The Future of Your Searchable Brand – With or Without Google?

January 22, 2008 at 10:05 pm | In Futures, Personal Branding, Podcasts, SEO, news | 2 Comments

The DLD conference was yesterday and it was held in Munich. The highlight of the event (Thanks TechCrunch) was a session called “Humans Disrupting Algorithms,” in which David Kirkpatrick of Fortune spoke with Jimmy Wales and Jason Calacanis. Jimmy has developed a beta of Wikia Search, whereas Jason Calacanis has been running Mahalo for a few months now. Jason said “60% of people are not happy with search results, up from 50% last year.” Both of these search engines are operated by humans. The 60 employees who run Mahalo are paid, whereas the people running Wikia are not. The idea with the creation of both is to eliminate the “pollution” that Google has because of people who develop thousands of websites for SEO advantages.

Google’s VP of Search Product and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, commented on human v. algorithmic search results from the audience.

“The problem isn’t with the searching process, it’s with the result. You can’t do the fat If you read Chris Anderson, the real value is in the long tail. So if I did a startup I would do something else. I would do a Facebook.”

My opinion

I don’t see Google losing market share, but it do see a percentage of the people who traditionally use Google switching to these other services when they are in search of more “hard results.” You can’t search for your name in Mahalo unless you’re a celebrity or someone recommends a link to your site. Whatever happens, your going to start having to perform maintenance on these other sites just in case.

Do you think that search engines should be human operated or by Google’s PageRank algorithm?

Follow Ted Demopoulos’ Tracks to an Effective Internet Presence

January 22, 2008 at 11:43 am | In Personal Branding, Reputation Management | 2 Comments

Effective Internet Presence

When Ted Demopoulos came to me telling me he wrote a new eBook entitled “Effective Internet Presence” I was on vacation. That didn’t stop me from reading his book on the plane ride home to Boston. Ted has an excellent personal brand and has branded himself as a blogging, podcasting and information technology expert.

I’ve spoken about Google a lot on this blog and you’ll see it show up many more times because Google is a “people search engine.” The term “Googling” is in our culture now and hiring managers, head hunters, professors, students and just about everyone else is leveraging Google’s engine to perform background checks on their peers, family, etc.

Ted’s new book exposes a lot of what is known, but with great evidence to back it up and bring it to life. The book isn’t written like a text book, but rather a humorous and conversational piece that is easily digestible. The quote below is one of the most important points and what I’ve been preaching as well the past few months. Think of your blog as a filter, where the people that are interested in your brand will subscribe and those that don’t will go somewhere else. The power is in the one’s that take genuine interest in you.

“Your personal brand will help attract the right people, organizations & opportunities, AND repel those that are inappropriate for you.”

After reading I had a quick debate with Ted over the use of religion and politics with personal branding. My thoughts are that it may be beneficial to put those opinions out there, as you may attract more readership through being controversial and that it may stir some heating debate, which may add to the conversation.

What are your thoughts???

Anyways, I would like to thank Ted personally for giving me a sneak peak of his new eBook and if you want to learn more about Ted, his blog is a great resource.

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Ted DemopoulosTed Demopoulos has over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Business, including 15 years as an independent consultant. Ted helped start a successful information security company, was the CTO at a “textbook failure” of a software startup, and has advised several other startups. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, conventions, and other business events, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere, and coauthor of Blogging for Business with Shel Holtz.

Note: Ted is also sponsoring Personal Branding Magazine Issue 3

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