Thoughts on Digital

Digital Marketing Consultant Per Pettersson in love with digital strategies, working at a digital agency in Stockholm and sharing some random digital thoughts right here. Blogging at perpettersson.me Don't be a stranger.

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Designing people’s Instagram Stories is now a million-dollar business

Alfonso Cobo saw the potential in Stories early on. Today, his template app has 11 million users, and he’s launching a design agency focus

Instagram stories. Big business.

I wish we had more proof of concepts though. People tend to look for solutions to get in line with the latest thing of the month and miss out on the potential revenue (or lack of it).

FOMO. Always FOMO.

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Valley of Genius | TWiT.TV

Ripped from the pages of Adam Fisher's uncensored history of Silicon Valley, Valley of Genius features the hackers, founders, and freaks who made Silicon Valley boom, in their own …

Valley of Genius. I am currently half way through the book and boy do I recommend it. The interview/storytelling format is perfect to remember how Silicon Valley started and Adam Fisher (the author) have done a really good job to put all the pieces and angles together. Don’t read books? Then grab this podcast.

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Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index

If you run or support a website, you probably already heard about (and use) Google Search Console. The new interface is finally out of beta, but still missing many of the old and good tools and reports. So I would still say its in beta.

But if you have’nt tried it yet - go do. The new index coverage report is splendid to work with and debug issues with pages or, in the worst case, the whole site.

[thoughtsondigital-blog]

With Brexit around the corner - .eu domains will not be available

Notice to stakeholders: withdrawal of the United Kingdom and EU rules on .eu domain names - European Comission March 28 2018

As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organisations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU, and natural persons who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names or, if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date.

Now is a good time to migrate from your .eu top level domain to one that works post Brexit.

1. Plan the migration of content 2. QA the new domain 3. QA the web analytics implementation 4. Implement redirects from .eu to the new domain 5. Verify the new domain with Google Search Console 6. Closely follow up the changes with web analytics and rankings

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Facebook to begin counting viewable-only impressions for Pages’ organic reach

Facebook had originally said in November 2016 that it would shift to viewable-only organic reach counts amid a series of measurement errors that it disclosed at the time. But more than a year later, it had yet to do so. In December, the company said that it had taken longer to build the new counting system than the company had expected and that the new methodology would be instituted in early 2018. And now it finally will be.

To help Page managers adjust to the new counts and evaluate the performance of new posts against that of older posts — and perhaps get a sense of what share of past impressions were non-viewable — Facebook will initially report two versions of Page posts’ organic reach: one using the old methodology and one using the new, viewable-only methodology. But eventually, Facebook will move to only reporting the viewable count. Marketing Land

[bijan]

Some thoughts on network neutrality

Yesterday, Ben Thompson wrote a post called “Why Ajit Pai is Right”. Ben Thompson is a well regarded analyst and I respect his insight on the tech industry quite a lot. Mr. Pai is the current FCC chair and has made it his mission to roll back the current regulatory framework established to protect network neutrality so broadband providers in this country may not discriminate how content flows over their network.

Ben’s post proposes that the government needs to roll back to the previous law of the land and provide a light touch to ISPs in the form of lighter regulations.

My thoughts:

1. To regulate or not regulate.

Business and capital markets have a hard time with regulation to be sure. They see regulation as an obstacle to providing the very best returns to their shareholders. Ben cites the regulatory hassle of opening an restaurant in San Francisco. Well, as an investor in a SF restaurant (Alta CA, lovely place by the way), I can tell you that regulations are not the biggest issues restaurants face. It’s not even on the top 5.

More importantly we the public need regulation. If we allowed business to operate without regulation, it does not take a lot of imagination to consider the cleanliness of the restaurants kitchens or child worker laws in factories or minimum wages in retail stores or how banks operate. Yes, capitalists have issues with regulations and their associated overhead costs — but they serve a valuable purpose to it’s citizens. So let’s avoid making regulations the boogeyman in this debate.

2. The cost of Tittle 2 to ISPs

Ben does a great job describing the current regulatory framework and how Tittle II reclassification works. From his post:

The net effect of this reclassification would be the elimination of FCC rules restricting the ability of ISPs to block or throttle sites or apps or offer paid prioritization of any Internet content. That is certainly a worthy goal! Who could possibly be in favor of ISPs picking-and-choosing what sites you can visit based on what you are willing to pay?

That last statement isn’t quite what you may think if you continue to read the rest of this post. It’s meant to serve up a rationale on why we need to take back this heavy handed regulatory cost to ISPs because this regulatory decision has a cost.

Ben continues:

Any regulatory decision — indeed, any decision period — is about tradeoffs. To choose one course of action is to gain certain benefits and incur certain costs, and it is to forgo the benefits (and costs!) of alternative courses of action. What makes evaluating regulations so difficult is that the benefits are usually readily apparent — the bad behavior or outcome is, hopefully, eliminated — but the costs are much more difficult to quantify. Short-term implementation costs may be relatively straightforward, but future innovations and market entries that don’t happen by virtue of the regulation being in place are far more difficult to calculate

But here’s the thing. Ben never offers up a concrete answer to the title of his post and how Comcast and other ISPs are hurt by Title 2. Clearly they are operating under the law right now and just look at their last two quarterly results. Profits are soaring. They are investing in their network. I just got an email from Comcast offering me 150Mbps. That is a 50 percent increase in bandwidth than what they offered me just a short period ago. Not too shabby.

3. The internet needs to be open.

Comcast and other ISPs are interested in controlling how content, services and applications are delivered to their subscribers. They seek to create a fast lane/slow lane model whereby third party content and services pay to get better treatment. But the internet is not a walled garden. It shouldn’t be controlled by the pipe provider. It’s flourished because of it’s openness. And the “trust us” argument doesn’t hold up given their track record (some examples: here, here, here, here).

I’ll end this post with a question. To those opposed to the current network neutrality regulations: can you please tell us, what is it, precisely, that ISPs want to do and can’t do under the current law.

We deserve to know.

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This is a perfect way to use IFTTT to get yourself out of awkward och time consuming situations.  

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84.8% of all smartphones run on Android. The platform war is over.

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Mobile ads are the future. Just looking at Facebook’s revenue, we can see the impact mobile devices have on ad spend. Will it keep growing? I would say so.

Interesting to see how Asia-Pacific will evolve during the year with the Western Worlds preferred social media platforms. Or, is this the year that the Western World starts integrating with Asia-Pacific and their eco system WeChat?

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Snapchat is truly in the money burning business. (via Snapchat fortsätter att spendera sitt kapital - socialmedianerd)

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Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell. (via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE) A great 15 minute overview and explanation worthy of your time. 

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Hotjar visuals - incoming website feedback

Want to collect free and unlimited feedback directly from your site visitors? Do it with Hotjar Incoming Feedback – Request free early access today with this link.

With Hotjar Incoming Feedback your visitors can reach out to you anytime to give you actionable and specific feedback.

Monitor your overall visitors' sentiment over time. Drill down by sentiment and see what your visitors' see on your site.

Use Hotjar Recordings to literally replay the experience that led to negative feedback and issues.

Choose a placement and the color of your feedback button to match your style and site.

[thoughtsondigital-blog]

Slack hits 4 million active users

Good times for Slack HQ. They hit 4 million active users in October and 1.25 million paying users. I’m using Slack, the free version, with some of my clients but not at the agency where I work. Why? It is hard to leave email unless every single person is onboard the Slack train AND with guidance on how to use it. Slack is not your Facebook Group, but your communications platform.

Using it well, reduces email. But don’t forget to turn off notifications. Software should not dictate your time. You should.

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Google: "our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages". What does this mean for website owners? Look at your website on a mobile device. This is the version that Google is going to access. It’s it loading fast enough? Are you linking to all key pages?

[instagram-business]

Shopping Coming to Instagram

Mobile has changed the way people shop. You browse products while waiting to be seated for dinner, make purchases on your commute into work, and compare prices online when you’re at a store to see what’s the better deal. In fact, more than 84% of smartphone users in the US browse, research or compare products via a web browser or mobile app.* While browsing and discovery is easy on mobile, finding more information about the specific products you see isn’t always as simple. On a platform known for its power of mobile discovery, today we’re excited to announce an easier experience to shop the products you love on Instagram.

Starting next week, we’re testing a way for our community to learn more about the items they view within an Instagram post. Most mobile shopping experiences today take people from the shop window right to check out—without giving consumers the opportunity to consider a product and get more information. However, in an internal survey, we learned that the vast majority of purchases take a day or longer, with only 21% of purchases made within a day.** Knowing that Instagrammers are open to discovery on the platform, and that people take time to better understand the products they’re interested in, this test gives our community valuable steps along their shopping journey before they make a purchase.

To test the new experience, 20 US-based retail brands including Kate Spade, JackThreads and Warby Parker will share posts that have more depth, making it easier for Instagrammers to review, learn about and consider the items that interest them.*** Each post will have a tap to view icon at the bottom left of a photo. When tapped, a tag will appear on various products in the post—showcasing up to five products and their prices. Once a tag is selected a new detailed view of the product will open. This functionality will bring important product information to the consumer earlier in the journey, all without having to leave the Instagram app to search. Then, if the consumer taps the Shop Now link from the product details view, they’ll go directly to that product on the business’ website, making it easier for them to buy the product they want.

“Instagram is where we reflect the interesting life of the kate spade new york girl through relatable social moments which highlight the products that are characters in her story,” says Mary Beech, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Kate Spade & Company. “This post features our favorite new bag and elements from our new personalization program that, together, make the bag uniquely hers. With this seamless shopping experience launching on Instagram, the possibilities for selling our products are endless.”

“Our community uses Instagram as an aspirational discovery platform and they’re looking to us for inspiration,” says Ryan McIntyre, CMO, JackThreads. “This test is going to change the scope of what we, as retailers, are capable of offering on mobile. Instead of having to transition over to the JackThreads app, our customers will be able to shop seamlessly from their social media feeds—allowing us to reach guys where they’re already hunting for what’s new.”

“Instagram and Warby Parker share a similar appreciation for beautiful design and seamless experiences. But right now, there isn’t a simple, clean way for us to share details about the products featured within our posts. Customers often have to ask us, which creates a bulky experience on both sides. We love how seamlessly integrated and consumer-centric this new experience is,” says Dave Gilboa, co-founder and co-CEO.

Instagram already is a great place for discovery on mobile. While consumer research informed the first step of this test, we expect to learn a lot from the businesses we’re working with in this early test. During this initial phase, the new features will be available to a group of people on iOS devices within the US. As we roll out further, we’ll explore product recommendations, ways products are showcased to shoppers, global expansion and the ability to save content so Instagrammers can take an action later. We want to understand how to deliver the most seamless shopping experience for consumers and businesses on Instagram, and ultimately mobile.

Sources: *eMarketer US Mobile Time and Activities StatPack, July 2016; **Path to Purchase 2016” by Kantar (Facebook-commissioned survey of 3,927 people ages 18+ in the US who recently made a purchase in one of the following categories: automobiles, auto insurance, auto parts, electronics or fashion), Aug 2016. “Recently” is defined as three months for Retail and one year for auto-related purchases.

***Sample participating brands include: Abercrombie & Fitch, BaubleBar, Chubbies, Coach, Hollister, J.Crew, JackThreads, kate spade new york, Levi’s Brand, Lulus, Macy’s, Michael Kors, MVMT Watches, Target, Tory Burch, Warby Parker, and Shopbop.

[thoughtsondigital-blog]

Instagram goes ecommerce.

[instapaper]

Instapaper Premium is now free for everyone

Today we’re making Instapaper Premium available to all Instapaper users, free of charge. Instapaper Premium is the best way to experience all that Instapaper has to offer, and we’re excited to open it up to everyone.

Before, some of our greatest features were limited to Instapaper Premium subscribers. Now that we’re better resourced, we’re able to offer everyone the best version of Instapaper. Starting today, all users will have access to:

An ad-free Instapaper website

Full-text search for all articles

Unlimited Notes

Text-to-speech playlists

Unlimited speed reading

“Send to Kindle” via bookmarklet and mobile apps

Kindle Digests of up to 50 articles

For existing Instapaper Premium users, we’ll offer prorated refunds for your current subscription, and you’ll no longer be billed for Instapaper Premium. Thanks for your support throughout the years, we appreciate it.

All users will continue to have an ad-free Instapaper app experience, and we’re eliminating ads on the web entirely.

Opening Instapaper Premium is something we’ve always wanted to do, and we’re thrilled to give everyone the very best Instapaper experience. If you’ve got any questions or feedback, just let us know via [email protected] or @InstapaperHelp on Twitter.

– Instapaper Team

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Instapaper Premium goes free for all. Pocket, watch out!

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Content first thinking (less is maybe more?)

This week I’ve started to update my blogs by scaling down design elements and distractions. I love the people that come to my blogs, reads and interacts with the content but my gut feeling have been that I was missing out on something.

The god damn user experience.

My previous blog design was responsive and I’ve been focused on keeping links to the most popular pages and posts as well as communicating my newsletter for readers to keep in touch and get new posts delivered by email without hassle. Though this is not in line with how users interact with my content.

You google a topic and end up on my blog. Hopefully I will answer your question and you are a happy reader. Case closed. You don’t need anything more from me. And the small portion of readers that want to find more content, will dive into the content.

So I’ve been scaling down, removing elements and distractions. Focusing on each page. It should be easy to read across devices and on topic.

The upside (I think, because I have no data at this time) will be a better experience for my readers.

The downside will most likely be a loss of rankings in search engines as I’m scaling down internal links and how search engines will find my posts and pages.

Readers are great, but happy readers that enjoyed the experience on my blog are even better. I’m aiming to for that good experience. Content first. Converting the reader to a newsletter subscriber or engaging with ads, second. A very, very, distant second.

Thoughts?