We have started to notice that Google is continuing to improve the indexing of Flash objects (SWFs). They seem to be doing a fairly decent job, but since many Adobe Flash developers are unaware of this fact, much of that content is jiberish (variable names, stage elements, i.e.) in spite of the fact that Google says they are using an ‘interaction’ algorithm.

Here are couple of thoughts and recommendations:

• Google’s spidering of Flash content will come as a surprise to many. Developers or publishers who do not want Google to expose the contents of their Files should consider updating their robots.txt files (Disallow: /*.swf$)
• Developers who wish to potentially enhance their Flash or widget SEO, should consider putting “meaningful” content on the main stage of the Flash objects and cleaning up any placeholders or default text

A quick roundup of recent widget news, trends and analysis:

• Clearspring to Exit Widget Sharing Business
  Clearspring is is putting one of its widget services (Launchpad), to bed and focusing all its energy on the AddThis service. (more)
• Thinking Screen Media Brings Widgets to Syabas’ DAVID Platform
  Metablocks client make widget waves on TV and set-top platforms.
• Hackers break into RockYou and Gain Access to Social Media Data
  Hackers broke into an online database hosted at RockYou.com and illegally accessed the usernames and passwords for more than 30 million users of Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and Orkut.
• Government Departments Continue Widget Trend
  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a widget last week that can help distribute user-friendly public-health information.

Here are some interesting recent widget related post from our Widgetmatic Blog:

• Widgetmatic Series Beefs Up Online Video Support and Options
  Video has always been a key component on widgets. With their growing popularity, online videos quickly and easily be integrated into both custom and prefab Widgetmatic widgets.
• Widgetmatic AIR Widgets for the Desktop
  While many people use Adobe Flash-based widgets on the Web, dashboard widgets have allowed users to access the same widget functionality on their own desktop.
• Clearspring API’s going Away – What to Do Next?
  You have about 100 days left till April 5^th, 2010 when your Clearspring widgets will stop working (unless you switch to their AddThis platform, Gigya or another widget sharing provider). 
• New Quantcast Web Analytics Tab for Widgets!
  Recently we have added a family of web analytics tabs which rely on both public (Alexa.com, Compete.com) and internal web analytics (Google Analytics, Omniture) information that can be incorporated into a Widgetmatic widget.

Sparrow Records (EMI) artist Matthew West has had a great year! With one of the year’s most popular Christian singles (Motions), a Grammy Nomination and a successful “Give This Christmas Away” tour has landed Matthew in new headlines (USA Today, FOX News, i.e.).  Shortly before Thanksgiving, we were tapped by Matthew’s social media savvy manager (Method Management) to help better communicate his message (and boost his presence) on Facebook.  You can checkout Matthew’s Christmas 2009 custom Facebook page here. The page features sound, video, and a free download (which “encourages” who aren’t already fans to become fans!)

Creating a marketing presence on Facebook is more than a good idea! It’s essential! Consider this – fans spend a lot more time on Facebook than they do on any artist website! In fact, users spend more on time on Facebook than any other site on the web! According to Mashables, Nielsen Online reports that in August users spent an average of 5 hours, 46 minutes on Facebook! That’s triple the amount of time they spent on Google! Additionally Facebook has long past MySpace, yet artist continue to invest in their MySpace pages?

Given these facts, why are so many artist’s Facebook fan page lacking in any real content (other than a simple iLike music page). New changes to the Facebook API coming this month will make marketing on Facebook easier and more effective! The new posting API’s, the ability for apps to send messages to your inbox, the ability to get user’s email address and other important API changes will continue to make Facebook the platform of choice for music artists and labels!

I have a most interesting and unusual phone call a couple of weeks ago from a sales person at CareerBuilder. Ironically, the sales person had no idea who was trying to sell us the very same services we provided. According to him, CareerBuilder is the “first company with an exclusive contract to resell Facebook services”.  Little information about this “deal” exists on the web but there is probably some (little) truth to it. He said he was calling “on behalf of Facebook” selling “Facebook services”. According to this sales person (based out of their Chicago office), services start about about $1000 for “hosting and running your Facebook page” (by the way, Facebook actually hosts all Facebook content). Most interesting (and amusing) indeed. As background, CareerBuilder is owned by Gannett Co, Inc., Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company, and Microsoft Corp. (who is a close “partner” of and investor in Facebook).

What I found the most assuming was their email signature – I had no idea that could “buy” Facebook from a reseller!

With 1700 employees and 75% of them in sales and given the current economic climate, no wonder CareerBuilder is“Reselling Facebook”. I wonder how much it cost?

Politicians at every level, from your local city council member to Congress to the President, have embraced at varying levels of participation and degree, social networking tools and marketing channels. End user participation and activity in these campaigns appear to more robust, especially at the local level. Local social media political activity perhaps may even be more active than at national levels -  according to TweetCongress, roughly 180 members of Congress (34%) have active Twitter accounts with Republicans out ranking Democrats by a ratio of two to one (2:1).

Despite the credit given to the Obama campaign team for essentially creating the template for the political social media marketing, I found this 2:1 ratio (with Republicans out ranking Democrats) most interesting!  In recently weeks, as part of our research into this market, I have review over a 100 Facebook pages and Twitter accounts as well as had conversations with the communications staff of a few dozen representatives leads me to insightful conclusions:

Most politicians (in both parties) feel that for 2009 merely having a presence (even at the most minimal level) is enough for now.

But is that really the case? It’s probably a matter of time or maybe a few lost seats and some Monday morning quarter backing before we see a little more parity between both parties and politicians making greater investments in the way of time and money into social media marketing!

So, at present, what does all this activity across the Political social networking landscape look like? What are some simple solutions to achieving greater effectiveness in this arena? Here are some social media pointers for politicians and their staff to be aware:

• Simply setting up a profile page and allowing the community on social networks to evolve without any thought leadership is not enough!
• The immediacy, easy access, and premium placed on just showing up within social networking sites cannot be overrated.
• All voter generated content is not valued equally and it is up to the politician to provide a framework and thought leadership to avoid having the content of their communities potentially devolve.
• Enabling and utilizing the notes feature on Facebook is one of the most overlooked and valuable tools for structuring and advancing community dialogue.
• Widgets and custom applications are not just for musicians and big brands. They have a very practical use within the context of politics.
• Social media marketing and outreach doesn’t have to expensive or time consuming, but it most be deliberate and well managed!

This post is really a first in a series of posts focused on social media and politics we hope to release over the next couple of weeks. We would love to get your feedback and insight and we help some of our clients in the (political) space improve the returns on their political social media outreach (and hopefully get elected).

Here is quick roundup of this week’s interesting widget news, trends and analysis:

• Britney Spear Tour Widgets Makes Debut
  All artists need them, smart artists have them – widgets! Britney’s social media manager Lauren Kozak announces a new widget to celebrate the second North American leg of Britney’s tour.
• Digital Photo Frame Widgets are the Future!
  This week Sungale announced a Wifi Widget photo frame with a 800 x 600 resolution touchscreen boasts 512 MB of internal storage for only $165 (available next month). Expect to see digital photo frames become mainstream (probably this Christmas) as more intelligence and functionality is built into them. I think the real value (and money) is in MANAGING the content that goes out on these digital internet-enabled photo frames. One of our clients, FrameChannel, does exactly this and has a phenomenal service aimed at delivering almost any type of content (Photos, News, Twitter, Facebook, i.e.) via digital photo frames!
• Your are Never Too Old to Make a Widget – IBM Widgets for LinkedIn
  Its probably been a while since many of us use a product from IBM (remember Lotus Notes), but the company recently announced the first two in a new initiative to develop widgets for a wide variety of business needs including TripIt and LinkedIn apps integratd into Lotus Notes desktop!
• Vendors Start Announcing and Releasing Yahoo TV Widgets and FiOS TV Widgets
  Sonic Solutions announced a Roxio CinemaNow Yahoo! TV Widget (available in the fall) that allows users to search, rent and buy movies. Interative TV games provider, PlayJam is planning to offer a Yahoo TV widget. Verizon is bringing Twitter, Facebook and YouTube widgets to its FiOS TV platform. Vizio announced that some popular services including eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Rallypoint Sports, Showtime, Revision3, Radiotime, and Vudu, will be available on their HDTV’s, powered by the Yahoo TV Widgets engine. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 already features Netflix Watch Instantly, and later this fall will also offer Facebook and Twitter.  

A summary of recent music and technology posts on this and other Metablocks blogs:

• Artist.com: What Should I build my Music Website On?
• Custom Facebook Applications for Music Artist
• Warner Music, Sony BMG, Universal and Drupal! What Gives?
• Music Artists and Widgets: Marketing Guide
• Country Music Fans and Digital Music Sales
• Altantic Records and Social Media

We build a lot of custom Facebook applications for all sort of large brands, non-profits and music labels. Like a website in the Web 1.0 era, Facebook applications are becoming  a staple of many online marketing campaigns, music artist included. There are a couple of example of Facebook applications (some build by ourselves and some by other folks) that give you an idea of the types of music artist facebook apps out there:

• Interscope Records Song Card: Multiple Artists including Lady Gaga
• Chris Brown (Zomba Label Group)
• U2 Mixtape (Univeral Music)
• Chris Sligh Get Out the Vote (Brash Musich)
• Coldplay Widget (Brash Music)

Good examples are hard to find, so if you know of any please share them via comments. Also been on the lookout for some very interesting music artist FB applications in the next couple of weeks including the beta of SuperFan, our music artist promotional tool for Facebook.

Given the way Twitter works – its fairly open API and the ease of creating Twitter accounts (Twitter doesn’t require you to have a valid email address when creating a new account), it is surprising there isn’t more spam on Twitter than there currently is. We have all starting reading the reports on Twitter spam attacks or celebrity Twitter accounts being hacked or how big the spam problem on Twitter will get! With more and more business (and individuals) taking to Twitter to promote their ventures (and potentially their scams), expect spamming on Twitter to eventually explode! After all, by some claims 90% of all email is spam. Here is my attempt at a short but comprehensive list of the types of Twitter spam and abuse that is going on:

General Spamming and URL Shortners
It is becoming a common practice for individuals use their real or fictitious accounts to shamelessly promote their services to the general public via Twitter. This sort of spam is be expected, after all, one man’s (or woman’s) spam is another man’s (or woman’s) “business opportunity”! What makes spam on Twitter worse are the URL shortners!Become many users shorten their links with a URL shortner to get the most of Twitter 140 character limit, sometimes innocuous looking links point to viruses, trojans, pornography, or scams! It is impossible to tell, until you click the link.

Hash and Trend Spamming
This builds on generally spamming to make it more effective (or sometime targeted). This form of spam takes advantage of trending topics on Twitter by adding a hash tag to particular keyword in a tweet. Recently, for example spammers have been taking advantage of the sad death of Michael Jackson by adding #MJ and #MichaelJackson to their tweets. The same sort of thing has been going on with the #Iranelections and other popular trending topics.  By adding trending topics or keywords to their tweets, spammers get their tweets to show up more often in popular (or targeted) searches. This has sometimes forced Twitter to temporarily disable trend searching on its site.

@username Spamming and Tweetjacking
This takes advantage of the popular practices or reply to/retweeting over peoples tweets. This common form of Twitter spam involves spammers replying to your @username, which then causes the Tweets to show up in your timeline (and may cause you to read it). This has quickly evolved into the practice of Tweetjacking. Here someone replies to or re-tweets a post you made, except they substitute your shortened URL in the post (http://tinyurl.com/good, i.e.) with another shortened URL that points to porn or scam site (http://tinyurl.com/bad,i.e.).

Twitter Account Hijacking
This involves hackers breaking into your account and using it for their own purposes (warning: avoid simple or obvious passwords on your Twitter account). Spammers hack into a reputable account (presumably with a lot of followers) and use it to send out spam. Accounts of popular Twitter users such as former Mac evangelist (or more recently investor) Guy Kawaski and even Britney Spear’s (TwitPic accounts) have been recently hacked! The list of celebrities who have had their accounts hacked continues to grow! (Lindsay Lohan, Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News, ie). In fact this and the legal problems that follow has promoted Twitter to launch verified accounts.

Follower Inflation, “Follower Services” and Related Spam
The Twitter economy is based in part on the number of followings you have. Since creating an account is relatively easy, some has introduced automation to amass hundreds or thousands of fake followers! Some of these “spammers” have gone on to try and sell their services or accounts to the highest bidders! Spammers use this and related techniques to propagate general spam and grow their spam network.

Twitter Harassment
Not really spam but definitely a form of social networking abuse has prompted Twitter to put out and try and enforce a Twitter Harassment Policy (some have claimed this is not enough). Individual can and do get harassed on Twitter. Some have been harassed professional views, celebrities have complained about being stalked/harassed on Twitter and you can expect the same time of harassment that goes on social networks such as MySpace to rear its ugly head!

Dealing with Twitter Spam and Abuse

1. Be Careful Who You Follow
   Tools like Twitchuck allow you check to see if @username appears to be a spammer by analyzing metrics such as their following to follower ratio, number of posts and other metrics. A lot of spammers try and capture followers (and potentially gain more credibility and exposure) by very quickly following as many people as they can. Consider blocking these individuals.
2. Be Careful What You Click
   As I mentioned earlier, you can never be sure exactly what you are clicking on in Twitter (and other services) where true URL addresses are hidden behind a URL shortner (such as tinyurl.com, bit.ly, i.e.). I think we should look to these services to add some level or protection or expect secure/spam-free URL shortner to appear. Unfortunately there isn’t any solution that provides complete protection (desktop spam filters help) since some of these messages may come from a friends hacked account! Definitely beware of clicking on links in tweets by people you don’t now or find in a general search!
3. Twitter Spam Filters and Techniques
   Expect these services (Clean Tweets, almost.at, TweetTornado, i.e. )to make an a big appearance shortly. But such a service would filter allow you to search for trends on Twitter or do simple searches while remove the tweets or known or suspected spammers. Expect more and more Twitter spam blacklists to appear (similar to those for email spam). There are also organization dedicating to identify spam fighting techniques on Twitter, check them out.
4. Abuse and Flagging Tools from Twitter
   A growing number of users are advocating that Twitter at tools that allow users to alert Twitter about abuse. I would expect that this will happen shortly. Abuse complaints already pour into Twitter’s support site. Twitter currently does suspend accounts “due to strange activity” so they are trying to get on top of the problem and ultimately they have the power (and best interest) to reduce spam on the service.  Twitter can easily start validating email addresses and adding “Flag User” or “Report Abuse” buttons on profiles and search results and I am certain they eventually will.