If I look at the previous posts made by my colleagues here at longtail, I too have to add my voice to the mix and will try to not write better posts than them… Nah, rest easy people, my writing skills are far less honed than yours. I *must* admit that I am constantly amazed at how well they write. Good job girls…. and guy.

As Sandra commented in her debut blog post, longtail is currently going through some changes, all good of course, and new additions to the team has been made again.

(Drum roll) – TADA!!, (stage curtains open…) – oh look, there’s Melt, he’s the new SEO, website, techie guy. Now at least the current “guy”, err, I meant Japie, does not have to be the only “guy” at the office.

That’s good news for Japie and all of you. Now, all the longtail guys and girls will bring you, and keep you, updated on the latest news and trends in eMarketing.

This brings me to the actual reason for me posting (it took me a long time too).

It seems Facebook is in the news everywhere and this morning is no different. In the last few days news began filtering through that Facebook will now open all user profiles to Search Engine indexing.

Facebook plans to open up its search functionality this week and they will begin letting Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN and other search engines index public profile pages of their users.

You, as a Facebook user, have one month to opt-out of their opening to search engines by changing your user privacy settings.

Currently Facebook is not blocking spidering of their user profiles, but most public profiles (which feature the user name, image and basic info) are not accessible due to no sitemaps style communication between the company and search engines.

Facebook explains that “The Public Search Listing of a profile shows the profile picture thumbnail and links to interact with a user on Facebook. People will always have to log in or register to poke, message or add someone as a friend. A user can also restrict what information shows in their public listing by going to the search privacy page. For instance, if a user does not want their profile picture to be shown, they can uncheck that box under ‘What people can do with my search results’.”

There are currently just over 25,000 Facebook public profiles indexed in Google, mostly via external sites linking in to them.

This move by Facebook may scare some users who don’t want their profiles viewed in public but there are some restrictions: you must have your profile set to viewable by “everyone” in order to appear, and only your limited profile will be public. Additionally, only profiles of those over 18 years old will be shown. It’s also worth noting that some Facebook profiles have already been indexed by Google for a long time now, presumably due to users posting badges to them from other sites.

So, is yours public? How do you make it public? Easy, go to your Facebook account and click on privacy and edit the settings under “Search”.

To keep track on whether your profile is indexed by Google, type “Melt du Plooy site:facebook.com” into Google’s search box (you need to replace my name with yours to find out). You’ll see, mine is not listed. Is yours?.

That’s me for today, thanks for reading.

Amidst the news that many corporate are now starting to ban Facebook access from offices due to the fact that employees spend too much time on it, Facebook is growing at a rate of about 750.000 people per week world-wide. The South African network currently totals 221.539 people.

What corporate don’t realise however is that by banning Facebook it is just growing even faster – forbidden fruit always tastes better. And if they can’t access it from their office pc they are now starting to access it from their cellphones.

The Facebook site is optimised for viewing from a cellphone, which makes it easy to use. And when people update their status from their phone, it tells the friends that you are posting from a phone. It is creating huge interest on the possibilities of mobile websites.

If you can access Facebook from your cell, what else can you do?

By customizing Websites for handsets they give people the opportunity to access services they want at the touch of a button at anytime. And that means if you have a consumer facing business, you’d better take mobile websites seriously.

Sandra Olivier
sandra@longtail.co.za

Well as you would have noticed by now our company is currently going through some changes and new additions to the team. For the fear of being upstaged by my colleague Claire in making a début on our blog I have decided to add my voice to the mix. So I am Sandra and had the wonderful privilege of also just recently starting, in Claire’s words, at ‘the most exciting, innovative company ever!’
Last night we had our first official monthly dinner which kicked off the social calendar for the company. Even though some members of the team were adamant that their only desire is just a good old South African steak, the fairer sex in the team decided we needed a more sophisticated abode to kick-off this momentous event. Subsequently we got to enjoy the wonderful cuisine of Saigon in Riviona, and what a treat indeed! The drink of the evening seemed to be the Strawberry Daiquiris and after sharing opinions and views about various topics starting with politics, movies right through to favorite bands we soon realized that we are all very unique in our likes and dislike. Maybe just the thing that makes us gel so well together.
Without wanting to sound psychic – I would like to predict that in the very near future this ‘tail’ will only get longer…. So watch this space!
Sandra Olivier
sandra@longtail.co.za

Hi there. My name is Claire and I am the newest addition to the most exciting, innovative company ever! A company that is at the forefront of a digital revolution that is most definitely taking over the world!
Well, though I can’t say enough about our company I will have to desist from bragging too much as the quality of our work is closely related if not exactly the same as the old cliché,
“The proof is in the pudding!”
On the 16th August 2007 Japie and I went all the way to sunny Pretoria to do a presentation for The Guesthouse Association of Tshwane/Pretoria East aka GATE.
Our presentation was done at a very new and trendy fine cuisine restaurant called Eat @ Essence. We were greeted by Annemarie Stilwell who is co-owner of Teds Place Guesthouse in Pretoria with her husband, Ted.
At the presentation the honored guest was (of course) none other than Mr. Japie Swanepoel, mountain biker extraordinaire and part time internet marketing genius.
Basically Japie touched on the basics of E-marketing and how the internet can help in making people aware of one’s brand. He explained to the guesthouse owner’s easy ways of marketing themselves through the internet.
Seeing that we had limited time the points discussed were:
1. The internet was a more cost effective way to market themselves only IF it was done the right way.
2. He explained the various ways one could use the internet in cost effective ways to achieve one’s marketing strategy goals.
3. He also explained the benefits of the different concepts like search engine optimization, PPC (pay per click) advertising, conversion, online advertising, affiliate marketing and viral marketing.
Did we achieve our goal at the presentation? Yes we did, more than you know, and it was a huge eye opener for all that attended.
Afterwards we enjoyed a little snack of beverages and finger food goodies and then we were off to save the rest of the world in a speedy Hyundai ATOS.
Claire@longtail.co.za