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A few years back I posted about a modern day War of the Worlds that I feared would break out on Twitter.  In October 2009, California was holding a statewide earthquake drill and the Orange County Register was considering running simulated tweets during the event.  The proposed tweets would coincide with the event and would report as though a magnitude 7.8 earthquake had hit the region.  At the time I wrote how it was a clever idea, but it came with risks.  What would happen if someone outside of the loop mistook the tweet for something real?  What sort of paranoia would it create?  The Register never followed through with the tweets, but I have been observing a similar reaction nearly three years later.

“April 26, 1992. There was a riot on the streets tell me where were you?” ― Sublime

Yesterday I stumbled upon this tweet in my Twitter stream:

Hey Tweeps – are you following?? RT@RealTimeLARiots BREAKING: National Guard officially deployed. #LARiots @NBCLA

— John Cádiz Klemack (@johnNBCLA) April 30, 2012

At the time I saw the tweet I had no idea what @RealTimeLARiots was. All I saw was the words “National Guard officially deployed. #LARiots” and as a Southern California resident who has witnessed a number of riots in Los Angeles both big and small I was concerned.

But before overreacting, I did my due diligence to click through and figure out what all the fuss was about.  In just a few clicks I discovered that @RealTimeLARiots was nothing more than livetweeting of the Los Angeles riots as they happened back in 1992.  I was instantly taken back to my modern day War of the Worlds post and realized that I had almost fallen victim to the exact sort of thing I mentioned back then.

I tweeted my concern and actually found out from NBC 4′s John Cádiz Klemack that another local station had actually called to confirm the report:

@mwilton13 ha! i think another station thought the same thing and called us to confirm. It’s fascinating though, isn’t it? @RealTimeLARiots

— John Cádiz Klemack (@johnNBCLA) April 30, 2012

But funny as it may seem, I was almost duped into believing the city of Los Angeles was in the midst of a riot, and I wouldn’t be the last to think so.

As many of you know today was May Day and to coordinate with the “Workers Holiday” Occupy protesters were out in force to demonstrate across the U.S. and more specifically in Los Angeles.  As the day unfolded Twitter and news outlets posted about the protest and various police confrontations.  But things got tricky when Twitter users following the events began seeing the current day occurrences collide with the past:

[screenshot] of @RealTimeLARiots nearby #M1GSLA tweet in my stream confusing me (cc @kimbui @LANow @OccupyLA) twitpic.com/9g8ka8

— Alex Rose (@u62) May 2, 2012

Between @RealTimeLARiots and the actual LA tactical alert right now, getting a great time stream intercut on Twitter.

— Justin Marks (@Justin_Marks_) May 2, 2012

I keep seeing @RealTimeLARiots tweets and thinking they’re #MayDay tweets

— David Holmes (@holmesdm) May 2, 2012

@RealTimeLARiots I was just there this morning, everything seemed normal!

— Isaac Bonyuet (@isaacbonyuet) May 1, 2012

The above are just a small sampling of the kind of tweets that have been posted about the overlap and confusion caused by the @RealTimeLARiots account and the current events unfolding in Los Angeles, but is @RealTimeLARiots a bad thing?

If you search for @RealTimeLARiots on Twitter you’ll discover a mix bag of reactions to the account.  Many who were too young to experience the riots first hand have been in awe watching the tweets unfold.  Others have commented on how this is one of the most innovative uses of Twitter to date, but at what cost?

@RealTimeLARiots is not the first of its kinda.  Most recently the History Channel ran a real-time Titanic account to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  There is also a popular RealTimeWWII account which is “livetweeting the 2nd World War, as it happens on this date & time in 1940, & for 6 years to come.”  But what sets @RealTimeLARiots apart in my opinion is how it is being tweeted and reported in a way that makes it feel more realistic or actual accounts.  Using #BREAKING hash tags and various mentions these appear much more real and this is most likely why they have become so confusing for many.

It’s a unique effort that I think is both risky, as well as innovative.  For those who are too young to remember it, or never experienced it, it is an education experience.  For those who lived through it, its an opportunity to reflect and look back at those terrifying moments.  For others, its just one more form of online entertainment.  But ultimately it does come at a risk.  Twitter allows information to spread rapidly and all it takes is one group of people to miss the backstory to spread panic among users.  Think of all the dead celebrity rumors that have spread like wildfire on Twitter?  Now apply that to a crisis or emergency and things could get a little rocky.

What are your thoughts on the Real Time LA Riots account?  Is it an innovative use of social media, or is NBC 4 going too far as a news outlet?

“Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday” ― John Wayne

As the dust begins to clear from Google’s most recent algorithm update, its safe to say that Google is still trying to play sheriff in a wild west of SEO outlaws that simply have it outnumbered.

Grounds for Punishment

Both in his talk at SXSW and in the post announcing the recent changes, Matt Cutts made it clear that the new algorithm would be targeting at least some the following webspam techniques:

• Keyword Stuffing
• Reciprocal Linking
• Spun Content with Unnatural Linking Patterns

Wait, Didn’t Google Already Enforce These Laws?

Yes, but as more shady SEO characters began to stake claim on the internet and come out on top, it left many of them to believe that Google didn’t quite have the chops to take on some of the outlaws moving into town.  As you can see in their public outcry:

• How Google Makes Liars Out of the Good Guys in SEO
• How Organized Spam is Taking Control of Google’s Search Results
• How Garbage Ranks in the SERPs

So as any good sheriff would, Google stepped up to show off its true grit and lay down the law on some of the more obvious criminals in town as a means of making sure its townspeople (in this case webmasters and white-hat SEO’s) knew they had the situation under control and that they would not be overtaken by outlaws.

Smooth Criminals

But as we watch a number of sites hang at the hand of Google over these next few days a large number of sites will go untouched simply because they were a less obvious threat.  Sites that look like swindlers and bandits and have the evidence to support the case will hang quickly for their wrongdoing, but those sites that put on a charming front to hide their dark past will continue to roam this land of opportunity we call the internet at the expense of honest, hard-working webmaster and SEO’s.

I’ve done some digging in the verticals I work in and sites whose backlink profiles can easily be picked apart with a simple scan using Open Site Explorer show that Google still can’t properly identify an outlaw if they look clean on the surface.  In other words, if you look clean on the surface and people for the most part like you, Google really doesn’t notice what you’re doing behind the scenes.

It’s Time To Hire Some Deputies…

I’m not sure what its going to take to get Google to a point where it’s not making its laws harsher, but instead enabling itself to police its laws better and protect the hard-working, honest webmasters and SEO’s working and living on the internet.  Google’s algorithm still relies too heavily on signals attributed to links and anchor text, an element of its algorithm which got Google into this mess in the first place.  Social signals, semantics, author rank, localization, personalization and the like are all great ways to help Google better sort out the good guys from the bad guys.  The sooner Google employs the help of these elements the sooner I believe the web as we know it will start to finally see more qualified search results and fewer.

So how did you site fare in this recent update? Did it hang at high noon, or are you finally enjoying the land of opportunity?

It’s been about two years since I launched my internet marketing services under the name Nevermore Search Marketing and in that time I’ve had some amazing opportunities.  However as my efforts to market myself have gotten more aggressive I have found it hard for people to connect me with my brand and have run into issues with people thinking my brand is bigger than me.  With that in mind I am officially putting myself back at the forefront of what I do, who I am and the services I provide.

The Nevermore Search Marketing website and Facebook Page have been taken down and all future interactions about me, my consulting services, and my internet marketing career will take place here at MikeWilton.com.

I will continue to offer internet marketing consulting to those who are interested in my services, but the emphasis of the website will be on my blogging efforts and spreading advice and information about internet marketing and act as a central hub for information about me, my career, and my efforts around the web.

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Yesterday I outlined why Google+ matters regardless of user engagement thanks to Google Search Plus Your World.  Today I want to look at how Search Plus Your World is impacting local search currently and why we probably won’t see much of an impact on localized search in the short term.

Earlier this month Greg Sterling did a post on Search Engine Land that talked about the limited impact of Google Search Plus Your World on Local.  As I mentioned in my comment on Greg’s post I think in the short term we will see little impact on local results, especially when it comes to some of the more obscure searches he ran like “Toyota Dealer” or “Window Replacement, Walnut Creek”.  I feel part of this is due to the fact that most of us probably don’t have a tight knit social network made up of users within close proximity to us, as Andrew Shotland pointed out yesterday in his post “Google Plus Connections Are the New Link“, but also because people simply aren’t engaging content around these topics.

The impact Google Search Plus Your World has on local search in it’s current state is fragmented and useless at best.  I ran a search for “Chinese Restaurants” on Google this evening and in the results I received a share frome a friend via Yelp for a Chinese restaurant nearly 45 minutes from my house.  Not exactly close enough for take out…  I ran another search for “night clubs” and received personalized results for for the top ten Los Angeles night clubs, the other was for dress codes in New York night clubs.  Not exactly relevant to where I am in Corona, CA nearly fifty miles away from the heart of Los Angeles and on the opposite side of the map from New York.

In order for Google Search Plus Your World to become relevant in the local search space, Google has to capitalize on what they did well with local in the beginning and focus on location, location, location.

Google Places+

In my predictions for local search in 2012 post, myself, Andrew Shotland, and Mike Blumenthal all agreed that 2012 will be the year that Google+ and Google Places would become integrated and I feel in order for Google Search Plus Your World to become relevant in local search, this has to happen sooner than later.  By integrating Google Places into Google Plus Business Pages, Google can ensure that the right local data is associated with a Page, making it more relevant to local searchers.  By having this information connected it would allow for local pages to have more clout than other pages in my circles.  Additionally, the most locally relevant businesses could appear in the Search Plus Your World page recommendations.

Friends In Local Places

Google+ profiles allow Google to know where a user lives.  It would only make sense for them to provide content from friends in the city I am searching from more prominent than someone out of the area unless the content directly relates to a local business or service.  If I’m doing a search for Chinese food in Corona, CA chances are users from that area are going to be the experts and ultimately have more relevant input that someone in Los Angeles, CA.

“We all turn to people we know and trust for great recommendations…”  

Straight from the horses mouth, Google says the focus of search plus your world is to turn to people you know for great recommendations.  Google put a significant focus on Google reviews on Places pages last year, I would imagine that along with integrating Places and Pages Google will likely showcase reviews of local businesses somewhere in localized search results from people within your circles.  Perhaps something similar to the share on Google+ from Todd Mintz below, but with the actual review instead of the Google+ post about it. On a side note, Beaverton is in a totally different state…way to go Google!

Just Checking In

Another prominent feature Google could utilize is the check-in feature.  If individuals in a circle are checked in to a local business during the time of a related search, it could show up in the search results telling you that someone you know is currently at a location in your area.  Sure, it’s extra creepy/stalker like, but it’s also extremely relevant and engaging not only for Google, but for local businesses.  Knowing that someone you know is currently at a location may be enough to make you join them, or simply follow in their lead.

Ultimately nobody knows the next move but Google, but I can almost guarantee that Google is working on some strategy to strengthen Search Plus Your World in the local search space.  Local is the one area that Google still has a lot of pull with small businesses.  By making Search Plus Your World more useful to local businesses, they can help capitalize on the invovlement from local businesses and ultimately their customers.  Will it create more Google+ users or greater Google+ engagement?  Probably not, but as I outlined in yesterday’s post, perhaps it doesn’t matter.