentions on social networks.  Figure 4 presents the “Geography” measurement for “Tylenol”.

Figure 4: Measuring Heartbeats by Geography

Heartbeat also offers a powerful comparison tool for social mentions.  As users click on the “Compare” tab on the dashboard, there are six criteria in which they can generate charts from.  Figure 5 is a look at the gender comparison charts for the Tylenol, Motrin and Advil.

Figure 5: Gender Comparison of Mentions For Tylenol, Motrin and Advil

For individuals who are seeking to improve their Web 2.0 monitoring capabilities, be sure inquire about FPInfomart Heartbeat.

Searching For Facebook Statuses With Openbook

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Ian Smith
on June 18, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith and Web 2.0 Search
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A number of my friends on and off Facebook has asked me if there is a way to conduct a keyword search on Facebook statuses.  Well, all I have say is, “There is now with Openbook!!!”  The search interface is present in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Openbook’s Search Interface

By simply entering keywords, Openbook will provide relevant status updates that contains the words.  Figure 2 provides a sample of  the results given for the  query, “investment attraction” on June 14th, 2010.

Figure 2: Sample Results For “investment attraction”

The sole sorting functionality of Openbook is the ability to filter statuses from males and females located beside the search box.

Openbook is available at www.youropenbook.org

Company Buzz App On LinkedIn

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Ian Smith
on June 14, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
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It seems that LinkedIn is attempting to make life a bit easier for competitive intelligence researchers.  First, it was the Company Follow function, (please read, Linkedin Follow Function and Competitive Intelligence) and recently, the business social network has revamped their “Company Buzz” application.

This application allows users to monitor the mentions of companies on Twitter, identify trends and track buzz over time.

Once the the application is downloaded onto your profile,  you will have access to a search interface as seen as in Figure 1 where the company name, LinkedIn is used.

Figure 1: Company Buzz Results For LinkedIn

Adding companies to monitor tweets can be done by simply entering their names and  clicking on the “Save this search” link.  Figure 2 profiles the result page when Nike and Reebok is added to the Saved Searches.

Figure 2: Nike and Reebok Added To The Saved Search

For each Company that is added, the application provides a collection of Buzz Words as seen in Figure 2.  Once clicked upon, the buzz words link will lead to a page of results with the word appearance in each tweet.  In Figure 3, the buzz word, “shoes” for  Reebok is highlighted in blue and the associated tweets are listed.

Figure 3: Buzz Words Results - “shoes”

Data on trends (mentions) is also available courtesy of a line graph as seen in Figure 4 for Nike.


Figure 4: Company Buzz Trend Graph For Nike

Downloading the application on your LinkedIn profile is practical.  It will prevent you from jumping to Twitter to retrieve the tweets and generate a graph.

Bing Social Search Tool

Published
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Ian Smith
on June 11, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Internet tools and Web 2.0 Search
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Bing has just unveiled their new tool, Bing Social, in hopes of competing with the vast array of social media search tool.  Bing Social aims to provide users with access to real-time content on Twitter and Facebook in terms of status updates.

By default, Bing Social presents updates within the past hour however; the time frame can be changed to past day and past week.  Figure 1 illustrated the results for the keyword query, “B2B Social Media”

Figure 1: Bing Social Results For “B2B Social Media”

As seen in the screen shot, the results can be filtered on the basis of the following two criteria:

  • Public Updates
  • Shared Links

By clicking on the “Shared Links” tab, users are provided with links on the web that are posted on Twitter with the associated title of the page or article as seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Results Shared Links For “B2B Social Media”

In addition, Bing Social will list the tweets that contains the title of the page or article as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Tweet(s) With Shared Links

For more details on Bing Social, please watch the following YouTube clip.

Bing Social is available at www.bing.com/social

SouthAfrica.info Facebook Fan Page

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 26, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Friday Afternoon Reading, Investment Attraction, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

My colleague, Isabelle Poirier alerted me to the SouthAfrica.info Facebook Fan Page which is worth a look from agencies who are still wondering what content should be posted on a Facebook page.

The page is an extension of the International Marketing Council of South Africa website and as part of its web 2.0 branding campaign for the country.  Other elements of the campaign include RSS Feeds and a Twitter account, SA_Info.  Figure 1 is a screen shot of the Facebook Page.

Figure 1: SouthAfrica.info Facebook Page

The first thing that visitors notice on the page are the photographs associated with each postings.  The content that is available is a mix of news dealing the South African economy and the upcoming World Cup of Soccer.  Figure 2 is a look of postings from May 21st and May 24th, 2010 on the subject of the country’s GDP and an investment project from Omina Solutions.

Figure 2: Postings On SouthAfrica.info From May 24th and May 20th, 2010

The search engine optimization for the Facebook Page needs a bit of work.  Entering the keywords, “south africa” + investment and “south africa” + “economic development” in Google does not deliver the direct link to the page.

Linkedin Follow Function and Competitive Intelligence

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Ian Smith
on May 10, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
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On April 29th, 2010, via “Get on the inside track with “Company Follow”“, Linkedin launched its new “Follow” function similar to Twitter.  This announcement should be met with great joy by competitive intelligence professionals.  It is just another tool to use to gather strategic intelligence as discussed in “Using LinkedIn People Search To Profile A Company“.

Upon reflecting on the advantages of using the tool, one has to take a step back and consider the defensive competitive intelligence ramifications of Linkedin’s new toy.

As stated in “Defensive Competitive Intelligence In A Web 2.0 Environment”, there are difference scenarios that can come to the forefront on a daily basis on social media applications.  Now with the “Company Follow” feature, companies will have to reconsider their visibility on the social media tool.

Here are two some discussion points to mull over if your company has profile page on LinkedIn.

1. Is it necessary to have a profile on LinkedIn? - Although social media sites affords companies with an inexpensive avenue to market themselves online, it provides competitive intelligence researchers with a resource to gather information easily.  Reconsider what should be posted and edit the information on the page.

2. What is on employees’ profile? Providing access to employees’ profile has its consequences.  As seen in “Competitive Intelligence Research With LinkedIn - Who’s Hiring?”, significant details can be collected and assessed to anticipate a strategic move.  Figure 1 is screen shot of a list of new hires at Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft Corporation’s New Hires Listed On LinkedIn

Simple Monitoring Of Social Networks With Google Reader

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 3, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence and Web 2.0 Search
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In our post, “Monitoring Social Networks For Economic Development“, we discussed the importance of tracking content on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  Although there are tools such as Radian6 as seen in “Social Media Monitoring With Radian6“, a simple tool like Google Reader can aid competitive intelligence researchers.  Here’s how.

As a start up company that is interested in competing with Zappos.com, your strategic planning team would like you to gather information that is available on Web 2.0 sites, specifically, on their Facebook page and Zappos.com  CEO Tony Hsein’s Twitter feed.  Conducting a search of the web, allows you to identify the pages as seen in Figure 1and 2.

Figure 1: Zappos.com’s Facebook Page
Click On Image To Enlarge

Figure 2: Zappos.com Tony Hsein’s Twitter Feed
Click On Image To Enlarge

Instead of continuously visiting these sources of strategic intelligence to gather significant data, a Google Reader account can used to manage the entire process by following the three steps.

Step 1: Open a Google Reader Account

With a valid Google account, you can access the reader application that allows you to monitor content on the web via Atom and RSS feeds and web addresses.

Step 2: Add web address and RSS feed

With an open Google Reader account, copy and paste the web address of Zappos.com Facebook Page by clicking on “Add subscription” as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Adding Zappos.com’s Facebook Page To Google

The same process can be used to add the RSS from the Tony Hsein’s Twitter feed.

Step 3: Manage Subscription

Now that the address and feed are added, you can start managing and browsing through the content through Google Reader.  Figure 4 illustrates the final product of the three step process which are the tweets from the Twitter page.

Figure 4: Zappos.com’s Tweets Via Google Reader

The content from the Facebook page is available in a different file on the reader application.

Searching For Past Tweets With Google Replay

Published
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Ian Smith
on April 23, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Internet tools and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

As announced in “Replay it: Google search across the Twitter archive“, Google is giving users the ability to find relevant tweets from February 2010 to the present thanks to Google Replay.  In the upcoming months, Google has plans to access and index all content from the social networking tool since its introduction on March 21st, 2006.

Figure 1 is a screen shot of the result page when the keywords, “investment attraction” is entered into Google Replay.

Google Replay Results For Investment Attraction

Figure 1: Google Replay’s Results For “Investment Attraction”
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

As seen in Figure 1, a timeline is available above the results to access relevant tweets by date.  Selecting March 20th, 2010, Google Replay will list the tweet(s) sent on that day illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Google Replay’s Results For “Investment Attraction” On March 20th, 2010
Please Click On Image To Enlarge

Users may visit the advanced search section to filter some of the unwanted results.

Google Replay is available at the following link.

Note: It is recommended that Google Replay should be used with the experimental version of Google search to have access to timeline above the results.  Select the “Keyboard shortcuts” option.