Increasing One's Visibility in Facebook

If traditional websites use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to increase their visibility to search engines like Google, Facebook users (including businesses who use it as a primary means of attracting a social network following) can also perform some techniques to increase their visibility among their friends.

When one makes a posts on Facebook, not all your "friends" will actually get to see it. If Facebook were to do that, you would drown with too many messages if each of your "friend" were to make even just 1 post a day. Instead, Facebook uses some undisclosed filtering algorithm to determine who gets to see your post. Simply making a lot of posts does not seem to be very effective in increasing one's popularity. Facebook seems to rank your relevancy to your friends based largely on their interaction with your page.

Here's an interesting tech article about an experiment on a Facebook test subject's page using a controlled group to see what makes one popular.

Interview on Mozcom NetSecure RFID @ ANC News Channel

We received an unsolicited invitation via fax from ANC's (ABS-CBN News Channel) segment writers this past Monday if we wanted to be featured in an ANC episode focusing on RFID technology today (Oct 20, 2010). It was too good an opportunity to pass up since ANC has nationwide coverage and it was free advertising for Mozcom. So I agreed to be the representative. They learned about us through the Mozcom Store. I have not really done any search engine optimization (SEO) work on that site, but it seems to be getting good hits on the keywords RFID and Biometrics, for some reason.

I asked our tech guys to prepare a notebook for me with NetSecure configured to work with our GP30 RFID reader. The usual Lenovo that I borrow from them has a problem so they lent me their Compaq notebook. When I tested it, it seems that the startup time is pretty long. So I figured it would be best to boot it up; run NetSecure; then just put it in suspended mode. That way, when I open it at the studio, its ready to go.

Well, when I tested it, I found out that the suspend mode does not work. Normally, if you close the notebook's screen/lid while its running, Windows will just send it to sleep. While it did send the notebook to sleep, I couldn't "wake" it back up. I can see the LED indicators on the notebook on, but the screen is completely black. No button can seem to get it back on. I had to remove the battery just to reset it.

At this point, it looks like I have to boot-up the notebook and run NetSecure prior to my interview segment. Since the show is shot and aired live, there is no room for error or a slow boot-up. The TV viewers simply cannot wait for this notebook to get ready for the demo. So I made sure the Compaq was fully charged before heading to ABS-CBN.

The call time at Studio 6 in ABS-CBN was at 6:40pm. Since I was not too familiar with the area and traffic can be unpredictable, we left the house at 5:30pm. I got to the studio by a little past 6pm. There was plenty of time to kill. There was a small dressing room outside Studio 6 where the guests hang-out and get their make-up done. The make-up artist told me it was still too early to put on my make-up and she asked me to walk around first so I don't get bored. Aside from myself, the other interviewees included a guy from LTO Stradcom, a guy from DENR, and another guy selling alcohol-level breath analyzers.

Off I went walking around the corridors hoping to get a glimpse of some tv/movie personalities. The closest I got was TV newscasters Ginger Conijeros and model/entertainment newscaster Phoemela Barranda (who was seated a mere 2 feet away from me) who got their make-up done at the same dressing room we were in. (The DENR guy was asking me who they were and if they are movie stars. Duuhhh...) Ginger seemed nicer and friendlier between the two. Although neither of them talked to any of us guests (we're not worthy of their star presence), Ginger bid us good luck on our interview on her way out.

At around 6:45pm, things started moving quickly. We got a little make-up and ushered into Studio 6. The room was freezing! The crew said it is really like that because of the studio lights. They need to crank up the airconditioning to compensate for the heat generated by the lights.

The show starts at 7pm. It is anchored by TV newsman Tony Velasquez. The Stradcom guy was up first. His interview is expected to be about 15 mins. So while he was being interviewed, I already booted up the Compaq to make sure its running. I also prepared and powered the GP30 RFID reader and hid it behind the LCD panel in front of the interview area so I can quickly pull it out and connect to the notebook when its my turn.

As fate would have it, when the Stradcom guy was down to his last 3 mins or so, the darn notebook started flashing a low battery warning and told me to plug it to regular power asap! From the time I booted it up to now, I think it has only barely been 30 mins. A regular notebook battery should last at least 2 to 3 hours if the computer is not doing anything intensive. Something was wrong with this unit's battery. If it died, I wouldn't have time to plug it to regular power and wait for it to boot up again for my turn.

When the Stradcom guy's interview was over, the crew told me I have exactly 2 mins to setup. At that time, they ran some video/voice-over on-screen for the televiewers. I quickly plugged the notebook to a power outlet hidden behind the LCD TV; connected the RFID reader; did a quick test. Phew! It worked! What happened next can be watched at the YouTube video below:

Google Search Ranking Now Considers Site Speed

SEO followers have been hearing about Google's plan to use the speed of a website as part of its page ranking algorithm since late last year. This was finally admitted by Google today in their official blog post. The blog post claims that this new factor does not carry as much weight as the relevance of the page. It further says that fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed code. This new factor also affects only English-based searches so far.

Google added a Google Site Performance tool at its webmaster toolset. It analyzes your web site and provides data on the average load time, graphs out how the site has improved or slowed down over time. It also offers suggestions on how to speed up your site.

But does this whole thing actually make sense? To me, the relevance doesn't really seem to be related to site speed. Big companies can afford to get lots of bandwidth. But does that make their sites more relevant than the thorough research of some student in some small university?