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19:31
There were lots of entertaining Super Bowl ads this year, but as an internet marketer, two interested me the most: Google’s first ever TV ad, and the new upstart, KGB.
Forget the fact that Google–the ambassador for new, measurable ads–ran an old-school TV ad, which do you think was the best of the two?
11:24
We finally have a Marketing Pilgrim fan page on Facebook!
I know, I know, it’s about time! But hear me out.
You see, I always figured that having a fan page on Facebook wouldn’t be of interest to Marketing Pilgrims. I thought a fan page was just an ugly expression of vanity–did I really feel like people loved this site enough to become a "fan" of it?
Then it struck me.
It’s not about being a fan, it’s about providing you with another way to enjoy Marketing Pilgrim’s posts. Maybe you’re not a big user of RSS, but would prefer to nom on our delicious posts, while throwing sheep or growing carrots. 
So, for those of you that wish to connect with us via Facebook, now you can.
Oh, and I might just run a Facebook only contest at some point in the near future–just in case you need an extra incentive to join our community.
5:38
So, a few days ago I was on Twitter and a friend of mine asked her followers how much she should pay a designer for a new logo. My response was, “well, pay them what ever they invoice you for.” She then explained that this designer didn’t know how to price his logos and needed help. I remember when I first started my business I had no idea how to price products. I used to spend days analyzing the market, comparing other products and thinking of different marketing options. And then one day I realized how simple pricing really is.
I was talking to a potential client over the phone and they asked me if I could give them a ball bark figure on how much their project would cost. At the time I already had several clients and didn’t see myself getting to their project for awhile. So I figured I would try something different with them. I ended up sending them a quote for about 3 times what I had ever charged a client, thinking that they would look at the quote and I would never hear from them again and that would be history. In a few hours they emailed me back and said that they thought the quote looked reasonable and they wanted to move forward! I thought to myself, wow! All I have to do is ask for it!
Now I realize that the correct price for a product is the highest amount that your market is willing to pay. And, the only way that you can find out what that amount is, is by asking for it. This type of pricing method is called Value Based pricing. With Value Base your price reflects the value that your market places on the product.
Now sure I know what you are thinking. Isn’t it dangerous to price yourself to high? Aren’t you afraid of pricing yourself out of the market? To answer these questions let’s take a look at Wally World. Here is a corporation that’s motto is “Always Low Prices”. When Sam Walton coined that phrase in 1962 he wasn’t just launching a insightful marketing campaign, he was in fact laying the groundwork for their future pricing structure. Walmart’s dominance is dependent on selling at low prices at high volume. As a result their stores across the world are always packed.
But do you really want to be like Walmart? I mean, sure they do a lot of business, but it’s all at very low profit margins. Now, let’s take a look at the other side of town and the shops on main street. These are the locally owned mom and pop joints that maybe your neighbor runs. These shops can’t compete with Walmart’s prices and as a result they do less business. Can you guess which business model I would rather have? Well, if you guessed the local mom and pop shop, you win! Running a business that caters to the market’s lowest price point will guarantee a steady flow of consumers. But you really need to ask yourself, do I really want to do business with the cheapest folks in my market? Trust me, you don’t, they are annoying and will eat up all your time and money.
So how can you start getting paid more for your products and services. Just start asking for more. Sure you run the risk of losing potential customers, but in the end the ones that agree to pay premium prices will leave your business truly valuing their time with you, which in turn, turns into referrals and other opportunities down the road! So start asking for more and quite trying to be the “Wally World” of your industry!
14:00
Last week, Facebook posted instructions on how to make FB your “personalized news channel” and minimize nonnewsworthy clutter on their blog. Inspired, Hitwise looked at the numbers, and it looks like Facebook is already well on its way as a news starting point.
Hitwise’s stats show that Facebook is well ahead of some other news aggregators in terms of sending downstream traffic to news websites:
After Google (17.32%), Yahoo (7.89%) and msn (4.43%), Facebook was the fourth most popular referrer for news websites. Says Hitwise:
News and Media is the #11 downstream industry after Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the social networking site’s traffic. To offer a comparison, 6% of downstream traffic from Facebook went to Shopping and Classifieds last week [check out their downstream retail traffic] and 6% to Business and Finance and 15% went to Entertainment websites (YouTube in particular).
Clearly, news isn’t the most popular post-Facebook activity, but the chart shows that it’s been growing steadily over the last several months. (Any ideas what the spike in April was about? Conficker?)
What do you think? Will Facebook be the next big destination for news?
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12:56
Two years ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M—and with the agreement that Bing would be providing web search on the world’s most popular social network. That deal is now expanding, according to the Bing blog—to not only take in an expanded, enhanced search but also more countries around the world. Most importantly, however, Bing is giving up its claim on selling Facebook advertising.
Their enhanced search is a joint effort between FB and Bing “to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users.” Right now, Bing provides the basic ten blue links through Facebook’s web search option, but that will expand to include “richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions,” in keeping with Bing’s “decision engine” branding. This partnership is also growing beyond the US to a worldwide agreement.
Before the last deal, Microsoft was selling advertising for Facebook in the US. The original deal expanded that relationship for Microsoft to sell display advertising on Facebook around the world. However, that’s all going away now:
[W]e made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site. We have been working together on advertising for a long time, creating the best experience for Facebook users and advertisers. Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy. MS will continue to provide search advertisements to Facebook.
At the time of the original deal, Facebook had more than 49M active users. Now, they’re up to well over 300M. While Bing is losing that display advertising market, they may be on their way out of selling advertising anyway with the pending Yahoo/MSFT deal.
What do you think? Is this a move up or down for Facebook and Bing individually?
8:18
I can hear it now. We normal folks won’t be able to hear this signal (kind of like a dog whistle) but this is being sounded across the US to Washington, DC from Mountain View, CA as we speak.
“Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! (Especially if you still have stock) I repeat – Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! This is your real leader, Eric Schmidt, and we need you to ‘talk’ to some people about this ‘problem’ that the US government has with our book deal. Remember where your allegiance is and who is more powerful. Go and do your duty for the Goog immediately. Thanks and have a great day!”
OK, so it really is a ridiculous thought but I bet the folks at Google wish that could happen when a road block like this happens to a deal that seems quite important to one of the most powerful companies in the world. Sfgate.com tells us
The Department of Justice said in a filing late Thursday that revisions to the proposed legal settlement allowing Google Inc. to publish millions of books online didn’t do enough to allay antitrust, copyright and other legal concerns.
The landmark deal would allow the Mountain View search titan to move ahead with its ambitious project while establishing a system for identifying and paying appropriate rights holders.
The government acknowledged “substantial progress” on several issues, but said in a statement filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that core concerns remain unresolved, including the amount of power granted to Google.
There is quite a bit at stake with this book deal for sure and there are those who are both for and against. Those against include library groups, academics and competitors who have privacy and anti-competitive concerns. Those for the deal include student, minorities and the disabled because the service would provide the ability to access more information than ever.
Google is doing an “act as if” and not really publicly recognizing this decision that could influence whether this gets past the government’s scrutiny or not. This whole drama has been two years in the making and Google has had a similar battle in Europe. Whether this will ever reach the point of an agreement that allows Google to do what is proposed for many out of print volumes is a major TBD (to be determined).
Google keeps running precariously close to the line that reads “If crossed people will yell monopoly!” I suspect they would like just one victory but whether that will happen in this case may be more out of their control than usual.
How do you feel about this book agreement? Have you followed it? Do you care? If Google gets the green light is it truly giving them to much power? If they can’t do it will any of these books ever be seen again by anyone?
8:10
Online reputation management isn’t always about big corporate brands. In fact, half of my book Radically Transparent is dedicated to building and managing personal reputations.
Just in case you’re not convinced that you need to worry about your personal reputation online, you might want to check out the interview I did with WCCO Radio:
In it I discuss three important themes:
If you’re not an audio person, the same advice was recently published on Yahoo Finance via an interview I did with Bankrate.com.
Drop a comment with any case studies or other risks you can think of. Thanks!
7:08
Facebook has begun introducing a new home page redesign to about 20% of the total 400 million ‘users’ of the social media platform. It appears as if the gist of the changes are just moving certain elements to different parts of the page so they can get more attention from users. More usage of the functionality means more stickiness means more opportunities to make cash. It’s that simple. Inside Facebook tells us
First off, a lot more people are engaging with notifications in the new design, Facebook’s Peter Deng tells us, which isn’t surprising since it’s at the top left-hand side of the site instead of the right hand of the bottom toolbar. Notifications for third parties will appear within the new interface for the rest of the month, until Facebook removes them on March 1.
Matthew Sanders put together a good group of photos here. While there are other changes on the way you have to like the way Mark Zuckerberg promises what is coming down the pike by saying:
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also tells us that the company is planning to roll out “something cool” every month from now on, but no word on what products we’ll see.
Is this the new leadership way? Tell people something that gets them interested but provide no real information about it or no road map? While I trust that Facebook is going to be innovating (they have to in order to figure out ways to get more cash from the service) we’ll sit back and relax until something actually happens rather than get all revved up about ‘the next big thing’.
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reports on one project that a Facebooker was willing to leak. It’s called Project Titan and it is a full blown webmail application for the service.
Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product. Internally it’s known as Project Titan. Or, unofficially and perhaps over-enthusiastically, the Gmail killer.
That’s some big talk about being a Gmail killer. The folks at Facebook should relax a bit on the hyperbole but hey you aren’t one of the cool kids these days if you aren’t taking swings at Google or having Google take swings at you, right?
So here’s to innovation at Facebook. So far it’s 20% of their accounts having a homepage redesign and the prospect of a webmail service and the promise of monthly improvements. Part of me is interested and another part of me wants to yawn.
13:44
And not in the positive “I now know 999 ways not to make a light bulb” way.
AOL’s Q4—their first earnings report since spinning off from Time Warner—numbers have all kinds of red ink and negative signs in front of them: display advertising revenue down 3% total YOY, international display down 22%, search and contextual down 19%, total ad revenue down 8%, subscription revenue down 28%, Other revenue down 5%. The only gain YOY was in US display advertising: a whopping 1%. And despite total revenues being down 17%, AOL still handily beat Wall Street expectations.
Yes, failure = success when people expect almost nothing of you. Says All Things D:
After factoring out one-time charges, AOL posted earnings of 71 cents per share on revenues of $801 million. Wall Street expected earnings of either 62 cents or 66 cents per share, depending on who you ask, on revenue of around $766 million.
And that earnings per share is way higher than, say, Yahoo (22¢).
Of course, the reason the expectations are so low is that none of this is a surprise. Time Warner ditched AOL for just this reason. (Boggles the mind to think that AOL originally bought TW. Crazy, isn’t it?) AOL has long been on the decline. Although CEO (and former Googler) Tim Armstrong is striving to retool sales in both personnel and strategy, their long slog might just mire them deeper in the red ink.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Time Warner got his expected raise.
What do you think? Can AOL survive?
12:32
Does your company have a formal policy on employee social media usage during the work day (or after)? If not, you’re not alone: a report from employment services firm Manpower shows that only 29% of companies have a formal social media policy in place.
Obviously, far more companies block popular social media sites—another study in October showed that half of all companies block YouTube, Facebook and/or Twitter. But, as Mashable points out, those two stats aren’t mutually exclusive: there’s a difference between a written policy and simply avoiding the issue with blocking sites.
Most companies with a written policy (63%) say that it’s effective. But social media policies can cover much more than just work hours. They can also cover the company’s assets: in a written social media policy, you can establish guidelines for what employees can and can’t mention in social media (trade secrets and insider trading type stuff should be obvious, but isn’t always—and naturally, these rules can go too far, and could become the subject of unlawful termination lawsuits. Woot.).
I’m pro written policies: make it clear that your employees are not to spend work time watching YouTube videos, and enforce it. (Fire them, if that’s the policy.) However, this gets a little trickier when you’re using social media for business purposes, as more and more of us are—and even more tricky when you got on LinkedIn to send a message to get the contact info for a vendor and get sucked into the Q&A for two hours. (Apparently, most workers spend less than 30 minutes a day on social networking sites—which may be why most employers haven’t felt it necessary to come out with formal policies. Yet.)
What do you think? Should companies have formal social media usage policies for employees?
10:33
Over the past few weeks I have been watching the Toyota recall fiasco out of the corner of my eye. It began as a news story (which is different than its actual start date) and it has not gone away. Well, you know the online “you know what” has hit the fan when you can go to Comedy Central’s site and see this
Now, it appears that Toyota has really done some serious long-term damage to one of the most respected brands in the world. How? By being slow to react and being aloof enough to give enough fodder to someone like Jon Stewart to skewer them. Sure Jon’s not NBC, ABC or CBS but he’s more influential
So what will this do to the car industry? Many other manufacturers will reap some of the benefit of Toyota getting bad press both online and off from the likes of traditional media and even Steve Wozniak. Yup, that Steve Wozniak. Jalopnik reports:
At a speech on Monday Wozniak claimed his new 2010 Toyota Prius, which isn’t under the current Toyota recall, randomly accelerated while in cruise control mode and that he could duplicate the event. After reading a similar story on Gizmodo Wozniak commented that he was having difficulty reaching the manufacturer to tackle his issue.
We called Toyota and they were clearly anxious to speak with Wozniak and so was he according to his assistant. “That’s exactly what we were hoping would happen,” she told Jalopnik. After passing on the contact info for a Toyota technical expert the company called us and asked us if we could actually send him Toyota U.S. President Jim Lentz’s personal number.
Ouch. Well, here is my totally unprofessional and unbiased thought on who could reap the greatest reward from Toyota’s mess. Hyundai. I say unbiased because I don’t own one and I get no remuneration for this opinion. I just hear really good things about their cars as of late. They have real strong word of mouth and what is the car buying public gonna do, turn to Detroit? Ha! Toyota with its feet dragging approach has left the door open for someone to knock them down several notches. I know they are off my list for future car purchases, what about yours? In this day and age if you can lay low and do some good work you can count on the top dog of your industry doing something really boneheaded at some point to create opportunity. And the mistakes of today are more deadly because of the online spread of the bad news. Where have you heard that before?
So here’s to Toyota’s taking the mantle for reputation gaffe of this short year. Can’t wait to see what the rest of 2010 holds regarding “stupid company tricks”.
8:16
I just noticed that my number of tweets just skyrocketed, according to Twitter.
Apparently, I tweeted 34,000 tweets overnight!
Here’s Google’s cache from last night:
And here’s what’s showing right now:
I’m not the only one to see this. My wife’s just jumped around 10,000 too.
Anyone else seeing this?
UPDATE: While this is annoying–I don’t want to appear as though I’m a tweeting windbag–it’s a known, low-priority bug, according to Twitter.
7:55
If you’re a government conspiracy theorist, you probably shouldn’t read this post. You won’t sleep for weeks.
The National Security Agency is rumored to be working with Google in light of the cyber attacks that reportedly came from China.
Think about that for a second. Big Brother just partnered with big brother, to try and fight off communist China.
Doesn’t that make you just feel so warm and fuzzy?
No one is publicly admitted that the NSA and Google are collaborating, but the source of the story isn’t some blogger looking for publicity, it’s The Washington Post–so there must be some smoke surrounding this alleged fire.
“The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?” said Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Erm, I think we’re there!
While it’s unlikely that Google’s going to hand over any user information, I still don’t like how close–and how quickly–Google is snuggling up with perhaps the scariest of all government agencies. This is the same agency that tapped your phones and emails without a warrant after 9/11. We’re supposed to feel confident it won’t take a poke around Google’s sensitive data?
Don’t get me wrong, Google is of the utmost importance to the USA. We can all agree on that, right? But, I still have an uneasy feeling about it working with the NSA. Especially when it’s a relationship that even Google doesn’t want to confirm publicly!
7:35
When people in the industry or anywhere else for that matter look to C-level participation in social media Sun’s CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, is viewed as a pioneer. He was the first Fortune 500 CEO to blog. Well, now he has broken some new ground by being the first CEO of his stature (or maybe any for that matter) to tweet his resignation. Yup, he’s given his last 140 characters on behalf of Sun Microsystems.
The New York Times Bits column says:
Jonathan Schwartz, the last chief executive of Sun Microsystems, has become the first Fortune 200 boss to tweet his resignation.
Late Wednesday night, Mr. Schwartz used Twitter to publish a haiku about his exit from Oracle, which just completed its purchase of Sun last week.
“Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more,” Mr. Schwartz wrote.
Mr. Schwartz has been fond of using the Internet as a soapbox. At Sun, he became the first chief executive of a major company to put up his own blog. Mr. Schwartz also pushed the Securities and Exchange Commission to put blogs on equal footing with press releases and filings when it comes to disclosing critical business matters to investors.
Considering the bad blood between Schwartz and his new boss Larry Ellison the resignation is not a surprise. Ellison last week said he expected the resignation was coming. Using Twitter as part of his resignation ‘process’ may have been a surprise, though. You have to give Schwartz credit for going out with a tweet.
Now it’ not like we are rooting for this to become a trend but I would suspect that many of you have your own favorite CEO that you would love to see craft a 140 character exit. (If you want to get creative and make a few for some of those folks feel free to leave them in the comments here). Are there any remaining social media firsts for business that you can think of?
In the end, what might be the best thing about all of this is the message of hope that we should all be focusing on that Schwartz left in an e-mail about his resignation.
As for what’s next, Mr. Schwartz said in an e-mail: “In the short run, I’m planning to spend some long overdue time with my family. Longer run, with a few million businesses and a few billion consumers on the Web, rumor has it there are some interesting opportunities to be had.”
Family time and opportunity. Now, that’s a good message and only 27 characters with spaces!
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7:10
According to a new study by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, marketers face a conundrum when it comes to increasing their online marketing budgets in 2010.
They want to do it, but 40% of those surveyed simply don’t have the budget to spend more on marketing this year.
What to do; what to do?
I know, let us reduce our spending on print ads (41%), radio (36%), and TV (31%):
And channel those funds into Facebook and Twitter (70%), blogging (64%), and SEO (64%):
Let’s hope these companies–and their agencies–can quickly figure out their ROI from social networking. Right now, only 17% of marketers say they have a good understanding of how sites such as Facebook and Twitter convert–compared to paid search ads (54%). Though those numbers stack up well against their current ROI measurement of print and radio, so maybe there’s hope.
12:37
When you think about geotagging, what do you think of? GPS coordinates appended to a Tweet? Picking the location you took a photo on Flickr?
How about notes from your friends? As customary, the US Patent Office recently published a patent filed by Yahoo in July 2008, and in that patent, geotagging takes on a whole new meaning. Instead of assigning pictures a location, you can actually leave notes at a location, accessible via mobile, and networked with your friends. Want to let your friends know what your favorite restaurant is? Add a tag. When they’re in the area, their phone will let them know about your tag. And that’s just the beginning.
As Read Write Web points out, this dovetails nicely with another patent filed the month before—one that provides video, audio and other info pertinent to the user’s location. This latest patent builds on both these ideas:
The technology described in this latest patent isn’t just location-based social networking, or Augmented Reality “air tagging” – it includes social graph analysis, permissioning, expiration dates, contextual advertising and more. It’s not just text notes, it includes methods of augmented reality with photos, videos and more. While the most popular mobile augmented reality apps on the market today focus on text on top of locations – there’s no reason why reality can’t be augmented in other ways as well.
Notes can also be tied to non-stationary objects, including people (well, more likely their phones) and vehicles.
The patent is not yet granted—once a patent is published, the USTPO reviews it in due time.
Google has made a few location inroads—Latitude to publish users’ locations, a year ago, and “Near Me Now” to offer nearby business suggestions, last month. However, if Yahoo is currently developing the technology to make their patents a reality, Google has a long way to go to catch up.
Yahoo isn’t the first to develop solutions for augmented reality—but they might be the best known. With the huge userbase they already have, they probably stand a better chance than most of the competitors in the field.
What do you think? Will Yahoo pursue this technology—and if so, will they lead the way for mass adoption?
10:01
YouTube conducted its first test of a video rental service last month with five independent films from Sundance Film Festival. In the ten days of the test, the rentals received a total of 2684 views, according to the New York Times. At $3.99 a pop, YouTube brought in $10,709.16.
If YouTube could sustain both of those rates on rentals at large, they’re looking at more than $390,000 a year in revenue. That’s close to offsetting waaaay off the largest loss estimate from last year and more than enough to turn a profit if even the more conservative loss estimates.
The original blog post announcement doesn’t say how much of the revenue, if any, will be shared with the independent filmmakers. The additional exposure may be worth the money to the filmmakers, of course.
But to expand the program with large studios, YouTube will doubtlessly need to share revenue, cutting into their profits. YouTube first has been rumored to be discussing rentals with major studios (or free showings) for months. They already have a number of content deals in place with studios including Disney, MGM, and Lions Gate.
As always, we’ll end with the question: Do you think this is the way YouTube will make the big bucks?
7:52
Do you use the same username and password across multiple web sites?
Then you’re not welcomed at Twitter!
That may sound like an exaggeration, but read this statement from Twitter, then you tell me if I’m exaggerating:
The takeaway from this is that people are continuing to use the same email address and password (or a variant) on multiple sites. Through our discussions with affected users, we’ve discovered a high correlation between folks who have used third party forums and download sites and folks who were on our list of possibly affected accounts. While not all users who were sent a password reset request fall into this category, we felt that it was important to put this knowledge out there so that users would know of the possibility of compromise of their data by a third party unrelated to their Twitter account. We strongly suggest that you use different passwords for each service you sign up for…
The front-end of this story is that Twitter is forcing many users to reset their passwords after it concluded that evil torrent sites were harvesting login credentials. Although, at least one person suggests that the issue goes beyond this.
Now, here’s the thing, BILLIONS of people use the same username and password across different sites. Just think about your parents–do you really think they could handle using a different login for each site that requests one? I think not.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink the “login.” Maybe Twitter et al could lead the way in developing a new system of authentication. One idea, ask users to provide their IP address and whitelist it. Any changes that appear to take place from a different IP–say the rapid increase of Twitter accounts followed–could be “rolled back” to a previous state–one that matches the whitelisted IP, perhaps?
I dunno. You tell me. Is there a better system for authenticating social networking users?
3:08
I just read a sales page for an information product
Read more on I Use Aggressive Hype & Obnoxious Tactics To Fool People…
No tag for this post.Related posts
0:38
It looks like more people want to join the anti-Google chorus because it is the cool thing to do. Of course, if you want to be unique you can’t just use regular old curse words because Steve Jobs took that one. Rupert Murdoch doesn’t really call Google names but he does think that their business is taking advantage of his hard work. So what to do?
Enter Mark Cuban and if history is any indicator he’s good for a quote or two right? Well as MediaPost reports he didn’t disappoint at a new York OnMedia event.
Outspoken billionaire cum provocateur Mark Cuban charged Google and other content aggregators Tuesday of being freeloaders — or worse. “The word that comes to mind is vampires,” he said. “When you think about vampires, they just suck on your blood.”
Cuban, who some might call a futurist and heads HDNet, said aggregators are effectively making money off others’ expensive news-gathering.
He urged newspapers and others to block Google News from linking to their sites. “Show some balls,” he said.
So how do you really feel, Mr. Cuban? Bashing Google is a favorite pastime of many business people these days so maybe he couldn’t resist. It’s hard to tell if Google is really evil or if others are fed up or just jealous. Either way it makes for interesting reading when the news is slow. Of course, not everyone thinks that Google has them over a barrel.
After Cuban delivered a keynote address Tuesday, he sat on a panel along with Huffington Post Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman, who said his company will be the anti-Murdoch. It has no intention to do anything but remain a fully ad-supported operation. “One hundred percent advertising,” Coleman said.
Coleman said the company is not daunted by a free-content world, and has “a huge wonderful business with Google right now.” Huffington Post has some cost advantages in a lean staff and no legacy distribution expenses.
Since this whole conversation has been going on long enough maybe Mr. Cuban’s call for publishers to “show some balls”, while not exactly common business terminology, is on point. If paywalls and Google blocking are the wave of the future maybe it’s just time to give it a shot and see if the idea has legs.
Have you had enough of this already?
23:29
Google continues to bring more and more functionality to the Google experience and in a huge coincidence the latest improvements only run on Android phones. Hmmm……wonder why they would do that?
In a nutshell, Android devices can now access searches made on your computer or other devices. If you do a search query on your desktop then hit the road with your Android phone you can now have that search available on the go. The Official Google Mobile Blog states
If you often use both a computer and a mobile phone in your daily routine, it can seem like a hassle when they don’t stay in sync. You might spend time on your computer looking for a great used bookstore, only to forget the name of the place when you are ready to get directions from your phone. Sure, you could print directions in advance, but we believe smartphones are “smart” because they save you time. That’s why today we’re making your phone a bit smarter with the introduction of personalized suggestions and synchronized starring in Google Maps for mobile on Android.
Google continues to make these kinds of updates aimed directly at the market that is making smartphone choices. If there is a chance to jump ship from say, Verizon, it can be tempting to go over to AT&T for the iPhone. In my case, I have a BlackBerry Storm that needs to be replaced. I have thought about an iPhone forever but Android phones are looking like a strong choice because of my near dependency on Google services. My iPod Touch can do the app thing but carrying two devices kinda sucks. Honestly, though, it may be worth the hassle if Google is going to just do more on the Android phone.
The blog gives a scenario where this feature could come in handy
Personalized suggestions make it easy to find places you’ve previously searched for. For example, imagine you’re on your computer and you come across the Place Page for Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe. After reading reviews, you decide to stop in for lunch. When you’re ready to go and want to get directions, just open Google Maps on your phone, start typing “mar,” and you’ll quickly see a suggestion – saving you from re-typing a long query and making it easier and faster to be on your way.
The fight is definitely on between Google and just about everyone else. It gets some people like Steve Jobs pretty riled up. What’s more important though is that it gets customers fired up to have a smartphone that helps them be more efficient with the tools that they already rely on for efficiency.
This is only going to get more intense so fasten your seat belts and be ready for the fireworks should be created that the rest of this year and many more to come.
13:43
We’ve seen the trend for a long time: social networks are sending more and more downstream traffic to retail sites. Hitwise has the numbers from December—and the downstream traffic from social networks is up 37%.
The change doesn’t look super significant, I know, but it’s the biggest percentage increase for any category. Fewer people are starting at retailers’ sites or through permission email, so search engines and social media are more important than ever.
So is it more because users are recommending deals to their friends, or is it because of retailers’ presence on social networks? Likely both. Hitwise found that many users were actively seeking info on popular retailers.
As an example, we ran a custom analysis of internal searches on Facebook to look for retail brands during the holiday season. . . . During the holidays over 2% of the traffic to Facebook (the 2nd ranked website in the US) visited a website in the Retail 500 immediately after. Retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Bath & Body Works (and others) all appeared within the internal searches taking place on Facebook signifying that consumers were actively seeking their content and offerings.
The first week of December, that rate topped 3%. With 175M daily visitors, even 3% is nothing to sneeze at.
What do you think? Is this proof that even big brands should be on social media? Or should they focus their efforts elsewhere?
11:25
The Associated Press has long had a rocky relationship with the Internet. Two years ago, they were suing people for linking to their stories. Then they sent C&Ds to people using short quotes. After much deliberation, they decided that you could quote them for free—if you used less than five words. After that, prices started at $12.50.
However, they have had a few things worked out. Way back in 1998, they came up with a limited deal for sharing with sites like Yahoo and Google News (which obviously didn’t come until later), which expired late last month. Although they have reached a new agreement, Google stopped adding new AP stories in December, but will continue to host old ones. Now the AP has expanded their deal—with Yahoo.
Perhaps Google’s AP-free move was to prove that they don’t need the AP (and thus don’t need to pay as much for their deal)—but it may also backfire. AP stories may continue to be hosted on Yahoo Finance, like the story about the deal itself. But don’t think the AP’s got the Internet figured out quite yet. They may be making money, but they’ll soon fix that:
Besides pumping Internet companies for more money [and remember, this story was written by the AP], the AP also wants more cooperation in its effort to ensure its material isn’t appearing on unauthorized sites. As part of its crackdown, the AP is testing a system that tracks where its stories are being read. Yahoo pledged to enforce “the strictest standards” to protect the AP’s content.
Leading up to Yahoo agreement, AP CEO Tom Curley said the cooperative was considering whether to separate its online content into different tiers so exclusive stories might cost more than breaking news reports widely available elsewhere on the Web.
Sources close to the deal say Yahoo avoided the tiered pricing system.
What do you think? Is the AP getting this Internet-thingy figured out? Or are they another old-school media that won’t survive much longer without radical rethinking?
8:42
Google is so good at what it does that it actually uncovers illegal acts and helps bring perpetrators to justice. Well that may be a bit of a stretch but in the “is that really news department” is an incident where the roving Google camera caught a Canadian tree-killer in the act. As a result, the parties that were committing “treeicide” (not a real word, I know but this is a blog, remember) may find themselves facing some significant fines.
Forget about all of those ubiquitous police surveillance cameras in your city: the new sheriff in town is that shifty Google Maps camera wheeling through your neighborhood.
Recently, a property owner in Canada was charged with illegal removal of trees after a Google camera helped capture the evidence, according to CanWest News Service.
Last May in Vancouver, Margaret Burnyeat allegedly hired a company to remove 23 cedar, cypress and evergreen trees from two adjacent lots she owned. Neighbors alerted the police, who found some stumps that hadn’t yet been removed.
Luckily for the city, one of Google’s Street View cameras — strapped to cars and driven through neighborhoods to photograph high-resolution, 360-degree images that are then linked to Google’s online mapping tool — caught some of the culprits in action.
The picture that brought them down
What is ironic about all of this is the adversarial relationship that exists between the roving Google camera and the Canadian government. Things between the two have been a little rough in the past.
Ironically, Canadian authorities have been some of the most resistant to the presence of Google’s controversial cameras in streets. The company launched its Street View service in parts of the U.S. and Canada in 2007 and have since expanded to 12 other countries.
But after the Canadian privacy commissioner and others raised questions about whether the roaming cameras were legal, because Google collected identifiable images of people without their consent, the company implemented an automated feature that blurs faces and license plates. The company will also consider removing some images from its service upon request from the public or governments.
So what’s the takeaway here? Be careful what you do because you never know when Google Agent 007 is looking. He seeks justice under the guise of recording locations without your permission. Isn’t he slick?
7:46
Let me ask you something, are you happy with the search results you receive from Google?
If you were to guess how often Google gives you exactly the result you were searching for–on your first search query–what would that look like? 40% of the time? 60%? 90%?
I’d say that for me, Google gives me precisely what I was looking for, less than 50% of the time–at least out of the gate. I find I have to refine my query before I get the desired set of search results.
Would I be better off asking my network of friends? Social search engine Aardvark’s new research paper suggests that might be the case:
70.4% of answers were deemed to be ‘good’, with 14.1% as ‘OK’ and 15.5% were rated as bad.
So, if you stretch it here, almost 85% of Aardvark users were satisfied with the answers provided to them by their network of peers. That’s not too shabby, right?
It’s even more impressive when you consider that Aardvark users tend to use the service for those really complex search queries:
The average query length was 18.6 words (median of 13) versus 2.2-2.9 words on a standard search engine…98.1% of questions asked on Aardvark were unique, compared with between 57 and 63% on traditional search engines.
Combined with the revelation that more people use Aardvark on their cell phones than their desktops–which some predict is the future hot area for search–and you could easily surmise that Aardvark is poised to kick Google’s butt.
Ah, but this wouldn’t be a Marketing Pilgrim post if there wasn’t at least a little cynicism.
For Aardvark, its Achilles heel is something I’ve dubbed "participation fatigue."
You see, what happens when the novelty of Aardvark wears thin? What happens when the site’s user base grows beyond the current 90,361? What happens when the thinly sliced group of users that answer questions, get overwhelmed and start dropping out?
86.7% of Aardvark users had been asked by Aardvark to answer a question, of whom 70% actually looked at the question and 38% could answer. 50% of all members had answered a question (including 75% of all users who had ever actually interacted with the site), though 20% of users accounted for 85% of answers.
Google doesn’t suffer from participation fatigue–it’s spiders and algorithms never grow weary of answering your questions. Aardvark’s future is bright, but the dark cloud on the horizon is its reliance on humans. Humans that have a tendency to get bored easily and move on. If it can overcome that, then it might have a shot.
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7:42
Google continues to reach into the application side of the web wholeheartedly while dabbling in the device area as well. It is likely that Google is smart enough to see what happened to the PC industry when it was finally realized that “It’s the application, stupid!”. As a result it looks like Google is readying another opportunity to get deeper into the application game while turning the corner from being totally “free” to generating revenue from their efforts. Imagine that. Revenue.
The Wall Street Journal reports
Google Inc. is preparing to launch a store selling online business software that integrates with its Web services, according to people briefed by the company, enlisting software developers in its battle against Microsoft Corp.
These people said the store will sell business software designed by outside developers to integrate and add capabilities to Google Apps, such as enhanced security features or the ability to import contacts. Google Apps provides Web-based email, word-processing and spreadsheet functions.
Google could announce the new store—a revamped version of its Solutions Marketplace site that features third-party programs—as soon as March, they said.
The revenue side of this is that Google would so a revenue share with the developers thus getting a piece of everything sold through this online marketplace. Google is officially shying away from an actual announcement but it makes sense that they would head in this direction. The goal is to take a bite out of Microsoft’s lead in this area for the enterprise. The smallest of the SMB’s of the world can usually get by with free versions of the tools but the enterprise requires more functionality. Google has been making inroads in getting larger customers to use the Google apps platform like the City of Los Angeles and others.
Google says more than two million businesses are using the paid or free version of Google Apps. There are around 500 million users of Microsoft Office, according to Microsoft.
Google is turning to developers to help fill the holes and develop features its online software lacks, such as specialized editing software or tools to access online files offline.
The new store borrows a page from other technology companies including Apple Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc., which have tried to broaden the appeal of devices and software by opening up to outside developers.
While some bemoan the fact that Google is looking to charge for something that they feel should be free I think those days are finally starting to move along. Free doesn’t pay the bills and there is absolutely NO obligation to any company to provide the people as a whole with free services. None. So if anyone barks about the idea of charging for online business software they are missing the point. It takes money to do this stuff.
There is plenty of opportunity for sure. And we can be assured that where there is opportunity there will be Google.
7:18
As long time readers will know, I released Autostumble back in April 2008 (wow, yes coming up two years ago). At the time, it absolutely wtfpwned StumbleUpon and our network delivered just under half a million vote swaps.
The program went through a few versions, having various features added on the way and multiple fixes as StumbleUpon desperately tried to keep its pants up. The final (version 4, which was fixed in such a hurry it came out the factory with “v3″ still plastered on) was the last incarnation of the application.
Unfortunately, the time taken to monitor the network, answer support e-mails and keep the fixes coming was consuming more time than I ever intended. I worked with another dev to get an online version up, but that never got to a stable launch, so the whole thing basically gathered dust.
So three things:
1) I’ve released the Autostumble source code for download for anyone that wants to have a crack at reverse engineering it.
2) For those that can’t code There is actually a really nice copy of Autostumble which works, that is currently doing pretty well from what I can see. It also has a function to add reviews, which AutoStumble never had. So, if you still want to swap some stumbles, that’s the place to go.
3) I talked to the guy that runs it, and he has arranged this voucher code for old Autostumble users: AutoStumbleOld
Enter that code and you’ll get a pretty nice $20 off.
I’ve been working hard with the development team at the full-time SEO company I work at to develop some really nice apps for the SEO world, which shall be surfacing in Q2 of 2010. It’s really surprising what you can achieve when you have a team of full-time developers to help.
Anyway for now:
Coders can get Autostumble source code.
Marketers can get a working Autostumble type program.
This is all. [insert vague promising of posting more here].
13:56
Basically since Twitter became popular, there have been companies offering “pay for followers” services. Back in August, for example, we talked about one company offering 1000 followers for $87. But it turns out those followers are way overpriced—the going rate on eBay is less than 1¢ per follower, as TechCrunch reports.
Some of the Buy-It-Now listings include 5,000 followers for $20 (which comes to 0.4 penny/follower), $5,500 for $40 (0.7 penny/follower), $1,100 for $10 (0.9 penny/follower). You are not actually buying followers outright (Twitter doesn’t allow people to transfer their followers), but rather services which “guarantee” getting your account up to the promised number of followers through “proven and safe methods.” Some even only count reciprocal followers (followers who follow back).
The best part, of course, is exactly how they accomplish this—you guessed it. Probably bots and spam accounts (Mechanical Turks Chinese, actually), though TC isn’t certain all the eBay purveyors use that kind of service. No wonder only 17% of Twitter users are considered active!
As TC points out, it seems like there should be some countermeasures for this from Twitter. Suggestions include such things as Verified User status, a metric of measuring engagement through ReTweeting/DMs/conversations/tweets, or displaying last login.
What do you think? How can Twitter make attracting legit followers more attractive than a fraction of a penny per fake follower?
13:44
In case you missed it, Facebook updated its privacy settings in December. The resulting debacle resulted in complaints to the FTC (even though Facebook consulted with the commission before the change).
But, as it turns out, the new privacy changes—where a message prompted users to update their privacy settings—have (surprise, surprise) gotten more Facebook users thinking about their privacy. In fact, Facebook Director of Public Policy Tim Sparapani said that 35% of Facebook users who had never before consulted their privacy settings have now updated them.
Let me say that again, quoting the BayNewser:
In other words, [35% of] Facebook users who had never previously configured their privacy settings now configured them. (Not, as it could be read, one-third of the subset of Facebook users, in which the subset included all people who had never configured their settings before.)
And one more time: they are not saying that only one-third of users have changed their privacy settings and the other two-thirds just took the defaults as some are reporting.
The clarification comes from the BayNewser, which attended the fact-finding “Exploring Privacy” roundtable held by the FTC at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (although, admittedly, the comments they printed from Sparapani are ambiguous, I’m hoping they double checked his meaning, hence the clarification).
Sparapani said that the industry average it 5-10% of users who actively engage with privacy settings, putting Facebook well ahead of the curve. He didn’t comment on the exact number of users that have changed their settings, for the first time or overall, nor how many had changed their settings before last December.
What do you think? Are more Facebook users really engaging with their privacy settings—and if so, what are they setting them to?
10:47
Jeff "Dell Hell" Jarvis sat down recently with an impressive line-up of Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, President of sales Nikesh Arora, search boss Marissa Mayer, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, and counsel David Drummond.
During that meeting, a lot of interesting topics were covered, including a potential new level of transparency for AdSense’s earnings split:
Google told me today that they would consider giving more transparency about revenue splits in Adsense…Arora said that the company was considering more transparency. I confirmed with Google’s people that this was new. I suspect that they’re not going to promise the possibility and not deliver something.
And now that Jarvis–and now us–are blogging about it, let’s hope we can push them forward with this new transparency!
The discussions also included talk of China, Google’s reputation, the economy, and whether Google might build an iPad competitor:
Will they have a tablet? “You might want to tell me what the difference is between a large phone and a tablet,” Schmidt said.
We’ll take that as a "yes" then Eric!
6:57
Well, that’s a mighty big number isn’t it? While I hate to admit it I am one of those people doing just that because it has become a bit of a habit. I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. In fact, my technique is to see what my friends have said, maybe say something I feel that there may be ANY interest whatsoever, rarely if ever talk business then get out. For me Facebook holds the potential to be a tremendous time waster so although I log in I don’t stick around for long at all.
But I am one of just 175 million that use Facebook to some degree daily. This fact was stated by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg as she was interviewed by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Some of Arrington’s comments:
A year ago Facebook had 150 million users, and more than 200 million people visited the site monthly. I noted “You realize it’s like 1 in 5 people in the world that are on the internet visit Facebook.” Sandberg replied, joking “So we have 4 in 5 more to go.”
The thing is, they’re well on their way to getting those other 4. Facebook has more than doubled in size to 350 million registered users in the last year. By this summer well over half of all Internet users will likely visit Facebook each month.
What’s more dramatic – Half of all registered users still log in to Facebook every day, says Sandberg in the interview. That’s 175 million people. And that doesn’t include Facebook Connect logins, only those people that visit the Facebook website.
The numbers start to become a bit staggering but the one nagging question is revenue and profitability. When asked about this Ms. Sandberg seemed a bit evasive in her answer
Yeah. So, I think this was the year that we changed from being experimental ad platform to really being able to go big and we are going big in lots of ways. What Facebook does and I think we do uniquely well which is part of why I’m so excited about the Facebook opportunity when I was offered it two years ago is we’re a place where users express themselves and we’re a place where people share. And when you think about building brands(ph), not just giving someone something they search but before they search. When they’re talking about who they are and affiliating and, you know, finding things typical demand generation, which is still 90% of global ad spenders(ph). I think we’re best property anywhere, with any media to do that because friends want you to affiliate. They want you to say, you know, I am, you know, a Starbucks drinker. I like Starbucks latte and they want you to tell your friends about it.
Huh? It only got less understandable from there. So what is my takeaway on this one? Facebook has a lot of users but is still struggling to monetize this huge traffic flow.
Maybe this would be a good time to ask the question: When you are on Facebook do you pay attention to the ads? If you do how often do you click through? My answer is never unless an ad is offensive then I will rate it. As far as something getting my attention enough to make me curious to buy? Not yet. Maybe I’m the exception of that 175 million but I doubt it.
4:44
I hope it doesn’t get much worse but the war of devices between Apple and Google is quickly deteriorating into a war of words. This type of war never ends well when it is played out in the public forum. Steve Jobs has set a very low bar with regard to standards by some of his words following the iPad announcement. Considering how he sounded after the announcement one wonders if the naming of the device explains his ‘moodiness’.
After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.
On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
It doesn’t take much for things to get worse from this point and it is likely that they will. In fact, over at the Business Insider we get the report on just what Google is thinking with regard to Apple from Apple’s former board member and Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.
Today, a reporter asked Eric what he thinks of Apple’s new iPad. His answer: “You might want to tell me the difference between a large phone and a tablet.”
So is now time for the CEO’s to start tossing insults at each other as they become direct competitors? Let’s hope not. Wouldn’t it be real interesting if they would each just keep their mouths closed about each other, talk about their own products and innovations and then let the buying public decide? I think it would but I suspect that considering the size of the companies involved, the amount of money at stake and the Mt. Everest like egos at the helms we have yet to hear the end of this schoolyard name-calling and back-stabbing. Jobs even went on to call Adobe “lazy with regard to its approach to business and how Flash will be replaced by HTML5. While the latter may be true is it really necessary for the insults? Looks like Steve wants to yell at everyone. Oh brother.
So get ready everyone for the new way to compete in the new media world. Shout the loudest and then throw a hissy fit and best of all, use a curse word or two to sound tough. If this is where this is heading this will get real old, real fast.
5:17
So the other day, I was talking to a client about a new project they want to begin in the next couple of months. From their mindset this project is going to be huge and may redefine their organization in the coming years. As part of this new project they want a sophisticated web presence. They read off a list of different social networks and services that they want their new site to engage. My first thought was Wow I am going to bill them out the ying yang for all this! But, then my conscience kicked in (yes, I have one), and I had to ask, “do you think all of this is necessary?” They were kind of surprised with my question and responded, “well yes, why wouldn’t it be?”. I then asked them, “well. what are your goals with each service?” They didn’t really say much after that.
We are all quick to jump the gun and want our brands to be engaged with every network, every outlet, and be plugged into every gadget. But, sometimes we loose sight of our goals and dive right in head first. Some believe that you can define your goals later, after you have built your brand. But others understand that having too many points of contact can confuse your base and scare away those that want to engage.
Building a clear and concise strategy is key to every successful internet marketing campaign. Without a strategy you risk wasting resources and missing the folks that matter.
I am a very visual thinker. So when I am building a new strategy I like to create a “mind map”. A mind map is basically a diagram of thoughts. By putting your thoughts in a visual format you can see parallels and patterns that might reveal your strongest ideas. Below is an example mind map that I created just for this post. I like to start with a main idea like “Brand Building” and then work on supporting ideas. You can see from the example mind map below that Twitter will play a large roll in this strategy. Which means that I need to put more resources into managing the brand’s Twitter account versus starting a LinkedIn account. By building this visual strategy I am preparing myself to succeed by identifying the strongest areas and eliminating the others.
(click to enlarge)
Building mind maps are a quick and easy way to see your thoughts and minimize wasted resources as the campaign grows. However, it can also serve as an excellent brainstorming activity for team of people that need to manage branding efforts as a whole. By doing this you can get everyone on the same page and develop a framework for moving forward. So before you start your next project consider mapping out your thoughts first! I guarantee doing so will create a more efficient and targeted strategy!
12:59
Everybody wants free money, right? Well, here’s one way to get it: find a bug in Google Chrome or Chromium, the open source code database behind the browser. Google is offering intrepid developers from $500 for pointing out “select interesting and original vulnerabilities.” The maximum award is $1337—no, seriously. You guys are just so freaking funny.
Of course, not just any bug will do—no need to spell check the GUI. The goal is to minimize security vulnerabilities in the browser, so only bugs along those lines will be eligible. They’re focusing on “high and critical impact” bugs, but “clever vulnerabilities” of any security level could be rewarded as well. To submit the bug, just use the usual Chromium bug tracker with the Security Bug template.
The maximum payout, of course, is reserved for bugs whose impact would be severe if not fixed. The dollar amount is a “clever” nod to the leet speak used among hackers. In the blog post, Google gives a nod to their inspiration, the Mozilla vulnerability reward program.
Most developers will be eligible to participate, however, “residents of countries where the US has imposed the highest levels of export restriction (e.g. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria)” cannot receive rewards, nor can minors (though Google says they’ll work with an adult representing a minor). Participants are also asked not to publicly disclose reported bugs until Google addresses them—then they’re free to speak openly.
What do you think? Did your weekend plans just change ?
11:07
Microsoft saw Windows 7 carry them to a strong fourth quarter last year—but its Online Services division (home of Bing) didn’t see a boost, according to the official reports. Microsoft emphasized Bing’s growth and the fact that their search advertising somewhat offset other losses, but the division still operated for a loss.
Microsoft reported $17.3B in revenue ($0.60/share), including a deferral of $1.7B on the Windows 7 release. They were expected to hit $17.9B ($0.59/share). For the quarter, the Online Services division saw $581M in revenue (down 5% YOY), and an operating loss of $466M (a 46% increase over last year).
Microsoft emphasized the gain in search market share and search advertising revenue. Much of the division’s losses ($29M, a 14% YOY loss) came from the Access department, Microsoft’s ISP and subscriptions to online paid services. Online advertising also saw a decline ($11M, a 2% YOY loss) but Microsoft claimed that, without the Access numbers, the Online Services division was inline with industry losses for online advertising. The losses came from display, but search’s increase wasn’t enough to counteract those losses completely.
Naturally, Microsoft closes the disappointing report with a note of (what they hope will be) good news:
On December 4, 2009, we entered into a definitive 10-year agreement with Yahoo! Inc. (“Yahoo”) whereby Microsoft will provide the exclusive algorithmic and paid search platform for Yahoo websites. We believe this agreement will allow us over time to improve the effectiveness and increase the value of our search offering through greater scale in search queries and an expanded and more competitive search and advertising marketplace. The transaction is subject to regulatory review; we expect to close the transaction in fiscal year 2010.
What do you think? Will the deal with Yahoo—where Yahoo’s display advertising and Bing’s search (and search advertising?) will run for both sites—improve both their fortunes?
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8:44
A new study commissioned by Microsoft is about, of all things, googling yourself. I guess that if someone had used the phrase “binging yourself” there may be laws about that in many states but the irony of this is not lost on me. At any rate, the study shows that there aren’t as many people keeping an eye on what their personal online reputation looks like. Consider the people who are googling other people as a part of their job (ie. human resources types) this could be something that comes back to bite you.
Search Engine Land gives us some of the background
The numbers come from a December survey commissioned by Microsoft on the subject of online reputations. The survey polled about 2,500 consumers and recruiting personnel in the US, UK, Germany and France, and was just released to coincide with today’s International Data Privacy Day.
The chart below says that 42% of the people in the US have googled themselves or looked up their online information using a search engine.
If you would like to get the study it can be found on the Microsoft site.
Either people in Germany and France are more online reputation monitoring savvy or more paranoid but they seem to get the concept more so than the US and the UK.
So what are the pitfalls of not googling yourself on a regular basis (please keep the wisecracks to a minimum)? Ask an HR professional. If you are in the US they are paying very close attention to what is online about you and it can have dire consequences for job hunters.
While those of us in the US may not be Googling ourselves, the Human Resources industry is picking up the slack. According to the survey, 79 percent of US hiring personnel say they review online information about job applicants, and 70 percent admit to rejecting candidates based on what they’ve found. Those numbers drop dramatically for each of the other countries surveyed, with France the most different: Only 23% of recruiters there review online information, and only 14% have rejected candidates.
In addition to search engines which the study showed is the most popular way for HR types to learn about you the are also paying attention to social networking sites, photo and video sharing sites and professional / business networking sites.
One thing to note for you folks who suffer from having a common name that it seems like millions of others do. If you think that you can hide behind the fact that there are a lot of people with the same name all anyone needs to do is add a small qualifier to see just who you really are. I looked at just “Frank Reed” v “Frank Reed internet” and the results are quite different as they are much more directed at me. Any savvy HR searcher is not going to just look at your name and feel like they have done their due diligence.
It’s pretty simple; be careful with what you put ANYWHERE online. We hear that a lot but everyday the reports of ‘stupid human tricks online’ grow. Remember that according to some of the more influential people in this space like Google’s Eric Schmidt and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg privacy is not something to be expected anymore. If you are not monitoring this yourself it’s your fault if you get caught not Google’s.
8:07
Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, or a heart-warming story of a bad guy that’s now fighting evil?
Social network Tagged.com has been the subject of many email spamming complaints in its life. Now the company has been awarded $210,975 in a default judgment against a spammer.
In a ruling issued earlier this week, a U.S. District Court Judge in the northern district of California found Vogeler guilty of sending messages to 6,079 Tagged users and assessed damages of $25 per violation for a total of $151,975. Court also ordered Vogeler to pay Tagged $50,000 in attorneys’ fees and to cease sending commercial emails through Tagged.com.
That money will go a long way towards covering the $750,000 in fines the company had to cough up in November of last year.
Is this a case of no honor among thieves or has Tagged.com turned over a new leaf?
22:14
If you are aware of SAS, a company located in Cary, NC then you understand or have a need to understand business analytics. As the largest privately-held software company in the world, SAS often flies under the radar because what they do isn’t sexy. Instead, it is necessary.
Necessary business functions don’t get the same attention or play that the exciting new and ‘edgy’ companies get. SAS is OK with that though. If you’ve ever visited their campus and saw how they treated their employees, you may quickly value necessary over sexy. A result of this reverence for their employees, the company merited the top spot on Fortune’s Top 100 Best Companies to Work For list this year. Actually you can find the company somewhere on that list just about every year but this year it’s number 1.
So what does a company that provides some of the most advanced business analytics software and services do to better reach out to customers and prospects? Turns to social media. That’s right, it moves toward what many see in the B to B space as a potentially risky practice. If any company was able to assess risk though, SAS is it.
As part of a continuing effort to give our readers some real life examples of social media in action we are looking today into the B to B space. I have had the pleasure of getting to know the Social Media Manager for SAS, Dave Thomas (On Twitter he is @DavidBThomas). As a social media practitioner he is very good. Here are some insights offered as he guides SAS through the social media maze.
Frank: How did you get into the social media game and when?
Dave: I’ve been active in social media since 1994, when I joined my first Internet forum. My first experience blogging was in 2002 when I wrote the official blog for the Iceland Airwaves music festival, and started my own blog in 2003. I’ve always loved the openness and authenticity that social media brings to online communication. I started at SAS in 2007 as a corporate PR representative, and I now have the job of shaping and guiding our evolving social media presence for SAS.
Frank: How did SAS decide that social media is a good direction?
Dave: In 2007 we put together a group called the Marketing 2.0 Council to identify the areas we wanted to address. We came up with a short list that included blogs, social networks, video, podcasting, Wikipedia and content syndication. We realized that none of it mattered without good information to share, so we added content to the list as an overarching topic. We were looking at all of these before Twitter started to grow, but we’ve added it to the list since.
We created task forces to look at each of the areas and ended up with a comprehensive list of recommendations. The council also recommended the creation of a social media manager position, which is the job I have now, creating our strategy as well as implementation plans, and helping communicate the value of social media to all 11,000 SAS employees worldwide.
Frank: Only 11,000? No problem right? How has that come together over the past two years?
Dave: SAS has some definite advantages that help us in social media. We have a lot of incredibly intelligent and talented people who are experts and thought leaders in their fields. We also have a dedicated and enthusiastic base of SAS users all over the world who are really passionate about our products. Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more interaction among SAS employees and customers on blogs, in social networks and on Twitter, and most of that has grown organically, which is what you really want to see. We’ve grown from a few external blogs to 17 right now, and we’re working toward opening up external blogging even further. We also have a strong video presence on YouTube, and we’re working on new ways to make video more accessible and searchable.
One of the key things we did to help encourage all of this was to create a set of social media guidelines and recommendations, which we released in June of 2009. They’re not just dos and don’ts. They give examples of how to communicate effectively in different social media channels. They let SAS employees know we think it’s a good thing for them to be participating in social media as long as they’re smart about it and follow the standards of the online communities they visit.
Frank: What’s the biggest challenge for you?
Dave: There are so many areas that we could be addressing, and we need to make practical decisions based on our existing objectives, and make sure that our social media efforts integrate well with our existing marketing programs. So there are a lot of factors to consider when we approach a social media channel. We also have a lot of people who are interested in participating but already have a full plate. 2010 will have to be the year that we get serious about making social media part of everybody’s job description. Plus, when you are making big changes like this on an enterprise-wide level, there are a lot of factors to consider. I work with our legal department, our online strategy and services group, our internal and external comms teams, sales and marketing, tech support, and the people who manage our relationships with our user communities. Social media really does touch every aspect of a large organization.
Frank: What do you want the social media efforts of SAS to accomplish for the company?
Dave: One thing I’ve noticed in the two and half years I’ve been here is that there is a genuine amount of respect and affection among our employees and our users. You see that at events like SAS Global Forum, where thousands of users from all over the world come to interact with one another and with SAS employees. Social media provides the perfect tools to extend that kind of relationship and keep it going. The best thing SAS can do to promote our company and our software is to show people who we are and what we do and the value we provide our customers in a real and genuine way. I’m doing the best I can to facilitate those relationships.
Dave and I talked about a lot more. He is good guy who is dedicated to his craft. The desire to stretch and get better is probably one of the greatest assets that anyone who has social media responsibility for their company can bring to the table.
We are going to be keeping an eye on SAS and the programs that Dave puts together. The B to B space are less charted social media waters than the B to C space and there should be some fun in figuring out what works and doesn’t in reaching company goals on a case by case basis.
Look for Dave to be speaking and visit his blogs at [blogs.sas.com] and [dbthomas.com]
Thanks to Dave and we look forward to learning from him as we all progress through the brave new world of B to B social media.
13:50
What do you know? Dynamic Logic’s 2009 Ad Reaction (PDF) survey shows that consumers may not hate social media ads after all. A series of surveys took a look at the popularity of social networking as well as ad reception across various media.
The December 2009 survey of 2000 US adults found that 59% were involved in social networking and another 16% were interested, but hadn’t tried it yet. (Email was tops with 95% actively participating and 2% interested.) The same survey asked for users’ attitudes toward advertising on various media. The top two positive responses (which I assume were along the lines of “excellent” and “good”) were reported—and social media ads were on-par with search ads:
But really, that’s kind of a tricky metric. If the survey had a scale of 1-5, with then we’re leaving out the people who have a neutral opinion of advertising. On the other hand, if it’s a four-point scale, that means 78% of those surveyed had a negative opinion of social media/networking ads. :\
They also asked about ad recall. Funny ads were the best remembered, with 74% claiming they remember funny ads (I remember funny ads, too, but I don’t remember what they’re selling all the time), and 53% said they remembered relevant ads. And before we talk about ad blindness, 58% of Facebook users said they’d noticed advertising on the site (above the reported MarketNorm of 39%). 70% of Facebook users (1150 surveyed), Twitter users (397 surveyed) and MySpace users (906 surveyed) would be willing to accept more advertising on those sites if it kept the service free.
What do you think? Will you increase your advertising on social media sites, or work to make your creative funnier and targeting more relevant? Do you agree with the findings of these surveys?
12:48
The Federal Communications Commission recently began an inquiry into exorbitant early termination fees in mobile phone carriers’ contracts. The investigation began when Verizon raised its early termination fee to $350 (from $175) for smartphones. Now the FCC is making the inquiry formal and full-blown—they’re asking the four major mobile carriers and Google about their early termination policies.
Yeah, that’s right. Google. I know they’re selling a mobile phone now, but Google isn’t a service provider. Well, we can all rest assured—a little—the FCC’s letter to Google acknowledges that T-Mobile is the service provider. However, T-Mobile received a letter of its own. So why single out Google of all the hardware providers? (Just wait.)
After all, Apple makes the iPhone, and you can buy directly from its website. Google’s webstore offers you the choice of an unlocked phone without a plan or a (cheaper) phone with a T-Mobile plan (Verizon and Vodaphone are still slated for spring). Apple’s iPhone store doesn’t offer any choice but to buy the phone with an AT&T data plan (that I can see, without giving my info).
But there’s something that Google does that Apple doesn’t. The unlocked Nexus One is $529, but when you buy it with a T-Mobile plan, the price drops to $179. However, if you cancel your contract in the first 120 days of service, the Terms of Sale state that in addition to T-Mobile’s early termination fee, you’ll also be subject to an “equipment recovery fee”—the $350 subsidy on the phone price.
To my knowledge, when you buy a discounted phone from other mobile carriers, they don’t charge that subsidy on top of their ETF. In fact, that was part of Verizon’s initial justification of its high early termination fee to the FCC. (A justification the FCC found “unsatisfying, and in some cases, troubling.”)
The FCC’s look at Google may be prompted by consumer complaints (they aren’t saying), but it still shows an impressive level of sophistication in the modern marketplace. (Let’s face it—after looking at the way federal commissions handle the Internet, it doesn’t take much to impress me.)
Google, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T have until February 23 to respond.
What do you think? Will the FCC knock down early termination fees—and if they do, will phone subsidies from mobile carriers be a thing of the past?
9:21
If you know Tamar Weinberg, you know, she knows, social media.
If you don’t know Tamar Weinberg, then when I tell you she’s the community and marketing manager for Mashable–the #1 social media blog in the world–you’ll believe that she knows social media. 
So, you’ll probably want to jump on this opportunity to win one of 3 copies of her fantastic new book The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web.
As the book promises, it will help you:
You in?
How to enter this contest? Simply leave a comment below and we’ll randomly pick 3 winners (deadline for entry is 1pm ET this Friday).
That’s all you need to do! And, if you don’t win, you can grab a copy from Amazon.com.
Winners: Congratulations to our three winners…
9:03
Here’s are some metrics that should concern those inside of Twitter:
The data comes from RJMetrics, which analyzed 2 million tweets from about 50,000 users. You could argue that no data is accurate, unless it comes from Twitter itself, but isn’t it interesting that we never see any of these numbers come from Twitter? You’d think that if the real numbers were more encouraging, Twitter would issue a “State of the Twittersphere”–similar to Technorati’s state of the blogosphere report.
If these numbers are accurate, it shesd some light on why Twitter has chosen to find revenue from Google and Bing, before monetizing its user base. The user base is simply not active enough to generate any significant revenue!
(via)
7:10
Things might be looking up for Yahoo, which just posted its best quarter since Carol Bartz took the reins a year ago. They earned $153 million (11 cents per share) in Q4—a huge improvement over the same quarter last year, where they saw a loss of $303 million (22 cents per share). And Yahoo might have even done better, if it weren’t for all the internal changes and pending Microsoft partnership.
That may be changing soon. “We are done looking inward,” Bartz told analysts. “We are looking outward at the incredible opportunities ahead.” And this year’s opportunities might even include acquiring other companies. Yahoo also projects that Q1 of this year will be even better YOY, with $1.63B in revenue (which would be lower than Q409, but ain’t that always the way? maybe they held back some of their revenue to report in Q1?).
Of course, it’s not all good news. Revenue for Q409 was down by 4%, coming out at $1.73B (then again, revenue was down 12% YTD, so that’s not so bad, right? And I hear there’s this recession thing going around.). Google’s revenue was up 17%—but a fat lot of good that did their stock. Yahoo’s stock was up 60 cents (3.8%) after their numbers came out.
There have also been some interesting flip-flops in earnings and revenues:
For all of 2009, Yahoo earned $598 million, or 42 cents per share, on revenue of $6.46 billion. That compared with income of $419 million, or 29 cents per share, on revenue of $7.21 billion in 2008.
Perhaps best of all, Yahoo added 700 employees in Q4, though they’re still 1300 below the “recent peak employment” from September 2008.
What do you think? Could things be turning around for Yahoo?
7:04
It’s rare that Google gets trumped on news but with all the Apple iPad (insert your favorite disgusting nickname here) hoopla from yesterday the announcement that Google’s social search is now in beta for all to use kinda slipped by. After a little reading on the subject there may be a good reason for this. In other words, Google maybe didn’t want to make a big deal on this one. Read on to find out why.
The Official Google Blog announced the move with this
We think there’s tremendous potential for social information to improve search, and we’re just beginning to scratch the surface. We’re leaving a “beta” label on social results because we know there’s a lot more we can do. If you want to get the most out of Social Search right away, get started by creating a Google profile, where you can add links to your other public online social services.
They then give one of their nifty little videos to explain just what they are up to.
But the real concern is raised by John Batelle at his blog
Forget the iPad, today Google is taking another step toward its stated goal of “making search more social.” There’s a lot of goodness in here, in terms of features and approach, but it’s just silly to pretend you can do any of this without directly addressing the 400 million-person elephant in the room called Facebook. Put simply: I can’t figure out if this new service uses my Facebook social graph. And to my mind, that’s a problem.
Batelle then takes you through his attempts to see if, in fact, the Facebook social graph is incorporated in some fashion. You can follow his humorous attempts to see what he might be missing. He even digs around to find out what is truly going on with the social search for Google as it relates to Facebook and Google sent this to him:
“If someone links to his Facebook account from his Google profile, Social Search may surface that user’s public profile page. These are the same public profile pages already available on a search of Google.com and other search engines today. While we’re interested to continue expanding the comprehensiveness of Social Search, we do not currently use your Facebook connections as part of Google Social Search.”
This begs the question of just how social is social search for Google. Maybe Google’s ‘announcement’ of this service yesterday wasn’t a coincidence with regard to the timing of the iPad introduction to the world. Not including Facebook connections is a huge gap in this offering that makes one wonder just what is going on behind the scenes. Expect this beta tag to hang around for a while until this one is hashed out. Stay tuned.
6:04
All of the talk of paywalls for online content that gets the bulk of the attention by the ‘press’ is focused mainly on large publications like the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. These publications have international readership and have significant influence when it comes to coverage of the major events in the world as well as in the business arena. Because of this significant influence many believe that the paywall discussion is valid because people need these sources to stay informed.
What about paywalls on the local level though? How will more localized papers fare when it comes to asking people who do not subscribe to the publication to pay to see the content online? If the results at New York Newsday are any indication its not a pretty picture.
Crain’s New York Business tells us just how bad it is
Here is one paid model for online journalism that isn’t exactly setting the world on fire: Nearly three months after Newsday put its Web site behind a pay wall, Newsday.com has attracted only 35 subscribers.
In addition, traffic to the Long Island daily’s site has dropped by half, according to Nielsen.
Newsday is the local paper for all of Long Island and a good portion of the NYC borough of Queens. Not exactly a small place. In other words, if there are this many people in the area and there are only 35 of them in three months willing to fork out a few bucks a week to access the information online this has to be viewed as a failure. Here’s what readers who do not subscribe elsewhere see when they try to get information from the website
To be fair it’s not like only 35 people read the online content for the paper since the content is literally available to a large portion of the population.
Newsday.com can be accessed free by the paper’s home subscribers, as well as by Cablevision customers and subscribers to the cable operator’s Optimum Online broadband service.
According to the paper, that means about 75% of Long Island households just have to register to have access. Anyone else who wants to read the paper online has to pay $5 per week.
Still, the number of online subscribers shocked members of Newsday’s union—Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters—which is in a bitter fight with the paper’s management over a proposed contract offer that would cut pay by 10%.
What this outcome may be telling the industry is that paywalls may very well limit the reach of your publication. Long Island is of particular interest considering just how many people have relocated from the area to parts all around the country. Now, if these people want to keep up with current events from ‘home’ they would have to pay and it looks like those folks are saying to Newsday “Forgetta about it!”.
So if this tactic isn’t working to generate more revenue what is the point of doing it? Maybe Newsday doesn’t want to be one of the first major local newspapers to try this and then be one of the first to drop it all in the span of a few short months.
Whatever the reasons this experiment looks to be a huge bust thus far. Not exactly the success story you parade out to other publications considering the same tactic. So what do you think? Will local publications be able to enact a paywall and have success or is this just a desperate move by an industry that decided to change as a means of survival rather than doing it as part of their ongoing business plan to move into the future?
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
12:54
The value of social media to business and Internet marketing is often hard to determine. But Facebook would like to help. Yesterday at OMMA Social, Facebook’s direct response solutions manager Brian Boland announced a conversion tracker tool from the most popular social network. Designed to complement Facebook Connect, the tool is already in testing.
The conversion tracking tool being tested by a “handful” of Facebook advertisers doesn’t have a launch date, but Boland believes it should become available sometime before the end of March. A JavaScript snippet will go into the Web page. Marketers will have an option to set up multiple tags to track numerous conversions.
Reports will provide a list of tracked conversions and the impressions and the clicks that led to each. The feature will help marketers build out messages as the campaign expands into a variety of pieces.
Like Facebook Connect, this tool will especially help with brands’ fans. In fact, Boland says, it will help determine fans’ acquisition cost and value to brands.
You can see Boland’s full presentation here:
What do you think? Will this mark a turn around in calculation social media ROI?
9:15
Twitter is making sure that they are not left out of the year of mobile / local / smart phone etc, etc by announcing a new trending service that helps users figure out what might be the buzz about things in their neck of the woods. More and more we are seeing people getting drawn back to their lives on the move rather than behind the computer screen.
The Twitter blog tells us more about this addition
As Twitter evolves, and more people share what’s happening in their own world, we want to provide another way for people to discover topics that may be relevant to them. Last week we began to slowly roll out a new feature called Local Trends to expose what people are talking about on the state and city level, and today we’ve fully launched so everyone can use it.
The big events that come up around the world will always become a global conversation, but what about the big events that only happen in your world that only matter to those around you? Or the slight differences in the way Californians perceive an event, like Obama’s election victory, versus those São Paulo, Brazil?
Depending on how active your local area is on Twitter this is a welcome addition to the functionality of the service. I think the ability to monitor different geographic areas of interest regarding some event will be a boon to anyone interested in reporting what is happening. Using the example of the Obama election victory is a good one since he has become such a polarizing public figure it might be helpful to know what the buzz on the local streets are in your town and maybe that of somewhere that you are visiting. It can help to get a feel for the mindset of an area if there is enough of a response to the trend you are investigating.
As a tool for marketers it could do great things for research for various geographic groups as well. Understanding the ‘vibe’ of an area could even help in crafting messaging for paid search ads that are being served to that area. Of course, this will not be something that affects businesses universally but it certainly could help the right kind of business.
This year is certainly about getting down to where we live. I wonder sometimes why this has become so important. Maybe it’s because people are finally seeing that while you can have ‘friends’ all around the world via social media channels that you have never met face to face you have to live day to day on the streets of your town.
Hopefully more people will be looking to experience their local lives when they know more rather than wondering what it might be like to be someplace else.
Any local thoughts?
6:56
We already know that 84% of marketers plan to shift some of their direct marketing budgets to social media. Now, a new report from the Society of Digital Agencies suggests that 50% of marketers will shift budgets from traditional to online media.
Not only that, but the highest priority for this newly allocated budget is social networks:
Now, before all of your social media experts pee your pants with excitement, consider this. While social networking is the top priority, that doesn’t mean that companies expert to spend boatloads on it. In fact, according to this chart, social networking is #4 on the pecking order:
You’ll notice that the amount to be spent on “viral campaigns” is one of the lowest numbers. I don’t think it means that companies don’t want their campaigns to “go viral,” I think it suggests a new level of maturity in thinking. As one respondent put it:
“Rather than spending another misguided year trying to “engineer” viral campaigns that will propagate themselves, regardless of consumer intentions, it’s time to refocus our marketing efforts to align with the way that people actually behave.” – Ivan Askwith, Big Spaceship
Aw look, we’re growing up!
5:26
Facebook is getting to the level of ubiquity that is only afforded a few things in this life. It seems as if everyone is on the service to one degree or another. If someone is not on it they have heard about it and have likely gotten some ribbing about not being involved. Very few people leave (although a friend of mine recently did because he felt like he understood “how it worked” so when his kids are ready to get on it he can monitor it. I tried to explain the whole innovation and change thing but he wouldn’t hear it). Many are so entrenched that there is the idea that the service is “locked in” to the fabric of life and will continue to do so more and more.
An article from Reuters plays this out by talking to a 21 year old college student about Facebook and its role in life in general
Tech-savvy Alyssa Ravasio, a 21-year-old UCLA student designing her undergraduate degree around the Internet’s impact on society and communication, is irked by changes privately owned Facebook has made.
But for now, she says, Facebook is keeping her allegiance because of a concept called “technological lock-in.” In other words, the site has become an essential part of her life.
“I think Facebook is the most valuable Internet commodity in existence, more so than Google, because they are positioning themselves to be our online identity via Facebook connect,” Ravasio said.
“It’s your real name, it’s your real friends, and assuming they manage to navigate the privacy quagmire, they’re poised to become your universal login,” she said. “I would almost argue that Facebook is the new mobile phone. It’s the new thing you need to keep in touch, almost a requirement of modern social life.”
I personally don’t take it nearly to this degree but I am older and did not “grow up” with Facebook. Many would read the above statements and feel some remorse at this level of dependence on a technology and the redefinition of being a friend etc etc. In this case you can’t stop ‘progress’ but we also don’t need to be married to it either.
The article talks about how people get so used to doing something that it just becomes the norm even if it is imperfect. The example is used of the QWERTY keyboard. While over time there have been better designs for keyboards the design of the QWERTY is so ingrained in our lives that we don’t even know the difference or care to see it change.
So is there anything standing in the way of Facebook continuing to move toward a level of dominance in the Internet world? For a while people thought MySpace was a lock but we know what direction that took. The major issue appears to be profitability and what it might take to get there. Since the site can’t be run as a public service forever it provides the one likely area that it could truly stub its toe and open the door for the ‘next big thing’. We hear more from the subject of the article that highlights this notion
Ravasio says that, technological lock-in aside, Facebook could potentially lose her if it keeps annoying her, as it did when it abruptly changed a default privacy setting so that members’ pictures were public.
“All these (Internet) companies saying they’ll figure out how to monetize later seem to be forgetting that ‘monetizing’ has historically always meant a degradation of user experience quality,” she said.
Insightful? That’s to be determined. One thing is for sure though there are users of the service that talk about being locked in but have shown that there is little loyalty in most other areas of their lives due to too many options. Could one come along that could knock Facebook off its perch or is it becoming more like Google with each passing day?
Your thoughts?
12:18
That’s right, folks, you’re all once again about to lose your right to use SEO to refer to . . . well, anything. Back in 2008, one “intrepid” “SEO” decided he’d trademark the term and impose standards on the rest of us. That didn’t pan out, so someone else has taken up the case.
Or not. Apparently this person is confused about what, exactly, SEO will stand for once it’s trademarked. In the original filing, Search Engine Partners/Shangri-La Boutique filed as SEO standing for “Search Engine Optimization,” which the application claimed they first used in September 1996, and first used in commerce in September 1999. The filing also includes a pseudo mark (this is supposed to apply to other words that are pronounced the same way) of “Strategically Elevating Optimization,” which a company SEP acquired used as a slogan on its invoices.
Interestingly, the invoices, from January 1997, are for a 30 keyword SEO campaign. (With a money-back guarantee!) However, in the same amendment filing, they claim that “In 1997 the service known as search engine optimization was called web site optimization among several other terms because the process of optimizing websites ‘offsite’ did not yet exist because search engines like Google that look for ranking factors outside of the websites themselves did not exist” (emphasis added). And perhaps most interesting, as a comment on the Search Engine Land points out, the invoiced domain would not be registered until seven months after the invoice date.
I love this. Most people rag on SEO because they think it’s all on-page stuff. No, no, says this person—SEO only refers to off-page efforts! (And if you’d like the history lesson, Google began in 1996 as a Sergey/Brin research project called “BackRub,” which counted backlinks to rank content.) And it’s so effective, we can use it on websites that don’t even exist yet! (I’d check Archive.org, but it says robots.txt has blocked the Wayback Machine for that domain. Good. Job.)
The filing claims that SEO was in common use, but it didn’t stand for anything until that year, and no one knows where it came from. The evidence includes a full proposal for the prospective client. Other than on the invoice page, the term “SEO” is never used in any form—”web site optimization” is the preferred term.
It’s really tough to choose a favorite part of this case, but if I had to, I’d go with the biography of the filer. Among his credentials listed on his website:
I’m not sure we need to worry too much. He’s been working on this trademark application for a year, but it doesn’t look like he’s making much progress.
Here’s the problem: In the US, you can’t register something that’s merely descriptive or generic. (Well, you can register a trademark on something that’s descriptive—if it’s become primarily associated with your business by consumers at large. That’s just not going to apply here.)
In June, the USTPO rejected the application as too descriptive/generic, hence the filings to prove the use of the term in commerce, and the addition of the pseudo mark [as mentioned above, the pseudo mark was included in the initial filing]. The most recent word from the USTPO comes from November 30 (emphasis mine):
While applicant’s response includes arguments and evidence against the rejection in the June 22, 2009 office action of the Section 2(f) claim based on insufficient evidence, it is still unconvincing. The rejection is hereby continued and maintained due to the new issues raised by the response below. As stated in the June 22, 2009 office action, applicant’s arguments and evidence against the descriptiveness refusal were not persuasive and will be addressed pending applicant’s response to the new issue below raised by applicant and when the application is not in suspension. Applicant did not respond to the prior pending applications likelihood of confusion advisory (no response was required yet, and 3 of the 5 potentially cited applications have abandoned) and the information requirement (a response was required). The descriptiveness refusal, the information requirement, and prior pending applications likelihood of confusion advisory are hereby continued and maintained.
The only response so far has been to change address.
Feel free to read the 250 pages of the filing. It’s not quite as dumbifying as Gambert’s filings—and hey, there are pictures!
10:32
Six months after Google said that Apple rejected a Google Voice app for the iPhone (Apple maintained that the app was merely under review, a process which usually takes about a week), Google has finally decided to circumvent the ban. VP of mobile apps engineering Vic Gundotra told the Crunchies Voice would get on the iPhone “one way or another.”
Here’s another: they’re going for a browser-based Google Voice (like the rest of us are using). This option was formerly less viable, but now Google has improved the mobile version of their site for iPhone and Palm Pre users.
The controversy, of course, is that Google Voice allows users to make calls and now send text messages without charge, and without using the minutes in their carrier’s plan.
The New York Times documents the improvements:
Of course, iPhone users were always able to point their mobile Web browser to m.google.com/voice to access their Google Voice accounts. But plenty of things didn’t work right. For example, making calls was a two-step process and the outbound caller ID feature didn’t work, meaning that whoever received the call couldn’t see who was calling, which is one of the more compelling features of Google Voice. [Senior product manager for Google Voice Vincent] Paquet said that all those problems have been solved, and that the new version of Google Voice also offers free text messaging.
Naturally, Google maintains that this isn’t a strike against mobile carriers, just a response to the high demand they’ve had from mobile users with browsers capable of interpreting HTML5.
What do you think? Is this a fourth volley this month in the budding Google/Apple war? How will Apple respond?
6:44
So you are the new unencumbered AOL that has pushed its ship away from the Time Warner dock back in January. You are underway on a new journey that is supposed to reposition the company and put new life in the once iconic running man’s engine. In order for that to happen one would suspect that having the right people on the ship who plan to stick around would be the goal. Well, if that was the goal someone needs to make some new ones.
Yesterday it was announced that AOL’s CTO (chief technology officer) was getting off the boat. Considering that this journey isn’t even two months old yet this is not the kind of sign investors and others would like to see. All Things Digital tells us more
While AOL denied a report last week suggesting that CTO Ted Cahall is leaving, he actually is, um, leaving.
Oops!
Sources at AOL said the company thought Cahall was staying when it issued a statement saying he was not leaving. Cahall apparently had other plans.
Part of my job here at Marketing Pilgrim is to interpret news events. I do this from the point of view of the “everyman”. In other words, I am a regular guy like many who are readers here. So here I go with my opinion on this kind of a move at this point in time of the development of AOL as it moves into the future: OUCH! That’s gonna leave a mark.
Either something is seriously wrong there or, I don’t know…… you tell me. This is not a good thing to have happen and one has to suspect that we are not going to know just why this happened. The official word to employees from the main C-level guy at AOL, Tim Armstrong, reads like this.
Ted Cahall took on the role of CTO after I had asked him to move into that position from a broader business role at the company. Ted is the person who drove the complete replacement of our publishing systems and took AOL deeper into open-source technology, among many other accomplishments. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for the work he has done. Ted has decided to move back into the business side of technology and feels it’s the right time to move on from AOL. Ted has been a strong leader at AOL and agreed to transition the company to a new CTO. We are aggressively searching for a new CTO and we believe AOL is a very attractive opportunity for the right candidate.
Armstrong has been the CEO for less than a year and one of the guys he asked to move into this position has jumped ship. To make it even more odd is that AOL was denying this was even happening right before Cahall made his move.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to read between the lines here. So for all of you CTO types looking for your next gig, Tim says that AOL believes that it is a very attractive opportunity for the right candidate. I guess Cahall wasn’t the right one and one has to suspect that anyone who steps into that role in the future has a soft spot for Kool-Aid.
6:27
Attend any of my presentations on the topic of competitive intelligence and you’ll hear me recommend various tools for keeping tabs on changes your competitors make to their web pages.
Now, Google Reader has entered the page monitoring business:
For example, if you wanted to follow Google.org’s latest products, just type "http://www.google.org/products.html" into Reader’s "Add a subscription" field. Click "create a feed", and Reader will periodically visit the page and publish any significant changes it finds as items in a custom feed created just for that page.
A quick confirmation:
And Google Reader will start alerting you to any changes it discovers on a page.
I’m going to test it out on a few of my competitors web sites and will let you know if it blows the doors of the previous tools I recommended–which I doubt, but who knows.
Oh, and the new feature isn’t just for competitive intelligence. There are a bunch of uses for it, including:
Any other cool uses you can think of?
6:16
Now he’s an interesting discovery by Ben Edelman: disabling the Google Toolbar doesn’t actually prevent it from sending data back to Big Brother Google.
He ran some tests, with the Google Toolbar disabled and closed from view, and sure enough, the toolbar still transmitted URL information back to the search giant.
In his example, Edelman throws a little spice on his privacy concerns by visiting www.Whitehouse.gov to demonstrate the covert signal:
He notes that this only happens if you have the “Enhanced Features”–such as PageRank and Sidewiki–enabled, but he also points out just how hard it is to disable these features (you have to reinstall Google Toolbar).
Now, here’s the thing. If you’re an SEO of any kind, you probably already had a gut-feeling that simply not displaying the toolbar wasn’t really a way to stop Google from getting its grubby hands on your surfing habits–right? So consider this confirmation for most of us and a warning to anyone that had no idea.
So, what should Google do? Edelman suggests the following:
Google’s first step is simple: Fix the Toolbar so that X and Manage Add-Ons in fact do what they promise. When a user disables Google Toolbar, all Enhanced Features transmissions need to stop, immediately and without exception. This change must be deployed to all Google Toolbar users straightaway.
Will Google volunteer such a change, or will it take some European court to force its hand?
UPDATE: A Google spokesperson tells us this has now been fixed:
“To be clear, this is only an issue until a user restarts the browser, and it only affects the currently open tabs for a small number of users.
5:36
As more and more layers of the Google v China spy activity and accusations continue to get peeled back this onion really is starting to stink a bit. It appears as if the victims of “Googlegate” (you like that one?) were not just those labeled as human rights activists. In fact, it has been discovered that friends of employees of many of the companies that were attacked were targeted as well.
Personal friends of employees at Google, Adobe and other companies were targeted by hackers in a string of recently disclosed cyberattacks, raising privacy concerns and pointing to a highly sophisticated operation, security experts said.
The most significant discovery is that the attackers had selected employees at the companies with access to proprietary data, then learnt who their friends were. The hackers compromised the social network accounts of those friends, hoping to enhance the probability that their final targets would click on the links they sent.
This can certainly be a little disconcerting for those who are friends of these employees of the various companies who say things like “I can’t tell you that or I’d have to kill you.” It’s been said it’s good to have friends in high places but in this world that can be trouble.
McAffe has been keeping tabs on this situation for many reasons. George Kurtz, chief technology officer had this to say.
McAfee discovered that a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had been used in the attacks. Mr Kurtz said the attackers also used one of the most popular instant messaging programmes to induce victims to click on a link that installed spy software.
Well, that’s what you get when you use IE instead of your own company’s browser, huh? I suspect there were some Googlers getting an earful about that aspect of this story.
So how does this impact those in the Internet marketing industry? Probably too early to tell but one has to suspect that as more and more security holes are discovered and capitalized on there will be more and more need to lock down systems. As systems become more closed it will be harder to reach people with marketing techniques and messages. The reality is that while the Internet marketing industry doesn’t try to make a big deal about it security concerns are a tremendous threat to commerce on the Internet. This quote sums it up.
Sam Curry, vice-president of security firm RSA, said: “This is a loud message for the commercial world, which is: wake up, this isn’t all happiness and goodness and new business.
“Doing business on the internet is as risky as sending ships through the Panama Canal.”
Having never been on a ship or sent anything on a ship that has gone through the Panama Canal I can’t speak to just how bad that is but the point is that doing business on the Internet may look different in the future more because of security and less because of innovation.
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19:47
The folks at Apple just need to wake of in the morning to create news of all sorts that could shape the online world in many ways. First, there’s the talk about some profits in Q1 that would make any company happy (The company posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share). There’s all the hubbub about the announcement of their new tablet device on Wednesday which is apparently the worst kept secret in quite some time.
Now comes the rumor that in the next 18 months the iPhone should be available on most major carriers thus breaking away from its AT&T exclusivity contract (read: stranglehold) that has been the bane of many iPhone users existence. If this is truly the case then there may be some considerable change on the Verizon, oops, I meant horizon.
This makes sense for Apple since the other rumors are that Android devices are a real threat to the iPhone dynasty. eWeek reports
Is Jan. 27 the day Apple introduces its anticipated tablet — and AT&T’s exclusive relationship with Apple’s iPhone comes to an end?
According to Hot Hardware, which cites an “inside source,” the latter is seeming likely — though news of which additional carrier or carriers will gain access to the iPhone is still unknown.
Verizon Wireless has been rumored for some time to be on line for an iPhone — a scenario that analyst have called a positive one for Apple — while others have said that Verizon may also be first in line for the Apple tablet.
The move would entail Apple releasing either a CDMA-based version of the iPhone, or a single, updated iPhone that could run on both networks.
No matter what the scenarios that are played out there are plenty of people who are right on the edge of moving to some Android device but have been holding off in hopes of the iPhone escaping the bondage of its AT&T deal. Everyone wants to see it happen except, of course, AT&T. Whether the network criticisms of AT&T are real or not there could be an exodus to other networks if the iPhone can be had someplace else.
For me this may delay my plans to move away from the BlackBerry to an Android device on Verizon. This kind of a result could be just as much of a reason for Apple to make this happen than anything else. If they could slow the adoption rate of the Android smartphones with just the prospect of the iPhone showing up on other networks then that in and of itself is a victory.
So if you are an iPhone user would you jump ship to get on another network if the iPhone were there? And for you folks like me who are not currently an iPhone user what are your plans for the next smartphone you purchase?
If this happens then this should be very interesting for everyone from users to marketers. Your take?
19:15
If you prefer to live in the real world you will agree that the job situation in the US is not getting better any time soon. If there are any political pundit types out there who want to duke it out about the what’s and why’s of this situation that’s fine. I’m just stating a fact.
This reality of the times we live in is played out all the time across social media channels. In particular, LinkedIn is the recruiters haven of social media as headhunters who collect connections like the business version of baseball cards. Collect’em all and trade with your friends who need a new VP of something or other. Hey, I’ll trade a VP of Biz Dev for two Directors of marketing!
Of course, you can’t expect something as current and pervasive as extreme unemployment to escape the grip of Twitter. The social media powerhouse is still figuring out those revenue thingys while other are using it for more and more practical purposes (that generate a penny for the company).
The newest is TwitJobSearch. We learn more from the New York Times technology blog Bits.
In the last month, 340,000 jobs have been listed on Twitter, said William Fischer, co-founder of WorkDigital, which created TwitJobSearch, a site that searches Twitter for jobs.
The latest tool that job hunters can use to find openings is called JobDeck, a new product from TwitJobSearch and TweetDeck, a desktop Twitter application.
TwitJobSearch scans Twitter for job postings by paying attention to the context in which employment-related keywords appear. For example, if a Tweet links to a story about the construction industry losing jobs, that should not show up on the list. If a Tweet says there is a job listing for an assistant to the vice president, the search engine needs to categorize it under openings for assistants, not vice presidents.
There are many early success stories in using Twitter as a job search tool and recruiting tool. JobDeck even pulls job listings from LinkedIn. This all makes sense especially of you are looking for some help with social related activities since those using the service are already at least on the platform. It doesn’t stop there though as the opportunities for many different jobs are popping up on Twitter.
The article gave this quick sketch of a real success story.
On Jan. 7, Richard Barton, chief executive of the real estate Web site Zillow.com, fired off this Tweet: “Greg Slyngstad & I are cooking up a consumer internet startup. R U our founding CTO? Seeking smart, passionate team-builder.” (Mr. Slyngstad and Mr. Barton helped start Expedia together.)
“We were deluged with résumés,” Mr. Barton said. “It’s the most powerful recruiting tool I’ve ever used.”
He has also hired three Zillow employees using Twitter, including its new marketing director. Mr. Barton says Twitter is especially useful for job announcements because, unlike e-mail, recipients do not need to respond unless they are interested in applying or know someone who might be.
So if you are in the market for a job or are looking for new job opportunities don’t discount Twitter as a great resource. Just be ready to make that first impression in 140 characters or less.
13:37
Pope Benedict XVI has been the Holy See for almost five years, and during that time, he (and the Catholic church along with him) has become more and more involved in social media. Last year, he launched a YouTube channel, social media outreach initiative, and apps for Facebook and the iPhone. And now he’s urging parish priests to follow his lead into the Internet.
And just to show how with-it he really is, this message is from . . . the future. (No, really—it’s dated 16 May 2010.) For the 44th World Communications Day, the Supreme Pontiff noted the advancements in communications thanks to the Internet, and said (will say?):
Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.
(Vocab lesson: evangelization: preaching the gospel; catechesis: teaching the doctrine.)
Naturally, of course, the 82-year-old pope must have a staff dedicated to maintaining these sites with videos and messages from the Bishop of Rome—and yeah, it was probably their idea. But hey, the Sovereign of the Vatican not only signed off but has continued to participate with his image and messages, and he’s the one urging local priests to become similarly involved.
Many priests and deacons are already active in the Catholic blogosphere, but the official impetus is new. In the end, reaching parishioners where they already congregate (well, outside of church ) is always a good idea. And it seems pretty forward-thinking for a church that old and that large.
What do you think? Will the Pope’s support of priestly blogging mark a change in the way local officials relate to their communities?
10:22
China has officially, adamantly denied that the government played any role in the recent hack attack against Google and dozens of other firms (with the objective of account info for human rights activists in China). However, another government may have played a part in the attack—the US.
From their first official statement on the matter, China has denied their involvement and condemned the attack. As Agence France-Presse reports, the government is also none too pleased with Google’s accusations:
The “accusation that the Chinese government participated in (any) cyberattack, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless and aims to denigrate China,” an unnamed spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told Xinhua.
“We are firmly opposed to that,” the spokesman said.
(LOL, when I first read that, I thought they were saying they were opposed to denigrating China, kind of a duh. But they mean they’re opposed to cyberattacks.)
The issue has continued to grow over the month, especially since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s address on Internet freedom last week, where she urged China to investigate the attacks. China called the address harmful to the countries’ bilateral relations.
Google has not yet stopped censoring its search results. But CEO Eric Schmidt said, “in a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there” last Thursday.
Meanwhile, another government definitely played a role in the attack—the US government. No, they didn’t hack into Gmail accounts, but a US law allowed the hackers to get in.
According to Bruce Schneier, Google created a back door to Gmail to allow LEOs access in accordance with search warrants. The hackers took advantage of this back door to access Gmail themselves.
What do you think? Is China protesting too much—or is it possible that a low-level employee might have helped the hackers? Is the US more culpable for creating the weakness in the first place?
8:31
What do you do when the economy is in the tank and you’re only making $1 a year in salary?
Well, if you’re Google’s Sergey Brin or Larry Page, you dump 15% of your company and pocket a cool $2.75 billion–each!
How does that compare to your emergency fund?
As many places are reporting, Brin & Page aren’t exactly dumping their shares on the market. It’s all part of a quite common practice by majority shareholders:
Under the trading plan, the co-founders would reduce their combined holdings in Google from about 57.7 million common shares, or approximately 18% of outstanding capital stock, to 47.7 million shares, or about 15% of the company, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange filing.
Under the stock trading plan, adopted on Nov. 30, 2009, the two would also reduce their combined voting shares from 59% to about 48%, the filing said.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists will wonder why this was put in place in November, but only announced two months later–but that takes us down a rabbit-hole that’s full of speculation.
8:02
It’s not often that you’ll hear the advice to NOT bother with social media, but a new CMO Council report suggests that when it comes to customer loyalty programs, social media just doesn’t make sense.
While 60% of the 600 marketers polled, planned to make better use of the web and social networking tools, consumers say that’s not how to reach them. In fact, just 4% of consumers say they used social media–dropping to 3% when focusing only on blogs–to learn about customer loyalty programs.
Now, you could argue that the number is at 4% simply because companies are doing a lousy job of promoting their customer loyalty programs via social media, but the CMO Council suggests otherwise:
This finding is not surprising when you consider that consumers engaged in loyalty programs demand high-touch direct engagements, versus mass messages, regardless of channel.
This appears to be backed-up by the revelation that only 20% of business have yet to form any kind of loyalty program. So it appears companies have the right fishing pole, they’re just at the wrong lake.
So, who should you emulate? When surveyed, these are the companies that were top-of-mind when consumers think of the best loyalty program:
The keys to their success? Well, let’s flip it and look at what consumers didn’t like about the average loyalty program:
Too much spam and junk email topped the list of negatives associated with loyalty and rewards program membership (44 percent), followed by too many conditions and restrictions (38 percent), and rewards that lacked real value (37 percent). Other prevalent beefs included members having a hard time redeeming points or rewards, program membership lacking value, as well as communications and service not being personalized or targeted specifically for members.
The average US household is enrolled in 14 loyalty programs, but only active in 6 of them. The odds are in your favor, if you know where to engage consumers–and give them the benefits they want!
7:39
Web site uptime monitoring service Pingdom has put together a nice list of internet stats for 2009. Most of them are from studies and surveys already floating around the web, but Pingdom adds in some of its own metrics.
I had a lot of fun applying my own fuzzy math to a number of the startling statistics.
For example, the number of email users grew 100 million in 2009, to 1.4 billion worldwide. During the same period, email spam increased by 24%, with 81% of all emails being spam.
Now, I know that you can’t assume that 81% of new email users were spammers–one spammer could account for 1% of spam, all on their lonesome–but that just takes away all of the fun!
Another interesting observation. While Flickr is thought of as being the top image hosting site–with 4 billion images hosted–Facebook users upload more pics in a two-month span, than hosted by Flickr–about 2.5 billion per month.
And, just in case you thought the web-world rotated around North America, here’s a reason why you may want to provide language translation on your site:
4:57
As I write this post, it is my birthday, and there is a White Russian with my name on it, after this post is done. So you will have to excuse me if today’s column is a bit short, but I have a party to go to!
Even though all of the data says something different it is clear that the life span for most small businesses is incredibly short. Yep that’s right, people fail all the time.
If you ask most defunct small business owners why they failed, they will point towards one or two key areas of their business. Some will say that they didn’t have the right marketing mindset, others might say they didn’t have the right product. And all of these reasons may be true. But one thing that many won’t even recognize is because their business wasn’t flexible.
Flexibility is important in a small business plan but is often times overlooked. Many times we focus so much on our core products or services that we build a mindset and infrastructure that limits our ability to be flexible when needed.
So why is it so important to be flexible? It’s important because you can’t control markets. It’s important because you can’t force people to buy. It’s important because no one can produce the perfect product or service. It’s important because your competitors might be better than you.
If you want to keep from failing all you might have to do is hustle. But if you want to grow your business and create more wealth then try being flexible too.
13:45
And news.com.au proves it’s clueless
If you read the headline “Reporters put Twitter, Facebook, to ‘Big Brother’ test,” what would you assume:
I suppose both stories have some potential, but I’m a bit disappointed that it’s B—especially since I have to assume that “Big Brother” in that headline is a reference to that reality show where people are forced to live together in a house with a bunch of cameras. (No, not The Real World. No, not Road Rules. Please focus.) Ungood to forget where that title actually comes from.
But yes, it’s five reporters from around the world who’ll be forced to spend five. whole. days! using only Twitter and Facebook as their news sources—no broadcasts, no papers, no other websites, and I suppose that they won’t be allowed to talk to loved ones about the news, either, though they will have mobile phones (without the Internet).
Facebook and especially Twitter have gained a reputation as bastions of citizen journalism, breaking stories well ahead of the mainstream news. One of the participants in this experiment, France Inter’s Nour-Eddine Zidane, noted that he’d found out about the death of a senior French politician on Twitter.
But there are drawbacks as well. Zidane pointed to tweets about a computer meltdown in France’s post offices that was a hoax.
And, now that they’ve announced the dates of confinement—beginning Feb 1—we can all try to put out as much false news as possible, right?
Seriously, though, I’m interested to see how good their coverage is from only those two news sources. The reporters will be making daily radio broadcasts about their stories as well as in a communal blog. Which, I suppose they’ll be allowed to visit .
What do you think? Will their stories be mostly true or false? Will they break stories that other news outlets don’t know about yet, or will they end up behind the curve, reporting on Twitter reactions to major news stories already covered?
12:35
Recently we talked a bit about the practicalities and legalities of what a federal employee’s actual “basic pay” really is. Basic Pay is of course very important if for no other reason than it becomes one of the single biggest factors that determines how large an employee’s annuity (retirement check) will be. If your “high three” basic pay doesn’t suit you, you may be able to take some actions before retirement that will improve it. But the other factor that really counts, and about which you can usually do much less is your time in Federal Service here’s some expert guidance from Government Executive magazine.
Document Your ServiceLength of service is one of the most important concepts for which you must take responsibility. Your agency has maintained your personnel records throughout your career, but you will need to verify that those records are complete and that they accurately reflect your federal service. Remember that every month of service is worth 1/12 of 2 percent (CSRS) or 1/12 of 1 percent (FERS) of your high-three average salary for the rest of your life.
You need to maintain clear records that document the history of your entire federal career. This means having the employee copy of all of the SF-50 forms that show beginning and ending dates of federal service, military service records and even records of that temporary summer job that you performed for the National Park Service in 1972. If you haven’t done this, then schedule an appointment to review your official personnel file to be sure that this documentation exists. And ask for copies of any documents not in your own files at home.
photo credit: Senator Mark Warner
I can’t begin to emphasize to you just how important this documentation may become. You may find some error in the future that tries to deprive you of some of your service time. You may have a problem during a divorce case where absolutely proving what you are entitled to (or not entitled to) is crucial to your legal and financial well being. Or you might (more personal experience here, *sigh*) have the Defense Accounting and Finance Service (DFAS), the folks who actually put the money in your bank account come at you from “out of the blue” and claim that you have been overpaid for a period of years. If you think that your agency is going to keep the records that will ’save your bacon” then you better think again. When a court or another government agency alleges that you owe something, the only possible defense is that you have records to show otherwise … else it’s pretty much a case of “take out your pen and write the check”.
Disclaimer
As always remember that this site, although written by a retiree with substantial experience in the school of hard knocks, it is for personal, lay opinions and informational purposes only. If you have a legal question you should seek help from a legal professional. If you have questions involving current or future values of pensions you need an actuary or competent pension valuation expert. If your questions are tax-related, seek a competent tax advisor. In other cases, I recommend the base chaplain.
You can comment on this post, you can email me at: davestarr (at) gmail (dot) com or you can call me at: 1-719-966-4295
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12:12
Today, YouTube is rolling out its video rentals program (maybe it’s a good thing Blockbuster is already closing all those stores!). And just in time for the Sundance rentals, YouTube is trying out another stripped-down version of its video viewing page.
The most noticeable improvements are in the video player. The player now offers more viewing options, including viewing with a larger player (without going to full screen) and multiple resolutions. Also, if you search while watching a video, the video continues playing in a small left-side panel, while search results are listed in a larger right column
Last month, YouTube experimented with the “Feather” layout for video viewing—and there are a few marked similarities. The new layout is opt-in (via this link), just as the “Feather” layout was. Like that layout, this one removes a lot of the features from the video viewing page and rearranges some of the page elements (without JavaScript). Mysteriously, despite the quest to cut down on clutter, both layouts include the comments.
However, there are many improvements as well. YouTube says the related videos feature will be smarter now, taking into account how you came to this video (just check out the “Search Results” box in the upper right of the main screen shot). They’ve moved the description from the right-hand side where it usually sits to right underneath the video with the stats. Actions like sharing, rating and blogging videos have been grouped together into a single “button bar,” and the ratings system has been simplified into a “like/don’t like” option (since most YouTube users gave either 1 or 5 stars to videos).
YouTube is asking for feedback on the new design through a survey or in the comments to their blog announcement.
I think it’s great that YouTube is taking user feedback into account. It looks like they took feedback from those using the Feather layout and worked to improve that model.
What do you think? Will you want the stripped-down player? Will it stick?
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8:58
Every couple of months, we can reliably count on a big brand to help us learn a lesson about online reputation management. Today, we give thanks to P&G for today’s lesson:
The conversation starts when your customers say so, not you!
As AdAge reports, P&G has launched what it considers to be the most significant improvement in its Pampers line of diapers, in 25 years. Unfortunately, the company decided to start shipping the new diapers in old packaging, without explaining the benefits of the new pooper-protector.
Engineering this manufacturing overhaul meant putting the new diapers into the old packaging and into stores starting last summer in parts of the country. But because the new diapers had only reached a fraction of the U.S. by fall, P&G wasn’t ready to launch its campaign. Without marketing or communication, some consumers in early markets reacted strongly and spread the word virally to markets that did not yet have the diaper.
OK, who does that?
In this day and age of socially connected consumers; who launches a dramatically different product without also readying a TV, print, search, and social media campaign?
OK, maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe P&G just didn’t realize that it was heading towards such a consumer backlash…
"Similar to our experience in the past, when you change things, without articulating what the change is about, you will get consumers who complain," said Jodi Allen, VP-North American baby care at P&G.
[Jon Stewart'esque pause]
What the…??? You knew you’d get this consumer backlash??? Then why didn’t you have a plan in place to explain the benefits of the new diaper. Why didn’t you have a Twitter channel to answer questions from concerned parents? Where was the Facebook FAQ page to explain how the product will improve the lives of parents–and their babies?
If you’d taken the time to do the above, Rosana Shah of Baton Rouge, La, wouldn’t have felt compelled to launch her own Facebook page to warn other moms…
"…they’ve slipped this inferior diaper into the existing packaging without notifying the consumer."
At this point you could argue that this Pampers backlash is just a small minority. After all, the "Bring Back the Old Cruisers" fan page on Facebook had only 20 members as of last week. But, I’d point to the fact that new parents trust the opinions of experienced parents AND this "backlash" has now reached a wider audience–thanks to AdAge, and now us.
Fortunately, P&G doesn’t plan to just sit back and let a few upset consumers have their way…
Ms. Allen believes the tone will change quickly once P&G turns on marketing support, which will include a first-ever, pre-launch buzz campaign starting this month.
OK, that’s all well and good Ms. Allen, but you should have had this in place the moment you shipped your first revolutionary diaper. Heck, two months before you shipped it!
So, thank you P&G. Thank you for being yet another mega-brand that, despite its millions in marketing budget–and expert marketers to boot–failed to realize one of the most important lessons in reputation management.
You don’t get to decide when the conversation about your new product starts. So be prepared from day one!
8:04
When you’re Google, having a great quarter is not good enough. Apparently, there’s a secret society of Wall Street Analysts that quietly hold Google to a higher standard, says MarketWatch:
However, several analysts maintained their bullish long-term view in the wake of the report, noting that Google missed higher "whisper" numbers even though it handily beat Wall Street’s consensus.
Those whisper numbers meant that Google’s share price is currently drifting 3%, with Google executives likely staring at their stock portfolio wondering what the heck just happened. After all, Google saw net income rise to $1.97 billion in the December quarter, compared with $382 million, earned in the same period a year earlier. Net revenue hit $4.95 billion–beating the target of $4.92 billion Google thought Wall Street was seeking.
Now, here’s something you probably don’t know. All of these numbers can be, let’s say, "massaged." Google likely structured its Q4 numbers to just beat analysts predictions, while keeping some back in reserve for Q1 of 2010. In other words, had Google known about the secret society of whispers, it probably could have topped their estimates too.
Want more? Google took the unprecedented step of airing its Q4 earnings call on YouTube:
PS. Eric, you might find Wall Street treats you a little kinder, if you had a better grasp of your company’s projections. When asked if YouTube will make a profit this year, "I’d assume so, yes," hardly instills confidence.
5:32
The review site Yelp has been interesting to watch over time. It gets a lot of interest from different businesses like Google who was interested buying it. Then it gets more investment from VC’s when those deals don’t pan out. It has been vilified for business practices and then has worked to make the service more ‘balanced’ as well. Regardless of your point of view of the service it certainly has established itself as the leader in the small business online review space. This month’s Inc. magazine’s cover story is on the service (take note of the what not to do story that opens the piece ….. creepy.)
Now Yelp is looking to make the service even more interesting by adding a location based feature that allows reviewers to show how many times they have “checked in” to a location that they have reviewed. Mashable tells us more
Last week, the battle for your check-ins took an interesting new turn as Yelp rolled out a set of location features for its iPhone app. Today, Yelp’s expanding the feature to include check-in information alongside user reviews on its website.
With that small step, you can see exactly why check-ins are such a big deal for Yelp and a big threat to upstarts like Foursquare and Gowalla. We’re told that Yelp just passed nine million reviews, and now, with the ability to connect check-in data to individual reviews, the company is hoping to add further credibility to its users’ ratings.
According to the article this feature is only available for iPhone apps but versions for Android, BlackBerry and the like are on the horizon. Here’s a look at how these check-in appear in a review.
They also show up in a user’s profile by their reviews. This is important because it gives some level of participation to the site by giving users the ability to add more depth and credibility to their reviews if they have repeatedly “checked in” from that location.
Mashable’s Adam Ostrow makes an interesting observation about this feature as it relates to the level of competition this service could provide to a much smaller high flyer of late, Foursquare, which is a location based ‘game’.
……..the most interesting aspect of Foursquare is not the game, but seeing where your friends are, and Yelp’s doing that too. Given Yelp has a big headstart, it’s hard not to see it representing a big threat to the startups — though Facebook and its expected location features still loom large as well.
I am not a participant in any of these location-based activities personally. There are a lot of reasons for it and I explain a few here. Whether I use it or not though is obviously not the point. There appears to be a real growing wave of moving toward filling this apparent obsession of knowing where everyone is at all times and letting them know where you are. It’s like a location tweet of sorts.
As marketers, there could be tremendous value that will be discovered with time. Who will be the players that really take advantage of it and allow themselves to ‘stub their toes’ early on in the ‘monetization of location’ game should be fun to watch.
Are you seeing any real effective early adopters marketers who leverage location based services out there? Do tell.
22:30
I have been talking more to the people who are doing the work of social media so the readers of Marketing Pilgrim can step back from the news and the theory to get some feet on the street perspective. More and more those feet on the street are C level executives who are embracing social media to brand themselves and their companies. Kent Huffman of Bearcom Wireless has put together a list of these socially active CMOs on Twitter.
One of these folks, Ted Rubin (@tedrubin), exemplifies the energy and effort that is required to make a place for oneself in the social web for business. I interviewed Ted by e-mail recently to learn about the who, what, where, why and how of his social media efforts as the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of the Eyes Lips Face (e.l.f.) Cosmetics line. I challenge you to find a more active C-level marketer out there.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your marketing experience and what is your mission as CMO for e.l.f. Cosmetics?
Prior to joining e.l.f., I served as Senior Managing Director of Marketing and Business development for Eastern Union Commercial and RealProspex.com, the fastest growing and most innovative commercial real-estate-listing site in the country. I was also President and CEO of The Black Book and responsible for its turnaround and eventual sale to a private equity group, and have held senior level positions at 1-800-Flowers and Yoyodyne, a Yahoo! company, in addition to running my own internet marketing and business development consultancy which serviced a vast array of online and traditional companies.
As Chief Marketing Officer for e.l.f. Cosmetics, my responsibilities include communicating with and building e.l.f.’s client base, leveraging brand equity through strategic marketing programs, and creating/managing a major thrust into social media initiatives and partnerships. I also focus on strengthening both core products and line extensions, including the extremely successful Studio line and Minerals collection, both launched under my tenure and growing rapidly.
EyesLipsFace.com considers itself not only an e-tailer, but a pioneer of social commerce… a beauty and trendsetting destination site with approximately ten to twelve million page views a month, several hundred thousand monthly visitors and over two million members. I believe the key to continued success is identifying with the customer. Listening is finally getting the respect it deserves through Social Media… listen and adjust your message to make it relevant to your consumer. Brand loyalty declines due to lack of relevance… a direct result of not listening.
Number one is always try to understand who your customer is and stay true to your brand. At e.l.f. we position the brand with a unique approach toward beauty, accessibility, interactivity and consumer engagement.
2. Tell us how long you have been engaged in digital marketing (social media , search etc) and what venues you are currently using.
I have been involved in digital marketing since 1997 when I joined Seth Godin at his online direct marketing company Yoyodyne, which was acquired by Yahoo! a year later. I scaled and continued development of Yoyodyne’s most successful and only profitable product, “Get Rich ClickSM”. My team blew away sales projections from $20,000 in February 1998 to sales in excess of $6 million in the back half of that year – beating projections by more than 200 percent.
Currently at e.l.f. we are very totally immersed in affiliate, search, email, word-of-mouth, and social media marketing… as well as intertwining all of that with a robust earned media presence. In addition we maintain a seven day a week blogging presence and have built a very strong relationship with the Mommy and Beauty Blogging community.
3. Why have you chosen these avenues and are there others that you are considering?
I have chosen these venues because they lend themselves to performance marketing and allow us to either only pay for acceptable results or extend our footprint without the need for a traditional media budget.
We have an extremely high brand visibility and combined with our phenomenal “Affordable Luxury” model we are a great fit with many publishers (and work with most including Hearst, Conde Nast, Hachette Filipacchi, Time, etc.) and websites/bloggers for special features… especially in today’s economic environment.
We are featured regularly in blogs, magazines, newspapers and TV news reports on a daily basis. e.l.f. does not have a traditional marketing budget. The majority of our marketing is through PR, cross promotion, partnership, content sharing, and/or rev share with other websites. We work very aggressively enhancing the e.l.f. client base through hands-on marketing initiatives and are focusing on leveraging and continuing to grow brand equity through strategic marketing programs, partnerships and an aggressive Social Media strategy.
4. You stated in a tweet recently, “This recession, unlike past few, w/hav long term impact on consumr shopng habits. Ignor new valu paradigm at ur own risk. Could you explain what you mean by this?
This recession, unlike other recent downturns, has reached deeper into the wallets and more importantly psyche of most consumers. In addition the effects on the purchasing power of the average consumer will be longer lasting and most have seen the light for the first time in many years about the importance of building a savings base. Due to this, “Value” is now king… “Value” being a combination of price “and” quality. Simply put… consumers want more for less and will insist upon this for a long time to come.
5. Moving forward how do you intend to embrace this new paradigm for e.l.f? What will your marketing efforts look like in 5 years as a result of this shift?
The beauty of our business at e.l.f. is that we were pioneers, trailblazers and trendsetters in this regard. We were doing this when everyone else was raising their prices… even those brands that offered nothing more than fancy packaging for the higher prices.
EyesLipsFace.com is not just an etailer, but a pioneer of social commerce… we have become a beauty and trendsetting destination site with a few hundred thousand monthly visitors and in excess of 2MM members. Check out “the buzz” section on our website… . The majority of e.l.f.’s products are sold for only $1. Our single item price points for our three lines are $1 (our standard line), $3 (Studio line), and $5 (Mineral line).
In today’s rapidly evolving marketing world I am not sure what we will be doing next year, so five years out is not something I am even pondering. My hope is to continue to build upon what we have done to date with regard to engaging and interacting with our members/customers/prospective customers to build a relationship with our brand that will be loyal and enduring.
6. If you were to give someone who is new to the marketing game a bit of free advice what would it be?
Research the social media/marketing medium and become knowledgeable. There’s nothing better than first hand experience. Later, there are many things you will be able to delegate, but this is the one thing that you need to do. I spent months researching and understanding social media before I made many moves in the space for e.l.f.
Build a following for your personal brand. If you are able to build a sizeable audience for your personal brand then you are closer to developing a social marketing strategy for your company.
Set management’s expectations properly so everyone understands what you are trying to accomplish and how to measure those results.
Build a strategy with measurable goals, such as number of followers, growth rate and interactions, but don’t avoid areas that may not be measured accurately as these are potentially very valuable to the company’s bottom line down the road.
Get your hands dirty… interact with your audience and provide that personal touch that a brand so desperately requires.
7. How important do you think video and interactive content will be in the near future?
I think video, and the ability to put a face to the name of user-generated content, will play a huge role in the growth of social media marketing. When the next phase is complete, and the average consumer can manage the ability to embed a link that can click through to a product from a YouTube or other ubiquitous video platform, the next generation advocate/affiliate will arise and become incredibly valuable to a retailer/brand.
In January 2009 we launched a sister site ASKelf.com that hosts all user-generated content posted about e.l.f. around the web, primarily focusing on video, and will soon be integrating it into our site in a significantly upgraded format as the The e.l.f. Beauty Network.
We just re-launched our site this month with a new design and will be adding the The e.l.f. Beauty Network as soon as the design is ready to fit in and some important upgrades are made.
Thanks to Ted for his time. As noted at the start, he may be the “hardest working man in C-level social media”. If you have any questions ask away. I suspect Ted will be willing to “interact” here at Marketing Pilgrim.
15:09
While Google has been trying long and hard to corner the mobile search market as much as it has the landline one, they still have a lot to learn about mobile search advertising. Just yesterday, they added the option for AdWords advertisers to target only mobile users with full browsers, such as the iPhone and Android offer.
Advertisers will also be able to segment by specific phones and phone OSes, so if they’re selling a product specific to a single type of device, they won’t waste money on clicks from other device owners.
They’re also adding a feature to automatically segment your ads if you’re running a campaign for an application. Apps for iPhones, for example, need only include the URL for the Apple Store followed by the app’s name in the visible URL for the ad. Then, instead of a display URL showing on the ad, users will see a download link. This will also work for Android apps.
AdWords will also add the ability to segment by phone carrier in the US and Canada, so if you have a special deal with one of the carriers, or are otherwise affiliated with them (or not), you can further target your audience.
In all, more narrow targeting is usually a good thing. This allows advertisers to only show ads to potential buyers, and not waste money on clicks from people who couldn’t buy or use their products. It also removes irrelevant ads from users’ displays. It will mean a few more clicks when setting up a campaign, and possibly more work in dividing up ads into ad groups, but in all, this should help advertisers and users.
What do you think? Will you use this targeting? Will you be happy to see it on your phone?
12:46
If you’ve used Gmail, you’ve probably noticed the ads running along the right-hand side of the screen when viewing an email. And you’ve probably noticed that these ads . . . well, sometimes they’re not to relevant to you, the email, or . . . pretty much anything else.
Gmail is admitting their shortcoming—and they’re working to make this better. Now, instead of serving only marginally relevant ads beside your emails, they’ll go back and look at the last email you viewed and use those ads again. (Because they worked so well the first time, when you were actually thinking about that topic?)
On the Gmail blog, Google explains:
[S]ometimes, there aren’t any good ads to match to a particular message. From now on, you’ll sometimes see ads matched to another recent email instead. For example, let’s say you’re looking at a message from a friend wishing you a happy birthday. If there aren’t any good ads for birthdays, you might see the Chicago flight ads related to your last email instead.
Of course, Google is also quick to reassure: this process is fully automated, and no humans are ever reading your email to match up ads. No advertisers are ever given your information. You’re safe.
As always, for visual learners, Google has a video:
In all, I suppose ads that are more relevant to users are always a good thing. I don’t really expect click through rates to go up, though, since it seems like most Gmail users are probably already pretty ad blind (and it’s only the truly irrelevant ones that catch my attention in the first place, ).
What do you think? Will this net more revenue for Google?
8:31
According to its 7th annual survey, Alterian suggests that 66% of marketers plan to invest in social media over the next 12 months, but only 36% plan to monitor and analyze the success–or failure–of their efforts.
In fact, when you look at the breakdown, 40% of the 1,000 marketers surveyed plan to steal 20% or more of their traditional direct marketing budget to feed their new found social media marketing habit.
Considering Alterian recently acquired Techrigy, I’m sure they share my surprise–and maybe concern–that compared to the amount of spending planned for social media marketing, more is not being allocated towards actually monitoring and measuring that ROI.
This chart shows best the disparity between spend on each:
Yeah, I’m biased–I want you to use a social media monitoring tool–but really, would you consider launching an SEO campaign without having web analytics on your site? No? Then why would you spend hundreds of thousands on a social media marketing initiative, without monitoring your reach, response, and successes?
Of course, it could just be that these marketers are more thrifty than naive. After all, why spend thousands on media monitoring, when plans start at just $18 a month? A blatant plug, I know, but mama needs a new pair of shoes!
8:03
Twitter…the final frontier. These are the voyages of game-maker Atari. Its 2-month mission: to explore strange new social networks, to seek out new geeks and new game players, to boldly go where no ad campaign has gone before!
[Cue intro]
If you’re a Trekkie, you’re probably already well aware of the pending February 2nd launch of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) "Star Trek Online." Well, according to ClickZ, its creator, Atari Inc., has decided to reach those that don’t quite go as far as greeting each other with "Live Long and Prosper," by launching a number of social media initiatives to promote the game.
YouTube, Facebook, and secret access codes on game sites, have all been part of Atari’s marketing efforts, but my favorite has to be its Twitter strategy:
For Twitter, the New York-based company has created a microsite-app combo, dubbed "Tweet in Klingon," that allows viewers to type English phrases and have them tweeted in fictional Klingon language.
And you thought Foursquare updates were annoying. Wait ’til people realize they can start tweeting in Klingon. Better yet, they start updating their Foursquare status in Klingon. Race ya to become the Mayor of Adigeon Prime! 
5:54
The complaints pile up daily about the amount of spam and malware that proliferates the social media world. It even reaches the highest levels such as the recent takeover of the FCC chairman’s Facebook account that resulted in e-mails going out to all of his “friends”. While I know I shouldn’t, I have to laugh at that one. Maybe that’s part of the reason why the government is turning its attention to Facebook? Who knows but it sure be inspiration to look a little closer.
In an attempt to capitalize on this brave new world for spammers and hackers Websense is offering a new product called Defensio (how much time was spent on that name?). The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog reports:
Thursday tech-security company Websense will announce software called Defensio that allows Facebook users to better police the comments appearing on their wall and fan pages. In addition to detecting and blocking threats such as phishing and malicious Web sites, the software lets users restrict comments that include profanity or adult content.
Social media security software sounds like a nice new marketing term for the future, which will likely continue to get worse with regard to these concerns. While one would hope that services like Facebook and Twitter would be doing everything they can to police their own side of the street it may be up to third party developers to really do the trick. The sites themselves are more concerned about those darn investors and their silly requests for revenue.
Of course, the cat an mouse game of spammers and hackers and those who try to stop will always leave the protection lacking.
But Websense still has a ways to go to catch up to the rapidly evolving cons on social-networking sites. One scam that has been rampant lately involves compromising a user’s account and using Facebook’s live chat in an attempt to defraud the user’s friends. Dan Hubbard, Websense’s chief technology officer, said the beta version of the software does not include a chat scanner but that Websense is looking at that possibility.
Will your Facebook account ever be free of these threats? No. As long as people keep saying yes to every silly third party app that gets tossed in front of them to grow digital vegetables or take some asinine survey or profile to determine the course of their lives these things will happen. Based on that it looks like the social media security industry could be one of growth for quite some time.
Oh and if you want to take Defensio for a spin head over to their web site. The beta is free and is likely to remain that way for personal Facebook users but there are plans in the works to charge for business use. Sound familiar?
5:21
YouTube is always on the prowl to find ways to make money off the gazillion gaziggawatts of video that it already has and is always collecting. As with most online services this quest for revenue is an ongoing battle that requires considerable creativity as well as a lot of experimentation. On Friday YouTube will roll out its online video rental option as one of those attempts to add to Google’s coffers.
The Wall Street Journal tells us
Google Inc.’s YouTube said it will begin testing a new online video service on Friday, entering the rental turf of other technology giants such as Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc.
YouTube will begin testing the service with five movies from the Sundance Film Festival, the company said Wednesday in a blog post. It plans to later expand its rental selection to a range of health, education and fitness categories, a company spokesman said.
The disclosure marks one of YouTube’s first major pushes into delivering paid video rather than supplying videos that can be viewed for free in exchange for watching ads. YouTube is hoping that the new payment option—which allows a content supplier to set the price per rental—will draw more professional content, including offerings from major film and TV studios, to its site.
I am probably the worst person to be talking about video rentals because in my house there isn’t much room for art in between the Dora the Explorer videos my three year adores (and the rest of us simply tolerate) and other things vying for our attention. In other words, I may be in the market but until this service is more mainstreamed I will be on the sidelines.
YouTube is trying to differentiate itself from the competition like Amazon, Apple and Netflix by presenting a flexible pricing option for video offering.
Media companies could be enticed by the more flexible business model YouTube is offering. Unlike Apple’s iTunes Store, which has set tiers of pricing for rentals of movies, Google is allowing partners to set the price that it will charge consumers and how long they want the rental to last.
Consumers must pay through Google’s payment service, Google Checkout. Google and the content supplier will split the revenue, with the partner getting the majority, a YouTube spokesman said.
The first five films, which will cost $3.99 to rent from Friday through Jan. 31, will include “The Cove,” a documentary about the dolphin fishing industry, and “Homewrecker,” a comedy about a locksmith.
Personally I find stories about companies trying to monetize their offerings vs stories about innovation pretty much the same thing no matter who is trying to generate revenue. It’s just another business saying “If you really like our service we’re going to make you pay …….. someday, some way.”
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12:46
Two out of three online measurement firms agree: Bing lost ground in December. Experian Hitwise and Nielsen saw Bing’s search share decrease from November, while comScore saw it grow.
comScore saw Bing grow 4% from 10.3% to 10.7% (and Yahoo, Ask & the rest lost some). Hitwise, however, reported that Bing saw a 4% decrease in December (0.42 percentage points, coming in at 8.92%), as did Yahoo (0.56 percentage points, now 14.83%) and Ask (0.11 percentage points, now 2.54%). Google, naturally, grew 1% (0.68 percentage points, 72.25%). Nielsen reported an 8% drop in Bing’s share (0.8 percentage points, 9.9%), while Yahoo saw a 6% drop (0.9 percentage points, 14.4%).
Comparing the data to May (the last month of Microsoft/Live search before Bing’s launch) yields somewhat different results. Nielsen shows that Bing gained 0.5 percentage points by December, while Hitwise shows they’ve gained 3.28 percentage points. comScore says they’re up by 2.7 percentage points over that period.
However, all the measurement firms agree that Google was up and Yahoo (and Ask) slightly down in December. If Bing’s success is coming at Yahoo’s expense, will this bode well for their deal?
We saw lots of early reports that Bing was growing its market share, but after six months, are the results as dramatic as you expected?
10:17
After a long debate, the New York Times has officially settled on an online pay model and and implementation timeline. The meter system will be introduced at the beginning of next year.
The model will allow users to access a certain number of articles free each month. After the set viewing threshold, users will be required to pay. Print subscribers will have free access online. Says the Times:
This will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream and preserve its robust advertising business. It will also provide the necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and publisher of the New York Times, said, “Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.” According to Nielsen Online, the Times is the #1 newspaper site in the world, so they may just have enough support to do this.
Romenesko also has posted a memo to the Times staff on the upcoming change (via). In the memo, Sulzberger acknowledges that this move will be lauded by some and criticized by others, just as the management debated it. Ultimately, he says, this move will be judged by its implementation, which is why they’re giving themselves so long to run up to the process. In the meantime, they will also work on improving the site, its users’ experience and its stickiness.
Sulzberger explains their reasoning behind this pay model choice, echoing some of the press release wording:
We also selected the metered model because it offers a number of important virtues from a financial and growth perspective. It allows NYTimes.com to remain a vibrant part of the search-driven Web, which has proven to be an integral reason for why we have become an industry leader in display advertising. This flexibility enables us to create a proper ratio between free and paid content and to aggressively build on our very successful digital advertising business.
He also says the Times will not join a consortium.
I’m glad they’ll keep some of their content free—I’m hoping that such features as their blogs will remain free without counting toward the article limit. The Times is a valuable, venerated resource.
But personally, I won’t be paying for a subscription, or using the site enough to incur use fees the vast majority of the time. Will you?
8:10
Yesterday I looked at the idea that Microsoft was playing the nice corporate citizen to a European group by agreeing to purge data from their search engine after 6 months and then asking for their competitors to do the same. How chivalrous. Well, today there are reports that Microsoft is just fine with letting others drive the Internet car for them because they are being viewed as a pawn in the growing battle between Google and Apple.
How is that you ask? There are discussions underway to replace Google as the default search for the iPhone with bing. Gee, I wonder where that came from? Could it be this little scuffle about the whole mobile market and this Nexus One / Android / moving in on the iPhone territory approach that Google is taking? Boy, once Eric Schmidt left the board of Apple it looks like the stuff has hit the fan.
Apple is in talks with Microsoft to replace Google as the default search engine on its iPhone, according to two people familiar with the matter. The talks have been under way for weeks, say the people, who asked not to be named because the details have not been made public.
This of course opens the door wide open for speculation but the reality is still pretty clear. This is a potential PR move to ding Google more than it is a great play for bing. Why? Because iPhone users (on the whole) are likely to be smart enough to use something other than a default search function if they like another option better.
Apple has gained a loyal customer base through focusing on best of breed, even if it costs a little bit more. From Apple, I should be able to assume a higher quality product, and something that reflects real worth. Bing is good, the very best Microsoft has ever offered in search, but backroom shenanigans dealt out due to hurt feelings or assumed alliances is wrong, no matter what.
Let’s not dwell on the history or even the details here. Let’s look to discuss this. What could be lost / gained by Apple in a deal like this? What could be lost / gained by Google? Does Microsoft care what is lost or gained just as long as someone is talking about bing?
8:00
"We’ve raised all this money. We’ve created this global brand…Now we have to go build the business that lives up to that valuation."
Twitter COO, Dick Costolo, January 20, 2010
And that, my friend, is why we won’t see a Twitter IPO this year. That, and this really obscure New Yorker reference:
“My view of our financial future is like that old New Yorker cover where the New Yorker looks at the view of the United States and the IPO is way out west somewhere,” Costolo said yesterday during a panel discussion at Bloomberg’s San Francisco bureau. “Bronx and Queens are our 2010 financial plan, and that’s what we’re focused on right now.”
You could argue, that Twitter needs to be closer to Madison Avenue than the Bronx, but I think we all get his point–Twitter’s just not ready to head west and make its fortunes in an IPO.
Aside from figuring out how exactly it plans to generate revenue, the other monkey on its back isn’t actually a monkey at all–it’s a whale!
The company really needs to figure out how to avoid such random outages. A few of these immediately prior to an IPO, and it won’t be just whales that are sinking–Twitter’s opening-day valuation won’t be able to tread-water either!
7:38
My mind went numb, digesting Google’s lengthy explanation on how it’s improved its understanding of synonyms.
I’ll spare you the minutes–and brain cells–with my summary of the announcement:
Google knows when two words are semantically connected–such as "pictures" and "photos." It now plans to bold those synonyms in its search results, if it believes it’s pertinent to the search you just conducted.
If Google’s explanation of its code is anything like its actual code, it must be very bloated!
Kidding aside, it’s actually a pretty smart piece of technology. Take "gm" for example. Google knows that, depending on the accompanying search queries, gm can mean different things. This screenshot explains it best:
Unfortunately, despite my witty post title, a search for "starchy tuberous crop" did not reveal any results for potato. 
7:08
When I saw this ‘announcement’ I really wanted to check into what was going on because it involved a brand I have been a lifelong fanatic of (Coca Cola) and one that I have recently started to really enjoy, Posterous.
While I sometimes wonder why people get so attached to brands and think it’s a little weird, I have to admit that I am almost over the top with my Coke addiction (go ahead and snicker and insert silly drug reference here). I actually refuse to drink other soda products unless there is literally no other choice. Also, I just like the logo and the sense of Americana it carries. Of course, with the amount of aspartame I have ingested drinking Diet Coke for years I will likely prove those lab rats correct but, hey, everyone has to check out of here for some reason, right?
Anyway, back to the marketing stuff. Posterous has teamed with Coke but there is a unique business spin on this one for Posterous which is a free “blog service” to consumers. You see, Coca Cola is actually paying Posterous for it being the platform for a contest they are running that will be part of the NCAA Basketball Tournament this year.
TechCrunch provides the overview
One of Posterous’ first “clients” is Coca-Cola, which is definitely a good first start. Coca-Cola is using Posterous for its NCAA “Dept of Fannovation” where people can come up with ideas to improve the experience of being a fan, and a chance to win $10,000.
Coca-Cola’s use of Posterous revolves around the “post moderation” feature. Any Posterous site can be enabled so that anyone can email post@sitename.posterous.com. The site owner can then moderate those posts, and publish them with a single click. This feature can be used to crowdsource images, video, and text from users.
I have not followed through on the idea submission process on this one so I have not seen this in action. I do see though that on the “Dept. of Fannovation “site” which is a very dark site in its theme because the actual Coke product for this is Coke Zero, there is a nice yellow Posterous tab that could do quite nicely to make the service more well known to a crowd (college hoops fans) that is young enough to understand it and get it.
So it looks like Posterous is taking the same tact as Twitter and deciding that the money to be made is in the corporate market. Keep it free for the regular folks so they can be herded for companies to pick apart and market to the ones they need. Sounds cold and analytical but marketing can be that sometimes, can’t it?
12:05
In light of the . . . “difficulties” Google is anticipating in China, they’ve decided to postpone the launch of their planned Nexus One phone in China. The launch was supposed to be tomorrow. (Wait, today? Wednesday. Whatever day that is in China. Stupid international date line.)
China has the world’s most populous mobile Internet market, with 700 million subscribers (nearly twice the size of their landline subscriptions). It’s little wonder Google was interested in this market—but will their difficulties with the government over search keep them out?
Google acknowledged that they might be forced to shutter Google.cn and their search services in the country. The government maintains that Google must obey the censorship laws. However, there was still a possibility that they might be allowed to maintain other services, such as Google Voice, Gmail or Maps.
Although lagging behind Baidu in search, Google has fared well on the mobile Internet in China, and the phone could have been a way for them to extend their mobile (and possibly total) marketshare. Perhaps it’s not worth it to them if the phone isn’t going to be supporting their larger cash cow, search.
And perhaps they think the Chinese government won’t allow any Google services in the country.
What do you think? Will Google be allowed to run other services if its search business is shuttered? Will China get the Nexus?
10:38
The third annual News Users report from research firm Outsell has some interesting findings. While more and more people are going online for their news, and fewer people are getting their information from newspapers, it seems that many online news consumers are more like . . . well, “grazers.” And this might actually be good news for Germany’s Federation of Newspaper Publishers.
TechCrunch reports that 44% of US visitors to Google News do not click on any headlines, preferring instead to skim article snippets. Unsurprisingly, the Internet is becoming an ever more popular source for news, especially what Outsell calls “news right now,” with 56% of consumers turning to online news sources (up from 33% a few years ago).
Google News and other aggregators are a more likely destination than a single paper’s website, as well, with 31% going for the aggregator and only 8% picking a news site. (18% chose other. I guess, with rounding errors, that adds up to the 56ish% turning to online news sources?)
Of course, the numbers on the Internet eroding newspapers’ subscriber base aren’t surprising. Two months ago, we saw that American consumers were will to pay as much as $3 a month for their news (which I thought was kind of crappy, though many disagreed). Turns out it’s even crappier than I thought—according to Outsell, 75% would turn to a different source if their local newspaper sites put up a pay wall, and only 10% are willing to pay for a newspaper subscription to get online access. (Cough, NY Times, cough.)
The more interesting concept here, however, is that Outsell sees Google News becoming a destination for news instead of a starting point, like Google Search is. That might actually bode well for at least one competitor—Germany’s Federation of Newspaper Publishers. As we saw yesterday, the publishers are suing Google News as a monopoly for displaying snippets from their stories. (Robots.txt. Srsly.) If it turns out that many consumers are only reading the snippets and German newspapers aren’t seeing the downstream traffic, their case may have a little more merit.
And then they could just block Google News.
What do you think? Is Google News (along with other aggregators) becoming a destination for online news? Will this US data help out the German newspaper publishers’ case?
8:32
…and that’s a good thing! At least for marketers.
Forrester Research has updated its two year-old Social Technographics Ladder–adding a new rung for Conversationalists:
These Conversationalists are certainly on Twitter, but, perhaps no surprise, they’re spending even more time updating their Facebook status. Watching my wife, sister (in-law), cousins, etc, I can certainly see why Forrester is reporting that women make up 56% of the Conversationlist group–and it’s just like in real life. While men tend to have short updates, factual posts, and brief interactions, my observations suggest that women tend to be more engaged, have longer conversations, and prefer the (debatable) privacy of Facebook over Twitter.
With the Conversationlists being just one rung of the ladder below the Creators–those that publish blogs, upload videos, etc–marketers need to pay particular attention to this group. As Forrester suggests…
With conversationalists making up 53% of this group, it’s clear that generating and spreading conversations about [your company] could be effective. If your objective is to spread awareness, it would certainly be worthwhile to create a Twitter identity and reach out to others speaking about [you company] (you can find them through searches) or point them to a site where they can get rewards, encouragement, connections with other customers, or just interesting content worth talking about.
7:35
I realize that what I am about to write is a stretch but just go with it for a minute. In the past week we have seen Google act as if they are standing up to the Chinese government by not censoring their search results and thus risking expulsion from the world’s largest market. A market in which they are getting beat. Now Microsoft is bowing to pressure from an European advisory board to purge all data from their records after 6 months vs. the 18 months that the major search engines usually do. The New York Times report:
John Vassallo, a Microsoft vice president and associate general counsel, said the company would introduce the changes over the next 18 months, aiming to satisfy a European advisory group that has been critical of how search engines collect and retain data on individuals for advertising purposes.
In 2008, a panel comprised of national privacy regulators from each European Union country asked Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! to eliminate such data, including a computer’s unique identification number, location and the text typed into search fields, after six months.
Like other search engines, Microsoft had been keeping user data for more than 18 months. Last year, Microsoft changed its policy to make the individual’s I.P. address anonymous after six months.
So far, only Microsoft has agreed to comply fully with the panel’s request. Google and Yahoo have said they need to hold on to some data longer than six months to refine the functioning of the search engines.
Now here is where we go into the “what if” part of the post because I have no evidence of this hypothesis being true other than observation and drawing inferences from those observations. What appears to be happening is that companies are using pressure from foreign governments to help redefine their own competitive environment in these areas.
Hear me out. Google was very vocal in their “stand” against the Chinese and by “standing up” and taking a position that looks very strong on the surface they are actually forcing others to consider the same. Why? Because if Google is turning it’s back to some degree on the largest market on the planet for “moral” reasons as well as business ones, how does that make their competitors that stay look? Not as good as Google for sure. In fact, it leaves the rest having to defend their decisions to do business in China which never is the best position for a brand to be in.
Now we have Microsoft who is in essence getting its clock cleaned in the search business by Google. They have invested a lot of their future in the bingahoo deal. There seem to be mounting evidence that the only market share gains that are likely when the union of bing and yahoo occurs are that of having one number instead of two to measure the two engines’ market share. Individually they both lost ground in December of ’09 so things are not going well.
How could they possibly slow down Google? Be the first to bow to the pressure of this advisory board in Europe and make statements like this.
So far, only Microsoft has agreed to comply fully with the panel’s request. Google and Yahoo have said they need to hold on to some data longer than six months to refine the functioning of the search engines.
The panel, known as the Article 29 Working Group, held a hearing with representatives of the search engine companies last February, and has given each until the end of January to respond.
“We support what the Article 29 Working Group is doing. That is why we are making this change,” Mr. Vassallo said at news conference in Brussels. “We call on our competitors to do the same.”
Like Google using their actions to call out others and change the playing field in China, Microsoft looks like it is trying to dent Google’s ability to use information for its business advantage. Microsoft is acting all high and mighty because they are playing nice with European governments and then implying that the right thing for their competitors to do would be to follow suit. Now there are battle lines drawn and decisions to be made that are forced by compliance with government forces and not competitive ones. That’s bad for everyone.
This is what happens when the free market is stifled by the “powers that be”. Innovation stops and you start to see everyone looking to play by rules that kill any forward movement. Who suffers? Consumers. Who benefits? Governments. That is not a good formula.
No evidence here. As I said at the start this is pure speculation on my part. Your thoughts on the subject?
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
6:15
For those of you who have ever been in sales or were trained to sell you may have heard the expression that it is “better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission”. Nice pithy little saying that simply means, go ahead and do what you want to do to get the job done and if there are any issues they will be worked out. While that is something that produces chuckles amongst the rebel sales force, in practice it often ends up in bad business and forcing people to change things that don’t need to be changed.
It appears that Facebook is subscribing to the same policy as it relates to their privacy policies since they made privacy an after thought by opening up the Facebook world to the everyone else in the world by default. As one might expect, privacy advocates like EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) don’t like the direction this is heading so they wrote a complaint to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and MediaPost tells us the result:
In a letter dated Jan. 14, David Vladeck, head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, told the Electronic Privacy Information Center that its complaint about recent privacy changes at Facebook “raises issues of particular interest for us at this time.”
Vladeck added that he has asked an official to arrange a followup meeting with EPIC, but also said he can’t currently confirm or deny whether the FTC has opened an investigation. FTC investigations are not public until the agency either issues a complaint or closes the matter.
The FTC’s consumer protection chief also said in his letter to EPIC that the commission plans to focus on privacy issues raised by social networks at the next roundtable, scheduled to be held in Berkeley, Calif. on Jan. 28.
“As the amount of personal information shared on social networking sites grows, and the number of third parties and advertising networks with access to such information grows, it is important that consumers understand how their data is being shared and what privacy rules apply,” Vladeck wrote. “The Commission staff believes it is critical that companies provide transparency about how this data is being handled, maintained, shared, and protected, and what steps consumers may take to control the use of their information.”
While these things often are a lot of bluster and noise from government agencies one has to suspect that with the current administration’s desire to control every aspect of everything for everybody this will get some attention for sure. One thing most companies like to avoid is being investigated by the Feds but it could very well be a part of Facebook’s future. They have already capitulated to the demands of the Canadian government so the precedent is in place for Facebook to have to do something different if there is significant pressure and the right threats coming from Washington.
To get the ball rolling a complaint was filed.
Last month, EPIC and nine other groups filed a complaint alleging that Facebook’s new privacy settings constitute an unfair and deceptive change in terms.
This is in addition to Mark Zuckerberg’s redefinition of privacy in the online world, in which he essentially said that everyone now knows that there is not much privacy on the Internet and as a result the once super private Facebook should open it’s policies so that everyone can “share”. (I am SO glad that I have someone like Mark Zuckerberg who is so wise and all knowing to make that decision for me. How about you?). The net result is being arrogant enough to attract the attention and potential ire of the Feds. Oh well.
Lastly there has been an alleged Facebook anonymous employee who puts words to what those in the know likely assumed but those who have no clue would not be too thrilled with by saying
In addition, a Facebook employee allegedly said recently that users’ messages are stored in a database regardless of whether users attempt to delete them. “We track everything. Every photo you view, every person you’re tagged with, every wall-post you make, and so forth,” the employee allegedly added.
Facebook’s response?
Facebook spokesperson Andrew Noyes said that EPIC’s latest filing “offers little or no new information to substantiate the claims they make.”
So will 2010 be Facebook’s year of privacy? If it is, it is off to a bit of a rocky start.
2:35
OK, as anyone with a brain has noticed, I’m selling something here. The OnlineProfits course from my blogging colleague, Daniel Scocco.
I’m promoting it for one primary reason. It works.
For another reason, it has a history …Daniel launched this program more than a year ago … it quickly filled up with happy members (they must be happy, because there is a no-nonsense 30 day money back guarantee, so one would certainly expect unhappy people world bail).
For another good reason, Daniel focuses on quality over quantity .. only 300 members will be taken in this session … he could just as easily sell and sell until the sign-ups quit coming, but then there would be too many members to get the individual attention they paid for.
That led to the nest major reason I am promoting this program … the staff. This is not some little ‘one man band’, ‘read my eBook’ kind of effort. It’s a well put together realisitic training program, that, if you chose to work using the principles you learn here, you can definitely succeed.
Our Faculty
Daniel Scocco Online Marketing
Michael Gray SEO
Neil Patel Linkbuilding
Yaro Starak Email Marketing
Chris Garrett Online Communities
Tamar Weinberg Social Media
Hamlet Batista SEO
Zac Johnson Affiliate Marketing
Courtney Tuttle Keyword Research
Nathan Rice Web DesignHow’s that for a “who’s Who of online success stories?
I’m also promoting it because I’m a member … and I believe in eating my own dog food … I don’t usually sell any product or service I haven’t looked at personally, and this one is well worth more than the asking price.
(FTC required disclaimer … I didn’t purchase this course, I won it in a contest … but I pronmise I am giving you the unvarnished truth, no matter how much I actually paid. I also, as you may have guessed, recieve a commission if you buy. Again, I don’t need any of these sort of programs to live, I make a very nice income without promoting anything … if I promote it, I consider it worth your time.)
Here are 10 reasons you really ought to consider digging into what this course has to offer:
10 Reasons to Work from Home OnlineHere Is What You’ll Get Access ToThe Internet is the largest socio-economic phenomenon of our century. It changed the way people communicate, collaborate, and live. It also created a whole new type of worker: the online worker. Those are people who work full time on the Internet. Some make money through their blogs, others leverage affiliate marketing, others yet focus on providing services over the web.
Regardless of the business model, there are many reasons that make working online exciting. Below we’re going to cover some of them.
1. No more wasted time on commutesEven if you live relatively close to your work, you’ll still waste a good amount of time commuting back and forth every day. For example, if your workplace is 30 minutes away from your home (either by car or by public transportation), you will waste 60 minutes per day, which translates into 240 hours every year.
What if instead of wasting those 240 hours commuting you could use them for something productive? You probably could read dozens of books, learn new things (i.e., how to play an instrument), exercise more and so on with all that time available.
2. You can work on your own termsImagine being able to wake up without an alarm clock every single day. If you work on the Internet you can work any time you want. Do you feel more productive at night? Then work at night. Do you want to take Wednesdays off to practice a sport? Go for it.
Working on your own terms also means that you can structure your working environment as you please. That is, you can wear some comfortable clothes instead of the annoying suit, listen to music while you work if that makes you more productive and so on.
3. You can work anywhereWe say “work from home,” but in reality you can work anywhere, and this is a great advantage. The only requirement is a reliable Internet connection, but you can get one virtually anywhere these days. You could work from cafes, parks, and even from the beach if you grab a wireless modem.
For the matter of fact you can even travel to other countries and still work on your websites as you would do if you were sitting on your home office (and many people do just that).
4. You can network with a lot of peopleOnline networking is certainly not as effective as face to face networking, but the fact that you get to interact with thousands of people certainly compensates.
By working on the Internet you’ll be able to meet and work with people from all around the world, from all fields and with all sorts of interests. Initially your relationship with those people will not be as strong as with local co-workers, but over time it might.
There are hundreds of cases of people who got hired, found partners and launched successful projects over the web without meeting the other side physically.
5. It is flexibleA great benefit of working online is the flexibility. You can create all sorts of websites, explore different niches and try different business models every single day.
For example, you could start with a blog on a topic you are passionate about, and after a while you could experiment launching an online store on the same niche offering some products to your visitors.
This flexibility makes working online both fun and profitable.
6. It might be less riskyMany people work 9 to 5 jobs because they believe it is a safer option. A regular job sends a pay check every month, after all, while an online business has many ups and downs.
To a certain extent this is true, but under many aspects having your own online (or offline for the matter of fact) business is actually less risky. For example, if you work for a company you could get fired any day. Sometimes even top performers are fired because the company needs to cut costs.
If you have your own business, on the other hand, no one will be able to fire you. Sure, the business could still go wrong, but that is a risk under your direct control.
7. You get to be your own bossIt would be tough to find a person who never had an annoying boss, right? Even if your boss is a nice guy, taking orders from someone else sucks.
By working online you’ll solve this problem for good. You’ll still have customers, readers and advertisers who will demand your attention, but the level of stress in dealing with those is significantly lower when compared to having a boss.
8. You get to develop business skillsEvery website that is built with the purpose of making money can be seen as a small business entity. You will have to manage resources (e.g., web hosting, domain names), people (e.g., web designers, writers), clients (e.g., readers or customers) and so on. You’ll also need to plan the business model, the marketing activities and so on.
In other words, you’ll develop important business skills along the way, and this is something very valuable.
9. It might grow into a big businessMost websites start as a hobby. If your idea is good and you put enough work on it, however, it might grow into a big business. Just consider blogs like Tech Crunch. It started as a one-man show, and today it employs several writers, editors, and it generates millions in revenues every year.
And you don’t need to go to the very top to see this pattern. There are hundreds of web design, affiliate marketing and consulting firms that were started as a hobby and turned into profitable businesses over time.
10. Your work will go into something you ownWe believe there are no shortcuts to success. Whether you work for a corporation or have your own small business, if you want to succeed you’ll need to work your butt off.
The difference of the two scenarios above is quite a big one, however. On the first one you’ll be putting your heart and soul on someone else’s business. Sure you might get a good salary in exchange for that, but the fact that someone else owns the whole thing and will collect most of the profits remains unchanged.
So, that was a lot of words. Were they worth it? The only jusdge of that is you, the reader. And the only way you can vote is to do nothing and pass onto yet another opportunity, or to decide now that, for once, you will take action and try something. The place to begin your journey to online profits sucess is here.
There is no risk, you don’t like, don’t buy. I recommend this course and the staff throughly.
Copyright © 2010 Retired Pay World. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is likely guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@retiredpay.com so we can take legal action immediately.Related posts:
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14:01
Google has been criticized for censoring search results, even it was the only way they could get into certain countries, such as China. But as they’re abandoning that approach in China, are they picking it up elsewhere? Search Google Australia for [aboriginal and encyclopedia], and you’ll find an interesting message at the end of the page.
The page at ChillingEffects.org explains that Google removed a listing from this SERP after a complaint was filed about the site under the Australian Anti Discrimination Act.
I believe the fact that Google has posted this notice (note that “chilling effect” refers to actions, especially legal ones, that would have a deterrent effect on a free press) shows that they’re reluctant to comply with the ruling, but feel compelled to legally—which might well be the case. The Sydney Morning Herald explains the process behind this move:
Google has agreed to take down links to a website that promotes racist views of indigenous Australians.
Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt recently discovered the US-based site by searching “Aboriginal and Encyclopedia” in the search engine.
He tried to modify the entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satirical and extremely racist version of Wikipedia, but was blocked from doing so.
Mr Hodder-Watt then undertook legal action, that resulted in Google acknowledging its legal responsibility to remove the offensive site.
Okay, I think that especially in light of today’s holiday in the US (Martin Luther King Day), we all acknowledge that racism is bad. Racist jokes and racial epithets (both of which the page in question uses) are the lowest form of humor, if they even qualify. But considering that the Encyclopedia Dramatica claims to be a satire, is this really the right move for the Australian government, and for Google?
Google Blogoscoped takes a look at some of the other, far milder entries on the ED:
Spain is described to be “Devoid of any culture whatsoever”. Another country’s citizens are called “the human scum of the world”, and so on. Encyclopedia Dramatica also has an article titled “White People”, which starts with “It is widely known that white people are the inferior race.” It goes on to mention that “One good thing about the white race is their ability to blindly follow their leaders in perfect lockstep, however ridiculous the instructions might sound.”
Note that, despite some reporting to the contrary, Google has not removed links to the Encyclopedia Dramatica or removed the site from its index. Incidentally, both of Google Blogoscope’s examples are still in SERPs. (And the Aborigine page is still in the index, according to the Inquisitr.)
The article on the ED has been updated to include a note about this fervor—claiming that Google reduced its PageRank to 0. (My browser and PRChecker.info say it has a PR of 2—but does anyone care?) They’ve also added ad hominem attacks against the individual who filed the complaint.
What do you think? Should Google delist that result? Or should they stand up to Australia, just like they did with China (and how many enemies can they afford)?
12:24
So it only takes one high-ranking government official calling Google a monopoly to have German companies jump on an anti-trust bandwagon, eh? Who’dathunkit?
Yep, after Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said, “All in all, what’s taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly, similar to Microsoft,” the Federation of Newspaper Publishers, online mapping company Euro-Cities and even Microsoft-owned Ciao have filed complaints against Google with the German government.
The complaints have been lodged with the Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office. The office is independent, but falls under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology—not Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger’s ministry.
The three complaints allege that various Google practices and products make it impossible for others to compete in that industry. The Federation of Newspaper Publishers resurrects everyone’s favorite anti-Google News argument against using “snippets” in their results. (Remember, however, that three years ago, Belgian courts actually upheld this argument.)
Online mapping competitor Euro-Cities argues that Google’s free embeddable maps prohibit competition against Euro-Cities’ paid services. And Ciao, who was bought in 2005 and then their parent company was acquired by Microsoft in 2008, is trying to get out of a display-advertising contract with Google AdSense, stating that the contract is overly restrictive.
As both paidContent and Search Engine Land point out, these complaints would probably bear no merit if they were filed against smaller, less powerful competitors. However, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
While we can’t deny that Google has a lot of services and marketshare, it does seem that these complaints look like evidence that the free market at work. A company that can afford to offer a free service is putting a paid one out of business? Maybe it’s time to rethink your business model, not sue. (And newspapers? Hello, robots.txt.)
What do you think? Does Google have anything to worry about with these suits?
10:42
This video Q&A from Matt Cutts didn’t really reveal anything new about how Google treats links–Google doesn’t follow nofollowed links and that’s the story it’s sticking to.
What did catch my attention was the reference to the weight carried by .edu and .gov links. Matt pretty much debunks any suggestion that a link from an edu/gov TLD carries more weight than a .com one:
I’m sure some of you will debate the “truthiness” of that statement–based on your own findings–but for me, it was a blast from the past to hear anyone talk about edu/gov links. Five years ago, a .edu or .gov link was considered the holy grail of backlinks. These days, I rarely hear anyone talk about them as being any more important than other relevant/authoritive .com links.
What say you? Do you still seek out .edu or .gov links simply because they have that extension?
9:20
It’s been little over a year since I shared my super-secret list of WordPress plugins used on Marketing Pilgrim.
You loved it!
So, I’m back with an updated list–simply because I’ve made a lot of changes over the past year–and your blog needs to be just as awesome as ours, right?
I’m sharing this list on one condition. By reading the list below, you agree to click the little green “retweet” button at the top right of this post.
Deal?
Then read on, good sir/madam!
I added this plugin, when WordPress announced it was acquiring it. Unfortunately, I’m either extremely arrogant, too darn busy, or too nonchalant to care, because I rarely actually use it. Any grammatical errors in this post are hereby considered as intentional for comedic purposes!
This should already be installed for your WordPress blog, but you may need to activate it. It’s secret? It aggregates information from all Akismet users–which means it will block you from a spammer, even if they’ve never commented on your site before. The only downside? Sometime it produces false-positives, resulting in legit comments heading to spam-jail.
Author Image – smiling faces on every postIf you like seeing the smiling faces of Pilgrim’s writers, you can thank Author Image. If you hate seeing the smiling faces of Pilgrim’s writers, you can blame Author Image.
If you’d like to know more information about those that fill out your blog’s contact form–like, which keywords they entered on Google to get to your blog–then you’ll want to check out Best Contact Form.
(New) Canonical URLs – they’re my posts, all mine!I want Google to know which is the correct URL for each post we publish. When you refer someone to our site–and it adds all of that crappy referral information to the URL–this plugin makes sure that it’s not that version that gets the link juice. (Note: This is no longer needed if you run WordPress 2.9)
(New) Clean Options – clean-up that wp_options tableI never knew what problems a bloated wp_option table would create, until my last WordPress upgrade. Thanks to rogue plugins that decided to add about 47,000 unneeded rows, my upgrade failed over, and over, again. This little plugin looks for junk in your wp_options table and removes it. Use with caution.
CommentLuv – paying it forwardWe love to reward our readers when they leave a comment. With CommentLuv, every commenter automatically has their last blog post displayed below their comment on Marketing Pilgrim.
FeedFooter – little messages at the bottom of your feedFeedFooter has so many great uses. On MP we use it to display ads at the bottom of every RSS feed item. On other blogs I use it to place copyright information and backlinks–to try and stop spammers from scraping the feed.
Force Word Wrapping – ‘cos some words are too longHave you ever seen a 40 character URL posted on a blog, stretch across into the sidebar. Looks ugly, doesn’t it? You won’t ever see that on MP, thanks to this plugin which forces word-wrapping.
(New) Head META Description – search engine friendly snippetsNo, this plugin doesn’t make your site rank better in the search engines. What it does do, is ensure that if a search engine wants to display a meta description, it finds one on the page.
(New) Limit Login Attempts – locked-up and locked-outMean people are always trying to break into houses blogs. This plugin will automatically lock-out anyone that enters an invalid login three times in a row.
Math Comment Spam – when Akismet is not enoughEven with Akismet, MP would still suffer from around 100 bot comments each day. When I installed Math Comment Spam protection, the number of spam comments dropped to zero. Effectively, only humans can leave a comment on MP, because even robots aren’t smart enough to figure out 7+11. Bonus: this form of comment spam protection is much easier for human commenters than those hard to read captchas!
This plugin handles the “Popular” section of our sidebar widget. It simply displays the posts with the most comments over any time-period you define.
No Self Pings – does exactly what it says on the tinHere at Marketing Pilgrim, we inter-link our own posts heavily. Without this plugin, we’d have dozens of trackback/pingbacks from our own blog each day. This prevents them from showing up in our comments section.
Post Teaser – because I’m a big teaseWant to de-clutter your blog’s homepage and increase click-throughs to post pages at the same time? This handy plugin automatically creates a teaser of each post on the homepage, with a link through to the full post.
Redirection – when it absolutely, positively, must get thereI love this plugin! Not only does it automatically redirect post URLs–handy for when you click “publish” only to realize your misspelled a word in the post slug–but it also has a 301 redirect manager. How hand is that? A few months back a large email newsletter link to this blog, but had a typo in the page name. Instead of that traffic hitting a 404 error page, I was able to redirect it to the correct destination! Oh, and you should already know the SEO benefits of using this plugin.
If you’ve read this far into this post, the chances are, we have other posts that you’d love too! With this plugin, I can automatically suggest other great posts–on the same topic–that you’ll likely love.
If you care about SEO, then you should care about the TITLE of your posts and pages. I don’t always use this on posts, but for our “pages” this plugin allows me to override the TITLE that is automatically generated.
Subscribe to Comments – “you just keep me hanging on!”I wish more blogs had this plugin installed. As a publisher, I love this plugin because I can set the defaul to automatically subscribe a commenter to receive an alert when a new comment is added. This brings them back to the conversation–btw, they can un-check the box to opt-out. As a commenter, I love seeing this option–especially if I leave a comment and would love to know if the author replies to my question/comment.
Theme Tester – behind the scenes theme switchingThis plugin was a life-saver during our re-design. It allowed us (Admins) to view the new WordPress theme, while every other blog reader saw the existing design. The next time you test a new theme, you can do so without risking your audience see the experiment!
(New) TweetMeme Retweet Button – please retweet usI have Vlad Zablotskyy to thank for this plugin. I had tested it out before, and it never quite worked. Vlad asked for the option on Marketing Pilgrim, so I tried it again–and this time it worked perfectly. It adds the TweetMeme “retweet” button to each post. You can customize its look, behavior and position. You did click it already, right?
This plugin automatically publishes any new post to my Twitter account. I like it because it also identifies the Twitter handle of the author that wrote it. I don’t like it because it sometimes breaks and publishes the same post multiple times in a row. If you know of a better solution, please let me know.
(New) Wibiya Toolbar – that red tool-bar thingy at the bottomYou probably didn’t miss the addition of the “social” toolbar we added to the bottom of Marketing Pilgrim. I’m still testing it–and appreciate any feedback. Wibiya actually provides some basic analytics data and suggests that the toolbar is, at best, increasing engagement, and, at worse, preventing a few bounces.
WordPress Database Backup – a life saverYou do back-up your blog, right?
(New) WordPress Firewall – blocks the bad guysAnother cool plugin for keeping hackers out of Marketing Pilgrim. It has lots of cool features, including only allowing certain IPs the ability to edit WordPress files. Just remember, if you go on vacation, and try to change a file, it will give you about an hour of heartburn–until you remember you need to whitelist your condo’s IP address. I learned this lesson the hard way!
I love this little plugin! It basically installs a mobile friendly theme for Marketing Pilgrim and when it detects you’re browsing the site from a phone, uses that theme instead of our default one. Go ahead, check it out!
(New) WordPress Thread Comment – are you talking to me?It’s taken a while, but Pilgrim’s are finally starting to realize that, thanks to this plugin, you can now reply directly to another commenter. This just makes it easier for commenter #25 to reply to commenter #2, etc.
WP-Email – you’ll be surprised how often this is usedWhen I first installed this plugin, even I was shocked at just how often it was being used by readers. If your readers find something interesting on your site, let them email it to a friend or co-worker–you might just get another loyal reader/subscriiber!
(New) WP-Optimize – faster, better, strongerThis plugin helps you to keep your database clean by removing post revisions and spams in a blaze. It also allows you to rename your admin username. Additionally it allows you to run optimize command on your WordPress core tables (use with caution).
(New) WP Ajax Edit Comments – awesome comment editorAnother new favorite of mine. This one not only allows users to edit their own comments–great for when you spot that typo–but it lets me quickly edit, delete, or spam comments without having to go to the WordPress dashboard.
(New) WP Greet Box – hello, are you new here?Basically, this plugin determines where a new site visitor has originated from and displays a custom greeting at the top of the post. For example, if you found MP from a Google search, it will show you similar posts and encourage you to subscribe to our RSS feed.
(New) WP Super Cache – legalized speedingI retired WP-Cache in favor of this plugin. It works sooo much better! Basically does the same job–caches pages so they load much faster.
Retired:
Show Top Commentators – just add water for instant comments
Smart Ads – smarter than the average plugin
WP-Cache – legalized speeding
WP-Notable – share, and share alike
8:01
Do you like peep shows?
How about a sly peek at what could be part of AOL’s broader strategy to flood the web with contributor-generated content and monetize it?
Well, AOL built Owl as a testing ground for its SEED platform–or, as some people are calling it, its “craptent” platform. The site, according to an AOL insider, “is not currently being used,” but it gives us a sneak peek at how AOL plans to distribute content across the web.
What’s interesting is that SEED gives AOL the ability to create and syndicate content to sites such as Owl, with very little set-up costs. After all, Owl looks like a pretty slick site, but clearly AOL didn’t have too much invested in it–if it could so easily afford to let it lie fallow. I suspect we’ll see AOL build dozens of these sites–Hawk, Pigeon, Chicken, Yellow-nosed Albatross–the possibilities are endless!
In the meantime, you’ll just have to sit back and wait for AOL’s new strategy to unfold. In the meantime, you can catch a glimpse of what’s to come. Here’s Owl’s most popular article to date:
…who knew there was a wrong way?
5:58
New York magazine is reporting that the New York Times could be announcing its own move to a paid subscription model as early as this week. If this is the case, we may see more of the dominoes fall in this tenuous conversation. It seems that whenever anyone discusses even the threat of paid content online, a hush comes over the room and people start to whisper like they do when your creepy uncle shows up at the family reunion. Well, whether this is the time or not, this could be the year where content makes a break from the free world to either save itself or crash and burn in spectacular fashion for all to watch.
New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.
There are a wide variety of thoughts on the actual time that the announcement and then the service would happen so suffice it to say, it could be this week and it could be in a few months. The point is that there is pretty good chance that this will happen. When it does there will be plenty of interested parties looking on to help them determine what might be next. Apparently this has not been an easy discussion for the Times and they have looked at several options.
The Times has considered three types of pay strategies. One option was a more traditional pay wall along the lines of The Wall Street Journal, in which some parts of the site are free and some subscription-only. For example, editors and business-side executives discussed a premium version of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s DealBook section. Another option was the metered system. The third choice, an NPR-style membership model, was abandoned last fall, two sources explained. The thinking was that it would be too expensive and cumbersome to maintain because subscribers would have to receive privileges (think WNYC tote bags and travel mugs, access to Times events and seminars).
Now, the article in New York does examine how difficult this process is for the Times because in reality, they are trying to assess what their worth is to the English speaking world from a journalistic and reporting standpoint. Some feel that they could be the last one standing as others go away as a result of online media. If that were the case, the NY Times could garner plenty of ad revenue if they could hold on in the near term. Others are just watching the paper bleed money and feel that there may never be enough ad revenue in the new media world to support the level of reporting etc that they are used to promoting.
I am not sure where I am on this one. I would like to see news outlets like the New York Times survive. We need to pay people to cover stories and do the necessary digging to hopefully get somewhere near the truth. The trouble comes in whether the truth is ever the issue or not. Honestly, it doesn’t matter if a publication is on the left or the right of the political spectrum because the real concern is the bias that exists in many of these big publications. Everything that is reported is spun and often those who get to the position of being a Times reporter use that position as a power base. As a result reporting is out the window. It’s more like opinion and agenda with a few facts thrown in here and there. Sounds a lot like bloggers actually!
Anyway, here’s the easy question for our readers. Would you pay to get the New York Times content online? Yes or no. Oh and since we are a blog please let us hear your opinions as well.
5:28
We have seen and heard so much in the past week about the cyber attacks in mid-December on Google that originated from China that now the story has shifted. Of course assessing the damage and closing the holes that exist at Google are a main priority not to mention that Washington is pretty interested in putting more detail on China’s digital espionage exploits. In the midst of this though is a rumor that is being reported by Reuters that this may have all been an inside job done by Google staff in the China office.
Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack that the U.S. search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December, two sources told Reuters on Monday.
Google, the world’s most popular search engine, said last week it may pull out of the world’s biggest Internet market by users after reporting it had been hit by a “sophisticated” cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.
The sources, who are familiar with the situation, told Reuters that the attack, which targeted people who have access to specific parts of Google networks, may have been facilitated by people working in Google China’s office.
Google is calling any talk like this speculation and through a spokesperson refused to comment. The rumors include the denial of employees to internal network operations last week as a result of these discoveries. While it all appears to be speculation at this point it looks like this will get more interesting edpecially in light of Washington’s interest.
To review, this is what happened in a very 30,000 ft flyover kind of way.
Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software (malware) used in the Google attack was a modification of a Trojan called Hydraq. A Trojan is malware that, once inside a computer, allows someone unauthorized access. The sophistication in the attack was in knowing whom to attack, not the malware itself, the analysts said.
Espionage is nothing new so the ideas that these attacks took place shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone. What seems to have most people concerned is that it happened to Google which has a reputation (whether it is perceived or real is not the point) that is does very little wrong. That image helps them stay away from being talked about regarding the amount of data they have on just about everyone and the real creepy stuff they could do with it.
Now, however, that reputation may have taken a shot because no matter how it happened, inside job or not, the search and Internet giant has been exposed as being as vulnerable as the next guy.
While Google wants to do no evil it better be very prepared for those who would love to do evil to them.
5:52
In college I got a minor in Art History, a topic that I wish I could study more. At the time I had no idea that I would one day work in the marketing industry. Now, I see tons of overlapping concepts of art and marketing. I think I will discuss some of these ideas every now and then in this weekly column. In marketing we use artists and designers every day to create ads and materials. What I am going to talk about is artistic concepts that drive the way we view and talk about the world around us. So if you are looking for design tips, this isn’t the right column!
So to start things off, I think we should get our hands dirty and talk a bit about Wabi-sabi. No, I am not talking about the spicy sushi condiment. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic that is based on exposing imperfections. Wabi-sabi enthusiast will tell you that imperfections are a mark of the true nature of all things, because we all know that nothing is perfect. By exposing imperfections it creates an image of authenticity. Those that adhere to the ideals of Wabi-sabi will find beauty in the scratches on your new iPhone. They point to the weeds in your garden as evidence of rich soil. And, they might also appreciate a bit of gray hair as a sign of wisdom.
Understanding how to appreciate imperfections can be a truly powerful talent. However, merely identifying them can be beneficial as well. Julien Smith, tells us in doing so we can develop a a more defined taste:
Ugly things don’t just make you think; they also unbalance you, and connect with you emotionally over time. All of this makes you different, developing your sense of taste and what you think of as acceptable.
So how can developing a Wabi-sabi mindset help your marketing efforts? Let’s take a look at a few key areas.
You’re not a robotMost social media marketers will tell you that automating social media is a bad idea. Most of the times they will point toward a breakdown in authentic interaction. But an often overlooked negative aspect of automation is its precision. Automation software rarely makes spelling mistakes. They are predictable, and easily ignored. The problem is that precision lacks character. If you never make a mistake, and always deliver expected content or interaction on time, then you are void of character. Brands need to make mistakes, they need to be slightly unpredictable. In doing so they are revealing themselves as human and truly authentic. They need to be a bit Wabi-sabi.
Imperfections break the mold.Last week I mentioned that all the smart phones look the same. It’s because they are all trying to be perfect while forgetting to be unique. When you try something different, you are accepting the possibility of creating new imperfections. You are venturing into uncharted waters where you can define your own normalities. When you are trying to break the mold, you are going to get things dirty and you are going to make an imperfect product. But the beauty is your brand is in charge. You can say that yes there are imperfections, but that’s the point.
Imperfections create authenticityWabi-sabi is the leading paradigm behind the distressed furniture fad. Here we see furniture that has been worn and weathered to give an antiqued facade. This faux authenticity is dependent on imperfections. Imperfections create an impression of transience, one that draws the consumer with a “timeless” appeal.
Now before you go and start adding imperfections to everything you see, remember every good artist knows when to stop! If your brand or product is saturated with imperfections it won’t look more authentic, it will just look like….well, crap. So the true art of Wabi-sabi is finding the right harmony between precision and imperfection. I promise, if you can do that you will be on your way to making your brand more authentic in no time!
21:54
Some of you may be thinking about the Online Profits training and support program I have been talking about the past few days. You have questions, I’m sure. Here are some answers:
Welcome to another edition of the Online Profits newsletter.
As you probably know we are opening the doors to new members next
Monday, January 18. Many of you sent us questions about the
training program, though, and we would like to answer them before
the official launch, to make sure you have all the information
you need to make your decision (especially because we’ll have a
limited number of spots available).Below you’ll the 5 most common questions we received:
Q) What exactly will I get if I enroll myself in the training
program?A) First of all you’ll get access to our training material, which
is composed of text lessons (they can be download as MP3 as well
so you can listen to them on your MP3 player), case studies, video
tutorials and interviews. Second, you’ll also get access to a
private forum where you can interact with other members and get all
your questions answered. Third, you’ll get access to our “Tools”
and “Resources” section, with a selection of tools from around
the web and exclusive resources to our members (e.g., templates and
keyword lists). Fourth, you’ll get access to our Content Library,
which has over 500 ebooks you can download and even re-sell. Fifth,
you’ll get access to our social clubs. One of them is a social
bookmarking club, to help you get more traffic from social
bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumble, and the other one is a
retweet club, to help you get more traffic from Twitter.Q) Why should I choose Online Profits over the other training
programs out there?A) The main differentiator of our training program is the broadness
of its curriculum. We knew that there were some good courses around,
but all of them focus on a single aspect of online marketing. Some
focus on PPC, others on blogging, others yet on affiliate marketing.
We figured that if you want to work full time on the Internet,
however, you need to learn ALL those facets. That is why we created
the most complete program on the web, with 24 training modules that
cover domain names, website setup, blogging, email marketing, SEO,
affiliate marketing, PPC, you name it!Q) What kind of results should I expect after joining the program?
A) The results you’ll get will depend entirely on your goals and
on how hard you are willing to work. Some people join our program
because they just want to create a couple of websites to supplement
their monthly income. Others want to work full time online and build
big businesses, and they see our program as a foundation for that.
Keep in mind that we believe there are no shortcuts to success
though, and we don’t offer “magic bullets” or “overnight riches”.
Building a real and profitable online business will take a lot of
work and time. Our training program complements that with the right
set of knowledge and strategies.Q) What kind of experience do I need to join and make good use of
the training program?A) If you know how to navigate the web you are more than qualified
to join our program. We assume no prior technical knowledge, and
that is why we cover even basic things like buying the right
domain name and choosing a reliable web hosting company.Q) How much will it cost?
The cost of the program will be 4 monthly payments of $98 (so $392
total). You’ll be getting lifetime access to the training material
and to the members area, however, so we think it is a very fair
price. We are also planning to increase the price on the next
launch (taking place late in 2010), so if you get in now you’ll be
getting the lowest possible price.If you have any other questions just reply to this email with it
and we’ll get back to you promptly.The doors will open next Monday, January 18, 3am USA EST time. Only
a limited number of spots will be available, so make sure to check
the email we’ll send you once the doors are open.Best wishes,
Online Profits Team
So can you get rich with this program? I have no idea. I know you will succeed if you work, but I sell few programs like this one becuase most people who buy into them are looking for a magic bullet instead of a working plan to succeed.
Does this program work? Absolutely. You need look no farther than Daniel himelf and the stellar team he has working on this program:
And act now. What is not a joke is that they are only taking a limited number of members on, so that you won’t be another lost fish in a huge sea. One the doors close, as they did this time last year, it’s likely you might wait a year or more if you fail to take advantage now. And yes, I do make a commission on the program … we are writing about making money online for seniors and retirees, aren’t we?
Related posts:
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13:33
In case you’ve forgotten, 2009 was the year the FTC decided to go after mom bloggers (and other bloggers) with $11,000 fines for not disclosing reviewed freebies, sponsored posts or other relationships with companies—or not.
Despite the fervor over the FTC’s new guidelines, the fact is that they were designed to target a specific group of bloggers—ones making a living (or just a killing) off free products which they automatically gave glowing reviews. (And let’s face it, who’s going to be sorry to see them go?) But the guidelines were written widely enough to apply to mom bloggers who use coupons to book reviewers who receive advance review copies, even though neither of those situations guarantees a good review or even coverage.
And now, the FTC is finally realizing how hard these guidelines will be to enforce—and not just for the targeted bloggers, and not even just for bloggers (as we’ve pointed out all along).
The FTC’s northeast regional director, Leonard Gordon, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the guidelines, clarifying that the FTC has no intention of “storm troopers taking down suburban houses and seizing the computers of mommy bloggers.” (Whew.) Instead (emphasis added),
the agency wants to focus on people who are being paid to make plugs for products in “non-traditional contexts” such as tweeting. In particular, they’ll go after companies that make claims that aren’t true or can’t be substantiated, essentially the same mission of the FTC in holding companies accountable offline.
While the FTC is still deciding how the new blogger guidelines will be enforced, it’s concerned that consumers may not have sharpened the same sense of skepticism for online claims that they’ve developed for sources offline.
But the line for whether or not disclosure is necessary will likely be drawn in cases where consumers have a “reasonable expectation” that the author was not being paid to plug a product. “If the consumer knew that the person who was making that endorsement was being paid, would the consumer view that endorsement differently? I think that’s the bottom that we’re trying to get at,” said Mr. Gordon.
In light of the recent Kim Kardashian kerfluffle (a little piece of me died just typing that), it may be wise to consider other social media sites. On the other hand, it may also just open a whole new can of worms, since the FTC hasn’t figured out how it will enforce the guidelines it already has.
However, I wonder about that middle paragraph, where Gordon says that consumers aren’t as skeptical for online claims as offline claims. It’s hard for me to say whether I’m more skeptical about stuff I read online and stuff I hear offline, but I feel I’ve developed a ridiculously oversensitive healthy skepticism about reports and reviews from all sources.
But maybe everyone hasn’t—and there’s still an area where the FTC’s “reasonable expectation” would apply.
What do you think? Is it just that consumers aren’t savvy enough online, or should disclosure be mandatory? Will the FTC ever figure out how to enforce it?
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
12:04
Rumors of MySpace integrating Facebook Connect have circulated since October. And now it looks like they’re coming true: MySpace’s Fan Video site allows users to login with either MySpace or Facebook accounts.
The Fan Video site itself takes professional music videos and inserts your profile picture prominently. The site also features sharing capabilities to post the videos to MySpace, Facebook or Twitter. Additionally, you can create videos for your friends using their profile pictures, and you can choose these friends from your MySpace or Facebook friend lists (depending on which account you used to sign in).
Not a super-useful application (more fun than sheep throwing, I guess), but is this a harbinger of things to come for MySpace? Are they ready to concede the social networking arena to Facebook?
Side note here: although Facebook has eclipsed MySpace in terms of traffic, MySpace still edges out Facebook in ad revenue. So the race isn’t already lost. May be close, though.
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