The Television Parts from the Google Article in NYTimes
Here are all the television parts from that Google article in NYTimes:
Now it is preparing to extend its technology to nearly every other medium, most significantly television. It is looking toward a world of digital cable boxes and Internet-delivered television that will allow it to show commercials tailored for each viewer, as it does now for each Web page it displays.
"If we can figure out a way to improve the quality of ads on television with ads that have real value for end-users, we should do it," he said. While he is watching television, for example, "Why do I see women's clothing ads?" he said. "Why don't I see just men's clothing ads?"
The media and advertising industries certainly see a future in which television ads are aimed at individual viewers. But few outside of the engineering Ph.D.'s at Google think that television ads should simply be utilitarian, rather than entertaining, provocative or annoyingly repetitive - the models that have worked so far.
Mr. Schmidt acknowledges that as Google explores moving into television, it may well face a conflict between its core belief that advertising must be useful and the typical television commercial that is "based on feeling and emotion."
"Our model is likely to affect television last," he said, while expressing optimism that a formula for useful, targeted commercials could be found. For now, he quickly added, the market for various forms of direct marketing is three times larger than that for television ads. "I was shocked by this," he said. "All of us are so conditioned to television as the height of advertising.
"We are in the really boring part of the business," Mr. Schmidt concluded, "the boring big business." Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Halloween Logo + Scary Smart Ad
Philipp pointed out Google's Halloween logo plus the easter egg (Halloween egg?) search for [scary smart] revealing Google hiring effort.
Notice the other advertiser on [scary smart]- I'm sure they're getting a deal on all their clicks. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 27, 2005
Google Base = Google Borg Resistance is Futile
Insert your own all your base are belong to us joke here. In all seriousness though, that's exactly what Google Base seeks to do: own all others. One Wing to rule them all! (...because the 'all your base' thing came from the game Zero Wing, and Tolkien’s one ring to rule them all ... um, yeah, not all the jokes can be winners, work with me here...)
According to Google’s official Blog, Google Base is a “way for content owners to submit their content to Google.” Analysts speculate that this is going to be a new aggregation of content that runs the gamut. I expect that we’ll see many, if not all, of the following:
Individual items for sale
Blogs
Flight prices
Auctions
Job postings
Real estate
Uploads database
And you can guess that if Google wants you to submit it now, they’ll be spidering it all themselves in short-order.
What’s Old is New Again
Remember how, in the late 90s, everyone talked about the internet being a “global village”? If it feels like an outdated concept, then I hope you like nostalgia. Possibly soon to come: the new global village, complete with gated communities and spear-headed by Google Base.
John Battelle of BattelleMedia.com has a great write-up about how Google Base and the Craig’s List vs. Oodle conflict tie together to forecast a dark possible future. Summary: Oodle is indexing all of Craig’s List and Craig’s List has asked them to stop. Fair enough, right? I guess so, but if we’re being consistent with the standards we’re allowing Craig’s List to maintain, then Google Base should be allowed to keep other people from indexing its content also.
“Wait a minute,” you’re saying, “Google wouldn’t restrict such a repository. They are all about indexing and sharing. Google is about access.”
Oh really? To me this all feels like a resurgence of portals, again: from the late 90s. (“Web 2.0” my a** - this is 1996 web 1.0 all over again!) Yes, users would be getting access, but why would Google share all of this unique content with their competitors? Google could create authentication-requiring personalized portals. Google could give users access and freedom, but restrict competitor bots and spiders.
The perfect beginning to the perfect monopoly.
Ground Control to Major Tom
Ok, let’s reel it back in. No need to go too far out into space with this speculation. Such could draw out into some wild paranoia about an exclusive Google web (especially when you combine Google’s potential with their hypothesized global fiber-optic network.
While I’m not going to make Google out to be empire-building oppressors, I do think that there are some legitimate concerns about some walls being erected by Craig’s List right now. Also, I do believe that Google Base is likely to follow suit. If all other mass-listing sites start to do this too, the web would become highly segmented in a very bad way.
Who Will Be Assimilated by Google Base?
Is there any site that Google Base can’t dethrone? Orbitz, eBay, Craig's List, MySpace - All are viable targets. Google Base could potentially replace any comparison engine, any online social network, and any portal.
How many heads does the Google hydra have these days? Webmail, news aggregator, news search, map service, online catalogs, desktop search, video service, SMS queries, comparative shopping engine, IM client, Blogger, photo editing, buying thousands of miles of dark fiber, becoming a domain registrar...
I even heard a rumor that they provide web search.
With all of this under their belt, what industry will Google play with next? Will they stop reinventing the wheel? Or if they insist on making more me-too products, can they at least provide some good affordable competition to existing products? I know they said they have no plans of doing this, but what about following through with the rumored MS Office alternative? Robert McRackan
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Bidding Ended: jux2.com
As initially reported the meta search engine Jux2.com was up for sale on eBay. Well the bidding has ended and the engine pulled in a cool $101,000 from eBay user 3vcap. Just a wild guess, maybe a venture capitalist in the Valley? Evan
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Google, The Ultimate Travel Affiliate Site? Google is rolling out new features and updates so often these days it is just mind numbing, but I guess that’s par for the course when you have 4,989 employees. One of their latest is a new airfare feature that links directly to Expedia, Hotwire, and Orbitz when you search for two cites or airport codes. I’d be willing to bet that someone in Google is going to be getting a bunch of calls from travel sites wanting to get in on this deal. Scott Woodard
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October 26, 2005
Google Confirms Base + Base News Roundup
This is from a post on Google's official blog:
You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we're testing, and speculating about our plans. Here's what's really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps. We think it's an exciting product, and we'll let you know when there's more news.
"If Google is really, really serious about this - that instead of going the Google News route with listings, it plans instead to get folks to post their stuff to GoogleBase - it marks a significant departure for the company: It will become a publisher, a competitor in the content creation and management game, which places it in direct competition with the multitudes who feed and feed off the main Google search engine. Watch. This. Space."
Gary Price details the Base emergence, and summarizes the sub-only WSJ story: "It's going to slowly chip away at eBay's growth and opportunities, especially in international markets where there is a tremendous amount of growth at Google," said Brian Blair, principal at Wedge Partners LLC, a New York research firm.
ZDNet's Russell Shaw asks "what would prevent Google from offering sellers a GoogleTalk button for their listings?"
Pamela Parker has a good newsy overview of the Base situation if you're not quite sure what's going on with all this Base stuff.
Found any good analysis out there? Any insights that blew your mind? Let me know in the comments.
UPDATE: Philipp has more Base screen shots which reveal more of Base's vast scope of data submission as well as how Google will handle relations with submitters.
Data Items: Course Schedules, Events and Activities, Housing, Jobs, News and Articles, People Profiles, Products, Reference Articles, Reviews, Services, Travel, Vehicles, and Wanted Ads.
Update 3 The post that apparently started it all, from Tony Ruscoe. He got mentioned in NYTimes and the Guardian. Go Tony! http://ruscoe.net/blog/2005/10/all-your-base-are-belong-to-google.asp
Google Update Jagger 2 Rolling Out, Jagger 3 Coming Soon
GoogleGuy's talking about Jagger2 over at WebMasterWorld.
I expect Jagger2 to start at 66.102.9.x. It will probably stay at 1-2 data centers for the next several days rather than spreading quickly. But that data center shows the direction that things will be moving in (bear in mind that things are fluxing, and Jagger3 will cause flux as well).
Jagger1, Jagger2, and Jagger3 are mostly independent changes, but they’re occurring closely enough in time (plus they interact to some degree) that it’s clearer just to act as if they were one update for feedback purposes.
I love how open Google via Matt's being about the updates. You can participate in building Google's algo by sending in your Jagger feedback. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 25, 2005
Google Base: Google's First Shot at Real Estate Listings?
This could be big. For the record everything I write here is speculation I've gathered and I've not heard back from Google on any of it.
What is Google Base? "Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free."
It sounds like a user-tagged searchable "item" database. Google's description of what to submit included:
• Description of your party planning service • Articles on current events from your website • Listing of your used car for sale • Database of protein structures
This new tool will be introduced during the 'Google Zeitgeist'05 Partner Forum' to be held today at Google HQ in California.
We expect that 'Google Purchases' --the new micropayments service among users-- will be also introduced as a complement to 'Google Base'. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 24, 2005
Yahoo Search Marketing Opens Doors to All
Yahoo dropped their $20 monthly adspend requirement. Which potential advertisers were holding out because of the minimum spend requirement?
Teeny-tiny from home businesses.
I think this is a solid move from Yahoo and I'm glad to see that it makes business sense for them to show sensitivity to the needs of the little guys.
Put these folks on a (double opt-in) mailing list, introduce them into your small business resource center, create a small business community.
These businesses will eventually need to outsource their search marketing :)
Scoble Gives MSN Search Scientists a Bit of Heck
MSN's blogger darling Robert Scoble spoke with MSN search developers and posted a vid.
"Watch me give them a bit of heck about being behind the other major engines."
Interviewee Andy Edmonds posted an index of the conversation:
We talk about:
* the neural network (see June 21 post), 01:30 * static versus dynamic rank (see our May 03 post), 04:00 * search engine optimization, 08:20 * the nature of relevance, 12:00 * index size (see Aug 29 Post), 17:00 * the 64 bit Windows infrastructure of MSN Search, 24:00 * Link based importance, 38:00
Zawodny on SEM Industry, Online Ad Growth Still Climbing
Jeremy Zawodny spoke at the DMA and "discovered that the vast majority of DMA folks are very, very, very new to Search Marketing." There are millions and millions (and millions) of advertising dollars being controlled by folks who've never tried search marketing yet.
In other words: There's A LOT of growth left in this industry.
eMarketer reports that "third quarter online ad spending rose about 10% over the preceding quarter." Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Enters Splog Fray with CAPTCHA
The splogging (splog definition) story started getting majorcoverage last week, though splogs are at least as old as Blogger itself.
Percentages of new blogs that are spam vary depending on who you ask: Intelliseek puts them at 30%, while Sifry from Technorati puts them at 2-8%.
Not sure what critical mass was that pushed Google into action, but they've started CAPTCHA (defined) on spammy looking blogger blogs.
"We pushed out a change that will prompt some users to solve a CAPTCHA if our spam classifier identifies the blog as spammy," wrote Google's Blogger Product Manager, Jason Goldman, on Blogger Buzz. "So far, we have observed a slight decrease in the amount of spam being created."
From a health-of-the-industry perspective Google's first steps are good to see. I for one won't stop reading blogs because of sploggers, just as I haven't stopped using email or search engines because of spam.
Update: While we're on the blog subject, check out this list of Google bloggers via Blogoscoped. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 21, 2005
Google's Q3 Earnings Pundit Roundup
My favorite Google earnings quote so far comes from John Battelle: "More holy sh*t numbers from Google."
And here's Marketing Vox. "Revenue from abroad constituted 39 percent of all revenue, up four percent from 3Q04, driven in part by Google's reseller program in China."
Who'd I miss? Whose analysis did you find particularly revealing? Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 20, 2005
Google Jagger Update with More Index Flux on Horizon Update Jagger slammed the coast of the interweb recently, causing rank shift, forum hysteria, and commentary from the weather-makers themselves.
Danny Sullivan wrote a fantastic overview of the process by which Google updates get named, and how news of updates moves from SEW and WMW forums to blogs.
Yesterday Matt touched on Google PR changes, and reported on GoogleGuy's statements regarding more flux in the rankings as second and third stages of the index roll out.
In my mind Google's doing the best when it comes to webmaster relations, starting with their participation in the WMW forums and now with Matt's blog. I saw Tim Mayer comment in a ThreadWatch thread, and he visited the WPN forums back in the day too (not sure if he's still there).
But when it comes to engaging webmasters and marketers in their media of choice (forums, blogs) Google's the van guard, and every large company who's discussed in forums should have a Matt Cutts working with their customers/participants in the customers' native environment. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Cutts Clowns CSS Spammer
Matt turned off the CSS and checked the source code on a spammy site and found commented out tags indicating where to put the hidden text.
"I don’t recommend that people use CSS to hide text, and I don’t recommend that they document it, either."
Froogle More Comparison Engine-esque After Update
An email from comparison engine watcher Brian Smith tipped me off to a recent and quiet Froogle update.
Check the before and after pics on his post, as well as his thoughts on other changes.
Here's a recap of Brian's post:
1) Sponsored links moved from the right side to the top of the results, making the site "a hell of a lot cleaner." 2) SERPs and product pages "look like the pages of other comparison engines." 3) Compare prices button. 4) Improved relevance.
Sounds like some sweet improvements, and just in time for the holidays!
Thanks for the tip Brian! Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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About CoStar: "The company tracks more than 200 bits of data on commercial buildings in the 80 or so biggest markets in the United States and plans to expand to the top 200 markets." What CoStar CEO said: "Google approached us some number of months ago wanting to work on some initiatives with us, and we have licensed some content to Google already."
Greg Sterling says: "Newspapers must (MUST) get into this game (dynamic maps + real estate listings) in a bigger way."
I agree, though would include Yellow Pages in the must-get-into-the-map-game category. Maps + user generated content (such as real estate listings, reviews, etc) will at least crack the door for online local advertising.
Be watching for map-based ad bidding capabilities in Google. Mid '06 is my guess. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Who's Bidding on Jux2 Meta Search Engine?
The Jux2 meta search engine went up for sale Oct 16th.
webguerrilla US $26,000.00 nachohernandez US $25,000.00 raleighguru US $2,000.00 jzawodn US $703.45
All of whom are currently outbid by banknem (who, according to his feedback, sold a bike worth 20k at thousands less to an ecstatic buyer): US $26,300.00. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 18, 2005
MSN Adcenter Beta - Preview
Microsoft has begun its paid search pilot program by rolling out its' beta pay-per-click interface, a product they call AdCenter. In order to review thier product I signed up for an account via their Singapore page.
At first glance, AdCenter is reminiscent of Google's control panel, but further inspection shows us it is way more then just a spin-off of the Adwords interface. Microsoft has obviously spent time doing market research finding out what users would like in their console and taken it a step further by adding features that are unprecedented in the search space.
Some of the features that I find most astounding and that I believe users will find most helpful are:
Geo-Targeting - Which will allow you to target from the country level all the way down to the city level. A feature that local business will find very helpful in maximizing their online advertising budget. Demographic targeting (age and gender) - Adcenter also lets users add additional increments to their bids based on the age and gender of a user search. Providing you additional exposure to the user-profile that best fits your business. Time-targeting - pretty straight forward, bid a little bit more during your business hours, instead of wasting money when your business is closed. Bid Matching - Adcenter makes it easy to bid on exact, phrase and broad matches of keywords which is more of a time saving instrument for account managers.
I know what you are thinking 'Hey this is a Microsoft product, there has to be bugs' well you are correct, but being that it is only a beta program I won't be too hard on them.
Here are my perceived negatives: No Content Targeting - Not that I am a big fan of content targeted ads but some people swear by them. End Date - While I like the end date feature, it is inconvenient because in order to specify an end date you have to select it from the calendar. It should be an option that you can turn on or off. FireFox compatibility - I should say lack of compatibility, be prepared to fire up IE. Secure as Windows - A Adcenter Hack allows a way around the invite-only pilot program.
I believe these things will be addressed before the platform is open to the public and from my initial look at the platform I am very impressed and I am looking forward to digging deeper into its features.
Microsoft Adcenter Report Card = A-
Here are some screenshots:
The Orders Page Targeting Page 1 Targeting Page 2 Keyword Research Tool
I've taken a few other screen shots and have posted them here. Microsoft Adcenter! If you have any questions or screenshots requests feel free to post a comment. Evan
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Where was this when I took algebra?
As posted on Google Blogoscoped, MSN has one-upped Google's Calculator. MSN will solve complete basic algebraic equations.
This search: ((122.78+(x^2))/190)=.93
Yields this answer: ((122.78+( x^2))/190)=.93 = x=7.343024 x=-7.343024 Robert McRackan
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AOL is Luckier than Ryan Seacrest
If there could ever be anything luckier than a talentless nobody like Ryan Seacrest actually becoming famous, it would be AOL becoming a coveted commodity of the world’s biggest internet powerhouses.
Blasé from the Past Oh you remember AOL, right? That free disk you got in the mail that you still won’t admit having installed on your first computer. That restrictive internet access. The unwieldy email client. The crippling amounts of spam. Those cancellation calls to them, where by the end you had to beg them not to give you another free month. That software that you couldn’t get off of your computer without a complete reformatting of your hard drive. In fact, the code was so malicious that it prompted Ray Owens to create the very funny satirical AOL Virus warning: likening AOL’s software to a debilitating computer virus.
Well now that same AOL (I’m sorry, as of this month, they’re AOL, inc. *yawn*) is being wooed by the most powerful companies the internet and the search industry have to offer.
The Chicken or the Egg? To be honest, it’s hard to remember who threw the first punch, but the outcome is the same: Google and Microsoft are fighting over AOL. Then before I could blink dumbfoundedly that anyone would want AOL: Yahoo, Comcast, and News Corp. had lined up as well. Update: Even before I finished writing this article, this announcement was released telling of AOL’s new agreement with blog search engine: BlogPulse.
Does each suitor only want AOL in order to prevent the other ones from getting it? That was my first thought, but upon further reflection, it doesn’t look that simple after all.
It’s the End of the World Wide Web as we know it (and I feel fine) An ill-conceived ISP is not the center of this fight. Neither is the fight about seizing more land than your foe. This isn’t even about a war between search engine companies anymore; this is about how people and businesses use the web on a fundamental level. This is about becoming partners with a company with far-reaching global power, a solid base of programmers, and an enormous communications infrastructure. As further proof of these grandiose goals: even apart from this venture, Google is working on “a global data transfer network that could effectively serve as a private Internet.”
This isn’t about controlling the internet: it’s about becoming the internet.
...and the Winner is? Please forgive the cliché, but the winner here is clearly us: the consumers. Almost all great leaps forward in innovation happen because of fierce competition, and this folks is nothing if not that. Follow this one closely. No one can predict how this one will end but you can be sure that the outcome will affect the landscape of the internet in a major way. Especially since 3 of the 5 suitors mentioned above are the 3 search giants themselves.
Regardless of who walks away with AOL at the end of this one, expect to see “search” becoming much more than a textbox and a set of results, 10 links per page. These companies have big plans and this is only the beginning. Robert McRackan
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Cutts: Managing a Site Move + Google Update
Oh man. Back in my day me and the boys would have been all over this Cutts how-to on managing a site move while keeping your rankings. I mean, detailed SEM advice from an SE outside of Google's webmaster help page? If Matt's trying to affect the webmaster good-will-towards-Google metric he should see a quite a jump.
And yeah, there's been an update or two recently, which you may have noticed depending on your geography:
So I think my Sept. 8th, 2005 post on the subject of non-updates was just mentioning that some new backlinks were visible, but not much in the way of algorithms/scoring/metadata had changed. After that, some people might have noticed some changes around Sept. 22, 2005. Or some CJK folks might have noticed some changes around Oct. 5, 2005. Or a few European folks might have noticed some changes around Oct. 7, 2005. Or some people might have noticed some changes this past weekend. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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MetaSearch for Cheap: Jux2 on eBay
Jux2's for sale on eBay. It's interesting to read about a search engine from a classifieds perspective.
Update: as of 3:21 est 10-18-5 it's up to US $25,100.00 Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Diller the G/Y/M Killer?
I was talking with an old friend last night about Diller, Ask and Murdoch. I didn't know (how? HOW?) about Diller rocking the Fox network like he did back in the day and then Battelle had this story, comparing Diller and Fox vs. the big 3 networks with Diller and Ask vs. the big 3 search engines all linked up this morning.
I wanted to give you a heads-up that we just launched the Rollyo Searchbox. You can now feature a searchbox with all your favorite created and/or saved Searchrolls on your own site. The tool is very easy to use and you have a choice of three different searchbox designs.
I wrote him when Rollyo first launched to ask when I could put the searchbox on my site (my hypothetical site, not this one. Hi Lilly). He's either well organized or has a great PR/CRM system because he... sniff sniff... remembered me ;) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 17, 2005
Yahoo Direct Traffic Center and MSN AdCenter: Beginning to Look a lot Like Google
Google’s paid search leadership is clear in this at least: both MSN and Yahoo are following their ad console set up.
Google’s paid search account structure is set up with Campaigns and Adgroups (sub-accounts) below the Campaigns. The Adgroups contain keywords with ads associated with that group of keywords. Bid position is based on a number of factors to include your maximum cost per click and your click thru rate.
Yahoo’s system is different than Google’s. Yahoo has only one layer they call Categories and are straight bid to position, click thru rate is not a factor. Each keyword has its own ad.
Yahoo’s current system has been criticized for its slowness, maintenance issues, and its straight bid to position model may not generate the most relevant site for the customer searching for products or information.
What is Yahoo to do?
The Yahoo rep in the SEW forums said “we're working on replacing the interface you currently use (YES, this means a new DTC).”
SEW forum moderator shor, has tested Yahoo’s new console, and reported that, “essentially it was a Google Adwords clone with added functionality.”
How about MSN?
MSN, which will be out shortly, has also followed Google’s structure (according to my inside sources). MSN’s paid search accounts will be set up just like Google’s. However, they will have some added features like demographics.
I am glad that the structure of the accounts will be the same in all 3 engines because it will make all of them easier to manage. I can have all the same named campaigns and adgroups. This was hard to do when Yahoo only had Categories and no sub-categories like Google. Al Scillitani
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Increase Your Google Quality Score
Ever since Google introduced the Google Quality Score variable into their Adwords system Advertisers and PPC Account Managers have struggled with their accounts performing efficiently. When Google introduced the 'Quality Score' system it forced Adwords users to optimize their accounts so that its ads were most relevant to a users search. Thus, relevant ads increase the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and more clicks increases the "bling" for Google. Supposedly, this is a win-win for both parties.
What does this all mean? While Google enjoys tormenting us and keeping us guessing constantly, there is a little tip to improving your keyword's quality score.
Add the keyword into your ad. While this seems like common sense, more than not it is rarely done and has not been seen in any online discussions.
Here is an example:
Keyword 'Watermelons' and the ad has that keyword:
Buy Watermelons Cheap Watermelons. Better melons for your money. Many watermelon sizes.
If you bid 0.10 on it, that ad will get better position than an ad with low relevancy and same bid (ie an ad that didn't have the keyword included) such as:
Do you want melons? We have a wide selection of melons. Get your melons today.
There are two reasons for doing this. The first reason being that if you have the keyword in the ad text, then the ad is seen as more relevant to the keyword you are bidding on (One factor of the QS).
The second reason, is that with the keyword in the ad, a user is more likely to click on your ad, so Google says, thus increasing the all important CTR-also a QS factor.
This is only one small piece of the QS puzzle but using this tip in your ad groups will help raise your quality score and lower your minimum bid, while lowering your Cost per Click and without your ads losing any position.
While Yahoo and MSN do not have this quality score based system this tip will help the effectiveness of your account. The second reason I stated applies to Yahoo and MSN, a user is more likely to click on your ad if they feel it is relevant, ie has the keyword in it. I would also look for Yahoo and MSN to add a variable such as the quality score to their own systems in time. Evan
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October 13, 2005
The Google Reader: What Happens When Whiz-Kids Get Rich and Spoiled
Eric Peterson of JupiterResearch talks here about his experiences with Google Reader and talking with the Google Reader project manager, Jason Shellen. While I'm ecstatic to see Google communicating publicly about an internal product, all of my major complaints about Google Reader remain entirely unresolved.
Let's start with expectations. Fresh in my mind are the releases of Gmail and Google Maps.
Gmail: Are you kidding me? More free space than their competitors by a factor of 10 and innovation to spare! Folderless email? Only searching, labels, and stars?? That took chutzpah and Google stepped up to the plate and delivered on everything they promised. Add to this the mystique of it being invite only and you have one desirable new innovation.
Google Maps: This gem combines map services, directions, satelitte overlays, and a staggering amount of useful features all wrapped up in a elegant intuitive interface.
Google Maps has a Macintosh-like simplicity to which even a PC user like me has to give accolades. The result is geek-Zen and with this product, the term AJAX was introduced to the sphere of pop-web development. This set standards that only Google could possibly live up to and, have no doubt, I do expect them to live up to them.
Now enter Google Reader. You can almost hear the Warner Brothers wa-wa-wa-wahhhh as the anti-climactic climax moment is revealed to Daffy Duck. Only this time, noone's laughing. Here's why:
Ease of use: D+ Since it's mostly a proprietary interface built in AJAX, my typical keyboard controls don't work.
This is all well and good on a graphical map like Google Maps, but in a series of good old squares with text, I want to use my keyboard if I want to and I want to use the controls that I've been using since I was 12. Arrows, Delete, Page Down, Home, etc. These are taken for granted in all good desktop applications and in the Web 2.0 world, I expect the same online to as great of an extent as possible.
Even more frustrating, in the parts that are normal i-frames, keyboard arrows and page up/down still do nothing. At least the i-frames do have one thing over the lower AJAX controls: arrows on the top and bottom of the scroll bars. Come on Google, could you have left nothing that we were familiar with? The lower part, while it does have nifty smooth scrolling effects, if very unwieldy, doesn't even have arrows where we've learned to expect them.
Want to add a new feed? Go to "Add a feed", enter the URL, then...? I guess hit preview since the only other option is Cancel. An "OK" button, or even the ubiquitous "Submit Query" button, would be a welcome addition here.
Overall, I can't decide if "confusing" or "frustrating" is my word of choice.
Presentation: B- In Gmail and Google Maps, areas expand and contract to fit your window. Google Reader: nothing. (Again, Google has only itself to blame for this expectation of mine.) In fact, there doesn't even seem to be a pattern to how the windows are laid out. Are there i-frames or aren't there?
Well, both, and as we say above, not for any real functional gain either.
Predictability: C-/D+ I've never thought to include this in a review until Google Reader did so many unpredictable things. There are links that I don't know what they mean and when clicked I can't tell what they do. There are some things that can't even easily be identified as links.
In the bottom area, if I go down to the bottom of the scroll area, more items sometimes get tacked onto the end, so 19/20 turns into 19/40. On some subscriptions, this seems to occur indefinitely into the hundreds.
In unrelated matters, at one point I accidently used my scroll wheel over some area (I'm still not sure which one) and a window popped up to write an email in my Gmail account!
Interoperability: A+ There's only one standard that matters for RSS and Atom feed lists: OPML and Google Reader supports import and export in this format.
Accessability on different computers: A- Full functionality on 5 major browsers and on all 3 major operating systems. Points lost here only because Opera isn't fully supported.
Integration with Other Google Products: D- If you count the links at the top of Google Reader to "Google Home", "My Account", and "Sign Out" to be integration, then yes, it's integrated. However if you're like me, you don't need just another thing to check everyday. We all already have those by the boatload and even Outlook has an RSS plugin. Google Reader isn't even accessable from Gmail or from most other My Account areas. It's just another thing out there somewhere with the Google brand on it.
Innovation: F There's nothing here you haven't seen before.
Overall: D If I had brought home a report card like this in high school, my mother would still be yelling at me about it. Google's new product offering is almost guaranteed to underwhelm you.
If you already keep up with RSS feeds, you already no doubt have a favorite reader and will be unimpressed by this alternative. If you are new to this area, I'd recommend that you use Google's real strength (web search) and find a better RSS reader. Robert McRackan
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Google and Comcast Bid for Piece of AOL
Price runs down the Google/Comcast bid on AOL. Google and Comcast?
Since when were they partnering to make bids? And why partner at all? It's obviously not a financial issue for Google, right?
I get that it's MSN blockery, I just don't get the whole Comcast part. WTF, man?
Update: Battelle talks on the deal. His thoughts on Comcast: Comcast, from what I can tell, wants to convert AOL users to Comcast broadband customers. Makes sense. Comcast doesn't play where Google does, so a partnership might work.
Yahoo Investigates Search Behavior of Parents-to-Be and College Students
I got an email about it, but Erin Bradley was there. Here's her rundown on the "Yahoo Life Series search marketing event."
From the email:
The Life Series research was developed based on the belief that adults go through various life events -- experiences that fundamentally change the way a person lives their life -- throughout the course of their lifetime. These events could include going to college, having a baby, moving to a new city and retiring. Yahoo! Search Marketing has identified 10-15 such life events to explore in this research study. The first two life events explored in the series were going to college and having a baby.
The initial key findings in this research revealed that people experiencing such events share certain common characteristics including a desire for trusted information sources, heavy reliance on research prior to making decisions and increased time spent on research during their life event.
Additional key findings from the research include:
- 86% of new parents-to-be said they use the Internet to search about information on pregnancy, as compared to books (68%), friends/family (53%), and magazines (37%). - 54% of new parents said search simplified their lives more so than magazines (17%) or TV (10%) - 81% of college students rate search as their best source of information, followed by friends and family (64%), newspaper (36%) and TV (24%) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Yahoo Testing Longer Paid Search Ads Check out the paid search ads on Yahoo! Mindset. Yahoo! is beta testing a new ad format of 40 characters in the title and 190 characters in the description. (This image from [appliances] search)
Look familiar? Yes, you got it, the old Overture format.
Yahoo's current system clips the ad title to approximately 125 characters for the description in the top and bottom 3 positions and 85 characters on the right hand side of the page.
What will this do for click-thru-rate?
It will allow for advertisers to have more control on messaging. With the ability to display more non-salesy text, customers can actually read more detail about products and services. Greg Ives
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October 12, 2005
Searching the Gheto: New Engine Delivers Surprising Results
Nathan I'm-so-ghetto-I-misspell-ghetto Enns released a new engine that reverses the relevance of his FyberSearch.
Why reverse the algo?
One of the effects is that searchers will receive more results from domain names they have never heard of before. Another effect is that searchers will find useful resources they never would have known existed.
Nathan would it make sense to have a little gheto box integrated into the FyberSearch results page? That way I could see the bottom three results too, and click through if I wanted a fully reversed result set.
Anything really new here? Nah. I'm just still hoping someone will give me super GUI tools to let me build my very own SE with my very own crawler. And give me space for an index. And make it GUI as HELL :)
(Yes there's Gigablast Custom Topic Search... Which, unlike Rollyo, lets you put custom search boxes on your site.) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Creating Passionate Readers: I Heart Kathy Sierra
I save up Kathy Sierra's posts in Bloglines and then read them all in one day. I have to be careful with reading her because I often end up whirling off on a mental hurricane her posts whip up.
Her posts don't address the search industry specifically. They're here just because I love her investigation of how business and passion intersect (not like that you sicko).
How to speak at a tech conference The advice in this post is good for any of you search gurus out there who think it would be a good idea to write an article or two for some links and publicity. It's on speaking at conferences, but the advice fits for media development of just about any kind.
Yahoo Podcast Directory: Analyst Reactions
From what I've read Jupiter's David Card pretty much rocks the Yahoo podcast search reviews, by pointing out the interesting tidbits that help differentiate the service from what exists to those of us (me) who know f-all about pod casting/podcast search.
"Yahoo - unique among the big media companies - lets you listen to podcasts without downloading them" Certainly sounds neato to me.
And what concerns me most is: "There's only a tiny bit of directory taxonomy being enforced. Yahoo has some interesting ideas about having the community of listeners and creators do that, and do ratings...but they're mostly just interesting ideas so far."
(solving this tagging/taxonomy problem could include stuff like "tag suggestion" tools and auto tagging?)
Greg Sterling gets the podcast search succinctly, from 30,000 feet.
Danny Sullivan gives his reactions based on how he consumes podcasts on a daily basis. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Blog Results in Yahoo News Search: Nifty
They're putting blog results in the high-value adspace there on the right side of the screen. It's beta. It appears, on my [yahoo] search, that they're ordering the blog posts by time, rather than some algorithmic/relevance factor. That said, as there are only 4 blogs shown there they must have given certain blogs precedence in a given industry. Right?
Yahoo inserted the blog results into what's traditionally SE ad space. I noticed this info value add with Ask - they use the right side paid search space for their zoom in/zoom out function.
If you're not selling it you might as well use this real estate to enhance results. We'll probably see something similar from Google in the same space (on NEWS searches) before long (or maybe Add to Google Reader links :).
Danny Sullivan has an EXCELLENT Yahoo blog/news integration review. He actually tested it out and stuff. In summary, I like blog and news content being integrated, but I hope it will evolve into something even better. I also want a dedicated blog search service in addition to the integrated approach and find the lack of RSS support for blog search matches something that should be fixed quickly. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 10, 2005
Top-Zinger-of-Last-Week Award Goes To...
I would have given the award to Semel, but he didn't quite slam Google as hard as David Card slammed Li in his response to her Google/Sun deal analysis:
"Analysts posing as consumer experts who think otherwise are naively betraying their parent company's IT roots."
Orlowski's comments, taunting and lampoony, lack Card's cogent bitterness (at both Sun AND Li). Card wins!
Good luck to all contestants for this week! Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Yahoo Maps on Ipod, New Slogan Patent Yahoo maps on iPod. NICE. Make your iPod more of a PDA? Or will we see PDAs converge with iPods? Whatever.
I'm excited about it because it's an interesting merger indicative of the FACT that people want to control how, where and on what platform they get their information.
and...
Yahoo's new slogan: Dig It, Tag It, Share It, Shag It!
Price dug this one up. (I added the "Shag It" part. The slogan just needed a little more sizzle.) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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MSN AdCenter "Invite-Only" Launch in US
It's getting hot in here: "during the US pilot, MSN adCenter will be delivering text-based advertisements on up to 25 percent of MSN Search traffic; the remaining traffic will continue to be served through our partnership with Yahoo."
Will they be able to fill 25% of their inventory with the amount of business they've invited in? WOW. That's alot of invitees.
Google's Blog Reader: It's Too Late to Make it Invite Only Now
I'm a Bloglines guy (thanks to Andy, who never gave me a choice ;). Unless Google pays me some cash/super sweet schwag I'm not likely to spend the time it would take to explore and learn a new reader. I've spent time building my blogline feeds, culling my lists and generally learning to love Bloglines. Plus I like to snoop and see who's reading who.
ClickZ's Lieb (also a bloglines adherant) says in defense of her dislike of Google's reader: "It's the interface -- all clicking, no scrolling. Lots and lots and lots of clicking. If you subscribe to as many feeds as I do, it kind of makes RSS into work."
Sterling digs it though: "overall it’s very easy to use and provides a clean and intuitive way to add, read and manage feeds. The interface and, specifically, the easy and effective navigation—whether moving between blogs/feeds or within them—is very nice."
(Though apparently he only had 9 blogs he followed? "I used to have eight or nine blogs on my Firefox toolbar, and now I’ve put them all into Google Reader.")
Sterling says "The market for readers is young and still wide-open. (At a certain point of market development, however, people won’t want to switch readers because they’ll be too invested in one—similar to email.)"
I'm already at the point of "too invested." On some days I check Bloglines before email.
That said though I did make the switch from hotmail to gMail. There Google bribed me with the invite-only exclusivity of it (damn I was cool when I got that gmail invite ;) as well as the increased storage space. Oh yeah I liked the conversation thread format too.
It will take a similar offer to get me over to Google Reader, and now it's too late for invite-only. I'm not rss-reader-savvy enought to think of how they could increase reader functionality in a way that was as significant as increasing storage space a thousand fold. I'm also pretty easy to sway when it comes to expert opinion - if I see a post from someone I respect that says "why I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader" I'd consider it. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Semel's "No Plan" Google Comment Reactions
I about let this one roll by this morning but the enormity of Yahoo's Semel on record, in an article entitled "Yahoo CEO Belittles Google's Expansion," saying, "'So far they don’t seem to have a plan, but maybe they do,' Semel said Thursday during a question-and-answer session at an Internet conference. 'Maybe magic will happen tomorrow,'" forced me into action.
Also there were a couple of responses that I thought merited consideration:
First Mr. Sterling. He identifies the differences between the two companies' directions:
At the highest level, Google is emphasizing personalization, and Yahoo! is emphasizing content and community (though not to the exclusion of personalization). Google is an “aggregator”; Yahoo! is a destination.
Mr. Stein contends that Google merely lacks a short term plan, and that their long term plan, stated plainly in the letter attached to their IPO filing, still stands.
They have a plan, he says, But they don't necessarily know how to get there. They do, however, have a money-printing machine in AdWords and an army of engineers. They are moving forward in many directions, looking to see what comes of their explorations. Does it make sense to buy/build Picasa? Maybe not in the short term. But eventually, that may be a critical piece of a larger puzzle.
So what's the story here?
First of all, this situation is a clear illustration of why offering public critiques on a major competitor is tricky. If you ARE going to critique you should be prepared to really defend your position. Otherwise you come off sounding aggressive/condescending without showing that you're a smart/wise/experienced m-f'er, which Semel must obviously be.
Second, if you're an SEM who's buried in link building and meta tags you'll get left behind as search becomes increasingly integrated into the personalized/API-driven user experience. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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October 07, 2005
Web 2.0 Coverage: Battelle vs. Google's Kordestani, Web 1.0, Om Malik MORE
I kinda wish I was at this one now. At least there's some rocking coverage:
Mucho Yuks: Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0 smackdown If you laugh at this you are officially uncool. But if you don't laugh you're also uncool. I'm stressing too.
This is all I've got from my cursory search media perusal. Where's the rest of the coverage? Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Files for Behavioral Targeting Patents
Google's finally going to leverage their Gmail/personal search/toolbar data, reminding us that all those free tools are not as free as we thought...
Google filed two patents this week dealing with ad targeting based on user search history behavior and personalization in what seems an attempt to enter the po
