Oriol Gifra 360º

According to Wikipedia Happiness is a mental state of well-being and according to Dalai Lama the purpose of our lives is to be happy.

I wonder how many people is not happy today… and it is very simple but at the same time very difficult to be happy. The secret is Make Others Happy!!!!

Stop looking at yourself, look around you and provide free happiness.

I know it is very easy to write but very difficult to achieve, but I truly believe it is the only way we have to overcome the coming days facing a deep economical crisis and low human values. Remember we will die as we lived (in fact we are dying as we are living).

Do you imagine a world where everybody make others happy?.

The typical question is.. .what about money?. Well, I believe people of third wold are much more happy than most of the people living in first world, and the reason is they are poor but richer in human relations.  Happiness is really not about money, it is about making others happy.

My suggestion is to try to live what I call the Happiness Circle of Live:

1.  Interact with people who make you happy.

2. Make others happy

I think the future is on concepts like the Gross National Happiness (GNH) . The first step towards a National Happiness is the individual happiness, so let’s start!

I think the question all of us should ask ourselves is: how many people I made more happy today?

It is not necessary you answer here.  Myself need to improve a lot on that!

More than 4 years ago the usability guru Jackob Nielsen wrote a post in his blog under the title:How Little Do Users Read? In that post Nielsen said “On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.”

Although there is a old question regarding the impact of new technologies and the reading habits, it seems the online users need to have not only the old reading habits, but also new reading skills, as this old article from New York Times shows.

Nielsend discovered the users typically follow what he called the F-Shaped Pattern. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:

•Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
•Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
•Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.

Following this reading pattern, we should include how long do users stay on web pages. According recent post from Jackob Nielsen users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds. According to a recent research from Microsoft the first 10 seconds of the page visit are critical for users’ decision to stay or leave.

The probability of leaving is very high during these first few seconds because users are extremely skeptical, having suffered countless poorly designed Web pages in the past. People know that most Web pages are useless, and they behave accordingly to avoid wasting more time than absolutely necessary on bad pages.

 It is clear online users behaviour is very different from online. Your content is under consideration in less than 10 seconds!

To work with that, I suggest to be as much as visual and interactive you can using all type of formats for the storytelling, from video to infographics.

Let’s see some visual engaging and viral formats that help to retain users with us:

1. New York Times Visual DNA

An interactive and visual quiz from New York Times.

2. Pleasure Hunt by Magnum

Interactive Magnum game.

3. Ted Sphere

TED Sphere Visualization

4. Data Visualization

Real time buzz visualization.

5. Infomous

Viual News from the Buzz

6. John Paulson Interactive Infographic

John Paulson interactive infographic, an example of content marketing using interactive infographic format.

The above are some examples of formats you can use in your website to improve user retention, engagement and improve your viral marketing. Let’s work Visual Marketing: The Art to Retain Users Using Visual Formats.

As Google is making continuous improvements in its rank factors algorithm, probably we will see by 2012 a huge improvements on semantic technologies focused to understand consumer sentiment. 

Google is already working on reading social networks comments to learn and make relations between what’s being said in those conversations and brands, products, people…  The latest news came recently from Matt Cutts, fom Google, who said Googlebot already was able to index dynamic comments.

The next step is to improve relations between comments and type of sentiments described. Seth Grimes, an analyst strategist from Washington answer interesting questions in a recent article about The Future of Sentiment Analysis. He thinks still there is a lot to do to improve the SMA we have today, but companies like Radian6 are on the way.

Seth Grimes describe here what he looks in a Social Analysis Tool.  For him sentiment analysis is a set of methods, typically (but not always) implemented in computer software, that detect, measure, report, and exploit attitudes, opinions, and emotions in online, social, and enterprise information sources.

Google is already conducting a sentiment analysis for social media profiles such Twitter profiles or Google +1. Tools like Sharedcount can give you some idea of what is Google accounting. Along with that data, Google is also using its semantic technology to work in sentiment analysis.  

Online Reputation Management (ORM) will become much more important in 2012, as sentiment will be probably one of the most important ranking and quality factors for next year Google algorithm improvements.

We will see new Start Ups, like Bananity (coming online officialy next 23th November 2011) as online communities based on love & hate relations, or the sentiment analysis applied to journalism, as for instance what did Boston Globe with the Red Sox players and coaches popularity based on Twitter conversations. 

It will obviously impact on SEO, as the ranking factors will be more difficult to work… because sentiments are not something you can optimize fast, aren’t it?.

Marketing is now more than ever sentiment centric!

Last week I was as speaker at eWeek (sorry, program not available in english) organized by University of Vic, a conference week on different digital topics. In my conference session the topic was related with crowdsourcing and how Internet is changing the traditional advertising model.

To illustrate that, my colleague from Cyberclick, David Tomás, showed the following funny videos related with Pepsi ad from the World FIFA Cup 2006.

The official video (below) investment cost around 20 Million $ and got (up to now) aroud 500,000 views.

David told us that when Pepsi saw the few views, called a couple of funny chinese guys to spoof it. The cost… a free T-Shirt for them and some Pepsi… the result?… around 3 Million views.

Now, the question is… what’s happening?. Is it about money?.

No, money is not the success key on Internet. If you want to succeed online you will need CREATIVITY, a lot of CREATIVITY!!! And this is true for any business. Do you remember the case of  Blendtec videos?.. Here is an example:

 Remember… marketing is not only Analytics, SEM or SEO… is also about Creativity!. I say that because I do not see many posts within the marketing experts regarding this issue, and I think it is a really critical point.

In the last few weeks the SEO world have had a couple of news that make us (SEO professionals) comment about it.

On one hand, on 18th October Google announced blocking as “not provided” referral keyword information on Google Analytics in those cases when users were logged in (using SSL when searching). Although it only affects between 5% and 10% of the total audience, is not the best way webmasters can improve relevance and user’s experience if we can not access to user’s intent (using the keyword referral).

It is a bit contradictory when Google uses the excuse of “user privacy” abd at the same time is using IP data for the “non privided” line at Google Analytics.

 On other hand, the SEO blogger Potpiegirl wrote a post about How Google Makes Algorithm Changes  commenting a leaked Google document, the Google’s Rating Guidelines.

 Google raters are people at Google who manually review landing pages scoring it:

portant scoring factors for URL Raters (taken from throughout the guide). According to this article on Seomoz, they rate:

• User intent and page utility
• Location
• Language
• Query interpretation
• Specificity of the query and landing page
• Timeliness of the informational need of the query to evaluate whether recent content is necessary
• The language of video content vs. query and landing page content language

It seems the rating scale is based on 5 types:

• Vital – Biographical and personal pages
• Useful – Useful for most of users
• Relevant – Useful for some of users
• Slightly Relevant – Useful for niche users or few users
• Useless – Not useful

Google classifies the users depending on their search intent as a Do-Know-Go, depending if the user wants to do a specific action (E.g. Buy), search of information or go to specific site.

In fact, it seems the document do not reveal any secret the SEO community did not already know. Here is a official Google’ post on how build a high quality sites: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html 

In my opinion, if you work the “K-C” you will rank up:

• Knowldege – Provide fresh and updated knowledge and value to users
• Conversation – Provide conversation, interaction, engagement to users

One of the most common questions regarding new e-Commerce projects is how to calculate revenue estimates.

For me one easy way is to take 3 factors to calculate it (I’m not describing here ROI, I’m here talking about revenue estimates calculation):

Audience = Absolute Unique Visitors (daily, monthly…).
Conversion Rate (%) = Buyers/Absolute Unique Visitors.
Average Purchase Value = From site purchase past date try to stablish an average (daily, monthly…) purchase value.   

I personally prefer to use Absolute Unique Visitors as a audience metric because I think the purchase capability belongs to each single people, not visitors or page views.

From here you can download an Excel spreadsheet (download in ZIP format) to calculate it. Just change the different figures to adapt it for different forecast patterns.

At the end there is no secret. To reach a revenue goal you can work on volumen or quality, that is increasing audience or conversion.

According with the latest Nielsen Social Media Report (Q3 – 2011), females make up the majority of visitors to social networks and blogs, and people aged 18-34 have the highest concentration of visitors among all age groups. Americans aged 35-49 are also avid visitors: 4 percent more likely than average to visit social networks and blogs than they do any other site and 27 percent of these sites’ audience.

According to the survey, more women view video on Social Networks, but men watch longer.

Females spend more time than males on social media sites according to Pew Research Center. They also contribute more, use mobile social networking more and they buy more stuff online than men do.  More women than men use Facebook and Twitter regularly. They perform Facebook status and profile updates more regularly, comment more, add more photos and click the Like button more than men. If it were not for the constant feminine energy fueling Facebook on a daily basis, the site would be dead.

Men and women are equally likely to have internet access: 73% of men and 75% of women go online. However, in a familiar pattern, women continue to pull ahead when it comes to pursuing health information online:3 86% of online women do so, compared with 73% of online men according to a Pew Survey.

According to Chief Marketer, 47% of women search for coupons and promotions online, whereas there are only 33% of men are looking for such discounts online. Another interesting statistics is that they found men (36%) are more inclined than women (28%) towards finding information about a product while interacting with a retail brand through social media.

Shopper Centric (a website that analyzes shopping behaviors and trends) conducted a research on 1,000 people, which helped in giving a general insight on how men and women use social media for online shopping. According to them, 38% men use a smartphone as opposed to 29% if women; 60% of women use Facebook actively as compared to 52% men.

According to a report by ComScore, “Women on the Web”:
•Average time spent online by men is 22.9 hrs, whereas women spend 24.8 hours.
•Women spent an average of 16.3% of their online time on social networks in April 2010, compared to 11.7% of men.
•When it comes to Twitter, men mostly post their own tweets, whereas a larger percentage of women users use Twitter to find deals and promotions. Women are more likely to use this service as a conversation medium and to follow celebrities.
•Women surpass men when it comes to the reach and time spent on photo-sharing sites.
•The number of visits on retail websites is more or less the same for both the genders for all age groups, but women tend to spend more time on these websites than that of men.
•On an average, men conduct more searches per searcher then women (71.6% per searcher for men vs. 64.0 for women).

Most women use Facebook to keep their friends informed about what they are doing, but few have tolerance for friends who use the site to brag or over-share, according to a survey from Eversave that also explores group-buying preferences among women.

Despite such occasional annoyances, women appreciate Facebook for allowing them to view friends’ photos and videos (91%), find long-lost friends (76%), and learn about promotions and deals from their favorite brands (75%).

Below, other findings from Eversave’s online survey of 450 women who use Facebook.

Most women say they post status updates on Facebook to stay in touch with people and share interesting content:

77.6% post updates to keep friends informed.
64.0% share interesting or funny links and videos.
44.5% promote social causes.
24.3% post updates to brag about something.
Such women are active on Facebook: 83% say they check the site 2-10 times daily and another 15% check Facebook once a day.

A recent Nielsen survey called Women of Tomorrow shows that women talk 28 percent more and text 14 percent more than men every month; they are also heavier users of social features of phones and visit more Internet community sites than men.  And, more than half of women in both developed (average 56%) and emerging (average 71%) countries say the computer, mobile phones and smart phones have changed their lives for the better.

Social networking is a fundamental part of a woman’s day-to-day digital life, with 65 -  70 percent of active, online female users age 18 plus in developed markets such as Australia, France, Italy, South Korea and Brazil visiting the leading social networking site in their market.  In the U.S., 73 percent of online women visit the leading social networks while in Germany, 50 percent visit.

“To connect with women, strategies should be social and relevant,” said Whiting.  “With social networking, women typically follow brands more so than men, making the social networking tool relevant for discounts, deals and coupons. Women are much more likely to engage with media that seamlessly integrates into and improves their day-to-day lives.”

Across 22 forms of advertising “recommendations from people you know” is by far the most trustworthy advertising source for women surveyed in developed (73%) and emerging (82%) countries, followed by branded websites (60%, emerging countries) and consumer online opinions (49%, developed countries).

- Women in emerging markets are more highly influenced by web ads shown on social media sites than those in developed countries. In emerging countries, women in India were the most highly influenced by web ads and women in South Africa and Russia were least persuaded.  In developed countries, respondents in South Korea were most moved by social advertising and women in Australia and France were most impartial.

- When it comes to life decisions, women respondents in developed markets want shared responsibilities on all matters from child care to major purchases. In emerging markets, some traditional roles continue, yet there is a desire for shared responsibility.  Men in emerging countries are still viewed as the primary decision-making stakeholders when it comes to purchasing home electronics or cars, while women rule in the health and beauty department and all child care matters.

- Across countries surveyed, some traditional sentiments remain: 31 percent of both men and women believe that men are the best fit to hold political office, maintain workplace positions of authority (29%) and make major purchases (22%).

“The next generation of female consumers will shop and use media differently, from men and generations before them, “said Whiting.  “Consequently, companies marketing to women and working to capture women’s attention must rely on informed insights rather than assumptions about how they do business with this influential consumer.”

A quick post just to say that the latest Eye Tracking tests made once again demonstrate most of the people do not continue searching to #2 SERP’s page and even many of them do not do page scrolling. Good findings that confirm the importance of SEO.

From a recent post at SEOMoz the findings on the Eye Tracking Google’s SERP’s were clear: 

This screenshot is for searching “best pizza in Chicago” in Google.

For all other keywords used in the testing the conclusions were similar and can be listed as follow:

a)  Top results have much more impact the the bottom of the page.

b) Google Maps has a very high impact, even if you are not in the first of the Google Maps listing.

c) No always first position is has the most impact… it depens on visual effects around the information. That’s why it is important for SEO to work also videoplacement and other snippets around the result.

Just to remember I show again the below data, that is quite similar as above visual results:

Last Sunday I was running my town Half Marathon (21,5 km), Sant Cugat Half Marathon. I barely could not ran the two weeks before the event’s day, but I was there with a lot of friends ready to run it.

I like run very much. My freinds now it. For me it makes me feel healthy and balance the work stress. This time my goal was to try to run it at 4′ km, and I did it!.

When running I follow the below personal tips (I share it in case it may be helpful for someone):

a) Run by feelings, not by time. Time is your goal, but first you must follow your running feelings… feel your energy and manage it each kilometer (mile). If you only follow your watch you may not finish or you may not enjoy running.

I never used pulsometer nor the watch is my priority. Technology in this case, is build inside you.

b) When leave your home in the way to the competition, be ready… Toilette is not an option.

c) You should have a goal. It may be to arrive below a mark, but also it may be to go running with a friend. Follow your goal and enjoy it.

d) Nutrition is important (at least for me). Know yourself, what is better to eat and when. In my case for running a Half Marathon I use to do not eat nothing, but I may eat some nutritional bar at 10 km.

e) With friends, much better, although when starting everybody may have different goals. My friend Jordi Ballbe suggested once to carry beers to cheer after each competition, and now we enjoy!  Thanks Jordi for such brilliant and innovative idea.

And you?. What about you?

It seems, watching the below Google’s chart about search volume related with the keyword “crisis” , people started being strongly concerned with the problem by July 2008 and very very concerned on October 2008.

On 2006 I was studying at IESE Business School a postgraduate program. During my studies I blamed a teacher who was working in a managing position in a bank because of the finantial sector attitude towards the real state prices increase and the family loans debt, also increasing. The difference between the people salary and the real state prices was a first symptom something was wrong.

People was willing to pay very high real state prices and banks played the game.

This story is not new for anyone, but for me here there is something very new in the history of the human behaviour, that is the link between the irrational human behaviour and technology.

In that scenario humans behaviour was totally irrational, from consumers to bankers. And here is the new thing, machines (technology) allowed and made all this happen, and happen very very fast. Bankers just typed into the computer keyboard to see if the client was approved for the loan…. and during too loong almost everyone was approved!!.

Technology did not avoid one of the worst economical crisis in human history….  Although we have more information than never, we (humanity) could not avoid the disaster. And my question here is… is it then a natural disaster?… as it could be an earthquake?… how we could avoid it?….

I believe people was out of control and this is very natural. What is atypical was so many people at same time was out of control.

To be more accurated, I think the problem was the lack of minimum ethical values. We are clearly facing the result of an ethical crisis.

What do you think about it?