This looks to be pretty major -Starting today, Google is adding a wiki function to the search results,

“Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.”

As with all things Google related, people are pretty quick to jump in with their opinions. Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch is not a fan,

“Google search wasn’t broken. It’s one of the few things on the Internet that isn’t. I love it, as does 62% of everyone on the Internet. This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page.”

While someone (sorry, I couldn’t find a name on the blog) over at I’ve Said Too Much, has responded to that with a post simply titled ‘Arrington is Wrong’,

“Google seeks to build a massive distributed curated search into which we are all adding intelligence without ever being aware of it. It is, I would contend, the Big Thing At Google For 2009.”

Meanwhile, over at eWeek, they’re a lot more enthusiastic, seeing it as a boon for users, advertisers and, of course, Google,

“That’s Google’s genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google gets to keep putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we’re looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.”

I’m personally not sure right now.

I think it will be clearly used for Google to start collecting yet more information about what people think of the search results - with the positives and negatives that suggests. People will try and game the system, promoting themselves and so on. If, however, enough people use it, then hopefully the ‘wisdom of crowds’ will help to improve things by adding that human element which is often missing from Google.

That said, I can’t help but agree with Arrington that it looks a mess. Remember how clean Google used to be?

When they first launched it was one of the major things that set them apart. All that lovely white space. The sponsored links were completely separate from the natural SERPs. No nasty banner ads. Just good search results.

But now, between the maps, local search, images, addresses and so on - these additional buttons just seem like yet more clutter.

Will it work? I don’t know. If I search for something, I’m used to Google telling me what I need to know. Using their example from above, I would not use Google to revisit a trail map site time after time, I would bookmark it instead, either on my PC or with Delicious.

I can see times when it would be useful to remove particularly bad results, but how often am I going to suggest a site be added?

And the notes I suspect, will be more trolling than useful unfortunately. I’ve tried a few so far, and there’s nothing that enhances my searching at all. A search for Liverpool FC, for instance, just has 3 right now:

Comment by: Searcher, 9:05am - searching: lfc
“great”

Comment by: Mike, 6:41am - searching: liverpool
“Liverpool FC”

Comment by: 360spin, 8:39am - searching: liverpool
“Wow!”

How do they help me at all?

Perhaps Google is threatened by the growth of social networks and feels that is one area search can be improved. I’m not so sure.

What do you think?

In the latest round of updates at the end of last week, Google announced that they would (finally!) be adding more detail about where your clicks are coming from:

“Previously, these pages divided statistics into two categories: search, which included Google and search partners, and the content network.
Now, we show one set of statistics for Google and another set aggregating search partner performance. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web. ”

This is a major change, comparable to when Google started showing where exactly your ads where coming from in the Content network.

That was a huge step forward, and one that made sense for Google. Previously advertisers were skeptical about throwing money down a black hole which included some very, um, shady Made For AdSense sites alongside the high quality sites they may have wanted to target.

However, these latest changes don’t go far enough. Yet.

We can now see how Google stacks up against the other search partners, but not how the individual partners (Ask, AOL, etc) are performing individually. Rich, over at Destilled is asking the question, “Have Google Shot Themselves in the Foot?”, and it’s a valid point.

Here’s the data for one of the accounts we manage:

(I removed the campaign names for anonymity for my client)

As you can see, in each case the cost per click for the search partners is higher, up to 25% higher, than it is on Google, but even more importantly, the number of conversions (final column) are way down. So I’m paying more, and getting less. That is why all the Search partner ads are now set to ‘Off’. I’d rather spend where it is working.

So, what happens now?

Well I suspect that that many others will follow suit and shut off the complete search network, for example, see this thread at Webmaster World:

“At first glance it looks like 90% of my conversions are from google search only not the network.”

“Wow, just split stats on an account. Bye bye Search Network!”

“We totally disabled Partners in a few campaigns after seeing 100 to 200% higher conversion costs.
No wonder they didn’t show this data for so long.”

And if that happens, I’d have to assume that Google will be forced to show the search network in greater details, if only due to pressure from their partners. If AOL is performing well, for instance, they’re unlikely to be happy about being cut out due to the deficiencies of other sites.

However, for now we have to deal with what we have, and I’m at least glad that I’ve been able to learn this much.

How about you? How do your stats measure up across the different sites?

One of my regular reads is Jacob Morgan’s blog - I’ve mentioned him before on here - as he usually has something interesting to say, and he’s very prolific too. Most of his posts take a inquisitive tone, he asks for opinions or thoughts from his audience (which is a great way to interact), and he appears to be generally optimistic.

Which is why I was pretty surprised by the apparent anger and ‘doom+gloom-ery’ in this post.

Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone is pretty angry at having to bail out private companies, and then see them blow $400,000 on a spa retreat. I doubt many felt a great deal of sympathy for the Lehman Bros CEO after he was punched by an employee on Sunday (not that we condone violence, obviously!). Right now anger is perfectly understandable.

But anger, as John Lydon used to sing, is an energy, and that is where I think I differ from Jacob on this one.

His blog was a response to this post on O’Reilly.com, suggesting that the recession will be good for innovation. So to some degree it looks like they are talking at cross-purposes. Saying that a recession is good for tech+innovation isn’t the same as saying that a recession is a good thing.

For example, I think I can safely assume that most people think the Second World War was a ‘Bad Thing’ - the Holocaust, 100s of millions of lives lost, the beginning of the Cold War, etc, etc. The closet we have seen to Hell on Earth.

And yet it is also undeniable that those tragic circumstances were good for technology and innovation - the birth of the modern computer, jets, nuclear technology, medical advances in skin grafts, antibiotics, the birth of the Space Age and so on. People can debate whether or not those things would have happened anyway, but it is true that the war speeded up the process due to necessity, and the same can be true of a recession.

The last recession wiped out jobs too, but (just in the Internet industry) some of those talented people working behind the scenes at Pets.com, Flooz.com and other sites which seem like jokes now, have gone on to create much greater value at Google, Yahoo, Ebay and other success stories. Who knows what great things will be invented by a programmer who gets laid off by AOL, for example?

Nobody wants a recession. I feel enormous sympathy for anyone who is suffering at this time because of things that are beyond their control. But I am (naively?) an optimist. I like to believe that when people are pushed to find new ways of doing things they will. I think that history has shown that this country is better equipped than most to allow new ideas to become great. Yes, many will be hurt be the coming financial problems, but some of those people will use that as a springboard to achieve something wonderful, and that will help to lift us all out of the recession.

After all, this is a country where even bank robbers are finding innovative uses for Internet services. I’ll continue to have faith in the power of people to overcome adversity through technology.

Google announced on Monday that the Quality Score Improvements would be going live this week, with what they claim are tweaks which will benefit both advertisers and search users.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they!?

The changes, removing the ‘Inactive for Search Status’, real time ‘Quality Score’ and new ‘First Page Bid Estimates’ seem to me to be more about generating extra revenue than improving quality.

Even among those SEMs who work with AdWords for a living there is a lot of confusion about what is going on. A lot of the targeting improvements seem, well, arbitrary at best. For instance, here’s one of the search terms from an account I manage (click the image to enlarge):

It’s not ‘Great’, but a fairly solid 7/10 ‘OK’. Even some nice words of encouragement,

“What should I do?
Keep it up! Your keyword, ad text, and landing page quality are high.”

So, how is the ad performing? Let’s see:

Hmm, the ad is not showing. Must be the bid then, right?

Well, no:

Estimated bid to show on the first page:	$1.25	Based on the quality score below
Your bid:	$1.75	Max CPC

I have an keyword that is rated at 7/10, and I’m bidding 40% more than Google estimates I need to to be on the first page, and yet, “No Ad is Showing”.

No wonder people are confused.

If Google is not showing the ads, then they’ll lose money then. Well, I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I’ve been watching my keywords pretty closely this week to see what would happen, and Google’s main suggestion seems to be that I raise my bids. Funny that.

How about this one for instance:

That’s an exact match keyword, which fits the site perfectly, has a historically high click-thru rate and used to average less the $1/click. Google now says “Bid is below first page bid estimate of $25.00″. $25! And yet yesterday, it was in the 1.5 average position.

That’s an extreme one, but we’ve seen maybe 30-40% of our keywords being told they should raise the bid according to the first page bid estimate. If that is happening across other peoples’ accounts, and it appears that it is, then we are going to see the average cost of bids being pushed up. Nobody wants to be on the 2nd or, gasp, 3rd page of results.

I’ve been working with Pay Per Click ads for a good number of years now (hence the GoTo swag shown above), and I think we’ve been down this road before. This is why many people switched to Google AdWords from Goto/Overture in the first place, because the constant battle to be in the top spots drove the cost up and up. Google was a breath of fresh air. They really did reward quality instead of who has the deepest pockets. After all, if Ad1 was paying $1, and Ad2 only $0.50 but had 3 times as many clicks, then Google still made more money. Everyone was happy. That is why I’m worried about the potential bidding wars this may lead to.

Particularly if the Yahoo-Google deal is finalized and approved.

Maybe I’m wrong. It’s still very early days and these may just be some kinks which will have to be worked out. But given Google’s near monopoly and unwillingness to listen recently, I can’t say I’m overly optimistic.

---

Are you an AdWords Advertisers? Let me know what you’re seeing or what you think.

It is often pointed out that one of the major problems with social networking is the blurring of lines between the private and public.

Sure, it was funny when you passed out on the floor at the party, and even more so when your friend uploaded the photos to Facebook - but do you also want your boss seeing that? Or your mom?

A CareerBuilder.com survey published last week shows that 20% of employers are now researching social networks when considering job candidates:

“Top areas for concern among these hiring managers included:

• 41% - candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
• 40% - candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
• 29% - candidate had poor communication skills”

It’s very easy to forget in the ever-connected world that anyone can see what you’re doing - as Lyn found out recently - and it’s more important than ever to watch what is said or posted about you online.

However, even more worrying for me, is when people deliberately publish something which would be better left private.

That is why I was stunned by something I read about the Rocky Mountain News yesterday. A tragic accident in Colorado led to an illegal immigrant killing two women and a toddler. Naturally it was a high-profile incident that generated a lot of public interest, but how clueless did the editor have to be to think that live Twittering the funeral of a three year old would be a good idea!?

“RMN_Berny: family members shovel earth into grave
Wednesday, Sep. 10, 11:40 a.m.

RMN_Berny: rabbi calls end to ceremony
Wednesday, Sep. 10, 11:28 a.m.

RMN_Berny: rabbi chanting final prayer in hebrew
Wednesday, Sep. 10, 11:27 a.m.

RMN_Berny: earth being placed on coffin.
Wednesday, Sep. 10, 11:22 a.m.”

Naturally this has upset many people. Michael Roberts at Denver Westworld Blogs, called it “self-satirizing in the most morbid, inappropriate way possible.” The Guardian (UK) said it was “Going straight to the top of our Inappropriate Use of Technology chart”, while Samuel Freenman, professor of Journalism at Columbia University said, in something of an understatement,

“A memorial service for a murdered, for a slain child is not a fit subject for play-by-play updates”

So, why did they do it? Basically because they could. The same ease which allows you to tell the world how drunk you got last night without thinking of the consequences, allowed the reporters to overlook whether or not what they were doing was actually a good idea.

There is a lesson here for all of us: In an online world, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

OK, this maybe something of a cheat, but I have a good excuse. I had fully intended to download Google’s new browser Chrome yesterday, test it out and write up my thoughts, but with that hurricane looking like it was heading directly for my house, I had more pressing matters.

Now Chrome has been available for almost a complete day, the Twitterverse, the Blogosphere and maybe even some people in the real world, have had a chance to chime in with their thoughts. Which leaves me wondering what I can really add to the conversation with just a brief test time.

So, not wishing to seem redundant, I thought a round-up of reactions might actually prove more useful.

History

Wired pretty much has the definitive article about how Chrome came in to being, Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web. Highly-respected tech journalist Steven Levy gives a birds-eye view of the whole project, from its beginning to the actual release. Includes some interesting stuff - would you believe that Google actually, um, ‘fibbed’ about building their own browser?

“After a 2004 New York Times article quoted “a person who has detailed knowledge of the company’s business” saying a browser was in the works, Schmidt had to publicly deny it.”

Hmm…

How it is Different

The most current versions of browsers have been improvements upon older versions, but those older versions were for the original www - not today’s web of applications, JavaScript and ‘constant connectedness’. Google wanted to rip it up and start again:

“All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there”

I Feel the Need - the Need for Speed!

You bank online. You check your email on line. You work, live and play online. So speed is a bigger and bigger issue. Chrome is certainly a step up, at least according to Jof Arnold:

Many others are saying the same thing. Techcrunch found that,

“After just ten minutes of jumping from site to site, I was amazed by how quickly I was able to get around. And unlike some browsers (I won’t mention any names), opening a slew of tabs doesn’t matter — it’s just as fast with or without tabs.”

Hicks Design call it “fast and nimble. In a Camino way”, Eamon Costello says it’s “seriously fast” and, at the time of writing, there are about 5 tweets a minute with the search string, “Chrome is fast”!

So, let’s assume it’s new and it’s fast - what does this mean?

It’s Google vs Microsoft

Chrome is obviously another shot at Microsoft. Which is why Google waited until they were dominant enough to really challenge in the browser wars. Clinton Skakun is rooting for an IE-Killer:

“Hopefully this browser reaches the eyes of enough IE6 and 7 users. If it kills IE it was all worth it!:D When it’s all said and done, we might just have a Internet Explorer Killer on our hands:) If it doesn’t kill IE, maybe it will cause a slight shrink their user base.”

But Hank Williams isn’t so upbeat:

“Microsoft has been fighting the browser wars with spitballs and plastic knives and they are still beating Firefox handily. So Chrome, from a business perspective, for the foreseeable future, is totally irrelevant.”

Some, however, think that the real challenge is not to Internet Explorer, but to Microsoft Office. Google has been rolling out it’s own Ajax applications, Google Docs, Spreadsheets, etc - a browser which can handle Javascript better, making these faster and more stable, will take yet more users away from desktop applications.  Preston Galla’s take is that,

“Google’s Chrome browser…takes dead aim at Windows 7 and Microsoft Office, and attempts to make both irrelevant. Google’s long-term goal is clear: Dominate the enterprise and small business market in the same way it now dominates Internet search.”

Actually, it’s Google vs Mozilla

There is already one great open source browser available, and it claims around 20% of the market share. Mozilla has also just renewed its deal with Google - so why would Google want another competitor in the mix?  Joe Wilcox has a suggestion:

“Google wants to keep that money it gives Mozilla and other browser developers…Chrome will compete with Firefox and other Google search-supported browsers. Oh, yeah, if that’s you, Google is doing evil. If you’re Mozilla and dependent on Google paid search revenue, your browser’s future is perilous. How ironic if Google does to Firefox what Microsoft couldn’t: Kill the browser.”

What Do I Think?

I’ve been playing around with it for the last day or so (I’m writing this post using Chrome right now), and it’s, sort of, well, underwhelming. Considering it has 3% of the market share in under 24 hours I expected something more. Although I’m not sure what.

Maybe I need to get used to it a little more. It took me a while to feel fully comfortable with GMail when I first began using that, and now it’s all I use. It’s certainly fast, no doubt, and it has the Google-feel to it that Docs and so on have too, but switching browsers is a pain, and I’d need a strong incentive to do that. I don’t currently think Chrome is it.

I also have a few concerns about monopoly and privacy. Do we really want Google to dominate in another field like it does in search? They have made the software Open Source, so perhaps developers can port some of the better parts over to the Mozilla project, which would be good for everyone. Right now, however, I’m not going to be switching from Firefox.

Have you tried it out yet? What do you think?

***Update***

Looks like I was right to have some fears about privacy - Jacob Morgan has the goods…

Do you remember your last vacation?

Whether it was Disney World, Aspen, Paris, New York or wherever, chances are you probably heard a recommendation before you went. That recommendation more than likely came from friends, family or co-workers.  Someone whose opinions you trust.

Do you remember the last time you vacationed somewhere because a politician suggested it to you?

Exactly.

So, you can see the problem in this story - South Carolina taxpayers are funding a trip for German politicians to visit Myrtle Beach this Fall. At a cost of $100,000.

These politicians will then return home, spread the word, and the German tourists will come flocking to the Grand Strand, eager to spend some of their hard-earned Deutsche Marks. Or, at least, that’s the theory.

Now, maybe I’m overly cynical, but try thinking of this in reverse. Imagine one of your state’s senators is given a free trip to somewhere in Germany. Dusseldorf say. He (or she) then comes back with a glowing report about what a wonderful time he had. Would you be booking the next available flight?

I started thinking about this after another blogger, Jacob Morgan, had tweeted (Twittered?) about an upcoming trip to Turkey.  I lived in Turkey for a short time and loved it. Any time anyone mentions going, or thinking about going, I try and convince them that they won’t be disappointed. And no-one in the Turkish government has had to pay me a dime to do this.

This is the kind of advertising that is truly effective. Not paying politicians to say nice things.

So, how could that $100,000 have been better spent?

Well, in 2006 over 17,000 Germans came to South Carolina as their primary destination. If each one of them went home and told their friends about the great time they had had, wouldn’t that have some impact? How about if the SC government spent $100,000 to make it easier for those people to share their stories, videos, photos and so on.

Many tourist destinations are already doing this. For instance, Aviemore in Scotland, a popular skiing resort, already incorporates Flickr streams, Youtube videos, blogs and more on a website aimed at attracting more visitors to the area. New Zealand actively solicits travelers’ blogs for “straight talking thoughts and opinions about our places, people and adventures”.

The most frustrating thing about this waste of money is that it’s so close to being a good idea. Word of mouth works. We all know that. The state government obviously knows it, which is why they want the German politicians to spread the word. But the beauty of word of mouth is that it’s cheap!

Wouldn’t that $100,000 be much better spent creating a central location to gather the experiences of people who are already coming? Of course it would!

I’m a little late picking up on this, but it seems that Google Minus Google is garnering some major attention.

The site utilizes Google’s own Custom Search Engine, which allows you to tailor your search to specific sites, topics and so on, to remove all the Google-owned sites from the results.

So searches on Google Minus Google will not show any results from YouTube, Blogger, Knol, Orkut and others, removing the potential bias that some are suspecting may be going on behind the scenes.

I wrote previously that I was skeptical that Google would allow Knol pages to rank artificially well, but I may have been too hasty. Much has been made in the search engine community during the last week of some results that are doing exactly that. At the time of writing, for instance, a search for ‘buttermilk pancakes‘ has a Knol page as the top result.

Is that page really the most useful one to be found throughout the whole Internet? Better than all the recipe sites which have been around for years, all the manufacturers, How-To sites and Wiki pages? Perhaps, perhaps not. What is more important, to paraphrase Lord Hewart, is not that Google be impartial, but that that Google is seen to be impartial.

Much has been made of Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ policy. Something which initially helped establish the company as trustworthy and set them apart from the Big Business types at Yahoo and Microsoft has become something of a millstone around their neck. Every controversial move they make now is analyzed to a greater degree than perhaps it would be otherwise, and Google really needs to be careful.

There have been questions raised about Google’s role in shutting certain political Blogger accounts, silencing controversial videos on Youtube and skewing Google News results in China, among other things. All of which Google has answered with seemingly reasonable explanations.

The problem will be when there are so many questions raised about ethics, along with eyebrows raised at the search results, that people will begin to look elsewhere for their search. Google Minus Google is not going to be the answer, but it is a warning sign that Google would do well to heed.

I was intrigued by a stat I heard on the most recent Brand Bandits podcast, that Facebook had finally overtaken MySpace in May for the number of unique visitors. This surprised me - not because I thought MySpace was dominant, but because I thought Facebook had done that months ago!

These were ComScore numbers being cited, Google Website Trends seems to show that Facebook actually overtook last Fall:

Either way, however, I think most people would agree that MySpace has a serious problem on its hands.

Which brings me to Justin & Britney (bear with me).

Five or six years ago, they were an item.  Both former Mickey Mouse Club members. Both attracting legions of teenage fans. Heavily managed ‘brands’, Britney as a pop star, Timberlake as a member of N*Sync.

You wouldn’t have bet a lot of money on either one becoming respected, or perhaps even still relevant today. And yet…

Britney has had a spectacular, and well publicized fall from grace - breakdowns, divorce, custody battle, drugs, failed comebacks, etc, etc.

Justin Timberlake, amazingly, seems to have re-crafted himself and is something of a 21 Century Renaissance man. A hugely praised stint as host of Saturday Night Live . Cred-building collaborations with top producers like Timbaland and Will.i.am, and well received acting roles in Indie films. Oh, and he hosted the ESPN awards, dated a lot of beautiful women and impressed with his golf skills at the PGA Pro-AM. You get the picture.

So, how does this apply to MySpace?

Well, right now MySpace is Britney and Justin 7 years ago. No-one can predict which path it will take - burn out and fade to irrelevance, or reinvented and loved by everyone.

Despite the beating it may or not be taking, MySpace still attracted 115.7 million unique visitors in May, just a million or so behind Facebook. It is still a big brand name. It has the financial clout of News Corp behind it, and it drives a ton of traffic to Google, Youtube, Flickr and many other of the top sites.

In other words, it’s not dead yet.

How to Save MySpace

Simply, MySpace needs to reinvent itself a la Justin Timberlake:

• Just like N*Sync, MySpace is, or appears to be, aimed at kids. The gaudy, blinking backgrounds and embedded tunes are like a particularly bad Geocities page from 1997. They need to be overhauled, desperately.  Facebook has shown the way that profiles can be made personal with photos, interests and so on, while keeping the headache-inducing extras to a minimum.
• Stop the Spam! I’m sure that a large number of people jumped ship due to the increasing amount of spam that was filling up inboxes. Combating bogus accounts, and only allowing mail from verified people would go a long way to helping.
• Be like Timberlake, focus on what you’re good at! Music, events, live shows, etc. For all it’s growth, Facebook is doing a pretty terrible job of promoting its Fan pages. Can you even find them in the new look? MySpace, on the other hand, is still the best place for new bands to demo songs, grab fans and keep them interested. In the last couple of years singers as diverse as  Lily Allen, The Black Kids and Glasvegas have all picked up record deals after building a fan base on MySpace. Push this - let people promote sports teams, politicians, movies, and other things that people get passionate about.
• Grow up! When your parent organization, News Corp, chooses your main rival to promote their news channel, you have an image problem. Fox News wants to be seen as serious. So they *don’t* want to be seen in the same neighborhood as kids with Scarface backgrounds and blaring music. Take back some control. Be the adult and set limits for the children.

Almost everyone I talk to is rooting for MySpace to fail, as they prefer Facebook. I’d rather that we had two strong competitors in the field, so that we don’t have another Google-like near monopoly. I think there’s room for both Facebook and MySpace…they just need to figure out how to get their sexy back!

(and if so, how?)

This is a question that Bud, Lyn and I discussed for our clients at Step Ahead. Being pretty evangelical about Twitter, we wanted to try and figure out how best to use it. Short answer? We don’t know.

Rodney Rumford has a great post ‘33 Brands that Suck on Twitter‘ - the basic premise being that most top brands, Budweiser, Disney, Marlboro, etc have either had their Twitter name hijacked, or they’ve claimed it and then failed to use it.

My initial thought was, what a waste! Here are a whole host of companies that are failing to interact with their customers. They’re missing the boat, stuck in the past, and many other cliches, but after giving it some thought, that might be too harsh.

There are a few companies that are doing Twitter well - Comcast and Dell both received press for using Twitter to respond to customer complaints for instance - but, not coincidentally, they are both in the tech field, where many Twitterers are. They can monitor for “Comcast sucks!” and try and help. But how exactly would that work for Marlboro?

Further, it isn’t specifially DELL that is writing, but Richard at Dell. He can engage in conversations without having to worry about misrepresenting the corporate overlords. Similar to the way Matt Cutts can blog about being a Google insider, and offer tips, news, etc, but all the while he makes it clear that the opinions are those of him as an individual not those of Google as a publically traded company.

So, how can companies use Twitter? Well, possibly as a replacement for RSS -linking to their latest blog post, or news release - which, while not groundbreaking, I actually find quite useful for keeping up to date on things. I don’t necessarily need to have a conversation with everyone! Beyond that, it’s time to use your imagination, think about who you want to attract and give them what they want.

I looked at a few top brands that *are* using Twitter to find out how they are approaching things.

• Quickbooks seem to be using it as a somewhat interactive training tool, with links to webinars, Q&As, videos and things.
• M&Ms have tried to use Twitter to create an identity of the Green M&M character, which I’m not sure works perfectly, but at least is an attempt at something different.
• Whole Foods is probably the best corporate use I’ve seen. They are actively engaging in conversations with their followers, joining in rather than just selling, and it seems to work for them - at the time of writing they have over 2600 followers!

So, we’re back to the begining. Should Brands Twitter? Maybe. I guess it depends on your brand and customers, but like with blogging, I think you’d be much better to not Tweet at all, than do it half-heartedly…I’m looking at you, MGM Grand!