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Microsoft Launches Photosynth: Your Pictures in 3D

Tonight, Microsoft has publicly launched Photosynth, its long awaited Live Labs product that allows you to stitch your photos together to create a detailed 3D environment.  While most of the computation is done on your desktop, the images are uploaded to Microsoft's servers and Microsoft is giving all Photosynth users a total of 20GB of storage for their collections. The rendering and browsing is done with the help of Seadragon, another Live Labs product.

Install

When Microsoft first publicly showed a demo of Photosynth in 2006, it almost looked too good to be true. Now, getting started with it couldn't be easier. You first have to install both a browser plug-in and a desktop application (all done through just one installer). The installation was as standard as Windows installations get and finished in less than a minute. We tested the plugin in both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 without any problems.

One interesting aspect of the uploader is that you can choose a license for your creation. You can either choose a Creative Commons license, put the pictures in public domain, or mark it as 'All Rights Reserved.'

Desktop App

The desktop application does most of the heavy lifting for creating the 'synths' and seemed to make good use of all available cores. You only have to pick your photos, give your collection and name and click 'Synth.' After it has finished, it will create a score telling you how 'synthy' your photo collection was. Obviously, your photos need to have common areas for Photosynth to be able to stitch them together. While Photosynth does a great job making these connections, it can't work magic and our first attempts with relatively unconnected images were futile.

Online Viewer

The online viewer is quite intuitive and allows you to zoom in and out, move around the picture and also go through the pictures in a 3D slide show mode. One nice feature is that you can also go full screen, which is really the best way to showcase your photos.

You can also embed a copy of your synth on any website and email a link to your friends.

Different Way of Shooting

It really takes a different approach to shooting pictures to make the most out of Photosynth. If you often stitch together photos, you are probably already used to this, but Photosynth also gives you more freedom, as you can zoom in and out, or walk around an object and still have Photosynth recognize the common areas.

In our tests, Photosynth performed flawlessly, but we would recommend that you have a set of at least 10 to 20 photos to create an interesting 'synth' and the more photos you have, the more interesting it will be.

Caveats

A couple of caveats:

• All synths are public - there are no privacy controls!
• Photosynth only runs on Vista and XP so far - no word about a Mac version so far

Verdict

Even though we only had a short time to test Photosynth, it has already changed the way we think about taking pictures. Suddenly, you can do so much more with your photos. But besides the cool factor, we can also see a lot of other interesting applications for Photosynth. A realtor, for example, could use it to create a more immersive virtual tour of a house.

If you already have Photosynth installed already, you can see a 3D view of Venice below - otherwise, clicking on the image will take you directly to the installer.

Microsoft's Photosyth Opens To The Public

Microsoft's Photosyth is transforming from a Microsoft Live Labs experiment, featured on the BBC's "How We Built Britain" television series and in select other rarefied contexts, to a what can only be described as "totally cool" consumer application.

Click to continue reading...

10 Promising Web Platforms

In this post we review 10 promising developer platforms for the Web. We're not talking about the obvious ones either, like Facebook, iPhone, OpenSocial or even Twitter. Those have been covered extensively already. The list below features some of our favorite 'lesser known' web developer platforms. There are bound to be other excellent developer platforms not noted below, so as always please use the comments here to point out your own favorites.

We've written a lot of times about developer platforms for the Web and we've reviewed a fair number of them. A web platform at its simplest is an API, allowing external developers to build on top of your web app or product. As we explained in our post APIs and Developer Platforms: A Discussion on the Pros and Cons, "offering an API is a great way to make developer friends and developing for a large Platform has the potential to bring your work to a huge audience."

Note: the content in this post has been written collectively by members of the RWW team. Also the list below is in no particular order.

1. Imeem Developer Platform: Music

Major social networking site Imeem launched a developer platform in March that will enable read/write access to user information and more. Imeem is a site where users can upload music, create and listen to any uploads and blog about music all for free. Imeem pays internet radio-style licensing fees for each time a copyrighted song is played.

The new platform is a Flex and ActionScript API that will let developers create customized music players, access activity data and build things like recommendation engines, smart playlists and music games.

Read more...

2. YouTube Platform: Online Video

The video uploading platform announced by YouTube in March may not have been what many pundits expected but it could mark a major turning point for both YouTube and thousands of other sites around the web.

By allowing website owners to combine an on-site video publishing option for their users with the huge number of people looking to discover new content on YouTube, the platform will create a mutually beneficial feedback loop that will breathe new life into both YouTube and the web at large. It's also got potential to show up all the other big platform plays we've seen to date.

Read more...

3. Fire Eagle: Yahoo's Location Platform

Earlier this month Yahoo announced that the closed beta period for its location platform Fire Eagle had ended and that the service was now open for everybody.. Since then, a number of high-profile services, including Brightkite, Movable Type, Dopplr, and Pownce have implemented Fire Eagle through the numerous APIs Yahoo provides for accessing the service.

As we wrote about Fire Eagle when the beta was first announced, it offers API kits in five different programming languages, it's got user authorization protocols already available for web, desktop and mobile apps and it's using the open standards community built oAuth to facilitate faster, more secure mashups. This ain't no cry-baby do it my way or I'm taking my ball and going home framework like the Facebook platform. This is leveraging universal open standards.

Note: also see our coverage of the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform, a collection of in-depth geo-location based APIs.

Read more...

4. Mozilla Weave: Web Platform for User Data

Mozilla recently announced Weave, a new web platform that will store users' browser metadata in a cloud environment for access anywhere. Weave is a "framework for services integration" that will, according to Mozilla, "focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences."

The basic idea is that browser metadata (things stored in your Firefox profile like bookmarks, history, RSS feeds, usernames and passwords, etc.) is pushed into the cloud and stored on Mozilla's servers. The data is available to users from wherever they get online and users can share information with friends, family, or third parties while retaining control over how, when, and if the info is shared.

Read more...

5. Live Mesh: Microsoft's Multi-device Platform

The new Live Mesh service launched in April as an invite only "technology preview". It is Microsoft's attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users. On the surface, Mesh is a lot like competing file sync services such as Dropbox, SugarSync (which we covered in January), and even Microsoft's own FolderShare product. But what sets Live Mesh apart is its platform approach.

Essentially, Live Mesh is a collection of feeds (which can be expressed as ATOM, JSON, FeedSync, RSS, WB-XML, or POX). Every piece of data entered into a user's Mesh -- be it a file, a folder, a message, a user permission, or a new device -- is rendered as a piece of information in a feed. The feeds are then synced with other devices that are part of that Mesh following rules for how to sync each particular piece of information (i.e., File A may sync with Users 1, 2, and 3, while File B may only be told to sync with Users 1 and 2).

Read more...

6. Hakia's Semantic API

Semantic search engine Hakia announced in June a set of APIs that opens up their natural language processing and search platform to developers. Hakia's Syndication Web Services really comes in two parts: search queries, which allow developers to add web search functionality leveraging Hakia's five billion page index, and XML feed calls, which give developers access to Hakia's underlying natural language processing technology. The latter of the two is clearly the more compelling of the offerings.

What is more interesting are the XML feed calls that Hakia is offering that give access to their underlying NLP engine. [disclosure: hakia has been a RWW sponsor]

Read more...

7. Iceberg: Everyone Can Program

There was a time when only technically-savvy people knew how to create content and publish it to the internet, but the rise of easy-to-use blogging and CMS systems changed that. Today, everyone can be a publisher. Now, Iceberg wants to bring that same democratization to programming. In fact, that's their vision for Web 3.0 - the web where everyone is a programmer.

Build an App in 3 Minutes

In June Iceberg launched publicly. Although the focus is on business applications, like CRM or PM tools, you can interface with anything that offers up a web service. For enterprise environments, instead of using Iceberg as a service, I.T. departments can download and use Iceberg offline, behind the firewall, to work with their in-house servers, like Windows SQL server for example.

Read more...

8. Cascada Mobile: Anyone Can Build a Mobile App

In July Cascada Mobile launched a platform called Cascada Breeze, allowing anyone to take their idea from thought to app in about fifteen minutes. Well, maybe not anyone - the apps are built using HTML, so you would have to have some rudimentary web programming knowledge to use their platform. Still, you have to admit, that's a lot easier than using a professional development platform.

With Breeze, you can build, test, and distribute mobile J2ME apps that run on hundreds and handsets. And these are "real" apps, too - fully integrated mobile applications with their own icon, not just mobile widgets.

Read more...

9. Android: Google's Open Mobile Phone Platform

We said we wouldn't discuss iPhone, but we can't help mentioning Android - because of its potential to really open up the up-till-now closed mobile phone platform ecosystem. Earlier this week we reported that the HTC Dream, the first handset to run Android (aka "the Google Phone") has been approved by the FCC. In the documents provided, it appears that we have now a release date for this highly anticipated phone: November 10th, 2008.

Google has been encouraging developers to create applications for Android and rewarding them for doing so with cold, hard cash with the Android Developer Challenge. (See our previous coverage here). This has led to numerous third-party applications ready to flood the market when the phone goes to launch, regardless as to which developers win the big prizes (Pictured: Teradesk App). According to PCWorld, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session at May's Google I/O event that developers won't need to get Android applications certified by anyone nor will there be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators. Even the phone's homescreen and widgets will be customizable - that's a much different take than the locked-down iPhone - and one that caters to users who like to make their phones their own.

Read more...

10. Meebo: Web Instant Messaging

Unlike most other platforms in the news these days, the Meebo Platform is a closed one. As at December more than 300 companies had registered to build applications but only 39 had been accepted into the program. Most are multiperson gaming apps, the rest video and voice chat apps. Companies chosen to participate in the Platform work closely with Meebo to assure high-quality integration of their applications, the company says.

The Meebo Platform is the third step in the vision for the company, after building a basic web IM service and then integrating that service into other sites through tools like MeeboMe and MeeboRooms.

Read more...

We hope you enjoyed this overview of 10 promising web developer platforms. For more about the theory and practice of platforms, check out Marshall Kirkpatrick's post So You're Launching a Platform: After Ubiquitous APIs - What's the Next Frontier?. A good companion piece is Picking a Platform: 5 Issues to Consider. Also read Alex Iskold's classic March '07 analysis When Web Sites Become Web Services.

Top image via ottonassar

Photosynth is Released and Moves to Virtual Earth

Live Labs has released Photosynth, the 3D-esque photo collection viewer that it first tech-previewed in 2006 (Radar post). With this release any Vista or XP user running FireFox or IE can create, view, and share Synths (Mac support is planned). I suggest exploring the Synths. There are some amazing ones available like Smith Tower in Seattle (home to the Photosynth team), Macchu Picchu and even scenes from World of Warcraft.

There are several controls and views associated with Synths. The 3D leaf brings you to a view where you zoom through the Synth either by clicking them or with arrows at the edges (shown above). In this view you will occasionally see a ring appear you can use that to rotate that view. From hre you can also se the point cloud of images, which on quality Synths will reconstruct the image (to get this view use the Crtl button). The /- controls will advance you though the pics. The play button will move through the photos in chronological order in a timed fashion (you can also use "." to advance one at a time, use ";" to go backwards). The dotted leaf takes you to the photview which let's you zoom in on any individual photo and really take advantage of the Seadragon image streaming technology (show above).

You'll have to download some code from Photosynth to view and create Synths. The install includes an ActiveX control for viewing in IE, a Firefox extension and the Synth creation software. After getting an account on their site you are ready to make a Synth! Making a Synth is fairly painless. Simply click "Make a New Synth" on the site and your new desktop software will open. Point it at your photos, name it and the software will do the rest. There are two things happening right now. One, all of your photos are being uploaded to their community site (all Synths are public). In parallel your Synth is being created on your machine. It generally takes longer to upload your photos than to make the Synth (this seemed to be true for me). Both of my Synths were done in under an hour (on an older laptop running XP); it used to take days on a cluster to get it done. Microsoft is using your machine to do the heavy lifting -- very smart!

There's an art to making a Synth, one that I apparently have no talent for as none of mine have turned out very well. You'll notice that all Synths have a "Synthy" percentage attached to them. The higher the number (up to 100%) the more pictures were used to create the core Synth. I tried making two (one of my house and one of an object) neither had a high Synthy value. Photosynth depends on the texture of the objects to construct a Synth. I do not know if the problem was the lack of texture, my camera, or the photographer (there's a guide which can help you).

Choosing the license for your Synth can be done via a dropdown box. It can be licensed under Creative Commons. The team hopes that the CC licenses get used. after you create your Synth you can geolocate it on a map. It's a long way from integrated with Live Maps, but it's a start. You can also embed Synths.

Photosynth's release is bringing on a number of personnel moves. Blaise Agüera y Arcas was the architect of the Live Labs and Photosynth. He founded Seadragon and it was their technology that made Photosynth possible. Blaise will be moving to work for Erik Jorgensen (who used to run the Virtual Earth team and now runs all of MSN) as the MSN Architect. Blaise was also just awarded a TR35 award this week -- congrats! We can expect Synths to show up throughout the MSN network (this could be a big boon to MSNBC).

David Gedye, the Principal Group Manager, and the other members of the Photosynth team are moving to the Virtual Earth team. They will be working in the 3D Imagery group (Radar post) so we can expect some Synthing of the Birds Eye view images (I hope).

Live Labs' release of Photosynth as a product is very significant for Microsoft. Google has long been praised for its integrated research and product development approach while Microsoft has acknowledged that it could use MSR, its research arm, more efficiently. Live Labs, led by Gary Flake, filled with researchers and championed by Ray Ozzie, is one of the ways that Microsoft is trying to bring MSR over to the product. It marks the first successful transition of one of their projects over to product.

Photosynth has two immediate futures. One lies as a standalone product where users will be able to construct 3D models of their homes and objects . The other lies as a backend technology that will be used to supplement Virtual Earth's 3D efforts. Photosynth will have achieved its promise when these two paths are merged and our Synths are being used to populate their 3D world.

Verisign’s Personal Identity Portal Is Half Way To Password Bliss

Verisign’s new Personal Identity Portal (PIP from now on) isn’t the sexiest application out there to help you manage passwords. But it has Verisign’s strong reputation for security behind it, and it is a surprisingly easy way to manage website credentials.

PIP is a a single sign in solution that supports both OpenID (you are issued a Verisign OpenID) and direct sign in to a number of supported websites. If a site doesn’t support OpenID, login is handled by populating the username and password fields directly.

So far, PIP isn’t much different than the previously covered Clickpass and other solutions. It supports a lot more sites, however. And it also handles signin directly from a bookmarklet that resides directly in the browser chrome.

Being Verisign, they’ve also added optional support for two factor authentication. Users can choose to receive a unique one time security token for each login, and/or get a browser-side certificate. Most users will find this overkill.

From a usability standpoint, the biggest drawback is the need to stay logged in to an active PIP browser session. Users could set it to their home page, I guess, and make it the first sign each time they use their browser. One use case that is particularly compelling - mobile devices. Verisign says iPhone support is coming very soon - Verisign says they are experiencing “a few challenges with certificates on the iPhone Safari.”

A last, possibly unintended feature: the pop up box is a great easy navigation tool for much-visited sites.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Tiger Woods’ Jesus Walk Not a Glitch

It’s fun when you see major companies really begin to understand the nature and cultural ins ands outs of your particular subculture. Despite the fact that YouTube has grown over the last couple years that it’s a little large to be called a subculture, the majority of corporations out there wouldn’t know what to do or where to begin if they see something with the potential to turn into negative publicity surface on YouTube.

We’re starting to see more companies that do, though, and Electronic Arts is one we can add to the list. A user took some video screen capture of a glitch in the Tiger Woods golf title from EA showing how the ball could be played by walking over a water hazard and swinging as if the pond were dry land.

The savvy folks at EA noticed the video, then produced and posted the following as a video response.

Tracking Twitter and running Google Alerts for negative press from the blogosphere and the general populace of the social media set is one thing, but if you want to live the Chinese cliche of turning danger into opportunity, this is the way to do it. EA has successfully navigated what could become a negative demerit amongst the hardcore fans of the game franchise into a widely talked about marketing move.

It’s all about caring what your customers think and being smart about how you respond. All of us, myself included, can learn something here.

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Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Tiger Sinks the Putt; Twitter Goes Wild!
Boxxet Launches - Will You Contribute for Free?
NBC’s Online Olympic Channel: Will Costs Outweigh Rewards?
Fliptrack Partners with APM Music
We Need a Recount: Computation Bug Found in Microsoft Excel
Mashable Rocks SXSW: Schwag Bag Update
Kinset Launches 3D Web-Based Stores

SES San Jose Wrap Up Day Three

Another fine day of blogging is under the collective belt of the TopRank team. Google Dance offered a very nice distraction last night and you can see by a quick search on Flickr the fun that was had. Thank you Google.

Here’s a wrap up of posts from the TopRank Blogging team for day three of Search Engine Strategies in San Jose:

• Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization - Ashley
• News Search SEO - Jessica
• SEO Rehab & Intervention - Thomas
• Social Media Marketing - Jessica
• Ads in a Quality Score World - Ashley
• Search Behavior Update - Thomas
• Internet Marketing Conference Tips: David Berkowitz Search Insider Summit - Lee
• Getting Vertical Search Right - Thomas
• Landing Page Utopia Expert Roundtable - Ashley
• Internet Marketing Conference Tips: Chris Sherman Third Door Media - Lee

The revelry will be amped up this evening with the SearchBash event sponsored by WebmasterRadio.FM, PRWeb, BruceClay and Moniker.

Sponsored By: 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide All New Report from Marketing Sherpa

Technical Glitch: Feed is Down

The Get Rich Slowly RSS feed is down. I apologize. Believe me, I want it repaired, too.

I’ve submitted the problem to Google/FeedBurner, but don’t expect to hear anything until morning. I suspect the problem is on their end, though it’s certainly possible that I’ve broken something somehow. (Which seems unlikely, as I haven’t monkeyed with anything this week.)

If anyone has any expertise they can share, I’m open to advice about fixing this.

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Money Hacks Now at Get Rich Slowly
• Daily Links: Technical Difficulties Edition
• Survey: Best Location for Links?
• links for 2006-09-13
• 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy

Daylife API Challenge is a Flop, Shows That Mashups Are Hard

We get excited around here whenever a new application offers an Application Programming Interface (API) for 3rd parties to develop against. Oh, the possibilities! Sometimes, though, it just doesn't pan out and our dreams are dashed against the craggy rocks of reality. Mashups are hard and just because you've got some cool data and good hooks for developers to pull from doesn't mean anyone's going to build anything worth using on your API.

Such appears to have been the fate of news platform Daylife, a company funded by some of the biggest names in tech and new media. Daylife recently held a "developer challenge" giving cash prizes to the people who built the best mashups with their API. Unfortunately, the entries they got were awful.

Mashups Mashups Mashups

We learned about the Daylife contest today on Programmable Web, the leading blog and database about public APIs and mashups. PW must have felt obligated to be polite and just report on the contest, albeit weeks after the winners were announced.

We were really excited to learn about the contest - Daylife is a company with some good technology, offering news content with some structure to it. What could make more interesting fodder for mashups than structured news data? It turns out almost anything could, if you judge from what came out of it.

If you can't see the video above where we look at the mashup contest entrants, here's a Flash version.

To take a tour of all the applications discussed in the video, you can visit this link.

There Is Still Potential Here

The examples that came out of the contest are all relatively dismal, with the exception of the touchscreen news reading interface. Over on Programmable Web's page about mashups built on the Daylife API though, we found one very cool one. TreeHugger's GRNDX tracks media mentions of a number of words related to the environment. (No one cares about the environment this week, apparently, the Olympics are all anyone cares about.)

That's pretty awesome - even if Treehugger calls it more fun than scientific. Fair enough, but let's see more apps like this instead of the wacky stuff that dominated the Daylife contest.

SES San Jose: Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization

Entering the realm of social media can be a bit like trying to enter an exclusive club. There are barriers to entry, codes of conduct, and unwelcome outsiders are quickly identified and ostracized. Yet, like an exclusive club, the benefits of membership can be great. Marketers looking to benefit from social media would do well to heed the advice of the three presenters in this SES session, moderated by Pauline Ore of IBM Corporation.

As Kendall Allen, digital marketing and convergence media consultant, pointed out, social media has come a long way since the advent of the Internet. Listservs, user groups and chat rooms have given way to the networking giants of Facebook and Myspace.

These highly organized, more defined social networks have made it possible for marketers to establish a brand presence among their consumers. Kendall stated that social media optimization should be integrated into any comprehensive, cross-platform marketing plan.

Kendall also pointed out a few new ways in which marketers can enter the social sphere. Services like Ning.com allow users to create their own unique social network. Many social networks allow brands to create applications, in the form of surveys, content sharing and more. Companies can enter the blogosphere with the help of Socialspark.com, which connects companies with bloggers who will right about their goods and services for a fee.

Li Evans, director of Internet Marketing at KeyRelevance, highlighted the varied benefits of using social media. Many people mention linkbuilding, but “Links are by products of social media,” Li said. While good social media practices will result in links, Li and the other panelists highlighted several important uses and benefits:

• Talk to your audience Use social media to interact with your consumers in a more ‘natural’ setting outside of focus groups and surveys.
• Gather information Find out what the public thinks of your brand. This can be especially useful to gather feedback when a company has recently implemented changes.
• Create brand ambassadors By directly engaging consumers with your brand, you can create a legion of devoted brand followers who will spread the word to others. This can also result in increased links.
• Give consumers a voice Allow consumers to collaborate with your brand in order to strengthen your products.
• Manage your reputation Directly address any negative brand noise on the web, and monopolize your search engine results pages (SERPs) with the additional content you’ve created. Many social media profiles will rank in SERPs for your brand, and images and video can show up in universal search.

However, before you enter the social world, do your homework. Li highlighted variety of different online users, from creators of content like bloggers, to joiners of social media, to spectators who merely read and absorb online content. She pointed out the importance of knowing where your audience lies in this spectrum, and planning your social media activities accordingly.

Once you’ve identified where and how your audience is using social media, you can begin to enter these networks and interact with them. David Snyder, Search Specialist at JRDunn.com, gave several useful tips for engaging consumers ‘socially.’

• Create optimized profiles Your username should relate to your company or product and be phrased in a way that is familiar to your consumers.
• Create original content Your social profiles should contain creative, thoughtful copy that provides value to your consumers.
• Use keywords In your tags and descriptions for photos, videos or other content, use keywords to ensure these items can show up in universal search.
• Be authentic All three panelists underscored authenticity as a cornerstone of good social media practices. Consumers can recognize a fake instantly, which can have dire consequences for your brand.

As the three speakers in this session indicated, social media can offer many benefits to the marketer savvy enough to use it correctly. Its potential uses move beyond mere linkbuilding to consumer research, reputation management and more. By following the rules, marketers can not only gain entry, but flourish in these social spaces.

Stay current with the SES San Jose conference by checking in regularly with the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and view more photos from the TopRank Team at TopRank on Flickr.

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.

SES San Jose: News Search SEO

News search engines offer a great way to receive targeted traffic related to breaking topics or to help with a public relations launch. In this session, industry experts Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, Lisa Buyer, President & CEO of The Buyer Group and Greg Jarboe, President and Co-Founder, SEO-PR look at how to make use of press releases and news content to tap into the power of news search.

Lisa kicked off our session explaining that optimized press releases are a vital part of any news SEO strategy.

The first step to defining the online PR opportunity is to define the media segment. With your online PR campaign are you targeting editors, journalists, analysts or the media?

Media relations does not just mean getting your story found in the search results, but rather helping journalists find their story online.

So, how are journalists searching for news?
- Reaching out to social networks including Linked in and Facebook
- Searching in Google and Yahoo news for sourcing
- Requesting an email including link to Press release on PRWeb

64% of journalists report they use Google or Yahoo news services to follow the news. While 70% report they check a blog list for news on a regular basis.

Strategies for news search:
- Distribute over regular distribution networks (PRWeb & Businesswire)
- Leverage newsforce.com for to get headlines in top tier publications
- Have a newsroom blog or web site newsroom
- Being first to market, best opportunity for news search results

Consider developing a 12 month press release editorial calendar, including keywords relevant to a national event to increase visibility.

A marriage made in heaven - PR & SEO influences:
- News search results for optimal SEO
- Optimized web content
- Social media

Some things to know about Public Relations & Search:
- Currently under the radar when it comes to influencing SEO
- SEO agency should be working in synergy with your PR agency
- PR brings boardroom content to SEO
- PR professionals and agencies need to have expert working knowledge about SEO
- Online public relations strategies give business a strategic advantage over competition
- Integrate with PPC/SEM campaigns for best results

What’s cool about optimized press releases?
- SEO
- Credibility
- Perception
- Vanity
- Journalists find you and write about you
- People find you
- Online branding
- Lead generation?

Lee provided some best practices for optimizing news content to increase online visibility.

Most journalists have a beat and know the story, but they are searching online for sources and ways to populate that story. Increasingly, they are turning to social networks including Twitter and Facebook to find sources.

Most SEO efforts optimize for lead/sales generation, however news content is optimized for a different audience and outcome. Most journalists are looking for facts and trends, yet the outcome of both SEO and Online PR can be mutually beneficial.

News SEO Fundamentals:
- Focus on facts, research, and case studies
- Include keywords in news titles, navigation, content and hyperlinks
- Archive newsroom content and press releases by category (not just by date)
- Offer photos, video and demos
- Promote content and attract links
- Monitor social and web analytics

What news content should you be optimizing?
- Press releases
- Online newsrooms
- Corporate blogs
- Reports / white papers
- Email newsletters
- Webinars
- Podcasts, internet radio shows
- Interviews (coach interviewee on keywords)

Digital Asset Optimization (DAO) is a holistic approach to optimization, taking SEO to the next level. DAO is the practice of taking inventory of all available news content, optimizing it based on relevant keywords, and then promoting it to distinct online marketing channels.

Yes, optimization is important, however, Lee stressed the need to never stop acquiring inbound links.

Inbound links can come from:
- Pickups on blogs
- Syndication (RSS)
- Online newsroom
- Blog post
- Social bookmarks

Bottom line: Package news that will travel

Newsroom optimization best practices:
- Create an optimized template
- Include title tags
- Keyword rich categories
- Keyword rich anchor tags

Press release optimization best practices:
- Think upward and to the left
- Optimize for people first, search engines next
- Use keywords in title, subheading, and body of the release
- Don’t obsess over keyword density
- A 500 word release should include the keyword 2 to 4 times
- Use keywords when linking back to the company web site
- Add media: images, podcast, video, pdf/word doc

Press release SEO analytics to measure success:
- picks ups (traditional & bloggers)
- inbound links
- Google & Yahoo news inclusion
- Social bookmarks
- Keyword ranking for press release
- Keyword ranking for target web page
- Traffic to web site
- Conversions: media inquiries

Lee provided a few parting thoughts to optimize online campaigns, including:
- Journalists increasingly rely on search for news sources
- If it can be searched, it can be optimized
- Focus news SEO for the media more than sales

Greg shared a case study on press release optimization, in which the campaign was designed to address the challenge: How do you optimize for ‘not’ news when the initial campaign launch failed?

If your campaign is newsworthy, but was ignored by both the press and the bloggers, what’s next?

The answer: combine a push / pull strategy to get your message out there:
- Push: through blogger outreach
- Pull: with optimized press releases

A multi-phased launch approach can help you determine what works in the first phase and then amplify that approach in the second phase.

In a multi-phase campaign launch:
- Outline the content for each phase
- Leverage keywords appropriately for that content
- Include images to increase results

In conducting blog outreach, Greg stressed the importance of being transparent of who you are as well as the need to provide useful, ‘insider’ information for blog readers.

Extending the campaign to include blog outreach can increase online coverage and the number of credible inbound links to a web site.

Lessons Learned:
- Focus on creating useful information, and rich content using keywords
- The more useful content you have, the greater the chance it will get picked up
- Creating good content pays off and can increase editorial (authoritative) inbound links

How are you incorporating SEO into your newsroom, and online PR campaigns?

For more photos from SES San Jose, be sure to visit TopRank on Flickr.

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SES San Jose: SEO Rehab & Intervention

The SEO Rehab & Intervention was a great session oh how we are all addicted to something in our industry. Granted it was a bit of an un-structed session, but that’s what made it entertaining. The discussion flowed from chocolate cake to Twitter and SEO.

Here are a few good tips:

• Spend your time on what your doing next. Things change, so should you.
• Why check your page rank daily when it changes quarterly?
• When page rank does change, and if yours goes down, check the sites in your industry. Did they all go down? If so, stop panicking.
• Other time wasters include checking rankings, backlinks and pages indexed constantly.
• Feed your addition with tools that will do the checking for you. Then you can get a quick overview.
• Look at overall trending. If your links go down one month, is it going down month over month? What’s the trend?

Also, here is the SEO (Sanity Escaped Organically) 12 step program:

1. Take care in choosing KPIs. Don’t rely on rankings.
2. Set realistic objectives
3. Employ people who know what they are doing.
4. Build your website for seo from the bottom up.
5. Only work on projects which deserve to rank.
6. Only work on projects where there is a market.
7. Be different - ideally unique - in the market place.
8. Get Good Training
9. Understand the mechanics
10. Don’t try to be an expert in every SEO technique. Focus on your strength.
11. Be Patient
12. Enjoy your addiction.

It was an interesting session with not a lot of takeaways, but a lot of fun none the less.

–

Check out all of TopRank’s coverage of SES San Jose and sessanjose08 Photos.

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What If It Isn't Linkworthy?

Some client scenarios can be uncomfortable. Among them is when the client has worked especially hard to create a content area that they feel is linkworthy, and thus should attract links, but you, as the person who has to go get those links, aren't quite as enthusiastic about the potential for success.

The Scenario:
A client comes to you with content they are certain is worthy of links from certain class of web sites. Let's say the client has specifically asked for a quote for a link building project to target and obtain 25 new inbound links from qualified and logical target .edu's to their new content which they designed specifically to be of value to college students.

Click to continue reading...

The Truth Behind Liveplace’s Photo-Realistic 3D World And OTOY’s Rendering Engine

Last week we posted a video that presented LivePlace, a 3D world with an incredible amount of detail. The impressive technology behind it is called OTOY, a streaming platform that allows developers to generate movie-quality renders “in the cloud”, which can then be streamed to more modestly-powered computers and even mobile phones. For more information on OTOY, see our intro post here.

The video was available to the public at LivePlace.com alongside the ambiguous headline “Live or Virtually Live?”, but apparently nobody was supposed to find it. Soon after we published the post, LivePlace removed the video from its servers. Brad Greenspan, the entrepreneur behind MySpace who owns LivePlace, says that the site was never meant to be seen by the public, explaining that it was for internal mockups, viral videos, and “something similar to a Funny or Die episode.” That explanation doesn’t sit well with me, but it’s unlikely we’re going to get anything more substantial out of Greenspan.

So what about that 3D virtual world - is it a sham?

Jules Urbach, founder of OTOY, explains that while he can’t comment on what Liveplace is doing (or why they released the video), virtual worlds running on the rendering engine in the video are on the way. He says this video isn’t representative of his system’s capabilities (which have actually improved since the footage was shot), and is actually just a number of random clips spliced together by Liveplace:

“The 14 mins of real time rendering in this material is streaming live to a Treo 700 at 240 kpbs. This was captured on March 2007, the server was running an ATI RX 1900 GPU. The tech has improved massively since then (as has the HW we now run on). There was never intention to show any part of this to the public until we could include voxel rendering and Lightstage based characters. I think anyone who liked what they saw, will find the final project much more impressive.

The whole aim of our work last month on the Ruby demo for AMD was to show that the quality of offline and real time work is identical starting with this generation of GPUs. The following presentations this month are just introducing Lightstage and how it makes characters (or any CG object) look 100% real in those real time environments.

The virtual worlds these technologies are going to be applied to was not meant to be discussed until later this year, after one further announcement regarding the server side platform being developed for OTOY.

We had nothing to do with editing or leaking this video and can’t comment on anything other than the OTOY technology, since this project is still under NDA.”

One concern readers had beyond the lack of consistency seen in the video is the possibility that it contains material pirated from other artists. The video begins with a brief clip of cars that is apparently taken from a artists’ portfolio and was originally created years ago. As it turns out, the footage is old, but Jules Urbach explains that the artist is now part of the OTOY team:

“JJ has been working with OTOY/JulesWorld on almost all of our major projects over the past 3 years (some of which are still under NDA). I couldn’t be prouder to count him as a great friend and partner.

JJ’s studio, BLR, is always properly accredited on all videos that our clients let us put our logos on, whether it is a for a real time project or linear VFX work. You can see the BLR logo on the real time Transformers OTOY clip that was on Techcrunch a few weeks back (originally from Daily Variety), and you will see it again in a November print ad campaign featuring our work.

Note: The VW beetle you see in the very beginning of the BCN street scene was is one of JJ’s first CG models and is his ‘baby’. It has appeared in nearly everything we’ve done together - from our ‘Bumblebee’ Transformers ad for Paramount, to our most recent Ruby voxel demo for AMD (you can find it on the right side of the street). It is also in one of the images from the TechCrunch piece on OTOY last month (rendered in real time on 512 Mb R770, pre-voxel renderer).

So what’s the bottom line? LivePlace doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the video provided or the city described, and shouldn’t have posted the footage in the first place. The impressive OTOY technology behind it is real, but we will have to wait to see what products will be taking advantage of it.

Here are more technical details Jules has provided:

- We sore voxel data in several ways, including geometry maps (see our Siggraph or Iceland presentations, where we show this method applied to the Ligthstage 5 structured light data, courtesy Andrew Jones ICT/Graphics lab)

- The datasets from the BCN and Ruby city scenes contain up to 64 data layers per voxel, including diffuse albedo, fresnel reflectance values, irradiance data, UV coordinates (up to 8 sets), normals, and, for static scenes, look up vectors for 1-20 bounces of light from up to 252 evenly distributed viewpoints (it is important to note that this data is always 100% optional, as the raycaster can do this procedurally when the voxels are close and reflection precision is more important than speed; however, with cached reflectance data, you might see the scene rendering at 100s-1000s of fps when the scene isn’t changing).

- A note on raytracing vs. rasterization: amplifying the tree trunk in Fincher’s Bug Snuff demo to 28 million polys using the GPU tessellator turned out to be faster than rendering a 28 million voxel point cloud for this object. So there is a threshold where voxels become faster than rasterziation at about 100 million polys. At least in our engine, on R7xx GPUs, using full precision raycasting at 1280�720. Below that point, traditional rasterization using the GPU tessellator seems to be faster for a single viewport.

- The engine can convert a 1 million poly mesh into voxel data in about 1/200th second on R770 (60 fps on R600 and 8800 GTX). This is useful for baking dense static scenes that are procedurally generated once, or infrequently, on the GPU. That is why some of the OTOY demos require the GPU tessellator to look right.

- Hard shadows in OTOY were done using rasterization until we got R770 in May. Now hard shadows, like reflections, can be calculated using raycasting, although shadow masks are still very useful, and raycasting with voxel data can still give you aliasing.

- We can use the raycaster with procedurally generated data (perlin generated terrain or clouds, spline based objects etc.). At Jon Peddie’s Siggraph event, we showed a deformation applied in real time to the Ruby street scene. It was resolution independent, like a Flash vector object, so you could get infinitely close to it with no stair stepping effects, and likewise, the shadow casting would work the same way.

- The voxel data is grouped into the rough equivalent of ‘triangle batches’ (which can be indexed into per object or per material groups as well). This allows us to work with subsets of the voxel data in the much the same way we do with traditional polygonal meshes.

- The reflections in the march 2007 ‘Treo’ video are about 1/1000th as precise/fast as the raycasting we now use for the Ruby demo on R770/R700.

- One R770 GPU can render about 100 viewports at the quality and size shown in the ‘Treo’ video. When scenes are entirely voxel based, the number of simultaneous viewports is less important than the total rendered area of all the viewports combined.

- The server side rendering system is currently comprised of systems using 8x R770 GPUs ( 8 Gb VRAM, 1.5 Kw power per box).

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This Week on CrunchBoard

Does this remind you of your job? Maybe you should check out the latest job listings on CrunchBoard. Here is a sample from the past week:

• VP of Engineering
  Federate Media - San Francisco, CA
• Senior QA Engineer
  CastTV - San Francsico, CA
• Senior Web/Business Analyst
  Digg.com - San Francisco,CA
• CTO/Co-Founder
  Empatica3 - San Francisco, CA or New York, NY
• Senior PHP Developer
  Fluidesign - Santa Monica, CA
• Online Developer
  Jackson Hewitt -Parsippany, NJ
• Web Developer Extraordinaire
  Janus Health - San Diego, CA

We are also looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase at the TechCrunch HQ in Atherton, CA.

International readers can check out our British and French job boards as well.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0