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With over 500 million users to date, not only has the social networking site’s popularity increased significantly since it’s February 2004 launch, there’s now a movie about the site that comes out one month from today.

The film is about 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest billionaire in all the world, and his Facebook creation. With all of his success, however, came ups and downs, which are all portrayed in the movie.

Watch the trailer for The Social Network here!

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“The Accountability Evolution: Marketers Turn to Metrics to Boost Their Strategic Value,” is based on a survey of more than 100 senior marketing executives in the U.S.

Read on here! Marketers Finally Turn Toward Metrics

To view the detailed Barracuda Labs 2010 Midyear Security Report, click here!

Click here to view the full Search Engine Land article.

SEM experts trying to collect data and run reports the past few weeks have stumbled on an error in the code that has stopped firms from – plainly – doing what they have to do. Unfortunately, during the weeks, about 80% of existing Google Adwords accounts were affected by the problem as each day more and more accounts began to fail.

The Solution?

The SEM firm discussed in this article began to utilize a manual process  to gather necessary data for its clients as well as allotting some time to remove the code. Unfortunately, Google is apparently not volunteering any info on what happened and doesn’t give agencies any access to the developers to talk through the problems. Thanks for the help, guys!

This isn’t the first time there’s been a glitch in a Google program. Hopefully the search engine keeps to its word and has all reporting info corrected around July 12, as promised.

Check out the MediaPost article here.

While Google is the worldwide leader in this paid search parade, paid search as a whole has rapidly grown in the online advertising industry. Paid Search, as we know it to be, is also known as Pay-Per-Click advertising (as mentioned in an earlier blog). With Paid Search, web site owners pay a specific advertising fee – generally based on “click-throughs” to their web sites to ensure their site will show in top placement on search engine results pages.

In his article, Jack Loechner proposes that these trends should continue over the next five years and Magnaglobal’s report expects online advertising to “collectively grow by 11.7%” next year and “by an average rate of 11.0% through 2015.” So, the industry as a whole will produce approximately $103 billion. Not too shabby.

For more detailed information, view the article here.

Just this past week, according to the search engine’s official blog, Google released this new indexing system, Google Caffeine.  In order “to keep up with the evolution of the web and to meet rising user expectations,” Google developed Caffeine to better handle complex webpages with rich media and real-time content.  Instead of this content being indexed in layers, the new system indexes web content in pieces, where web pages are almost immediately available.  When indexed in layers, there was a significant delay, but now, users “can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.”  Again, while you may not notice a difference, this new method of indexing is providing users with a faster and more comprehensive search engine.

Why does any of this REALLY matter?  Well, Google Caffeine affects SEO strategies and site updates.  Since web content is being indexed at a faster rate, SEO specialists who are aware of these Caffeine side effects can anticipate that their SEO efforts and testing can pay off much quicker than in the past.  Those who do not closely monitor these side effects and what it means for their work may end up losing rankings.  Kenneth Corbin, an associate editor of InternetNews.com, said, “With information pouring in from social networks, blogs and online content providers on a second-by-second basis, this improved indexing system will raise the bar for search engine optimization.”  At this rate, online advertisers and marketing experts can place ads next to more relevant and timely results. 

In an article about Google changes that impact search rankings, InternetNews.com Senior Editor Sean Michael Kerner quoted Maile Ohye, senior developer programs engineer at Google.  Ohye said, “Caffeine increases document freshness by at least 50 percent…  On a per-document basis, we can now attach more metadata, which provides a deeper way to look at content and can lead to ranking updates more quickly for Google.”  In addition, Kerner said, “Ohye noted that for several years, Google considered metatags as a spam technique, but are now again considering meta description information when determining overall search relevancy.”  Taking this information into account and applying it to your website can help boost your site’s search rankings.

On a separate note, the other update that Kerner discussed was the May Day update — an algorithmic change to make long-tail content queries more relevant.  Web.com’s Patrick Hare offered recommendations to those who may have seen decreased website traffic as a result of the update, which included linking pages within your website.  While you should take certain factors into account, Hare advised that “as long as you’re adding useful information and creating the kind of website that your customers would like to see,” you can improve the results from your website.

In the article, Mike Mothner outlines five central tips for those interested in learning more about keyword selection and all pieces that surround Pay-Per-Click and SEO.

His five tips include:

1. Pick good “keyphrases” rather than “keywords”

2. Never default to “vanity keywords”

3. The Wonder of Google’s “Wonder Wheel”

4. Repetition across keywords is okay

5. Let the keywords guide the content

For those exploring the online marketing world, check out Keywords, SEO, and PPC: 5 Tips here!

Right after Memorial Day, founder and CEO of True/Slant, Lewis Dvorkin will lead all editorial areas at Forbes as chief product officer.  In fact, Dvorkin is a former executive editor of Forbes magazine and has recently started consulting for the magazine this past April.

There may be criticism of Forbes Media’s decision to acquire the much younger and smaller True/Slant platform.  However, Dvorkin is confident that together, Forbes and True/Slant “have a unique ability to stimulate the social media conversation.”  While this acquisition will result in several changes for the small True/Slant team, the independent journalists, or “knowledge experts,” who do stick around now have the opportunity to work alongside with Forbes Media’s talented journalists.

Given his new role within the company, much is expected of Dvorkin.  He is ready to accept the challenge of reinventing Forbes and implementing new editorial initiatives for the media company.  Dvorkin said, “Our journalists, producers, audiences, marketers and all variety of entrepreneurs will be engaged as they have never been before with one another.”  Stay tuned to see the collaboration of these two different approaches to journalism.  Soon enough, you may begin to see the effect of Forbes’s latest new media acquisition.

2. Research your company on YouTube. See what people are already saying about your company and how your business is currently being portrayed on the site. This will give you a better idea of what to kind of channel you should create.

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3. Slowly and efficiently grow your channel. It’s going to take time for your channel to get popular, so make sure you integrate it into your other current marketing efforts (i.e. Introduce it on your company’s Facebook page so your fans can become more and more familiar).

4. Keep the future in mind. You see how fast technology evolves, so think about what you could do on YouTube that other companies haven’t explored or done yet.

5. Focus on what’s important. Although gathering a large number of followers is of course helpful, making sure your channel is up-to-date and professional is even more important. You may have hundreds of people tuning into your channel, but if your content is poor, you’re lowering your chances of expanding to even more audiences.