Facebook Drives 19% of Huffington Post's Traffic

When I last covered Perez Hilton, it was when he hit 14,000,000 pageviews in a single day - a remarkable feat considering big brands like Huffington Post had topped out at 7,700,000. An interesting outcome of the article came from Hitwise: Heather Hopkins noted that Facebook was Perez Hilton's #1 traffic referral (8.7% vs Google's 7.6%).

So I dug into Huffington Post's numbers to see what another major media site's traffic sources looked like. First off, HuffPo does about 200 million monthly pageviews and reaches about 13 million viewers:

Also worth noting: Huffington Post is nearly two years old. That may seem trivial, but it means that they have had plenty of time to build a good reputation with Google (and other search engines) and links across the web (blogs, media, etc)... and with two years of content, that suggests that SEO traffic should be higher for Huffington Post than the normal publisher.

Yet, according to Compete's "referring analytics", Huffington Post derives 18.6% of its traffic from Facebook. Wow:

HuffingtonPost.com "referring analytics": #1. Facebook 18.59% #2. Google 11.6% #3. Yahoo 5.16% #4. Digg 4.43% #5. NYTimes 2.5%

Huffington Post gets nearly 1/3rd of their traffic from two sources: one is algorithmic and one is social. And the fact that so much of their traffic comes from Facebook suggests that Huffington Post:

- creates great, viral content... interesting enough that its readers actively share it - benefits from breaking news (probably before major papers can) and/or controversial content

PlentyofFish's Bizarre Advertising Practices

Most advertisers will preach best practices like: - deliver a clear and concise message - keep it simple and precise - make it visual and grab the viewer's attention

By breaking most common advertising rules, PlentyofFish's ads actually caught my attention (enough so that I spent a few minutes creating the images, blogging it, etc).

The ad flips through two units:

1. My name is Markus and I created Plentyoffish.com; my site is completely free and we generate about 800,000 relationships a year. The majority of users are single professionals and users who are serious about meeting someone. Lots of text with lots of qualifiers. Just as you would find it off-putting if your date said "me, me, me" - the use of "my name" and "my site" is awkward.

2. If you are looking for someone you may as well join us; we have millions of people and best of all we're free! You aren't going to meet anyone trolling bars or supermarkets so... signup here.

My favorite part is the very strong call to action: "You may as well join us" [followed by a semicolon].

Facebook Feed Widgets Using Widgetbox (New!)

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Thanks to Chai's new Newsfeed RSS application, you can now use Widgetbox to create Blidgets and Blidget Pros from your Facebook Feed. Add you Twitter activity, blog and/or RSS feed to make your comprehensive social media widget.

Here's how:

1. To get started, allow the new Newsfeed RSS Application on Facebook and grant it access. The application will access your Facebook feed and convert it into an RSS feed. read more about Newsfeed RSS on ReadWriteWeb.

2. Once you have granted Newsfeed RSS access, you will be provided a link to your feed. You can now enter that directly into the Widgetbox Blidget Pro editor (enter directly from the homepage). You will now have the options to:

- customize the Blidget Pro's appearance - customize the feed's layout (supposedly images are coming soon!) - add multiple tabs to the widget (such as Twitter, blog feeds, etc)

Here is an example using: - my Facebook Badge as my Blidget's header - three tabs: my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed and my blog feed

Google iPhone App Version 0.3.1448

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Strangely, I read through all of the update announcements for my iPhone Apps. And I enjoy it.

Sometimes you learn about bugs - either common (slowness, crashing) or unique to that app. Sometimes you wonder who wrote the marketing blurbs (for instance, 'this version now comes with ads! Yes: ads!')

And then there is Google, who released version 0.3.1448 of the Google Mobile App yesterday. Included in their enhancements: - Speed improvements for voice search (thank you!) - British and Australian accents (great?) - Various bug fixes (very descriptive) - Longer version number (akin to still being in "beta") - Ninja (really?)

Apple Takes Over ESPN.com's Frontdoor - Again

This isn't the first time that Apple and ESPN have aggressively experimented with unique, clearly custom ad integration on ESPN.com's homepage. A little under two months ago, Apple ran an interactive expanding ad for the iPhone / iPod Touch.

Yesterday, Apple and ESPN teamed up for another integrated campaign that ties into current television / print advertising... and it too was well done - although a little more aggressive as ESPN actually pushed all of their content below the ad and below the fold. Take a look:

Two things to notice here: 1. Ads have replaced the standard headline links on the right side (now below the fold) 2. Those ads are 'fake' - they actually link to Apple and are part of the experience (not sure how I feel about this)

Notice how those 'fake' ads are now overtaken by the "PC. Easy as 1-2-3" roll out.

After the ad concludes, you get the above message. It is strange that the horizontal unit is so plain. I would expect that it would at least have two large calls to action: replay or go.

The NYT Erroneously Concludes iPhone Users Don't Do Work

The New York Times is claiming today that iPhone owners do not use their devices for work:

A new report from Compete surveying the behavior of 600 smartphone users found that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, like entertainment. By comparison, 59 percent of owners with other types of smartphones — from manufacturers like HTC, Research in Motion and Nokia — primarily used their devices for business and work-related needs.

Step back a moment:

1. iPhone users obviously consume more content than non-iPhone users because no other mainstream device allows users to do so... or has the available library of content: 35,000 applications and high-speed internet browsing.

2. In contrast, Blackberry users likely use their devices for what they do best: email. You could argue, that outside of limited web-browsing, email and calendaring (or if they want to define that as "work") is all the Blackberry does.

3. iPhone users might use their phones for activities beyond just email and calendaring - but that is because they are able to. That doesn't mean that the iPhone is incapable of "work"; rather, it means that the iPhone is capable of much more than work utilities. Likewise, it doesn't mean that iPhone users do not use their device for work - it means that those utilities are one available usage.

Seesmic Desktop: Every Marketer Should Use It

There is no arguing that Twitter is a powerful marketing lever. There is also no arguing that Twitter can be remarkably noisy and difficult to navigate (in part because of the presence of so many marketers).... And that is where Seesmic Desktop comes in. Let me first make the assumption that, as an online marketer, you already use Twitter. Second, I will assume that your main interests are one or several of the following:

1. Growing a community of followers 2. Tracking discussions of your brand / website across the web (not just on Twitter) 3. Interacting with relevant Twitterers (either publicly or privately) 4. Receiving real-time notifications based on set alerts (keywords, retweets, etc) 5. Doing everything efficiently Seesmic Desktop does all of these things - and most importantly - efficiently. My main struggle with Twitter as a consumer is noisiness - sifting through all of the activity is downright difficult and time consuming.

With Seesmic, I am able to manage my followers, get real-time access to their stream, monitor activity for Widgetbox, define a list of searches and userlists, and respond from multiple accounts. It is a powerful utility for customer support, brand surveying and promotion.

Other apps exist - but I haven't found another that compares to Seesmic in functionality and ease of use. Go ahead - cut through Twitter's noise by downloading Seesmic Desktop.

My only complaint - I want Facebook integration (badly!). Perhaps it is coming after Facebook's most recent announcement for app developers?!

2009 Syracuse Fashion Show - Video

I spent the weekend at Syracuse University for my sister Randi's Fashion Show. As part of Syracuse's Fashion Design program, Randi put together an entire collection for her senior year - including concept, creation (sewing, printing, etc) and presentation. The below video shows her six-outfit, Egyptian-inspired collection... which was outstanding. Be sure to watch in HD:

Syracuse University's Annual Fashion Show: April 24 The fashion design program in the School of Art and Design's Department of Design presents its annual fashion show. Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center.

Worst Signage Ever?

While in Syracuse for Randi's Senior Fashion Show, we went to a couple art galleries. At "The Warehouse Gallery: International Contemporary Art Center", we came across this laughable sign: