NextDoor

Neighborhood Registration -- social media outsourcing
Social networking is like interacting with your neighbors. You communicate with them; tell them a bunch of stuff about your activities, or the children, or your husband, or what have you. They’re your neighbors – you ought to know them, and they ought to know about you, right?

A new “private” social network is brewing with the grand objective of connecting you to your neighbors online, and yes, offline, too. It could have been set off by the fact that in today’s world, most people don’t know their neighbors at all, or don’t even have a way to contact them in case of an emergency. And this new social network, NextDoor hopes to use the social media platform to redefine the concept of neighborhood or community. 

The Concept of Neighborhood

NextDoor embraces the idea that the neighborhood is one of the most important communities in a person’s life. It recognizes the many ways neighbors can help each other, and NextDoor was pretty much born from that concept. This California-based Menlo Park startup NextDoor was founded by Nirav Tolia, a tech industry expert. NextDoor was founded in the fall of 2010 and launched in October of 2011. NextDoor allows neighbors within certain regions to create private websites where they can post local information and events for everybody’s consumption. Neighbors can exchange information as a way to getting to know each other better. It serves as a meeting place for neighbors to interact in even the most trivial need like borrowing a ladder to the more serious information sharing about current events happening and exchanging business recommendations. The venue welcomes just about anything useful to be shared with each other. 

NextDoor Registration Verification

Registration on NextDoor requires real name and real physical address as these data will be verified in one of four ways:

  • A postcard will be sent to the address with a unique code
  • A phone call will be made to a listed number at said address
  • Linking the person to the billing address of the credit card registrants are required to provide
  • Providing invitation from a previously verified neighbor.

This methodology was apparently inspired by Facebook in its early roll-out days when it required specific email addresses to allow people to access university-specific networks within Facebook. In the end, despite the initial hostile reaction, people felt more comfortable.

After passing verification, approval for membership will be granted along with the access to an array of information including message boards, maps, even a lost and found corner, and all of these are loaded up with information shared by like-minded members of the community. 

Neighborhood Registration

The network size is set up by the first person to add the region to the site. This is done using a drawing tool provided by NextDoor allowing users to mark their neighborhood boundaries over a Google map. Boundaries are expected to change as the group grows to a typical network size of about 50 to 20,000 households. But this, of course will depend on the density of the geographic region. 

The Concept of Neighborhood -- SEO outsourcing company
Is there a Place for NextDoor in the Social Media Community?

Following its launch in 2011, a lot of people expressed skepticism on how NextDoor would fare in the market considering a number of social media sites already dominating the market. It was as if, NextDoor didn’t really have a space in social networking to thrive let alone survive the competition. Apparently, the company sees it a different way – believing that the unique relationship among neighbors is not a reason to hook up in Facebook or add in Google+ Circles, but a good reason to hook up in NextDoor. For this reason, NextDoor integrates a feature allowing users to print semi-custom flyers to invite neighbors to join the site. NextDoor will also send personalized postcards to a user’s neighbor on his behalf.

Technorati, a tech blog site says that over half a million messages are posted daily, practically on anything – from missing dogs to babysitter referrals, to garage sales and other stuff. There are over 8,000 US neighborhoods already registered with NextDoor, and according to Tolia, about 40 neighborhoods are added every day. If the trend continues, NextDoor is looking at an international expansion soon.

NextDoor’s new features also allow police and fire departments to blast urgent updates to members via text message. A recently retired assistant police chief of Ventura, Quinn Fenwick said that NextDoor is being used by the city’s force to broadcast weekly crime statistics. According to Fenwick, the city force draws more residents than the department’s usual neighborhood watch campaigns. The increasing awareness it generated cannot be dismissed and other neighborhoods can use NextDoor for similar purpose. 

Who are the Giants Behind NextDoor?

There are a few business giants backing up Nextdoor through a $22 million funding. Investors include Benchmark Capital and Shasta Ventures; Zillow’s co-founder and chairman, Rich Barton; Greylock Partners; Google (GOOG) Ventures; Bezos Expeditions – the personal investment firm of Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos. NextDoor’s current registration figures is highly attributed to this huge capital infusion. 

The Future for NextDoor

Currently with 22 employees, NextDoor makes no revenue at this point although it plans to generate revenue by allowing local merchants to advertise their products and services on the site. At this time, Tolia said that the company is not focused on producing profits. That would come in eventually. They simply appreciate the rapid adoption of NextDoor by neighbors across the country.

Greylock’s Managing Director, Mr. David Sze said his firm’s investment of more than $15 million in the new round is the single biggest check he has written in a round of financing. He sees real potential for NextDoor to be another Facebook or LinkedIn, very soon.

NextDoor can easily be the social network for any neighborhood as it has all the elements of being the next great socially-valuable network.


The Google Glass

 

Google Glass -- outsource social media

 

Sometime in February 2013, Google started a social media campaign for Twitter and Google+ users, asking them to share their ideas on what they would do if they had Google Glass – Google’s latest technological innovation through the futuristic, Internet-connected glasses which display digital information right in front of the user’s eyes. The campaign hopes to select the best response who will in turn receive the Explorer version of the Google Glass.

Google Glass is described by Wikipedia as “a wearable computer with a head-mounted display or HMD developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project”. The ultimate objective of the project is to produce a mass-market universal computer. It’s basically a computer worn on your head which can provide you with the information you need in a smartphone-like but hands-free format. The smart thing about Google Glass is its ability to interact with the Internet through voice commands.

The Explorer Edition of Google Glass which will be given to about 8,000 Twitter and Google+ users who have been selected through the social media campaign they launched in February cannot be used by those who wear prescription glasses. Google, however have considered partnering with sunglass retailers such as Ray Ban or Warby Parker and alongside with that, have sorted out plans to work with frames and lenses that match the user’s prescription. Part of Google’s plan is to open retail stores that will allow customers to try on the Google Glass.

The pair of augmented reality high-tech eyewear that can take pictures, record video of whatever the user sees and wants to record, and send text messages. A lot of tech experts are counting high on Google Glass as an important innovation that could give the smartphone a good competition and run for its money.

 

Google Glass Different Colors -- social media outsourcing

 

A Georgia Tech professor and Google Project Glass adviser has envisioned widespread consumer adoption for the Google Glass, creating a lifestyle change – one that would give people power and make them efficient and calmer. Things can be done with less and less interruptions.

While “techies” are on all-out support for Google Glass, there are some hurdles that the project has to overcome especially from privacy experts and lawmakers who are expressing concern for the project. For example, a new law, which is apparently aimed at Project Glass, in West Virginia, could make it illegal to drive while wearing Google Glass. In Seattle, certain bars forbid patrons from wearing the Google Glass as well. An outright ban on the product is being sought by one activist group.

Majority of the concerns stem from the device’s ease of discreet recording, which would violate the “two-party consent” law implemented in certain states like Washington, California, and Nevada. In these states, it is illegal to record a conversation unless everyone agrees.

It will all boil down to having control of the device and not misusing the device as in recording in reprehensible way. The device has a signal on the glasses that show when it is recording which is unlike the smartphone put inside the pocket while recording. With Google Glass, you always know when somebody is wearing the device and using it.


It’s Not All about Domain Name

Domain Name, SEO and Google Updates -- social media outsourcing

A domain name is a name assigned to identify a specific website on the World Wide Web. It is like a person’s mailing address – the domain name is the website’s way to tell people where to find it.

Exact Match Domain and SEO

A website address comprised of keywords which are not the brand or company name is called an Exact Match Domain or EMD. Such keywords should match the search query words precisely. If you want to create a website targeting the keywords “top world attractions”, the EMD of the website will be topworldattractions.com. With an EMD, ranking in search engines is boosted, as keywords are featured in the domain name and therefore easily detected and indexed by search engines.

Exact match domains have offered a competitive advantage for SEOs who understood how to use them. EMDs represent what SEOs do best – achieve search engine ranking for the site. EMD is an excellent strategy to get the pages to rank well on Google and other search engines.   

When EMDs are Not Helping SEO

One must understand that some marketers try and play a trick on search engines by using single dashed and multiple dashed EMD to contain keywords to boost a company’s page ranking and not to provide the user with valuable and useful information. EMDs used for such purpose will not help boost the site’s page rankings because Google had updated their algorithms in order to weed out low quality EMDs in their search results.

Multiple Dashed Domains

Multiple Dashed Domains -- SEO company Philippines

Statistics have proven that domains having more than one dash are in most cases in real life, spammy. As such, you should not use double dash domains for your website since it may be included in those marked or labeled spammy by search engines like Google, even if the site has valuable and relevant content to the search query. Domain names with multiple dashes are often linking to companies trying to trick search engines to get good page ranking using the search keywords.     

Single Dashed Domains

While some websites with single dash domain names have ranked well with search engines, SEO experts are of the opinion that single dash EMDs also provide very minimal advantage over a non-keyword domain and must therefore be ruled out just the same.      

Number of Keywords in EMD

According to Matt Cutts of Google, quality domain names should have 2 to 3 keywords for a domain name on “.net”, or “.org”, and 3 to 4 for “.com” and this will be effective for EMDs to boost the website’s ranking. You go beyond these numbers and you will send signals to alarm search engine crawlers to suspect the site as spammy.

Number of Keywords in EMD -- online marketing outsourcing

Google’s latest algorithm update which targeted low quality domain names have affected a lot of sites with EMD. As Google focuses more towards organic search, search engine bots now consider most sites with multiple and single dashed EMDs worthless or of low quality.

To fight off the effects of such algorithm update, website owners should focus on the site’s content and not on the EMD as having an EMD with single and multiple dashed domains might result in the washout of years of hard work. The way to counter this is by buying a new domain and start afresh by transferring data from the EMD site to the new website before finally phasing out the EMD site. You could use redirects if search engines still cache your old website or if the old site still have value. You can check here how redirection works and which one to use. Introduce the new website to users and focus on building a better brand through building up quality links and quality content.

Despite the sweeping effects of Google algorithm update on EMDs, if the content and information on the website is relevant and useful for the end user, EMDs may still enjoy certain benefits for their websites. They can still help attract social mentions with keywords or keyword anchor text. They can also still help in the marketing and branding of a website.


MSN Socl

MSN Socl -- outsource social media

The power of social networking is undoubtedly recognized by every soul involved in online marketing. It’s precisely the reason for the phenomenal success of Facebook and Twitter, with a few more trailing behind. For its part, Microsoft’s offer is Socl, MSN’s own version of social media site. In early December last year, MSN invited those who have Microsoft and Facebook accounts to register to its new project Socl. It was launched in beta version in 2011 for Microsoft employees and college students until its December 2012 launch.

This prompts everyone to ask if there is room for another social network where it is already dominated by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus.

According to Microsoft, Socl is more like Pinterest than Facebook, and not exactly a traditional social network everyone is so familiar with. Socl has photo-filled landing pages which was an upgrade from the beta version, which was less heavy with images. Socl was a product of Microsoft Research FUSE Lab’s research into social search for students.

With the recently launched new version, anyone qualifies to register and find content randomly on Socl’s homepage or search by topic using Bing. If you want to create a post, contents – photos, links, videos, etc., from other sites can be retrieved and Socl will put together a collage for you.

“Riff” is a term used if you want to comment on other’s posts and share related links and images. The profile page is a gallery of the posts created and the interests and people you follow. There are no wall posts and no 140-character tweets.

Socl pays more attention on content than friends. Socl will find your Facebook friends if you register using your Facebook login data. But the site urges people to explore and connect with others based on common interests and posts.   

Socl vs Facebook?

Socl vs Facebook -- SEO company Philippines

Because of the high prominence of Facebook in social networking, a lot of people are wondering whether Socl is intended to give Facebook some competition. People at Microsoft claims Socl shares not much similarity with Facebook but is more of Pinterest type. Socl, like Pinterest, seems more into browsing random photos rather than communicating with friends.

Microsoft is aware of the limitations of Socl. The company describes it as an “experimental research project with a minimal set of features”, and not designed or developed to compete with already established social networks. Microsoft is making an attempt to create a unified and cross-platform ecosystem that is not limited by hardware (Surface tablets) and software (Windows 8), search engines (Bing), and social network (Socl). Viral ad campaigns and Twitter stunts are used by the company to get the experimentation off the ground.

With all issues clarified and explained, people are wondering if Microsoft can make that transformation from an old fashioned image to enter a new era of touch and social technology. How Socl fares in the months to come will likely give the answers.

Socl being considered as a social media site, it does give social media a new feel. With content or useful information being searched by millions every day, it is not surprising that Microsoft bite into this kind of social media presentation.

If you’re an internet marketer and is currently on the look for new ways to spread your content through social media, then, Socl could be a possible option. To know how social media plays an important role in SEO, take a look at this article.


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