June 30, 2009
Want Twitter publicity? Just enough so you won't go hungry?
If you are searching for a good current "real-time" example of how twitter can help publicize your cause celebre, look no further than the latest being tweeted out today by the likes of such "twitterers" as @wholefoods
@WholeFoods - tomorrow, July 1st, is the monthly Twitter for Food event - it would be great for you to join in again! http://tr.im/m1Pq
And what are your instructions once you click on the link?
Post this message to your twitter account on June 30th and July 1st:
#twitterforfood Skip a meal July 1st and fund local or global hunger relief. http://tr.im/m1Pq
Now imagine that. Skip one meal and donate to any one of the great organizations listed on the landing page featured.
Want a snapshot of how many people have so far been tweeting #twitterforfood?
And this is only page 6 of a Twitter search on #twitterfood.
@WholeFoods grabbed hold of this contest and tweeted it to their nearly 800,000 followers! But the idea for skipping a meal and donating money to an organization which serves the hungry came from Tim Blair.
Tim had this to say to me about using Twitter to promote a cause:
"This is a personal passion of mine, so I am absolutely thrilled with the response. I started it last month and plan to run it once a month until it is no longer getting traction. My plan was that it would grow over the next few months as word got out. Humanitarians and philanthropists are a large demographic on Twitter from my experience.
I run twitter accounts for people and have 6 of my own for different causes. I find that it is easy to connect with locals and with specific demographics if you know what you're doing. I have accounts in green, religious, personal security, books, social marketing and have been able to connect well with people - especially people at high levels in organizations.
Results for some of the promos I have done have been good. Nothing earth shattering yet, but certainly worth the effort and growing. I am definitely sold on the value of using Twitter for promotions and will continue to refine how it is done."
It will be interesting to see how much $$$ is indeed donated to food organizations from this Twitter campaign. But no one can deny the immediate impact Twitter can have to promote a cause or campaign.
Posted by Byron Gordon on June 30, 2009, 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Facebook adding payment platform?
Chris Crum at WebProNews.com has pieced together some very interesting pieces of information regarding Facebook, a former Googler and a new payment system.
Facebook in May announced that it was testing a new payments system that would deal in real money, rather than virtual currencies that it had been using for any number of applications. This might work fine for Mafia Wars and other light games that Facebook has increasingly added, but if you were to want to move into, say, storefronts or product comparisons, you'd clearly want to be able to deal in real currency.
Enter announcement two: Facebook has hired an ex-Google Checkout director to develop these payment systems. Given Facebook's immense and growing popularity, its standing as place for sharing opinions and favorites, its open platform and an army of marketers desperate to monetize work on Facebook, it could wind up being an absolute perfect storm.
Imagine classified ads or, bigger yet, entire storefronts integrated directly into a social networking site a la A Small World - except instead of a half million very exclusive members considering five and six-digit purchases in between their social networking activities, it's 200 million+ people worldwide who could have their friends' opinions of a product just a click away from being able to purchase it.
Chris has screenshots and more details - worth checking out.
What do you think? Would you purchase or shop on Facebook? Would your customers?
Posted by Herndon Hasty on June 30, 2009, 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Amazon Cuts Rhode Island, Hawaii Affiliates; Is California Next?
We've been tracking the affiliate tax debacle involving Amazon and the state of North Carolina. Now, affiliates in more states are being affected.
Associates in Rhode Island and Hawaii are receiving emails notifying them of the cancellation of their affiliate accounts. Rhode Island passed a bill making affiliates consist of a physical location for web retailers, which forces them to pay sales tax in the state. Hawaii is considering a similar bill.
Blue Nile, a diamond company has also shut down its program to Rhode Island residents.
On the horizon is the state of California, another state considering an affililate tax bill, sometimes referred to as affiliate nexus.
New York was the first state to pass such a bill, which went into effect last summer. 200 affiliate programs were canceled for New York residents as a result.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Penny Baldwin to Yahoo!; David Ebersman Named CFO of Facebook
This week, there are a couple of executive hirings in Silion Valley related to the search and social networking industries. First up, Penny Baldwin has been tapped as senior vice president, global integrated marketing and brand management for Yahoo! Is there any room left on her business card? That's quite a long title!
Previously, Baldwin served as Managing Partner of Young & Rubicam Brands, Y&R Advertising and Wunderman Direct Marketing.
"One of Yahoo!'s greatest assets is its brand," said Yahoo!'s chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele. "Our integrated, global approach is critical to our success and we have a deep business commitment to fulfill our promise to our users, customers and partners. Penny is uniquely qualified to lead the effort and her leadership, experiences, knowledge and skills are excellent additions to the Yahoo! marketing team."
Meanwhile, Facebook has selected David Ebersman as the social network's new chief financial officer. Ebersman was formerly the vice president and chief financial officer at Genentech.
"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg. "We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."
What do you think of these hirings? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Enter the Search Engine Watch Awards by July 17, 2009
You only have a couple of weeks left to submit an entry to this year's Search Engine Watch Awards. The deadline is July 17, 2009.
The objective of the SEW Awards is to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. The SEW Awards will honor 14 outstanding search marketers, search engines and technology providers, as judged by a panel of industry experts and the Search Engine Watch editorial staff.
The categories are:
* Search Engine with Most Relevant Results
* Most Innovative New Search Engine
* Best Search Engine Ad Platform
* Technology Platform Search Marketers Can't Live Without
* Best SEM Technology Platform for SMBs
* Best Social Media Platform for Marketers
* Best Web Analytics Platform
* Most Innovative Use of Search Engine Optimization
* Most Innovative Paid Search Campaign
* Best Social Media Marketing Campaign
* Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign
* Best Use of Local Search
* Best Integration of Search with Other Media
* Most Effective Use of Web Analytics
And who are the judges? They are:
* Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
* Jessica Bowman, SEO Strategist and in-house SEO Expert, SEMinhouse.com
* Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
* PJ Fusco, Natural Search Director, Netconcepts
* Bill Hunt, President, Back Azimuth Consulting
* Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive
* Ron Jones, President/CEO, Symetri Internet Marketing
* Cindy Krum, Chief Executive Officer, Rank-Mobile, LLC
* Sage Lewis, President, SageRock.com
* Melissa Mackey, Online Marketing Manager, Fluency Media
* John Marshall, SES Advisory Board & CTO, Market Motive
* Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
* David Szetela, CEO, Clix Marketing
* Brian Ussery, Director of SEO, Search Discovery
* Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster
By the way, in case you think I'm sucking up to the judges by listing their names, my firm can't enter because SES is one of our clients. This wasn't in the rules a year ago, but now that it has, I am free to comment on the process and the outcome.
Entrants may submit nominations for multiple categories, but each submission must focus on the four key areas of consideration:
1. Overall approach and category relevance
2. Innovation in methodology and execution
3. Excellence in tactical execution
4. Achieving success goals
Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. There is an application fee of $145 per entry. Up to four award finalists will be determined for each category. Finalists will be notified by July 27, 2009, and will receive 1-day passes (limit 3) to the SES San Jose sessions and Orion panels on the day the winner in their category is announced. Winners will be announced during Search Engine Strategies San Jose, August 10-14, 2009.
Submitting companies will be recognized at the event, as well as in the SES Magazine and on Search Engine Watch. I also plan to interview as many winners as possible for SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube.
Oh, there is one other thing you should know about the Search Engine Watch Awards. The winner of the 2000 SEW Award in the "Outstanding Search Service" category was a little known start-up named Google. And Google was also the winner in the "Most Webmaster Friendly" category, as well.
Not bad for a company that had just announced a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins a year earlier. Where are they now, I wonder?
Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 30, 2009, 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
AOL Canada Relaunches Homepage, Makes You Thirsty for Pepsi
AOL Canada has relaunched their homepage and in case you couldn't tell, Pepsi has bought some advertising (Click on image to enlarge):
The relaunch is based on the update of the AOL.com homepage in the U.S last fall. That relaunch has been good to AOL, with increases of 23% in unique visitors, 34% in total page views and 61% in total minutes consumed year over year, according to comScore's Media Matrix for May 2009.
"The launch of the new AOL Canada portal follows the tremendous successes we've experienced in both the U.S. and the UK, enabling exciting new opportunities for the Canadian market," said Edward Kwan, Senior Director of AOL Canada. "In terms of advertising, Platform-A Canada will now have the capability to expand its reach across more relevant and media-rich content and channels."
The new AOL.ca features the ability to check mail from a variety of providers (AOL, GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail) as well as the opportunity to update social networks including Facebook, Twitter, AOL-owned Bebo, and MySpace. AOL's popular instant messaging client, AIM, is also included.
"With today's Internet ever-expanding and consumers engaging in multiple social networking platforms, it is essential that their experience on the Web is both personalized and integrated," said Kwan.
Additional AOL.ca features include:
- Customized backgrounds with multiple new designs from which to choose;
- Ability to add any customized links to the homepage so users can more easily access their most frequently visited sites;
- Users can drag and drop to reorder channel navigation to suit personal preferences;
- Users can add RSS feeds and personalized categories to get content from their preferred external sites.
What do you think of the new AOL.ca? Share your first impressions in the comments below.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
CareerBuilder Taps Bing API for New Candidate Search Tool
At the Society for Human Resource Management Conference, CareerBuilder announced a new recruiting tool built with the Bing API. It's called Applicant Explorer and it uses the API to integrate online results such as social networking sites, blogs, and corporate websites with CareerBuilder's results.
"One of our key goals with Bing is to simplify search and make it easier for people to find what they are looking for online; searching for the ideal job candidate is no exception," said Alessandro Catorcini, senior program manager, Bing. "By combining Bing functionality with the extensive CareerBuilder database, Applicant Explorer helps recruiters and employers customize their search criteria and dynamically sort through and display hundreds of data sources in one easy to use interface, cutting the manual search time substantially."
The idea was to streamline the candidate search process for human resources professionals. Instead of sifting through CareerBuilder results and then conducting the same search on a separate search engine, now recruiters can do it all in one place.
"With so many employers already utilizing the Internet to research candidates, Applicant Explorer was created to help employers do that necessary research in the most efficient and simple way possible - helping them go beyond the resume," said Greg Brass, director of profile search at CareerBuilder. "In addition, job seekers can benefit from the clearer picture employers can gather of their qualifications and background."
Applicant Explorer is free for those using CareerBuilder's resume database.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Google Launches Adwords API v2009
Thanks to Thomas Bindl at Refined Labs for pointing out the launch of a new Adwords API - v2009. Seems they have created an entirely new API that offers some interesting new services.
* We've created new web services for managing campaign targeting options and campaign-level criteria.
* All web services share a consistent, data-centric interface with two operations: get and mutate.
* A secure authentication token replaces the login credentials required in v13 request headers.
The information about the new Google Adwords API can be found here.
Posted by Frank Watson on June 30, 2009, 5:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
