Posted: 05 Aug 2011 04:59 AM PDT

The social media marketing world is an interesting place. Just take a quick look at the top players and their business.

Facebook – Everyone wonders when the IPO will occur while the privately held company's revenue numbers are talked and speculated about more than most public companies. Secondary market 'trading' of Facebook shares is the norm amongst the privileged. In the end, most people don't know the truth about Facebook other than the warm fuzzy way that it handles its users' privacy .

Twitter – It is still unclear just how and exactly how much money Twitter is making, can make or will make. Despite all the moves to look like an actual company it still gives off the feeling that it wouldn't know a plan to generate revenue if one came up to it and kicked it in the shins.

Google+ – It's a Google product so it is funded by Google's paid search dollars. That was easy!

Then there is the little old, boring LinkedIn. The low hype social networking site that doesn't have high profile corporate leadership, doesn't do anything real 'sexy' as a product other than provide information to certain types of people that can be really useful for real world stuff.

Well, if their first quarter report as a public company is any indication, boring works especially in light of the rest of the news on a day when the economy of the US is in a shambles. SFGate.com reports

LinkedIn may have boosted the fortunes of the entire social-networking sector Thursday when the Mountain View firm surprised Wall Street by reporting a profit in its first-ever earnings report as a public company.
Some analysts had expected the professional social-networking firm to post a net loss of between 1 and 4 cents per share. But LinkedIn reported second-quarter net income of $4.5 million, about 4 cents per share, a slight increase from the $4.3 million for the same period last year when it was still a privately held firm.

Marketing Pilgrim's Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

An interview by Fortune of LinkedIn's CEO, Jeff Weiner, shows just how well things are going.

With 115.8 million members, a jump of 61% from a year earlier, the company is on a tear.
Fortune: Which of your three revenue streams—hiring solutions, marketing solutions (ad sales), and premium subscriptions—will be most important to the business going forward?
Weiner: We're seeing strength across the board. While hiring solutions is showing continued momentum, we're growing significantly faster in [ad sales] than the overall industry and will continue to take share there…and we'll continue to invest in our ad sales team and generating more share of mind around our marketing solution products.
We also saw good momentum with premium subscriptions as a result of the overall lift [of membership] on the platform and some continued optimization of the existing product portfolio.

All of this is to say that while the world wants flash and excitement (actually maybe they don't but we act like they do) what actually works is providing a useful service or suite of services that people will pay for. It's that simple.

We seem to spend a lot of time confusing hype with reality in the Internet marketing space. We get caught up in the 'celebrity' of the space and wonder who is jumping to the top of the Google+ leaderboard or what Mark Zuckerberg ate for breakfast or whatever. We discuss all the cool 'possibilities' for various platforms and come off like technology beatniks clicking our fingers whenever some guru incorrectly predicts the future of communication in the modern age.

In the end, though, if these aren't viable businesses that can sustain operations through their own revenue generation over the long term this is just chasing the wind.

LinkedIn seems to have figured out something with it's dirt simple approach of "Hmmmm, let's see. People need jobs. The economy kinda sucks but people need a way to try to succeed in this game. Maybe they could talk to each other about their work and careers and actually move themselves forward through a channel designed for just that purpose." Brilliant!

Personally, I need to pay a lot more attention to what LinkedIn is actually doing and how it can help me professionally. I mean who cares about Mark Zuckerberg or which Silicon Valley hanger-on is topping the social media charts? Does that really help you get anything done? Nope.

So a tip of the hat to LinkedIn for doing something that the rest of the social media world seems to struggle with: building a business based on reality rather than hype.

Google News Adds Editor's Picks

Posted: 05 Aug 2011 04:17 AM PDT

Publishers love to have some control over what people see when it comes to their content. That's natural. Google News is run by an algorithm and not human editors so as with most things in an algorithmic setting, the end user settles on what they are given and, in most cases, probably don't know how the information was chosen, just that it was.

Google News has experimented with a feature called Editor's Picks but have now made it an official part of the offering. In short, publishers can now put together an RSS feed of the content of their choice to be featured in Google News along the right side of the page. It looks like this.

The Google blog reports

Google News is introducing a new section in the right-hand column of the U.S. edition. The section is called "Editors' Picks," and it displays original content that publishers have selected as highlights from their publications.
Because Google News relies on algorithms, Editors' Picks will always be just that—picks provided by publishers themselves, and not by Google. You can browse a set of publisher feeds that span national, specific and local interests—like The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, the Guardian and The Root, among many others—via the side-to-side arrows next to each publisher's logo. The feeds you see are chosen based on a variety of factors, including your news preferences.

There is a slider at the bottom which allows users to say how much they want to see that feed so there is some level of human control. The reader can also move through various feeds using the right and left arrows at the top of the section as well. Honestly though, with everything that goes on in Google News these days it's not that easy to see what is what unless you are really looking for a feature. Clearly this presentation of everything Google News offers has 'engineer written' all over it but it's Google so what else would you expect!

Right now this feature is only available in the US edition. If you would like to set up your own version you can do so here.

Happy news gathering!

Google Realtime Search Without Twitter?

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 01:09 PM PDT

From devastating disasters to celebrity slips, a single mention on Twitter can turn into a trend in a matter of minutes. That's why the micro-blogging site has been credited as the source for major breaking news stories and hundreds of high-profile rumors. Like it or love it, Twitter is a force to be reckoned with, so how is Google going to provide real-time news without it?

Last month, Google removed their Realtime search option after failing to come to an agreement with Twitter. They were still able to pull in posts from Facebook, but let's be frank and say that Facebook isn't exactly a bastion of breaking news.

Now, Mashable is reporting that Google is "actively working" on bringing Realtime back, only with Google+ as the main source of data. As the article reads, Google's Amit Singhal didn't say they wouldn't be courting Twitter, but it doesn't sound like it's a high priority, which is understandable when you have your own micro-blogging source in-house.

The hitch is that even once (if) Google+ becomes heavily trafficked, it's likely that the postings will resemble those you find on Facebook. Google already admitted, that Facebook wasn't very effective as a real-time news source, so how is Google+ going to be any better?

If I give them some benefit of the doubt, there is the fact that Google+ is more business and tech oriented, so it could be a better source than Facebook for industry specific news. Outside of that, I don't see it.

The real test will happen when the next big news story breaks. I'm not wishing a major disaster on any area of the nation, but it's going to happen and how the Google+ community responds will be very telling.

In May, Sysomos did an impromptu survey of the rise in Tweets after the death of Bin Laden. Some of the first mentions appeared on Twitter and within 12 hours, there were 2.2 million Tweets about Osama Bin Laden. That's news in real-time. That's what's happening now. I just don't see how Google can move forward without that kind of speed and clout.

Facebook Thinks of Opening the News Feed Flood Gates

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 11:43 AM PDT

For marketers, the news is too good to be true. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook is thinking about removing the filters on user news feeds. So, instead of Facebook deciding what information a user sees, the user will decide. How radical is that?

This change would mean an open line of communication between a brand or business and every person who "liked" their page. You post a message and everyone who follows your fan page sees it in real time in their news feed.

I hear you saying, isn't that how it's supposed to work? Supposed to, but that's not how it does work.

Currently, Facebook's algorithms sort through all the data that flows through a page and delivers it in a way it thinks is best for you. The assumption is that posts from people you communicate with most often belong at the top of your list. But what if your mother only posts once a month? Should she be less important than a passing acquaintance who likes to challenge you with trivia every day? I think not.

In addition, Facebook is also looking into expanding the "like" button to allow for a wider variety of choices. The article isn't very specific on this, but it sounds like a developer could make a "Wish List" button or a "Love" button. Imagine the possibilities!

What's truly amazing about these ideas is that it would mean Facebook is loosening their hold on content. Kind of like the parent handing the teen the keys to the car for the first time. It's scary and you gotta trust, but in the long run it's something Facebook simply has to do if they want to keep growing and evolving.