Why Is Twitter Good For Communication?

Today we suffered from an outage on a few of our primary sites because our server company, Rackspace, went down in one of their data centers.  My first step to address the issue was going to myrackspace.com to submit a ticket.  That didn’t work because it was down too.  Next, I tried calling our account contact phone number.  Busy signal!  Thirdly, I tried calling the support 800 number.  Busy too!  So what did I do after that?  I went to Twitter http://search.twitter.com and searched for “rackspace”. Instantly, I was presented with thousands of tweets of others complaining about their servers/sites being down.

Rackspace Is Down - Twitter Updates

I knew at that point it was not something that was specific to our servers.  I then went to @scobleizer’s profile and his tweets confirmed the outage.  He also tweeted a couple of references to check for status.

While Twitter didn’t solve the problem of our servers being down, it sure did take me out of complete panic mode because I was at least able to see what was going on.

Thanks for saving my sanity today, Twitter!

Have you been paying attention to the changes in the search engine space? Are you ready for these changes? On Monday, Google unveiled its real-time search features. One of the features of this real-time search will be a dynamic scrolling view of updates from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other sources. Watch the Google video of how this works:

Google’s real-time results are also pulling in other data, which includes latest updates from blogs, videos, news sites, and even images. The screen shot below shows a search on “Tiger Woods” and how some of these sources are mixed directly in on the first page of Google’s search results.

If you are an internet marketer, you need to be aware of these changes and create videos, optimize images in your content, participate in blogging, and participate in real-time social networks if you want to stay on top.

See my other posts about similar topics

• Google Search Sidebar
• Twitter is Important For SEO
• This is for all of those long-tail SEO skeptics
• Have you seen Google’s new search options?

I have written in the past about the importance of having videos, blogs, etc. in your marketing plan.  With the news today that Google is testing a new Google search sidebar, I am even more convinced.  Why?

This new sidebar will be placed as a permanent fixture in the Google search engine.  This means more people will click these options.  If someone is doing an organic search for your niche, Google is making it even easier for them to search other verticals such as videos and blogs.

So how can you prepare for this?

• Create videos around your niche and post those videos to YouTube and other popular video portals.
• Optimize your images (image name, alt tag) for the page you place them in.
• If you don’t already have a blog, it’s time to get one.  Focus your blog around your niche.
• Submit press releases for product launches or announcements.
• Participate in industry specific forums.  Don’t spam, but participate.

Before I go into detail here, I must confess that this is a topic that is very close to my heart right now. With that said, be prepared for some emotion here.

My son started kindergarten this year and within the first week it was very evident how troubled the California school system is right now. While California is in pretty deep financial turmoil, my guess is that other states are having similar pains too. The first day of school, the teacher had an orientation with the parents before class started and mentioned that they have no supplies and would appreciate donations. She gave all of us a “wish list” of items that she would like for the class. These were basic things like crayons, pencils and other arts and crafts supplies. By the expression on her face, it was evident that she was troubled and that it was hard for her to ask us parents for this. But what’s great about the people in our community (and this country, for that matter) is that we pulled together and were able to provide the classroom with the supplies it needed.

Now, over a month later, my son’s teacher called another parent meeting. This time around she expressed her concern that she is the only teacher for a class of 29 four to five year old kids. Now imagine for a minute trying to educate 29 four to five year olds by yourself. I have 1 in my house and I can barely get him to focus for even a few minutes. My son’s teacher had two choices: 1) Lower her standards as a teacher and provide our kids a lower quality education or 2) look for alternatives. Thankfully, she chose the latter. She proposed a plan to the parents in which she asked that we allow her to split up the class into two sessions. One in the morning and one starting midday. This will allow her to have two classes with 15 kids in each class, and require her to work 2 additional hours per day with no extra pay. But this is what she proposed because she refuses to lower her standards; she knows that smaller groups means more attention for the children and a better overall education. All I can say is “WOW!”. Many would probably just lower their standards.

What is the main problem here?

There is no money for our schools, so our entire school system is understaffed. This results in fewer teachers and more students to a class, which results in a poorer education, which results in harming our kid’s future and the future of our country.

So, of course, this got me thinking. How can schools and classrooms save money to put towards hiring more teachers? Being the techie that I am, I tend to always look at technology for ways to streamline things.

Reduce the sheets of paper and folders our kids take home. It’s not free to print up multiple sheets of paper each day. Most of what is sent home is announcements and printed homework. My son brings at least 3 sheets home per day. Now multiply that by 29, add the cost of the paper, ink and staff time involved in printing. There is definitely an unnecessary cost that can be avoided.

So I asked myself, “How can we reduce this paper waste and cost?”

• Each class should have its own private web portal where the teacher can login and post notes, announcements, upload homework assignments, etc. Many colleges are already doing this, so why not elementary schools?
• Each parent will also have a login where they can access the daily notes and homework. It should be the responsibility of the parent to print out the homework and send it back the next day with the child.
• Parents should be able to leave private messages through the portal for the teacher and vice versa.

So how much would this save? First let’s look at the current costs.

• Cost of paper = 2 cents per sheet. Multiply that times 87 (29 kids * 3 sheets per day) and you get a cost of $35 per month.
• Cost of ink = 3 to 7 cents per sheet depending on what type of printer (ink or laser). That would cost the class $53 to $120 per month in ink.
• Cost of labor = $240 per month. I am calculating this at an hour per day at a $12 hourly rate. I am assuming that an assistant does this and it takes them at least an hour to prepare, print and distribute the printed material in each child’s folder.
  Total Cost: $395 per month

Now let’s look at the cost of a web portal.

• Using a free open source solutions such as http://moodle.org/ = $0
• Maximum of $30 per month in hosting

That would give the class a total savings of $365 per month by using technology as an alternative.

I like the idea of doing a split class (after noon and morning) but it is not fair to have the teacher work these additional hours for no additional pay. So how about this – let’s pay the amazing teachers who are willing to make these types of sacrifices that additional $365 per month.

BTW – teachers don’t get paid enough.

Google has recently added new search options.  There is now a “Show options” link that appears above the Google search results.  Clicking this link opens up a left panel with additional options.  You can display video results, forum results and reviews.  You can even narrow it down by time.  This is something all web marketers should pay attention to when creating and optimizing their online material.  The ability to narrow down search by time (past 24 hours, past week, etc. ) is very powerful and something web masters should take note of.  Many searchers will want to see most recent content first, so it is even more important for websites and blogs to generate fresh and relevant content.  I was happy to see that we place #1 in a video search for one of our target search phrases.  This convinces me that creating videos is important in your online marketing efforts.  Check out Google’s video below explaining these new search options.