April 2008

April 30, 2008

Future of Search Marketing? Behavior-AOL

Search retargeting and post-click behavioral targeting is the future of search. The future's here - now - with the launch of Platform A's integrated search marketing platform using Tacoda technology.

Call it Platform A.O.L.

ClickZ's reporting that the use of Tacoda technology will begin in June across the whole Platform A network. That means marketers will have a single software platform for tracking, reporting and delivering, and running behavioral marketing campaigns.

For anyone following innovations in search marketing campaigns, that's exciting news.

We're sure some savvy marketer will be the first to design an award-winning search campaign on Platform AOL.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 3:04 PM | Permalink

iGoogle: O Pop, Where Art Thou? Jeff Koons, Wiggles, La Cicciolina

iGoogle%20jeff%20koons.jpg

Google commissioned Jeff Koons, the controversial modern artist, to create graphic images for iGoogle backgrounds. Koons' Google Doodle today features his interpretation of (chrome) tulips. "Where art thou?" asks Marissa Mayer, VP of search products & user experience, in her official blog post this morning:

"Did you notice the chrome tulips on Google's homepage today? They are part of a special Google doodle done by renowned artist Jeff Koons. And that isn't the only art appearing anew on Google today. As part of our iGoogle Artists project, we have collaborated with almost 70 artists in 17 countries on 6 continents to create special iGoogle themes -- works of art that appeal to all ages and interests."

Our response: "O Brother, Google, where art thousands of dollars going?"
Or perhaps, "O Pop, Where Art Thou?"

Most of the time, the controversy about Koons -- at 53-years old modern art's aging bad boy -- centers on whether he's a brilliant artist or the emperor's new clothes.

Jeff Koons isn't the only Google artist designing for iGoogle: non-artist artists like UK rockers Coldplay and U.S. kiddieboppers The Wiggles (shown below); fashion designers Mark Ecko (rhino logo) and Diane von Furstenburg (wife of Ask.com owner Barry Diller of IAC); architects Phillipe Starck (W Hotels) and Michael Graves; and New Yorker cartoonist Robert Mankoff.

Why in the world would a world-famous artist like Jeff Koons hire himself out for graphic design work?

It seems the multimillionaire artist and ex-husband of an ex-porn star may need the moolah.

Jeff Koons famously married a European porn star, La Cicciolina ("fleshy one"), after hiring her as his muse for photos, paintings and sculptures.

The artwork Koons spawned from their union was graphic but not graphic in a Googley design way. Think NSFW: sexually explicit in a flashy, fleshy Paris Hilton - Britney Spears - Lindsay Lohan kind of way. The only difference? Koons' sculptures starred Jeff and (as Brit wits might say) his naughty bits.

A few weeks ago, La Cicciolina, AKA Ilona Staller, sued her ex-husband, Jeffrey Koons, for $2.4 million dollars (1.5 million euros) in child support for their 15-year old son, Ludwig Maximilian Koons, according to papers filed in Manhattan State Supreme Court.

iGoogle Art - The Wiggles

Child support payments of 15,000 euros a month were ordered by an Italian court in June 2007. Koons has only paid 191,426 euros for child support during the roughly nine year period (Oct 1998 - Dec 2007), leaving a balance owed of about 1.5 million euros.

Staller starred in X-rated films in Italy as La Cicciolina before she was elected to serve as a member of Italy’s parliament for five years.

After the jump we have a two-minute clip from the Sundance Channel: fashion designer "Tom Ford on Jeff Koons" from the Iconoclast series. You can see what Jeff Koons Safe-For-Work art is all about in a SFW video.

AP reported that after their divorce in New York in 1994, Koons was given custody of their infant son. A judge ordered that the child remain in New York. In June of 1994, Staller slipped away from Koons’ security guards and escaped to Italy with the boy.

When the divorce and custody issues were litigated again in Italy, Staller, an Italian citizen, was granted a divorce. After appealing, she received custody of the boy.

Koons piled up legal bills of almost $4 million trying to bring his son back from Italy. So maybe we can call this Google's "No Child Left Behind" Pop Art campaign.

Here's Tom Ford explaining the art of Jeff Koons, whose work has been displayed at London’s Royal Academy, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain:

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:47 PM | Permalink

Jerry Yang's Anything-But-Silent Life

While many are saying how Jerry Yang seems to be silent on last weekend's come-and-gone Microsoft ultimatum, his life is anything but silent. Kara Swisher reports that his wife had a baby!

But I'm not sure why people expect Yang to pull himself away from his new bundle of joy to simply repeat what he's said all along: Yahoo is undervalued by Microsoft's bid and the answer to the offer as it stands is No.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:31 AM | Permalink

Marchex's Local Advertising Branches Out into Mobile Market

Marchex today announced the expansion of its local advertising services into the mobile market. The new offering will include call-based advertising, which is a result of its acquisition of VoiceStar. The call-based services will be part of agreements with three mobile advertising providers: AdMob, Ringleader Digital, and 4INFO.

Call tracking will accompany the new agreements and offer up the following features:

1. Track the calls generated by advertisements on their network
2. Determine exactly which advertisements delivered the calls
3. Track and report key information including the duration, time of day and geographic location of callers
4. Record the calls.

“Marchex is focused on partnerships with leading aggregators of local advertisers across all channels: online, offline, and mobile,” said John Keister, Marchex President and COO. “We believe that the mobile advertising opportunity is significant and is poised to realize tremendous growth over the next five years. Our call tracking and pay-per-phone-call capabilities provide a significant advantage for Marchex in the mobile search advertising market.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Microsoft's $1.5 Billion Plan to Retain Yahoo Employees

While we await the news of Microsoft's next move in its pursuit of the unsolicited Yahoo acquisition, the Wall Street Journal has learned that the software giant plans to spend $1.5 billion to retain Yahoo employees should a merger - or takeover - occur.

The plan was revealed in court transcripts regarding a suit by shareholders against Yahoo's directors. The shareholders who filed the suit feel that Yahoo hasn't responded in good faith to Microsoft's bid. The suit was brought forth by two Detroit pension funds. The lawyers for the funds argued that a recent expansion of Yahoo employee benefits make it difficult for shareholders to get maximum value should an acquisition take place.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Google Analytics for Bloggers - Google Relaunches Measure Map

measure%20map.jpg

As Twitter microblogging captures the mainstream media's imagination, Google Analytics has quietly relaunched Measure Map analytics for bloggers. Email invitations went out this week to alpha users of the blog tracking software.

The bad news for Measure Map bloggers: historical analytics data from the original Measure Map can't be imported into the Google Analytics / Measure Map platform.

We reported on the acquisition of Adaptive Path's Measure Map by Google back in February, 2006. Since then Jeffrey Veen and his team have redesigned Google Analytics and integrated new features such as Website Optimizer with great success.

Sitepoint's Technical Editor Andrew Tetlaw posted a question on April 11, 2008 in a dormant Google Groups forum for Measure Map:

Is it just me or does anyone else get the feeling MM has been abandoned?
Performance is terrible, the browser report still doesn't even
recognize Firefox 2.0....

That post seems to have spurred the Google Analytics team to email all the original users of Measure Map to test the newly rebuilt analytics software for bloggers. You can ask the MM team questions in the resuscitated Measure Maps Google Group.

Andrew also told me that to convert to the new and improved Measure Map you need to sign up for a Google Analytics account and add GA tracking code to your site. For an update, check out Andrew's excellent post today in Sitepoint: Measure Map Redux.

We're not sure whether the original MM "Date Slider" will be reinvented but it was one of the original cool tools for Analytics that had wide appeal (even if it seems clunky by today's Web 2.0 standards).

measure%20map%20date%20slider.jpg

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:01 AM | Permalink

Fredrick Marckini to Give Opening Keynote at SES Toronto

Fredrick Marckini, chief global search officer of Isobar, will be giving the opening keynote speech at SES Toronto on Tuesday, June 17, 2008. Fredrick also gave the opening keynote at SES London back in February.

While he was in London, I interviewed him about his keynote speech on search engine marketing trends and his duties at Isobar. You can get a pretty good idea of Fredrick's perspective by watching the YouTube video below -- which has just been posted in its entirety. (A portion of Fredrick's interview was included in our Day 1 roundup.)

And, as you'll see, YouTube's recent site updates now enable you view the high quality video by just clicking on the television icon below and to the right instead of using the format 18 code.

Fredrick Marckini at SES London on Search Engine Marketing

You can also get a sense of Fredrick's point of view by reading: Fredrick Marckini iProspect Exclusive SEO Interview with Dan Horton.

Fredrick Marckini founded iProspect in 1996 and is recognized as a leading expert in the field of search engine marketing. He has authored three of the SEM industry's earliest books, including Secrets To Achieving Top-10 Positions (1997), Achieving Top-10 Rankings in Internet Search Engines (1998), and Search Engine Positioning (2001). He is considered one of the pioneers of search engine marketing and was named to BtoB Magazine's Top 100 Marketers 2005 and 2006 lists.

Fredrick is a frequent speaker at industry conferences around the country including: Search Engine Strategies, ad:tech, the iMedia Summit, Search Insider Summit and the eMarketing Association Conference. He has written bylined articles for Search Engine Watch, CMO Magazine, BtoB Magazine, iMedia Connection, ClickZ and numerous other publications. He has been interviewed and profiled in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times of London, Inc., Investors and Business Daily, Internet Retailer, National Public Radio, and others.

Fredrick serves on the Board for the Ad Club of Boston, and was a founding Board Member of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO). He earned a bachelors degree from Franciscan University in Ohio.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: What Are You Converting?

Many people view conversions as large-scale events, such as product sales or sign-ups for a service. But a conversion can mean many things, depending on the site. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "What Are You Converting?," Tim Ash defines conversions as events that move a visitor toward the mission critical activities that you've identified. Measure those smaller events, and you'll know much more about what your visitors are doing than if you only focus on the end results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Visually Impaired Search

Like search ads, PageRank, and blended search, Google's newly launched VisualRank image search technology has the potential to change the way SEO is done. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Visually Impaired Search," Kevin Ryan explains that while the game hasn't changed yet, it will very soon.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 29, 2008

Sunrgi: Stealth Tech Startup May Transform Search Engine Industry

Nick Carr (The Big Switch) created the framework to view the transformation of the search engine industry (the world's information indexed) into a knowledge grid that companies and people can plug into, the same way a century ago companies stopped generating power from steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid.

Sunrgi, a new solar energy system startup just out of stealth mode today promises to produce cheap electricity at wholesale prices: 5-cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). Google

XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics) concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto hyper-efficient solar cells, was announced today by Sunrgi, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the National Energy Marketers Association's Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC.

The technology may enable utility companies, corporations, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than has ever been possible.

Google (GOOG) spent $842 million on infrastructure in Q1 2008, its largest capital expenditures (CAPEX) ever for a single quarter, according to Data Center Knowledge. The record capex investment will acceleration increase Google's need to generate vast amounts of cheap power efficiently.

Google announced four major data center projects in the U.S. in 2007, including facilities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Iowa. Google says its capital expenditures are "related to IT infrastructure investments, including data centers, servers, and networking equipment."

The green technology isn't vaporware but it may be a couple years before widespread adoption.

"In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV," said Bob Block, co-founder and Sunrgi principal in a statement. "We expect the Sunrgi system to become available for both on and off-grid power appplications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months"

The price is right: 5-cents is on par with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels. That would make solar power as affordable as coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy. Plus, it's a fraction of the cost of producing solar energy now.

At a nickel per kWh, NEMA (National Energy Marketers Association) calls solar power, "a world-changing breakthrough."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:27 PM | Permalink

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Are there really opportunities for small business to succeed using social media?

Absolutely, if one factors the strengths and weaknesses of the media with the strengths, weaknesses, and goals of the company.

The reality of the matter is that various social media have different strengths and weaknesses. While it is true the most obvious benefit of social media is branding and traffic, the truth is that social media can also:

generate lots of good, quality, relevant links, which we all know can help a site perform better in the search results
help to forge relationships. Not necessarily relationships with potential clients, but with those who help to influence potential client decisions i.e. indirect sales
generate direct sales
build a company's authority in an industry

In order for a small business to utilize social media to its fullest, and to determine which social media it should be using as part of its effort, it must understand the trade-offs it faces. Without being able to commit time or money to social media, many small businesses will seriously need to question their commitment to winning in their space in the foreseeable future.

What are the variables to consider:
a. available client time vs. available client $
b. complexity of client product/service information
c. client goals (direct sales, improved positioning, authority building, etc.)

As is the case with search, those social media sites offering the most potential for traffic, also contain the most competition. The more competition there is, the more thought and effort must go into being successful in that medium.

Does that mean that small business should avoid search? Not at all. Same with social media. It just means that small business must assess their desire and means, and find reasonable opportunities where competition is not too intense for their means. Precisely as with search ... though rather than looking for keyword opportunities, you're looking for content and medium opportunities!

For example, would you ever suggest to an SME client that you would try to rank for a generic, ultra-competitive, one-word term such as "weight loss"? Never. Though you may consider "weight loss san diego," right? Precisely!

That said, here are the strengths and weaknesses of several major social media sites, as they relate to small to medium sized businesses:

1. Yahoo Answers:
Yahoo Answers will not require much money to engage in, making it an attractive option for small business. Since in most cases, SMMs (Social Media Marketers) won't/can't play a large role in Yahoo Answers, as they're not experts in the space, it will require client time and expertise.

Yahoo Answers is a great tool for generating direct sales, rather than links or even indirect sales ... an anomaly amongst social media sites.

* Some SMMs may offer Yahoo Answers training solutions, designed to get SMEs up to speed quickly, and teach a few inside tricks. It will also be important to make the system as efficient as possible, so senior-level involvement is not necessary in identifying and answering each question. Instead, relevant questions should first be identified (and answered where a simple answer will suffice) by a junior-level person, then handed to more senior-level people as the questions become more in-depth and technical.

2. Wikipedia:
Wikipedia is another great solution for companies with more time than money. This is often a do-it-yourself solution for companies, though a good SMM can greatly aid with training, planning, and implementation, and can save companies a great deal of time. Securing a presence on relevant pages on Wikipedia isn't necessarily intuitive.

As Wikipedia doesn't like companies adding information about themselves (as it's likely biased), having information added by an experienced SMM with a solid reputation is worth its weight in gold.

Wikipedia is great for generating links (not direct as they are nofollow, but indirect through copied text), but is not exceptional at generating either indirect sales via forged relationships or direct sales.

3. Digg:
Having a submission go hot on Digg is equivalent to ranking on an ultra-competitive keyword on Google, in terms of the number of links generated. Digg is, in reality, the Google of the social media world in terms of those looking to build links, which means Digg itself has had to become very cautious and difficult as a result of being gamed so frequently.

As Digg's algorithm favors larger, more trusted sites, SMEs cannot expect to do well on Digg routinely without a substantial investment of either time and/or money in the effort. The cost of doing so is therefore beyond the means or commitment of many small to medium sized companies.

Beyond its biggest benefit (links), Digg can also be utilized to forge strategic relationships with key influencers such as reporters, DJs, and the like.

4. Reddit:
Reddit is capable of generating significant volumes of links, although somewhat less than Digg. It is like Digg, except on a lesser scale. Though it generates fewer links, the results are greater, given the lesser level of effort required compared to Digg. That said, Reddit still requires a significant time and/or money investment from the client. It still involves a commitment to win!

5. Propeller:
Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is also like Digg and Reddit, though generating fewer links again. This is in essence what makes it so attractive though ... it's the MSN of the social world. Most companies focus so heavily on Digg, that Propeller is often overlooked. Accordingly, small business can still win on Propeller with reasonable effort.

Time needs be invested in Propeller to determine how the system works, identify the types of posts that are successful, and to forge the necessary friendships to seed posts properly on the Propeller network. SMM Training solutions can again expedite the process, and engaging the services of an experienced quality SMM will trade money for time where time is very limited.

6. Delicious:
Delicious is a good option for small businesses, though it does require a commitment. SMEs need to spend time creating resource, research, and/or instruction type blog posts. These posts take time, often 8-10+ hours of research per post. Special insight into topics that might be successful on Delicious will absolutely be aided by the guidance of an experienced SMM. Otherwise, much time and effort can be spent creating content that really has no chance of being successful.

Posts that do well on Delicious typically attract a good many links, albeit typically less than those on Digg or Reddit, and more than Propeller.

7. StumbleUpon:
StumbleUpon is capable of driving large volumes of traffic (more than Reddit and less than Digg) to a site, given the right content. For whatever reason though, it generates substantially fewer links than either Digg or Reddit on average.

For companies with brand new, innovative products and services, StumbleUpon is a great way to gain exposure and build awareness. It is not however, good at generating direct sales unless the item is an impulse type item.

8. YouTube:
YouTube is unlike any of the other social media mentioned above. While video itself has the ability to generate substantial quantities of links via other social channels, the YouTube medium essentially attracts all links for its own purposes, leaving the video creator with virtually no additional link power.

What YouTube can do when great content is created is attract additional quality search traffic via the search results (YouTube videos are often included in the search results of major engines), and can help to forge relationships with key influencers.

Summary:
In the end, success with any of the above social media sites is still largely based on the quality and creativity of the content. For companies without the time to dedicate to creating such content, it will require a financial investment. In this situation, hiring experienced SMMs skilled in the art of choosing topics is very important, as they can likely aid real quality content be successful on numerous platforms.

This is why I say it takes a commitment to winning. It's going to require either time and/or money from the small business perspective, but success is absolutely achievable, given appropriate amounts of either, and proper selection of media.

Posted by Jeff Quipp at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Online Promotions: The Sleeping Beauty of Online Advertising

Much has been written, theorized, and analyzed about search and online display advertising. But companies are increasingly turning to the Cinderella of online advertising: Promotions.

Douglas Quenqua at ClickZ looked into a recent study by Borrell Associates that says spending on online promotions could triple in the next five years. Last year, a whopping $8 billion was spent on promotions.

For now, national companies are the ones accounting for most of the promotional spend. But local companies may want to take notice. Since the spend is expected to increase so dramatically, while display advertising is expected to decline, then something must be working in this arena. And that's no big surprise as contests, coupons and giveaways are great methods for lead generation.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:47 AM | Permalink

Mobile Marketing Association Issues New Display Ad Standards

Last week, the Mobile Marketing Association updated its standards for mobile display ads. In doing so, it automatically outdated Google's brand spanking new mobile ad formats.

The new MMA guidelines are:

300 x 50 pixels
216 x 36 pixels
168 x 28 pixels
120 x 20 pixels

Google's new banners are:

305 x 64 pixels
215 x 34 pixels
192 x 34 pixels
167 x 30 pixels

According to ClickZ, Google said that its ads are compliant with MMA's previous recommendations. While mobile industry leaders differ on the need and implementation for mobile ad standards, most agree that innovation by both MMA and companies like Google are good for the industry.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Fast Search Acquisition Completed by Microsoft

In January, Microsoft announced it's $1.2 billion offer for Norway-based enterprise search company, Fast Search. Last Friday, Microsoft completed the acquisition.

“With our companies combined, we’ll be uniquely able to offer customers what they’ve been telling us they want most — a strategy for meeting everything from their basic to most complex enterprise search needs,” said Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for the Office Business Platform at Microsoft. “I’m incredibly excited to have the talented team from FAST joining us.”

Fast Search CEO John Markus Lervik will become Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Enterprise Search.

“From the moment I started talking to Microsoft about the prospect of bringing our talent and technology together, I realized what a powerful impact we could have on the way companies use search to drive new revenue streams and improve productivity,” Lervik said. “Together we’ll deliver better technologies that make enterprise search a ubiquitous tool, central to how people find and use information.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Price Check! Products Added to Mobile Live Search

When you're shopping online at home, it's easy to check a bunch of different sites for the best price or read reviews to see if that new gadget you have your eye on is really a dud. But when you're out in the brick and mortar stores, it can be a challenge to get the same answers quickly.

Thankfully, team over at Microsoft's Live Search wants to make it easier for you to conduct that all-important product searching while you're on the go. Product search has been incorporated into Mobile Live Search. The results include prices and a starring system to reflect reviews. Obviously, you can click on individual results for more info.

Another feature being rolled out with the update is "Find My Location." By using this feature, you'll get results close to the nearest cell towers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:47 AM | Permalink

Google Custom Search Offers Creative Commons Labels

The Google Custom Search team has announced the addition of four labels to enhance searches for Creative Commons content. The four labels are:

* free_use_share (by-nc-nd)
* free_use_share_commercially (by-nd)
* free_use_share_modify (by-nc-sa)
* free_use_share_modify_commercially (by-sa)

These labels can be used to restrict all custom search content to Creative Commons results or to help refine searches. The CC labels are filter labels.

Google also took the opportunity to remind us of how to document Creative Commons license. They gave four examples of the many ways licenses can be documented on an HTML file:

1. with ... in the HTML head or body
2. using
3. using
4. using ... in a comment

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:22 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Conducting a Redirect Audit on Your Web Site

A redirect audit looks at the server redirects that are happening on your site, and which sites are sending visitors to links on your site that are being redirected. It also looks at 404 errors (file not found), as well as other server status codes appearing in your site's log files. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Conducting a Redirect Audit on Your Web Site," Mark Jackson shows you how a redirect audit can take care of many issues that search engines might be having with your Web site, and may help you recover visitors you may be losing due to technical issues.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Taking the Fear Out of Web Analytics for Your Small Business

Many small businesses are afraid of the perceived complexity of Web analytics. At the same time, they know they can make more money in less time with Web analytics. In today's Small Business Search Marketing column, "Taking the Fear Out of Web Analytics for Your Small Business," Carrie Hill simplifies the process by breaking down the four metrics you should be analyzing on your small business web site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2008

Court Orders Negative Keywords Used To Block Trademark Terms

Eric Goldman reported a Florida court made a default judgment that requires including negative keywords in search advertising to ensure broad match does not include their trademarked term. Obviously this only applies to the specific instance but there is a dangerous precedent being allowed.

Goldman sees the suit applying to just expanded match in broad match - but it is restricting the use of a trademarked term as just a keyword and not in the ad as Google currently allow and requires the use of negative keywords to ensure they get blocked - or at least then passing the culpability to Google.

With the isolation of responsibility to Google by following these rules - if that is the case - I wonder if Orion Bank will be going after them next... this one I don't see them having a no show for a defendant.

The requested ruling that won by default (no one showed to contend it) included:

a) from any and all use of the term ORION, ORION RESIDENTIAL
FINANCE, or any other confusingly similar term;
b) from using any sign, advertisement, slogans, internet domain name,
promotional material, promotional communication, and/or printed or electronic
matter containing the term ORION, or any other confusingly similar term.

That would stop them from using orion as a term, the domain they own (but they could be a registered company with the name Orion Residential Financein Florida as the suit lists) OrionResidentialFinance.com, and much more.

Beyond the one to one defendant - the suit did allow for it to apply to any other company by including:

ORION RESIDENTIAL FINANCE,
LLC, a Florida limited liability co.,
and VARIOUS JOHN DOES,
JANE DOES and ABC COMPANIES,

Does ABC Companies mean any future people trying to use Orion?

This has to get taken back to the courts soon.

Posted by Frank Watson at 7:11 PM | Permalink

Google Wins Appeal - Most Bizarre Lawsuit Ever Filed Against Search Engine

google%20lawsuit.jpg

Anyone who knows the best conspiracy theories of the 20th century can't blame Dylan Stephen Jayne for trying to sue Google.

Every good conspiracy theorist knows that playing certain songs on LPs backwards is a Satanic chant. The number of clues on the Beatles' Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover that "Paul is Dead" (Paul McCartney) are too numerous to mention.

So it must have come as a shock to the Conspiracy Theory community that Google prevailed in an appeal of the most bizarre lawsuit ever filed against the search engine.

In September of 2007, Dylan Stephen Jayne filed a (handwritten) suit against the founders of the Google internet search engine, alleging that his social security number when turned upside down is a scrambled code that spells the name “Google.”

He was asking for $5 billion for Google's alleged "crimes against humanity."

The District Court reviewed the lawsuit and dismissed it sua sponte (on its own will or motion") for failure to state a claim. In other words, the judge made a decision without having been asked by either party. (ie. never happened: "Your honor, the defendants, Larry and Sergey, move to dismiss!")

The ever-resourceful Jayne filed a timely appeal. His case was on appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and guess what? He lost the appeal a couple months ago.

To prevail on his claim, Jayne needed to demonstrate the Google founders acted "under color of state law" and deprived him of Constitutional rights or rights secured by federal law.

The judges concluded, "It is clear that neither of these criteria is satisfied here. As explained by the District Court, Google and its founders are not state actors, and Jayne’s allegation concerning his coded social security number does not constitute a violation of the Constitution or federal law."

Making it a particularly bad day for Jayne and sending a shiver down the spine of many a conspiracy theorist, the judges noted, "We also agree that any amendment of the complaint would be futile."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 3:33 PM | Permalink

Clinton, McCain, Obama: Drilling Down on Local in Campaign '08

drilling%20down%20local.gif
Seattle is the place to be for Drilling Down on Local Marketplaces this week (April 30 - May 2). For the first time, The Kelsey Group will provide a deep dive into how local search and local media buys will impact political campaigns.

ClickZ Campaign '08 editor Kate Kaye (just promoted to ClickZ senior editor), will speak on two panels during the Kelsey Drilling Down Local conference.

Kate's going to discuss why Buckeye and Lone Star news sites scored big. Of the three main primary contenders, she also found Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has done the most local online advertising, some of it especially innovative. A more compelling local Web effort involved big multimedia ad buys on local news homepages.

Obama is also leading the pack in innovation with expandable video billboard ads.

A few savvy congressional candidates have started to place online ads for this year’s election. You'll also learn why the majority of congressional, statewide and local candidates lag far behind presidential campaigns when it comes to even considering advertising online.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Google Will Bank on VisualRank - PageRank for Images

PageRank%20Images.jpg
On Thursday, Google Research engineers presented a paper at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing on PageRank for Google Images (pdf) to improve search results for photos, art and graphics. The system promises better image results than are currently available when searching in Google Images and may eventually improve Google Universal Search SERPs.

Key takeaways: Google's breakthrough uses the "wisdom of the crowd" and contextual signals to rank the relevancy of images. VisualRank does not improve on a search engine's ability to identify people or determine activities in a photo. The biggest benefits will be reduction of duplicate image content in search results and reduction of "image spam" or inappropriately tagged photos.

This morning The NY Times reported on the new ranking algorithm that identifies and analyzes “authority” nodes and "visual link structure" between a group of images. As with PageRank, images are assigned numbers to define their relevance and relative importance.

Google conducted a series of experiments by retrieving images for 2,000 of the most popular products queries in Google. Users in the experiments were more satisfied by the results and felt they were more relevant.

The Google SERP image shown here displays top ranking results for a group of queries. You can judge for yourself how intuitive and relevant the results are. Google notes an interesting result for the query “Picasso Paintings”; not only are all the images by Picasso, one of his most famous, “Guernica”, was selected first.

We're assuming the search queries related to the product, "Febreze" were spelled correctly, unlike the typo in the paper misspelled as: "Fabreze." The current Google image results for keyword "fabreze" are quite different.

Winners: Trademark owners of big brands and commercial products

Losers: All those people who spent innumerable hours tagging photos in Google Image Labeler:

All-time Top Google Image Labeler Contributors
1. SunChaser has 22,961,020 points
2. Zip has second with 22,353,450 points
3. FrD AUTO no car has 15,460,240 points
4. MC DUDE no man has a close 15,350,830 points
5. Mighty is hot on the heels of MC DUDE: 15,339,300 points

Google believes a Web page author will likely choose relevant images for a topic. People, though, don't typically link to content based on the relevance of images. People link to text.

Google gives an example of an ambiguous query (McDonalds) with a logo that can be identified in photos that link commercial searches. That's a “visual theme” or 'visual signal" among all the photos. There may be lots of other themes that can define the relative "strength" of common and commercial images.

In terms of overall performance on queries, the proposed VisualRank displayed fewer irrelevant images than Google for 762 queries. Google’s standard image search produce better results in only 70 search results. In the remaining 202 queries, both approaches tied. Google notes in the majority of these queries, there were no irrelevant images).

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:57 AM | Permalink

Microsoft's Deadline Passes Without Yahoo Deal

Steve Ballmer's "Deal or No Deal" utlimatum has passed without a deal and the analysts are all-a-flutter with predictions and speculations. If you read all the reports, the possibilities for what will happen next can seem dizzying. So, let's keep it simple and gossip-free. There are only 4 likely outcomes:

Microsoft pursues a hostile takeover
Microsoft presents a higher bid
Microsoft withdraws from proposal altogether
Microsoft buys another company (AOL?, Ask?)

With analysts predicting all four outcomes, depending on who you read, all the speculation means squat. The only thing matters is action, and rest assured we'll keep you posted should anything resembling action occur regarding Microhoo.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:52 AM | Permalink

Microsoft Prepares Push into Chinese Search Market

When it comes to search, Microsoft is ever the egg while Google remains the chicken. Just a week after news of Google amping up its efforts in the world's largest nation, Microsoft is revealing its plans to make headway into China.

But just how serious is Microsoft about this oh-so-important market? Only 100 employees are currently dedicated to Chinese search while Google will be adding 200 to its existing 600 person staff this year with expectations to continue adding to its numbers along those lines in coming years.

No doubt, acquiring Yahoo is part of Microsoft's overall Asia strategy. Yahoo has a strong showing in Asia, something the Sunnyvale search engine wishes Microsoft would have taken into consideration when making its recent unsolicited bid.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:20 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Killer Site Targeting: PPC Content Scrape & Bake Tools

Successful placement-targeted content campaigns depend on showing your ads on all the right sites. In today's Content Advertising column, "Killer Site Targeting: PPC Content Scrape & Bake Tools," David Szetela outlines a new tool and methodology for finding the right destinations for your ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 25, 2008

Top 10 Toughest Jobs to Fill? The Top 3 Are In Search Engine Marketing

toughest%20job%20to%20fill%282%29.jpg

Here's the best example of misleading statistics we've seen, outside of the ads skewering the mythical Cable Corp: "DirecTV - Cable Corp Inc. - Statistics" directed by Christopher Guest) "Whip up some numbers that make it look like we have, like, I don't know, a thousand HD channels."

Today the WSJ blogged about the hardest jobs to fill based on an annual employment survey conducted by temp firm Manpower Inc. We all agree with the famous German ad shown here, "Life is too short to be in the wrong job."

Not surprisingly, the very temp-to-perm jobs Manpower specializes in ended up high on the Top 10 list of the 42,500 global companies surveyed.

Based on the response to SEW Experts columnists Ron Jones (SEM.edu), Fionn Downhill, and William Flaiz, we know better.

In fact, rather than linking to all their columns about learning SEM or how to attract and hire talent, I asked John Skroly, vice president of business development for Onward Search what jobs Fortune 500 companies and top search marketing firms can't easily fill.

Here's what Skroly had to say:

Based on feedback from clients this is what we are finding:
1) Qualified Web Analytics professionals – Omniture, Web Trends etc
2) Organic SEO experts with e-commerce experience from top tier IR’s (Internet retailers)
3) Paid Search with vertical experience

So what gives?

Manpower asked companies, "What is the one job you are having most difficulty filling due to a lack of available talent?" The categories were so broad they practically broke down into the age-old categories of white collar and blue collar:

1. Skilled Manual Trades (carpenters, welders and plumbers)
2. Sales Representatives
3. Technicians (production/operations, engineering and maintenance)
4. Engineers
5. Management/Executives
6. Laborers
7. Secretaries, PAs, Administrative Assistants & Office Support Staff
8. Drivers
9. Accounting & Finance Staff
10. IT Staff (primarily programmers/developers)

Do those jobs sound like the future of the American economy?

Has that been your experience? Discuss your career here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Social Media Power: UC Berkeley Student Twitters Out of Egyptian Prison

CNN is reporting that Student James Karl Buck twittered his way out of jail with single-word text messages after being arrested. The "twit" (messages) communicated to his "tweeple" (friends) on micro blogging platform "Twitter," resulted in pals hiring a lawyer. Buck twittered all during the experience, the transcript of which is visible here. This is yet another case study speaking to the societal power of modern networking tools.

There is a lot of passion regarding Twitter in the search marketing community, with top SEOs/social media pros like Lee Odden and DoshDosh having dozens or even hundreds of "followers."

Respected link builder Jennifer Laycock has written extensively regarding applications of the platform. Others use Twitter (on their computer and/or phone) to stay in constant touch with family, customers and friends throughout each day. Twitter deployed recently in Japan with advertising in an attempt to leverage the channel. Stay tuned...

Other Twitter Resources:
The Many Uses of Twitter
techipedia

Twitter: Different Ways to Use Twitter
Lifehacker

200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter
Marketing Pilgrim

5 1 Favorite SU, Sphinn, Twitter & Facebook Posts of 2007
SocialDesire

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Londoners faceoff online in support of their candidates for the Mayoral Election

If the popularity of Facebook fansites was an indicator of how Londoners will vote on May 1st then Boris would be a clear winner with 7466 supporters whilst Ken and Brian trail behind with 2152 and 2130 respectively. Thankfully it seems that Londoners will vote with their feet rather than faces but latest results from a social media study reveal that online PR strategies could count for something in the electoral race.

Nielsen Online revealed today that London Mayoral candidates Ken and Boris are top of the blogs, dominating 80% of the social media conversation. Liberal Democratic candidate Brian Paddick is third with 9% of comments, followed by the Green Party’s Sian Berry with just under 4% and the BNP’s Richard Barnbrook with 2%.

According to Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst from Nielsen Online, Londoners penchant for social networking continues to thrive and users are taking their opinions mainly to non-political forums, blogs & message boards including those of national newspapers and sites like Twitter and Facebook.

“Ken and Boris are the two leading candidates, neck and neck in the polls and the levels of conversation in the social media space utterly reflect this. If conversation levels were a guide, Ken would narrowly pip Boris to win. However, it’s when we look at the sentiment of these conversations that a far more interesting and revealing picture emerges.”

Controversy, positivity, negativity: sentiment towards the five leading candidates in social media

• Controversy: Boris is the ‘marmite’ candidate – being the most likely of the top five to generate some form of opinion either way. Only 30% of posts relating to him were of ‘no opinion’

The Green Party’s Sian Berry generates the least controversy / most apathy – having the highest percentage (54%) of ‘no opinion’ posts

• Positivity: Whilst Boris is most likely to generate positive sentiment, 29% of posts being ‘positive’ – Sian Berry had the highest overall ‘net’ positive score of 15% (positive sentiment % minus negative sentiment %). Brian Paddick is the only other candidate to come out with a ‘net’ positive score (11%)

• Negativity: Richard Barnbrook is most likely to generate negative sentiment, 38% of posts being ‘negative’. He also had the lowest overall ‘net’ positive score of -19%

Indeed Nielsen's results seem to suggest that, shock horror, actually participating in blogs, forums and social media is effective in helping other people to form opinions on issues that affect them. The most active candidates online garnered a net positive score in total comments posted on social media sites. Brian Paddick employed a web ace, signed up to twitter, where he hosted a policy debate and also broadcasted himself via uStream.tv.

“Of the three leading candidates in the polls it’s not surprising that Brian Paddick is the only one to have an overall positive sentiment score in social media. His campaign, involving a US web strategist firm, has focused the most heavily on social media including a pioneering British political use of sites like Twitter, Facebook and UStream.TV – and it certainly seems to have paid dividends.

However, judging from the sheer levels of social media conversation on the election, it may not be enough to grab victory over Boris or Ken. If social media were a crystal ball it might tell us Boris is likely to get more votes than Ken. However, positive comments on Boris more often centre on personality rather than policies and only time will tell if this is a strong enough factor for voters when faced with putting the cross in his box to change the status quo.”

So, positivity is not the cure for apathy and clearly Londoners like myself, vis-a-vis this post, whether online or on the underground, don’t know what we really really want but we sure do love a good rant!

Posted by Jonathan Allen at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Q1 2008 Click Fraud Down from Last Quarter, Up from Last Year

Click Forensics has released data showing a decline in click fraud rates in the first quarter of 2008. The overall industry number came in at 16.3%, which is down 16.6% quarter-over-quarter but up 14.8% year-over-year.

Search engine content networks saw a higher average click fraud rate at 27.8%, which is down 28.3% from last quarter but, again, up from last year by 21.9%.

Botnet click fraud traffic was up 8% year-over-year.

Search engines are addressing the click fraud problem head on. Yahoo recently announced the provision of Click Filter Reports, which show advertisers the number of discarded clicks in their PPC campaign. The Sunnyvale search engine also announced a partnership with Click Forensics to address their click fraud woes. Lycos has announced a similar deal with Click Forensics.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:45 AM | Permalink

So You Wanna Be a SearchMonkey?

Yahoo is creating some wide open spaces for web developers. This is no API playground, people. It’s a zoo.

SearchMonkey will let developers go hog wild with search results. Simple links are so old school. Listings could now include photos, reviews, ratings and contact information via developer mashups. Want portability? You got it.

And if you don't want it, you should. Yesterday, I reported that search is integral in finding social media results that affect a consumer's opinion about brands. SearchMonkey should be a tremendous tool to help influence your online reputation.

The launch party for SearchMonkey is May 15th. Here are the details:

When:May 15, 2008, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Where:Yahoo! Headquarters – Url’s Café, 701 First Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089

RSVP: Register at upcoming.org AND send your full name and company name to searchmonkeyevent@yahoo-inc.com. Space is limited.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:24 AM | Permalink

T-minus 1 Day: Last Minute Rhetoric from Microsoft and Yahoo

On yesterday’s earnings call, Chris Liddell, Senior VP and CFO, affirmed recent statements by Steve Ballmer to focus on the online advertising market. He said that the strategy was based on three pillars:

To drive innovation and search

To increase value to advertisers and publishers

To grow user engagement across MSN and Windows Live properties

Liddell said that Yahoo would accelerate that strategy. But later, he made this statement:

We’ve yet to see tangible evidence that our bid substantially undervalues the company. In fact we see the opposite.
Yahoo continues to lose search share and profitability continues to decline year-on-year. The results that they announced on Tuesday were in line with the guidance that they gave on their last earnings call on January 29, after which their stock price closes at $19.05 and Wall Street analysts’ consensus on value was significantly decreased.

Just how is Microsoft expected to accomplish their three pillars if Yahoo is as awful as they say?

Perhaps Liddell and Ballmer are beginning to ponder that exact question. Earlier this week, Ballmer suggested that Microsoft would go forward without a merger. During yesterday’s call, Liddell suggested that an alternative to Yahoo’s “no” is to withdraw the proposal.

Meanwhile, Yahoo remained consistent in what they’ve been saying all along – that they’re worth more than Microsoft’s original offer. Speaking on Yahoo’s earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Jerry Yang reinforced his confidence in the overall value of his company:

Yahoo! has a unique and valuable combination of assets that include our global brand, our large worldwide audience, our leadership in online advertising, our strategic positions in Asia, our mobile and emerging market franchises, and our scales, tools, and technology.

Yang stated that Yahoo’s Q1 revenues were particularly remarkable in the light of uncertainty caused by Microsoft’s unsolicited offer. He also said that Yahoo remains open to its options, including a deal with Microsoft.

Then Yang zeroed in on what he felt was his most important statement on the matter:

If you take only one thing away from this brief discussion, I hope it will be that our board and management are committed to choosing a path to maximize stockholder value and will not enter into any transaction that does not recognize the full value of this company.

Tomorrow, the ultimatum comes. Decisions will be made and actions will be taken. But the rhetoric still has just begun.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:54 AM | Permalink

Microsoft Earnings Key Takeaways: Where's the Search?

The biggest acquisition news yesterday wasn't Microsoft-Yahoo but Arby's-Wendy's. In both cases, search marketers are asking, "Where's the beef?"

Better yet, analysts on the Microsoft conference call should have asked, "Where's the search?"

Microsoft search queries and page views are up year-over-year. By how much? No Wall St. analysts asked the question.

Microsoft reported $4.4 billion in net income for the quarter.

Microsoft's online services business increased revenue 40 percent to $843 million, including $143 million from aQuantive, which added 96 new publishers this quarter to the Atlas Publisher Solutions, the ad management platform that competes with Google's DoubleClick division.

Online advertising for Microsoft grew 39 percent. If aQuantive ad revenue ($47 million) is excluded, Microsoft was up 29 percent. Microsoft's online audience is still growing. Live IDs increased to 18 percent to 448 million.

Microsoft remains focused on the online advertising market (doubling by 2010 to $80 billion).

Yahoo would accelerate growth but the core strategy won't change: drive innovation and search, increase value to advertisers and publishers through innovation and scale and grow user engagement across MSN and Windows Live properties.

The weak U.S. dollar may be Microsoft's best friend. While about half of Google's revenue comes from the U.S., two-thirds of Microsoft's revenue is derived from users abroad. In addition, about 15 percent of revenue is in high-growth emerging markets.

Microsoft's strategy of reinvesting existing business, pursuing organic and acquisition growth opportunities makes the company a formidable competitor with or without Yahoo - except in search.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:43 AM | Permalink

April 24, 2008

ComScore CEO Fires Back at Google, Wall St, and Bloggers

Google CEO Eric Schmidt took an indirect shot at comScore paid click data during Google's (stellar) Q1 earnings call this week, referring to the inaccuracy of "third party data" that led Wall St. analysts to reduce earnings estimates for Google based on softness of the paid search advertising market.

This afternoon, comScore CEO Dr. Magid Abraham fired back, defending the validity and accuracy of comScore aggregation of Google paid click data.

"When Google announced strong Q1 earnings last week, some financial and media analysts wrote that comScore’s reports of slowing growth in Google’s paid clicks missed the mark. That conclusion is patently false," said Abraham in a statement to the press. "Following several historical quarters of strong sequential domestic revenue growth (including the seasonally equivalent Q1 2007), Google’s Q1 2008 revenue growth was essentially flat, which represented a significant change for Google’s domestic business."

The trend comScore identified shows the relationship between comScore’s domestic paid click trends compared to Google’s domestic revenue trends.

comscore%20google%20paid%20clicks.jpg

The comScore chart isn't a "perfect correlation" because comScore doesn't account for changes in Google’s average CPC (cost-per-click). Nor does comScore data include paid clicks from partner sites (AOL, Ask, Washington Post) or from the AdSense network, where Google paid out $5.4 billion to publisher sites in 2007 based on Google Content Advertising click volume.

Abraham warns (analysts) against extrapolating from a single data point. That's excellent advice for bloggers as well.

Earlier, comScore provided an apples-to-apples comparison of the data sets. Google doesn't release specifics on paid click data or partner revenue. Nor does the search engine giant provide guidance to Wall St. analysts.

The key takeaway: only Google can verify the accuracy of comScore data, and Google will never do so. So third party data (such as Google Analytics) is crucial for marketers to track.

Google paid click data for comScore did not include international paid search click data so Google's strong global growth (supported by comScore research on increased paid search spending in non-U.S. markets)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:47 PM | Permalink

We Still Don't Rely on Video Search

While video content continues to skyrocket, people still don't rely on video search. Over half of people, in a recent ClipBlast! survey, said they find videos through their own exploration (53%) or recommendations from others (52%).

However, a sizeable amount (40%) searched for specific videos. What's surprising are the differences based on sex, as 45% of males searched while 35% of females did so.

There was a racial divide reported too: nearly 60% of non-Whites and 35% of Whites reported search activity. It's hard to say why there's such a spread, even accounting for survey size.

Bucking the tide, the youngest adults didn't search videos the most. Some 66% of 25-34 year-olds searched more, as compared with 48% for 18-24; 39% for 35-44; and 28% for 45-54 year-olds.

Other forms of video findability were lower, including 18% following online recommendations from people they didn't know; 10% via unsolicited email; and 9% via email or RSS feeds.

For now, browsing and sharing are still more important than searching videos. As new and better approaches emerge, perhaps these behaviors will shift.

Survey Details: Synovate conducted this research for ClipBlast! between March 3-5, and reached 1,000 adults through their national online panel.

Posted by Deborah Richman at 3:30 PM | Permalink

Ballmer Wears Poker Face in Advance of Ultimatum Deadline

Yahoo earnings? What Yahoo earnings? Steve Ballmer doesn’t seem to care about no stinking Yahoo earnings. Or their Google Adwords test. Or their three year revenue projections. Or their talks with Time Warner. Or forming the OpenSocial Foundation with Google. Or planning to make IndexTools free (like Google analytics).

Ballmer wants Yahoo at $31 a share and that’s that. He’s talking tough, saying he’ll go forward without a merger. But almost no one believes him. Analysts still think the bid will be raised to anywhere from $32 to $34-ish per share.

Which brings us to Jerry Yang. He’s got a poker face too, according to the analysts. Yahoo has already said No to Microsoft’s bid and then issued a reminder after Ballmer’s eviction notice. But many think Yahoo will indeed go for the sale should the bid be increased.

Increase or no increase, Wall Street seems to want this deal to go through. Unlike Google, Yahoo’s positive earnings were followed by loss on stocks on the Street. Though Google is a pesky reminder that Wall Street doesn’t always know what it’s talking about.

Culture clashes could cause huge problems for Ballmer’s goal of giving Google a run for its money. And, this will be especially true if it turns out that there is no bluff to call.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:13 AM | Permalink

Study: Search Plays Key Role in Brand Loyalty, Customer Care Research

A new study about social media customer care had some interesting finds about how search factors into brand loyalty. While 59.1% of study participants use social media to vent about customer experience, 90% said search was valuable in finding information about customer care.

This data is among the initial findings of a new study conducted by the Society for New Communications Research entitled, “Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media.”

“This study indicates that there is a growing group of highly desirable consumers using social media to research companies: 25- to 55-years old, college-educated, earning $100,000+ - a very powerful group in terms of buying behavior,” said Dr. Ganim Nora Barnes, senior fellow, Society for New Communications Research. “These most savvy and sought after consumers will not support companies with poor customer care reputations, and they will talk about all of this openly with others via multiple online vehicles. This research should serve as a wake-up call to companies: listen, respond, and improve.”

Customer care was a key determinant in brand loyalty.

• 72.2% of respondents research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care in their decision to do business with a company at least sometimes
• 81% believe that blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously

“With consumers increasingly using social media to share feedback on their care experiences, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to ignore or hide from bad experiences,” said Lynda Kate Smith, vice president, Care Business, Nuance Enterprise Division. “As this research highlights, the consumer’s voice is louder and travels further than ever before. One poor customer interaction can have a very significant impact on a public impression of a brand.”

If you want examples of how to do it right, look to Dell and Amazon. They were cited more frequently than any other company in using social media to respond to customer care issues. Breaking it down by industry, technology, retail, and travel companies were reported as doing it well, but utilities, health care, and insurance have some catching up to do in the brand loyalty department.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:27 AM | Permalink

Yahoo! Local Adds Dynamic Radius Circle to Maps

Yahoo Local has added a nifty little feature that lets you interact with their maps. Their new dynamic radius circle helps you narrow down the area that you are searching in.

When you’re on Yahoo Local, look on the right side of your results for a map. Click “Expand Map.” Then you can drag the circle around, as well as zoom in and out.

The only thing I didn’t like is that when you zoom in, the circle stays in proportion to the page instead of expanding or contracting with the zoom on the map.

Here’s a screenshot of a search for “coffee” in Washington, DC:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:49 AM | Permalink

Dogpile.com Updates Search Algorithm, Design and Content

Dogpile.com has been doing a little spring cleaning and has come out the other end with an updated search algorithm, design and new partner content. Don’t worry. Arfie, the cute spotted Dogpile mascot, still greets you on the homepage.

Here’s what to expect from Dogpile’s updates

• Improvements in the blending of results
• Tabbed search categories on the home page
• The launch of a SearchSpy social networking widget for Netvibes or iGoogle
• Deep links (think Google sitelinks)
• Integrated content from new partner agreements

“Search is now the primary focus at InfoSpace and we are committed to enhancing Dogpile.com, our flagship site,” said Mark Whidby, director, search product management of InfoSpace, Inc. “We’ve listened to our users and have conducted additional research to bring them an enhanced search experience at Dogpile. We look forward to continuing to upgrade the site and offering our users improved features and technology.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:44 AM | Permalink

Yahoo’s Adwords Test Continues, Raises Justice Dept’s Eyebrows

After reporting great success with the test of Google Adwords, Yahoo’s test continues. But that’s making a few people in Washington just a little bit nervous. It seems the Justice Department is checking into the all-too convenient relationship to see if there’s any antitrust violations going on.

The test is slated to run just two weeks and was reported to the Justice Department in advance, according to Reuters. The first week brought great results, according to Yahoo. Though, the timing of the announcement is surely mangled up in the whole Microsoft-unsolicited-bid fiasco. With the test ending at around the same time as Microsoft’s ultimatum, it’s no wonder we heard about the success early.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:32 AM | Permalink

Google Launches Mobile Image Ads

Google has announced the addition of images to their mobile ad service. They compare the ads to a smaller version of desktop web pages. The ads run on the mobile content network.

Only one image ad per mobile page will be displayed. Google says the ads will be great for branding and have shown solid clickthrough rates.

Google assured mobile users that the ads will be relevant and unobtrusive. Contextual targeting will be used to place the ads and they hope that only one ad per page will be acceptable to mobile web surfers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:19 AM | Permalink

April 23, 2008

Google Says ‘No’ to Ecocho

Last week, we reported the launch of Ecocho, a custom search engine that promises to plant up to 2 trees for every 1,000 searches. Users could choose to search either Yahoo or Google in their quest to help the planet.

But just one day after Earth Day, word has come that Google isn’t so cool with Ecocho’s modus operandi. It seems the mission of the green-minded site doesn’t jibe with Google’s Adsense policy, which prohibits the compensation of third parties through the promise of performed searches.

Searchers can still embark on “green” searches using Yahoo via Ecocho, and now there’s even a “black version,” meaning it displays a dark background (and not a niche search site for African-Americans), which some think uses less energy.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:37 AM | Permalink

Twitter Expands to Japan, Includes Ads

Popular social media network, Twitter, has announced its expansion to Japan. But this time, ads will be rolled out with the launch of the service. The Twitter blog said that users will see “media from two clients.” So far, it seems as though the Japanese ads are display ads placed on the Twitter site, while rumors of contextual ad testing in the US have creeped up on blogs in recent weeks.

Part of Twitter’s appeal is social search. Users are finding that asking their followers for recommendations often yields better or quicker results than using a search engine.

Twitter as a utility offers only limited search – providing users the ability to search user names and locations for keywords. But third-party applications like Tweetscan enable searching actual tweets for keywords.

It will be interesting to see if any search functions will eventually include the inevitable contextual ads and if social aggregators such as FriendFeed will end up including them in their search results as well.

For now, it’s just hurry up and wait.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:14 AM | Permalink

New Yahoo Feature Reports Number of Discarded Clicks

Yahoo has been throwing out bad clicks on search ad campaigns, but now a new feature will give further insight into those clicks. The new “Click Filter Report” will show how many bad clicks Yahoo is discarding.

Users can customize the report to display the data across various metrics including time, impressions, invalid clicks and average cost-per-click. Additionally, data can be viewed across an entire account or by individual campaign.

Using the report in conjunction with third-party analytics (or the forthcoming IndexTools?) will help you should you need to submit a “click investigation report.”

To access the report, click on the “Reports” tab, then go to “Traffic Quality Reports” and select “Click Filter.”

Yahoo says it typically discards 12-15% of all clicks, but advises that the mileage may vary from one ad campaign to another.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:38 AM | Permalink

212 Interactive Advertising Club Tonight: Kevin M. Ryan on Search

212%20ad%20club.jpg

If you're in Manhattan tonight (or even in Weehawken, NJ for the SEMPO Board meeting) stop by Ogilvy Worldwide HQ at 6pm and meet up with the 212 Interactive Ad Club. SEW Expert Kevin M. Ryan, VP & Global Content Director for Search Engine Strategies, is the featured speaker on search marketing.

212 is NYC's forum for ad agencies and publishers to interact, network and learn. Some events are for members only; others are free and open to the public. This one's free and open to all marketers and publishers.

Here's an excerpt from the 212nyc.org site promoting the event:

Back by popular demand, Kevin Ryan returns to share his unabashed, unedited and uncensored views on search marketing. In addition to the latest research on blended search results and listing multiplicity, Kevin will cover the differences between Paid Search, Paid Inclusion, and SEO and how to effectively incorporate search into your marketing program.

When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Ogilvy Worldwide Headquarters
309 West 49th St.

Membership in 212 is open to all advertising agency or online publishing professionals, as well as related technology vendors and research companies in the New York area.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Microsoft Goes Deep with Search Results, Competes with Google’s Sitelinks

The team at Live Search as announced the addition of a deep links feature to its search results. Similar to Google’s Sitelinks, the feature lists prominent internal links for the #1 result on certain searches.

I did a comparison of this feature for both Live Search and Yahoo. My first search is for the “State Department.”

As you can see, Live Search lists the deep links in a single column, indented underneath the home page of the State Department’s website.

While Google lists more results in 2 columns, and offers a search within a search box underneath the Sitelinks.

Next, I did a search for Starbucks. Live Search listed a paid search link, followed by local listings and then served up the first organic results with deep links. It’s pretty far down on the page, especially since the closest Starbucks to me is not one of the three local listings provided by Live Search. Also, it provides Related Searches on the Sidebar, one of which is a search for a link provided in the deep links.

Google had a much more simple results page for Starbucks. The paid search ads are only on the sidebar and you get to the corporate Starbucks website right away.

For the most part, Google seems to turn up more Sitelinks than Live Search. Also, Google provides Sitelinks for sites that Live Search doesn’t. Searches for both “Search Engine Watch” and “Nike” both returned Sitelinks in Google but no deep links in Live Search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:27 AM | Permalink

Turning Sensationalized Content into a Resource

Over the past couple of weeks, I've talked in-depth about types of blog content, and types of social media content.

One interesting observation was that on generic social media sites such as Digg and Reddit, Resource/Educational content typically doesn't perform as well as Sensational/Entertainment type content does.

On the other hand, after the initial burst of traffic to Sensationalized/Entertainment pieces via social media, traffic typically declines to very low levels, while Resource/Educational based content tends to maintain much more stamina over prolonged periods of time.

Of course, Resource/Educational posts typically take much more time to create, often to the point of seeming prohibitive to many small and medium sized businesses.

Solution:
Launch with a fun News or Sensationalized/Entertainment type post to attract lots of traffic initially, and recruit the readers gained through the social media success of this post to add much more content ... hopefully to the point where the post becomes a resource.

Sometimes this is possible organically, but other times an incentive must be given. Incentives not always need be financial either. Some additional ideas are:
a. limited recognition (acknowledge their contribution)
b. links (link to the contributor's blog or site)
c. coupons (offer coupons for products
d. interviews with the person (if the reader appears very knowledgeable, perhaps award an interview)

Wouldn't it be great if we could transition a post from a Sensational piece to a Resource piece using little of our own time. Well, it can be done, and here's how.

At the end of your Sensationalized piece, ask the readers for more examples on the same topic (you may find that you want to reward people to do so). In any case, as social media readers contribute and add more resources, the piece becomes more of a resource. Ultimately, if it was a top 10 list to begin, and ends with 100 ... it has now become a tremendous resource.

Posted by Jeff Quipp at 7:00 AM | Permalink

Forget Google's 20% Jump, Baidu UP 78% In Month

The strength of Chinese search engine Baidu in the Asian market - beating Google in the valued China market - has been reflected in investor confidence it seems. While Google made back some of their recent drop in value, it is the 78% rise in Baidu over the past month that is truly impressive.

The Motley Fool asks "Do You Believe in Baidu?" And seem to present a good argument to do so.

"Baidu has been on the move in many ways, expanding outside its search engine stronghold with recent forays into instant messaging, consumer auctions, online games, and even a bold leap into the mature yet lucrative Japanese search engine market," they report.

Nice to see another engine growing in a Google like manner, both financially and corporately.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:03 AM | Permalink

April 22, 2008

Ebay Suing Craigslist For 'Diluting Investment' In Company

Minority interest holder, EBay is taking Craigslist to court for actions that have yet to specify have "diluted" their investment, the New York Times reported.

NYT reported:

“The recent actions by the Craigslist directors have disadvantaged eBay and its investment in Craigslist,” said Mike Jacobson, eBay’s senior vice president and general counsel, in a written statement. “Since negotiating our investment with Craigslist’s board in 2004, we have acted openly and in good faith as a minority shareholder, so we were surprised by these recent unilateral actions. We are asking the Delaware court to rescind these recent actions in order to protect eBay’s stockholders and preserve our investment.”

Sort of like the Coke commercial. What actions will be interesting to know given the wise stewardship the Craigslist officers have shown over the years. Though their continued mainly free service may not be popular with investors, it is a well-used and enjoyed destination for many web users.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Google Retains Top Brand, Microsoft Third

For the third straight year, Google has topped Millward Brown's annual ranking of top international brands, with Microsoft coming in third behind GE. The 2008 Brandz report reflected a growth of technology companies growing recognition.

This global survey "measure(s) the intangible value of a brand using customer interviews, market data and financial information," SFGate.com stated.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Google Sued for Ad Fraud; Another Class Action Settlement?

Today Google was slapped with a an advertising fraud lawsuit that will be fascinating – and important – for AdWords advertisers to watch.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, was filed by the firm of Kabateck Brown Kellner, on behalf of David Almeida, a Massachusetts-based private investigator. The lawsuit claims that Google defrauds advertisers by obscuring the fact that new AdWords campaigns are set by default to display ads on both Google’s search results pages (and like pages served by partners like AOL) and pages owned by site publishers who display AdWords ads via Google’s Adsense programs.

Readers of my weekly SEW Content Advertising column are familiar with this phenomenon, and my suggested best practice of creating separate search and content campaigns.

At the risk of making life harder for my friends at Google, I need to point out that the suit seems to get one important fact wrong. Reports today in CNET, Yahoo! Finance, Wired and other outlets imply that advertisers are presented with the ability to “opt out” of displaying ads on the content network during campaign creation. Here’s the way Yahoo puts it:

“During this process, users encounter two adjacent boxes. Into the first, customers enter the amount they wish to pay per "click" of an ad displayed on Google.com. The second box is marked "optional." Into this box, a user can enter the amount they would be willing to pay per "click" of an ad appearing on a third party web page. But leaving the box blank does not prevent ads from appearing on third-party sites.”

The truth is, advertisers don’t see this option during campaign creation. The only way for them to opt out