Spotify To Pull the Plug on Free Unlimited Music

By Devon Glenn at SocialTimes: 
Spotify may be trying save the record industry with better deals for labels, but the savings are about to end for the many of the on-demand music streaming service’s 1.4 million subscribers.
According to a report from The Verge, Spotify users who have free accounts in the U.S. will be limited to ten hours of streaming per month, with five plays per song.  To get unlimited music they’ll have to sign up for one of the site’s premium plans, which cost $4.99 and $9.99 per month.
The company had implemented these same changes in the UK back in April.  The blog post received so much traffic – and so many comments from users, whose responses ranged from supportive to outraged – that the comments had to be disabled.

Read the full article here at SocialTimes

Twitter Really, Really Hates Google’s New Google+ Integration

By Jason Kancid at TechCrunch:
This morning, Google began rolling out a major change to its core search engine that intertwines results from Google+ (and Picasa) with the ‘normal’ algorithmically-generated results we’ve come to expect. There have been plenty of critiques of the news, including John Battelle’s discussion on how this isn’t actually integrating ‘Your World’, as Google calls it, but rather just its own social network.
And now there’s another critic that’s coming out swinging: Twitter.
Earlier today the company’s General Counsel Alex Macgillivray, who was a top attorney at Google prior to making the jump to Twitter, called it “A bad day for the Internet”, and stated that some of his former colleagues were likely upset by the decision to “warp” Google’s results. And now Twitter itself has followed up with a statement denouncing the feature — and rather than relying on the wishy-washy PR speak big companies are fond of, it’s very direct.
Here’s the full statement:

For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.
Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.
We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.

Now, some context. Google used to have a deal with Twitter whereby Tweets would appear as part of Google’s real-time results. These would sometimes appear baked into the results page for a timely query on Google, about, say, breaking news or a sporting event, and were also accessible by going to a dedicated real-time search section. That partnership terminated in July 2011, and was not renewed.
Twitter is obviously upset about today’s launch for a few reasons. For one, it made money off of its deal with Google. It wants Google to need its data. And there’s the potential that today’s launch may incentivize publishers and users to pay more attention to Google+ when it comes to sharing breaking news — after all, it’s the only service that’s going to pop up in Google search results. Which would reduce Google’s reliance on Twitter.

As for Twitter’s assertion that with these changes, finding information will be “much harder for everyone”: if people are looking to access the real-time data that is shared on Twitter (which, to Twitter’s credit, is definitely more likely to include breaking news than most of the stuff being shared on Google+), then they can obviously still head to Twitter’s own search product. Which could potentially be a very popular search portal itself, but, in my experience, is still pretty cruddy.
But Twitter does have a point: people trust Google to serve up the most timely, relevant information possible. And without Twitter’s data, it’s going to have a hard time doing that. Of course, Google probably already has its own answer to this drafted, and I suspect it reads something like, “if Twitter wants people to find tweets in Google, they can open up their API.”  I’m reaching out to them for their official response now.

5 Essential Google Analytics Tips For Web Designers

By Iain Harper at .net Magazine:  
Discover how to fuel your creativity with the wisdom of insight from Google Analytics, and unlock the true potential of your web design talent. Digital marketing specialist Iain Harper shows us how.

 

Designers are born, not made, but it takes more than raw talent to make a great web designer. What really sorts the wheat from the chaff is an intuitive understanding of how to craft an engaging and usable experience. It's seeing the big picture, having the ability to think like a customer (yes, 'customer' not 'user'), and always remembering that a website must fulfil its commercial purpose.

Understanding develops from objective insight, and when it comes to online customer behaviour Google Analytics is an invaluable source. Here are five essential insights that every web designer can learn from:

1. Turn me on

From the moment someone reaches a website, the design has maybe two seconds to make a first impression, and first impressions count. Turn them on with the promise of an easy and enjoyable experience and they'll stay for more. Bore them, irritate them, or make it look like hard work, and they'll be gone forever.

The "Bounce Rate" metric in Google Analytics (Content>Site Content>Pages) is a fundamental barometer of first impressions. It tells you how many people left a page without clicking on a single link. A high bounce rate means the design (and/or the content) is failing to engage. Look at the bounce for all the important pages in a site and figure out which ones need improving. Test different styles and monitor the change.

Check out Content>In-Page Analytics for a visual overlay of how people are interacting with a site design.

The consistent above-the-fold elements are crucial in triggering positive engagement. The header, main navigation, and whatever appears in the top-left of the page, have the most impact. Make them count. Design with flair and originality, but keep things familiar.

2. Happy landings

The homepage of a site is important in all sorts of ways, but it's a big mistake to think of it as the starting point for every customer experience. Typically, less than 40 per cent of visitors enter a website at the home page, so optimising the engagement value of all the other major landing pages is essential.

Any page could be a landing page, not just those at the top-level of a site's navigation or those created specifically for individual campaigns.

To find out which pages are the priority using Google Analytics, look under Content>Site Content>Landing Pages and compare volume of visits, time on site and bounce rate to identify what's working and what's not. Think objectively about how the design of high-performing pages is different from those that are struggling. Test and refine your theories. 

 

3. The bottom line

If your design doesn't help a website achieve its commercial purpose then, not only will the business suffer, your reputation will take a battering too. It's in your interests to create a customer journey from landing to conversion that's as streamlined, intuitive and pleasurable as possible.

Whether a site is selling products, generating leads, taking bookings, or offering downloads, the optimisation of conversion is your top priority. From a visual design perspective, less can often be more.

Google Analytics provides two kinds of insight into commercial performance under the "Conversions" tab. "Goals" are non-financial objectives like the completion of an enquiry form. "Ecommerce" conversions relate to actually selling stuff.

Focus on the top "funnels" for goals and ecommerce transactions and look for the exceptions. Which pages, which stages of the journey, are working especially well or especially badly. Where are customers dropping-out of the funnel? Learn from the successful pages to improve the others.

 

4. Equal opportunities

Think about the last site you designed. How many people visited it from a mobile device? How did their experience and performance compare to desk-bound visitors?

Look under Visitors>Mobile>Devices in Google Analytics and all will become clear.

You'll probably discover that well over 10 per cent of visits were via smartphones and tablets. That's a hefty (and rapidly-growing) proportion of mobile consumption and your design work needs to account for it.

Remind yourself of the average bounce rate, time on the site and the number of pages viewed per visit. Then compare with the data for mobile visitors. You may be surprised by what you find.

It's also important not to think of "mobile" as a single generic medium. Look at the differences in performance between iPad and iPhone users. You'll almost certainly see that iPad visits last longer, view more pages, and bounce less.

If you're involved with App design (or want to be), this kind of insight will be really useful.

5. Divide and conquer

Making comparisons between different kinds of visitor is perhaps the most powerful feature of Google Analytics. It's the art of "segmentation" and it can guide your creativity like nothing else.

As well as mobile visitors, segmentation let's you compare things like new vs returning visitors and organic search vs referrals from other sites. They're all important, but where segmentation can get really clever is with "Custom Segments".

Reports in Google Analytics can be filtered by up to four segments at once. Click the "Advanced Segments" button at the top of any report, then the "New Custom Segment" button on the right.

For example, you might want to investigate the landing page interaction of visitors coming from Facebook and other social channels vs those coming from search. You could define a custom segment for social network referrals and then filter the landing page reports to get a better understanding of visitor behavior.

Conclusion

Analysing data is unfamiliar territory for most web designers, but for those that can expand their comfort-zone to learn new skills and gain a more objective perspective on how their designs are consumed, the professional dividends can be enormous.

Make sure you can get access to the Google Analytics on all the sites you work with. Absorb all you can. Spot the trends and the exceptions.

Study the step-by-step video lessons provided by Google and take the "Individual Qualification" exam for official certification of your new-found expertise (which looks good on your CV too).

Above all, be proactive. Use the insight from Google Analytics in a creative way to produce more effective designs and become a better web designer.

 

 About Iain Harper 

heartwooddigital.com Iain Harper has been in the web business since 1995. He's run agencies, done his time client-side, and now consults on digital marketing integration. Connect with Iain on LinkedIn.

 

Social Sharing Boosts Email CTR Up To 115% [INFOGRAPHIC]

By Hanna Andrzejewska at GetResponse: 

Social sharing is an unstoppable trend in email marketing. Actually, we could risk stating a thesis: email is a social tool, too. Why? Just check out the figures from our latest research on the impact of social sharing, which we unveiled in the infographic Email Marketing + Social Media. When 1+1 Equals More Than 2.

Before you actually proceed to check out the striking results revealed in the report, ask yourself one simple question:

Do I share?

If yes, proceed to the infographic to get sound, physical proof of the effectiveness of your social strategies.
If no, proceed to the infographic to see what you’re missing, and ask yourself the second question:

Why don’t I share?

The major finding of the GetResponse analysis is that the number of users who include social sharing buttons in their emails increased to 18.3%. Compared to last year’s results, that’s an increase of 40%.
But that level is still comparatively low, if contrasted with the exceptionally high performance results for newsletters that included social sharing buttons. Those emails had a click-through-rate (CTR) up to 115% higher. Check out yourself:

Highlights of the infographic

• Facebook, included in 91% of social emails, outdistanced Twitter, becoming the most popular sharing option. Its popularity increased by 10% compared to 2010. That’s a huge jump, compared to Twitter’s 25% drop.
• LinkedIn sharing buttons are less popular than last year. The number of emails that include it dropped 25% since last year. This drop only emphasizes the jump in effectiveness of the LinkedIn link. The CTR for emails that include it has soared by almost 400%, making LinkedIn the top performer in CTR – that’s a result worth fighting for.
• The outstanding CTR results for social emails (up to 115% higher) contrasted with the comparatively small number of actual shares per 10,000 emails (Facebook: 23, Twitter: 7, LinkedIn: 4) only further punctuate their extended viral impact.

What does it all mean?

Sharing is power.

Facebook has over 800 million active users worldwide, each with an average of 130 contacts. All are potential ambassadors of your brand. Just imagine the buzz one single campaign can create… or the damage from one publicized complaint.

This sheds a completely new light on customer-brand communication. Brands need to assume a more personal tone, respect individual voices and react in real time to all sorts of feedback. Brands that create a true relationship with their customers and respond to their needs with relevant and timely offers will benefit greatly from the enthusiasm of their fans.
All of that, just by providing sharing options in emails. And the best part is that with GetResponse there’s no added cost to include social media sharing, so it’s pure ROI.

About Hanna Andrzejewska: Hanna is Communication and Marketing Specialist for GetResponse and the latest addition to the Team. She gained her experience writing for other specialty blogs and as a copywriter, translator, teacher and interpreter. She is also an enthusiast of social media and viral marketing.

 

Is this Google’s weapon to challenge Facebook? [Video]

By Mark at Digital Times Ireland, DigitalTimes.ie
When Google launched its latest social network Google+, it received a mixed response – some thought it was okay, some hated it. Indeed, many ‘seasoned’ social media professionals were quick to dismiss it straight away and say it was too little, too late and Facebook owned the social networking world. Period. However, after many Facebook face lifts and overhauls and the rise of Twitter, Google+ is still growing.
When Google launched Gmail, it too received a very tepid welcome from the digital community. Now look at it. And what about Google’s Chrome browser? When it launched people were skeptical, why did the world need another browser. Weren’t Firefox and Safari and Internet Explorer doing a good enough job? Now look at it.
Dismissing Google+ is silly for many reasons. Firstly, it’s a Google product and one than continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in support and development. Secondly, Google is very good at launching a service, getting a muted response, and then building that service into a world-beater over time.
The latest development that should worry execs at Facebook and Twitter is a weapon called ‘Search Plus Your World’. Google is banking on the fact that many people like personalised search results: “Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results,” says the firm on its blog.
Why would Facebook be concerned about this? Well, since personalised content from Google+ is included in searches but not content from Facebook and Twitter, Google is loudly prompting people to switch over to Google+.
What’s more, it puts Facebook and Twitter in a very difficult position. Google says it will include content from Facebook and Twitter in its searches but they won’t allow Google to do so. If they allow their content to be included in Google searches, Google will make money from their content. If they don’t allow this, Google will continue to promote personalised search information from Google+, making it a very viable alternative to both Facebook and Twitter for people (and brands) who regularly use social networks.
Watch this space.
Read more: Twitter calls Google’s update ‘bad for the internet’.