Five on Friday: Search Results, Subscription Jobs and Summer Reads

Featuring Bill Gates, Search Engine Watch, Tubefilter, LinkedIn and Bloomberg

Five on Friday: Search Results

Source: Bigstock

In this week’s Five on Friday, we share Bill Gates’ 2017 summer reading list, Search Engine Watch offers advice on optimizing for voice assistants, the Wall Street Journal and Google are at odds with each other over paywalls and search engine results, we learn more about Fullscreen’s social media strategy from Tubefilter, and employers post top subscription jobs to LinkedIn including jobs from Amazon, Apple, Red Hat, the Philadelphia Media Network and New Relic, Inc.

 

 

 

Bill Gates’ 2017 Summer Reading List

 Subscription Jobs and Summer Reads

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Here’s what Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates shares his top picks for summer reading, according to Quartz. He’s the richest man in the world, so I guess we’ll take his word for it. Here’s what Bill’s reading now:

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
by Trevor Noah

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, The Daily Show’s host Trevor Noah tells a story of a young man coming-of-age in South Africa as the son of a white man and a black woman which, at the time, was an illegal union.

The Heart
By Maylis de Kerangal and translated by Sam Taylor

In this French novel, three teenage boys go surfing, and on the way home, are involved in a fatal car accident where one of the boys is propelled through the windshield. Though he is brain-dead upon arrival at the hospital, his heart continues beating.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
By Yuval Noah Harari

Listed as the #5 Most Read book on Amazon Charts, this book is on the reading lists of former President Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. The international best seller explores how biology and history have defined us.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
By Yuval Noah Harari

#15 Most Read on Amazon Charts, this New York Times bestseller is a provocative look at the future of humanity as mankind attempts to elevate our status to that of gods.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
By J.D. Vance

This book analyzes white working-class Americans, a culture in crisis, according to the author. The New York Times says this book is one of six books that will help Americans understand how and why Donald Trump won the presidency.

A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
by Jimmy Carter

At the age of 90, former President Jimmy Carter reflects on his personal and public lives with disarming frankness. He discusses some of his accomplishments and what he might do differently.

Optimizing for Voice Assistants: Why Voice Search Isn’t Seamless

Five on Friday: Search Results

Source: Bigstock

In a recent article, Search Engine Watch explores a brief history of the development of voice-activated technology and why voice search isn’t as seamless as we’d like it to be. Here’s why:

  • Using voice search is still a bit clunky, says Search Engine Watch. We are not always understood. We sometimes have to repeat ourselves. There isn’t true recognition occurring.
  • The voice search tool doesn’t add any value to the experience. It doesn’t give us anything we can’t already get with

The good news is that artificial intelligence and voice technology are evolving with tools like Amazon’s Alexa and Echo devices. Instead of having a device do searches for us, it can actually perform functions on our behalf, often through a third-party API, like ordering a pizza.

According to Search Engine Watch, Alexa is used for basic household tasks – 34 percent use Alexa to play music, just under 31 percent play with lights and 24.5 percent use Alexa as a timer. In this way, using voice commands provide added value, not just a different way to search.

So how do you use this tool to improve Google searches? Update your SEO strategy to focus more on long-tail keywords and optimize for action phrases. Deep-linking is also helpful when optimizing your apps for online searches. Read the original article here for more specific tactics and suggestions.

 

Top Subscription Jobs from LinkedIn

Senior Product Manager, Prime Reading
Amazon, Seattle, WA

 Subscription Jobs and Summer Reads

Source: LinkedIn

We are seeking a product leader to join the Prime Reading team and own product and content strategy, identify customer experience gaps and drive customer acquisition/engagement growth with continuous product improvements. The candidate will be a vocal champion for Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited and work across multiple stakeholder teams including tech, design, content and marketing. Read more.

Senior Digital Subscription Marketing Manager
Philadelphia Media Network: Philly.com, Inquirer and Daily News, Greater Philadelphia Area

This position calls for a talented marketing expert with strong knowledge of digital marketing tactics and techniques, experience with customer acquisition and retention strategies, social media trends, organic / paid search, web analytics and related technologies. You enjoy a fast-paced work environment, have the ability to effectively collaborate with other teams to accomplish mutual goals and are eager and willing to have your accomplishments measured to ensure goals and budgets are met. Read more.

Subscription Services Marketing Manager
Red Hat, Raleigh, NC

The Customer Experience and Engagement (CEE) team is looking for a Subscription Services Marketing Manager to join us in Raleigh, NC. In this role, you will oversee the processes of strategic planning, marketing implementation, and evolution of the CEE’s complete services portfolio. You’ll become an expert in various aspects of current and emerging services. As a Subscription Services Marketing Manager, you will work closely with technical development teams and various marketing functions to develop compelling, customer-focused messaging, and ensure optimal positioning in the market. This role is a unique combination of strategic and tactical product marketing. Read more.

Subscription Renewal Administrator
New Relic, Inc., San Francisco, CA

The Subscription Renewal Admin is a key individual contributor on the Customer Success team that consistently delivers market leading retention rates and more. The team you’ll join is a culmination of individuals who are passionate about customer loyalty committed to bringing the right people together with the intention of securing and growing our revenue. This role will be focused on the closed loop process of the subscription renewal. This individual will assist the Customer Success Renewal team-you’ll quote, revise, report and close renewal opportunities. The importance of building SOX compliance processes and building a solid reporting structure to our business is our key initiative as we look to the future and you would be integral in making this happen. Read more.

Production Manager, Subscriptions Platform
Apple, Cupertino, CA

Join the Apple Media Services Product team and help take our subscription businesses to new heights. The successful candidate requires excellent analytical, technical, and interpersonal skills along with solid business acumen. You will play a pivotal role in researching, defining and designing capabilities and features that drive growth for subscription products across the Apple ecosystem. You will collaborate with engineering teams and key business stakeholders to prioritize high-impact, customer-centric capabilities. Read more.

 

WSJ Tanks in Google Results After Closing Loophole to Paywalled Content

The Wall Street Journal and Google are at odds, reports Bloomberg. In February, the Journal closed the loophole that allowed readers access to content behind the Journal’s paywall. According to Bloomberg, the media organization’s subscription business flourished with that move, giving them a fourfold increase in converting readers into subscribers.

Five on Friday: Search Results

Source: Google

Doing so, unfortunately, had dire consequences on Google. The Journal’s traffic generated via Google search dropped by 44 percent – a huge drop for any media organization. Bloomberg says this happened because Google’s search algorithm can now only access limited content at WSJ.com, which ranks the site much lower.   

In an interview, Suzi Watford, the Journal’s CMO, said, “Any site like ours automatically doesn’t get the visibility in search that a free site would. You are definitely being discriminated against as a paid news site.”

Essentially, Google is penalizing websites with a hard paywall by lowering its search engine ranking, says Android Headlines. To get around this, publishers like the New York Times and Bloomberg have implemented a metered paywall, allowing readers to access some free content. This doesn’t solve the problem, but it does mitigate it by letting Google index some free content. Another option for publishers to keep readership and subscriptions up is to use social media to share their stories.

Unless Google updates its algorithm to accommodate sites with a hard paywall, this problem will continue and could force publishers like the Journal to reconsider their position on using a hard paywall versus a metered one.

Read more about the situation at Bloomberg and Android Headlines.

Fullscreen to Change Social Media Strategy: Less Promo, More Substance

 Subscription Jobs and Summer Reads

In April 2016, Fullscreen launched as a streaming video service with exclusive series, movies and talk shows, specifically targeting a 13 to 30-year-old audience. Tubefilter reports that, earlier this month, Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos announced on Instagram that followers would see less promotion of Fullscreen shows and the app, and more “original video, art, photography and written pieces about the things that affect your life,” he wrote.

And he asked for followers’ contributions to help kick things off:

“And we want you to be a part of it…How? Well, we want to collaborate with you. In the coming weeks, we’ll be reaching out for your contributions, your thoughts and your creativity. Because we want to build a deeper relationship with you, and we want you to help shape the conversation.”

Feedback from fans, thus far, is largely positive (see screenshot on the right).

This is an interesting – and smart – strategy, particularly because they didn’t call it a strategy which probably wouldn’t excite their audience. But asking for their audience’s input and ideas does appeal. Fullscreen knows its audience, and we like this latest twist on innovation.

Like Fullscreen, we value your ideas, suggestions and feedback. How are we doing? What articles do you enjoy reading in Five on Friday? What would you like to see more of? How can we make this weekly column more shareable? Email me at [email protected] with your ideas and feedback.

Until next time, have a great, happy and safe Fourth of July weekend!

 

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