Link Building Basics
Link building in a nutshell: You want links to your site from relevant, authority sites. Link building is as much about content development as it is about selective directory submissions and targeted link requests.
Link building and buying remain HOT SEM topics because link generation tactics work to build SERP (and industry) presence.
Today a nice cluster of link building posts came through SEJ and I decided to round them up for you.
Top of my list (yeah I'm sending this to the boys in tech to see if there are any we've missed): Top Web Directories This is a great example of straight-ahead link bait. No frills, just solid, useful information well packaged.
Next up is Jim Boykin's Co-Citation explanation. NICE! Simply, make sure incoming links are from related sites. Shortly we'll be giving details on how we use Competitive Search Intelligence to FIND these sites quickly and easily.
Google's insistance that paid links have nofollow tags spurs Google ire at SEOmoz. I love this quote from Rand: "Promoting fear in your public relations to help keep your results of higher quality is a naive, short term solution."
Don't stop reading until you get to this quote: "Thus the question shouldn't be, "Should I submit to directories?", but rather, "Which directories should I submit to?""
That's it - and thanks to Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal for keeping the great content coming! Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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I can't wait for my nano bot brain chip...
...so Fortune 500s can advertise to me when I sleep!
And here's the Chuck Norris Facts site if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about (as if this were different from any other post ;).
aborted facts: Google once spider Chuck Norris' brain... and... something cool happened. Chuck Norris doesn't search on Google. He makes Sergey tell him on their morning calls. Chuck Norris got bidjammed once. Then he created AdWords and made Sergey run it for him. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Local: Your Image and Text On Google Maps; My Questions
Google's now officially offering a new ad type (in beta of course): an image on Google Maps that, when clicked, shows your ad text, phone number, url, tagline etc...
You may remember my recent coverage of the coffee cup spotted on a Google local search for New York Booksellers, as well as experiments - without images - for hotels.
Well, now you can get your own Google map ads, complete with images.
I have many initial thoughts, and questions including: • The Google + Verizon SuperPages.com deal's making a LOT more sense. • Tracking use of Google Local to actual offline purchase has to be solved for Google to actually show value. • Some sections of maps [casinos, las vegas] may get crowded to the point of uselessness. • I can upload practically ANY image I want? How will Google ensure continuous look and feel? • So I can buy an ad on my old highschool and label it as a Pharmacy? • How long before their servers break and local ads become invite only? (This is one case where Google had better deliver - the whole "beta" excuse won't cut it with business owners who aren't as understanding as those of us who've known Google for a long time) • Will Google enable Map Mashup creators to get a piece of the action? • We will see a landslide of info coming out about how people use Google maps, and online local will come in to its own.
Questions aside, Google Local Business Ads is HUGE for local search, and the first REAL monetization of maps - outside of Sopranos and Nike - I've ever seen (Gary Price probably has seen a few ;).
WSJ: "Ask Scores Big Against Search Rivals"
The WSJ's Walter Mossberg wrote an Ask review today and sees the search company as a major up and comer. As I mentioned before, Ask's search share's still in double digits and they're advertising widely.
Here's Mossberg's anecdotal reasoning for preferring Ask:
"Here's an example. I searched for Ted Williams, the Red Sox outfielder who was the greatest hitter of all time. In Google, I got a plain results page topped by a link to the official site on Williams, with a few ads down the right side for Williams-related items.
In Ask.com, the top of the page, above the ads, featured a Smart Answer box that included a picture of Ted, an excerpt from a biography, direct links to his official site, an encyclopedia article and other images of him.
Down the side, where Google ran ads, Ask.com had links to many related topics that could narrow or broaden my search, a feature called Zoom. These suggested topics included the Red Sox, Fenway Park and even Cryonics, a controversial technique for freezing the dead that was used on Williams after he passed away. There were also entries for Ted's rivals, like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle."
Why's Mossberg so impressed? Ask's delivering the STORY behind the search terms, which is the search term's context. That's a powerful and engaging way to present search results.
One SEL reader believes that "they [Ask.com] suck. i equate them to the crappy phone book that gets dropped off in my driveway."
I would invite you to give Ask another shot. Do searches on your hobby, not searches for the products you're trying to rank in Google. It's the search term context that Ask's bringing to its results that make for a more engaging search experience.
Disclaimer: Ask pays SEL for sponsorship. (The money goes to MSI, not me personally. My pay at MSI is NOT based on SEL sponsorship, but rather the number of monitors I wipe down after 5pm.)
Blog PR and Google Finance: Ranking for Your Company Name
If your company's publicly traded and not blogging yet here's yet another reason to get started: the blog section on your Google Finance page.
This section pulls blog posts with mentions of your company's name and includes them with information like Management, Company Financials, Company News, etc.
Seth Finkelstein uncovered that the blog section's more likely to include posts with your entire company name rather than just the ticker symbol.
"At best, the ticket symbol is a related word, but by no means the primary ranking factor," says Seth.
If you look at the Finance page for the company that Seth wrote about you can see that his post appears in the blog section.
If the blog section on Google Finance is too easy to manipulate, which it appears to be based on Seth's observations, we're likely to see changes to that particular algo. For now, PR bloggers, when posting about your company be sure to use your full name and not your symbol.
If THIS doesn't strike fear in the hearts of PR I don't know what will. Yes, it's time to for your company to join the conversation. Get started with your employee generated content.
Google As Interactive TV Social Network?
Reto Meier discovered that Google's hiring for "an Interactive TV Product Manager and Sofware Engineers with experience in 'emerging TV standards' and 'deploying robust, high-volume applications for consumer devices'"
• TV commercials contextually targeted to a program's content • video/TV shows on all devices, from phones to TVs • TV network distributed over nationwide free WiFi • Interactive TV social network
Don't look for GTV network this year, though. I think what we're seeing now is Google hunkering down for some serious laying of business relationship and technology groundwork.
When it does roll out it will likely be invite only and will likely have some social networking aspect tied in to it. People love talking about movies and TV shows. What's the #1 thing they say? "You gotta watch that!"
I'm a kill your television guy, but I love watching home made videos from sites like YouTube. If I could line up, say, an hour worth of internet video from my network and queue my selections on my television for watching later I might just take that "kill your TV" bumper sticker off my car. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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March 29, 2006
SEL's RSS is Fixed
Thank you to everyone who's written in to let me know that the RSS was down.
It's up again, should be flowing through to your reader of choice.
I have lost what shred of tech credibility I had with MSI's developer whiz Jennifer Lumer, but it's up again.
(She said it was an ID-10-T error. Have you ever gotten one of those in Blogger? ;) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Employee Generated Content and Your B2B Search Marketing Campaign
As a writer and proponant of article marketing and the former editor of WebProNews, I've long looked at how companies can better communicate expertise and optimize industry participation. In particular, how these efforts relate to search marketing.
Mike Grehan On Information Retrieval and SES NY
Mike Grehan. The godfather of SEM. You know him, you love him.
Here's why: In SEM's Hidden Science Mike flexes his "godfather of SEM" muscle and demonstrates why he remains a major voice in the industry: his understanding of the principles of Information Retrieval.
This is a must read article for search marketers. If you read it, please let me know what it means.
Roundup: Search Engine Strategies is a quick outline of a few observations Mike made and conversations he had (it's a little musty now... sorry I didn't post it earlier). You may find his conversation with Ask's head of paid search especially interesting...
Mike's been in China. Check out his blog to read about his Chinese adventures in SEM. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Yahoo Index Update
Yahoo announced that you may be experiencing:
• Changes in Y ranking. • Shuffling of pages included in Y's index. • Temporary spike in Slurping.
Thanks to MSI's Chris Sessoms for the email. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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MSN's Search Macros Puts Customized MSN Algo In Your Toolbar
MSN recently released a search macro functionality that enables users to build and install search macros in their toolbars. Or rather, their "scope bars."
This is an MSN forray into social search, whereby communities can customize the functionality of their search tools in order to create algos that are in line with their particular world views.
If your target market's invested in some way in Microsoft Live you should look in to creating a search macro. To get started have your MSN Passport handy.
This would be 100x cooler if you could put the customized algo on your blog or site to create a hyper targeted search engine... And it's not quite build your own... But it's a good start in terms of how easy it should be. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Matt Cutts: Bigdaddy Deployed, PR Update Coming
If you're regular readers of Search Engine Lowdown my suspicion is that you already know pretty much everything Matt Cutts discusses in his grab bag webmaster Q&A thread.
If not, I've filtered out the stuff about his cat and silver-painted mimes acting like robots and here deliver some key SEM information:
• Bigdaddy is fully deployed • A PR update is coming soon • Google's using datacenter http://64.233.185.104/ for testing • Snail mail "could work well" for communicating bizdev ideas to Google • Link quality determines depth of site crawl • Selling links and neglecting to nofollow can affect your repution in Google • Supplemental results may update soon • Directories and shopping comparison site pages may have less of a presence in the Google SERPS
Now I'm not a true SEMnrrd - I mean, I don't watch datacenters or know what cannonical really means. I'll see if I can get a chief nrrd here at MSI to chime in with his thoughts on what was or wasn't relevant. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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March 28, 2006
Ask's Offline Advertising and Increased Search Share
Ask's been great about venturing into offline media for advertising its search engine.
So in addition to increasing relevance and general search offerings, Ask's advertising offline... watch here for more on optimizing for Ask. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Verizon SuperPages.com Now Does Google Media Buys
SuperPages.com is leveraging its relationships with local small businesses - and its 3,000 strong sales force - to resell Google AdWords.
Pamela Parker writes "SuperPages "translates" advertisers' chosen category and maximum bid price into a portfolio of ads on AdWords."
Verizon wins the $100 a month accounts that paid search management companies can't touch and Google gains further entry into the local market.
It's good to see that the market for paid search is so strong that Verizon had to go to Google for more inventory. Verizon will have to work hard to add value to their relationship with clients to keep them from just buying straight from Google. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Ads in Maps: BN's Coffee Cup on Google Maps Maps are a primary doorway to local search. Period.
The most recent Google map ad development is the image of a coffee cup that indicates the location of a Barnes and Noble on a map search for [booksellers NYC].
I know Barnes and Noble for the coffee shops they have inside, and I think the mug's a good choice for reminding those book shop searchers that they can reinvigorate with some caffeine.
It would be a lot better if they could make a more convincing call to action or tell me that a specific product I'm searching for is available at a given location (with "real-time inventory management, enabled by RFID, as the end game of local search").
As maps make their way onto mobile devices such as cars, phones, even iPods, we're likely to see more interactions through the map interface, such as instant coupons (redeemable upon presentation of phone), click to call, free ringtones or songs for stopping by a location, etc.
Light Posting Alert + Disco Loser Update
Yesterday I was acting in a commercial. My role was the "disco loser."
I wore an enormous afro wig, my nylon pants were slung tight and high, and my paisly shirt was unbuttoned to just above my belly button.
And then I got freak nasty to some disco music with three actual professional actors.
It will be out in a couple months and I'll YouTube it for you.
Today I'm working hard on some internal efforts for MSI and don't think I'll be posting. I should be back in action tomorrow. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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March 21, 2006
Google Finance Roundup + Google Health Portal Next? Google Finance launched. Finally. It's not a wallet, like I thought it would be at first. It's stock coverage.
I'm not super pumped about it. It's portal catch up stuff. Some people ARE pumped.
Battelle looks at the deeper meaning of the launch: First, this marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. News: Google.Portal.Finance Launches
Jupiter Research speculates authoritatively on the reason behind the move: the share of consumer online time spent on Google properties is disproportionately small compared to Google's share of online ad revenue. Google Finance aims to change the equation. Google Finance Launches
Philipp: It’s interesting to see how many services are tied together in the new Google Finance. There’s Google News, Google SMS, Google Groups, Google Blog Search, and the Google Account. External sources include Nasdaq, AMEX and NYSE (ranging from real-time inclusion to delays of up to 20 minutes). Google Finance
the Radioactive Yak: It's a solution that really provides a holistic view of not just what's happening to the market -- but why. Google Finance
This is a big win in the PR department for Google - they succeeded in protecting the annonymity of their searchers.
Now it's forced to hand over deleted emails in an FTC case. CNet reports that "Judge grants subpoena and orders that all e-mail messages, including deleted ones, be divulged."
What this means for Google - and potentially for the whole online office development - is a slowdown as companies analyze how much transparency they can stand.
Politicians/Political Groups Using Paid Search
From "John Bolton" to "Cindy Sheehan," the practice of buying search keywords based on the names of public figures is becoming a more and more popular means of driving traffic to advocacy group and political merch sites. Search the Senators Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Hitwise Reports on Insurance Searches
"The most popular website for the week ending March 11, 2006 was USAA.com capturing 9.73 percent of all visits to Insurance sites that week. Hitwise Search Intelligence data shows that the most searched for insurance brands driving traffic to the category were "geico," "usaa," and "progressive." The most searched for insurance product terms were "car insurance," "health insurance," and "auto insurance.""
Google and Yahoo in Talks with Thin Client Computer Maker
HOLY CRAP! I got pumped when I read Greg Sterling's article on Google's role in the future of computing, how basically we'll be able to own computers that hook up to the Google network where all our data lives.
Wyse Technology, the leading thin-client manufacturer, told SVW that it is in talks with both Google and Yahoo, for the design and production of powerful low-priced computers integrating data, voice, and broadband connectivity.
HOLY CRAP! Will we see a computer sales model similar to today's current cell phone sales model, where we're locked into long term service contracts and hardware prices are low? Will the whole thing be ad supported?
Most importantly, how far away is this? Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Amazon S3 Launches Ahead of Google GDrive
Amazon web services just launched Amazon S3 that developers can use to store and retrieve data.
What's the big deal? It's like giving architects super low cost land.
I think the cheap space will stimulate business creativity AND serve to keep Amazon updated on innovations and creative business models.
The GDrive may or may not be similar to what Amazon's doing - my initial understanding of this rumored Google product was that it was more for personal/small scale information rather than a full bore developer storage and retreival resource.
Greg Linden points out potential issues with building a business on top of S3. Namely, latency - it will be slow, and downtime.
The bottom of his post has links to several other Amazon S3 reactions.
eMarketer: Search up 26% in 2005
"This report shows 26 percent growth in spending on search marketing in 2005, more than the 19 percent growth in all online advertising, and substantially above the single digit growth rates in ad spending in print and on TV & radio." SEM Spend Surges
Holy Schnikies! By search of course they mean paid search. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Acquires 3D Modeling Company to Enhance Google Earth
This looks like it will be big for Google Earth. If/when Google opens the software for free they'll unleash some 3D creativity on Google Earth. Watch for all sorts of crazy plugins and 3D revisions of cities and streets.
People who are already users, architects and designers, will be able to place their visions directly into the landscape.
"We’re all about enabling users to express themselves in 3D and share their vision with others. Architects, builders, woodworkers, gamers, students and my Uncle Bob all want basically the same thing: the most intuitive tools to help them create and share their 3D dreams. So we’ll stay the course. (Only now we have just a smidge more horsepower...)"
PreFound Adds RSS, Manual Link Posting, and Del.icio.us Link Importing
"Easing the way for Web searchers to share information on topics of personal interest, community-oriented search engine PreFound.com (www.prefound.com) today introduced site improvements that give users the ability to manually post tagged links, access RSS feeds from topic experts and keywords, and import existing links from other sites."
Smart move PreFound - take advantage of work people have done in other areas and invite them to add their work to your project.
Paid Search Drafting vs. Hijacking: what's the difference again?
Enid Burns at ClickZ reports on the paid search controversy of drafting/hijacking. There's apparently a slight difference but I can't tell what it is.
I do know that it costs money to influence search behavior, which is what Pontiac did when it paid to make and then air its "Google Pontiac!" ad. Mazda "drafted?" them when it bought the Pontiac keyword and ran ads that said Mazda vs. Pontiac.
"The competitor created a comparative landing page evaluating features from one auto from each manufacturer."
Pontiac didn't buy ads on "Pontiac" for some reason - either it wanted to emphasize the "organic approval" that a ranking indicates or it forgot.
Google Jerk or Google News?
Lots of stories/posts about Google today. I just found the cynically delightful Google Jerk site. In somewhat of that spirit I submit to you today's Google stories:
What does it mean to sell online access to my book?News! A step for Google in the direction of standing in between content providers and content seekers. The books appear on non-savable, non-copyable web pages.
Google Mini Maps: News! This makes the Google Maps API more usable. Also interesting, as the post points out, how Google doesn't announce minutae developments anymore and lets people discover them.
Google Personalized for MobileJerk! Just a natural and logical extension of a product onto a mobile device. It's smart, and newsy, but not capital "n" news.
Mars attractsJerk! (but I'll admit that I haven't actually LOOKED at it yet... I'm too busy writing ;) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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How prevalent is tag spam these days? My suspicion is that it's not bad at all for NEW events or developments, but gets cruddy for tags like "business." But hey, I'm not a del.icio.us user. How bad is it over there?
Many moons ago I wrote about problems I saw with tagging-based search. These problems still hold, though I'm far more excited about tags six months after that post (for their usefulness in tracking FRESH information that would not yet be indexed in search engines).
Review of Similicio.us, Site Suggestion Search Engine
Thomas Hawk sent me a link to his review of Similicio.us, "a search engine that allows you to type in your favorite domain and receive suggestions of similar domains that might be of interest."
He interviewed the creator who described the gradual development process for his site: I thought about doing something similar to del.icio.us but with a recommendation engine built in.
I later discarded the idea, realizing that once people started using del.icio.us, they wouldn't change to another bookmarking system, and the recommendation engine wouldn't be able to recommend anything without a substantial user base.
Later I realized that I could do a general recommendation engine. It should benefit web sites that want 'people who bought this also bought that' recommendation, but don't have the expertise to do it. Thus easyutil.com was created.
Afterwards, I figured that I needed an example to show how it worked. Therefore I put together similicio.us.
Chuck Norris Doesn't Spam Google...
...he calls Matt Cutts and tells him which #1s he wants.
Chuck Norris downloaded the internet. Twice.
Uh, that's it. I'm out. Check out the real Chuck Norris facts and leave your own facts in the comments. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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TechSearch: vertical engine + niche info site TechSearch is what the niche portal of the future will HAVE to look like. An index of niche data (blog posts, white papers... they're missing forums), the latest news stories and posts from ten CMP bloggers.
Kudos to CMP for getting search as media and putting the pieces together.
Site Demographics for Google AdWords
Here's the change in Google's words: "With the AdWords site tool, you can pick your preferences in up to three different demographic categories. The system will analyze your preferences and create a list of available Google Network sites that are popular with that audience. If you select multiple demographics, the AdWords system will look for sites that match all of your preferences."
Google has quietly (I think - no release sent out) rolled out a feature on its AdWords site that allows customers to guide their AdWords purchasing decisions using demographic data such as household income, age, and gender. News: AdWords Now Using Demographics
They're using Comscore data - interesting. How long before Google doesn't need Comscore data? Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google's Orkut: Popular with Brazilians and Al-Qaeda
Good article - provides annecdotal insight into Brazilian culture and the strange obsession with Orkut (hint - the word Orkut sounds like Yogurt in Portuguese). Why Brazil Loves Orkut!
According to Danny Sullivan, citing USA Today: "The largest community there has 2,000 members, and there are at least 10 different Al-Qaeda related communities." What's next, pedophiles in MySpace? Al-Qaeda Likes Orkut Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Officially Joins Battle for the Online Office
Google just bought Writely, a “collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser.” What does this mean? It’s confirmation of Google’s aims at an online office, and a direct assault on MSN, also creating an online office.
What will this mean for marketers? Ad buys on the tools - besides email - that people use all day. The fragmentation of search - now we'll be optimizing client sites so their white papers and case studies appear on the budgeting spreadsheets people are working on.
Adoption will be the biggest problem the online office model faces, as storage of all info will likely be online and vulnerable. MSN will likely have paid add ons, while Google’s will likely be all for free. SMBs will use Google’s online office, Enterprise will use MSN.
Here's Google's announcement of their acquisition: Writely so …a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser. Well, as of Monday, I'm happy to say that I, and the rest of the Writely team, are now part of Google. link
MSN Live Search + Google's $90 Million Click Fraud Settlement + ETech Roundup
I'm knee-deep in RFP today (includes a social network marketing piece... suhweeeeeeeeeeet!!!) so I'm going to send you over to MarketerToday for today's major interactive marketing news.
Including sections on MSN Live, Google's click fraud settlement, and ETech.
Check out the sweet write ups and incredible depth of useful news links.
And see you tomorrow!
ps: I update MarketerToday everyday - it's part of how I gather post ideas for SEL. The feed actually works there I promise. Thanks to folks who've wrote and posted comments to let us know. I'm working on it. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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March 08, 2006
GenieKnows New Hires/Promotions to Drive US Expansion, Agency Outreach GenieKnows wrote me to let me know about some new hires: "For Immediate Release – GenieKnows.com (www.genieknows.com), a privately held, Canadian search company part of IT Interactive Services, has appointed Tiffany Mitchell as Director of Business Development and named Gina Kosta as Consultant. The company has also promoted Director of Affiliate Relations Mark Harper to VP of Strategic Relations."
I asked:
* What specific initiatives will Tiffany, Gina and Mark be working on * what are the SPECIFIC projected changes at GenieKnows
GenieKnows said: Tiffany Mitchell is hired to commence work on new publisher and advertiser acquisition and to create new revenue streams in the process. She is also tasked with the eventual establishment of a permanent US based GenieKnows.com Sales / Business Development team. Tiffany's skill set and experience with Miva.com will help GenieKnows grow its PPC Ad network.
Gina Kosta is retained in a consultative capacity to assist and advise on Sales and Business Development initiatives. Gina's extensive career in online marketing and advertising will be invaluable to GenieKnows in reaching out to online Ad agencies and larger media buyers.
In addition to handling existing large scale strategic partnerships, Harper takes overall control of marketing and PR initiatives; from planning and managing GenieKnows.com attendance at leading industry trade shows (such as Search Engine Strategies and Ad:Tech's) to planning and managing for the expansion of GenieKnows.com's global PPC network. Harper is also tasked with new product planning, launch and promotion.
And there you have it. Thanks to Mark Harper for getting back with me. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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CompWisdom, Programming Vertical Search Engine, Launches
Tom Rakoczi, editor of CompWisdom, shot me an email this morning to introduce his new programming/computing vertical search engine.
"CompWisdom provides useful and meaningful results, which are relevant to the topic of computing, programming and the Internet."
The search box is all black and you type your search terms in green. Nice branding element.
Any thoughts for Tom? Post them in the comments and I'll have him visit to answer.
(phew! I needed a Google chaser.) Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Google Calendar Pics Leaked
It's one damn leak after another with these guys. This time it's images of Google's LONG RUMORED calendar, which will tie in to Gmail and likely heralds a web based office suite.
GDrive Remainders: Full Text of PPT Notes, AdSense Bits
So I'm supposed to put all my personal data in the GDrive and Google can't even keep its financial data safe?
Yahoo and Google Tie in French Academic Relevance Study
"Google and Yahoo tied for first place, with a rating of 2.3, but the most striking result is undoubtedly the extremely low level of user satisfaction. None of the search engines even passed (2.5 out of 5) and some of the grades were extremely low (1.2 for Voilà)."
Lanzone believes "there's a lot of innovation that will still happen in basic relevance, both in Web search and in standard verticals." This study certainly supports that.
Blinkx Toolbar Pulls MySpace Data Blinkx just launched a toolbar that crawls any page you're on and pipes in related data:
"The application, coined Pico, "reads" their active screens, infers the meaning of what they're seeing contextually, and then retrieves relevant information from across the Web."
Related data includes: news, video, images, blogs, Wikipedia, shopping, and "people"
I found it interesting that "their "people" channel will offer results from online communities including MySpace.com."
Does this mean they're targeting a younger audience? Via MediaPost Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Their PPT presentation leaked and Greg Linden blogged it: And slide 19 (in the notes) talks about how their work is inspired by the idea of "a world with infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power." They say that "the experience should really be instantaneous". They say that they should be able to "house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)" which leads to a world where "the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache". And, they say that they want "transparent personalization" that uses user "data to transparently optimize the user's experience ... implicitly."
Garett Rogers confirms it: In September I ran across compelling evidence that suggests a product by this name was either in the works, or at least being considered — at that time it was nothing more than speculation.
outer-court speculates: 5 years from now, people may well edit all of their documents in Web Word, Web Excel, Web PowerPoint, and so on... only those might not be Microsoft tools anymore.
Battelle balks: The more I think about this, the more I'm not comfortable with the idea of having all my data in one place. Any place. Google or otherwise. It simply makes abuse too easy.
MVox provides an excellent overview: GDrive - Google's Drive for Information Hegemony Why's this story causing such a stir? It touches on the future of computing for one, a future in which people, if they choose, can be largely PC free and do all of their computing on the web.
It brings up MASSIVE privacy concerns.
There's the whole leak factor, and the fact that Google pulled the PPT and replaced it with a PDF with notes removed.
And Google can get it done, if anyone can. Just don't expect them to get it doneall at once.
I'll let you know what I think as soon as I can use it. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Ask Maps Newfound Popularity Slows Service
From the Ask Blog: "We are getting unprecedented traffic to it (way above my projections, at least), but that is slowing it down. We even got a feel of the "Digg effect ". Luckily, our engineering team has already figured out several optimizations and improvements that we plan on implementing over the next couple of weeks that is going to improve the speed of maps significantly."
Andy Yang said they have "had a fantastic response from our users, the press, and the blogosphere."
I mentioned in my interview with Jim Lanzone that the maps was one of my favorite changes (last question, so you'll have to scroll). Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Oodle Partners with Lycos and Backpage
As promised, here's the big news from Oodle.
They partnered with Lycos and Backpage, "a group of free community classified sites operated by local media outlets including newspapers, radio and television stations in 40 metro areas.".
“We’re excited about the launch of our Lycos classifieds,” said Brian Kalinowski, chief operating officer of Lycos, Inc. “Not only can our users post classified listings for free but by partnering with Oodle, they quickly identify the most relevant listings, whether they were published on our site or elsewhere.”
Ellison: Google Searches Private Data Poorly
Oracle debuts corporate search product, Ellison takes a swing at Google:
``What Google does not do well is search private data. It searches public data very well, the World Wide Web. But most data we deal with is not public data, it's private data, personal data,'' Ellison said.
But the search tool's not out until the end of May soooo... we'll see.
Reporters love strong words, so way to nab that press Ellison, but Oracle had best demonstrate HOW its corporate search beats Google's. Also, Oracle loses points for not having a blog up or something online that's a forum for the developers of the product.
It's also well positioned to sell to that corporate market, probably better than Google due to existing relationships.
Search Share, January '06
SEARCH SHARE, Jan ‘06 per Nielsen//Netratings Google Search 48.2% Yahoo! Search 22.2% MSN Search 11.0%
Also from the report, "online search conducted across approximately 60 search engines in the U.S. rose 39 percent year-over-year in January 2006 from four billion searches to nearly 5.7 billion, the highest number of online searches to date..."
MSN's Holloway: I was decontextualized + "new work" coming soon
So I initially advised MSN to back Holloway's statements, but now Holloway's saying that the press took him out of context: "Unfortunately, the comments attributed to me do not give an accurate reflection on a long and detailed discussion and I would like to set the record straight."
Reporters can be crafty, and strong words between rivals make great headlines. Kudos to Holloway for getting a little buzz out in his comments on Battelle's blog:
"In the coming weeks, we will be able to share some new work that we hope will delight our customers and move towards the experience they are looking for."
Also interesting is that he chose Battelle's blog as a place to clarify his statement - if he'd gone back to the reporters he would have gotten headlines like: "MSN Chief Retracts Google Claims" rather than Battelle's sympathetic ear.
Battelle's an expert and news reporters coming to his site will trust Holloway's words more there than they would on MSN's blog. SMART PR MOVE. In all, pretty deft handling of a major PR debacle.
MSN's General Manager of Search, Ken Moss, responded to the headlines on the MSN blog: "we are commi
