Interview: Tim Nash On Social Media, Digg, StumbleUpon & His New Membership Site
Digg, Interview, Social Media, StumbleUpon3 Comments »
Brendan - Tim I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. Can you tell us a bit about what you do?
Tim - I’m a jack of all trades, my company specializes in reputation management and SERP control, but I have a wide range of interests and am particularly fascinated with social media optimization which has been the focal point for my research in recent years. I’m probably best known for my work studying StumbleUpon users though I don’t just limit myself to one particular group.
Brendan - From what I understand you have quite an impressive academic background. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Tim Nash - Not much to say went to university studied became far too anal for my own good, before realizing that before hiding in a university your entire life that you need a life. It’s sad that my ideal retirement job will be hiding in a dusty lab once more.
Brendan – You’re currently teaching at a university aren’t you? Computer science?
Tim - Two universities are blessed with my current teachings in ‘Internet Technology’ which is becoming a discipline in itself. My current classes include Information retrieval and an introduction to search engine optimization (though I have renamed this unofficially to SEO for the damned)
Brendan - [Laughs] Sounds fun. Are you or your students working on any exciting projects pertaining to these disciplines?
Tim - I have a few projects on the go at any one time; my current projects include more reliable methods for tracking users and user actions, studying user voting patterns and a means to identify possible “gamers” on standard Pligg systems. I also have little G, my pet search engine which I use for demonstration as well as a research tool.
Brendan - Very cool. If readers want to read about what you’re working on where would be the best place to find you?
Tim - I have 3 blogs, For social media information Venture Skills Blog is the place to go. This is also where I try to release big research pieces such as our research on Social Begging and of course the Mathematics post. My other two blogs Tim Nash SEO and Payment Blogger are for SEOs and people looking to optimize or monetize sites rather than the search for traffic. They are also a place for me to chill and have a more relaxed time.
Brendan – Above you mentioned some research pertaining to StumbleUpon. Can you tell us what you’ve found thus far?
Tim - How long have we got, I have spent the best part of a year studying StumbleUpon and its users. A very condensed version of how I perceive StumbleUpon itself to work was laid out in the slightly controversial StumbleUpon Mathematics post which presented a very basic piece of math to give people a chance to see some of the factors at work. But I have also spent a fair amount of time earlier in the year looking at Digg and StumbleUpon and comparing the two and while 8 months is a lot of time, both of those posts are still relevant though perhaps some of the factors have changed a little. Certainly while StumbleUpon has continued to grow, Digg has seen a slide away from being the top dog in town.
Brendan - Yeah I think the community has definitely noticed Digg’s decline. What do you think the future holds for them?
Tim - Digg has certainly had its peak and is now like its predecessor Slashdot moving into a second phase where it quiets down a bit, the trolls will move on to new pastures like Mixx perhaps and you will be left with Digg going back to its routes, 17yr old adolescent males and their interests. One thing that is a bit of an enigma is Digg’s fascination in politics which would seem to fly in the face of its average user.
Brendan - That IS odd. Do you think this anomaly is due to people like Ron Paul hiring social media experts to exaggerate their popularity? Furthermore, what percentage of Digg users do you think are search marketers?
Tim - While I’m not very much up on US politics it certainly seems to be that several politicians have recently spent a lot of money chasing after the social media vote. The question is what sort of results these campaigns are getting I suppose we will know if they are elected.
Tim - I think that in reality the number of search marketers on Digg are quite small though they may well have multiple accounts, but the amount of noise they make gives the perception that there is a large crowd and perhaps account for some of the bad blood between the Digg crowd and marketers.
Brendan - What do you make of vote purchasing services like Subvert and Profit?
Tim - They have little or no chance of working over the long term, certainly from StumbleUpon’s point of view the algorithm naturally will discount any long term use and Digg’s unofficial moderators no doubt have their own methods of detection.
Brendan - Between Digg and StumbleUpon, which model do you like best and why?
Tim - StumbleUpon has the excitement of not knowing what’s coming next so from the users perspective I find it great way to spend a few hours. The Digg model is great if you already have a preconceived idea of what you are looking for, or are looking for something recent and new. It is after all a news site.
Brendan - Now correct me if I’m wrong but word on the street is you’re starting a membership type site?
Tim Nash - Yes. I’ve been planning on setting up a membership site for a while now aiming it at the intermediate to advanced SEO/SMO users. Since my original idea several member sites have appeared so I hope people will still be interested in what I have to offer.
Brendan - I think the interest will be based on the level of the content’s quality and judging from what you’ve published in the past, I’d be willing to bet that your membership site will be quite successful. When do you plan on opening the doors? Do you have any promotional offerings for your future members?
Tim - I’m hoping to open the doors at the start of next month as for what will be on offer, the opening content will include a few useful tools such as a working example of my Mulldina strategy as a Wordpress plugin, a short course on tracking social media users, several articles on our recent research and an Ebook “The Social Media Mechanic “ which will also be available separately a month later. The goal is to add at least one or two articles a month along with additional tools and courses. The price for all this will be set reasonably low no more then $20/month.
Brendan - Wow that IS reasonable. Jim Boykin recently released his Internet Marketing Ninjas membership website at a membership rate of $250.00/month. I haven’t heard the reviews yet but maybe that’s because no one’s signing up at that price point. $20.00/month makes way more sense. With quality content at a rate like that I’m sure you’ll drum-up a large member base.
Brendan - Lastly, is there any juicy knowledge you could share with our readers today about social media or tips and tricks pertaining to the sites therein?
Tim - People chase numbers and very understandably but if you are using social media to gain backlinks to your site it is often worth ignoring the big sites and finding your local niche media site such as Sphinn. These sites often require only a few votes to become hot and so can be a great place to garner the initial push which in turn will lead to more votes on the bigger sites. If using these sites, one very simple trick is to look at the up and coming lists, when your site gains a few votes start voting for posts near the top of the up and coming while ignoring posts below your own. This will help your site rise a little more quickly. Ultimately it’s about getting the right people to see your posts and that’s what we all want after all.
Brendan Picha - Fantasic advice Tim. Thank you for speaking with us today. One last thing…Does your new membership site have a name yet? What can our readers be on the lookout for?
Tim - Very sadly the current working title is members.timnash.co.uk [laughs]. However any suggestions appreciated from you or your readers but as it stands the site will be part of timnash.co.uk rather than its own name unless someone can come up with a great suggestion. Social Media Ninja seems to be out.
Brendan - Maybe we can come up with a few names and have a vote. Winning name and contributor of said name gets 3 months of free membership access?
Tim - Maybe a month 
and certainly a few copies of the Social Mechanic could be found.
Brendan – [Laughs] sounds good. Ok Tim thanks again for talking with us. Be sure to let us all know when the membership site goes live. We’re eager to check it out.
Tim - Will do.
Ever since Google acquired 
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