What? I'm excluded?!?!

There’s more bad news for guys as well. But first, some obvious results:

Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Lady GaGa and Megan Fox are in the top 10 searches for People! Not for celebs or musicians or whatever, but for People. (Although, of course, the first three are also in the top 10 results for Musicians.)

Man needs the moves to succeed!

Unexpected results were that Kim Kardashian took the number 2 slot, while the resurgence of interest in Jennifer Aniston landed her in slot 3. Not unexpected but probably for all the wrong reasons, Lindsay Lohan took the 4 slot.

So that takes care of 7 of the top 10 slots. Number 5 was Jennifer Lopez and number 10 was Miley Cyrus, which shows hard work combined with musical talent can help keep people involved and connected for years.

So the only guy to get into the Top 10 People for 2011 was Justin Bieber. (That’s the bad news bit, especially if you’re a hunk, movie star, gridiron champ or even president of a country.)

Maria Sharapova - action on the court

Bing searches, which favour the US population, have revealed a number of interesting statistics for the 2011 “year of the web”. In short, tennis stars were the most searched. But no Fed or Rafa!

Maria Sharapova - a model citizen off court

Girl Power! Yes – a woman was the top searched sports star for the year. And that’s not all. Tennis Power – now triple the strength!!!

In a terrific year for women’s tennis, with plenty of great matches and new champions, the comeback kid known as Masha was the top of the list for Bing peeps. And two of Masha’s competitors were in top 5 places. The quick list:

1. Maria Sharapova (tennis)
2. Tiger Woods (probably for off-green as much as on)
3. Serena Williams (tennis)
4. Brett Favre (gridiron)
5. Caroline Wozniacki (tennis)

Maria and Caroline keep people interested for positive reasons – as tennis champions and attractive people. No need for tantrums, affairs or stunts to keep them on the web radar.

You’ve all seen the trick:

• click on a link for a “free” download
• click from a webzine to a bio
• click on a “news” item for more info

When you click, you arrive at a Facebook request to “Like” (the page, the brand, the artist) before you can go any further.

No more!

Every Twitter account that tries that trick will start to be Unfollowed.

Every Tech blog that tries that trick will be suspect.

There are three key reasons the Like scam will now fail wholesale:

• when users take two clicks to reach something they should reach in one click, they lose interest rapidly
• when users click Like they become part of Facebook’s “know you and sell you” data empire
• the failing Digg, Stumble and similar content farms showed the junk aspect of processes similar to Like

So next time you get a blackmail attempt to Like something, don’t.

The infographic below, created by Experian Hitwise, allocates a month’s usage into one hour:

Although all “Social Media” is grouped together, Facebook only accounts for half of that pie slice.

Therefore, the standard web usage of Entertainment, News, Email, Shopping and Travel continues to dominate.

Complete analysis is clouded, however, with a huge one-third of internet time being left vague, called Other. My guess, based on many other surveys, is that Other will include a lot of youth-oriented sites like YouTube, iTunes, Vevo etc. And that’s where the real importance lies!

The excitement comes from imagining your favourite music artists in a live mash-up performance – which then becomes real. As well as the live shows, Festival At Large intend to provide both streaming and download options for the events. Their tag line of “Festival At Large is wherever you are” is definitely making full use of our modern, connected world.

Just one example from their growing collection of videos proves the point. What do you get when you mash-up Miley Cyrus with Chicago in a cleverly synced video? You get this:

Now that you understand the plan, it could be time to get mashing yourself into tip top YouTube form. Rumour is American Idol will be using video submissions soon to help in the heats!

As we noted in an earlier post, VEVO has really low visitor numbers – click here. The news has been getting worse. Even when people visit the site they run away again, fast. Here is the chart to prove it:

The higher the Bounce Rate, the less time visitors stay. Google Analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik has stated: “My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20% while anything over 35% is cause for concern. Above 50% is worrying.”

The chart shows YouTube is fabulous, very close to the 20% optimum. Even MySpace, despite its troubles, has still managed to stay below 40%. But VEVO is still climbing, now well into the extreme danger zone.

So it is silliness in the extreme to see Mary McKnight, aka @REBlogGirl at a Major Record Label, make extravagant and incorrect claims about VEVO. She said: “VEVO has really taken off … and is driving in more people than Hulu! The premium content model is leveraging fan base against both artist brand and artist product to deliver exactly what the fan wants – the ON DEMAND ALL ACCESS PASS to their favorite artist. It’s a simple model and it is working on Vevo.”

Except it is clearly not! Why do major music labels continue with this selective blindness to what is really important to fans.

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How clever is your website? Can you achieve the 3-second rule? http://bit.ly/cgkJy7 #web #SocialMedia #metrics

November 17, 2010 6:02 pm via sobeesReplyRetweetFavorite

Now, all I have to do is get Twitter to automatically tweet about a new post …

Oh, that happens already! Perpetual virtual motion!

• where am I
• what can I do / buy / get here
• why should I participate / buy

In the ‘old days’ – 2 years ago! – the mantra was 3 clicks and 8 seconds. The new finding shows that:

• users are bored with bloated websites
• users are not happy having their time wasted
• users want websites to be twice as responsive

Think about TV and the attention span of viewers. With hundreds of channels it’s easy to flick to another one if a show or advert fails to engage. With the web there are millions of ‘channels’ to click to.

The marketing gurus at iON suggest three solutions:

• answer the what (what you can do) before the why (don’t bore us with how good you are)
• present the ‘problem’ before the solution (old school marketing speak)
• back up your claims with credibility (so no boasting or hollow testimonials)

As iON say: “Your website should mimic the clarity of a newspaper headline, not the subtlety of a murder mystery novel.”

A 2010 survey of consumers and marketers reveals what marketers believe is important. There is a wide gap in some important areas when we also look at what consumers are influenced by.

It’s no surprise that the highest ranking for consumers is given to brands they trust. Marketers are a little behind on this, but the next three metrics show consumers and marketers are fairly close.

The final three metrics, however, throw large spanners into the hopes and aspirations of marketers and designers. The consumers don’t really care! So it’s thumbs up for:

• brand/company that’s known/trusted
• relevant product or service
• personal, targeted communication

But, and it’s a big BUT, there are very wide gaps in the final three metrics. When marketers rate something as twice as important and, ye goddess, 3-times or even 5-times as important, someone needs to get back to basics. Sorry, marketers and designers, but consumers are mostly looking for quality and relevance. In short, it’s thumbs down for:

• interesting packaging
• fun themes
• design and appearance

Consumers are now a bit too savvy. They can see a great product or great deal, but they can also be turned off by smoke and mirrors. The final message might be:

If you’ve got a great product or service, be straight about it in your marketing.

The latest news is that over one-third of Americans have a distinct lack of interest in broadband and, by that, the web. The reasons given are extremely revealing also, showing that the former front-runner in all things electronic is now dropping behind.

Don’t need it – not interested: 38%

Nearly 40% of those saying they don’t have broadband also say they’re not interested. The country with “everything on, all the time” has, apparently, reached some sort of saturation. Are they too busy already, with enough information coming in via TV? News channels? Radio? Mall life?

Too expensive: 26% / Computer lack: 18%

Here’s another 44% of those without broadband saying they can’t afford it, in one way or another. The service providers, in conjunction with hardware and software companies, have put broadband and the web out of reach of about 20% of the total American population! This, in the “greatest country on God’s earth”? Astonishing.

Here’s the pie graph so you can draw your own conclusions: