Facebook Like and Facebook Share

As you may have noticed Facebook is popping up on sites all over the web. You can like, share, login, or even comment on blog posts, news articles, or any other page of a website.  In typical Facebook fashion, developers used to be able to add either a "share" button or a "like" button to their website pages. The difference was that the like button was a simple click and notification that you "like" the page. There was no other effort on your part to write a comment, or anything else. The "share" allowed you to not only write a comment, but to edit the information (title, description, image) that was to be shared – giving the user a bit more control.Both would show up in the news stream, and on their wall, but the like was a simple line saying "Bob likes the blah page". The "share" showed up with a graphic, the comment, and the title and description of the page.
This allowed for more noticeability in the very busy news feed of the user’s friends. In most cases I would personally choose (and recommend) the "share" button.
And so did Facebook...
In recent developments Facebook has changed how the "like" button behaves making it more like the "share" button – allowing the user to "like" something, giving them the option to make a statement about it, and showing up more prominently in the news feed. So now when you setup your "like" button there are a couple of different options you can choose. 1) choose the word "recommend" or "like" in the button itself. 2) choose the layout style of Standard, Button Count, or Box Count.

So now when you "recommend" or "like" a page it gives you the option to say "what's on your mind?" adding a comment to the item in the news feed.

And instead of showing up in the news feed as "Bob like the Blah page" it now shows up more prominently with a graphic, title, and description.

Google is Finding more high-quality sites in search

It's official - Google is focusing more on high quality websites and less on the fodder.

As Matt Cutts himself stated "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

Does this mean that us SEO's need to focus more on social media?
It's a trend I have been boasting about for several years now. With the indoncination of twitter several years back - while they may have added "nofollow" tage to all their links, I was still noticing a trend in rankings with our tweet blasts.

It was social media that has been driving the traffic to Wappow.com, and while search traffic has been picking up considerably the past few months as we reach our 1 year anniversary, I truly believe that social media is leading the way to those rankings.

The Internet and Beyond

There are many aspects of society that are shared among all the diverse cultures in this world: love; food; friendships; and the Internet...

We have gone from a world separated by water, boats, planes, and cultures to a world now brought together by one common space. The internet has opened up possibilities that are endless - education, communication, and trade. I myself remember as a child our household was lucky enough to own an encyclopedia set my Mother had purchased on a payment plan. Most of my reports for school were completed easily at home with severalhours spent in the library looking things up in the Dewey Decimal System. My papers were hand written for draft #1, #2, and #3 and finally typed up on a typewriter. Today my 13 year old daughter plops herself in front of the computer, types in some key phrases and comes up with an abundant amount of information without ever having to set foot in a library. If she has a question, she can log into forums or comment on a blog and someone will reply with even more information. In the process she has educated herself and communicated with experts.

In the past to start a company a person would have to have an exorbitant amount of cash to find a place of business (whether it be a storefront, office location, warehouse space, etc) and now anyone can setup a website without knowing how to design or develop. They can even market that business without having to spend money through search marketing and social media marketing. Money is being transferred from person to person, business to consumer, and even business to business with ease. Instead of that one person setting up a business or retail shop and reaching the city surrounding them, they are now reaching millions of people and thousands of companies all over the world.

We now have access to so many countries, cultures, businesses, and people all from the point of one connection whether it be from a computer, phone, or other device. The possibilities of someone starting their own business,  educating themselves and communicating with the world are endless. It's just up to that individual to know where to go to educate themselves on how to start their business, get an education and/or degree, research, network, and use the tools available to them to become successful.