VEVO Starts Off with a Bang; Over 35 Million Visitors the First Month

VEVO Starts Off with a Bang; Over 35 Million Visitors the First Month

VEVO is a new online entertainment network started by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Abu Dhabi Media Company and powered by YouTube. The site launched December 8th.

And what a first month VEVO had. In December alone, VEVO saw 35,395,000 unique visitors according to comScore.

“We are thrilled that the VEVO Network, which is still in its infancy, has debuted at the top of the comScore rankings for unique visitors across the Entertainment-Music category in the U.S.,” said Rio Caraeff, President and CEO, VEVO.

Music videos from artists such as Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Drake, Lady Gaga, Jay Sean, Shakira, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Young Money appear on the site.

“The interest and enthusiasm our users have shown has been both gratifying and inspiring. We are also proud to deliver such strong traffic results straight out of the gate to our content and marketing partners, which solidify their early belief in the VEVO vision. We listen very closely to all of our partners and fans, and have been incorporating their feedback to continue to improve upon the VEVO experience,” concluded Caraeff.

The other networks in the top 5 for the entertainment-music category on comScore were MySpace Music, AOL Music, Warner Music and MTV Networks Music.

Top 10 voice searches indicate more people are socializing on the go

Top 10 voice searches indicate more people are socializing on the go
Mobile voice app startup Vlingo released today the top ten voice-powered mobile Web searches of 2009.  The popular Web searches are for YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace demonstrating the popularity of video and social networking sites and exemplifying a desire to be connected – even when Mobile. Twitter is number six …

SES Chicago Preview by Grant Crowell - Images & Optimization

SES Chicago Preview by Grant Crowell - Images & Optimization

I had the opportunity to interview my fellow panelists on the Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference session, Images & Optimization, taking place on December 7th at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago.

Why Images are Important to Search Engine Optimization.

Very simply put, search results are increasingly including much more than just text links. “The search engines are constantly looking for ways to deliver the most relevant results to the person who typed the query - whether it is general search, image search, news search, local search or blog search.” Says panelist Liana Evans, Director of Social Media for Serengeti Communications, and veteran SES conference speaker.

“In fact, Google just again stated in its Webmaster Central blog on November 24, 2009, that sometimes a text link to a site isn’t always the best result.” Liana adds. “Sometimes it’s video, photos, maps,” or other images and multimedia.
I asked each of the panelists to provide a overview of what they will be focusing on for our session:

Joshua Palau - Image search affects purchase decisions

Our moderator, Joshua Palau, VP of Search for Razorfish, will be talking about the importance of images and how they tie into the purchase cycle for consumers. “I want to elevate the conversation above searching for funny images, and instead talk about how marketers can use images to push products” he says.

Some prep for our audience: Don’t presume this session to be a Google love-fest - far from it. Razorfish’s own Technology blog mentions that image search features on Microsoft’s own Search Engine, Bing, can be preferential to Google’s.
“Image search has never been so good [on Bing]. Every single query provides with an option to pick an image and do ‘find similar.’ Additionally the in-browser searching and navigation of the images is absolutely next generation thinking.” Blogs Razorfish’s VP of Technology, Salim Hemdani.

Liana Evans - The Social is increasingly important

Liana has been one of the veteran panelists on the Images & Optimization session at SES conferences throughout North American and Europe. Liana will be presenting on how social media is greatly affecting image search behavior. Some examples from Liana will include Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Google Panaramio, and Local Search.
“It’s not just about the images you load to your website anymore; social media is playing a huge role in what is returned in the searches.” Based on what Liana is saying, it naturally follows that the images you featuring in social media sites are increasing important to your own search optimization activities.

The first step of course is simply submitting your images to social media sites and tagging them - be them in Facebook’s photo albums, Flickr’s sets and collections, or using them supplement a local listing on a local listing site such as Google has. “Knowing how to optimize these type of digital assets is becoming vital, as more and more people want the “visual” result, and not just text anymore.” Says Liana.

Mat Siltala - Image Optimization in Viral Content

Matt is the founder of the SEO/Viral Marketing/Reputation Management/Press Marketing firm Dream Systems Media, and a panelist on one of the very first session of the day, Mixed Media SERPs. Matt plans to present on image optimization in regards to ‘viral’ graphics (info graphics, etc.), and images used in viral content. He will demonstrate how images can optimized on a number of popular site networks such as posterous, meme, delicious, StumbleUpon - along with how to properly set them up on your both your text-based content (blogs, articles, etcetera), and other types of content.

Grant Crowell - Video Thumbnails is the overlooked Image SEO opportunity

My own presentation will showcase what may be another first for this session: Optimizing image thumbnails for your video image content, with examples right from Google’s blended search results. As a high-level overview, you’ll get to see:

• Why Image SEO specialists and SEO specialists in general should pay attention to video image thumbnails in blended search results,
• How my own publication has been successful with image optimization of video thumbnails, and;
• Tips for how SEO professionals can get started with optimizing their own video content for image search results (and blended search results featuring images).

Mark the date and time on your calendar: December 7th, 1:45 - 2:45 pm, in the Blended Search Results Track. See you all there!

Grant Crowell is the Senior Media Analyst for ReelSEO.com, a news publication and consulting firm on digital video news and marketing solutions for professionals. He is also the host of ReelSEO’s podcast and videocast series, now available on iTunes.

Music Search Wars: Yahoo! Goes for Music Video Search Supremacy

Music Search Wars: Yahoo! Goes for Music Video Search Supremacy

It’s no secret that music searches comprise a large number of searches on the web today. That’s why the music search wars have heated up in recent weeks with rumors and announcements surrounding efforts by Google, Facebook, and MySpace.

Yahoo! has been a player in music search for a long time, but now they’re amping up their game with music video search. They’re including a special section on the left sidebar to help you filter results.

This seems to only happen with artists and bands of a certain popularity. You can see the left sidebar filter for U2, Foo Fighters and Coldplay, but not for Paramore, Jet or The Swell Season. You get the left rail for Frank Sinatra but not Dean Martin.

The left rail contains albums and songs. Click on one to see videos related to your selection.

What do you think of Yahoo! Music Video search? Let us know in the comment section below.

Hot Rumor: Google is Launching a New Music Service

Hot Rumor: Google is Launching a New Music Service

According to a blog post by Heather Dougherty, Director of Research at Experian Hitwise, Google is expected to launch their music service today. So, she took a closer look at the tons of data that Hitwise collects to see can be seen.

Here are some highlights:

– Out of the top 1,000 search terms that took place on Google last week, 6 percent were music-related (which includes bands, music services and content).
— Last week, Google sent 1.48 percent of their total visits to the Music category and of those visits, 95 percent of the downstream traffic to Music websites were returning visitors (that had visited Google in the past 30 days).
— Google was the top referral website to the Music category accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total traffic to the category last week, 5x more than 2nd ranked Yahoo! Search and 6.3x more than MySpace.
— Last week, 15 percent of the clicks from the search term portfolio of Music that includes the names of over 900 band and artist names resulted in a visit to a Google property, especially YouTube, among the Top 10 websites to receive traffic.
— Last month, 71% of all searches took place on Google.

Speaking of music, VEVO, a music and video entertainment hub being launched by YouTube and Universal Music Group later this year, just landed AT&T as an advertiser. Oh, and VEVO just got an undisclosed investment from Abu Dhabi Media Company, which is backed by the people from the United Arab Emirates.

Is there a connection? Is YouTube an independent subsidiary of Google? You betcha.

I spoke with Bill Tancer, General Manager of Hitwise, and author of the best-selling book “Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters” at SES Chicago 2008. He was about to spot search engine user behavior patterns and the shopping patterns of the affluent long before they were common knowledge.

Bill Tancer on Search Patterns at SES Chicago 2008

So, when the folks over at Hitwise tell me how music plays on Google, I listen. I listen very closely. They hear things before the rest of us.

Web 2.0 marketing I MySpace advertising I Youtube marketing

Web 2.0 marketing I MySpace advertising I Youtube marketing
Learn Web 2.0 marketing and how sites like YouTube, MySpace, Digg, and other Web 2.0 social networking and social bookmarking sites can help you gain customers and leads.

Create Free Blogs & Online Journals on MySpace Blogs - Online Diaries

Create Free Blogs & Online Journals on MySpace Blogs - Online Diaries
Create Free Blogs & Online Journals on MySpace Blogs - Online Diaries, Weblogs, & Cool Bloggers on MySpace! New blog topics added every minute.

Assert Ownership Over Your Online Identity with PeoplePond Profile

Assert Ownership Over Your Online Identity with PeoplePond Profile

One of the new exhibitors at SES San Jose 2009 was PeoplePond. The company offers a unique Internet service that provides personal brand visibility, reputation management and identity verification services.

Today, PeoplePond announced that profile authors can now prove and demonstrate ownership over many of their social media accounts when they subscribe to PeoplePond’s Identity Verification package. This includes social media accounts on Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, Twitter and YouTube.

PeoplePond’s Services Verification is the first of other new capabilities PeoplePond plans to launch during the upcoming weeks to make it easier for people to create a verified and trusted position from which to promote their personal brands and online assets. Each PeoplePond profile is designed to provide the owner full control to implement a search engine optimization strategy that boosts visibility for their entire online identity.

Additionally, the PeoplePond Identity Verification service confirms to profile visitors that the profile owner has proven they are who they say they are. This takes the teeth out of online identity thieves by providing a bona fide point of reference for online identity.

PeoplePond is part of the Cranberry Venture Partners, LLC network of Web sites. Cranberry is home to a team of developers led by David McInnis, who is best known for founding PRWeb.

Social Profile Sites, Mobile Social Networking More Popular than Twitter Among 18-24 Year Olds

Social Profile Sites, Mobile Social Networking More Popular than Twitter Among 18-24 Year Olds

Twitter may be enjoying some nice traffic trends in recent months, but they’re going to have to work harder to win over 18-24 year olds. Sites like Facebook and MySpace along with mobile social networking fare much better with this demographic.

99% of those surveyed say they have a profile on a social networking site. 89% have downloaded an application on that site. 89% have also used the photo features while 53% have played games on the site.

That’s much more than the 22% who are using Twitter.

38% of this demographic have an iPhone or an iPod touch. Of those, 53% play games, 35% use entertainment apps and 31% use lifestyle apps. 26% don’t use any apps.

The data was released by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN). The study was conducted in May 2009 and included 200 participants. The Lubin School of Business’ Interactive and Direct Marketing (IDM) Lab at Pace University partnered with PMN for the study.

MySpace.com - Web2.Oh! - 28 - Male - SEATTLE, Washington - www.myspace

MySpace.com - Web2.Oh! - 28 - Male - SEATTLE, Washington - www.myspace
MySpace profile for Web2.Oh! with pictures, videos, personal blog, interests, information about me and more

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