Social media is the next evolution in how we use the web. However, with all the great things that have come from our new found ability to connect on the web, we’ve also made the creation of spam much easier.

Nowadays, it’s easy for almost anyone to create a presence on the web. With our quest for ease, we’ve made it easy to automate the process. Until we’re able to differentiate spam from actual information, we’ll be unable to properly index and search the social web.

Problems:

One of the biggest problems with social media is that currently, many websites allow you to create unlimited profiles. One person can create hundreds of Twitter accounts, each of which can send out a Twitter message, quickly cluttering the web.

A second problem is that unlike the current web page structure, conversations can jump incoherently. Consider a conversation taking place on Facebook through status messages. Each individual status update would make little sense, however collectively they can offer a large amount of information.

Also, we currently have little ability to to understand true connections and consumer intent. What I mean by that is, how do you differentiate between a spammer friending a spammer versus a true friend? Profiles can artificially inflate connection numbers, making them seem more important than they actually are.

Lastly, the overall speed at which new data is introduced creates an issue for search and indexing. Right now, we’re unable to quickly assign authority and trust to new content. We can assign trust to specific users, but lose out on new influential users.

Examples of Problems:

The most powerful example of the problems with the social web is Twitter. Consumers can quickly and easily create multiple profiles, and send many messages.

Not only are spammers able to disrupt the streams of other users, through @ replies and direct messages, but each individual profile and tweet creates a page to be indexed in our conventional search engines.

Lastly, each tweet also influences the latest trend. With enough profiles and messages, a spammer can manipulate what topics are trending upwards. On the social web, topics trending offers insight into the latest news. Obviously, being able to affect this nefariously, can quickly make trending data useless.

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What Needs to Change:

The first things that needs to change is our ability to detect spam signals. Determining patterns in how actual humans interact with each other on the web may give use ways to differentiate between an actual user and spammer.

Secondly, introducing an API or data sharing system to find patterns might be needed. The data need be anonymous, because of the privacy issues associated with it. Without all the information, our understanding of the social web will continue to be incomplete.

Lastly, we need to change how we return search results. The current system of ranking only by importance needs to evolve to include temporal affects. A trustworthy result should not always outrank a semi-trustworthy result, if the latter is newer. Newer pages should be given a greater weight for rank.

What is Happening Now?

Right now the closest thing we have to a search engine for the social web is Twitter (scares the crap out of Google). However, this “search” does not separate out spam from trust. Neither does Twitter search assign authority to influential

Patents:
Method and Apparatus for Detecting Spam User Created Content

The present invention provides methods, apparatuses and systems directed to automatically detecting spam user created content. In a particular implementation, there is provided a method for processing spam contents, which comprises: maintaining a plurality of key information databases; receiving user-created content and at least one of a service ID and a content category ID of the user-created content from one or more users of a user-created content hosting site; selecting one of the plurality of key information databases based on at least one of the service ID and the content category ID…

System and method for developing and using trusted policy based on a social model

A trust policy is constructed based upon a social relationship between real-world entities. The trust policy may determined based upon a social network and social network maps. The social network map provides a framework to determine social distances. The trust policy provides quick and secure access to desired or trusted nodes while providing security from entities outside the trusted sphere of nodes. The trust policy determined by the social distance may be used for various types of applications including filtering unwanted e-mail, providing secure access to resources, and accessing protected services…

Social Analytics System and Method for Analyzing Conversations in Social Media

Conversations in an online content universe are monitored. A social analysis module analyzes individual conversations between publishers in the online content universe. Publishers that influence a conversation are identified.

Related Videos:

Semi-Supervised Learning: A Comparative Study for Web Spam and Telephone User Churn by David Siklosi

IR in Social Media (IRSM) by Matthew Hurst and Alexey Maykov

Tackling Spam on the Social Web is a post by: Samir Balwani

One of the things that drives me nuts are people that create web strategies without any thought of how it helps a company. (Brand reinforcement on its own is not a successful goal.)

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I go crazy when I see people still citing digg as a viable social media strategy, or when I see people state that more traffic equals more money. I can send you loads of crap traffic, please tell me if it makes you any real money.

Social media is not all about digg traffic, or sending people from facebook to your site. Sure, it can be used for that, but in no way is that an effective use of your time.

A good social media campaign will focus on creating a relationship. Taking the old media method of advertising – a one way conversation – and making it a joint marketing production. Asking questions, finding out how to make your product better, and making your consumers a part of your innovation and publicity is Marketing 2.0.

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Instead of trying to get on the front page of digg all the time, target niche social media sites. Have a product for women? Get your blog posts on the front page of Kirtsy. Internet marketer or social media guy? Make sure you’re reading Sphinn.

By looking at smaller more focused communities you’re able to cut out people that don’t care about your product. You target only those that might buy your product instead of wasting your time on others.

This idea isn’t only applicable to digg and social news site, but also social networking sites. I’ve already said before that advertising on facebook is a waste of time. Instead use it to cultivate a community. People are interesting in learning about you, showing off that they bought your products, and be a part of a group.

There’s been a paradigm shift in marketing. Welcome to new media marketing.

The old thinking of content being king, the thoughts that traffic is money, and the idea that branding is for large companies, is a thing of the past. Now customer relations is taking a front seat. Creating brand loyalty and getting people to talk about you is king. The community and communication is most important.

Stop Chasing People That Don't Care About You is a post by: Samir Balwani

There are two tools that I think people need to use more often when writing posts. They make life easier by helping you find topics to write about, and other blogs that have also written about the topic. So what are they? Simple: Google Alerts, and Google Custom Search.

Google Alerts, lets you setup keywords to track. For example, I might track “Left The Box” to see if anyone references this site. When Google indexes, or finds something with the term “Left The Box”, they send me an email to let me know. Google Alerts helps me monitor my online presence.

This is the most basic of ways to use it. To take it further we’ll play around with the basic options we get. When you create an alert you get the choice to be alerted at the moment something is found or daily; which opens up a host of possibilities.

If you’d like a recap of what people have said about “Social Media” for the day, just create a daily Social Media Alert. This way I can think of new topics for posts, see what others are saying, and stay one step ahead of other bloggers. I might never have found a majority of the blogs in my RSS Feed without these alerts.

The next step is to take the fundamental idea and extrapolate it more. When I write a post, for example “Social Media Transparency” which spoke about about honesty in online PR, I create an alert based around the idea of the post. This way I can see what others are saying about it, and maybe send them an email with my post to tell them to see what I’ve written. Sometimes they’ll link back, but if they don’t at least I’ve made a contact. In the future they might read my blog, and maybe link to another post.

The second tool, Google Custom Search, is great for bloggers because it allows you to search niche engines. My friend Dave from Huomah.com created an awesome engine for Search Engine Optimizers, called Search SEO Pros. If I’m researching a post, I’ll use the niche search engine to search niche specific sites. It makes it easy to remove the spam, and find only what I need.

The custom search engines are also great for finding posts to link out to. Just search the topic you’re writing about in your post and you’ll find a number of other posts you can reference.

These are just two of the many tools I use when writing a blog post. I’ll write about more in the future, so look out for that.

Making Blogging Easier with Google is a post by: Samir Balwani

One of the best things an affiliate can do to increase their conversion rate is by redirecting their affiliate links. This means instead of showing a long nasty affiliate link, you show a link to a page you host that redirects to your affiliate link. People generally don’t trust long links with numbers in them.

But if you’re going to create a redirect you want to make sure it’s search engine friendly, especially if the target page is one of your sites. Mostly, this means making sure it’s a 301 redirect (permanent). I’ve put together how to make the redirect in PHP and Java.

It’s important to remember that if you’re using WordPress, you can just install the Redirection Plugin. It will not only redirect urls that don’t exist, but it also tracks clicks, and logs 404 errors.

Search Engine Friend Redirects

Based on which redirect you use, be sure to wrap it in PHP or Java tags. Also, this must go at the very beginning of the page, make sure there are no spaces before this code.

301 Redirect in PHP

header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://samirbalwani.com/");
exit();


301 Redirect in Java

response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.dexterityunlimited.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );


Clean Affiliate Links with SEO Friendly Redirects is a post by: Samir Balwani

Every once in a while, I like to remind people of one simple truth. “Bloggers can be wrong, many are, and most things on the Internet are wrong.” (Hm, what a paradox, because if you take that line to heart, then I could be wrong)

I’ve noticed that many bloggers, come off with an attitude, of “I’m always right, don’t question my authoritay”. But, truth be told, that’s not usually the case.

Reading blogs for advice, and tips is not wrong. I highly encourage it, since you gain a new angle of looking at things, and maybe a hidden gem here and there. However, blindly following advice is not only stupid, but could be potentially disastrous.

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When you decide to follow someone’s advice, you have to be careful that you don’t misinterpret it.

You need to remember a few key things about the blogger. Always keep in mind their background. How did they start? What are they doing?

Without knowing this, you can’t properly assess if their information is good for you. If they started their blog in 2000, and you’re starting one now, their advice might not be the best for starting a blog. I’d definitely consider their ideas on maintaining and running a successful site, but not for getting one off the ground, too much has changed in the time that’s past.

Also, when reading advice, you should be wary of any ulterior motives. With affiliate links, and the lure of financial compensation, someone may decide that money is worth more than reputation. They may be willing to sacrifice their reputation by pushing a less than useful product. (I’ll never do that, I know that my reputation and your trust is worth more than any sum of money.)

When taking advice it’s usually a good idea to follow the rule of twos. If someone else, that you trust, suggests the products, it’s a safe bet.

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So now you’ve come to a dead end. The advice is useful, and trustworthy, but now what?

It’s important to remember that even though most people advertise their information in such a way that makes you assume you won’t have to think, you do.

People use words like “check list, all inclusive, everything you need to know” to convince you that they’ll do all the work for you. In the end, though, you’ll have to work just like everyone else.

Most advice is written to be general. The blogger can’t know that you’ll be coming to his site, and he can’t custom tailor the post to be just for you. Instead, he’s given you a framework, to take the idea and apply it to your situation.

That’s when you have to start thinking. (If you can’t do this, you should reconsider blogging or Internet Marketing. Success relies greatly on your brain.)

Not all advice will be applicable, and stuff that seemed promising at first will fall apart when you try it out.

In the end, it’s important to remember the writer’s point of view, how they used it, and what were their goals.

When to Follow Internet Marketing Advice is a post by: Samir Balwani

In this digital era there are few businesses that do not have a website. But having a site that displays some information, one that never changes, is not the same as having a dynamic site that builds a buzz and advertises your company. So really your business doesn’t just need a website, but it needs on that is regularly updated and impresses people.

To have a good website, you’ll have to invest money and time, So what is your return? Well if done right, your return can be greater than any other single thing you could do to build your business.

Convey an Image

Your website can convey a business image. The more professional and well designed, the better it looks for your business. Your company logo on the site and the site itself, become a branding tool.

Company Blog

When you setup a website, you’re also creating a platform for your business blog. A blog is just a section of your site dedicated to providing information to and networking with clients and colleagues.

Public Relations

The blog is your centralized point for all business information. If someone is interested in your company they’re more likely to access your website first, before calling your company. The blog is where you can show visitors what you do, and why they should stick with you.

From a public relations point of view a blog puts you in a great position to refute negative press attention. You can give your side of the story, or publish a public apology, all the while controlling how it will be said and when.

Become an Expert

A business website and blog can also be used to make your company stand out. With well-written knowledgeable posts you can emphasize your expertise.

You can use your website to highlight new awards, events, and accomplishments. Show off your client list and let people know the bigger companies you work with or supply to. Publish any white papers you have to show that you are an innovator in your field.

Build a Community

Along with a central point for information, your blog creates a central gathering point for visitors. You can leverage these visitors to create a community for your company. Combined with Social Media tools, your blog can build a buzz for new products or services you want to offer.

Networking with your blog community opens a host of possibilities. You never know when a site visitor will be your next client, or refer your company to their friend.

The Investment

Surprisingly, the initial investment and upkeep of a site that allows you to control public relations, find new clients, and make your company stand out, is relatively low.

To setup a new website you need two things, a domain name and a web host. Registering a domain name costs only $9.99 a year from . For hosting (the company that keeps all your website files and makes them accessible online) I highly suggest HostGator. They charge $12.95 for a comprehensive package.

All together, to get a basic website up and running it will cost you $166 a year.

Optionally, you can consider hiring a web designer to setup and design your blog and website. The average cost of a good web designer is between $500 and $3,000, depending on what you want.

Whether you decide to setup your site on your own, or pay a web designer, you should insist on using the free blogging software, WordPress. If you want to learn more on how to setup your blog, you can read my post “Basics of Setting Up a New Blog“.

Did your website evolve your company? Leave a comment and let us know.

Why Your Small Business Needs an Active Website and Blog is a post by: Samir Balwani

To the novice Internet surfer, RSS Feeds are often misunderstood and rarely used. Most bloggers don’t see the advantage of subscribing to potentially hundreds of site, but instead see just a waste of time. The truth is, if you use it right, RSS Feeds can save you time, keep you informed, and help you on your quest to becoming a Social Media Maven.

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

Before being able to subscribe to RSS Feeds you need to sign up to an RSS Reader. This is a site, desktop application, or plugin that tracks all your feeds and keeps them in one place.

I use Google Reader, because it offers a host of features on top of the ability to aggregate feeds. From my Google Reader page, I can share items, start them to read later, and discover other feeds I might find interesting.

Now that you have a reader all you have to do is find feeds that interest you. Look for the RSS Icon on your favorite sites to find the Feed URL.

If they use FeedBurner (and they should be) subscribing is easy. Once you click the RSS button you’ll see a number of different readers. All you have to do is click on the button that corresponds to the Feed Reader you use.

You’re all set now, just navigate to your Feed Reader to see the latest updates from all the site you’ve subscribed to. Be sure to check it often, otherwise the updates can quickly become overwhelming.

Using RSS Feeds as a Tool

Understanding the basics of RSS is just the first step. Using them to create an advantage is the next step.

Social Media

Sites like digg and reddit reward new content. Being the first to submit a story can be the difference between getting to the front page or not submitting at all. By subscribing to sites that publish posts known to do well on Social Media, you’ve put new content at your finger tips.

Want to find articles that usually go hot? Subscribe to the feed of sites often seen on the front page of digg.

Blogging About What’s Hot

If you want to stay in the know, it’s good practice to subscribe to bloggers in the same field. You’ll see what topics are being written about, and you might see posts you want to respond to on your own blog.

Integrating with FriendFeed

FriendFeed is a site that takes RSS feeds from all your favorite sites (digg, reddit, youtube, twitter, etc. etc.) and makes them public to your friends. This way they can see what stories you just dugg or the latest youtube video you just added as a favorite.

The nice thing about FriendFeed is that it also integrated with Google Reader, allowing you to not only share interesting articles with your Google friends, but also your FriendFeed followers.

Have another tip or trick? I’d love to hear them, please feel free to leave a comment!

How to Use an RSS Feed is a post by: Samir Balwani

While searching about today, I realized that Plurk’s site links included Plurk User Pages.

I decided I wanted to see how hard it would be to get a specific Plurk Page to be included on the Site Links, or to Rank in Google.

That’s when “The Coolest Plurk” ever was born. Want to take part in this experiment? Link to this Plurk Page [http://www.plurk.com/p/1g0zp], and pass it on to your friends.

The reasoning behind this is that Google places higher importance on pages that have more incoming links to them. By linking to this specific page, Google starts to weight this page higher than the rest of the pages. At one point, the page will become so important, that it will become one of the Site Links (the intended links right under the first result) for Plurk.

A Plurk Experiment is a post by: Samir Balwani

I work from home, and it’s absolutely great. But with the freedom and flexibility comes distraction. Here are my top ten distraction that can loosely be considered work.

10: Google- Yes, I spend a lot of time searching random words to see what comes up. It’s ok because I’m doing keyword and niche research!

9: StumbleUpon- Hitting stumble is so addicting and I love coming across awesome new sites.

8: Google Reader – Constantly refreshing or actually reading (instead of skimming) all of my feeds could be considered a waste of time, but I like to call it “staying informed”.

7: Google Mail – Yes, checking my email every few minutes is a waste of time. But I don’t like making people wait for my responses.

6: FriendFeed – I check my friend’s feeds consistently throughout the day to see what’s happening and to connect with people. Networking is work!

5: Sphinn – I can spend hours going through new submissions and reading new articles. Learning new SEO and SEM techniques, obviously this is work.

4: Digg – The latest news, tons of friends, and hundreds of new submissions hourly, this is a huge time sink. But it’s ok since social media is still work!

3: Instant Messenger – Keeping in touch with people is so easy on AIM or Gtalk, but sometimes it can become a waste of time. Generally, though, being accessible is extremely important.

2: Site Analytics – This blog uses both Mint and Google Analytics. Checking site stats can quickly become addicting, especially if they’re being updated in real time. No worries, checking up on your site has to be considered work.

1: Plurk – I spend so much time on Plurk, it’s absolutely addicting. Plurk is definitely my favorite site right now. It also is really useful for building my reputation and networking.

Bottom Line:

Sure I may waste a lot of time, but it’s all useful and related to Internet Marketing. The interesting thing is that 2/5th of the sites are owned by Google, 1/2 of them have something to do with social media, and only 1 is not a website.

10 Things That Waste My Time, Kinda is a post by: Samir Balwani

A lot of Internet Marketers shy away from PPC advertising because of the cost associated with it. Usually the misonception that Pay Per Click Advertising is too expensive scares people away.

Well I’ll share with you a trick that makes it possible to show ads with a maximum cost of a penny per click.

How to do it

You’ll first want to sign up for an Adwords account. Then create an ad campaign and set the max bid to $0.01. You can disable your ads on the “Google Search Network”, since we’ll be targetting the “Content Network”.

The trick is to create multiple image ads that are shown on the “Content Network” for as many keywords as you can think up.

The more keywords you have, the better. It’s important to remember, though, to keep your keywords relatively focused.

Why do it

Cheap ads can be extremely useful in specific circumstances. The first being for affiliate marketing. By converting penny ads into sales you gain a larger profit. If you are selling a product that nets you a $100 commission, you have 10,000 tries to sell that product to break even.

The second circumstance penny ads are useful for, is for branding and logo recognition. One of my modest campaigns gets over $50,000 impressions daily because of the huge number of keywords I target. This means that for about $5 a day, 50,000 people see my brand and logo.

The downsides

Penny ads, although cheap, aren’t the best traffic. By targeting only the “Content Network” you generally get surf traffic. The ads are being shown to people that aren’t necessarily looking for something, but instead are just surfing.

You can counter this by making sure your ad is focused and true to what you’re selling or offering.

With continual tweaking and testing, penny ads can help your affiliate or branding campaign at a relatively low cost.

Are You Using Penny PPC Ads? is a post by: Samir Balwani