How the Crowd is Changing the News (SXSW)

Here at SXSW, we attended the session "CrowdControl: Changing the Face of Media or Hype?" At the end, one of the speakers asked the crowd, which they thought it was. Almost everybody responded with the former, while maybe one or two raised their hand for hype.

I think it's pretty clear that citizen journalism, the real topic of this discussion, is changing and has already changed the face of media. There are varying opinions on if that is for better or for worse, but the very fact that these opinions are able to be voiced is a testament to the stength of the crowd.

On the panel were Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, Lila King from CNN.com, Jason Rzepka from MTV, and Joseph Kingsbury of Text100 Public relations.

Much of the conversation was centered around trust. Who can you trust? How do you know you can trust them? How do you know these citizen reporters don't have an agenda? Things of this nature.

Cashmore says brand still plays a role in trust, and that you should have some level of skepticism when a story comes from something like Twitter (assuming you are unfamiliar with the source). His point is accentuated by the fact that here at at SXSW, a massive Twitter hoax regarding Conan O'Brien was perpetrated from Digg's SXSW party the other night.

"People need to become more educated consumers of news" and "learn what you can trust and what you can't," says Cashmore. That is probably easier said than done, and possibly asking a lot of the average person that doesn't reside inside the news industry, but he's right. If people don't want to be misled or misinformed, they need to not only consider the source, but acknowledge multiple sources before totally abandoning the grain of salt.

This actually reminds me of something Andrew Lih said in another session I attended this past weekend about Wikipedia. His advice to journalists (as well as students) was that there is "no better starting point" than Wikipedia, and "no worse ending point."

Cashmore made a point about Wikipedia in that it is controlled by a few people, so it's not exactly the crowd like Twitter is the crowd, or like the Blogosphere is the crowd, but I think the point runs parallel. A tweet may be a great starting point for a piece of news, but it should not be the ending point in acceptance of fact.

The crowd is there for balance. The more viewpoints that are available, the more a reader is able to take away from a story. When points are debated, more info is revealed, and even if some of that doesn't sit well with you, you can use your own judgment to assess where you come down on the subject at hand. This comes back to Cashmore's statement about becoming a more educated consumer of news. Perhaps we only need to strive for a better educated public in general, and the quality of so-called citizen journalism will grow.

That should be easy.

For more from SXSW, check out our exclusive interviews at live.webpronews.com.

Hulu (Again) Considers Monthly Fee

How much is the experience of watching certain old shows online worth to the average person?  Well, Hulu's hoping the answer is "at least $5 per month."  A new report indicates that the site might try to charge a monthly fee for access to episodes that aired a while ago.

Dawn C. Chmielewski and Alex Pham wrote this morning, "One plan being considered would allow users to view the five most recent episodes of TV shows free but would require a subscription of $4.99 a month to watch older episodes.  Hulu believes it will need at least 20 TV series - both current ones and those no longer on the air - to make such a pay service attractive to users."

From some perspectives, this wouldn't be a bad deal.  With iTunes charging a couple of bucks per episode, Hulu would have an edge so long as a person was interested in more than one or two clips.  Also, it's necessary to consider that buying DVD sets tends to cost a lot more than $5 per month.

Still, charging for something that used to be free is always risky.  And the five-episode window of free play, while nice, could act to increase the appeal of illegal videos, since it would give pirates plenty of time to get up episodes.

We'll see what happens.  Hulu's set no real timeframe with regards to implementing any sort of plan to increase revenue.

Have You Read This?

> Hulu CEO Shares 2009 Stats

> Hulu Falls Short In Comparison To Blockbusters

> Hulu Captions Search A Preview Of General Video Search To Come?

 

Google Loses Domain Name Dispute

Google's empire hasn't exactly crumbled, and to be honest, the average person will probably never even realize what's happened.  But what's happened is this: for just the second time in its history, Google's lost a domain name dispute.

Google submitted a complaint about a site called Groovle to the National Arbitration Forum (which ICANN lets decide domain name disputes) on November 6th of this year.  The search giant argued that Groovle is "nearly identical or confusingly similar" to its own name.

Complicating matters is the fact that Groovle markets itself as "your groovy custom search homepage," while noting on every page, "Groovle.com is not owned, operated, or sponsored, or endorsed by Google."

Anyway, a bit of back and forth ensued.  Then the National Arbitration Forum sided with Groovle, and in a document released today, it explained the decision.

"Respondent argues that the disputed domain name is not a misspelling of Complainant's mark; Respondent asserts that the disputed domain name contains the significant letters 'r' and 'v' which serve to distinguish the sound, appearance, meaning, and connotation of 'groovle' from Complainant's GOOGLE mark.  Furthermore, Respondent contends that its alterations clearly transform the predominant word of the <groovle.com> domain name to 'groove' or 'groovy,' not GOOGLE. . . .  The Panel agrees . . ."

This is a blow for Google in a symbolic sense, at least - it's participated in 65 disputes - even if the development has no measurable effect.

Have You Read This?

> Consumer Groups Ask FTC To Block Google AdMob Deal

> IBM CEO Dismisses Idea Of All-Powerful Google

> ICANN Becomes More Independent

Can You “Rank” in Google if Everyone Has Different Search Results?

Google has extended its personalized search functionality to users who are not even signed in. This goes for Google users around the world, in over 40 languages. What this means is that when you search with Google, it will provide results that are aimed at higher relevancy to the individual user, as opposed to relevancy for the average person.

"For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes," Google explains in a blog post on the subject. "Other times, when I'm looking for news about Cornell University's sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others."

Can you "rank" in Google if everyone has different results? Share your thoughts on this.

What Does This Mean for SEO? 

Naturally, when Google announces any significant changes to the way users get their search results, the search engine optimization community must take notice, and must consider what said changes mean for them. If people start getting more results that are specifically tailored to their own tastes, it could be harder for businsses to reach those people through traditional SEO tactics. That's one way of looking at it. Another way is this: Google always makes changes, but there are always ways to adapt.

"Honestly, if this makes Google more relevant for their searchers - all power to them," says Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick, which offers SEO services. "I am not going to say I know what is better for the average searcher. They can quickly figure this out after days and decide to keep it, turn it down, or off completely. SEOs will adapt, like they always do - we are a strong and smart bunch - I am not worried."

My guess is that all of the same best practices for search engine optimization will apply. What you may have to pay greater focus to is your target audience.

Are you worried? Do you think this is a change that could have a negative impact on your search engine traffic? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends... what you think.

On the other hand, personalized search could play to the strengths of the horizontal content approach. Rich Ord, CEO of iEntry Network and Publisher of WebProNews has an interesting take on the matter. "There is going to be the same number of searches and the same number of clicks to content," he says. "So basically, personalization in search will just be dividing up the traffic pie more."

"This could make people think more about the long tail instead of just focusing on their top key words that they would like to rank for," he adds. "It could also make people less reliant on organic search results for their traffic and in turn increase their use of Adwords."

Could personalized search directly contribute to an increase in revenue for Google itself? Interesting.

The feature has been available to Google users who have accounts, are signed in, and have their web history enabled (on Google) for a while. Now it appears to just be the standard way of delivering search results to everybody.

"This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser," Google says. "It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users). You'll know when we customize results because a 'View customizations' link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how we've customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization."

If you're worried about privacy, settle down, because Google lets you turn personalized search off altogether. For signed-in users, all you have to do is remove web history from your Google account. For signed out users, click "web history" in the top right corner of a search results page, then click "disable customizations." You can also just clear your browser's cookies.

As a user, do you like the idea of Google personalizing your search results? Discuss here.

On a related note, Google is also rolling out the inclusion of real-time search results on regular search results pages for some queries. These results draw from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and numerous other sources. This means you have yet another opportunity for visibility, but it also presents a new challenge, as with any other universal search element, it may push organic listings down on the page.  Are you glad to finally see some real-time search make its way to Google?
 
Have You Read This?

> Google Makes Google Reader More Personal

> How Will Personalized Search Affect Niche Engines?

> Browsers Judged On Privacy, Personalization

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