Recently it became known that Google was playing with a “Digglike” interface, the news set the Blogger world ablaze with rumors and predictions.  It seems that the bucket test performed by Google fell silent as fast as it appeared and wasn’t an item that most blogs feel worthy following up.  It waa hardly a week that went by after this buzz when we found out that Google walked out on Digg during the infamous Digg Acquisition Talks that set the net on fire for weeks with rumors and predictions concerning a Google-Digg deal.  Now, within days of the great Google Walkout, Google is seen to be working on their system again.  In many cases the old Google experiments and products are seen and thought to be new, in other cases Google is definitely doing new things.  All of these things appear to indicate that Google saw what it wanted from Digg and decided that Digg was not what they wanted.  It seems Google is on it’s way to becoming it’s own social bookmarking/social content site. In this post I plan on walking through some of the things one can find on Google.

The New Google Interface Experiment

I suppose the best place to start is with Google’s Digglike interface, I can’t provide any screen shots due to the only images I have belonging to another person.  Since I personally do not feel like tracking the guy down to get his permission to use the screenshots, I will simply provide the links that will take you to the two Techcrunch articles “Google Bucket Testing New Digglike Interface” and “Google Continues To A Search Interface That Looks More Like Google Every Day”.   I know… “What a cheat!”, but I do the best I can.

I’ve discussed this in my own blog on CSM, so I won’t go over it all, but Google testing a new “Digglike“ interface is nothing new.   On November 20, .2007 an article was posted on the Googlified blog called “Google-Digg Style Experiment”.  In December of 2006, on the Scobleizer blog, an article appeared called “Google Reader, The Next Digg”.  The idea being presented is that this Google/Digg, or Google/Social Bookmarking/Social Content, thing has been around for a long time now.  It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Google is interested in some type of Social Content/Social Bookmarking site, after all they have been playing with the idea since 2006 - at least.

Google Accounts

I then decided to go to “My Accounts” on Google to see what they were doing.

The important column is the one on the right:

In the My Products section we first note that we have an edit button.  This button takes us to an area where we can add and delete items from our list. Under the “My Products” heading, we see the following items:  Alerts, Analytics, Bookmarks, Gmail, iGoogle, Notebook, orkut, Page Creator, Reader, Talk, Web History, and Webmaster Tools.  We also see a section called “Try Something New”. In this section we see Adsense, Adwords, Groups and a More tab.  The first thing I want to show, in order to get it out of the way, is the More tab in the “Try Something New” section.  What you will see, by clicking on this tab, is a screen showing “More Google Products”.  This following screenshot shows that page, but since it is reduced I will describe it and show the 5 individual areas of the page.  The Page is broken down into the following areas:  Search, Explore and Innovate, Communicate/Show/Share, Go Mobile, and Make Your Computer Work Better.  Here is the screenshot of the page:

The first Sections I want to show is the “Make Your Computer Work Better” section. This is the last section of the bottom right-hand column:

This section gives us the options of Pack and Web Accelerator.  Then we see the “Go Mobile Section“.  This is above the “Make Your Computer Work Better” section:

The “Communicate, Show and Share” section is located in the right-hand column above the “Go Mobile” section. In this section we have our products for blogging, creating and sharing docs online, online email, discussion groups, etc. for our total online experience. This section looks like the following screenshot:

The “Explore and Innovate” section gives us the options for Maps for Mobile, Mobile and SMS. This is located above the “Communicate, Show and Share” section of the page.   Notice that it contains the new “Custom Search” feature for your community:

The first section of this page is the last I will present.  It is the Search section and it contains the products for our Google Alerts, Blog Search, Google Earth, iGoogle, Google Images, News, and other items.  The items in this section helps us find news and information that we may need for our bookmarks and sharing needs.  Let’s take a quick look at the section before I go on with a few other items that I would like to point out:

ORKUT

Orkut is a social networking service, run by Google and named after it’s creator Orkut Buyukkokten. The reason for Orkut was to help it’s members meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.  The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Orkut is similar to other social networking sites. The initial target market for Orkut was the United States, but the majority of its users are in India and Brazil. In order to use Orkut, a user must first go to Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) and sign up for an account.  The member then creates a Profile page where they can provide their social, professional and personal details.  A photo can be added to the profile, and members can add videos from YouTube or Google Video as well.  Some of the features of Orkut are the Scrapbook, Communities,  and other miscellaneous features.  There are over 287 applications that can be added to Orkut.

Let’s show a screenshot of the Orkut screen and below I will add blow-ups of certain areas:

The center section of the screen will look something like this:

The left side of the screen will have all your data and it will look like this:

The right side of the screen will look like this:

As you can see, Orkut is set up fairly well for a social network, it can easily be adapted to the needs of the Social Marketer.

Google’s Homepage

Google also has a way for people to place a homepage or website on it’s site. I’ve toyed with a page for City Social Marketing and have taken the following screenshot:

This page could easily act as a “Lense Page” or “Hub Page” for a person to place links to other sites.   .

Is Google Gearing Up For The Social?

The first question I have is “Why the hell do I have this section?“  The answer can be answered in one word and that word is “YES!“.  Upon my seeing the information presented, I wouldn’t have to be convinced that Google is looking at “Going Social”.

If you take a good look at what I have presented, and then go spend an hour or two bouncing around Google’s Accounts pages, then you will see that all of the different aspects of a full-blown social network is in place.  If you add in the so-called “Bucket Test” of Google’s supposed “Digglike Interface”, then you can see how Google is trying to incorporate the Social Content and Social Bookmarking sites into it’s overall vision of the Internet’s future.

The only thing I see as lacking is a proper interface that ties everything into one cohesive unit.  People don’t like the bland, but even more people don’t like things which are difficult to use or scattered to the four winds.  They need to come up with a nice looking page that has all of the different aspects of Google, plus a way to add other things which are not owned by Google. If Google would create a Facebook or Myspace type profile page, they could become the only full-blown Social Site on the net within the week.

Google is looking for a clean interface!

I’ve read time and again that Google is hot on the idea of having “a clean interface”. I am not 100% sure what is meant by this for not everyone who writes about it seems to define “a clean interface” in the same manner.  So I opt not to toss such terminology around.  What I prefer is a site that throws no errors, if something is on the page then it should be tested and made to work before reaching the public.  Once it works — leave it the hell alone.  I like pages that offer simple web graphics, there are many low-band internet users out there and some of them enjoy “doing the internet thing” as much as the broad-band users.  Keep the graphics and coding simple enough so that they don’t have long delays in page loading.  I also like tight security, the coding used should have as few holes as humanly possible — but don’t be anal about it because the fact is that as soon as a site hit’s the internet, thousands of hackers flock to it to see if they can get around the security measures.

I am all for offering the people a fast loading, easy to use system that isn’t filled with errors… but I have never seen anything work perfectly the first time — no matter how much a person claimed it was so.  In the course of talking to people over the long haul, you usually can get an “It was perfect, but except for this one little thing” type answer.  Well if something has “one little thing” wrong, it ain’t perfect. LoL

Google doesn’t need a lecture on this stuff, but a few ideas can’t hurt.  It is high time for Google to get the final touches done on their plans, tie everything together, and show us what they got through a beta test   My advice to Google is to not be overly concerned by feedback from the people, but at the same time weigh what is said by the testers and see if what is said “fits into the master plan“ or is an item that should be added to the plan.  It is a proven fact that you can’t please everyone and no matter how good or bad a product is — someone will always complain about it and offer “a better way”.  Well my philosophy is that once I do my best then let the chronic complainers complain — or start up their own project and design it as they want.  They will soon see that it’s not easy to make a plan come together and end up ’perfect”.

What I would like to see is something come out of Google that is a “Full Blown Social Network”.  What I mean by this is that it should incorporate everything from Social Marketing to Social Bookmarking.  The system should be part message board, part bookmarking site, part social content site and part social networking where people can get together to make friends and business partners.  The social bookmarking aspect of the site should be set up to where Google could be used for storing whatever bookmarks the member wants, within reason of course, and is not penalized because some other member goes to the person’s bookmarks and doesn’t like what they see.  The same goes for a person’s Favorite posts or submittals, if the item is not shouted and shared by the person… then unless the item is against the TOS, it should not be an item where another member can bury or mark as spam.  My profile is my profile and if I want to save an article about dog droppings in space, as long as I don’t actively share it with my friends then it’s a personal item.

The main thing is that the new Google Social System ought to be a place where there are moderators and admins who take their jobs seriously.  This can be done on a pay basis, through a volunteer system or both.  Google might think of hiring a certain number of admins to make the final decisions, but allow volunteer moderators who are willing to help out and meet a certain criteria.  Other systems utilized this method and it worked well.  According to the Bucket Test, Google has the right idea about buries.  When a person clicks the bury button, they only hide the item from themselves.  This allows others to see the item and do with it as they see fit.  I also suggest that the spam button be a thing that only allows the person to send a spam complaint to the admins or moderators for them to handle.  The fact is that most people don‘t have a clue to what Spam is, yet it doesn‘t stop them from marking others as spam.  The Google Admins and Mods should have a set definition of what Google considers as Spam to go by.

I’ve taken the liberty to create a profile page for the new Google system, the purpose of it is not to offer Google help - but rather to give an idea of how the new Google Social System profile might look.  Let’s take a look at the overall page, shall we?  I call it “Goggle” for it’s the gateway to “keeping an eye on all your Social needs”.

I know this isn’t readable to most people, if anyone, but it shows the overall page layout.  I will break apart the sections and show them at a larger scale to make it easier to see and explain.

First thing to look at is the Header.  I did not add AdSense or any of the Advertising that Google may offer… I feel they can add those things as they see fit.  Here is the header:

This header has the Goggle logo on the left, notice the two eyes in the small G’s of Goggle:

In the center it has the Join Goggle, About Goggle and Login links. Under the this information lies the Goggle Logo of “Keeping an eye on all your Social Networking Needs”.  To the right are two search engines, the top one is to search Google, the bottom one is to search Goggle.  Now you know why I didn’t simply call this system “Google”, I wanted to be able to search Google, as well as search only the site.  In the Search Goggle engine it might be an idea to be able to search for a particular member, as well as key words.

The next line looks like this:

The first section of this line is the member Profile information.  It has an image, nickname or name of the member, age, member’s sex, member’s location, Date of Joining Gogle, and it has a line for the member’s Bio, Pics, Videos, an email link and a chat link.  The second section is basically the links found in Google’s Accounts section, I figure the member of Goggle should be able to access these things from their profile.  The third section is for the member’s stats on Goggle.  I have the number of Goggles, submittals, comments, member’s popularity, the number of friends invited by the member and the number of profile views.

The third line of the Goggle profile page looks like this:

The first section lists the Member’s sites, it only lists about 4 sites and it can have a “More” link to another page for more links.  The Middle section offers two things.  The first is the Member’s Favorite Posts and the second is for shouts to the member.  The third section has two parts.  The first is the Friends’ list.

On this Friends’ List you only get to show a few of your friends, I suggest only showing the friends who are not only online, but the most recently online.  It also has a link to More Friends.  This link takes you to a Friends’ Page where the friends are listed alphabetically or according to status.  Mutual Friends is the highest status, those will be listed first, then comes Friends for they are the people the member picks to watch and hopes to be Friended in return, the lowest status is Fans for these are the people who friend you and wish for you to friend them in return.

The second part is for Notices or Miscellaneous Information from Google.

It is mostly a filler space and can be done away with, but it could also serve to give private notes from an admin or Moderator to the Member who owns the profile.  It can be coded to where no one sees it but the person it’s intended.  If I were an admin, I could put a note on here telling the Member that he or she has a warning level of 3%, for example, and tell them to check their email for further explanations.

The fourth line can be created as shown, or it can be broken up into sections.  It also can be not seen if the intended items are not being used by the member.  Let’s take a look at it.

Videos or other widgets can go in this space and it can expand or contract as needed.  Also if nothing intended for this space is used, it could be coded to ‘disappear”, making the Profile page to look like this:

This is only one person’s view of what Google could do with a profile page for their Social Networking System, designing such a page should not take long to accomplish.  I will next show how a typical Google Social Content Page may appear.

“Two sources close to the companies suggested that some issue that came up during technical due diligence was to blame. One source said that the issue was more personality driven, and that Google decided after spending more time with Digg’s top team that there just wasn’t a fit.

Either way the deal appears to dead and can be added to the long list of failed Digg acquisition deals. And when a company is “left at the altar” other buyers are usually hesitant to step in”

According to Michael, “We’re hearing they’ll just push through with a new round of financing.“.

Prior to anyone “celebrating” or “mourning” the passing of this deal, it should be remembered that in the world of negotiations that nothing is final until it is finalized.  The parties involved may walk away from the table, only to return to negotiate at a later point in time.  It is possible that Google will end up buying Digg, after all is said and done, however it is obvious that Google sent a very strong message to the owners of Digg and it’s doubtful that Digg will ever get out of Google what they wanted in this last bout of negotiations.

What were the problems with Google buying Digg?  There are many comments out there about Digg and it’s drawbacks. The problems with acquiring Digg included just about anything from The Digg Mafia to Technical Issues.  The real problem with the Digg acquisition most likely boiled down to money, the almighty dollar.  Basically the question had to be answered as to whether the acquisition of the Digg Servers and site was worth the amount of money Digg was asking?

Earlier this month it has been reported that Google performed a Bucket Test that showed “a Digglike Interface“, it is reasonable to think that Google found out they don’t need Digg or it’s set up to compete after all - thus making the $200 Million figure wanted by Digg a price too high for something so easily and cheaply created.

Let’s wait a few weeks to see what happens, but it’s very possible that Digg’s grave is dugg.

“Google has experimented with search features that let users vote on search results, and/or recommend other results than those given, since late 2007. They generally bucket test these features (meaning some small percentage of users, randomly chosen, see them), and if testing goes ok, they move them into the optional experimental area where any user can add them”.

The article refers to a November 28, 2007 article, entitled “Straight Out Of Left Field: Google Experimenting With Digg Style Voting On Search Results” by Duncan Riley which stated:

“This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.”

On July 16, 2008 a follow-up article appeared on Techcrunch, it was called “Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day”.  This article stated:

“A couple of days ago we posted screen shots of a new search interface being bucket tested by Google that lets users vote up or down on search results. The resulting interface was very Digg-like, and included a total vote count, etc.

Today Adrian Pike, the CTO of startup Tatango, noticed that the interface changed yet again and now includes user comments. Like Digg, each comment has an up or down vote feature as well, and Google is using thumbs up and down icons that are exactly the same as those on Digg. The comments show the username of the person leaving it, and clicking on it shows their Google account profile.”

Further investigation reveals that on the Google Experimental Labs page it says:

“This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks.”

If you like the result, then just click on the arrow-up button and this “will move the result to the top of the page and add this orange next to it so you can easily recognize it. The result(s) you promote will appear at the top whenever you search for the same keyword(s) in the future.”  On the other hand, if you don’t like the result, clicking on the X button “will remove the result, and it will remain hidden when you search for the same keyword(s) in the future.”  It goes on to say “Your changes will be applied each time you search for the same keyword(s). There’s a link at the bottom of the search results that lets you view the results in their original ordering.”

Chris Lang, in his article entitled “Google Testing Digg Like Interface wwith Voting Features called Edit Search Results” stated:

“Just like our social bookmarking profiles we will have a Google profile, with your votes, comments and recommendations. Think site reviews and friends lists, but it will be your Google friends. You will be able to message them and get your own messages in Gmail.

You will be able to create your own bookmarks of sites you voted on and meet and build friends lists of Google users with like interests.”

Is this a “Digg-like” interface?  I suppose one could say that, but one could also say it’s a “Searchles-like” interface or maybe even a “Love it or Hate it-like” interface.  On the other hand one could simply say ‘It’s a “Google-like” interface, after all… how many ways different ways of doing things like this can there really be?’  Personally, to me, it doesn’t look any more like Digg’s interface than a dozen others I have seen over the years, but I won’t argue either way.

According to what I have read, it seems that this new Google Interface will only edit what you see, not what everyone sees.  What effects it has beneath the surface is unknown, perhaps in the long run if enough people “bury” the item, it will disappear from everyone’s search engines results. The point is that the way this is written up, a Google Bury Brigade will not affect what you or I see.  This would truly make Google a real “Social Bookmarking” site of the caliber which we do not see on the net today.

On Digg there is a posting entitled “Google Steal Interface From Digg For Testing” and another called “You Can Now Edit Google Search Results”.  The second article is a follow-up to the first.  I’ve notice that the First Article has 3 buries.  The first bury occurred at 26 Diggs and the reason given was “Inaccurate”.  The 2nd Bury was at 104 Diggs and it was for the reason of “General Bury”.  The 3rd Bury was at 154 Diggs and for the reason of “General Bury”. The second article was not buried once.

Even though I would not call what Google is doing as a “Steal from Digg”, anymore than I call what Digg does as a “steal from others”, I feel that if Google’s version can stop these nonsensical buries by people for invalid reasons… then Google has 100% of my support.  It didn’t take much of a look at the first article to see that the post was an accurate report, and as far as General Buries… those are reasons given by mindless button clickers who simply want to squelch things we all hold dear like “The Freedom of Speech” and “The Freedom of Expression”.  I’m not even going into the rights being trampled on which concerns “The Freedom of the Press”. Digg really needs to rid themselves of the Bury Button for this proves that their good intent is being abused by it’s members in the worst way… and Google would be wise to heed the lesson before they set up another way for those who wish to only have their views shown takes hold.

Will the new Google Interface signal the end of Digg?  Probably not, but it will signal the end of the importance of Digg, and unless Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson already struck a deal with Google… this could make their $200 Million site worth virtually nothing (so to speak).  With such a system in place, Digg could just be devalued in the Google Search Engine and all emphasis be placed on this new Google interface.

The Recommendation Engine is a new way of discovering new content on Digg, .it uses  your past digging activity to identify what Digg calls “Diggers Like You”.  According to Anton Kast, lead scientist at Digg:

“When you Digg a story, you tell the Recommendation Engine two things: that you recommend the story to other users and, less obviously, that the users who Dugg the story before you are good at finding content. The Recommendation Engine keeps track of users who Dugg particular stories before you did, and it recommends you the stories they Dugg. The more content you Digg, the smarter the Recommendation Engine becomes.”

The Recommendation Engine utilizes the Digger’s past history over the last 30 days and it formulates it’s recommendations based upon your activity.  Anton says:

“When it’s time to calculate your Recommendations, the Engine draws from this pool of matched Diggers. For each matched Digger, it computes a correlation coefficient between you and them. It then picks a cutoff for this correlation coefficient, and the Diggers who make the cut are called ‘Diggers Like You.’ “

The engine determine how many stories that other Diggers have in common and divides that number by the total number of stories you or they Dugg. The ratio is a correlation coefficient, sometimes called a “Jaccard Coefficient”.

Once the engine has determined your ‘Diggers Like You’, your recommendations concist of stories that your ‘Diggers Like You’ have alredy Dugg, minus the stories you already Dugg or Buried.  Other steps, like the Diversity Rules and the Promotability Constraint, add into the equation.

What are Promotable Stories?

Promotable stories are stories which are recent enough to be eligible for the Digg homepage, but haven’t appeared there yet.

What is Diversity?

Digg wants you to be diverse, they don’t want all your stories on the same topic or Dugg by the same people. The Beta Version of this Digg Recommendation Engine takes this into account.  To insure your Recommendations are diverse, the Engine imposes limits that keep things from getting too focused. It makes sure that no one ‘Digger Like You’ determines too many of your stories. The Engine also limits the influence of any single one of your Diggs.
How did the Upcoming Page change?

I won’t give screenshots of the entire page, mostly because much of it is either unchanged or irrelevant.  I will show the most important things.  When you go to the Digg homepage and click on the Upcomng Page tab, you see the following notice:

This notice can be closed, or hidden, and the main purpose is to show you that something new was added.  It only provides a brief description of the changes.

Next thing you will see is along the right side of the page, it is the Recommendation Engine.  In this section you will see how many items you have Dugg in the past 30 days, it will give you some stupid comment about “Digging On” and it asks you how are your Recommendations.

There is also a “Learn More” button that you can click. That will take you to a page by Kevin Rose that explains the Beta Version and if you follow through it will take you to Anton Kast’s Whitepaper blog.  I won’t show screenshots of those.

The next section is something most of us will pay attention to the most, it’s the “Diggers Like You” section. This section tells you how many Diggers Like You it found and it shows you the compatibility ranking and the name of the Diggers.  The screenshot below shows the section:

I clicked on the Blue Bar in the Compatibility column, it took me to a page showing this information:

Notice that it shows how many Diggs the Digger has, how many you have, and the difference between the two.  It also shows your Compatibility Score. You have the option of adding the Digger as a Friend or removing the Recommendation.  The screen also shows what submittal the Digger made which is compatible to you.

Summation of the Digg Recommendation Engine

I have a problem with the Digg Recommendation Engine. I see it as is a way for Digg to force Diggers into a thing they call “Diversity”.  In short they want every Digger to post on a variety of topics, instead of leaving it up to the Digger as to which topics they wish to submit or be a part.

Don’t get me wrong… I do not oppose Diversity, but I do feel that it’s up to the individual members whether they want to participate in a wide variety of topics or still stick to one or two topics.  It seems that Digg is going out of it’s way to penalize people for doing not becoming a part of some “diversity” scheme.

As a person who ran his own net and several message forums on the net over the past 15 years, I find this extremely uncomfortable.  The members of any board or group ought to have the freedom to post and reply to whatever topics they wish on the forum, but most of all they should not be penalized for only posting to one or two topics.  To try to force them to do otherwise is completely against the reasons for any Social Group in existence.

The one thing I really like about the Beta Engine is that it gives me one more way to search for Friends and any help is a help.  I can look at what Digg recommends and ignore it or accept it as I will.

Let’s use the subject of How To Get More Diggs, since that is a hot topic that just won‘t seem to go away, and start out by pointing out some of the more humorous advice given when answering the question How To Get More Diggs.

‘Join Digg’ or ‘Create An Account’

This bit of advice is something which is so obvious that anyone of a 50 IQ or higher ought to be able to figure out with-in seconds of first landing on the Digg Site. I find this as an especially bit of wasted advice because of the fact that if someone is asking about  “More Diggs”, then they apparently have “Diggs” in the first place! The bottom line concerning this bit of advice is that  the Join Digg or Create an Account at Digg are versions of the same advice which are a complete waste of time and effort to use in the answer of the question “How Do I Get More Diggs?”.

Submit Interesting Content

“I’ve seen this comment about 167 times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it!” My apologies to Michael Keaton and the movie Beetlejuice for the shameless rip-off of this quote, but I found it funny and fitting.

It seems to me that most people put this comment in their advice about How To Get More Diggs simply because it sounds good, from my perspective they mustn’t stop and thought about this comment.  If they would have stopped and thought about it, then surely they would have considered the fact of what is “Interesting” is solely dependent upon what the Individual decides is interesting and what some group or outsider tells them is interesting.

For example, Digger A submits an article about  Paris Hilton.  Digger B looks at the article and thinks “What a bunch of  mindless fluff” and he thinks it’s the most boring crap in existence.  Digger C, however, love Celebrity News and buys all of the supermarket tabloids every week to read when shows like E! are not on the television… so she diggs the post and shouts it to all of her friends.

So tell me if this the article interesting, boring or spam and who decides?  If your choice is anything other than “The Individual reading the article” then there are issues at work here that needs help far beyond my Psyche 101 courses. LoL  So this sage advice is actually useless crap that doesn’t mean anything of value.  A person submitting a post to Digg should find the item submitted as “Interesting“, or ‘Possibly Interesting to someone on Digg“.

Never Get Buried

I hate to say it, but I’ve seen some damn stupid comments in my life… but this one ranks right up there in the top 2. I am sure those offered this advice meant well, and I really feel badly about the possibility of making them feel bad over this, but after hours of contemplation I simply can’t pass this one up.   I just want to scream out “Damn People, use your head for more than a hat rack!”

Now to be fair…  this bit of advice does sound as if it originally came from some very sound advice and it actually made sense at one time, but due to it being copied and being tweaked it in order to make it appear different than the original - the meat potatoes of the advice was cut out and tossed away, leaving the fat and gristle. In other words this bit of advice was taken out of context and the person doing so wasn’t bright enough or aware enough to catch the error.

So I gave you a few seconds to come up with why this is a totally absurd comment to make, now I’ll tell you.  On Digg we don’t have any control over whether we get buried or not.  We can post the most entertaining or intelligent article in existence, but someone will run across it and view the article as stupid or a total waste of space.  That’s the beautiful thing about people, we tend to have different tastes in the things we read or hear.

I’ve seen numerous articles, which were excellent pieces of work, which were well researched and thought out, and they were buried simply because some friggin’ button pusher, who’s ability to read and comprehend was somewhere around that of the North American Tree Frog, decided to go for the spam or bury button.  So down the ole Digg Cemetery Road it went while articles pertaining to Paris Hilton or GTA or Golf Courses Around The World thrived.

To give someone wishing advice on How To Get More Diggs the impression that we can somehow control whether our articles get buried or not is misleading at best.  All the submitter at Digg can hope for is to post items they find interesting or they think others will find interesting and the rest is up to the Digg Staff and Management and the other members of Digg. We‘ll talk about friends later..

Digg Posts And Be Dugg In Return

This is a huge fallacy born out of the desire of a person who sees the world as a place where everyone is unselfish and kind.  This advice is another ’sound good” bit of false wisdom,  but at least it has a basis in fact.

The fact is that if you digg someone’ else’s post, they will not necessarily digg yours.  Some people will, others won’t for various reasons. I do advocate the idea that one should make friends and mutual friends, then digg their stuff.  I don’t advocate the idea that everyone of your friends will digg you in return on all your posts. This also ties into Friends, Fans and Mutual Friends.

Digg top stories again

Uh, excuse me one sec here while I snicker.

Ok, I‘m done.

I am one of the first ones to ask the question “How the hell do you spam a site like Digg, the whole damn site is nothing but a legitimate spam site.“  On the other hand I would be one of the first to consider anyone following this bit of advice a spammer.

I don’t care how you alter the “Top Story”, you are still working on the same article - or a similar article of the same topic.  One of the purpose of a social bookmarking site is to be social, so you should add your comments to the already posted article  Digg is not set up only to post your own stuff, it’s a community intended for people to interact.

Now if you can find up-dates to the article or story, by all means do a follow up of the Top Posted item and try to get it into Digg before anyone else can… then share it with all your friends through the shouting process.  With luck you can ride the wave and get diggs from some of those who dugg the first article.  .

Be creative, crappy and humorous

Ok, I’ve read what the person had to say about this and have one question:  “WTF?  Crappy??”  Perhaps “Crafty” is the word intended, but being crappy on Digg can put your feet on the road to low diggs and being banned from Digg.

Remember what I said about “Interesting”, being creative or crafty or funny can often attract people.  There also has to be a warning here, when you are trying to be funny… Remember, everyone’s humor is not the same.  You tread dangerous ground when utilizing humor, especially if there is any way your humor could be considered as an insult by someone.

Post like an American

Sounds like an 80s song by the Bangles.  LoL

When I first saw this, I thought “Good deal, dude, like let’s alienate people on the net even more by taking an approach of the arrogant and ignorant American.”  I still maintain that thought, time has not diminished my opinion on this one.  My hunch is that this was first thought up by an American.

Don’t post or think like an American - or any other group.  Post and think as yourself.  If the things you find interesting don’t work well, find other things that you feel may be interesting to submit.  When you begin projecting American Ideals upon things, people will find offense in it.  The internet has Canadians, Australians, Kiwis, Japanese, and many other people on the net who are just as proud of their culture and society as Americans or Europeans are of theirs.  Don’t alienate on purpose, people around the world can often take it for granted that a person is an American or European, they will naturally view things from that perspective and post things familiar to them.

– Next “To Friend or Not to Friend, that is the question!“

Think Againg Before Submitting Your Diggs

How To Get More Diggs seems to be a topic which many out there are pre-occupied over.  When I ran into this blog I thought, “If people want more Diggs, then let’s try to get that issue answered”.  One way to do that is by making the attempt to bring notice to articles about getting more Diggs.

Ever since the early-to-mid 70s,  I’ve been made aware of the often subtle nuances between the words “Blatant” and “Flagrant”.  Around 1974 I first heard of the terms “Blatant Self-promotion” and “Flagrant Self-promotion” through a class I was taking at school.  The Instructor used the terms to differentiate between the way of presenting yourself which was obvious (and perhaps annoying) and the way of presenting oneself that was obvious and offensive to others, usually due to the person knowingly promoting themselves when they know others are offended by such actions or find what they do as worthy of criticism..

Definition of Terms

Self-Promotion:  According to Answers.com (htttp://www.answers.com) Self-promotion is  defined as “Promotion, including advertising and publicity, of oneself effected by oneself:”

Blatant Self-Promotion: There really is no one commonly accepted definition for the term Blatant Self-promotion in the dictionary, however I went to Answers.com and pulled up the definition for the word Blatant.  They define Blatant as “Totally or offensively conspicuous or obtrusive” or “Unpleasantly loud and noisy”.  They also add the following usage note:

USAGE NOTE   It is not surprising that blatant and flagrant are often confused, since the words have overlapping meanings. Both attribute conspicuousness and offensiveness to certain acts. Blatant emphasizes the failure to conceal the act. Flagrant, on the other hand, emphasizes the serious wrongdoing inherent in the offense. Certain contexts may admit either word depending on what is meant: a violation of human rights might be either blatant or flagrant. If it was committed with contempt for public scrutiny, it is blatant. If its barbarity was monstrous, it is flagrant.  Blatant is sometimes used to mean simply “obvious,” as in the blatant danger of such an approach, but this use has not been established and is widely considered an error.

So, in short, Blatant Self-promotion is “Self-promotion which is conspicuous or obtrusive”.  Sometimes this is called “Shameless Self-promotion”.

Flagrant Self-Promotion: There also is no real definition for Flagrant Self-Promotion in the dictionary, however I once again went to Answers.com and this time searched for the  definition of the word Flagrant.  They defined the word as meaning “Conspicuously bad, offensive, or reprehensible.”. This would make the term Flagrant Self-promotion to mean “Self-promotion which is done in a conspicuous and offensive or reprehensible manner”

Conclusion

Situations dictate circumstances and what necessarily applies in one case doesn’t apply in another.

Take for example if I go onto a current events message board and respond to a post which ends with “Come my site (or blog), it tells you all about this event”.  That would be blatant self-promotion because the forum isn’t really set up for advertising people’s sites or blogs.  Now it may be permissible to simply make a quote and add a link, but if it’s found out you are sourcing your own site… the admins may take a different view of the situation.

Now take the case of someone going to a forum about Social Marketing.  They go in, answer a question or make a post and say “Go to my site, or blog, it will tell you much more than I posted here.”   Would that still be Blatant self-promotion?”  That depends on the reader and those who run the site to decide, but the reality is that in Social Marketing sites people who go there are either there to learn, teach or discuss.  Many of those forums are not real boards, but forums, and some may even have posting limitation.  It is far easier to write up something for your blog or site and refer that to people for your answer.

What Do You Mean By “Gets It”?

In 1936, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called “How To Win Friends And Influence People”.  The book has been on the New York Times best sellers list for over 10 years and sold over 15 Million copies.  It’s a self-help book about how to handle people and get them to like you.  I obviously never read the book because I will probably alienate large groups of people by saying what I have to say… but people are resilient, they will get over it. J

What I mean by “gets it” is a combination of things.  I’ll outline some of them and tie them into Social Marketing Central to show why I think Jack gets it!

1. A good administrator of any message board has to have an idea for their board that will draw people.  Jack has over 1437 members on his site.

2. A good administrator of any message board should design their board in a way that is pleasing to the eye.  Take a look at Jack’s site, it’s pleasing to the eye with out being gaudy or overdone. It’s simple, but tastefully done.

3. A good administrator has to offer his or her members some variety.  The forums, or groups, on a message board can all have a common theme - but they should have some diversity to keep the members interested and entertained.  Jack has approximately 31 groups and he allows new groups to be started. Additionally Jack has a variety of topics, which all tie into the Social Marketing theme for the board.

4. A good administrator sets up their board so that the members can contact the admin and find out the rules with ease.  Jack places his contact links and Terms of Service (TOS) at the bottom of his main page. The only easier way is to place them at the top and who really wants to do that.

5. A good administrator makes his or her site easy to navigate.  Jack places his main buttons for navigating his site at the top where members can see them.

6. A good administrator let’s the members and staff know they are in charge, with out being obnoxious and overbearing.  I am not sure if Jack knows how to be obnoxious and overbearing, but he does have a flare for managing people.

7. A good administrator remembers the people element.  Jack seems to not feel the need to belittle or embarrass people, yet he can get his points across.  I like that in an Admin, take this example, for instance.

The Situation

Recently a situation occurred where a moderator, who was not named, made a comment about a member being self-promotional, of course this caused a discussion in the forum.  The situation was brought to the attention of Jack, and he handled it by saying his moderators made a mistake, which apparently was corrected in private, then informed everyone that moderators are people too and make mistakes.  Those weren‘t his exact words, but it was the sentiment… and he was right, moderators are not infallible, which is sometimes something of which we all need to be reminded. On the other hand Jack showed that he was not of the nature that he forgot the member and placed his members as a sort of second class citizen in the group.  His decisions showed that he remembered the human side and treated his members as real people.

On some forums you have admins who are afraid of offending their members by making judgments against them, Jack doesn’t seem to be of this sort.   In the past I have seen him remind an unruly member of the purpose of the forum and sort of suggest that the guy might be happier elsewhere.  In this case he decided that the member had a valid point and went against his moderator(s) decisions.  This ought to set Jack up for the No BS award of the month. J

Social Marketing Central

If you are interested in Search Engine Tactics, Email Delivery, Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, or Internet Marketing then Jack’s SMC is definitely one the place you want to be.  Jack has been in the internet marketing field for over 10 years and has acted as a consultant, coach and author.  The man knows of what he speaks.  On his boards he has many members who range from the novice to the experienced pro.  It is urged, on his boards, that the only dumb question is the one not asked.  He wants people to speak up and ask questions, share their knowledge and become better internet marketers in the process.

This, and more, are the reasons for why Jack ‘gets it’.  Jack could easily use his site for a launching place for his own business interests and sites on the net.  He could tell his members that they are not allowed to promote their own blog posts or he could downplay using information from Jack’s competitors.  Jack’s philosophy could very easily be “It’s all about Me, Me, Me!“  These things have been done before on other message forums in the past.  Jack doesn’t do that.  Of course he doesn’t want his help groups to turn into advertising pits, but he does allow people to post articles on their own blogs and utilize them as posts.  He only asks in return that you honor the spirit of the group and the purpose it was created. .

There may be some who would ask “What does the Internet Stats for dial-up and broadband have to do with Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking and Internet Marketing in general?”.  This article will hopefully help direct people into thinking of the importance of the internet statistics and/or help them realize the pitfalls of these statistics.

My Internet Stats

My Internet Stats are a compilation of estimates and solid figures, which I find on the net.  I do not promote these stats as being 100% accurate or the only possible analysis of the figures, but I do promote the idea that we have to make the attempt to find the best set of common figures and give an honest overview of what those figures mean.  It does as little good to lie to ourselves, as it does to allow others to lie to us.

Internet Usage Chart

I created the following chart from a number of sources, but it is primarily based upon the IWS chart for Broadband Usage:

The first thing to note is that the information on the chart is geared for 2007, that is because the broadband information, on the IWS site, is from November of 2007.  All the data used is either from 2007, or from January 1, 2008.  This is done in the attempt to keep all the figures used with-in the same time frame.

Explanation of Terms and Titles

At the top of the columns you will see the titles for those columns, along the side are the countries or regions of the world which I have chosen to use.

Country or Region Name: The area of concern.
ID: The Country or Region Identifier.
Population: The total population of the region or country.
Internet Users: The total number of internet users for that area.
Internet Penetration:  The percentage derived by taking the number of Internet Users and dividing it by the Population figure.
Broadband Subscribers: The number of people using broadband.
Broadband Penetration:  The percentage derived from taking the number of broadband subscribers and dividing it by the population figure.

Adjusted Internet Stats

If you bothered to check the chart out, you will see that the penetration values don’t always show true. This is due the original chart not having Population figures. I went and found the figures for 2007.  In the following chart I adjusted the Penetration rates.

ISP Planet Chart for US Internet Subscribers (2008)

One more chart I will utilize is from the ISP Planet website.  This chart shows a list of ISPs in the US for the January to March of 2008 time frame.  The usefulness of this chart is to give us an indicator of how many Internet Subscribers there were in late 2007.  We can’t get an exact number, but we do know that internet subscriptions rose from November of 2007 to March of 2008.… we just don’t know how much.

What The Charts Reveal!

We can glean bits of information from these charts some of them are:

1. Approximately 98 Million Internet Subscribers in the US during the 1st quarter of 2008 2. An estimated 215,000,000 to 218,000,000 Internet Users were online in Nov of 2007.
3. Approximately 66.2 Million subscribed to Broadband in November of 2007.
4. Approximately 22% of the US Population were broadband subscribers in Nov. 2007.
5. Approximately 71.4% of the US Population were Internet Users in November 2007.
6. The top 12 ISPs made up about 76.7% of all US Internet Subscribers.
7. The ISP Planet chart is made up of both Broadband Subscribers and Dial-up.

The Troubles with Tallies

Stats are like Polls, the data and analysis contained in them can be chosen to support a predetermined outcome or they can be done honestly in order to assist us.

When you look at the IWS site, they state “Internet usage information comes from data published by Nielsen//NetRatings, by the International Telecommunications Union, by local NIC, and other reliable source”  In reality this doesn’t tell me a thing about how the stats are figured, it only tells me where they get some of their information.

So I went to the Nielsen Site to find out how they obtained their figures, they said:

“Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, delivers comprehensive, independent measurement and analysis of online audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behavior, and includes products previously marketed under the Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics brands.”

As the Church Lady would have said, “ Isn’t that special!”. This is a lot like a Gilbert and Sullivan play to me, it’s full of words and music which signify nothing. In other words one can get the impression that Nielsen gathers information from a variety of places, including word of mouth, and toss it into a set of stats whenever possible.  That’s not very professional in my book and Nielsen is one of the better one’s to give stats, imagine what the others are doing?

They don’t answer key factors like:

How do these stats differentiate between my neighbor is using my computer instead of me?

How do these stats show me using internet cafes, the library, or places like Borders and  Starbuck’s?

How do these stats know that I am not on two computers in my home at the same time, instead of there being two separate users?

There are a ton of queries one can make, which are questions of merit based upon real happenings that occur fairly often across the net.

I can remember a discussion I had with a group of people, including a person who claimed to work for the system we were discussing, over a comment I made concerning everyone one the system having two accounts on the average.  I stated that even if a member really only had one account, someone else had 3 or more accounts which would make the comments I made basically true.  There were shouts of outrage by people insisting they only had one account on the system, until I got talking to them and they finally said things like “Well I do have this other account, but I no longer have the password (or I don’t use it)”.  I would then say “It doesn’t matter whether you use the accounts, you still have two accounts (or more) and those accounts are being tallied in the totals for the system.”   Finally many would get the point that the system really didn’t have 140 Million users, if it had 70 Million individual users then they were lucky and odds are they only had between 10 and 40 Million.  Quite the difference, isn’t it?

Well this holds true for internet stats too.  If I work for a place and get on the net through their ISP, then I go home and get on with my ISP… I could be counted as two internet users.  And what of the case where someone is reduced to using Free ISPs?  Netzero still claims they give you 10 free hours a month, although I can’t find out how to get that free ISP service and haven’t really looked very hard.  The point is if they do, I can easily create 4 or more accounts to cover my internet needs and that would have the effect of my being counted 4 or more times… at least in theory.

All this, and more, is cause to suspect the 215 Million Internet Users figures as being erroneous, and by these places calling these “estimates” supports the erroneous Internet Users idea.  The question now is how much is that 215 million reduced by?  Is it 10%, 50%, higher??  We simply don’t know, but with a better way of figuring these stats, we could get a final estimate that is a lot closer to the fact.

Some Factors To Consider

Let’s approach this from another angle, shall we?  According to Wikipedia the age structure of the US Population in 2007 looked like this:

0–19 years: 27.4% (male 42,667,761; female 40,328,895)
20–64 years: 60.1% (male 89,881,041; female 90,813,578)
65 years and over: 12.6% (male 15,858,477; female 21,991,195)

The CIA World Factbook is a great source of information about countries. Even though I have had people produce evidence showing that they do make errors, they provide us with some figures that are most probably in the ballpark.  These are their facts for the Age Structure of the US Population in early 2008:

0-14 years: 20.1% (male 31,257,108/female 29,889,645)
15-64 years: 67.1% (male 101,825,901/female 102,161,823)
65 years and over: 12.7% (male 16,263,255/female 22,426,914) (2008 est.)

I analyzed these figures and came up with this set of figures, once again it might not be 100%, but it’s most likely in the ballpark:

0-14 years:      20.1%
15-19 years:      7.2%
20 - 64 years   60.1%
65 and older:   12.6%

Now, there was an estimated 301,139,947 people in the US in January of 2007. Using the chart I made, we can break down the US Population for 2007 as follows:  .:

0-14:      60,529,129
15-19:    21,682,076
20-64:  180,985,108
65 +:      37,943,634

Now bear in mind that these figures are only for the purpose of helping us to judge whether the figures we are told by the experts are anywhere close to the mark or way out of line.. The bottom like is that there were approximately 240 Million people in the US in November of 2007 who were of the age to be considered as Internet Users.  The number of 215 Million is a workable number and doesn’t fall outside of the realm of possibility. However the downside is that these experts are trying to tell me that around 90% of all those in the US who could be on the net, are on the net. I find that hard to believe, even though I firmly believe that the vast majority of those in the US do things that would classify them as Internet Users. I just don’t think it’s that high of a figure is all.

The Internet Marketing Connection

According to About.com, “Internet Marketing is an all-inclusive term for marketing products and/or services online – and like many all-inclusive terms, Internet marketing means different things to different people“.  One can say that Social Networking, Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing could all be a part of Internet Marketing.  In all cases those running such sites and businesses are “selling” something and it doesn’t matter if what they are selling is their forums and groups or an E-book or a program.  These stats can give us an indication of how many people are out there that we want to reach, in other words it may help us to figure out how many are in our target audience.  We also need other stats, such as ones which will help us choose how many out of the whole may be interested in our products or services.

Another thing the stats do is tell us information to help design our sites.  As marketers of any sort, we don’t want to shut out anywhere from 40% to 70% of the people just because we ignore the narrowband users by designing sites which their internet connections are not fast enough to have them navigate properly.  Even 20% of the potential market is too many to ignore.

Synopsis

We shouldn’t follow stats blindly, accepting whatever we are told simply because we figure those telling us should know.  In many cases they are simply number crunching and only a portion of what they say are backed by hard facts.  Estimates are useful tools, but the estimates should be based on solid numbers which can be shown and followed easily.

There needs to be a better system in place that will give us more accurate stats on the net, especially where broadband usage and dial up are concerned.  One article I have read made it a point to say that a figure they used was so high because of such things as stolen wi-fi. I am not fond of stats like these because they include a lot of conjecture on someone’s part that is virtually unprovable.  I want hard facts, I believe in the “Gravy Theory” which states “Give me the meat and potatoes which are supported by undisputed fact, I’ll accept any increases in numbers as pure gravy.”  I don’t want the numbers from places like internet cafes, Borders Books, Starbuck’s and stolen wireless… I want what can be proven in a court of law and I’ll adjust to everything else.

I am an individual.  I am not being paid by dial-up or broadband companies to promote their products.  I don’t have a agenda for promoting Broadband or Dial-up because it’s cool, far out and funky. The only thing I have to promote is common sense and the idea of “No Internet User Left Behind!”.  As an internet marketer I really can’t afford to toss aside potential customers or clients because I want to base my whole internet ad campaign upon the notion that Dial-up is dead.  That isn’t smart business sense because it doesn’t take much effort or foresight to include those narrowband users.

Sources:

Internet World Stats
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Internet World Stats - Broadband
http://www.internetworldstats.com/list2.htm

Population 2007
http://www.photius.com/rankings/population/population_2007_0.html

Broadband Penetration Grows to 57% in US Homes
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0804/

The World Bank
http://rru.worldbank.org/

2008 ITIF Broadband Rankings
http://www.itif.org/files/2008BBRankings.pdf

Top 25 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q4 2007
http://www.isp-planet.com/research/rankings/usa.html

Wikipedia:  World Population
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

The World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

Tax Prof Blog
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/02/median-us-gross.html

Briefs: U.S. broadband usage up 28 percent in year
http://www.physorg.com/news11757.html

U.S. broadband use up, says CEA
http://www.901am.com/2007/us-broadband-use-up-says-ce-trade-group.html

Internet Marketing
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/marketing/g/internetmarket.htm

Wikipedia: Demographics of the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States

CIA World Factbook: United States
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Wikipedia: Household Income in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Declines,
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/010583.html

The term Link juice refers to “the quality of a Web site’s link power, as in page rank, number of link votes, etc. — that are obtained rom backlinks”, states Netlingo (http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=link%20juice).  They claim the expression was coined by SEO Consultant Greg Boser.

I’ve heard the term Google Juice, what is that?

Google Juice is internet slang to refer to the substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks. Pages with lots of links pointing to them acquire much ‘Google Juice’ and pages which link to highly ‘juicy’ pages acquire some reflected ‘Google Juice’. Source:  SEO Glossary.com  http://www.seoglossary.com/article/695

10 Steps to more link juice:

1. Be original and expert, do your research, and be current. Your site’s content should be accurate, informative, and easy for searchers to navigate. If possible, offer cool tools and unique services.

2. Incorporate RSS and other data sources from your industry. Take advantage of online tutorials to learn how to leverage content syndication opportunities.

3. Is there an online tool in your industry? Invest the time and money to get it on your site. Even better, offer the tool to others to put on their sites with a link back to yours. Offer a “cut and paste” solution for the code, and rotate the link text you want in the tagline for each download. (Remember MarketLeap’s link analysis tool?)

4. Is there a popular blog for your industry? Get involved or start your own.

5. Participate in online forums. They’re a great way to get to know the people whose links you want. Don’t initiate the dialogue by asking for a link. Instead, ask for help with a question, and when you get a response, be sure to express gratitude and appreciation. Once you’ve established such a relationship, people will be more willing to help you by providing a link.

6. Write articles for syndication, like this one. Have your byline link back to you. Often, syndication sites will list your bio and include a link to your site. There are thousands of article repositories out there. Try to find reputable sites where your article is likely to be read. This provides you with the link, as well as an opportunity to build your reputation.

7. Government sites can be another source of relevant content and “link juice.” While by their nature government sites are viewed as authoritative, they, like any government publication, are not copyright-protected. Much of the content on government Web sites is not indexed in search engines. By using that content, you can make it indexable. If you find a government site that has external links, see what sites it links to, build one yourself that’s better, and ask the government site for a link.

8. Manage your internal linking. If you have a large site, you automatically have an internal linking advantage. While internal links aren’t as valuable as external ones, if you have thousands of pages, they still add up. One under-utilized tool for internal linking is a good bread crumb trail. It leverages your internal linking, as well as providing a nice usability function for your visitors.

9. Donate to a charity. Quite often charities put their donor lists online with links to donor Web sites. Not only do you get a link but you’re helping a good cause as well.

10. Don’t bulk e-mail link requests! Even if you aren’t hit with legal action for spamming (which you could be), there are other potential consequences you won’t want to face. Search engines could blacklist your domain, your Internet Service Provider could dump you, and your servers could be shut down. The short-term gains are not worth the long-term pain.

Source: Web U: Ten Steps to More Link Juice by Todd Friesen, May 2006 issue
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=42390