Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Sean Parker in front of work by graffiti artist David Choe, who took shares instead of payment for his work and is set to make millions from Facebook’s IPO.

For anyone who has an interest in the story of Facebook, or has seen the hit film “The Social Network”, you will know how Mark Zuckerberg is the brains behind Facebook and even after going public, Mark will retain charge of the empire that he has created. Shares in the company are split into two types, shares ‘A’ and ‘B’, with the ‘B’ shares actually being worth 10 votes per share compared to the single vote of shares ‘A’. Mark owns 28% of the company’s shares and obviously they are ‘B’ shares so that actually equates to Mark having a 56.9% say in how the company is ran. Not only that but in the case of Zuckerberg’s death, he has the right to name an heir to the company to make sure Facebook continues to be ran by someone that shares his vision.

It wasn’t only details of Mark’s control over Facebook that was detailed this week. The profitability of Facebook has been revealed as $1billion of pure profit with 2009 being the year when everything started going right in terms of finance. Income almost tripled from $272m to $777m and costs only doubled which of course means plenty of pure profit. So what happened in 2009 that made this happen? Well that was the year that Mark introduced the ‘Like’ button to the world. One thing the aspect of ‘liking’ has done has been to enable the site to target advertising, which of course is something Facebook depends on for revenue. The other aspect of revenue for the site is through in-app purchases and one company got a special mention in the IPO report. Znyga are the company behind popular social games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and Poker and make up 12% of Facebook’s revenue and so are a very important company for them to continue working with.

One aspect of all of this that has been focused on by the media is how a lot of people are due to become very rich or become even richer. Many people already have shares in Facebook such as co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel and even U2 singer Bono. One great story is that of graffiti artist David Choe who was commissioned in 2005 to decorate the social sites new offices. He was offered a few thousand dollars or shares in the company and decided to take the shares, which could now net him somewhere in the region of $200million. Even the enemies of Facebook, the Winklevoss twins, are going to capitalise on this with their shares from their lawsuit against Facebook being potentially worth $300million. Employees that have been with the company for a number of years are also looking to benefit from any shareholdings they have with a number of them looking to become millionaires.

The story of Facebook is an interesting tail and there are many interesting stories to read and if you haven’t seen “The Social Network” movie then we’d suggest doing so. With Facebook going public, there will sure to be more to come as Zuckerberg and his social network look to shape the future of the Internet.

To discuss how social networking sites could help your business improve its web visibility, contact the SEO Coventry company HeadRed.

Having a presence on Facebook is a great way to interact with customers and as they ‘Like’ your products and services, your business will appear in their feeds and be seen by all their friends and can lead to great exposure.

Have a look at a social media or SEO Coventry campaign with HeadRed to help improve your search engine rankings and lead to greater visibility, more enquiries and more business.

Although announced at the end of last year, the new look Facebook Timeline hasn’t been a compulsory change for all 800 million plus users of the social networking site. Some people were able to get access to the new features but the majority are still using the traditional Facebook page layout. All this is about to change though with Facebook making the change compulsory over the coming weeks with users having seven days to play around with their new profile once clicking get ‘Timeline‘ before it becomes permanent. The idea behind Timeline is that it’s “the story of your life and [a] completely new way to express yourself.” The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, says that he wants users to share their entire lives on Facebook yet still have complete control over how they share their content online. The new change hasn’t gone down too well with the social giants users though with many upset over the new features but some are enjoying the new layout and are being very creative with the design of their new Timeline.

This user shows clever use of the new Facebook Timeline layout to recreate Angry Birds.

Streaming Shows with NetFlix

The speed of the Internet has increased dramatically since its introduction and has allowed for a whole new range of sites, services and features. One such service which has improved dramatically over recent years is the ability to watch and stream movies and TV shows over the Internet. This month saw the UK launch of Netflix, the US online and DVD rental service and with a one month free subscription the sign up has been very positive. The service allows users to watch the latest movies and TV shows such as 24, Doctor Who and South Park whenever they want on a variety of devices including PCs, laptops, smartphones and video game consoles. But is this high uptake rate going to continue once the monthly subscription rate starts after the free period ends?

Netflix has been fairly active on the social media circuit gauging customers’ opinions and as with any direct customer feedback it hasn’t all been positive. Whilst Netflix has been posting about its great range of titles and increasing its catalogue range, users have responded directly back saying the range is limited and that they will leave as soon as the free period ends. The majority of users have said the service is good though but Netflix needs to make sure customers are happy to continue paying for its service. Social media is a great way to get instant feedback from customers and although it hasn’t all been positive for Netflix, hopefully they will be able to addresses the issues raised, improve its catalogue range and then engage more positively with users on its social media sites.

HeadRed Google+

The other week we blogged about the integration that Google is going to be introducing between its social media site Google+ and the search engine itself with ‘Search Plus Your World’. If you haven’t got one already then now is a great time to set up your Google+ profile and find out what it’s all about. If you have a personal Google+ profile or a business page then why not add HeadRed to one of your circles? The HeadRed Google+ page features the latest news and postings from ourselves as well as circles featuring interesting people from the world of SEO and the Internet.

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The algorithm update is to penalise sites that feature too many ads “above the fold” and make it hard to find the actual content on the page. Content should be visible as soon as a user lands on a page so Google is looking to not rank sites as highly that feature too many ads making up large sections on a site’s initial screen. As always it’s important to focus on the user experience on a website and if someone visiting can’t find the content they are looking for through the forest of adverts, they are unlikely to return.

Google roll out many search algorithms throughout the year.

Google have said that this is only one of more than 500 improvements to search that they are planning to implement this year, so whilst this one isn’t a major change that you will likely need to worry about, it’s always worth noting the changes that the search engine giant is rolling out to make searching the web a better experience.

To find out the latest news about Google Search and SEO, make sure to follow the HeadRed blog where our SEO Coventry team will be keeping you up to date on the latest.

What with Google announcing this week the inclusion of Google+ into search results, it will be interesting to monitor whether companies increase their presence on Google’s social network. One such company already using Google+ to their advantage is the chocolate manufacture Cadbury, who announced a brand new product via the social site the other day; the Dairy Milk Bubbly bar. This is considered to be the first time a company has used Google+ to introduce a new product and Cadbury was keen to let this be known by posting “remember this moment: the first time Cadbury revealed a new product on Google+”.

Although over 2,000 people have the Cadbury UK brand in one of their Google+ ‘circles’, the company maybe didn’t have complete faith in the Bubbly bar spreading throughout the net via Google+ alone, with reveals on Twitter and Facebook soon after. This is unsurprising due to the vast number of more active users on the other two social sites but it shows that companies are starting to view Google+ as a viable source for marketing activity.

A look at whats been happening on the big social sites this week.

Facebook add ads to news feeds

At the end of last year, Facebook announced that they would be soon implementing paid sponsored ads into users news feeds and this week saw the feature begin to appear on some people’s profiles. Facebook has featured adverts on its pages for a while now that can be related to anything, not just products or services you may have ‘liked’ and only appear outside of your news feed. These new sponsored ads will appear directly in your news feed but the difference is they will be related to pages that you have previously ‘liked’.  Say for example you like the KFC Facebook page, a sponsored ad could appear in your feed for a new burger that they are offering and be listed as a ‘Featured’ news item. This allows companies to offer new products or services directly to people that have expressed an interest in their company.

The reason some are viewing this as a bad thing is because of the terminology Facebook has chosen to use. If a news feed item is listed as ‘Featured’ then users may not be aware that this is actually a paid advert. Should they instead be listed as ‘Sponsored’? It will be interesting to see how users react to this or if they even notice as Facebook continues the slow roll out of sponsored ads into the news feed.

2012 Twitter Trending

The start of 2012 has seen a similar phrase appearing in the top trends in the United Kingdom everyday and if it continues we will be seeing it for the rest of the year. This year is a leap year and “Page # of 366”, where # indicates how many days into the year we are, has for some reason become a popular phrase to include in Tweets for a large number of Twitter users. Twitter is a great source for breaking news but sometimes the trends list can be taken up by useless phrases such as this. Although many users are using the phrase, not everyone is keen on seeing it everyday for the rest of the year and as one disgruntled Twitter user Tweeted today “Page 13 of 366 is trending… If this continues all year, I’ll officially know how little time ppl on twitter have”.

HeadRed offer web design and SEO Coventry services with over 11 years of web experience. Get in touch today to find out how an SEO campaign can offer  greater visibility to your site for more visitors, enquiries and new business.

Vinnie Jones tells us all how to do it.

The video is a very clever parody of the ‘Vinnie Jones’ character and shows him playing a gangster teaching how to perform CPR. The BHF have said that anyone without insufficient CPR training should not perform the “kiss of life” but focus on hands-only CPR instead and Vinnie shows how to perform the life saving procedure to the beat of the Bee Gees hit “Stayin’ Alive”.

Have a look for yourself.

The video has been a success for The BHF with the YouTube video on the official channel receiving over 150,000 views and nearly 5,000 likes. The video has also been picked up by a wide range of online news sites and blogs this week as well as featuring heavily on social media sites. Facebook has seen the video shared multiple times and a large quantity of positive comments on The BHF wall. The campaign has also been trending throughout the week on Twitter with the promoted hashtag #hardandfast trending as well as other phrases relating to the video meaning many people were discussing the humorous video.

The “Hard & Fast” video has been a great example of a successful online campaign to promote a good cause and message. The humorous angle taken by The BHF has appealed to many people who have then shared the video with friends via social media networks and the life saving advice featured in the video has meant coverage by a wide range of news sites. Online coverage of this level is beneficial for both conveying a message to a wide audience and can also lead to an increase in search engine rankings. More links to a site can mean improvements in rankings and sharing content via social media sites is a great way to gain these links.

If you would like to discuss a social media or SEO Coventry based campaign then get in touch with HeadRed today to discuss what we can do for your business or organisation.

The top ten features a wide range of people and products, with three searches relating to Apple appearing in the top ten. At number 10 we have the “iPad2” which was released throughout the world during the first half of 2011 and sold 500,000 tablets in the first weekend. The sad death of Apple founder “Steve Jobs” in October made him the first or two deaths that feature in the top ten. Number eight is “東京 電力”, which relates to the Japanese Fukushima Plant nuclear reactors which were damaged during the devastating earthquake. Two days after the earthquake saw a massive rise in searches as support and donations poured in from around the world.

Fastest rising Google searches 2011

Pop star “Adele” was the seventh fastest rising search of 2011, with a 1,588% increase in searches from 2010. An interesting thing to note about this search is that it maintained constantly high searches throughout the whole year, where as other search terms peaked at a sudden point in the year. Another Apple search was at number six with the “iPhone 5“, even though the product wasn’t actually released. Many people expected Apple to unveil the product this year but they revealed the iPhone 4s instead. Video game fans made “Battlefield 3“ a high search term of 2011 with much anticipation for the first person shooter. The American case of “Casey Anthony“, who was charged with the murder of her 2 year old daughter but then found not guilty in July, was a high search term with people not only interested before and during the case but also in Casey’s life after the trial.

We begin the top three with the sad death of “Ryan Dunn” after the Jackass TV and movie star died in a car accident in June. During the news of his death there were nearly as many searches for his name as there was for the keyword ‘weather’. With speculation about drink driving and an emotional Jackass highlight reel shown at his funeral, fans kept searching for Ryan to make him the third fastest rising search of 2011. At number two we have “Google+“ as Google launched its newest attempt to capture the social networking crowd. Throughout the second half of the year the search term had a constantly high search volume due to the announcement, launch and then open sign-up of the product. Whether Google+ has the momentum to take on the might of Facebook is yet to be decided but as SEO Coventry specialists we will still be searching and following this throughout 2012.

And so we come to the number one fastest rising search term of 2011 and it’s safe to say that it most likely won’t feature again in the Google Zeitgeist in feature years.  A 13 year old American girl called “Rebecca Black” made a splash after releasing her pop song ‘Friday’ onto the unsuspecting public which went viral and resulted in over 167 million views on YouTube. At one point in the year Rebecca Black even beat global superstar Lady Gaga in search terms. If you are unaware to the phenomenon that is ‘Friday’ then have a look on YouTube to hear the song which made Rebecca Black the fastest rising worldwide search term of 2011.

There are many facts, graphs and information about the searches of 2011, so if you have some spare time then we’d highly recommend having a look at the full listings on the Google Zeitgeist with the top ten ‘Fastest Rising in Sports’, ‘What is…?’, and ‘How to’ searches for individual countries.

Some of the developments along the Google timeline.

The company are said to make roughly 500 different improvements to search in a year and 2011 alone has seen big changes including the much talked about Panda update which is said to have affected 12% of search results and crack down on sites with poor and duplicate content. Other changes over the past year include multiple updates to the Panda algorithm, the introduction of the +1 button, expanded site links when searching for brands and a ‘freshness’ update that focussed on returning recent content.

An interesting point mentioned in the video is how the terror attacks of Sept 11^th inspired Google to improve search results to return the latest news. When entering “the Twin Towers” as a search term, the results returned were sites with information about the buildings and not news about the attacks. This led to the development of Google News results to provide users with up to date news with multiple points of view.

Since the web has develop at such a fast pace with images, video, blogs and products appearing on more and more sites Google developed Universal Results to give search results that also covered the rich web to make sure users were also receiving these types of content in their search results. Other major introductions included paid adverts appearing with the search results in the form of AdWords and Google Instant with the goal to provide quick answers as users are typing in their searches.

Google looks set to continue its dominance of the search engine market with continued improvements such as the ability to drag an image into the search area to get results and voice search which will have great benefits for mobile phone users. To back sure you stay on top of these improvements and changes then get in touch with HeadRed, the search engine optimisation Coventry agency.

In June, Google began it’s assault on Facebook and Twitter with the debut of it’s much anticipated social network Google+. This isn’t Google’s first attempt in this area, in 2010 they launched Google Buzz a micro-blogging tool similar to Twitter which was met with widespread disapproval. Buzz is being shut down and having some of the more useful features integrated with Google+.

Google+ however is a much more complete product, incorporating some of the best elements of it’s rivals and adding some innovations of it’s own. The biggest example of this is ‘circles’ which allows users to sort people into categories such as friends, acquaintances, colleagues or anything else they can think of. This feature was a big hit with users as it makes it very easy to choose who you want to share certain things with, for example a work related post would mean nothing to anyone but your colleagues so you can set it to only be visible to them. Facebook quickly responded with the release of a similar feature called ‘smart groups’.

One glaring omission from the feature set at launch was a google equivalent of Facebook’s ‘pages’. Social media has become such a huge part of the way businesses operate, and a presence on sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a very easy and cost effective method of marketing and advertising. Last week, just over 5 months after the original launch, Google added ‘Google+ Pages for Business’. These pages are almost identical to user profiles with just a badge to show the difference. Pages for Business allow companies to communicate directly with customers and with the use of ‘circles’ they can target specific types of people with certain information.

Could Google+ help your business?

Now this may come as surprising news to anyone who is only aware of Mr. Hammer for his baggy pants, dance moves and the fact that his music will hit you so hard, it will make you say oh my Lord, but he has also been involved in many successful online business ventures. MC Hammer, real name Stanley Kirk Burrell, has been sharing his passion for social media for many years now and in 2008 launched his own social media website, DanceJam.com, which is a web community where hip hop dancers can watch, share and learn dance skills and techniques. Since then he was been working on WireDoo which is currently in pre-Beta stage.

Could MC Hammer be a success in the search engine market?

Mr. Burrell obviously has a keen interest in the web and social media but can he really enter a market that’s dominated by Google and already has other alternatives such as Bing trying to claw their own share of the search engine market? The selling point of WireDoo is that it is aiming for ‘deep searches’ which will return results that are “about relationships beyond just the keywords”. The example Hammer used related to cars and that if you searched on Wiredoo, instead of just cars coming up in the results, you would also see results relating to mileage, price and car dealerships.

He further explained that searches should be amount “more than just keywords and those ten blue links” and that the aim of the new search engine is to provide results that are not just related to one keyword. Another example used was that if you enter the post code for Beverly Hills, 90210, you will actually receive many links relating to the popular TV show of the same name instead of sites relating to the city in Los Angeles. WireDoo aims to bring up several searches for different topics and showing many related topics at once. This is described as a ‘vertical’ search whereas Google is ‘linear’.

Whilst this sounds like an interesting idea that could provide a better search experience for users, can anyone really topple or even make a dent in the control that Google has in the search engine market? The phrase ‘Google it’ is synonymous with searching on the Internet and we can’t see that changing anytime soon but competitors are always needed to encourage companies to provide better services to consumers. It will be interesting to see if Google responds to the threat of MC Hammer and WireDoo, although no release date has yet been announced for the project.

So we’ve made it this far without mentioning any real MC Hammer/search engine related jokes so how about changing “Stop! Hammer Time!” to “Stop! Search time” for the WireDoo slogan or how about when users search for inappropriate content they could be met with a “U Can’t Search This” warning?

Sorry, we couldn’t resist.