1. Google has just announced that it has updated its search algorithm to promote the latest relevant results where it makes sense to do so. The company explains “Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.” 35% of searches should be affected, Google says. These include, recent events or hot topics; regularly recurring events, and topics that are frequently updated.

2. Twitter has announced Twitter Stories, which is an online portfolio that Twitter will use to display stories about how single Tweets have affected its users. You can submit stories by mentioning mentioning @twitterstories or by using the hashtag #twitterstories, Twitter says to feel free to link to a photo or video and they will include those in the story. Twitter will then feature a selection of profiles every month. The site is already live with a nice selection of stories to check out:

3. Search engine Google is now indexing public comments made on websites that use Facebook, Disqus and other add-ons. The move means that all comments on any publicly visible website could show up in Google search results. Previously, search engines were unable to read comments because Facebook, Disqus and Intense Debate used programming that was not easy to read automatically. This meant that comments could play any part in a website’s search ranking. Now, however, the web tools that Google uses to trawl the web and index content are able to read comments that have been made using Facebook’s Connect add-in for other websites, as well as other equivalent services.

4. Just five companies control 64% of all online spending, with Google controls 46% in total. The others are Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL. Here are the full results:

5. Following last week’s news that Klout had changed its algorithm for calculating social capital, there has been a groundswell of criticism against the site. CEO Fernandez responds to his critics here.

We like to get out and about here at Umpf and in a genius stroke of multi-tasking, last month we hit the big smoke to catch up with some journalists and attend a PR/Blogger Outreach Event organised by This Little Lady Went to London.

Hosted by Econsultancy’s Vicki Chowney and featuring a panel of three PRs and three bloggers, the event was designed to bring both disciplines together to discuss best practice and relationship building.

Having worked with a number of bloggers on recent campaigns (A Modern Mother, The Pink Whisk, The Boy Who Bakes), we were interested to hear what our peers had to say on the subject and pick up some more top tips from the bloggers themselves.

So what did we learn? Erm, that there are some really bad PR people in this world* (who honestly sends out blanket emails addressed, Dear Receiver?) That there are a lot of PRs who don’t understand the basic principles of working with bloggers – i.e. do your research first. And, that some people still don’t understand the differences between bloggers and journalists.

So whilst a lot of time was spent covering off the basics – much more for the benefit of the bad ‘dear receiver’ PR types who probably weren’t in the room – we did come away with some useful reminders of best practice:

1. Getting to know you – Don’t just have a quick skim-read of the blog, get to know the blogger a little bit too. Follow them on Twitter, reply to some tweets, etc, etc. That way you are already on their radar and you can be 100% confident that your pitch is well targeted
2. Quality not quantity – Remember that with a blog you are dealing with a much more targeted audience than the mainstream media. It is better to spend a bit of time with one or two bloggers getting some quality coverage, targeted very specifically to your audience than blanketing emailing a whole load of irrelevant ones and getting nothing. It goes back to the golden rule of ‘do your research first’ – making sure the blogger you approach is the right fit for your client and campaign will always ensure the best return
3. They like free lunches too – It’s no secret that the mainstream media like a bit of schmoozing, well it turns out those blogger types enjoy a bit of that too (doesn’t everyone?) Joking aside, as with journalists – a face-to-face with a key blogger every now and again gives you their undivided attention and you can have a proper two-way conversation about your ideas
4. Make it tailored – All of the bloggers on the panel agreed that they would never expect to be given an exclusive on a story but they would always appreciate being given their own angle which is specific to their interests or style – especially if the story is being sold-in to a number of blogs
5. Ask for their vital stats – The panel all agreed that bloggers should be transparent with their readership figures and the bloggers present would always be happy to supply this data so just ask
6. To pay or not to pay – Probably the most contentious discussion of the evening, should bloggers be paid for content and to run competitions. I think the majority of PR people would agree that there are times when it would be relevant to pay a blogger for their time if they were specifically working with you on a campaign that involved a lot of input from them or being used as an ‘expert’ commentator in media. The main issue was competitions and if bloggers should charge a placement fee. Whilst both sides have a point ‘it takes time for me to set up, run and promote the competition’ vs. ‘we are providing you with a prize of value which is helping drive traffic to your site’, it was the only subject that the two sides couldn’t agree on and in the end the debate could have raged on all night.

*we are not referring to the PRs on the panel!

1. A fake Facebook tattoo caused a stir this week when video emerged of an unnamed Dutch woman getting 152 of her Facebook friends’ profile pictures tattooed on to her arm. Many people smelt a rat and after 1.5 million YouTube views it was confirmed as a PR stunt to promote Pretty Social which makes Facebook themed gifts.

2. Facebook was under fire this week after rolling out its face recognition technology without telling anybody. Sparking complaints from privacy campaigners, the new technology can instantly recognise and tag people in pictures uploaded to the site. Designed to speed up the process of labelling friends in pictures, the technology was trialled in the US and then rolled out across the world with the default setting automatically turned on.

3. An issue of More Magazine created by its Facebook fans goes on sale today. More’s 100,000 Facebook fans were given the chance to input into all areas of the content including the cover star, fashion shoots and the beauty pages. Five ‘superfans’ were also recruited to go into the Bauer offices and work on the magazine with its editorial team.

4. Last week Apple announced that Twitter would be inbuilt into iOS 5 making it the default social network on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.  With what is regarded as a kick in the teeth for Facebook, when iOS 5 is released this Autumn device users will able to post videos, links and updates to Twitter with a single tap.

5. Iceland is using social media to crowdsource its constitution in a bid to galvanise the public into sharing their ideas. The document has been available for public comment online since April. The public can also take part in the discussion by joining the Facebook page. What is more, meetings of the council are open to the public and streamed live on to the website and Facebook page.

6. You can now remove the Youtube logo from video uploads. The move comes as online video uploads soar and is designed to appeal to serious video publishers.

Every week we’ll be bringing you the latest social media campaigns, news and views. You can watch the latest broadcast bulletin on our home page http://www.umpf.co.uk every week or catch up with previous episodes here.

Click for more on social media campaigns: http://www.umpf.co.uk/social-media

1. Hertfordshire Police found themselves at the centre of a social media #fail last week after refusing to comment on a rumoured explosive devise at a Watford bank and calling for public calm. They then, however, went on to post updates on Twitter using #watfordbomb

2. Twittersphere has made it into the Oxford Dictionary Online as computing and social networking terms continue to dominate the English language. Other new inclusions are badware, social graph and network neutrality

3. Hot on the heels of Sony’s hacking crisis, this time Nintendo have been targeted by the same group, although no sensitive data was affected. Taking a ‘friendlier stance’ towards Nintendo, the group tweeted that they ‘mean no harm’

4. Is Groupon worth $20 billion? That is the top figure being touted as it takes its first steps towards becoming public

5. There is no stopping football’s newest convert to Twitter – @WayneRooney. This weekend he used the social networking site to announce his hair transplant – even posting a picture to show off the results

1. Tripadvisor launches a version of augmented reality for the iPad

2. An Egyptian family names their daughter Facebook

3. Nike sneakers get a web-friendly makeover

4. Bad habit? Too much Facebook gets Nun banished from her order

5. Is Quora already being valued at $1Billion? Is this dotcom bubble 2.0?

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have changed and challenged our traditional perceptions of friendship.  In our increasingly digital world, friendship no longer means meeting up face-to-face for a coffee once a week, but rather clicking ‘confirm’ on the friend request button on Facebook, or following someone interesting on Twitter.

So, it was no surprise to hear last week that latest research suggested that the more friends you had on Facebook, the more you were prone to greater levels of stress and ‘neurotic limbo’. Apparently, constantly providing interesting status updates, photos and posts on discussions pages can prove too much for some and panic ensues when there’s not enough going on in your life to provide witty, interesting and thought-provoking updates every hour of the day.

This research, whilst yet to be backed up by wider scientific study, does serve as a cautionary tale. At Umpf, we’ve always been clear that entering this brave new world of social media requires commitment on a long-term basis from brands and not just a ‘hop on, hop off’ approach. Recent stories about brands shutting down their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the resultant negative press, only serves to back this up.

Social media represents a fantastic opportunity for many brands to engage with potential and existing consumers, but it’s about interaction and not just pushing out marketing messages on an ad-hoc basis. The phrase ‘making friends and influencing people’ no longer follows in the social media world. We can have friends without influencing them and we can influence people without first being friends. Influence counts for everything and only a long-term commitment to social media will engender this amongst consumers.

Welcome back to our weekly instalment of what’s hot in the world of social media. In case you missed what happened over the past week, here’s our top five and don’t forget – if you see anything that really impresses you, why not let us know by emailing on social@umpf.co.uk Perhaps your suggestion will make the cut next week:

1. Superbowl is the most checked into venue on Foursquare with a record 200,000 check-ins.

2. Great infographic, right, showing a breakdown of Linkedin users

3. New ‘Life Caching’ trend catches on with this latest platform from MyHistro. Life caching is collecting, storing and displaying your whole life; think of it like Foursquare on steroids.

4. Storify takes citizen journalism to the next level, with social media updates creating online stories. Could this be a foretaste of how journalism is changing because of social media?

5. The demographic of Facebook and Twitter users compared.

Twitter is often a popular choice for brands, but as more and more enter the Twitter-sphere we’re noticing how differently companies worldwide are reacting, responding and engaging in conversations in a comparison to the next – some doing it better than others.

Naturally, each of the brands will be trying to satisfy their own objectives for utilising a social media channel such as Twitter – objectives that are often associated with follower numbers or mentions.  However, are these objectives a good measurement of the extent of engagement their brand is achieving within a genuine target audience?  Or are they in fact just a host of numbers to show that a job is being done?

Many brands may measure their success on Twitter by the number of followers they have, something that can actually be counter-productive.  It’s easy to become obsessed with having follower numbers into the thousands or tens of thousands, but blindly following irrelevant people in the hope that some may follow you back is actually a method of spamming (we don’t like spamming- see previous blogs) and besides, it doesn’t really get anyone anywhere.  The key to Twitter from a brand’s perspective is to engage and interact with followers who are relevant to a business, enabling the brand to have conversations online and create a public community.

We also see people attributing the number of tweets they’ve posted as a sign of a successful Twitter account. This might actually signal that the brand is not really listening or engaging with their followers but is posting impersonal, untimely tweets- often about themselves or something their brand is doing.  It’s not a great way of achieving engagement and interaction that we’re looking for when communicating through social media.

On the contrary, numbers can often be useful where retweets or @ mentions are concerned.  Someone retweeting your post normally signals that you’ve said something interesting.  Similarly, if an @ mention is responding to something you’ve tweeted then you have successfully managed to engage with a follower and should continue to try and keep the conversation between them interesting and ongoing.

We’re well aware that the quality versus quantity argument is alive and well in the social media arena and despite there being ongoing criticism in the traditional PR remit (we won’t start on payment by results) there doesn’t seem to be any lessons learnt so far, and unfortunately we sense a similar fate for social media channels.  We’re not holding our breath for Twitter to be approached in a ‘best practice’ kind of way anytime soon, but we hope that brands will begin to realise that following any old ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ is not strategic and is in fact just a numbers game.

When the Times decided to go behind the paywall many predicted it was the end of the beginning; how long, we asked, could other papers afford not to charge us for viewing their sites? Well, with recent news that The Telegraph is considering the paywall and others could follow suit, we asked Quora, which papers would be first to ‘cover up’ in 2011.

It was no surprise to hear that other users of Quora thought The Sun could follow suit this year. After all, as it’s part of News International, The Times trial could easily be implemented across other newspapers in the group.

The attention of the UK’s biggest newspapers might be on the paywall debate, but newspapers fail to recognise the challenge of micro-blogging at their peril.  Social media platforms, including Twitter, have helped move journalism on so much in the past five years that arguments about whether or not to have a paywall could well be obsolete within a few years.

Social media has already eroded the supremacy of the traditional press, but it’s still hard to say whether bloggers or citizen journalism will overtake professional journalism as the de facto source of stories in years to come. For now, though, let’s just sit back, relax and enjoy the mud-slinging as the papers fight it out to gain the moral high-ground on the issue of paying for online news.

The tantalizing words such as ‘WOW, look who’s viewing your profile now!’ should have been enough of a give-away and the mere existence of Facebook Pages saying how this is technically impossible should have provided ample warning.

In fact, the words ‘WOW’ are normally sufficient in themselves to send even the most scantly-discerning user of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms scurrying off to alert their friends to a spam-attack.

Not so with this one, though.  We at Umpf Towers (without the slightest hint of superiority, we can assure you), gazed on as friends clicked on the link and realised, red-faced, that they’d been conned and the link was just spam. Not only that, they had inadvertently showed all their friends that they really were concerned about who was covertly viewing their profile.

But what was it about this particular scam that was so appealing?  There was no free-food offer, promise of a half-price Thai bride or even a ‘virtual blessing’ from an online priest.  It was a popularity contest, pure and simple.

We’d stop short of saying that those that clicked on the link were vain. Far from it. But let’

s be honest, who wouldn’t want the slight ego massage of finding out how many adoring hundreds, nay thousands, of people were viewing our ever-so-interesting

profile, just like you can on Linkedin (see below).

I guess this serves as a timely reminder to us all – we might be strong enough to refuse the offer  of cut-price Viagara on spam emails, but we all love to be loved and this spam-tastic link proved just that.

So the Wall Street Journal has said it will no longer adhere to press release embargoes.  So what?  This really shouldn’t come as any shock to PR folk; it’s nothing new.

Back in 2008 TechCrunch, one of the most popular and influential IT blogs, publicly said it would deliberately break every embargo it was given by PR agencies.  It’s an interesting read which

you can see here.

Publishing is ever more a cut-throat business as the need to be first with the big online stories becomes greater.  Being first with an online news story means you stand to gain more click-throughs – and more click-throughs means your website is more valuable to an advertiser.  Plus, being first with a story means your site ranks higher in the search engines.  Which attracts more traffic.

What’s worse for the likes of the WSJ is that as well as their contemporaries in the print news world, they’re also competing online with the likes of bloggers, gossip sites and even citizen journalists.

So when TechCrunch doesn’t stick to the embargo, they’re more likely to be first with the tech news ahead of, say, Katie Boehret (@kabster728),  a technology reporter on the Wall Street Journal.  So you can see what the WSJ is thinking.

And while you’re thinking about the plight of the news print publishers, add this into the mix: who scooped the biggest story of the year (some might say ‘decade’)?  The Sunday Times? The Wall Street Journal? The New York Times? The BBC? Sky? CNN? Fox News? The Sun? News of the World? No, Michael Jackson’s death was reported first by a four-year-old celebrity gossip site called TMZ.com.

So, back to embargoes.  Should we be worried?  Well, it’s almost 20 months since TechCrunch said it would break every embargo it was given, yet today if you’re a technology PR consultant, TechCrunch is still going to be one of the first telephone calls you make when you’ve got a good story.