And by “freshness”, of course we mean Google’s new Freshness algorithm that favors frequently updated content in the search results delivered to you. Amit Singhal, from Google, says that “search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh.” While that may be true, it could also affect your website’s search engine rankings, especially if others in your market or category are updating their platforms on a more regular basis.

This new algorithm update stems from the completion of their Caffeine (aptly named!) web indexing system last year, which crawls and indexes the web for fresh content much quicker and on a much larger scale. The new Freshness algorithm further builds on Caffeine and impacts roughly 35 percent of searches. Different searches have different freshness needs and Google’s new algorithm accounts for that, differentiating between what queries require recent content and those it is less relevant for. For example, if you are searching for information on when the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting will take place, you are more likely than not interested in the 2011 tree lighting and not 2008 or 2004. However, if you are searching for a cookie recipe, timeliness is less critical. As a result of this, the search results that will be most affected include those in the following categories:

1. Recent events or hot topics (latest news about NBA lockout, Occupy Wall Street protest, etc.)
2. Regularly occurring events (elections, X Factor results, etc.)
3. Frequent updates (best SLR camera, safest SUV)

This freshness shift shouldn’t be seen as a detriment, but rather an opportunity to increase our search rankings by making sure content is relevant, updated and takes into account both social media and search. Now, more than ever, analytics, keyword research and trending topics should have an impact on the content we push out on the web, in social channels and press releases. Let’s shift our thinking to “real-time” so we can really embrace the “freshness” and provide our target audiences with the updated, relevant content they are looking for.

BUT, you can’t develop this strategy without first listening to how your consumers are talking about you and your competitors online.

Do consumers talk about you predominantly in a negative or positive way? Are they letting their social graph know when they are on the way to your location or that they just finished eating your pizza? Do they want their friends to know they attended your event or are they complaining about lost luggage? And, are they doing this on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or through forums, blogs etc.? Once you have a strong understanding of this, your social strategy can develop into something that will help effectively engage with and serve your customers and increase dialogue about your brand.

There are a number of monitoring tools out there that help facilitate this process. Programs like Radian6, Collective Intellect, Alterian and others aggregate mentions of your brand across online platforms including blogs, forums, Facebook, twitter, aggregators, etc. This is critical for a number of reasons:

1. Helps you gain a better understanding of how consumers feel about your brand;
2. Gives a quantitative understanding of the reach and influence your marketing initiatives are having; and
3. Increases your understanding of what platforms your brand and competitors are being talked about on which could influence your marketing strategy in terms of where you are advertising or platforms you may want to interact on.

Advertisers run focus groups and do research before presenting new brand messaging and the same should be done through social media. Listening gives you real-time, ongoing and trustworthy feedback on your company, product, offering, general sentiment, competitor comparisons and more.

Whether you listen through a paid service or have a team culling social media platforms through search engines, it’s an opportunity that can’t and shouldn’t be missed.

1. We’ve all been watching the growth of online advertising, and while it still may be significantly less than that of traditional media, online advertising revenues jumped almost 15% in this year’s first quarter (albeit, slightly lower than Q4 of ’09 due to AOL’s struggles.) Below is a chart that shows the growth of online advertising since the beginning of 2009. This lends even more strength to the case for integrated marketing strategies, something we have been pushing at Richter7 for some time now. With online ads taking an increased share-of-voice, and consumers’ time online only increasing, we need to continue thinking of ways to integrate online, traditional, social and pr strategies to see the greatest results. For more info, check out TechCrunch’s article: http://tcrn.ch/arBy8v
   

   Image Courtesy of TechCrunch

2. Something we’ll want to stay tuned for (no pun intended…) in the upcoming weeks is Google’s entrance into the television arena, which should be announced at their developer event in San Fran on May 19th and 20th. There, it’s expected that Google will unveil their Android-based television software. For the WSJ’s full article, visit: http://bit.ly/cX8bpQ
3. A common debate is how much CEO’s and other high-level execs should be involved in social media, something that often can only be determined on a case-by-case basis. Slate.com brought up the question yesterday of judge’s involvement in the social space. In fact, they point out that the judiciary is the only branch of the federal government that has virtually no social media presence. At the heart of the argument is that every contribution on social platforms could be reviewed for hints of bias, corruption, favoritism, etc. For some more compelling arguments from those in the legal profession, check out: http://bit.ly/bgTNBY
4. Lastly, this week’s winner for the most pointless new app goes to the “Magic Window.” This new app for the iPad allows users to choose from 10 scenic vistas that include sunsets, mountains, ocean, etc., helping turn a drab office space into something more inspirational. While I’m sure the graphics are stunning in person, it’s still reminiscent of the “Christmas Yule Log” DVD you can put on your TV to replicate a roaring fire, complete with crackling and popping. If you’re still interested, see more at: http://bit.ly/aoTsvs
   

   Image Courtesy of Mashable

That’s all for this week!

1. As most of us saw (and some were duped by) Topeka, Kansas, in a bid to be the city selected to host Google’s broadband experiment, changed their name to Google for the month of March. Google, in turn, changed their name to Topeka for the day on April 1^st. Great attention for Topeka – it certainly put their name on the map (no pun intended…) for the day, and hopefully gives them a boost in the contest for site selection. Find out more on Google’s blog: http://bit.ly/9OQfSc
2. Aside from Google/Topeka, there were some other great geek pranks out there ranging from Gmail removing all vowels from their homepage to YouTube text only videos. You can find a full recap of some of the pranks at TechCrunch: http://tcrn.ch/9qfvdd
3. With the imminent release of the iPad, it once again became a focus of conversation this week with a number of applications announced, including the NYTimes application, and Interview magazine announcing their special iPad issue. Reuters ran an article about techies Kyle Wiens and Luke Soules who systematically determined which stores are likely to receive shipments soonest and plan to be the first in line to purchase theirs…and immediately disassemble it. Check out the article called “iPad Stripteast” here: http://bit.ly/ckQdXF
4. And last but not least in this week’s recap is a recent study we wanted to share outlining old media’s decline and new media’s ascent. (Source: eMarketer) Data from the study shows that while traditional forms of media are still on top, our ways of consuming news are quickly changing. Here are some of the stats:

• Blogs are now used by 24% of Internet users, up from 13% in 2006
• Social networks are now used by 26% of Internet users, up from 17% in 2006
• Videocasts are now used by 11% of Internet users, up from 6% in 2006
• Local TV news viewer ship declined from 74% usage in 2006 to 62% last year
• Cable news seems to be taking its place to some extent, growing from 47% to 49% usage in the same period.

Google has launched Buzz, a service wrapped into Gmail which allows for quick sharing of pictures, videos, status messages, etc. with your Google Friends. You can also autopost to Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and more. It includes privacy settings so you can share with the world or just your friends.

Flash your optics upon the official video:

Noticeably absent is the ability to share with Facebook. Hmmm.

I like how they’re taking a step toward consolidating your social activities into one place (Gmail) as opposed to launching a standalone service which quickly becomes yet one more place to login and check. Now if they’d just roll Reader and Wave functionality into Gmail, well that’d be the bee’s knees. Do it Google. Blow my mind.

In addition, there’s a pretty killer mobile version. It’s seems like a cross between Foursquare, Twitter, Yelp and Google Maps. Looks like it could be pretty impressive, actually. Check the video below:

To get Buzzed (ha!) just keep hitting refresh in Gmail for the next few days – it’ll be gradually rolled out to users throughout the week.

As the Google Street View cars go zipping around the world taking pictures of, well, everything, they are also snapping pictures of all the outdoor advertising out there. Now, Google has filed a patent so they can sell the space on billboards they capture in  Google Maps Street View.

Google has just doubled the amount of “outdoor” ad inventory in the world and they control all of it.

The patent says they have a way to automatically detect outdoor advertising and easily sell advertising to go over it. In addition, it could recognize movie posters on the outside of a theater and update them as the movies change. Of course, each poster would be clickable so you could find out more information such as show times, seat availability, how to purchase tickets, etc.

It also talks about how entire buildings could be clickable: “For example, the image of the coffee shop can be hot-linked to an advertisement for the coffee shop.”

Interesting concept, no? What do you think of it? Will it actually take off and be another revenue stream? And what do you think Reagan, Yesco and other outdoor media channels think of it?

Here are some top social media/advertising/business stories that caught my attention over the last couple of weeks:

1. Google buys Gizmo5. Google bought Gizmo5, a VOIP company, to use with Google Voice to create a direct competitor to Skype and every telco in the world.
2. Murdoch threatens to block Google searches from indexing his news sites. Rupert Murdoch (owner of the Wall Street Journal and other sundry products) wants to stop giving Google and the rest of the world free access to his sites and start charging for access. (Please note that when I searched for this story, none of his sites were listed so I went to his competitor’s site instead.)
3. Remember a few weeks ago when we tried to blow up the moon? Turns out that the point wasn’t just to create an explosion so huge you could see it from space (or, in our case, Earth). Go figure: there’s water on the moon.
4. Twitter’s been busy. It has licensed its entire stream of Tweets to both Google and Microsoft to be available in their respective search results. It also added a built-in retweet feature as well as Lists. Lists are a pretty big deal on a number of levels (not the least of which convenience). It’s significant enough that I may write up something about this later. Stay tuned.
5. Brittney Spears’ Twitter account was hacked. Annnnnd…no one cares.
6. Google bought AdMob for $750M in stock. This is a pretty huge deal. As if Google wasn’t making a big enough play by putting their apps on the iPhone and freely distributing a mobile operating system (Android), they just bought the largest mobile advertising platform.
7. AT&T gets its undies in a twist over Verizon ads. Don’t know if you saw them, but Verizon has come out swinging with their advertising push behind the Droid, their new (and I must say, quite impressive) Android offering.

Thoughts on any of these stories? What did I leave out that you thought was important. Leave word (and links) in the comments.

Image courtesy of here.

Although this feature sounds pretty cool, it makes me wonder if it will eliminate the need for users to visit their social networks.

This announcement came hand-in-hand with the unveiling of an agreement Google made with Twitter allowing them to include Twitter updates in Google’s search results. Check out Marissa Mayer’s blog post for more information.

Do you think you will use “Social Search”?