Washington Post's ReadExpress: Map-Based Hyper-Local Online Community News
Last week I interviewed Liddy Manson, the vice president and general manager of Jobs, Cars and Real Estate at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

At Manson's suggestion I also interviewed, Chris Ma, VP of Washington Post Company who's been a key force behind the WaPo's Express print tabloid (and it's 250k readers) and now its online version, ReadExpress.

Chris Ma calls ReadExpress, "neighborhood oriented and hyper-local" and hopes it will, "provide some of that sense of what is going on in the neighborhoods, around which our communities revolve."

Over the weekend, as I've been orchestrating a conversation between Google Maps Mania and the Google Map mash up developer at the Washington Post, I've been working at this piece, mostly wondering how to boil my 2,600 words of notes into the core ideas that I find the most meaningful for the newspaper industry as well as my primary audience - online marketers.

ReadExpress: Map-Based and Hyper-Local
My key takeaway concept from the site, as I mention in Navigate Content by Metro Stop is that it enables content navigation - and increased local activity - through the use of a Google Maps/metro stops mash up.

Each metro stop's corresponding map page enables users to find food/entertainment/shopping. In addition each stop's page includes stories and blog posts that are about that specific geographic area.

And that's what I'm talking about when I say map-based and hyper-local. Watch for individual metro stops to become focal points for users - I expect they will eventually be able to tag the areas around their metro stops for each other and non-residents.

Ma says, "for people whose lives revolve around the transit system we hope this [metro map] is a useful entry into a lot of deep data."

Commuters as Community: a Highly Mobile Readership
Ma's vision of the metro riders themselves as a community connected through their shared experience of the commute is the definition of a well-defined target audience. "They share a certain routine," Ma said. "They share neighborhood affinities because they share stops, they're all going to work or school in the morning, leading an urban life style."

He launched the print tab to target this group, but it's the site that will really begin enabling the kinds of networking and sharing that we've come to love in the Web 2.0 era.

The ReadExpress poll - a daily opinion poll on the site - exhibits one aspect of this commuter-community concept. The poll enables voters to see how commuters from their own point of embarkment voted that day, thereby getting a sense of how they do - or don't - fit into their hyper-local community.

Ma described that aspect of the poll when I asked about social networking. He believes that through encouraging exploration of what other embarkment points think ReadExpress is laying the groundwork for what could possibly evolve into something along the lines of a social network.

The beauty of course is that the network already exists - its the metro riders themselves and they participate in this network every morning on their way to work and school. For ReadExpress I think it will be a matter of encouraging more interactions, even if those happen only on the site itself for now.

Classifieds as Entertainment
Ma described one aspect of the site that he considers to be an interesting experiment, the Window Shopper section. This blog's author features interesting and quirky classified listings and wraps them in commentary.

Such as when the writer chides a "missed connections" commuter: "Since this resulted in a missed-connection post, let's see if we get this straight: You won't flirt on the Metro, but will consider it when he's running by you in the middle of a sweaty jog?"

Ma explained they sought to look to the classifieds as a source of entertainment, as well as a sort of anthropological and sociological study of sorts. I see a strong love connection opportunity for the metro riders too in that Ma noted, "you'll find that quite a large number of those personals tell a story of someone seeing someone else on the metro reading Express."

The classifieds-as-entertainment comes somewhat pre-envisioned in the Woot Inc. sales model. It's also smacks of, but has no real relationship to, Mark Cuban's live TV-ad concept.

What ReadExpress Borrowed from New Media:
Blogs, obviously, were big influencers. The layout of the front page includes the well known hierarchy of recency, and you'll see titles and blurbs much as you do here in Search Engine Lowdown.

Because they're "neighborhood oriented and hyper-local," Ma said that, "a blog format was very appropriate, and "a way, given the conventions of blogging, to invite our users into the conversation, providing additional interesting content." That way, he said, "we can much more quickly and extensively build up the very local content of the site."

Local DC blogs were also major influencers, and Ma cited Mike Grass, cofounder of the DCist, as "our principle driving force." Grass is now the lead blogger for the ReadExpress, writing the Free Ride blog column.

Lean Staff, Focused On Serving Users, Soft Launch Phase
One note - I peppered Manson and Ma throughout our conversations with ideas, questions about SMS, mobile devices, social networking, and other possible map mash ups.

They had to keep reminding me that a) they had only had the site live for a day (at the time of our interviews), b) they're operating with a lean, albeit highly experimental staff, and c) all changes will come down to what the users want and use.

This focus on building out according to user need and demand reminded me of how Ask CEO Jim Lanzone described their work on the Ask search engine.

At the time of the interview, 4-26-06, they hadn't yet announced the site to their readers. They were in soft launch phase, doing load testing, getting people used to the site and seeking initial feedback. When they do announce the site (likely sometime this week) they're going to print a very clear users guide and explain to people how they can get involved with the existing functions.

ReadExpress: "a down payment on how we hope to iterate the site"
Ma describes ReadExpress, as it now exists, as "a down payment on how we hope to iterate the site."

So what are they looking at next? Ma stated that "there are a number of tools we can bring to using this kind of information for planning and rendezvous." I asked if they were looking at using the Google Calendar API.

Ma said, "we're still evaluating for sure... but it seems to be excellent product."

Yahoo, of course, has a calendar API of its own, and a Map API for that matter.

When I asked him about plans for mobile devices he said: "We're the perfect brand for the mobile product - it's a quick read product for people on the go... a person in motion... mobile products that build on the kind of information that we deliver in print, very carefully packaged - we know people are busy and in motion..."

Watch for ReadExpress to develop in "ways that will really serve day to day interactions for people who live an urban, highly mobile style."

Should Your Company Get Map-Based and Hyper-Local?
Definitely! ...if it truly serves your customers. I saw that for Ma it was his passion for serving the commuting readership and his understanding of their needs that lay behind every decision.

In Client as Audience, I wrote that "the companies that come to think of their clients as an audience and provide them with the media/information they're looking for will come to capture wider and wider audience/client share, and they will learn more quickly what it is their customers are looking for because of increased interaction."

If nothing else I hope you got from this article an idea of what coming to understand your client as audience really looks like. In the case of ReadExpress it's a beautiful thing.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Dumped by Amazon's Alexa for MSN Live: Google Dump #1
From Aaron Wall at Thread Watch comes word that MSN Live is now powering Alexa's (update: AND A9's) search results instead of Google, the previous partner: Alexa Powered by Microsoft.

Alexa results were previously Google results informed by user data from the Alexa toolbar + a number of post-search refinement buttons.

The Alexa toolbar's gotten Alexa a bad rap from privacy advocates, though in function it's effect on search results is similar to click stream data that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask may or may not be using in their determinations of relevance.

Wall points out that "A9 is still powered by Google..." A9 is Amazon's primary search project. Wall wonders, however, if the change in Alexa indicates a larger coming change in Amazon's relationship to Google.

I agree. In fact, I see the move as the first Google Dump in the post eBay's-seeking-partners-against-Google era.

Craig Donato of Oodle, a classifieds search engine, steers studiously clear of *selling* classified ads. His partners - his suppliers of his index of classified ads - would not appreciate the competition. Google opened the content floodgates with Google Base, creating competition for the companies in its organic results.

Google dumpings are the industry's way of saying, "you can serve our cake but you can't bake your own."

Could Amazon's nod to MSN Live be a sampling of the (flaked) goods rather than a true Google dumping prompted by Amazon's new vision of Google as a threat? I can imagine the more cool-headed pundits among us (Danny Sullivan) reading the situation that way.

But when Google Base book search enables publishers to circumvent Amazon and sell directly to Google searchers you'll see Amazon finding new search partners in a hot damn minute.

GData and Base indicate that Google's uber-portal direction is set. Amazon's shift from Google indicates what will be the first of many high profile shifts away from Google that we'll see in the coming months.

I see Ask being a big winner in the search industry as Google dumpers seek new partners. Lanzone's always been focused on Pure Search and doesn't have portal ambitions (though IAC may push Ask that way...). Ask is likely to emerge as the search partner of choice as Google increasingly alienates its former partners by competing with them directly.

Want to chat about the coming Google dumping trend? Call 919-433-3139.

Update:
A9 switched to Microsoft Live too.

Update 2:
Loren Baker said something about Slash Daughters? I looked all over Slash's site but didn't see anything that would account for all the site traffic we've been getting.

Update 3:
More On Amazon Dumping Google & Missing Paid Listings (historical context from Danny Sullivan + links to mainstream coverage)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
and now I'm going to buy a suit for...
...when I moderate Extending On-line Social Communities into Pure Search this Friday. And for the Kentucky Derby the next day.

Here's a picture of me trying to listen to a hyper local 4INFO SMS search before my girlfriend told me it comes up in text on the screen. I'm a little behind the tech curve sometimes. Note the outline of the KY tattoo on my right bicep... Kentucky LOVE!!!


Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Hyper-Local SMS Search from 4INFO + Mission Movers
Carol Chi of 4INFO recently braved an hour long SEL grilling while suffering from a major spring cold... and she did great! This article delivers the lowdown on the new local SMS search offering enabled through 4INFO's partnership with Mission Movers (warning - scrolling text + talking head :P).

Google and Yahoo both have SMS search that I mention in Cell Phone As World's Primary Internet Platform + (Map/Local) Search Marketing. Sara Holoubek pits them against each other in an anecdotal smackdown.

4INFO, in conjunction with Mission Movers, has put together something with far greater POTENTIAL for true, local-community SMS search, and the vestiges of a model that could really take root as mobile phones become key internet entry points (and before they're all smart enough to NOT be limited to SMS... ;).

Roles in the Partnership
The partnership is simple. 4INFO provides the framework for the search - algo + delivery, and Mission Movers provides the index via an RSS feed with data from the Ranier Valley chamber of commerce.

A Community-Built SMS Index
The area that was the most compelling to me, and the area where it sounded like they need to do quite a bit more work, was in how exactly the community could interface with the index that Mission Movers is building. Right now (in their first week :) it's my understanding from talking with Chi that it requires a letter or phone call to the Ranier Valley chamber of commerce.

The idea of an index or database to which a small community could SMS relevant, useful information is compelling given the phone as web gateway phenomenon, and I think it's going to be through smaller organizations that we see this happen rather than through the too-distant Googles and Yahoos of the world (though if it were applicable and scalable I think Yahoo would be the first to jump on it given their social media bent...).

So that was the piece that got me most excited in talking with Chi. Now here are my questions and Chi's responses:

How many people at 4INFO?
20-22 people (Chi wasn't sure - they've just recently hired 2 new engineers)

What is 4INFO's exact involvement in this community SMS network (what piece are you responsible for in this partnership)?
- the groups create RSS feed (they are responsible for the content) we provide the framework to get it mobile
- we assign the group a keyword, which directs searches to the feed
- mission movers determing the index (they have guidelines for what will be in the index that are not yet public)

Who's making money and how?
- this is a beta test, rolling it out with Mission Movers so we haven't figured out monetization
- there's exchange of promotion (4INFO marketing to Ranier Valley)
- won't be the case with every partnership - Mission Movers are a non-profit organization
- contract agreements will later determine whether we put ads within results or we won't - either the partner will pay for ad free queries or we will have the right to put in advertising

What local area is next?
- we don't know, mission movers is talking to some, but haven't said what the communities are
- they have not fully launched it to the community yet

maps? (duh Garrett... it's SMS :P)
- working on driving directions
- no way to display maps
- on wap service that will be possible

Can community members themselves comment on the information provided by the businesses?
- Mission Movers is working with the Ranier Chamber of commerce, which collects info from the community
- there's no current online method to get info into the index
- MM wants to get contributions from the community, but we're just getting started so they want to see how successful it is before rolling out more involved system

Types of index information will include:
- midnight basketball, townhall meetings, local business info

How much longer will SMS be around, given that phones are getting smarter and smarter?
- SMS traffic has grown significantly, and SMS is still the easiest form of (digital query) communication on the cell phone. Loading mobile browsers takes a long time.
- but WAP has grown by leaps and bounds, with faster networks, new phones available. 4INFO has a "client" in beta - a small browser, very user friendly, icons to scroll through, connects through your data feed faster than some mobile browsers.

Why 4INFO over Yahoo or Google?
- what sets us apart from other mobile search companies - we DO have personalization. we remember your previous searches, we remember your zipcode so you won't have to type it in in the future. this makes user experience much easier.

4INFO Partnerships Crucial
4INFO - put them in your "watch" category. If they can keep forming relationships with organizations tat can help them generate hyper-local, community-influenced SMS indices then they may be on to something as the phone increasingly becomes a major web-access device.

They should be looking for partnerships with companies with demographics that access the web from desktop/laptops AND phones - these are the companies most likely to be extending brand value to the phone.

Also... considering Google's Cell Phone Sex Problem, I wonder if 4INFO has any thoughts on some hott hott ascii p-roni (nsfw... if anyone can actually figure out what it is ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
GenieKnows: the Emerging Errand Efficiency Engine
As I mentioned in GenieKnows Builds an Index, my biggest initial take away from my conversation with Barbara Manning, President and CEO of GenieKnows and Mausam Prince Kalra, GK's Chief Technical Officer was the fact of the index itself and how GenieKnows, which has essentially been an ad-network, is now thrusting itself into the search/vertical destination space.

Also - early next week Manning says to watch for news of a significant GenieKnows Local partnership.

First, some basic GenieKnows info:
GK employees: 25
Total search engines in Canada: 2
Around since: 1999
Used ppc to stay afloat. Main focus is research.
currently getting 1 billion GK "searches" a month through its network
new features - spell check/proper suggestions (google, yahoo have this, MSN is not there)

Stats about the GenieKnows Local product:
Targeting top 100 cities in the US (for now).
Have around 1 billion pages w/local data and STILL CRAWLING.
Use ESRI for map data, but the layout and usability (how the map appears on the page) is all GenieKnows.
They organize index by hub and authority.
Will be using Ajax in later iterations.

The hidden value: Errand Efficiency
As we spoke it became evident that the piece Kalra and Manning were most excited about - the "neighbourhood" link on local results pages, was also the least-obviously useful.

The function enables users to see other local businesses in the vicinity of their initial search so that they can plan for greater errand efficiency.

In my mind, errand efficiency is HUGE. I'm an impatient errand runner, because, well, errands are a pain in the ass. If I can get local results that enable me to plan my route according to the greatest efficiency, well, NOW we're talking about local search that's really useful (not to mention profitable...).

The only problem with GenieKnows is that it's not evident, from a teensy link entitled "neighbourhood," that I can plan a whole afternoon's errands based on the location of a key destination.






(note tiny "Neighbourhood" link)

They have a LONG WAY TO GO when it comes to actually increasing my errand efficiency. For one thing, drilling down into categories is counter intuitive, and as a user I'd prefer to simply type in the keywords of the errands I have to do and let the planner go to work making things more efficient for me.








Still, I think this is an excellent first step towards errand efficiency, a local search function that would be VERY USEFUL to the local searcher. This is also the area I see them having the most potential synergy with PreFound.

GenieKnows on Mobile Devices
3 years ago Kalra and his cohorts at GenieKnows put forth a proposal for local search on mobile devices. GenieKnows is looking at ways so that folks can complete mobile transactions in 1 1/2 the time frame that it takes now.

Kalra feels particularly excited about the future of mobile: "it will definitely change how people shop - it allows people to shop from where ever they are - to make the determination to buy right at that point. This will change things in that people can do research and buy right away.

"In countries like China and India - mobile devices responsible for growth of the internet."

His focus is on keeping GenieKnows mobile device agnostic.

I didn't get a strong sense that there were local-to-mobile efforts.

GenieKnows Verticals Coming:
Continuing the push into the destination space, GenieKnows is working away at developing three key verticals. That you will have to wait and find out about because I can't remember if they said I could talk about them or not.

Unintelligible Notes that Seem Important:
I forget what question I asked, but here are notes that I believe indicate a strategy for enabling geo-specific contextual ads:

"we have our own network and receive backfill from other large networks
GenieKnows tech developed in house (intl w/yahoo (not NA) able to monetize intl traffic w/ one single xml feed - allow publishers to monetize intl traffic - geotargeting based on country level - puts italian ads on italian blogs for example. currently working to open relationship in china. Shang Hai Ad:Tech - sponsors at SES Shanghai)"

Note to self: put more notes in notes!

GenieKnows: Watch Closely!
At the end of a very engaging hour with Manning and Kalra, I came to see GenieKnows as a strong up and comer in the second/third tier search engine space. My concern for my new search friends is that with only 25 employees their seemingly wide array of projects will water down their overall value to the end user. Also, the errand efficiency concept would be quite simple to copy...

They've been sitting on search destination sidelines watching closely for 7 years though - I'm excited to see what new search tech they bring to the table!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
SEM Project Pricing + Transparency in Market Conversations
I just became an even greater Fishkin fan because of this recent post: Project Pricing. (HE got started on the topic because of a post from Blue Favor, so really props should go to them, but I'm more familiar with Fishkin so that's who I'm going to write about here...)

A company's pricing model is, essentially, that company's DNA. It's at the very core of what makes them a company in the first place.

Pricing model transparency is, in my currently coffee/adderall-popped mind (I medicate for my ADHD), the ultimate marketing conversation.

Fishkin's pushing the SEM industry - and the B2B world - towards the kind of transparency that will ultimately make business stronger and more conversational with their marketspace.

I love this level of openness: "many projects, tasks and clients are not enjoyable to spend time on, while others are a true pleasure - this heavily impacts pricing..."

(**Imagine a company where each employee sets his own rates for charging other employees for doing work for them. Then everyone gets paid out of what the overall profits are from the customer. Employees know what the company itself has to make, and they can vote - to some extent - on whether or not what their fellow employees are charging is reasonable. You earn work from other people in your company by doing work for them and the company itself sets up its own internal economy, with an exchange rate with actual dollars. Would any work ever get done? ;)**)

Also notice in Fishkin's post the value of having your CEO/President as your company's chief blogger (assuming he/she can write and is highly involved in your industry's community...).

As MSI's marketing communications manager I don't feel comfortable digging into our pricing model and putting it onto this blog or in comments on Fishkin's post. I don't feel like I have the authority, and I suspect that I would have significant push back from my boss when it comes to the permission.

Fishkin can just jump in and talk as openly as he wants about whatever he wants and his tendency towards transparency makes his blog very very valuable to the industry. Please write that down in your blog tip book along with making your blog useful to you ;)

Do you think publicly traded companies could benefit from this level of transparency? How about B2B companies with, say, 500 or more employees?

I do. I think this level of transparency should spread into larger companies - even publicly traded companies like my MarketSmart Interactive.

A higher level of transparency could have helped us in our market from the get go, as we've been transitioning from an egregiously ill-managed, ill-run top-down organization into the stronger, more grass-roots empowered organization of today.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
B2B Blog Model Thoughts: is your blog useful to YOU?
I'm a big fan of Natasha Robinson's blog, that girl from marketing. Why? Because it's rich in links to new marketing and Web 2.0ish information.

She revealed the truth about her blog last night, and showed why, in my mind, it's a must read (even though I can't find the RSS feed for it and end up visiting when I notice her links to SEL in bloglines ;).

Her blog for her is a way of storing the information she thinks she may need at a later date: "It's actually my reading list/cheat sheet."

I do something similar, but it's on a txt file on my machine at work... and it's not as well written ;)

Her blog is a prime example of a search marketing industry resource, and that's because she's a) smart and b) timely. Also, I don't have to scroll for days to get a day's worth of news. It's all in one post, and I typically find links that I haven't seen yet.

Anyways, if you're thinking of starting a blog for your industry, whether that's the SEM industry or not, you should take a long look at what Natasha's doing:

"For those who don't know (or don't get it), I don't consider this site a blog. It's actually my reading list/cheat sheet. In that, I read the articles, blog posts, forums links, etc. from the day that I find interesting from my Email / RSS Reader and add links I think I will need to reference and/or come back to at a later date (as well as interesting and/or funny reads).

"But mostly, it serves to keep my Inbox, RSS Reader and my bookmark toolbar clear - which is a job in itself."

What I like is that this is essentially work she's doing for herself, organizing the industry thought that she finds interesting, relevant and important. There's no noticeable get-links pretext - no "visions of the future" as you're likely to see here (we LOVE visions of the future at SEL :) and key quotes from articles instead of commentary. Just linked article/post titles. Well, there is a slight dash of Natasha flavor there ;)

The beauty of this model is that she serves us - her reading community, by creating a resource for herself. I think this is a key focus that blog marketers typically miss out on - first and foremost, how can we make sure that the writing we're doing is actually a resource for ourselves?

If you're in PR and wanting your influential employees to get out and start blogging then Natasha's is an excellent model to follow. Also read Harnessing Employee Generated Content To Target B2B Decision Influencers. It wraps up what's at the core of the Web 2.0 movement and how you can encourage your employees to engage it.

Check out that girl from marketing.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Paid Search Trademark Violation Management Guide for Google, Yahoo and MSN
Al Scillitani, a MarketSmart Interactive alumni, shot me a link to his guide to managing paid search trademark violations.

He includes links to the pages on Google and Yahoo and MSN's sites where you can defend your trademark.

Read: Trademark Violations and Paid Search

Nice work Al! Now make 'em click and get 'em slick! (Al wandered off from MSI many moon s ago to work at a local adult toy seller...)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Yahoo Local Listings: Yahoo Continues Small Biz Play (no ads on maps?!)
Yahoo now competing (more) directly with local newspapers and the yellow pages. Does Yahoo have any significant partnerships in place to be resellers for this new local product? Google has Verizon...

They are clearly aiming for the local, small business marketplace: "We created a product called Local Featured Listings, which introduces small businesses to online local advertising."

Yahoo has a good, preestablished history with small online businesses.

VERY INTERESTING! Here are some of the bits from the Yahoo Local Feature Listings collateral:

- Just six listings on the first two pages of search results, inventory is limited

- You choose the categories and regions associated with your listing. And unlike standard search results, you can adjust your listing messaging any time."

- It's a flat rate... No bidding on keywords.

Here's the rate card:














Interestingness:

- they are targeting small local businesses rather than big brands (who seemed to be Google's initial map advertisers...)

- charging a per-month rate instead of CPC or CPA (similar to other Yahoo properties?)!!

- apparently SMALL amount of inventory (a creating-demand move?)

- have not decided to consolidate map/local services like Google

- Ads do NOT appear on the maps themselves... WHY?? (new product coming there?)

For local marketers:
Get started testing this NOW before big brands snap up the inventory. I have no way of knowing if these prices are good, but I do know that Yahoo maps were recently ranked tops by Tech Crunch, which to me indicates a slowly gathering swell in Yahoo map usage.

Test it out and compare it to your ads on Google maps. Also see Google Maps API2 + Local Search Marketing Checklist and Advertising Locally on Google Maps.

From the Yahoo blog: Delivering flowers, delivering babies (with another ODD post title... I think they should bring in at least a LITTLE marketing polish on these things ;)

And see:
Yahoo! Local: Collaborative Local Content
and think about what this could mean based on Adam Schultz's Yahoo vision: Yahoo vs. MSN, Google and Ask (and ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, TIVO, Netflix, etc…)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Net Neutrality Loophole Remains: Telecoms Could Still Add Charges for Online Content Providers
I pieced the "what" portion of this post together from CNET's article, Democrats lose House vote on Net neutrality.

Reason for the Net Neutrality ammendment:
"the Federal Communications Commission must be given power to prevent broadband providers from doing things like charging content providers extra for the privilege of faster delivery or other preferential treatment."

Telecoms say:
"major broadband providers have repeatedly pledged not to block traffic or censor Web sites. Instead, they say, it will only be economically feasible to invest in higher-speed links if some bandwidth can be reserved for paid content."

To reiterate, why the ammendment was added to the bill:
"...it does not do what Amazon, Google, Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp, Yahoo and their allies want: to forcibly prevent by law a two-tier business model from ever being adopted on the Internet."

Om Malik brings perspective onto the situation: "These companies are fighting a battle against highly organized phone companies, who use their immense knowledge of legislative procedure as a competitive strategy. The real innovation, for oligopolies is lobbying. The big web companies it seems are busy fighting the petty battles, when they stand to lose the war."

Also he points out the US-centricity of the net neutrality movement: "I admire the work being done by the activists, but I have some what will be unpopular observations. For instance, the campaign has a very US centric view of the Internet, especially at a time when the global Internet is becoming bigger and bigger."

And he closes with a comment from the FCC's Michael Powell (who sounds, from this quote at least, as if he wouldn't mind charging content providers...): "It is too facile to say the Internet belongs to the public. People are married to the metaphor of the public space, but they run into trouble when it comes to who should pay for this stuff. They think it should be the government. That’s not going to happen. The government is broke, It’s going to stay broke."

Read Om Malik: Save The Internet. Why? And For Whom?

via mSHIFT: Should the ISPs Decide Which Websites You Visit? (reasoned speculation there on what could potentially happen from a technical perspective).

Keep your eye on this one... It's looking to me like the free party may be coming to a close? Also see: Google Going after Dark Fiber
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Webmaster Notification and SEO's Evolution
By Jon Revill

Matt Cutts made my day. In his recent post he covers communication between Google and webmasters.

In recent months Google has been testing communication with webmasters via email to notify them that they caught the eye of the Google spam team and could potentially harm their Google presence.

Matt says that the program has been successful but there are certain limitations to email when attempting to contact the webmaster. As an alternate method the Google Webspam team and the Sitemaps team have put their heads together and have provided and alternate solution.

Google Sitemaps have been updated to include notifications in the webmaster console for sites that have drawn penalties and offer a reinclusion request.

These notifications are geared towards helping legitimate businesses, not for notifying Black Hats employing negative SEO techniques.

This is HUGE!

Google has always been active in the webmaster community, but this is going a step above in my book.

In this industry there have always been those unscrupulous SEOs who intentionally spam a site to attempt to achieve rankings. A certain ex-SEO and their now famous doorway pages come to mind.

Site owners, particularly smaller sites, often never knew what hit them. Google can now let them know what has been done to their site.

But Jon...isn't that what SEO's are for?

Well, yes and no.

Matt alludes to the perfect search engine, one that not only provides value to their user, but also works with the website to identify potential indexing and ranking issues.

This has been the job of SEO's for the last several years. An entire industry sprung up around providing content and META tags to boost rankings.

The dark side of this industry discovered doorway pages, hidden text, and cloaking to achieve their goals. What Google is working towards here is completely removing the Black Hat element.

With these tactics effectively gone SEOs will be able to focus on what is truly important, providing value to a site's users and helping their clients build a viable, sustainable business. Thus ending the era of hard SEO and bringing in the age of true Interactive Marketing.

Interactive marketing moves well beyond the old staples of META tags, content, and base level linking.

Traditional SEO started with the site and optimizing for rankings on specific keywords, pushing outward trying to gain as much visibility as possible through rankings.

This strategy has one major flaw, it is often blind to the user. That's not to say there isn't any value in these practices, but they are only a part of a far bigger picture.

Interactive marketing starts with the user and looks inward at the site to provide value. It answers questions like:

- Who is my audience?
- What are their needs?
- What are they doing once they are on the site?
- What are they doing afterwards?

Value for a user begins with what they need, not what a site wants them to need.

User data and activity are endless sources of strong information to help websites grow and improve. The new world of interactive marketing is driven by identifying, providing value to, and converting users. Building a business rather than building traffic. Interactive marketing should be just that, marketing! Interactive simply refers to the mediums to which you apply your marketing strategy.

As Google moves toward the ideal search engine, SEO firms should look to the users, open up their traffic analytics accounts and move towards interactive marketing.

Website success was once based on whether or not your site was listed in the top ten. Success as a business, however, must be based on how much value you provide to the user.

Also see:
Reach Your Online Public Relations Goals through Optimized Press Releases, Blogger Relations and Social Networks
Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR

Jon Revill is MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Interactive Technology and Garrett hasn't given him a login and password for SEL yet.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Yahoo vs. MSN, Google and Ask (and ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, TIVO, Netflix, etc…)
In my opinion, here are the things Yahoo is doing that MSN and Google can’t touch on quality or maturity: Messenger, APIs, Music, Photo Sharing, Search Feeds, Answers, Shopping, Yahoo Stores, Video Search, Games and now Social Networking.

Did you know that I can listen to Yahoo Music from inside Yahoo messenger and play a friend in chess through IM while we chat all at the same time?

Add to that the fact that my friend can see what I’m hearing choose to listen to the same thing right along with me? Now I can also blast my friends, post to my blog or share a photo all from within messenger. That all goes without mentioning my ability to check my yahoo mail, calendar or weather from Messenger too.

I know what you’re thinking “Ok, ok, so that’s all fine and dandy, Yahoo is doing great things with social media and finally connecting the dots between their disparate services, so what.” I’ll tell you so what.

Yahoo is poised to be the first online media megalith. What happens when Yahoo music, integration into 360 and messenger and the ability to share tastes and create music channels for friends to watch becomes Yahoo TV?

What happens when millions of viewers are watching Idol through the Yahoo network and voting via Messenger, broadcasting messages to their friends through 360 to vote for Paris and receiving personalized advertisements based on their interests all on their living room television?

What happens when Yahoo is competing with ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, TIVO and NET FLICKS?

If this is the direction Yahoo is headed, and I strongly contend that it is, do you really think that Yahoo cares a lick about their current share of the search marketplace? Of course not. They are already so far beyond search now.

So maybe you still don’t see it. Maybe you still think that Google will somehow beat them to the punch because like everyone else, there is just something about Google.

Did you know that Yahoo is now offering free DVR software for Windows PCs? Take a look at Yahoo! Go. No matter where you go or how you access content, Yahoo has it for you on your PC, your TV or your Mobile. Once again Yahoo does it before Google.

Some pundits bring MSN’s "DVR on my PC" foray into the conversation. I see no meaningful interaction occurring there in how we share information and interact online like Yahoo is doing with 360. You also have to pay for it and change your whole OS in the form of Media Center XP.

Sure it has more features and you can adjust the look and feel of it but Yahoo! Go is free. It's amazing what a little "free" can do for early adoption rates regardless of competition.

And what does Google think about all of this, oh right, Google’s chasing Yahoo and MSN.

They are doing everything they can to catch up. They are launching calendar, buying video and photo sharing sites, building Google page creators, launching Google finance. Whatever it is, in most cases Yahoo did it first and still does it better.

It’s beginning to look like Yahoo is in the best place to serve up for each of us on an individual basis to share and interact with in the shape, format and location we want it. After all, this thing was never about search - it was always, and remains, about content.

So where does that leave us, as Internet Marketing Experts?

We need to understand that the days of SEO as a single marketing channel are over and that they never should have occurred in the first place. That people want great content that caters to their interests and in order to bring your message to the forefront you need to be ready to go where ever they go, be interested in the things that they’re interested in and build messages that are compelling enough not to be skipped through.

What this all means is that you will need to build real integrated marketing strategies based around an understanding of who your users are, what they need and how they choose to consume media. It also means that you had better start paying more attention to next.yahoo.com.

(Added 4-28-06)
Now, if only we could get them to stop helping the Chineese government track down dissidents.

Let me know what you think: Leave a comment or drop me an email. adam.schultz@marketsmartinteractive.com
Adam Schultz - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Extending On-line Social Communities into Pure Search
Extending On-line Social Communities into Pure Search is the panel I'll be moderating next Friday the 5th at 7pm in Louisville, KY.

Attendees include:
Steve Mansfield - PreFound
Mena Trott - Six Apart (Live Journal)
Ben Trott - Six Apart (Live Journal)
Garrett French - Search Engine Lowdown
Bambi Francisco - Search and Social Network Media
Jessica E. Vascellaro - Wall Street Journal
Olga Kharif - Business Week

Steve (check out the PreFound blog) frames it as "a discussion about harnessing the power of these millions of online social community users into developing Search related content that is provided, organized and presented by the members of the community."

I will try very hard to keep us focused on just search... I've been getting pretty excited about the blog/map/news/local/(maybe soon to be) networking site ReadExpress lately ;)

This weekend I'll be digging down deeper into social networking and social search so that I can help to answer the question Steve asks: "is it inevitable that these huge networks of online communities evolve into controlling search on significant levels?"

The first place I'll start is how networks of online communities ALREADY control search on significant levels through linkage data. (Steve would argue - I think - that SEM link-building efforts render this data useless. I would argue that they could eventually.)

That said, I am VERY excited about digging down - with Live Journal and PreFound data - into social networks and their potential for driving search relevance. Because I think the possibilities are huge, and money follows relevance.

I recently moderated a social blogging presentation here in Raleigh and a mentor gave me some great advice yesterday for moderating Extending On-line Social Communities into Pure Search :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Yahoo Relaunches Babelfish With Scarface Reference
Yahoo's relaunching Babel fish. Awesome! They also tied it in more closely with Yahoo search and their toolbar. Neat! The blog post announcing the relaunch is entitled: "Say "Hello" to my little friend", which got me thinking of another famous "little friend" :)
















They were talking about the little gold fish of course, but I couldn't resist ;)

I also noticed, while copying the headline text for this post, that there's a little floaty thing that enables me to search specific text from the Yahoo blog page. This is probably very old. But it's neat! And I hadn't seen it before.

On mouse over it looks like this:











Lenssen has more:
Yahoo Babel Fish
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
I'm Seeing Ask SERPs Freshness... Are You?
Is Ask getting that oh-so fresh feeling via feeds or through quick crawls?

I guess I should read the Martinbuster thread in WebMasterWorld because I don't track that kind of data for SEL (bad marketing manager! bad!):
Has ASK Jeeves Updated its Index?

I noticed it because Ask sent SEL a little traffic on the term "MySpace Search," on which I posted yesterday!


What have you seen or noticed in Ask SERPs lately? (Full disclosure - Ask pays MSI to sponsor SEL. They don't pay me though, beyond the pleasure of interviews with Jim Lanzone.)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
New Google Spam Busting Algo





















(Photo via Anthony "round house kick" Pirrozi Pirozzi, MSI marketing consultant.)

more hilariosity:
Chuck Norris doesn't optimize for Google...
Chuck Norris Doesn't Spam Google...
Crafting "what-do-you-mean" Style Conversation Disruptors
Superman Vs. Google: who would win?
Google vs. Superman: GOOGLE WINS!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MySpace Search with IceRocket
I just heard about IceRocket's MySpace search when MarketSmart Interactive alumni Allan Slider (new projects coming soon from Slider... we'll be linking to his articles before long ;) IM'ed it to me.

Maybe I hadn't heard about it since I was distracted about all the talk of my parent company, Think Partnership, which has a letter of intent out on Ice Rocket.

Cuban positions MySpace search as a tool for parents: Searching Myspace.com - A parents tool because [site:myspace.com your search terms] works well on any major search engine.

Still, it's a very interesting tab, though not one that's likely to remain MySpace, especially if I have any say ;) (what other social networks are crawlable? Isn't livejournal crawlable?)

also see:
IceRocket's new MySpace Search
MySpace Porn Spam: Marketing Bots in Social Networks
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Click Fraud Settlement Revisited
Over on MarketingShift Jason Dowdell's digging back in to Google's click fraud settlement. Through his research he's rounded up five key facts regarding how Google's handling the click fraud settlement and what this could mean to Google advertisers.

Most unsettling fact based on his reading of Google's position? "...if Google agrees that an advertiser has lost $10,000 to click fraud, that advertiser will only be entitled to receive 5 DOLLARS."

(That's cash of course - there's account credit awarded as well.)

His post is strong on the side of entitlement towards advertisers - I'd be interested to see Google's response.

Still... now that my AdSense publisher SERPs advantage controversy is disproved maybe I should start digging down on another Google controversy story... I'M KIDDING!! (I'll let Jason chase this one down ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's "Crawl Caching Proxy" Ends My AdSense Advantage in SERPs Obsession
by Garrett French and Jon Revill

I spilled millions of pixels covering what I thought was an emerging Google controversy:
AdSense as Route to Google Index + Google's Jugular?
Google's Mediapartner Bot Index Creep Indicate AdSense Publisher SERPs Advantage?
Google's Matt Cutts Confirms AdSense Bot to BigDaddy Connection

And, by necessity born of my non-techtitude, I asked Jon Revill to join the fray:
Jon Revill on Load Balancing Between AdSense Bot and Googlebot

And then Matt Cutts publishes Crawl caching proxy, causing me to extinguish my torches and put the pitch forks back in the barn. As Jon says below: "[based on Cutt's post] participating in AdSense or any other Google program will not increase your ability to be cached, indexed, or ranked."

Of particular side note interest, Jon says, "from a logging perspective, the total number of requests from Google related bots to a site’s server should decrease significantly, but the amount of utilization of a site’s pages by different Google services should remain the same."

In other words, you may see Google-related bots decrease visit frequency overall as they begin to balance the load.

In response to Cutts' post, Jon Revill wrote the following to explain what's happening, and to help me sleep better at night:

Matt’s article makes a lot of sense and is brilliantly simple in terms of load balancing (I thought that IF we could have shown that Googlebot visits did NOT decrease for AdSense publishers we could catch Google in favoring its business partners in the SERPs... -G).

Essentially Google is using a system very similar to Temporary Internet Files for web browsers in that it stores a copy of the page for future crawling.

Any bot that initially accesses a page stores it in a central location that is independent of the actual search index or any other service. This location is known as the “Crawl Caching Proxy”.

If another bot attempts to access that page for a different Google service it will attempt to pull it from the proxy before requesting it from the server.

To work off of Matt’s example, we have http://www.domain.com/page.htm which publishes AdSense ads.

It is also regularly crawled by both Googlebot and Mediabot.

Given the new crawl process Mediabot will access page.htm to look over the content for publishing AdSense. As a part of this crawl, Mediabot adds the page to the Crawl Caching Proxy.

The file is not added or updated in the search index at this time.

When Googlebot prepares to crawl page.htm for the natural search index it will first check the Crawl Caching Proxy to see if the file has been recently crawled by a different Google service.

If it has, Googlebot will access the page from the proxy rather than requesting it from domain.com’s server.

From the sound of it any Google service that utilizes a spider can contribute to the proxy and any of these services can access it. This means that for however long the page is stored in the proxy, Google will only need a single crawl for all Google services.

From a logging perspective, the total number of requests from Google related bots to a site’s server should decrease significantly, but the amount of utilization of a site’s pages by different Google services should remain the same.

Matt also notes that any robots.txt exclusions will still apply. If Googlebot is blocked in the robots.txt from crawling a particular file or directory, it will not attempt to access the file from the proxy. Overall, this should make Google services a lot more efficient for both site owners and Google as a whole.

To make it very clear from Matt’s article, participating in AdSense or any other Google program will not increase your ability to be cached, indexed, or ranked.

All restrictions, exclusions and best practices still apply.

This spidering methodology still operates essentially in the same manner as previous practices. Google’s bots are simply accessing your page from a cached/stored version of the page rather than accessing them directly from the server.

Matt has provided very clear diagrams in his article, http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/crawl-caching-proxy/.

This article written by MarketSmart Interactive's Jon Revill and padded with contextually relevant information by MSI's Garrett French.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Navigate Content by Metro Stop (Google Map Mashup by Washington Post)
I'm surprised that I haven't seen more coverage of the WashingtonPost's new online version of it's Express publication, ReadExpress... (I haven't checked bloglines yet this morning so maybe Rafat Ali got excited about it too... - I've been on the phone with Liddy Manson, VP general manager of jobs, cars and real estate for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.)

To me, one of the most significant developments is the Google maps mash-up by which readers can organize editorial, blogposts, opinion and advertising according to THEIR METRO STOPS.











Yesterday I wrote about CNet's (very interesting to me) most-popular-story navigation system.

Today I want you to check out the MAP NAVIGATION that Washington Post's using to help people find information that's geographically relevant to them.

(note the related story on the tab for that stop...)
How's that for local?




I've got one more conversation to schedule with ReadExpress' Chris Ma, publisher of Express and Washington Post Company VP. Then I'm going to write a big-ole article on the WaPo's most recent experiments in online publishing.

Also see:
New Washington Post Local Classifieds Site to Launch Today
Donato on Oodle and WaPo + Classified Shift to CPC + Social Classifieds?
How Google Maps is used in News & Media - Part 1

update (more related stories):
Washington Post’s Express Launches
WaPo Launches Local News Site, With Emphasis On Classifieds (Ali's take)
What's the Point of Newspaper Blogs?
With a Cell Phone, You're a Journalist
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Ctemplate Project: What is it?
The Google Code blog says it's a: "a library implementing a simple but powerful template language for C++ that emphasizes separating logic from presentation. You've already used Ctemplate: this is the same code that formats all of the pages for Google's web search."

That doesn't mean much to me.

Download the Google Ctemplate from SourceForge and let me know what folks are likely to do with it.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Toyota + Mobile TV, Grey Games, Phones as Wallets, Marketing
This is going to be a rambly, where-things-are-going kind of post based on several stories I've seen recently and some writing I've done in the past.

The posts (concepts) I'm trying to piece together here are:
• Toyota Breaks Yaris Campaign with 'Mobisodes,' Gaming Strategy
• Nintendo Aims For the "Grey Market"
• It's TV Turn Off Week--can you do it?
• Interview With Kevin Dulsky, Paypal Text To Buy
• Cell Phone As World's Primary Internet Platform + (Map/Local) Search Marketing
• Search Marketing and the Mobile Lifestyle
• Washington Post's new newspaper

Also, I just got off the phone with 4Info's Carol Chi talking about their new partnership with Mission Movers to create a local SMS index for Ranier Valley in Washington. Which ties in because I had just finished the part above when 2 oclock rolled around and 4info is mobile search.

Toyota's targeting a younger crowd with the Yaris, and reaching out to them with TV for mobile and mobile games (neat!).

The thing is that there's an increasing number of older folks who are avid video game players. My girlfriend's mother is... older... and she plays LOTS of video games on her game cube, and games that are targeted at men younger than me, not that sudoku stuff.

Nintendo's entry into the "Grey Market" indicates that there IS a larger market there, though they're framing their offering as a brain enhancer. It's my understanding that most video games do this already, so I wonder if they haven't over-abstracted the product? Also I suspect we will see upcoming adult-oriented offerings evolve in more of a Second Life direction.

Here's the personal rant part of this post - I hate television. Because I feel like crud after watching it. Here Kathy Sierra quotes Scientific American: "...University of British Columbia studied a mountain community that had no television until cable finally arrived. Over time, both adults and children in the town became less creative in problem solving, less able to persevere at tasks, and less tolerant of unstructured time."

And so I'm excited to see Nintendo striving to make people smarter with puzzles. And wonder when big advertisers will start reaching out to the so called "Grey Market" with games too. Will this happen on phones?

Probably, because we're going to be using our phones so much more when our phones become our wallets. Paypal's getting up on this with SMS purchasing. PSFK interviewed PayPal: "It's still early, but we think consumers are ready for anytime, anywhere payments. Already, consumers are using their mobile phones for much more than just talking - they're sending e-mails, listening to music, taking pictures and making videos. Providing a safe, easy, convenient payment method provides even more utility to the mobile phone. We think the opportunity ahead is very exciting."

And how does all of this relate to Washington Post's new Read Express site that targets the new reader? Well, I've got a conversation with them tomorrow and I'll be asking them questions about information on cell phones, SMS, gaming, social media and search. And how it all ties in to marketing :)

Two (of my) articles that investigate mobility, lifestyle and marketing:
Cell Phone As World's Primary Internet Platform + (Map/Local) Search Marketing
Search Marketing and the Mobile Lifestyle

And since you'll have lots of time this week without television get out there and vandalize your neighborhood.
Knitting Gangs Vandalize with Knit Tags

And figure out how to Pokemonetize your next product:
On Pokemonetisation...
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Jim Lanzone is Ask's New CEO: Opening Ask Minds to Possibilities
As reported this weekend, Steve Berkowitz left his post as Ask's CEO for new challenges at MSN, creating quite a vacuum at IAC.

The IAC appointed Jim Lanzone to the spot.

John Battelle interviewed Lanzone days before his CEO appointment, and caught up with him to ask questions about his new CEO-ship.

Changes: "The biggest change will be opening our minds to the possibilities of what we can do and who we can be, as IAC invests in our product development and marketing, as well as growing our employee base to accelerate our curve."

I wonder, as they open their minds to the possibilities of what they can do and who they can be, if there will be any social search in Ask's future?

Also interesting:
How Lanzone associates Ask with Firefox in BOTH Battelle interviews. Firefox won grassroots approval partly because of its flexibility due to its open-sourceness. Google's API (open-API) direction has done great things for its grassroots approval... I'd LOVE to see Ask move in this direction.

Like... could Ask give SEL (ok... ALL bloggers) an API for conceptually zooming in and out on searches within the site? That'd be one way to help with navigating...

Also see my recent interview with Jim Lanzone: Jim Lanzone on the Death of the Butler and the Future of Search (it's LONG, you can also read the excerpts)

I first spotted it at the pilgrim.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
CNet's Popular Story Navigation System
I was just reading the CNet's McNealy zinger roundup (McNealy is Sun's newly stepped-down CEO. He bashed Microsoft passionately, with keen, pithy quips.) and caught a wiff of a navigation format I hadn't seen before.

It's got a tag-cloud kind of hierarchy of size but it's measuring the popularity of the story instead of the number of times the tag's mentioned.

This format makes me excited because in the blog-age of information under the yoke of a most-recently-posted hierarchy, new navigations are required. I like tag clouds pretty good too.

Hey CNet - how about an API or something for us publishers?
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
GenieKnows Builds an Index
I just got off the phone with Barbara Manning, President and CEO of GenieKnows and Mausam Prince Kalra, GK's Chief Technical Officer.

We talked for almost an hour about GK's recently launched GenieKnows Local, among other things.

The significance of the local launch didn't hit me until they were demoing their new vertical search. I asked what was the difference between their vertical search results and standard results in GenieKnows. What I learned (had forgotten or just never realized) was that GK only shows paid ads in its results.

I had no idea they didn't have an index and I'm excited - after our conversation - to see where they're going next (already with a billion indexed pages...).

That's all I wanted to say for now - except that there's a longer GenieKnows Local article coming later this week... and news of a BIG PLAYER partnership - to be announced next week - that started at the recent Kelsey Group Local Search event.

Apparently a big player got VERY INTERESTED in GenieKnows Local...

More soon.

Also, if you have usability comments - any at all - about GenieKnows Local send them to local@genieknows.com. They're eager for feedback!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's GData: Moving Beyond Mashups

Let me get this straight: Google Calendar is bigger than the second coming and GData flies under the radar? Hello? Is this thing on?!

Not that I don’t think Google Calendar is cool, but can we keep our priorities in order please? Let’s compare:
Google Calendar:
Yet another free calendar
GData:
1) A new way to exchange data (which is partially like RSS, partially like Atom, and completely certain to piss off both camps). (Wikipedia: RSS, Wikipedia: Atom, GData vs RSS vs Atom)
2) An API to integrate any Google service into an application. (Wikipedia: API)

I know: on the surface, the concepts of an API and of "a new protocol for data transfer" sound just about as sexy as Gilbert Gottfried in a Speedo, but let’s look at what it really means for us.

GData: The Beginning of the Next Era for Google

Google’s Past:

• Content search (google.com)
• Content creation (Blogger purchase)
• Autonomous specialized applications (GMail, Maps, Toolbar)
• Mashups (especially popular with Maps API) (Wikipedia: mashup)
• Application integration (GData)

Google’s Future:

• Platform

Moving Beyond Mashups

Many people have made fun tools using the Google Maps API for mashups. While this is a great start, it is only the beginning. With more ways to plug Google services into other applications, we move closer and closer to a new remote platform. Again, "remote platform": very dull language. Imagine this: start by imagining all the computerized data that you use: email, files, calendar dates, etc. Put all of that data somewhere you can access from anywhere. Finally, imagine:

• Programs that allow you to access all of your data from anywhere
• New desktop programs that that allow you to use your data better
• Ways to integrate your data

Tie maps to scheduled events in your calendar. Get emailed maps based on hotel reservations. Do other cool stuff I’m not creative enough to think of... The point is, the possibilities are so open, only time will be able to show us what is possible.

The Google Calendar Prom Queen vs. The GData Chess Club President

So why the blogger feeding-frenzy over Google Calendar, while GData has received so little love? First, Calendar has months of speculation and rumor-mill fodder prior to release. This kind of gossip is like crack to bloggers (who in this regard are largely like high-schoolers in older bodies).

Beyond the gossip factor though, there’s ease of comprehension. The mainstream press hasn’t picked up on GData like it has for Google Calendar because the concept and usefulness of a calendar are universal, while the concepts embodied in GData are abstract and techie, if not a bit obtuse.

Succeeding Where Microsoft Failed or The Past Repeating Itself?

It seems to me that I’ve seen most of this before in some incarnation from Microsoft. I’m not at all sure how GData is any different than when Microsoft tried to do the exact same thing with SSE. And at least Microsoft tried to nail down the concept of a single login with Passport, something Google is very guilty of.

Why is it that when Microsoft creates their own way to do something, they’re "not complying with standards", but when Google does it, they’re "innovative"?

This isn’t just me crying foul. Really, what is the difference? Google is doing something that consumers (and Wall Street) like. It used to be a David and Goliath thing but Google’s far too big for that analogy now. They are doing something right on the PR front that I can’t put my finger on. But whatever it is, marketers everywhere need to take note of this degree of success and try to emulate it.

(Also see Google’s GData: Portal is Nigh, APIs as Marketing Resource -ed)
Robert McRackan | permalink | +marktd |

 
Ask's CEO Steve Berkowitz Jumps to MSN
From Battelle yesterday: News: Berkowitz to Microsoft

From comments on that post: "This is an uber-coup for Microsoft."

I guess Ask has really arrived.

Not only is Google copying their SERPs nav (maybe possibly just slightly), but MSN's poaching their VPs, as MSN was poached in the past.

I will be watching Battelle for interpretations of what this means specifically to both Ask and MSN - I'm not familiar with Berkowitz.

I'd love to hear from Ask on the issue - on or off the record.

Update:
Microsoft hires CEO of Ask.com to head Web unit

Ooooohhhhh! He was the frigging CEO.

I THOUGHT that name sounded familiar. Also thought that Jim Lanzone was the "main decision making dude." (Observe as search blogger gets his doof-bag on ;)

via most honorable SEL founder and my long-lost boss Andy Beal, burning the Saturday blogging oil too I see ;)

Update2:
CEO of Ask.com moves to Microsoft (Charlene Li offers her take - not necessarily a loss for Ask, she thinks)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MySpace Porn Spam: Marketing Bots in Social Networks
The past couple times I've signed on to MySpace I get a friend request within about 15 minutes. From a MySpace spammer who's selling porn.

Tell-tale signs of a MySpace ho spam friend request include:
• As mentioned, it arrives about 15 minutes after I've been tooling around MySpace leaving comments and what not.

• The profile has a semi-exotic sounding name, like "Myriah."

• The profile has 7-15 friends (doof bags with auto-friend-accept apps running or who are indiscriminate/+horny).

• The profile has very little "about me" text - or it has your typical porn spam copy about being lonely, sexually exploratory, new to town, etc.

• The pics/video link goes to... explicit pics on another myspace profile page. So the spammer hacked the standard page up some (very easy to do) to dodge image censors.

Changing face of porn marketing in MySpace:
Given the typically low number of friends I suspect these profiles are auto generated, somehow target people who are actually online, and auto-link back to a fairly static porn pic page.

I've seen porn marketing MySpace profiles that are actually updated and maintained by the star herself or her images' marketers. These often have thousands of friends and profile comments and especially image comments. (for example http://www.myspace.com/jennajameson)

As MySpace cracks down on porn marketers (who aren't at least nodding to the rules) watch for more of these hit-and-run type of on-the-fly porn marketing tactics.

And watch for more friend request spam tools like the Adder Robot: http://www.adderrobot.com/ "Think about this, when you connect to MySpace... you connect to millions of people. Take advantage of this, promote your self, your band, or whatever it may be. Do it the smart way, and save time with Adder Robot!" (one of many MySpace bots...)

Here's a tell-tale ho spam friend request. Followed by a ho spam profile page with the doof bags who accepted the request:



























Absolutely nsfw profile page is: http://myspaceprivate.ebloggy.com/.

Bots and the future of social networking:
How will social networks keep the bots out? Will they start to build and enable bots for users? How many sickos troll for victims with bots? What kind of effect could bots of this nature have on attempts to derive search relevance indicators from a given individual's social network?

I mention social network spam practices in Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR. There I referenced The Value of MySpace, which includes blackhat discussion of MySpace porn spammers.

Are you in MySpace? Request the amazing experience of being my online friend.

update (parenthetical observation + musing):
(Sitting in coffee shop listening to college-age girl on CELL PHONE being lead through a friend's MySpace profile on her LAPTOP - and conversation's FOCUSED on the friends there.

She's asking questions and getting an overview of her friend's social network and the history of the relationships. A who's who of her friend. Social networking sites - ideally - serve to contextualize us and illustrate the connections that drive meaning. Or business, in the case of LinkedIn.)

update 2: more MySpace stories:
MySpace User Notifications in Cingular Phones (+relevance to Seach Marketing)
Yahoo MyWeb's Gonna Kick MySpace in the Jimmies (where I conflate MyWeb and 360)
MySpace Classifieds Discovered (MySpace + Oodle makes sense to me...)
Yahoo's Upcoming Assault on Mount MySpace (my thoughts upon Yahoo's purchase of Upcoming)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Actual Cure for Information Overload?
This controversial method the perfect way to end a long work week? (would like your opinion...)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MarketSmart Interactive PubCon Roundup!
These are all of Adam Schultz's PubCon write ups. I wrote a HUGE roundup of all the PubCon coverage I could find (in 45 minutes ;) for SEJ, which Loren hasn't posted yet.

I'll link out to that once it's up and completely crush our 2 sites with reciprocal linking penalties ;)

Here's Adam:
Competitive Intelligence and Search Marketing: Keep it Smart, Keep it Legal!

Search Engines and Webmasters Super Session with Ask, Google, Yahoo and MSN

Search Marketing and Public Relations Session

Blogging Advice From Jeremy Zawodny, Matt Cutts and Robert Scoble

Blog Optimization + Q/A With Matt Cutts and Jeremy Zawodny

Optimizing for ENORMOUS Clients
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google: Yes Garrett, Maps ARE the Doorway to Local
I've been preaching for some time that maps are the doorway to local: Ads in Maps: BN's Coffee Cup on Google Maps

With some variation of course... In this post I say its Maps + Mobile as the doorway to local: Google Maps API2 + Local Search Marketing Checklist

Google talks about the orginal change, when they merged maps into local:
"Last October, we merged our local search site with Google Maps. At that time, we thought it was most appropriate to name the integrated product "Google Local" to emphasize the broad searching capabilities of the site and that it was much more than an ordinary mapping site."

The incredible popularity of Google maps and a public groundswell got them to switch the Local tab at the top of Google BACK to Maps.

Danny Sullivan thinks it's a bad move: "Hate to say it, but perhaps they should go back to two different sites. Local results can still be in Google Maps and vice-versa, but separately, they might be easier to maintain with more targeted front pages for what people probably expect. For example, compare Yahoo Local to Yahoo Maps."

I actually DO like the Yahoo Local layout better than Google Maps. Yahoo local has a PICTURE of a map which makes me feel secure that I'm going to be able to find what I'm looking for. It also has more writing, and feels a little more user friendly to me.

To dig a little on Sullivan though, Google Local (pictured below) isn't really all that different from Google Maps from a standpoint of layout and text on the page, so I'm not sure what his criticism actually is.



Local started with a picture of the US, and Maps defaults to Manhattan (watch for that to change shortly... Was THAT what you were talking about Danny? That Manhattan's not really a good place to start people off at?).

What it's all about
The Google home page tab switch was more about putting Google in line with how people are really thinking about local search. People want to FIND the LOCATIONS of places so they can successfully navigate to them. The strongest (and pretty much only...) metaphor for this activity is a map.

Google local to maps just makes sense. Maps ARE the doorway to local.

No wait! No wait!! The doorway is actually Maps + Mobile + Calendar ;)

via blogoscoped
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google vs. Superman: GOOGLE WINS!
This just in from Jon Revill:

Previously:
Superman Beats Google!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Superman Vs. Google: who would win?
I just got back from the bathroom and saw the following IM, regarding the debate of who would win in a fight between Superman and Google.

jswiller: Jon Revill and I have discussed the Superman v Google debate.
jswiller: The verdict is that Superman would definitely win...
jswiller: however, no one would know about it.
jswiller: unless you searched Yahoo or MSN

HAHA!

Here's Google vs. Chuck Norris.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Competitive Intelligence and Search Marketing: Keep it Smart, Keep it Legal!
by Adam Schultz and JP Sherman

The next session I attended was Forensic and Competitive Intelligence with Jake Baillie (true local), Anne Kennedy (Beyond Ink) and Joe Morin (Boost Search Marketing).

I invited JP Sherman, MarketSmart Interactive's Competitive Intelligence Specialist, to weigh in on my write up - his comments are in itallics (also be sure to read JP's white paper: Using Competitive Search Intelligence to Drive Online Success).

I am really excited about this particular topic because we are having a lot of success at MSI in using competitive intelligence to bring additional intel and value to our clients' campaigns and am looking forward to the continued success this particular area of online marketing is bound to see over the next year.

Jake Baillie
First up was Jake Baillie. If I had to sum up his presentation in one word, I'd choose "ballsy". Why? Because he he came at us with the kind of brutal honesty that - once you get over your initial feeling of shock - you realize how important it is to understand what's he's saying.

He basically covered all the ways that a competitor could try to extract information from or about your company.

Also, maybe, how you could do the same things to get information about your competitors, if you were so inclined, perhaps.

[JP Sherman: This is a challenge to businesses, the virtual environment provides a false sense of anonymity and insularity that doesn’t exist to the same degree in what some have called “meat space” (the opposite of cyber space).

Business owners must be aware of what information they are releasing, understanding that the information released could be used to determine strategies, giving the competition the opportunity to counter that strategy. This doesn’t mean that businesses should stop the flow of information, as that could hamper the relationships they’ve developed with their clients.

What this does mean is that businesses must be savvy and knowledgeable about what they release to the public, what blogs and articles are saying about them, and that online, there is no 9 – 5.

Current and former employees will air grievances and dirty laundry; they will be excited about the new product or strategy that is rolling out that they have made a direct impact on.

Every business should be familiar with the concept of OPSEC (Operational Security), which if implemented as a short organizational training for employees, could prevent the unintentional release of information, protecting you and your business’ good name.]

Here are some of the ways Jake Baille said this info could be acquired:

Phone calls - call people, call wives, employees, ex-employees, you name it. He went over some of the finer points and strategies of the extracting said information but I wont go into that level of detail here as "they" might be watching me.

Purchasing log files from ISPs - Apparently its not that tough to contact a low level tech and give them 100 grand for your competitors logs for the past 2 years. (remember this stuff is coming from Jake, I had nothing to do with it)

His advice is to make sure that you trust your ISP to protect your info from this tactic. Before you balk and say how that would never happen, how do you think HitWise does it?

[JP Sherman: According to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, that tactic is illegal. Comp. Intrusion - The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically stored data, 18 U.S.C. § 1030”.

Server log information would be considered confidential information. While illegal, there are several documented cases where the theft of confidential digital information has been stolen. The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) gives the following ethical guidelines:

• To continually strive to increase the recognition and respect of the profession.
• To comply with all applicable laws, domestic and international.
• To accurately disclose all relevant information, including one's identity and organization, prior to all interviews.
• To avoid conflicts of interest in fulfilling one's duties.
• To provide honest and realistic recommendations and conclusions in the execution of one's duties.
• To promote this code of ethics within one's company, with third-party contractors and within the entire profession.
• To faithfully adhere to and abide by one's company policies, objectives, and guidelines.

The goal is not diminish the vigilance of your confidential information, but to inform businesses that there is an ethical guideline to practicing competitive intelligence and there are resources to go to when there is evidence of any illegal intrusions into confidential data.

As a member of SCIP it is my responsibility to perform CI in an ethical and honest method.]

In an effort to lessen the intensity of the presentation, he then discussed some of the more soul safe methods of acquiring comp intel. Use the allinanchor feature with a phrase in quotes to identify link hubs and networks and inspect them visually for good info. Check the top phrases in Adwords and see what they are bidding on and what areas they aren't.

Then we moved into the "It's not paranoia if they really ARE after me" phase of his presentation. He discussed how to know if they are watching and what to do.

Pay attention to site referrals that come from competitor IPs, allinurl queries, whois.sc referrals (now domaintools.com), and cashe requests. Then when you can identify them with a cookie or by their IP you f--- with them.

You send them crazy prices, redirect them to porn sites, serve them loud MDI files, serve infinite popups or you do nothing and just watch them.

Anne Kennedy
Anne Kennedy was next and did her best to bring us back to more direct approaches in both forensic and competitive intel even though by now we were all checking our cell phones for tracking devices.

She discussed the ways to tell what killed or is killing a site and the warning signs that tell you that the end is nigh. Some of the tools are Google cache, indexed pages, xenu reports or SEO-browser.com. It was a lot of the basics but was helpful to then see those things from a competitive perspective and to think of them as forensic tools.

Joe Morin
Joe Morin was up next to further the discussion that Anne started. Joe talked about why Competitive Intelligence is so important to use this intel to better protect trademarks and branded terms, manage affiliates and keep competitors from overstepping their boundaries.

You can glean a lot of information by paying attention: in your keyword space both organically and from a paid perspective and in competitive news alerts and in searching for unique strings of text in your site.

Here is his list of the places to go to acquire good available Competitive Intelligence.

netcraft.com
dnsstuff.com
googspy.com
domaintools.com
alexa.com
archive.com
comscore.com
hitwise.com
marketleap.com
arin.net
pubsub.com
trellian.com

[JP Sherman: There is a distinction between data and intelligence; these are great sites to gain information and data.

However, true intelligence is data analyzed into an actionable plan.

The battlefield commander (I mean, the business owner) must rely on expert analysis of that raw data in order to determine if there are patterns emerging, niches that can be explored, vacuums that can be filled or weaknesses to be exploited (and I mean “exploit” in the nicest possible sense).

Competitive intelligence practitioners take that mountain of data and funnel it into something usable.]

In the QA session I tried to get some info out of them about how they sell the value to clients and if they were looking at these tactics as stand alones.

They bundled and had only thought about this stuff as value added to this point. I took that as good news for JP and I as we really drive our internal competitive intelligence initiatives and help build out this offering.

This session write up by Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development and JP Sherman, who delivers strategic competitive and market research services for MarketSmart Interactive clients using proprietary competitive intelligence technology he helped develop.

Download JP Sherman's white paper, Using Competitive Search Intelligence to Drive Online Success today!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Search Engines and Webmasters Super Session with Ask, Google, Yahoo and MSN
The final session for me at my first Web Master World will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the "Search Engines and Webmasters" super session with Rahul Lahiri of Ask, Matt Cutts of Google, Tim Mayer of Yahoo and Ramez Naam of MSN.

Ask Jeeves
Rahul went first going over the SEO basics and only once mentioned that they should optimize for users rather than engines.

I would have liked to see that as the primary message rather than drowning it in all of the technical things webmasters tend to cling to as defining SEO and telling us not to spam. An interesting point is that he was still talking about titles and descriptions and how they help with content and authorship.

Other notes are that misspellings are over 10% of searches and not all people click on "did you mean" so a good *contextual* use of misspellings could be helpful.

Google
Matt Cuts then spoke about some of the new products like analytics and sitemaps. Moving next to the notable events that have occurred since the last PubCon.

He informed us that bigdaddy is done and the changes that are happening now will just be ongoing maintenance. He also did a nice thing to reach out to the attendees and make them feel special which no one will blog the details of for at least a week lest they be known as the one to cross Matt Cutts.

Matt also endorsed the use of Gzip to compress your site and that Google can handle the parsing of those files with no problem.

Yahoo
Tim Mayer was next and started with Yahoo's mission to help people find, use, share and expand human knowledge.

(Insert blanket message here about crawlable sites good content and spam)

Notably, yahoo also mentioned the importance of titles and descriptions. He talked about the ways to use Yahoo's api and that they pull no punches when it comes to displaying site data like backlinks even going so far as to point out the availability of a .tsv file download on such a query.

He then discussed how Yahoo Plus search is integrating with Yahoo 360 and Yahoo My web with "save to my web" and "blog on 360" links on the results. He closed with a plug for ysearchblog.com and next.yahoo.com to help us all keep our eyes on the yahoo pipeline.

MSN
Ramez Naam came out of the gate talking about MSN live which I am still not sold on.

Its just so ajaxy and clearly built by focus groups. Don't get me wrong, there is some cool stuff there, they are just very behind and I'm not sure this is the leap frog they were looking for. But I digress.

What I do like is the ability to scroll results forever without paging and that combined with some some advanced image search features will promptly increase MSNs share of the porn search market. They are also improving their local search but apparently that didn't include having The Boston Sheraton in the index. (I love it when MS does that).

He ended up using the Space Needle and then started showing off the new local.live.com. In the immortal words of Garrett French, "Holy Crap". Local.live.com, at the last minute, stole the show. Granted it is only working in Seattle and we have heard about this thing for a while with the vans in the streets and pictures and whatnot, but this thing was impressive.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Schultz on PubCon: Search Marketing and Public Relations Session
by Adam Schultz

After the superbloggers session I mulled in the hall for a bit and then joined the "Public Relations" session.

I had pretty high hopes about this one as I feel it is a critical piece of any online marketing campaign and I'm working hard (with Garrett) to integrate it into the MSI offering. I was not let down.

First to the plate was Lee Odden from TopRankResults.com covering how to apply SEO to press releases.

The session was an overall strategy of where you need to be looking and what you need to be doing to have your press releases return maximum SEO value.

What I got from it was a basic outline as kind of a to do list.
• Integrate other media and sources - try to Integrate your other feeds and podcasts into your releases including your blog or other press feeds. This way in case the journalist doesn't like this story, they have a way to see the other things going on with your company.
• Optimize your releases - (also see our post on how to optimize a press release)
• Use the online feed submission services.
• Wrap it all together - Work it into your other media like email and on your site with a consistent message.
• Follow up - when your release gets picked up, blog about it, comment on it and book mark it with social media sites.
• Finally, know your audience - different audiences require a different approach, pitch a story to a blogger differently than you would a newspaper.
• This served as a great appetizer for me. it was light and tasty and left plenty of room for the next course.

Lawrence Coburn from RateItAll.com was next. He really got into the meat of how to do the thing. Starting off with his Dumb Luck story of how ABC World News found him from a search on "shopping comparison engines" and proceeded to fly him out to be on the show. From here he got into why that happened to him and he provided some simple things to do and then how to do them to position your self for that kind of luck.

Know what's news worthy, offer a unique angle, look legit, be an expert and archive the experience.

He likes to look to blogs for notable topics as they tend to start a dynamic conversation rather than just dead-ending. The things that sucked me into the conversation was his use of some of the social sites like technorati, tech.memeorandom.com and del.icio.us.

He uses Delicious to identify who's who in a given topic and he uses it to then pitch his ideas to them on a particular story each with a customized message. He uses Technorati more for tracking the progress of the conversations he has either started or is taking part of.

For interacting in the mix he says that the best way to get the attention of "best in class" topical bloggers is to comment on their blog in an intelligent, stand out way. This, combined with knowing your market, being reachable, will help you to online PR success.

All and all I was quite satisfied and energized from his presentation.

As a final note, if you want to get ranked for your name, Lawrence recommends tagalag.com.

Robin Liss served as the refreshing ginger sorbet between courses, refreshingly unexpected, and later, your realize that it made the whole meal that much better.

She discussed offline PR for an online business. She runs camcorderinfo.com and digitalcamerainfo.com.

I was not expecting to see someone talking about offline PR at webmaster world but hey, we need to be having these conversations because until we know how these worlds integrate we are never going to be able to launch truly integrated campaigns for our clients.

The most interesting part of the presentation was how little her TV appearances affected her site traffic. Literally, when she went on a show in front of 5 million people to cover a product they had reviewed, her traffic barely even went up by a thousand visitors.

That's not even .02%. I had no clue! Wow! That is impressively bad.

So where is the value? It's in the untrackables: brand awareness, prestige, notoriety and credibility. It opens up the opportunity for large client sales, partnerships, and helps to maintain relationships. Oh, and you'd be amazed at what a link from CNN or the Boston Globe can do for your rankings.

She covered how to do it too. Be an expert and care about what your doing. Get a professional Media PR company to pitch you, preferably a small company or individual consultant.

Jump on the latest news stories as soon as they come out and craft yourself to a reporters story. You should also get listed in expert directories on your top of interest.

She also supplied a lot of tips about being on TV like have a personality and come ready with funny one liners and that nothing is off the record, nothing.

And now for dessert and what could be better for dessert than some sweet advice from David McInnis of PRWeb.

I'm not going to get too deep into all that was said in this presentation because I was too busy reading between the lines.

Basically, a lot of his presentation was about blogging and the new service from PR web for trackback/pingback urls. Honestly, that is what I was impressed with. Most people already know how to submit a press release through PRWeb.

Now there are these other services to help you get more out of your releases and use them to create conversations in the blog world. It is this kind of integration that will finally show the offline marketers what they are missing in the online channels and will wake up the single channel online marketers to how powerful these other channels could be for them.

I also think it means that somehow building an integration into social networks could be right around the corner.

How it works is that you simply add a trackback/pingback url to the bottom of your release and when people blog about the news of your release you will see all of the things that are being said right there with it. Granted, its just another way to track and extend the conversation but I love it because of what it represents.

Some of the more global topics he discussed that lean towards why this matters is in using press releases to go direct to the user rather than first having to get picked up by the media. This provides for a more immediate response, and a more robust online discussion. It also allows you to more quickly build reputation and become an industry expert.

He did also give some basic release advise like including a news image with your release and to tag any accompanying materials or media with meta information. He also mentioned that you should include everything in your releases, use some information to make them want to go to the site for more.

This session write up by Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development. (I think we still have a write up or two left out of Schultzy... I'll shake him down in the morning.)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
JP Sherman on NY Competitive Intelligence Branding Meeting
by JP Sherman

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) NY Chapter meeting about branding efforts and competitive intelligence.

The title of the conference was “How to Brand Yourself and Increase the Value of You & Your Competitive Intelligence Unit to Your Organization”. T

he speaker, Roberta Piccoli, was profiled in the book Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence and spent over twenty years in an advertising company. Currently, she is the Manager of Strategic Planning & Information Services at Consumers Union, an advocacy organization and the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine

After a brief meet and greet, where I was privileged to meet some of New York’s best CI professionals, Roberta gave us a brief overview of the value of branding and how to present the value of the CI department internally and externally.

Branding CI provides value not only to the client, but to the provider. It gives the practitioner visibility, identity, use, credibility, value and a filter for the flow of information from sales and client services.

The usefulness aside, the core of the matter is in order to have a “brand” you must evoke a response. When someone hears the company’s name, or the CI professional’s name, the desired response is to associate a positive act, emotion or result from the recipient.

Now, before I lose my place, I’m still talking about branding using CI methodologies.

Search presence (not to be confused with a “rank”) is an opportunity for companies to connect with the user in the online marketplace.

As Roberta continued speaking, I could not help but realize that while the end result of a rank is conversion, often sites design their keyword strategies, sites, usability and messages to drive conversions however, they fail to establish a positive relationship with their users.

Conversions are critical; however, your business should not be viewed as a commodity or as a means to an end, but a resource, a destination and a provider of quality information, products and services.

Competitive Intelligence can provide that actionable consultation at the beginning of the campaign to develop the right blend of relevance to the search engines as well as developing a two way relationship with the user.

I was extraordinarily fortunate to attend SCIP’s meeting about branding, not only to develop our branding efforts with the end result in mind, but to include branding strategies and CI methodologies to help businesses see the opportunities and challenges ahead.

(JP Sherman, Competitive Intelligence Specialist for MarketSmart Interactive, wrote the white paper Using Competitive Search Intelligence to Drive Online Success.)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's GData Paves Way for Multi-Media, Multi-Device API Development
I'll let the developers discuss the new nuts and bolts of Google's new syndication protocol.

I've been bitten by the GData mission statement:

Sometimes making information accessible requires making it available in contexts other than a web browser. Thus, Google provides APIs to let client software request information outside of a browser context.

GData provides a general model for feeds, queries, and results. You can use it to send queries and updates to any service that has a GData interface.

Syndication is an effective and popular method for providing and aggregating content. GData provides a way to expand the types of content that Google can make available through syndication; in particular, it lets you use the syndication mechanism to send queries and receive query results.

If developers really dig in to this (ie... Google starts to pay them w/ad rev) we're going to see:
BASE EVERYWHERE
MAPS EVERYWHERE
CALENDAR EVERYWHERE
GOOGLE VIDEO EVERYWHERE
(etc etc etc)

Now (at first glance... I'm known to be a little excitable ;) GData is big news. Bigger than mediabot indexing for bigdaddy, and WAY BIGGER than Google Car Search

Also see:
Google Issues New Syndication Protocol
Google Code
GData API is now public
Google to Charge for AdWords API
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Car Search (Base car data search spotted in Google SERPs)
Jason Dowdell spotted Base results in a search this morning for Ford Escape. (Is this even new? I didn't see anything recent on it in Google News...)

Car search via Base in the SERPs is cool, but not a huge deal (not like the mediabot indexing for bigdaddy is...) it was only a dang matter of time considering the whole Google Base project.

Watch for MAD CRAZY PRESS about this one (if actually new).

Dowdell's more peeved that impressed: "I'm not sure if the car search refinement tool will be on all car results or if they're just testing things for the time being but it's annoying and I'd like the real Google to stand up please."

Via:
Google Base Car Search Introduced In Natural Results

UPDATE: Scooped earlier this month: Google Autos : Local Car Shopping on Google
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Calendar API Now Available!
As predicted yesterday and wished for on Monday, Google made available a Google Calendar API.

Watch for my other Google Calendar predictions now that the API's out:

a)an EXPLOSION of apps that will make social coordination and event scheduling easier... and most likely through sites we already know/love
a.5)apps that fold the calendar into social networking-style sites, and sites for communities that were already built AROUND event attendence
b)ads in calendars
c)a GoogleCalendarMania type blog

Also interesting - I wasn't aware of the Google Data APIs Overview.

It looks like Google's trying to keep things as BASE-ic as possible.

(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) (oops - I probably didn't understand it very well... check out GData - Google's new syndication protocol)

via blogoscoped.

Google Calendar data API
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google + Miro = yay!
I've never been a big fan of Google's smarmy holiday logos. That's cause I'm a snooty art bastard who loves Miro! So yay for today's Google logo!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Schultz on PubCon: Blogging Advice From Jeremy Zawodny, Matt Cutts and Robert Scoble
by Adam Schultz

The first session of the day was quite a treat. It was a Q and A session with "The Super Bloggers of Search". Namely, Matt Cutts, Jeremy Zawodny, and Robert Scoble. Quite the panel.

Rather than try to accurately reconstruct the session and get flamed for mis-quoting the most influential bloggers in the online marketing field I will just call out some of the more interesting pieces of advice.

Besides, I'm sure someone has already posted some cell phone video from the panel ;)

Right out of the gate, Jeremy hits us with an 80's movie reference comparing what's happening with blogs to the closing credits of Pump Up the Volume where you can hear the kids starting their own pirate radio stations all over the nation.

I guess it's never too early for a great 80's movie reference.

It was interesting to hear about the hurdles they all faced in blazing the way for corporate acceptance of blogging. Initially, they all seemed to run into the same problems with PR and Marketing departments not knowing how to handle this new venue and constantly freaking out.

For a while there they all seemed to live in fear of the "talking to" which Jeremy had admitted having happen to him a couple of times. A little later on they went into discussion about pushing the limits with your blog and the importance of knowing where the line as drawn.

You really need to understand the risks you are taking and make sure that if you do push the limits its for a good reason and not just to push as there have been cases of people just pushing to push and getting fired for it.

One part of the experience that they didn't count on initially at how quickly they can debunk myths and get quality feedback from users through their blogs.

They all agreed and Matt illustrated this point how when the list of the "25 reasons I hate Google" was blogged, he was able to take it to the project managers in the company and they were able to immediately take that feedback and begin to wok on some of the problems.

On the other side of that coin, Jeremy discussed his now famous Google Finance post and how it got him an audience with the new product manager of Yahoo Finance to hear what their plans are and that he is right on track with their thinking.

They all had different reasons for it but apparently none of then used their own company's blog software. I found that funny but it did show how different people have different needs and that you need to find the right solution for yourself.

In answering questions about managing the blog, work and home life: Jeremy mentioned that being single without kids makes it easier but managing email and the blog can still be tough. Scoble chimed that his wife lets him know when he's slacking around the house because of work or the blog by flaming him on her own blog. Matt agreed that it is hard and that he solicits the assistance of others where he can to keep up but that knowing he is helping people keeps him doing it.

They all got started in blogging to participate in the conversations people were having online.

Jeremy enjoys reading blogs and comments of passionate people no mater what the subject matter. Matt saw it as an opportunity to help people not waste time on bad SEO and keep the record straight on where the line is drawn. Scoble was just amazed at where his blog has taken him in the world and the people he has been able to meet.
Another point that Jeremy made and they all seemed to agree on is how strange it is to meet people who read your blog and realizing that they already kind of know you and then meeting someone who you read who reads you and what that interaction is like.

In closing they shared some tips on getting started.

Matt said to start with a blog service but that eventually you will probably want your own domain. Scoble urges you to read "like 50 blogs for a couple of weeks" before you even start posting so you can get to know the space, it will also give you some ammo when you start blogging your self. Start small and see if you can keep it up. Jeremy closed by talking about understanding what your limits are with your company and your self and be interested in what you write about because your readers know the difference.

This session write up by Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
This is Garrett presenting at Blogfest 2006


I work with lots of funny people. You may remember Jeff LeFevre.

Now I'd like to introduce to you the irrepressible John Aschenbrenner, Marketing Consultant for MarketSmart Interactive (yes ladies that's THE John Aschenbrenner, who played Mark in Ocean Drive Weekend).

When he sets his sites on you and gets Google Image search fired up you pretty much kiss your ass good bye.

What arrives is an email with a subject line, and then a single photo.

This post, minus my writing, is an exact replica of the email he sent yesterday.

I thought it was especially relevant given the fact that I'm moderating that community blog event tonight ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Garrett French Moderating Community Blogging Event... TONIGHT!
My friends at the Raleigh AIGA chapter invited me to moderate an event tonight in Raleigh on a graphic design community blog site called Speak Up.

Bryony Gomez-Palacio, one of the site's founders, will lead us through, "the beginning of Speak Up, its evolution through the years, the blogging process that differs with a design-based audience, and other surprising results that come from design entrepreneurship."

The site is known for its passionate authors and even more passionate commenters... Sound familiar? ;)

As a developer of and participator in online communities, I'll be asking questions to explore their community blogging model and digging in to the nuts and bolts of keeping a community fresh, vibrant, and most of all, RELEVANT.

My unspoken agenda will be looking for the marketing angle so I can write another epic article :)

Details:
Speak Up: Bryony Gomez-Palacio

Peace College, Flowe Building, Room 110 (click for directions)
Campus Map (download a.pdf)

7:00 pm Reception
7:30 pm Program

Student members and student non-members: Free
Professional members: $10
Professional nonmembers: $15

Garrett's Autograph: Free

Come one, come all! And if you're local give me a shout out to let me know you're coming: 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Free Listing in UmDum, Loren Baker's New Web Directory
Loren Baker says, "I am dead set on showing the world that a human edited spam free directory can still be built and maintained; with an emphasis on quality and authority."

1. Go to Umdum.com.

2. Select the most relevant base category for your site by browsing our Category Map.

3. Click over to the most relevant category then submit your site and select the free “Non-profit” payment method :)

4. Rinse and repeat - submit your sites which deserve to be listed. We are looking for businesses, blogs, guides, content oriented sites, other search engines, your favorite sites.

5. Do not submit gambling, drugs, or illegal content sites. Do not submit ‘built for AdSense sites.” Do not submit scrapper content sites.

6. Submit one AUTHORITY site such as USAToday, your favorite local news channel, a Web 2.0 site, your favorite search engine, or other large sites.

7. List the sites that you submitted in the comment form below. I will then review, edit (if needed) and approve those submissions. (Do not link to the sites in the Comments field as SEJ’s spam filter will hold your comment in moderation if it includes more than 2 links).

Full disclosure - I'll be writing soon for SEJ.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Jon Revill on Load Balancing Between AdSense Bot and Googlebot
Unless there is a certain level of load balancing going on, the mediabot caching could potentially affect rankings.

From the log files that I have been looking through, roughly 10% of Google-related crawls come from the mediabot.

If Googlebot still accesses the site with the same frequency, mediabot increases the likelihood that new content will be cached and included to be evaluated by the algo.

For this to have no effect on ranking potential based off of new content, the frequency of Goolebot visits would have to decrease for AdSense publishers.

If this load balancing is NOT taking place (which we have NOT verified - we're seeking AdSense publishers who can show a decrease in Googlebot visits that keeps the overall google-related bot visits at a steady pace. -ed) we run into the following scenario:

We have two sites, website A and B.

Both are ecomm websites in the same vertical and both host a forum that has regular posts that are relevant to their specific vertical.

As forum comments are added, relevant content increases for any given page. Both websites have the same relative frequency of visits from Googlebot.

Website A does not publish AdSense within their forum. This means that Website A has its Googlebot visits spread across the entire site including the forum.

Website B publishes AdSense within its forum. This means that not only do they have the same number of Googlebot visits across the entire site, but they also have added caching that is specifically targeted at their forum.

This targeting allows fresh, relevant content in Website B’s forum to be picked up more quickly and frequently. This could have a potential positive effect on Website B’s ranking by adding new content to be evaluated.

Even with a level of load balancing, if mediabot only targets pages publishing AdSense, the AdSense tags could be used to bait Google into caching specific pages and/or caching specific pages more frequently.

(This entire post written by MarketSmart Interactive's Jon Revill, Manager of Interactive Technology. It was posted by Garrett.)

Call if you're an AdSense publisher who can show a decrease in Googlebot visits that keeps the overall google-related bot visits at a steady pace (if you can show that Google balanced the crawl-load between mediabot and Googlebot). 919-433-3139.

More:
Google's Mediapartner Bot Index Creep Indicate AdSense Publisher SERPs Advantage?
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Calendar API + GC's Web 2.0 Potential
From Philipp's blog, a quote from someone who appears to be a Google Calendar developer: "The extensions used in the Calendar feed will definitely be documented and those docs should be available soon. The Calendar Data API support (these feeds plus the ability to programmatically create, query, edit, and delete Calendar events) isn’t officially launched yet... the release is going to be slightly staggered from the main Calendar Web UI launch that happened today."

In this post I mentioned that an API was on my wish list. NICE!

Also I said, "these kinds of questions tie us more tightly into how calendars, for Google, could be a key to encouraging social networks to form more cohesively and, possibly, lucratively for those networks."

Rebecca Lieb is thinking along the same lines in The 2.0 of Google Calendar: "Events, linking dates with Google Maps, importing marketing data onto your desktop. This thing's got great potential for events, conferences, sport teams, bands...the list goes on and on." (Web 2.0)

Regarding API mashups... SEL's fave girl from marketing quotes a recent article on mashups: "The challenge with a mashup is it may not fully hold its own destiny. They are somewhat at the mercy of the open components that the Googles, Yahoos and Microsofts have provided..."

When the Google Calendar API comes out we'll see:
a)an EXPLOSION of apps that will make social coordination and event scheduling easier... and most likely through sites we already know/love
a.5)apps that fold the calendar into social networking-style sites, and sites for communities that were already built AROUND event attendence
b)ads in calendars
c)a GoogleCalendarMania spin off from GoogleMapsMania (who just turned 1!!)

(also... when will I see updates to the APIblog?)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's Matt Cutts Confirms AdSense Bot to BigDaddy Connection
Jennifer Slegg reports "Matt Cutts confirmed today that the AdSense mediapartners bot (aka mediabot) is indexing pages for use in the Big Daddy Google index."

(As I suggested would happen: "The Boston PubCon's coming up soon and I suspect [Matt Cutts will] hear something about this there ;)")

Now to sort out the issue of whether or not this indicates a SERPs advantage for AdSense publishers...

I stated in a previous post, without verifying it, that "AdSense publishers' content is indexed and cached more frequently." Jon Revill's digging into that now with some internal data.

If it can be shown that AdSense publishers' pages ARE updated more frequently than non-AdSense sites then I think we can build the case that Google's favoring its business partners over its non-business partners in its SERPs.

I acknowledge that this possible favoritism MAY NOT be deliberate on Google's part. It may only be, as Cutts says, "a bandwidth saving feature."
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Ecko CEO Graffitis Air Force One: Viral Linkbait Genius
Ecko's guide to linkbait and viral marketing:
First your CEO must be willing to participate in the kinds of conversations your key publics do. In the case of Ecko, its key publics practice the art of tagging. No, not THAT kind of tagging... the graffiti kind.

So. If you're targeting the graffiti, street-style crowd it helps if your CEO is a graf "writer."

Next pick something BIG for your CEO to tag. Like, say, AIR FORCE ONE.

Then make a video of YOUR CEO WRITING GRAFFITI ON AIRFORCE ONE.

(You can see the tagger scaling 2 barbed wire fences - it's shot from 2 cameras, one that's on the tagger himself and one that's held by his accomplice. You can see armed guards walking by. Then the paint going up on Air Force One itself. Unbelievable.)

In the closing frame include a call to action: visit the StillFree.com site.

Put it online and ask everyone to spread the word.

Then watch the links to your site explode, mentions in the press (blog/journalists) explode, mentions in social media (social networks, forums) explode, and watch your cred with your key publics drive more sneaker and clothing sales.

Via: "Why I Tagged The Presidents Plane?"

Update: boingboing's Mark Frauenfelder says it's faked... he doesn't back this claim in any way. If it IS faked the layers of genius pile deeper ;) Excellent faked video: Air Force One tagged with spray paint

Update 2: a forum poster says "brother would have been shot dead before he got within 500 metres of it, but also (and more compellingly) his handstyle is nowhere near that good! It can’t be real for that fact alone."

Update 3: definitely a hoax:"the site StillFree.com added a disclaimer that reads in part, "You, the viewer of the preceeding are hereby advised that the video does not depict a real event. It is intended for the sole, limited and express purpose of entertainment and to induce you, the viewer of the video, to think critically about freedom of expression and speech and the government's responses to the same." (dang! I got pwned again :)

Update 4: was this really genius? I thought so at first. I don't feel this way as strongly after reading: Marc Ecko Vandalizes Own Credibility.

Update 5: Air Force One hoax fools military, at first HAHAHA!! oh wait. they fooled me too.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Schultz on Pubcon: Blog Optimization + Q/A With Matt Cutts and Jeremy Zawodny
by Adam Schultz

After a great lunch conversation with a highly notable SEO and some rounds around the exhibition hall I hit the "Blogging, Podcasting and RSS feeds" session.

On the panel was Amanda Watlington (searchingforprofit.com), Daron Babin (Webmaster Radio) and Greg Hartnet (botw.org)

Amanda Watlington:
Amanda was first, she started off with a brief synopsis about recognizing that not all content is suitable for feeding and that you need to insure that by creating a feed of some of your content, you are adding value rather than just serving up empty carbs.

She then went into a lot of detail on intricate details of blog optimization. Honestly some of it was lost on me as there was a lot she was covering in a short amount of time.

The focus was on the basics like the tools to use, plug-ins available, basic SEO optimization, the importance of great content and how to syndicate and socialize your blog. All and all, from someone with a lot to learn about the subject, it was quite informative.

Daron Babin:
Daron was next. He was here to discuss (of course) podcasting.

As someone who knows less about podcasting than I do about blog technology I found this presentation very useful. Here are some of the key points.

Get a real deck sooner than later if your going to be serious about your podcasting instead of a starter kit.

Keep bandwidth in mind as the first time you have a successful episode, you're likely to get a call from your web host about the sudden increase in demand.

There are many sites available for you distribute your content that are more able to handle the load.

As with all online content, organize it well and use compelling titles. There are lots of ways to tag and optimize your podcast including the use of id3 tags.

Greg Hartnet:
Then Greg Hartnet spoke. Greg did a great job of breaking down the overall strategy of a successful blog including a separate hand out of some of the resources available for socialization so he wouldn't get mired in these details during the presentation.

I'm sure if you visit botw.org and shoot him an email he will send you the soft copy of the resource list. Let him know that Adam Schultz sent you and you might be able to get him to send you a cool best of the web t-shirt too.

Here are the primary points of a successful blog strategy:

• The more you put in, the more you will get out.
• Freshen up your writing skills to insure credibility.
• Optimize urls, use blog categorization and properly set up your pings to insure auto updating.
• Submit your blog to blog search sources.
• Get social through news sites like digg, blog commenting, forum participation and building your blogroll.
• He also discussed the use of photo and video sharing sites to take the conversation beyond your blog into new forums like flickr groups.

Q/A with Jeremy Zawodny and Matt Cutts:
A nice surprise in the QA portion came when Jeremy Zawodny and Matt Cutts joined the panel to talk about how the engines treat blogs.

No real new info here, just that blogs are indexable content to the engines and are treated accordingly.

If the blog is news-related then that is where you will see the results, otherwise, blogs will show up where the pages are relevant to a search. They also admitted that indexing video and audio files is still a challenge and has a long way to go.

I guess some people still need to hear it from these guys to believe it.

Be that as it may, it was cool to see them in the same room. They really do seem to have this superhero aura to them. I was tempted to go take pictures with them like Donald Duck at Disney world. I didn't... no camera... probably better off.

I closed the evening hanging out with Mike Grehan and gang discussing the finer points of airline safety and smoked trout.

This session write up by Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Schultz at Pubcon: Optimizing for ENORMOUS Clients
by Adam Schultz

The first session I attended was "Leading Brand - Leading Sites - Marketing Magic" which says nothing about what was discussed. Basically, the session covered how to optimize for ridiculously large clients.

On the panel were some heavy hitters: Bill Hunt (Global Strategies International), Andrew Gerhart(?), Vinny Lingham (Clicks2Customers) and Fredric Marckini (iProspect)

Bill covered the work he did for IBM and how to manage a behemoth from without. Andrew discussed his work at Primedia and how to manage a behemoth from within. Vinny discussed the PPC side of things and Fredric talked about how his company managed large clients.

Bill Hunt (behemoth from the outside):
For Bill's part, it was very interesting to hear how much they were able to do for IBM. For the most part it was SEM basics on a grand scale. It was visibility, content, link optimization, just across 85 properties in multiple countries around the world.

It was interesting to see how the little intricate technical details that seem to have no affect on smaller sites are orders of magnitude more effective when they are applied to millions of pages.

The piece of his presentation that resonated so well with me was the need for training all people in the company who have anything to do with the website up to speed on SEO basics.

The other great issue he covered was the need to integrate SEM into their everyday jobs through internal protocol creation, workflow adjustments and style guide modifications.

This goes a long way to show that SEM is not some thing you do sometimes or for a little while, it's a way of life.

Andrew Gerhart (behemoth from within):
For Andrew's part, he went more into the approach that needs to be taken. That the normal rules for getting SEO done no longer apply.

His focus was on how to be effective in such a large company that making site changes is comparable to "moving mountains". The key issues were not only applicable to large sites but any web engagement.

Clear communication, training and involvement of all who will touch the project needs to happen as early as possible and professional project management is a huge plus.

His final notes were also great in that the ability to enforce the new policies and procedures along with the creating internal tools to automate reporting and other aspects like internal cross linking are tantamount to continued success.

Vinny Lingham (PPC):
Vinny discussed the PPC side of things for huge campaigns.

His thoughts on the importance of analytical integration for all channels, breaking the PPC channel into goal based campaigns and the importance of the "Tail" was great info but I didn't hear anything that struck me as out of the box. In his defense he was standing in for Chris Zacharias and had pretty short notice.

Fredric Marckini (general best practices):
The final speaker was Fredric Marckini. His focus was more a global approach on how to approach prospective clients. He hit on a few basic issues.

Be ready to talk about ugly babies, the time to discuss SEM is before a site is built or redesigned, involve IT early to increase buy-in, the importance of on site training and to approach linking from a link relationship management perspective.

Overall the session was very enlightening and gave me a lot to think about when preparing a campaign for a large client and the steps in order to insure success.

Where's the marketing integration?:
The one thing I would have liked to hear more about is how to get involved in the overall marketing mix. I personally feel that the real challenge is in getting these large companies to integrate SEO into everything they are doing online to maximize impact and would have loved to hear more on this topic.

This session write up by Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MarketSmart Interactive's Adam Schultz Blogging WebMasterWorld's PubCon
Adam Schultz, MarketSmart Interactive's Manager of Product Development, is in Boston right now, attending PubCon and blogging his thoughts on the sessions.

He's sending his write ups to me and I'm editing and posting them.

He mentions that:

"Got in at around 10:30 so I missed the keynote from Malcolm Gladwell. I heard it was very good. :)

"If you were there and would like to send us a summary I would be more than happy to post it. adam.schultz@marketsmartinteractive.com"

Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Maps is the Best? Double FALSE. It's Yahoo.
Frank Gruber at Techcrunch reviewed the major mapping services recently and debunks the commonly held belief of millions of Chronic-what-cles of Narnia viewers that "Google maps is the best."

According to Gruber, "the best? Yahoo Maps, for many reasons."

So for those of you about to start building microcontent for your local search marketing efforts check out the Yahoo maps API.

I wonder what Googlemaps Mania makes of the Techcrunch review?

via Barry Schwartz
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Microcontent as Linkbait (oops I mean New Media Public Relations)
Richard MacManus recently reviewed mightyv, an app that utilizes the BBC's API, backstage.bbc.co.uk. He calls mightyv "microcontent," and lays out his microcontent concept in the post Microcontent Design, Part 1.

"...microcontent design involves: microchunking your content, taking advantage of open standards, employing microformats, letting users subscribe to all kinds of RSS feeds, freeing your content via APIs and other means, designing for re-use of information, monetizing it, and more."

If you're wondering what kinds of content you can be creating (if you read Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR and were like... ok what next?) read McManus closely.

I found the last sentence of his mightyv post very interesting: "...personalizing your TV-watching schedule is becoming increasingly important, as television integrates with the Web."

It relates to what I was writing about here: Google As Interactive TV Social Network? and the thinking I've been doing regarding the Google Calendar and social networking.

update: how incredibly interesting! MySpace Moves Into The TV Space.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Cell Phone As World's Primary Internet Platform + (Map/Local) Search Marketing
Adam Wright of Ipsos wrote today on the findings of his recent research, and quoted the Senior Vice President & Managing Director of Ipsos Insight’s Technology & Communications practice:

"'Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies. It’s becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people.'"

Does this mean to stop what you're doing on your website marketing and start creating content for the small screens? I'll let you decide for yourself based on the following data from Ipsos:

Wireless Device Activities – 2005: %Browsed the Internet for News & Information
Japan 40%
U.K. 29%
USA 26%
South Korea 26%
Canada 19%
Germany 18%
France 18%

Ok so now you want to get your brand or lead-generation ads onto mobile devices.

Does this mean you should start reverse engineering SMS search as it's currently provided?

Sure! If you know that your key publics use SMS search to find local establishments. Check out the article that Sara Holoubek wrote recently for MediaPost about a "smackdown" pitting Google and Yahoo's SMS search. Yahoo won:

"In a quick jab, Keith shows me his screen, complete with the right address and cross-street. Yes, folks, the cross-street! There was also a link to a Yahoo Local map. A few seconds later, Google sends me a listing for a different establishment: Pop Burger, located clear across town."

Does this mean that you should start advertising with maps?

Sure! If your key publics use maps on mobile devices to find local establishments. I've been preaching for some time that the doorway to local is maps + mobile. As phones increasingly become platforms for web access we'll see better displays and small-screen maps. And gps too (if it's not already there? I'm not up on the phone space).

Also look in to creating a map utility that targets mobile users somehow. Especially in a way that enables them to share their intelligence and drives your brand.

If you're not targeting the local market and you know that your key publics access the Internet with their phones then we can have that conversation Ipsos mentioned about "wireless services or applications that can link aspects of personalization across multiple Internet platforms."

I'd love to talk with you about your mobile efforts! 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's Mediapartner Bot Index Creep Indicate AdSense Publisher SERPs Advantage?
We talked more this morning at the MarketSmart Interactive office about Greg Boser's recent findings that data from the AdSense bot's crawls actually makes its way into Google's main cache and index.

I had a bit of brain flash this morning while discussing this with Tansy OBryant: because AdSense publishers' pages are indexed more frequently than other content sites' pages does this indicate a SERPs advantage?

I followed up by chatting with Jon Revill some more.

We surmised that COMMENTS added to a given piece of content (whether a blog post, forum thread, comments enabled on an article, even wikis...) would create a reason for the AdSense bot to return regularly, to make sure that Google's ads remain relevant.

After all, a highly discussed forum thread or blog post can get lots of traffic - and more comments - for a long time.

So if the AdSense bot's finding FRESH, RELEVANT CONTENT (in the form of continuing conversations) it makes sense that Google would try to minimize work by including what the AdSense bot finds in Google's main cache and index.

The MAJOR ISSUE (if Boser's data indeed PROVES that there's creep from the AdSense index to the main index):

AdSense publishers' content is indexed and cached more frequently BECAUSE THEY ARE ADSENSE PUBLISHERS - not because they have demonstrated some measurable value to their community (which would incur the freshbot visit).

It seems that Google's SERPs will display fresher content from AdSense publishers that will align with emerging search terms, and that AdSense publishers will get more traffic... and Google will get more clicks on its AdSense ads.

This creep between the AdSense index and the main Google index creates a conflict of interest between pure relevance and Google's immediate financial return.

Google's always held that it concentrates on using pure relevance to drive financial return. Boser's findings - as I understand them and have framed them here - indicate otherwise.

I would love to hear YOUR thoughts 919-433-3139. Or email: selowdown@gmail.com.

UPDATE: Matt Cutts confirms AdSense media bot in natural search index
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
AdSense as Route to Google Index + Google's Jugular?
Jennifer Slegg's been trying for a long time to prove that the AdSense bot's index finds its way into the main Google index. On her Jenstar blog she says she's "had several discussions with Matt Cutts over the past few years about this issue, and I have always been assured that they are completely separate and they are always careful the two never cross contaminate each other."

Greg Boser caught Google's index cross contamination in the act though: "We had setup some 301's for Googlebot, but had neglected to redirect the AdSense bot. The end result was a whole bunch of duplicate content due to the fact that we were serving the AdSense bot the old url, and Googlebot the new one. Both were getting indexed and added to the cache."

I spoke with MSI's Jon Revill about the issue, and he concluded, based on the evidence and the desire to avoid duplicate content issues, that publishers with session ids should be sure to include the Mediapartner bot in the user agent detection list. And be sure to 301 the Mediapartner bot as well.

Jon's going to be digging in to some logfile data we have here at MSI to explore what's happening and why.

Slegg concurs with Jon's advice regarding bot blocking: "This could have severe consequences to webmasters, such as Greg who suddenly had a duplicate content issue to clean up. Webmasters usually wouldn't think to include the mediabot in any special headers or robots.txt instructions they have for the regular googlebot."

On a related note, AdSense is, according to Greg Linden, one way that MSN could begin to put the hurt on. "AdSense is now about half of Google's revenue and their future growth. Microsoft should strangle Google's air supply, their revenue stream."

Check out his recent post, Kill Google, Vol. 3.

And be sure to keep reading Matt Cutt's blog. The Boston PubCon's coming up soon and I suspect he'll hear something about this there ;)

MSI's Mike Grehan and Adam Schultz will be rocking PubCon too. Let me know and I'll put you in touch with either or both. 919-433-3139.

Also check out Google's Mediapartner Bot Index Creep Indicate AdSense Publisher SERPs Advantage?

UPDATE: Matt Cutts confirms AdSense media bot in natural search index
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Calendar: For Doctors. As Social Networking Move?
Clinical Cases just wrote a tutorial for doctors' offices on how to use Google Calendar to enable patients to check the doctors' avaiability.

From the comments on that post: "what would be the hipaa issues?"

Indeed - I imagine that could get nasty. Still, it's good to see folks generating ideas for using Google Calendar to improve the lives of others.

Also see Interesting Google Calendars from blogoscoped. That same post's comment thread has a nice wish list from Lenssen:

– an "add this calendar" button/ URL
– a widget to include small calendars in blogs
– a calendar module for the Personalized Homepage
– the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed which will list dates in chronological agenda order (what's next will be displayed first – right now they seem to sort the Atom feed in order of when the event was added)
– a "popular calendars" or "editor's picks" of calendars, not just the search functionality

I would add to this list:
- calendar API
- a stronger gmail tie-in (maybe I'm just not seeing the link?)
- a chat function in the calendar - so I can do quick confirmations with folks before I firm up dates
- ads on calendars? (what if an event can pay me for folks who add the event to their calendar after seeing that I'm going? Yes I'm THAT COOL.)

These kinds of questions tie us more tightly into how calendars, for Google, could be a key to encouraging social networks to form more cohesively and, possibly, lucratively for those networks.

Aaron Wall, in his commentary on MSN's social search concept, said "While I was writing this Philipp Lesson shared a Google search event calendar with me. To me the social bits of search are about sharing upcoming opportunities and things that are interesting more than sharing instant answers to questions."

Also - is Google Calendar more disruptive of apps like MeetUp and Upcoming (which has already added Google Calendar support...)?

See Google Calendar Review Roundup! for initial thoughts on the Google Calendar.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MSN's Social Search Play - Non-Algorithmic? + Eurekster Partnership?
Interesting Business Week article on MSN's entry into the social search space...

"The feature will let users direct questions to a specific universe, such as a group of friends, rather than to get automated lists of results from a generic search engine."

It sounds pretty non-algorithmic, more like an email blast to your group of friends... And how WOULD it be more effective than just sending a blast?

On monetizing social search: "Yahoo's research shows that people typically use social-network search to find e-commerce opportunities. "These are transactional queries," says Horowitz. "These searches are monetizable." That means advertisers may pay more to have their ads associated with searches that have a social component."

Also from the article... "Microsoft is in talks to buy or forge a partnership with two-year-old startup Eurekster.com, specializing in social-network search, BusinessWeek Online has learned from people familiar with the matter."

Very VERY interesting, eh Steve?

How can marketers prepare for social and community search? Read my recent article: Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR.

Or listen to me speak on social search at the Social Search Roundtable.

Or give me a call (office) 919-433-3139 (cell) 919-696-4225. Or email: selowdown@gmail.com.

This weekend I'll be in Asheville with the lady and her daughter. Should be a gorgeous weekend! I'll try not to think too much about MSN's entry into social search until Monday ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Impatient Public or Failure of SERPs to Deliver Relevance?
MediaPost's Wendy Davis begins her article on iProspect and Jupiter Research's recent study with "AN INCREASINGLY IMPATIENT WEB-SURFING PUBLIC..."

Davis posits that the survey shows a growing impatience amongst web searchers.

The key results of the survey (in her words):

62 percent of search users click on a link within the first results' page, up from 60 percent in 2004 and 48 percent four years ago.

Nearly all searchers--90 percent--click on a link within the first three pages, up from 87 percent two years ago and 81 percent in 2002.

These numbers DO indicate that peoples' search behaviors are changing, and people ARE spending less time digging through the SERPs.

I think this behavior ALSO indicates a failure in SERPs to deliver relevance that will play out, for search marketers, like this.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR
The linkbait conversation at SEOmoz got me thinking about how to encourage the shift in the SEM industry from rankings (GUARANTEED TOP TENS) to positioning (overall web presence success goals).

The fact that SERPs as they stand now are likely to undergo radical change in the coming year(s) and the migration of search across devices and types of content indexed indicates to me that this conversation is VITAL to keeping the organic side of search marketing relevant to the art and science of achieving business goals.

So. Linkbaiting. From an SEM perspective we're talking about content that's created in the interest of generating organic links.

From a public relations perspective linkbait is: content, consistent with company brand, that shows engagement, participation and thought leadership with key, influential publics.

What might this look like?
1) Identification of key publics.
2) Identification of key publics' conversations (where they're happening and their nature).
3) Strategic conversation participation to reach measurable goals.
4) Measure, refine.

Here's scenario one:
Your firm identifies that a client's key public's participating in Second Life. Your job now is to understand how to best engage in Second Life conversations. Is it Using Second Life As Your Showroom? Is it a Trends Lecture In Second Life?

Think of the job here as understanding how groups interact with each other and bringing clients into the conversation in meaningful ways that benefit the community as a whole.

How does this specific example relate to search marketing?

I'm not entirely certain - I haven't yet investigated Second Life to understand how information spreads there and - more importantly - how it flows OUT. Is there search in Second Life? I'm not sure. Could Second Life user data come to influence a search algorithm's relevance? OF COURSE IT COULD. That would be called community search.

(ooh ooh Imagine Second Life players hooked into PreFound's network of SERPs-tagging researchers.)

Here's scenario two:
Your firm identifies that a client's key public's participating in MySpace. Your job now is to understand how best to engage this public. This could be by creating a fake band like Ford did and creating a fan page, complete with music and concert video footage (and a page on the band's site inviting visitors to "win our ford!"). This could be by creating a profile the way Kanye West's firm did. This could be by creating profiles of hot chicks to help market your porn site (NOT :P). This could be in the form of a college Library's MySpace page to better reach and serve its public (my sister's library :).

How does this relate to search marketing?

It doesn't. Yet.

But it will, as community sites increasingly understand how to add community-based relevance into their search results. At that point online community participation will be a crucial part of search marketing and... at this point are we really talking about search marketing anymore?

Imagine PreFound's SERPs taggers sharing their researched information through MySpace. What if MySpace can get it together and learn how to include its social network data in relevance algorithms?

That's how we as search marketers have to be thinking.

Here's scenario three:
Google shifts from a snippets-based method of displaying results to a more visual conceptual-zoom SERPs display format. Snippet-based rankings as we've known them are contextualized, erasing our careful copy writing into an algorithmic editor's decision regarding how our pages fit in to a given concept.

Searchers have the option to overlay community data. Conceptual, answer-based SERPs fit well on mobile devices.

How does this relate to search marketing?

In this scenario it's clear that concept relevance will come to reign over link data. How do we generate concept relevance for a site? Through creating content that's conceptually relevant to the searches our clients' key publics are performing.

Many SEMs are doing this already, but there's still a disconnect in what we're calling this service.

Because the ability to identify key publics, key participation points and the strategy to reach business goals through these conversation channels goes FAR beyond rankings, FAR beyond search.

It certainly includes search engines, and in a significant way, but if you limit your measures of client success to rankings then you just lost.

Here's scenario four:
Your client is a search marketing firm rebuilding itself into a thought leader in the mercurial, generally misunderstood online space. First you identify key thinkers internally and enable them to create content in the areas they're passionate about and skilled in. Encourage and enable them to join their industry's conversations where they're happening, online and face-to-face.

How does this relate to search marketing?

Keep an eye on MarketSmart Interactive. We'll show you.

New Media Public Relations and Organic Search Marketing:
In SEM terms it's about recognizing that mainstream algorithmic relevance as we've known it and optimized for it is likely to shift considerably. We will see this happen first on the outskirts of search as companies like PreFound, Wink, MySpace(?) and Yahoo learn how to apply community factors to relevance. And as Google (et al) come to apply more cluster-type technologies to their SERPs the line between SEMs and Public Relations firms will blur further.

To put this plainly to those steeped in SEO, this means out with Page Rank (it's dead anyways, right Mike?).

Optimize for Community Rank and Concept Rank instead.

Want to continue this conversation? Broaden my view? Argue my face off? Call 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Donato on Oodle and WaPo + Classified Shift to CPC + Social Classifieds?
Just got off the phone with Craig Donato, of Oodle. Damn. He's fun to talk to!

We went from clustering (one of my current obsessions, which he worked on at Excite) to the news paper industry's aggressive move into dailies, to the coming shift in classified's business model.

Here's pretty much how the conversation went:

Papers agressive with free dailies:
Young people aren't buying [as many] subscriptions. The industry's creating a new type of paper - free - that has a much younger readership and is widely distributed.

The context:
Washington Post's launching a new daily called Read Express, with online and print versions.

Oodle's big news:
Oodle will be powering the classified interface on the Read Express site, returning results from RE classifieds buyers, other Washington Post sites, and related local classified listing sites.

How the Washington Post gets paid:
Oodle pays the Post off of referral [and advertising] revenue generated on [classifieds section of the Express site] Post sites.

This will increasingly come in the form of performance-based revenues as the classifieds industry shifts.

Classifieds model shifting:
Pay for Publish (CPM) is becoming Pay for Lead (CPC... cost per conversion - still figuring out the appropriate conversions). Basic publishing will be free, but conversion-oriented performance-based upgrades will cost.

Donato foresees a short term price destruction in the classifieds market but long term category growth as the model matures.

Classifieds + social search?
The best way for this is community as spam filter, Community in classifieds [being applied today in the form of SPAM filtering], works better than community tagging, given the ephemeral nature of a classified listing.

Maybe some other interesting classified + social stuff coming from Oodle in this area... ;)

Cool stuff:
Read Express will be experimenting with blogs and MAPPING (one of my other obsessions)!

I had to be a dang jerk:
(me) why is oodle a better choice for Read Express than craigslist?
(Donato) We're entirely different - Oodle enables people to see all the listings in their environment.
(me) except for... Craigslist.
(Donato) ...right.

Post-interview questions I thought of:
• oodle and maps?
• oodle and mobile/sms (a possible performance metric w/call tracking or pay per call)?
• Read Express and mobile?
• oodle vs. Goole Base?

Thanks for a great interview Craig! [and thanks for the post-publishing edits, indicated by brackets and strike-throughs.]

Past oodle coverage:
Oodle Opens Up: 2 New Partnerships + API Coming
Oodle Partners with Lycos and Backpage
New Classifieds Search Engine Has Oodles of Potential

PR folks... curious about what Craig did right in his interview? Call me: 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Calendar Review Roundup!
Come one come all to the Google Calendar Circus!

behold... GOOGLE CALENDAR itself!

In this ring watch Chris Sherman, Phillip Lenssen and Matt Cutts tame the Calendar, making it jump through hoops!

In this ring watch Om Malik poo poo on it lightly by dubbing it mainstream-user-worthy!

Crap I can't keep this circus schtick up.

Here are some others:
Google Calendar creates a platform for "time" applications (Charlene Li)
And We Thought It Would Never Come (Battelle)
It's About Time: Google Calendar Launched (MarketingVox)

And, of course, the most excellent Robert McRackan's cautionary vision of the calendar:
Google Calendar Communities vs. Spam and Stalkers

And don't worry! No Google articles or posts were harmed (read) for the purposes of writing this post!

update:
Watch for upcoming sideshow rants about calendar + local + social search from your favorite freak!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Calendar Communities vs. Spam and Stalkers
Google has just released the long awaited Google Calendar!

A note about some of the features:

• It's free
• You can make a calendar completely public
• From the SearchEngineWatch review (link at end of this article): "every event on calendar has a web page associated with it" ... "a sort of 'mini-blog associated with an event,' where people can leave comments, respond to others and so on."

That’s the good news...

To me this says one thing: new spam.

I'm anticipating a form of spam comparable to splogs and spam blog postings. While searching Google Calendar is currently limited to other users, it's a safe bet it won't stay that way for long, at least not on a practical level.

Anything public will get spidered both by the other search engines and by non-search engine websites. The non-search engine websites will in turn be picked up by search engines, including Google itself.

Not Web 2.0

Although Google Calendar is lush with Ajax interactivity, this will not be part of the Web 2.0 trend. Spam will remove the usefulness of searching the collective pool of publicly shared calendars.

Unlike normal web sites, calendars are very time sensitive. This means that any decent spam-producing robot can keep up better than people. The result is more garbage than useful info in the publicly searchable arena. If you've used eBay lately you can see how companies already outpace individuals in overloading crap in a time-sensitive environment. Imagine this times 50 with robots on Google Calendar.

A Warning to Parents

This must be said: Your children think they are invulnerable and they will likely use this tell all strangers where they are at all times. If you're scared, and you should be, by the stories about how your daughter's MySpace profile makes her an easy target by predators, just imagine how much more true it is after she details out her entire schedule, including the names of the exact places, then shares THAT with the whole world…

Now, back to calendar spam:

Communities, Not Society

Spam won't nullify the usefulness of all Google Calendar sharing though. The über-popular social aspects will be replaced by a communal flavor. The community isn't about a mass of semi-connected people. It is focused on the people you really know. (This is something that people will understand if they have 15 friends on MySpace and are less likely to understand if they have 315.)

Community calendars will be extremely useful where there's trust. Businesses can use them internally for all employees. Professors can show students when they're available for help. Hotels, nightclubs, and sports complexes can manage bookings. Friends can share schedules with other friends. Trust, not anonymity, will be the backbone of community calendars.

Overall, I'm pleased with the potential that Google Calendar shows. I'm not going ga-ga over it like most blogs out there, but hey, it's head and shoulders above Google Reader.

As promised: here is a good review of Google Calendar at SearchEngineWatch by Chris Sherman.
Robert McRackan | permalink | +marktd |

 
Q-Phrase on Google's Orion: "Kiss Snippets Goodbye?"
Yesterday I said that the reason I've been so obsessed with this Orion purchase is that Google "may be deliberately integrating 4th-place (in usage) Ask's functionality into how it enables users to navigate SERPs."

Based on an email I got from Q-Phrase's President, Andy Miller and its Chief Software Architect, Danny Espinoza I've begun to rethink that position.

I think there's an even larger issue here: the usefulness of the SERPs themselves.

This is from Q-Phrase's email to me:

"Problem: the sum of the content on one SERP does not have enough data, in and of itself, to reflect the concepts mentioned on that page, and thus the true relevance of that page is unknown."

Both Q-Phrase and Ask have approached this issue in different ways - Ask with Zoom and Q-Phrase with ConceptQ.

Google has not - to my observation (maybe the "did you mean" function?) - addressed this issue in a significant way in its SERPs.

Orion SOUNDS LIKE a method for more meaningful SERPs organization. Whether it is or not is pretty much irrelevant, as Sullivan pointed out in comments yesterday: "this was probably more about hiring the guy and having to sort out his patent which may not even get used."

So, now, I'm attempting to reframe this discussion as a "problems with SERPs" issue. Because there ARE problems.

Jupiter Research and iProspect recently measured searcher behavior (pdf). Though the study did not seek to measure whether or not these users found relevant information, or investigate HOW the SERPs themselves could be influencing searcher behavior, I find this fact telling:

"41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they seek, report changing their search term and/or search engine if they do not find what they are looking for in the first page of search results. A full 88% do so if they do not find what they seek in the first three pages."

Changing search terms (not to mention changing search engines) is VERY significant user behavior. I think the very need to rethink and reexecute search queries (a search refinement behavior that search engines are TRAINING into searchers... and will have to train OUT of them later) indicates a problem with the SERPs.

Q-Phrase's solution to getting more out of SERPs plays out this way:

1) Ask ConceptQ Pro to search for "american revolution" on Google.

2) The first 100 SERPs returned by Google are crawled automatically by ConceptQ Pro and the text on every page is data mined out of the HTML (note that this ignores all meta data on the page, and of course ignores content which is no longer on the net, since it won't find it).

3) The most statistically significant topics are then computed from the entire data set, extracted, filtered and collated by word count and displayed in the window.

In my post yesterday I asked for help: "Sullivan, Garcia, (anyone!), based on your understanding of the Orion algo, am I grasping at straws here with my conceptual zoom reading of the Orion algo?"

Q-Phase replied to this:

You've got a handle on this for sure, but I think Google's motives go beyond a simple "zoom" feature.

Once the conceptual topics have been computed, it is possible to calculate the relevancy of every sentence in a SERP page to the original search. And once that is completed, you can kiss "snippets" as you know them goodbye.

INTERESTING.

SERPs without Snippets! For organic search marketers that'd mean making sure clients fit into the larger story surrounding a given conceptual space relating to client business goals (which, incidentally, is how you should be thinking anyways - that's the difference between optimizing for presence and optimizing for rankings).

NOTE: The likelihood of snippets being entirely eradicated is unlikely - especially any time soon. SERPs experimentation and evolution is an inevitability though, and search marketing preparation starts with thinking about and discussing likely futures.

I'll leave you with an illustrative anecdote from Q-Phrase:

"...search "IPTV" on Google and the first result is for "Iowa Public Television". According to PageRank this makes sense. Now, search for "IPTV" using ConceptQ (which will read the first 100 SERPs returned from Google): the conceptual topics discovered on all those pages include: internet protocol, iptv technology, video on demand, etc.

"If you open the "Sources" window in ConceptQ, you will see a list of those SERPs re-ranked by their relevance to the conceptual topics. You'll find that Iowa Public Television has sunk to the bottom, and a blog on "IPTV trends, deals, software" has shot to the top."

And that, in a nutshell, is what Concept Rank could look like, and one possible (and strong) vision for the future of the SERPs.

For the trigger happy amongst my readership - this is ALL SPECULATION. Though if you ask me it's certainly well reasoned and right ;)

Questions on the future of SERPs? 919-433-3139.

And now on to Yahoo Maps and the Google Calendar. It's going to be one hell of a day :)

(PS: Q-Phrase + PreFound would make an interesting little couple.)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Think Partnership Signs LOI for Ice Rocket
MSI's parent company, Think Partnership, "announced that the Company has entered into a letter of intent to acquire IceRocket.com, LLC ("IceRocket"), which operates a comprehensive real-time search engine that focuses on blogs and RSS, providing its visitors the latest in top news, business, technology, health, and sports stories, and also helps its customers to search for website information, images, and cell phone pictures."

T. Benjamin Jennings, chairman of Think Partnership, stated, "We view our acquisition of Litmus Media and this merger with IceRocket as marking a new beginning for our company. The integration of our intellectual capital and technology resources will set a new standard for the online advertising, marketing, blogging and search industries."

Here's the press release:
Think Partnership Signs Letter of Intent to Acquire IceRocket.com, a Leading Blog Search Engine

Yummy yummy blog search technology!!! Wait til I tell Steve Mansfield about this ;)

For Think Partnership Inc.
Xavier Hermosillo, 310-832-2999;
Xavier@ThinkPartnership.com

For IceRocket.com, LLC:
Blake Rhodes, 214-727-1077;
Rhodes@IceRocket.com
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MarketSmart Interactive's Garrett French to Moderate Social Search Round Table
Steve Mansfield is the CEO of PreFound, which I first wrote about here: PreFound Tag Search Engine (very) Early Adopters Are Educators, Researchers

Because of such doozies as Yahoo! Pounding Google and MSN; Y!'s Social Networking Riff and Yahoo MyWeb's Gonna Kick MySpace in the Jimmies Steve concluded that I've drunken enough social search Koolaid and now it's time to start pouring it out for others.

I can't wait :)

I've spent the better part of this afternoon preparing my 4-5 points for discussion during the social search panel (Steve needs them for a conversation with some yet unannounced panel members tomorrow).

I started with notes I scribbled on a LONG-ASS email Steve sent me and then folded in an email debate I've had recently in defense of social search.

Then I mashed in all my social search/social media links and notes from my "working" file (my drawing board where article titles and links live and bounce around and ripen and juxtapose until I turn them into posts/articles).

Then I called Steve to help get focused again, 'cause now I've got one monster of a list to drill down into 4-5 points :)

The following is from a recent article in InfoWorld: Prefound.com to wed social networks, search
"Prefound.com will hold a two-day meeting Friday and Saturday, May 5-6, during which its founders and the founders of social network LiveJournal, as well as members of the press, will discuss how to combine search engines with social networks, Mansfield said. The author of the Search Engine Lowdown news site, Garrett French, is scheduled to moderate a round table at the event on Friday."

The two day event's in my hometown of Louisville, KY, and will be held the day before the Kentucky Derby. There will be a live podcast of the event for reporters and several reporters from BIG media.

Do you have any social search questions? I'd love to discuss! 919-433-3139.

I'm also taking bets for Derby horses, as PreFound's taking us to the races.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's Orion Purchase Reexamined: Ask-Kissing or GOOG's New Direction in SERPs Navigation?
Preface: Google may not EVER implement Orion technology in its SERPs. Also, most all of the media speculation's happening based on a single press release from Sept. 5th. (...and if Google DOES implement Orion functionalities it CERTAINLY won't happen overnight!)

I'm still knee-deep in trying to understand what the hell's going on, and whether or not I totally missed/over-simplified the boat when I surmised that Google's going to become more Ask-like.

Why am I digging back into Orion?
Because I find it HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT that Google, THE LEADER in pure search, may be deliberately integrating 4th-place (in usage) Ask's functionality into how it enables users to navigate SERPs. (This point may not be THAT big of a deal, I guess? Hey Gary Price what are some other examples of Google imitating other engines in terms of SERP presentation and pure search?)

My position re-evaluation started when I read Danny Sullivan's analysis of Google's Orion purchase, where Sullivan sums up the algo's function as follows: [It sounds like] "an algorithm useful in pulling out better summaries of web pages. In other words, if you did a search, you'd be likely to get back extracted sections of pages most relevant to your query."

This is of course corroborated in the press release:
"The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text extracts, giving you the relevant information without having to go the website."

Sullivan didn't mention anything about conceptual zoom. Zoom, which I read into Orion, was pretty much the whole basis for my initial position.

Here's how I formed that position:
My assessment that Orion had a conceptual zoom function similar to Ask's came from this single paragraph: "Take a search such as the American Revolution as an example of how the system works. OrionTM would bring up results with extracts containing this phrase. But it would also give results for American History, George Washington, American Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Boston Tea Party and more. You obtain much more valuable information from every search."

That description had me leaping laterally to this, from Ask:
"Zoom is a new concept navigation tool that offers suggestions to narrow and refine your search ("zooming in"), or expand your search ("zooming out") to explore new ideas."

Further fueling this connection for me was that an Ask [American Revolution] search is an example I typically use when explaining to people why I dig Ask's conceptual zoom function.

If one examines a search on Google for the same topic: [American Revolution], one sees highly targeted results with no lateral, conceptual vision.

The example that Allon gave is ALL ABOUT lateral, conceptual (Zoom-like) navigation.

If Orion simply pulled key extracts from pages I DON'T think Allon would have said "it would also give results for American History, George Washington, American Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Boston Tea Party and more. You obtain much more valuable information from every search."

Of course, Allon was 21 or so when he wrote that, and it was likely his first press release, ever, and I'm building the case that Google's moving in an Ask direction on a sentence or two. Not the sturdiest of arguments.

Backing Sullivan's weighty opinion that the purchased algo is little more than an extractor is the titanic Orion, (not the algorithm, but the person Edel "Orion" Garcia), who stated in his first analysis of the Orion algorithm "It appears to be a remote-search technology, but I could be wrong." Remote search relating to Orion the algo, in my understanding, in as much as the snippets of pages include more html for usability in the preview? (Uhh... I'm not really sure. I've misinterpreted Garcia before and gotten quite the talking to, which we ironed out happily :)

Battelle didn't dig much into conceptual zoom vs. page previews issue, and clearly conflates them in this sentence: "the move has spurred many to speculate that Google is hedging its bets against Ask-like features, such as Zoom (click on the binoculars), just in case they take off."

Sullivan, Garcia, (anyone!), based on your understanding of the Orion algo, am I grasping at straws here with my conceptual zoom reading of the Orion algo?

Is it even accurate to compare the Orion preview function to Ask's binoculars in that the binos don't necessarily organize the snippets in a manner that enables concept zoom?

Is it more accurate to say that Orion mashes conceptual navigation potential with a more intelligent, conceptually-related site preview that keeps users on the SE's pages rather than clicking through? (Which, as Sullivan stated, makes it more likely that "[search engines will] come under legal pressures of stepping over the fair use line.")

And finally, what the hell does it mean to SEM if Google enables more conceptual navigability in its SERPs?

What I'm doing:
• Admitting that I have more questions than answers regarding the Orion algo - and that it may be too early to know
• Writing Allon to determine how much concept zoom's in the Orion algo, and what the algo actually does for the user
• Praying that Gary Price writes one of his encyclopedic HISTORY OF SEARCH pieces to put this story in its place :)

Also will be in touch with Q-Phrase's Andy Miller, whose been contacting me to let me know that Q-Phrase is Orion-like. From his site:
"ConceptQ reads documents, automatically highlights the most important content and produces a "Cliffs Notes" type Index."
"One-click filtering of Keywords and Phrases allows you to identify all relevant information associated with a selected Topic."

So I'd like to leave with a concept discussed through IM this morning with Kevin Collins and Robert McRackan regarding a possible future for conceptual navigation of SERPs: Tactile 3D. It's a method for visualizing what's on your Windows machine, rather than navigating those damn folders. Here's another view.

Now imagine searching for information in a fully visual map-like format, where you can SEE the info clusters as SEs have them organized. DOOD! That would be so SnowCrash!! :)

Call to discuss: 919-433-3139. Or email: selowdown@gmail.com. or AIM: gfrenchwbs. Or chat in gmail. Holla!

update:
'bout to go to lunch with Adam Schultz, Mike Grehan and Jim Banks (oh my!) and will be looking at this article upon my return:
Google Confirms Licensing Search Algorithm, Hiring Creator

I will try really hard not to hijack the conversation into my current Orion obsession :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
New Media Public Relations Through Search Marketing, Blogger Relations and Social Networks
Yes ladies and gentleman, the masterpiece known as Harnessing Employee Generated Content To Target B2B Decision Influencers now has an equally brilliant sibling:

Reach Your Online Public Relations Goals through Optimized Press Releases, Blogger Relations and Social Networks

"This article first addresses - briefly - the proper formulation of a Public Relations campaign. For this brief section I borrowed from wikipedia's Public Relations entry, and cite Cutlip, Center and Broom as my primary influencers there.

"Then it outlines how to reach your PR search presence goals through optimized press releases, blogger relations and social network participation. For this section I drew from my reporting experience at WebProNews and search marketing and blogging experience at MarketSmart Interactive, my own keen personal observations and my generally optimistic and generous view regarding social networks and blogging."

This is the article that New Media Communications has been waiting for. Well, it talks about MySpace at least :P

update:
While you're at it check out JP's white paper: Using Competitive Search Intelligence to Drive Online Success... We were just talking about his next one :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Eight Search-Marketing-for-Flash Resources
Natasha Robinson, aka That Girl From Marketing, recently got an SEO client who had an all-Flash site.

She researched and published the following links, which I just lifted shamelessly from the post entitled Transference Metric... Campaign Innovation... Web Measurement Lacking... Flash SEO & SEO Masochist, without adding any value whatsoever.

One more SEO/Flash Conversation - Results of testing
How to SEO Flash
Revisiting How Search Engines Deal With Flash
Flash and SEO Sitting in a Tree...
Optimize Your Flash Site for Search Engines
How to Design Flash Pages for Google
Optimizing Flash files for the search engines
A modern approach to Flash SEO

Oh wait - I can add that Robinson is a part of Yahoo MyWeb and will soon be taking full advantage of the relevance potential of social search.

In the old days I woulda wrote a monster article out of these links. Ahhh... the old days ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google SMS Search Collateral On Cingular Store Counter (in NC)
Adam Schultz brought me in a little business card size collateral piece from Google. I haven't read or heard of (or noticed) Google collateral in stores before.

It's marketing Google's SMS search. And is not THAT much different from the collateral on the page I just linked to. In the first sentence of this paragraph.

Here are some significant headings from the piece:
For local business listings
For weather conditions
For movie showtimes
For definitions

WOW! Mobile search - even SMS Search - REALLY IS ALL ABOUT LOCAL!

(except for definitions... quick thought - is mobile search actually more about IMMEDIATE PRESSING NEEDS search? I mean, like when you're trying to think of that actor's name and you're like DANG IT if I had a interweb computer I'd go to IMDB.)

Also on the back of the collateral piece is an ad for... CINGULAR.

Not surprising - the history of Cingular and Google goes back to at least 2001.

But doesn't Cingular have some interesting deals going with the web's newest power house?

Neato! Keep watching :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google's Results to Become More Ask-Like With Orion Purchase?
Due to: sales meeting this morning, call with PreFound, MSI branding meeting and THEN a product development meeting, today is a quick-post day. UNFORTUNATELY!!!

Because some big stuff is happening.

Google bought Orion.

I wrote about Orion on September 9th, calling it similar to Ask in that it clusters concepts for easy drilling down or out (this is my favorite part of Ask - the zoom in, zoom out function. Full Disclosure - Ask sponsors this blog).

Warren Duff wrote about Orion too - I'm pretty sure he was the basis for my post then.

(oop - nope, it was VNU net I was responding to.)

So Google hired the person behind Orion, Ori Alon.

I will explore and write more later.

Update:
Note Marissa's comments regarding Ask's concept-zoom function (from blogoscoped):
"'Do you want to know what I really think of this? It’s interesting, but not really useful.' She adds that the majority of users don’t really want to narrow their search, they want an instant answer, and that for those users Google gives the fastest results."

Will the Orion purchase result in a Mayer about face? Well, it depends on how much Google overtly uses conceptual zooming.

Also... if concept-zoom is really Google's direction here, and ONE HIRE/purchase means it can gain this functionality (both HUGE SPECULATIONS ON MY PART) then Ask had best keep flexing that hustle muscle.

(also - did Google recognize how used zoom functions are on Google maps? Will we start seeing an idea-map kind of search ever where we navigate ideas, get 30,000 foot views and then drill down conceptually to the memes that build thought?)

Also - call if you want to discuss... my meetings are done :) 919-433-3139
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Creating the Search Optimized Press Release
The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote recently that's not been published yet. The article's called: "Reach Your PR Search Presence Goals through Optimized Press Releases, Blogger Relations and Social Networks." I excerpted the following section because it's directly related to the SEM and PR info request that got me writing in the first place.

A quick note about the coming article:
It first addresses - briefly - the proper formulation of a Public Relations campaign and outlines how to reach your PR search presence goals through optimized press releases, blogger relations and social network participation. In other words it's the article you've been waiting for that ties together social media, search and PR efforts :)

Without further ado, here's: Creating the Search Optimized Press Release

Because you're a savvy marketer, you've already mapped out your competitive search marketspace and know precisely the terms you should target in order to reach your key publics through the search engines.

Now that you're involved in your company's PR efforts (which is only right, because search engines are the primary PR vehicle of the online space, inasmuch as many aggregate news sites and blogs and typically include links from such sources as key factors in determining relevance), you must ensure that your main keyphrases find prominent places in your press releases.

Tips for Maximizing Your PR Efforts in Search Engines
• Include company name and your most important keyphrase in the title of the press release.
• Include company name and keyphrases in line with your PR and SE presence goals throughout the release, though not conspicuously and not to the detriment of readability or sense
• If you're publicly traded, include your ticker symbol in the title of the press release.
• Link your keyphrase in the body of the press release to the page on your site that's optimized for this keyphrase.
• Include contact info and a paragraph targeted specifically towards bloggers

Other tips, culled from Tom Foremski's Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!:
• Sectionalize the press release into quotes from execs, quotes from customers, quotes from analysts and include relevant news and reference links.
• Tag (Title) these sections for easy story assembly (from an SEM perspective it's easy to forget that the press release is about helping others write about you)

A quick word on the reasoning behind these techniques:
When search engines collect news items, as opposed to pages they gather from the wild web, they're more likely to determine relevance based on key phrases utilized. Determining how relevant a page REALLY is to a given search term takes quite a bit of time, and news, by its nature, makes standard relevance determination tougher because of its short shelf life.

Google Finance, Google's recent entry into financial news coverage, includes blog entries and recent news stories for every publicly traded company. This fact means that your company must start blogging, or at least cultivating relationships with bloggers in your space. It's fairly certain that Google uses an algorithm for its finance section that's similar to the one in its news section.

This makes the inclusion of your full company name and your ticker symbol in the press release title - plus the title of related blog posts that your company writes - even more important in order to reach the buyers and sellers of your company's stock.

We employe keyphrase linking in the event that automated sites, bloggers or reporters lift that portion of the press release and put it on a permanent non-dynamic page.

Though you should typically NOT be sending press releases to bloggers unless you've contacted them before hand, the press release you put on the wire should include links to your blog in addition to a non-directorial contact person, someone who will be seen as more authentically and meaningfully involved in the news relating to the press release than a VP or someone equally trained in spin.

This person should be lightly basted in PR principles and current PR goals, but must be allowed to speak plainly and frankly.

The concept of treating employees as a media-creating public may be difficult for readers steeped in traditional PR. Please familiarize yourself with the Cluetrain Manifesto and the techniques surrounding cultivating your employee generated media.

Also check out John Battelle's recent interview with Gary Flake of MSN for an example of whom should be talking with whom. I see this particular blog interview as a PR masterstroke for MSN. Call me and I will explain: 919-433-3139. Or I'll probably end up blogging about it later this week ;)

Here are a few sites - which I have not personally tested - that distribute press releases on the web. They may or may not actually be press release optimizers that resell distribution across already established PR channels:

www.PRWeb.com
www.PRFree.com
www.sbwire.com
www.ereleases.com
www.corporatenews.com
www.massmediadistribution.com
www.eworldwire.com
www.PR.com
www.marketwire.com
home.businesswire.com/
www.free-press-release.com/
www.24-7pressrelease.com/
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Full Frame Film Festival Today in Durham, NC
This weekend the Full Frame Film Festival's in town, over in Durham (I live in Raleigh, NC). My girlfriend and I decided, on Wednesday or something, that it would be fun to head over and catch a documentary or two.

This morning we started looking over the schedule and FREAKING THE FLIP OUT because there are so many GREAT MOVIES.

Our whole day's schedule shifted because of our excitement about these films. We may or may not be having dinner with Adam Schultz and his wife later tonight :)

I'm sure there are other folks blogging the festival, and I'm writing this from my house in Raleigh before knowing if there's wifi access in the space or not (I plan to post reactions in SEL, though it's heinously off topic from search).

Anyways, our top picks so far are (if they haven't sold out yet):

12:15
Beyond Beats and Rhymes (investigation into rap's misogyny, homoeroticism and popularity with white teens)
SAZ (Palestinian Rapper)

2:30
Wrestling with Angels (a portrait of playwright Tony Kushner)

7:15
Hammer and Flame (India shipwrecking yard)
Matthew Barney: No Restraint (documentary of work on Barney's latest project - Barney's Bjork's fella)

10:00
demolition 7 (demolition derby!)
Air Guitar Nation (air guitar competition)

We're heading out shortly to try and get tickets, right after we drive by the coffee shop with free wifi so I can post this cause the wifi I steal at home is unreliable :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Key Takeaways from Battelle's Interview with MSN Search's Gary Flake
Battelle's interview with Gary Flake gave me the following take aways:

• Keep an eye on Microsoft Research
• Read more Greg Linden (who asked my favorite questions in the thread following the post)
• When engineers lead a project they may get distracted by "core issues" and ignore stuff like usability (even at MSN ;)
• User Interface at MSN search is now under strong investigation and experimentation: live.com
• 32 bit architecture to 64 bit architecture translates into increasingly sophisticated measurements of relevance at MSN
• This advance is not a sustainable tech advantage (Greg points out in comments)
• MSN Haterade still guzzled freely (via comments) - this is an observation, not a value statement on my part
• Gary driving a sense of MSN innovation, [what's important is that] "we have a platform, framework, and philosophy that are all in support of trying new things so that we can progressively improve and learn."
• Gary driving a sense of MSN passion: "the idea of being able to fully leverage [Microsoft Research] towards web search gave me goose bumps."

One thing's for sure: Gary Flake is a PR badass. Why? I'm interested again in what's happening at MSN. He's got passion for what he does and communicates that plainly. Get him blogging, MSN.

Here's some Greg Linden reading for you for the weekend:
MyLifeBits, Memex, and Google Desktop Search

Why read him? He's asking great questions about the core of search, and balances out my ecstatic power of social media/social search rants about Yahoo MyWeb :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
What the Engagement Definers Can Learn from Search Relevance Engineers
...is the title of an article I'd like to read.

So I guess I'll have to write it.

If you didn't know, the marketing world's trying to define engagement, a holistic metric that will make it easier to compare television advertising to radio to print to online.

This metric will, so the Madison Avenue world hopes, enable marketers to make more effective business and marketing decisions.

Bravo!

As I read over John Battelle's interview with MSN's Gary Flake this morning I started thinking about relevance, and how much thought, man hours and money has gone into defining it with algorithms.

I'm going to dig into relevance theory and look for its relationship to the engagement concept. Engagement and relevance both seek to measure the subjective. Relevance engineers have made far more strides thus far in its measurement than have our engagement engineers...

At the very least I'll have some interesting reading this weekend :)

Anyone know any good relevance-related articles? comment or call me 919-433-3139
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
MySpace User Notifications in Cingular Phones (+relevance to Seach Marketing)
I was just, uh, researching social media in MySpace and saw a notation for "send update to Cingular cell phone."

I'm not sure if this is NEWS or not, (sort of) but it does illustrate to some extent how far Yahoo's MyWeb has to go in terms of being "cool." (I'm not convinced MySpace's success had that much to do with being COOL at the outset, though "cool" people were early adopters)

The notifications you can have sent to your Cingular phone are MySpace EVENTS:
* Friend Request
* Blog Comment
* Profile Comment
* Image Comment
* New Message
* Event Invite

These are the "happenings" that indicate change in a given social network, its growth, its commentary, its physical events.

The fact that MySpace users would WANT these things on their phone indicates their significance. A new friend request is exciting to me, so I can't imagine what they're like to 14 year old girls.

Each one of these events too relate ONLY to the user. They're requests, notifications of comments, and messages solely for the user (they ommited notifications of new blog entries, and bulletin messages from friends, both of which are not immediately user-relevant).

It's going to get LOTS more exciting when social networks, social media and mobile maps collide :)

This collision is where us search marketers need to be paying LOTS of attention. We won't be optimizing for keywords, but for key networks, or even key neighborhoods. Want to talk about this intersection? Call me at 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Ban on DMOZ Clone Directories?
Are you submitting to ODP clone directories? There is some preliminary evidence showing that you may be waisting your time.

Barry Schwartz reported in SEJ on a WMW forum thread and said "Google had a ban rate of 37%, Yahoo 11%, and MSN 9%."

This study may not reveal very much that you can objectively apply to your link building efforts, but it does make a strong case for some heavy SERP research prior to submission.

I did not closely read the forum thread.

Interested in link building? Check out Link Building Basics.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Think Partnership Acquires Click Fraud and Shopping Cart Re-Marketing Software
Think Partnership (THK) is the parent company of my company, MarketSmart Interactive. THK just announced the acquisition of Litmus Media, a "unique click fraud prevention and abandoned shopping cart re-marketing technology that promise to maximize value to advertising clients."

As I learn more about the service (I'll be asking for interviews with Litmus click fraud techies) I'll share it here.

THK just had its Q4 and 2005 Earnings Release Call (up on the site). The call's here in transcript.

I hadn't realized that THK's president, Scott Mitchell, worked with Barry Diller, now owner of Ask. Next time Scott's in NC I'm gonna ask him about that.

My favorite quote from the transcript (I did not read it all cause it talks LOTS about business nuts and bolts) comes from Scott:
"The 19th century German Philosopher Frederick Nietze Nietzsche is quoted as saying, 'That which does not destroy me will make me stronger.' I would argue that Nietzsche had some premonition of Think Partnership in 2005."

2005 was certainly one hell of a year for ME at MarketSmart Interactive. I think Scott says it well in the transcript: "2005 was the year of our evolution. A year when our company was redefined, rebuilt, and renamed."

The Litmus acquisition is HUGE, and helps further define and build THK's overall goal: to provide "a full service approach to interactive advertising..."

Evolution is a continual process. I've sure been having a blast at MSI lately :) So has JP Sherman and his Competitive Search Intelligence project :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Clear Channel Advertisers Eventually in Google Maps?
A post from mVox today reports further on the Clear Channel + Google news that set off one of my speculative tirades

"Clear Channel's local advertisers will also benefit from the deal, as they will have the option to have their advertisements showcased first, followed by Google's sponsored links and web search results."

It hadn't hit me until reading that post that radio is a LOCAL marketing channel... and does Clear Channel actually get enough site traffic to make this worthwhile for advertisers?

There are no explicit statements that Clear Channel advertisers will appear on Google Local but they would certainly be a great reseller for Google map ads, no? And yes, so is Verizon :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Yahoo MyWeb's Gonna Kick MySpace in the Jimmies
I'm becoming a major Yahoo fan.

In January, when Yahoo said it was willing to tread-water in terms of search share I said, "Yahoo's going to win more search share by increasing usage of their portal properties and if it keeps up the social web push I think it will see that happen."

In August of '05 I tripped out over Yahoo's inclusion of user generated content (oops sorry... Authentic Media) in Yahoo Local searches: "It's the melding of user generated content into the local/map search that gets me excited. Yahoo's providing the trellis for all this incredible and detail-rich LOCAL user content to grow up around."

Now I see in Yahoo's latest rendition of MyWeb pretty much exactly what I wrote about two days ago: "I think that the social networking killer app, will be the tools for users to create their own myspaces that can connect easily and fluidly and CONTROLABLY through [a] single interface. Oh yeah, and it has to be mobile and local too of course :)."

Tim Mayer says the changes in MyWeb are "about lowering the barriers to entry to mainstream users so they can experience social search."

I see the MyWeb changes as empowering users to more clearly define specific relationships within their ENTIRE SOCIAL UNIVERSE. Essentially, users can decide who gets the PARTY home video, who gets the blogposts on Junior's ADHD and who gets the RESUME.

This flexibility is a huge step up from what MySpace and LinkedIn currently offer, and is essentially a social networking TOOL with limitless flexibility. Also, Yahoo's miles ahead of MySpace when it comes to... SEARCH. And I would argue that MyWeb and Yahoo in general is more in tune with the concept of InfoLust.

In Chris Sherman's SEW write up of MyWeb he mentions, in regards to the flexibility, that "the feature is similar to one offered in Yahoo's photo-sharing service, Flickr." I'm not a photographer so I've never gotten in to Flikr. MyWeb seeks to enable Flikr-like communities to form through social networking and social media tools connected through a single login.

Now if Yahoo can just figure out how to make it hip it WILL kick the living jimmies out of MySpace.

I'll switch over just as soon as all my MySpace friends do ;)

(Will Google Base set off a social networking/social media spark? HIGHLY LIKELY. Will it have the flexibility of MyWeb: probably not for awhile. It will have only one login though, which is good.)

(some SEMs are in both)

What are the MyWeb social networking and social media implications on search marketing? Watch for my upcoming article!

Also, I'm happy to talk to anyone, any time about what's happening at Yahoo! and what it means to how we consume media 919-433-3139.

update:
Also check out Greg Sterling's interesting YouTube a Yahoo Takeover Target?
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google AdWords Editor Beta Availability Confusion?
The Google AdWords Editor, if you didn't know, "is a downloadable account management application for your computer. Designed especially for large AdWords accounts, it allows you to make changes to your account with greater ease and flexibility. Download your campaigns, make bulk or individual edits offline, then upload your changes to your AdWords account." about AdWords Editor

A post in my reader this morning lead me to the conclusion that there's been some confusion regarding the tool's current availability (which remains invite only, though apparently more invites have been issued to those with large accounts).

Marketing Vox reported this morning that Google Opens up 'AdWords Editor' Beta.

This post, to me at least, indicated that the service is now available for ALL with large accounts to download. It still, from what I can tell, requires an INVITE: download AdWords Editor.

Further, the site states that "If you aren't a beta participant, please be assured that we're working to release AdWords Editor to a larger number of advertisers in the near future. Please feel free to let us know if you'd like to be involved in the future."

Based on the cog box post mVox linked to, which states 040606, "Today we received an invite for the Beta test of a new Google product, which of course makes us feel all warm and fuzzy," a more appropriate title to the post would be: Google Invtites More Testers to 'AdWords Editor' Beta.

Whew. Now that I've gotten THAT off of my chest:
Chris Eaves, the Cog Box poster, stated regarding the AdWords Editor: "it proved itself useful right off the bat though by allowing me to export a snapshot of an entire campaign to a CSV file--just what I needed to send to MSN for their AdCenter Beta. Probably not the use they had in mind."

Philipp also wrote about the AdWords Editor this morning which added to MY confusion about what the actual NEWS was (not hard to do). He linked to screen shots of the AdWords Editor and asked readers with accounts to comment on its usefulness. If you're a user, or just curious, this thread would be a good place to start participating in the conversation.

So - who's gotten recent invites?

I stand, a nit-picky bastard, willing and ready to be corrected and better informed by your data (as I was yesterday :)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Real Estate Search Vertical Spotted in the Wild
Shimon Sandler, whose blog's getting pounded with traffic right now, was first to get spotted by Steve Rubel pointing out Google's entry into the real estate, Google maps mash up continuum.

MarketingVox points to Dustin Luther as an earlier Google Real Estate discoverer.
Luther offers advice to Zillow, a real estate search engine in danger now due to Google Real Estate and closes with the warning that:

"Right now, Google is seriously lacking in quality inventory. However, if the consumers go there (and they will), then you can expect brokers (and someday brokerages!) to follow with their listings."

Real Estate agents. You must learn to know and love Google Base.

Looking for help in getting on to Google Base? Curious about the implications of Google Base? Call 919-433-3139.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Testing AdWords Position Preference
Barry Schwartz reports on news from the SEW forums that Google's testing a new method that enables advertisers to "'opt out' for positions you don't want."

His forum source says that:

You can request that your ad be shown only when it is:

* Higher than a given position (such as above 7)
* Lower than a given position (such as below 4)
* Within a range of positions (such as from 2-8).
* In a single exact position (such as position 2).

I'm not personally familiar with paid search, but someone in the forum indicated that Yahoo already does something like this, "and here I thought it was Yahoo that was going to be moving to become more AdWords-like."

Is this something that Yahoo already offers?

update:
Evan pinged me and let me know that "A lot of people are mistaking this for a bid-to-position model like Yahoo uses. When it is merely just a position filter."
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Should Your Company Target Hispanics with Search Marketing?
I had the pleasure of meeting Ignacio "Nacho" Hernandez Jr. two years ago at SES and used to publish his hispanic search marketing articles in WebProNews (scroll down).

Nacho continues to contribute to the marketing community with a recent report he did in partnership with MarketingProfs, Marketing to the Hispanic Market.

Read this report to get a better idea if YOUR company should be targeting hispanics online, and to get a better idea of what it's going to take.

From the Key Findings:
"Even though the opportunity is great, not all companies today are doing something to design marketing efforts specifically for Hispanics. Only 36% of respondents said they are already doing something about it, and that proportion reached 40% when segmenting those just in the US. At the same time, 23% across the board said they have not done so yet but have plans to. Therefore, we can consider that roughly two of three professionals are aware of its importance and need to do something about it."
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Masthead Changes at Search Engine Watch
Exciting changes at Search Engine Watch (which remains one of my most valued sources of search info). Congratulations to Elisabeth and Brian. I look forward to more great stuff out of you guys!

managing editor: Elisabeth Osmeloski
"...she'll now be helping me revitalize and maintain the Search Engine Watch site overall."

contributing shopping and vertical search correspondent: Brian Smith
"he will be posting items relating to the shopping search space in particular and other vertical search areas in general."

previous changes I missed:
executive editor: Chris Sherman
"overseeing SearchDay and working with me on the site's overall editorial direction and coverage"

editor in chief: Danny Sullivan
"I continue to be responsible for the site overall."

Elisabeth Osmeloski Named SEW's Managing Editor
Brian Smith Joins SEW Blog As Shopping & Vertical Search Correspondent
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Crafting "what-do-you-mean" Style Conversation Disruptors
Me and my MSI homie Jeff LeFevre share an appreciation of the absurd, which we mutually realized over Chuck Norris Facts.

Now we assemble questions to ask people that don't make any sense, the primary goal of which is to disrupt conversation and crack me up. Jeff's delivery is great.

Our "what do you means" list currently includes such head scratchers as:
what's the difference between a dog?
how long does it take to get from Chicago?
What's two divided by?

In my spare time I'm writing an app that will identify and generate the sentence structure that enables such delightful conversation disrupters.

Actually I'm not, but that would sure be cool.

Jeff sits across from me and eats all my peanuts. Just so you know.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Applying Competitive Search Intelligence to Your Search Marketing Campaign
There's LOTS more you can learn from the SERPs than where your company's currently placing for your target keywords.

Competitive Intelligence and the SERPs:
It's time you start using the SERPs for a serious competitive search intelligence effort and discover rising threats to your company, as well as your hidden business opportunities.

MSI's Competitive Search Intelligence White Paper:
JP Sherman, MSI's Competitive Intelligence Specialist, recently wrote the white paper "Using Competitive Search Intelligence to Drive Online Success," where he crystallizes MSI's competitive search intelligence methodologies as we currently apply them to search marketing.

JP's competitive search intelligence white paper presents "a guide to defining your online marketspace and shows how, from this data, to identify competitors, opportunities and, as data is collected over time, how to identify emerging competitors before they become actual threats."

Would you like to know more about applying competitive search marketing to your search marketing campaign? Download the white paper.

About JP:
JP Sherman began gathering and analyzing data in 1996 for an archaeological consulting firm. In 1998 he joined the US Army's PSYOP Command where he managed multiple strategic psychological operations campaigns as well as disease prevention efforts with the World Health Organization.

In 2005 he brought his expertise to MarketSmart Interactive and now delivers strategic competitive and market research services for clients using proprietary competitive intelligence technology he helped develop.

If you'd like to talk directly to JP download the white paper - his email's at the end with his bio :)

Learn More; CALL NOW: 919-433-3139
Would you like to talk to MSI about applying competitive search intelligence to your online marketing efforts? Give me a call 919-433-3139 and we'll chat.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Optimizing Your Viral Videos for Google Related Links
Well, not yet :) But a close Google Related Links TOS reading by Garret Rogers indicates that content like music, photos, video and software may one day flow through Google's new service.

This service enables webmasters to put Google-fed, contextually relevant content directly onto a page. Because it looks at individual pages, it makes sense to put GRL on all your info site's pages (as long as they don't get in the way of your AdSense ;).

Currently webmasters don't receive any payment for traffic/page views they pass on to Google, as the FAQ indicates:

"Can I get paid to place Related Links on my site?
Not at this time. We hope that with this product, you can make your site even more useful to your visitors by providing them with links to information they are interested in."

So. How can you optimize your site so that it appears in Google's Related Links on other peoples' sites?

Before I got started cracking that nut I'd want to make sure there were folks putting these things up. Secondly, I'd want to know the KINDS of sites putting the GRL up.

If I thought that I would want my site on the kinds of sites using GRL THEN I'd set up GRL on a practice site and look for how it's picking results.

I get the sense that algos differ quite significantly from Google proper to Google's outlying services. Therefore I'd ask one of our brilliant SEM techs here to figure out a test to understand the relevance factors that GRL uses vs. the ones we already know and love in bigdaddy.

The Google Related Links product is interesting, but it would be LOTS more interesting if developers could tweak with how related info shows up on pages, and if they could work GRL into, say, the Google Maps API.

Rogers also pointed out Yahoo's similar but not nearly so robust related content offering.

update:
an interesting hack to align Google’s Related Links with Link Units
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Crap Directory Warning Signs
Shimon Shandler interviewed web directory Best of the Web's Greg Hartnett. It's a great interview that will help marketers understand the true value of a directory listing.

Hartnett gave a concise list of warning signs for directories that may not be of value - or worse - could actually hurt your rankings in search engines.

Signs of a crap directory:
- Run of site links
- Listings of poor quality
- Javascript links to sites
- Overuse of keywords in titles and descriptions
- Directories less than a year old
- Directories with overpopulated top level categories, and empty sub categories
- Directories powered by an off-the-shelf script

I would also add non-directory-related text links for sale and text or keyword stuffing etc...

I would also suggest reading Link Building Basics.

Thanks for the email Shimon!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
The Google Radio Station Scenario
WARNING: high levels of creative speculation ahead... Research firm Caris & Company believes that Google's recent networking event with a group of music industry executives foretells a Google Music Store. Forbes broke the story and has no corroboration from Google, not even a no comment statement.

It does add to the discussion an analyst's observations that "The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services..."

This probable direction becomes a little more interesting in light of the recent successful negotiations between Google and Clear Channel - all Clear Channel sites will now contain Google search boxes plus AdSense at the bottom of its sites' news articles. (Clear Channel sites have news articles? Who knew.)

Could/would Clear Channel start pushing listeners to purchase music from the Google Music Store?

And now for the half-baked, fire-brained Google Radio Station scenario:

Behaviorally targeted ads based on GMail content and the personalized Google page. The music industry feeds songs directly to Google and gets paid based on the good ole AdSense model.

GMail gets a Google Radio tab that connects listeners with today's hottest music hits plus the music they store on their hard drives. Google Radio does NOT connect listeners to each other so they can share music :(

Clear Channel + big radio gets rocked like the newspaper industry is getting rocked now.

Coming Clean (if it wasn't already clear ;): I'm woefully ignorant of the online/offline radio industries - this is speculation based on fancy rather than a knowledge of the radio industry. It's just that Google has the clout to arrange something very interesting with the music industry. But then so does Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Yahoo! Pounding Google and MSN; Y!'s Social Networking Riff
Yahoo! is POUNDING MSN and Google when it comes to Time Per Person spent on property. (And AOL's clobbering Yahoo! on TPP, but this is a Yahoo! post dammit.)

To continue driving that number up and to maintain its Google-and-MSN-beating user base and reach, watch for Yahoo! to increase its investment in enabling social networks. Oh wait, Yahoo! announced that "On Wednesday, April 5th at 8 pm PDT, My Web 2.0 will be upgraded to introduce some exciting new features."

Yahoo also recently increased user ability to evaluate the posts left on its finance message boards, in what will likely look like a Digg deal where the most highly-rated posts float to the top. I couldn't find the boards in the wild. I looked somewhat hard.

Yahoo's slowly working backwards into what Nat at O'Reilly Radar described as his ideal social networking format. Here are his words in Social Network Analysis I Can Believe In:

"I know my friends through Perl, through OSCON, through talk.bizarre, through O'Reilly, through specific projects I did with them. We are asked to categorize our friends, which feels weird, but I wonder whether it'd make more sense if we were asked what object/place/occupation connects us to these people it would be better."

So what is the future of social networking likely to look like? One login, many networks, with an individual's profile altered for each network. Portable friend/family/buisiness groups likely built from email lists.

I'm in MySpace and LinkedIn. My profiles are DRASTICALLY different. As some of you may well be able to imagine. Why do I have to login to these sites differently?

Further, I think that the social networking killer app, will be the tools for users to create their own myspaces that can connect easily and fluidly and CONTROLABLY through this single interface. Oh yeah, and it has to be mobile and local too of course :).

Still to solve:
Online Ad Adjacency Not Always Advantageous
increasing diversity of social networks + no standards

From a Search Marketing perspective we HAVE to watch social networking and how it affects how people find the information they're looking for. Or rather, we have to start social network optimization companies ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Google Maps API2 + Local Search Marketing Checklist
Google Maps recently released the Google Maps API2. Garett Rogers indicates, based on changes in the API's Terms of Use, it's not as much WILL there be ads in API maps but WHEN will it happen.

The Terms of Use don't say anything about sharing map ad click revenues. I think Google WILL share money with eCartographers and further, that this will help drive the next wave of offline/online convergence. That will happen on mobile devices. As we search for love and good deals (or good deals on love) in the real world :)

WHEW. So to start at the beginning, here are some of the more intelligible-to-this-non-developer changes to the Google Map API:

• NO PAGE VIEW LIMITS "If, however, your site gets more than 500,000 page views per day, we ask that you talk to us before you launch so that we can prepare in advance to handle your traffic."
• 90-day notice before any advertising-related changes, ability to opt-out of ads on your maps
• custom map controls
• custom map types
• Much smaller JavaScript download "improves performance and stability"

All this adds up to better maps. We should all be watching Google Maps Mania to see how the change in the API changes what the developers are making.

Now I want to - loosely - tie in a web components post by nat from the O'Reilly blog. He mentions the new Google Maps API because it "includes a... system for developers to build and integrate their own controls onto the map."

This ability to change the controls on maps is a big deal to him because it means that developers can better customize map interaction to the needs of their users. Yes - this means better maps. To Nat though it also points to an increasing trend towards a "...vibrant third-party market for custom controls."

This "vibrant third-party custom control market" could - as I understand it from my idealistic and abstract perspective - point towards part of the solution for newspapers (can newspapers figure out how to reward - not the writers - but the republishers? can developers save the sinking journalism ship if journalists have a News API?).

WHEW. Ok, to reel this back in to the original idea. Maps + Mobile = doorway to local.

The online local marketing checklist:

• get your site looking good for mobile browsers (would you like information on this?)
• advertise on maps (right now it’s only Google – that will change)
• figure out how to market with the Google Map API (or whatever's the NEXT map API)
• investigate click to call advertising
• track your incoming calls
• connect the entirety of your inventory to the web so that searchers know whether or not you have their products in stock (when necessary technologies become available)
• be prepared for changes in how people shop as technology changes (you will see FAR more in-store price comparisons happening)

Priority One:
Help fund and test the new eco system. And let me know if you want to have a creative discussion about using maps in your marketing campaign (919-433-3139). Fair warning: I'll blog the conversation in the interest of pushing the discussion further... unless you become a customer ;)

via outer-court

Also see:
Map builder discussion group
Louisville, KY (my hometown) Google Maps mashup!!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Grok On: The Past Year in Search
John Battelle's adding an Afterward to the paperback version of his book, the Search. Which I have on my shelf but have not read. Cause I read his dang blog every day. I'll read the paperback when it comes out - I'm more likely to write in the margins of a paperback anyways.

His post today, And The Search Goes On...A Year of Coverage In One Post, caught my attention because it's a great snapshot the past year in search... through blog posts.

Read it; check out the links. You'll have a nice overview - from Battelle's corner of the world - of the past year in search. I found it especially helpful in seeing how the big companies react to each other and searchers' changing expectations.

I was also reminded of stories that blew my mind when they came out but I haven't heard much about. Like Amazon's space and processing power for rent.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Search Marketing and the Mobile Lifestyle
AOL and PEW released the results of a mobile usage study recently, pointing in some very interesting directions for mobile search. Hint: map ads.

The survey report states, "in 2006, the must-have feature is mobile mapping and directions, with nearly half of adults surveyed saying they would like to have these features at their fingertips."

More numbers from the survey:
* 47 percent say that mobile maps and driving directions are a "must have" on the next phone they buy
* 30 percent of adults want to browse the Web from their cell phone

For those 30 percent AOL enhanced its local search offering by reformatting sites for mobile devices: Chris Sherman reports "Intelligent reformatting means that the most important content is identified and displayed first, regardless of its location on the web page. Graphics are resized to fit your screen. Most importantly, the main navigation for a site is identified and incorporated in a single "Quick Nav" link, rather than taking up important real-estate on your mobile device."

You can search http://mobile.aolsearch.com to see how AOL renders your site for mobile browsers - so you can see what information AOL thinks is the most important from your site.

Here's the AOL rendering of craigslist. I'm not sure AOL's quite cracked the smart formatting nut yet, but it's an interesting stab. (quick thought on this - the next site with "google-style" growth and popularity will be one created just for mobile browsers, and will likely come from a garage or college.)

So if your marketing efforts include driving people to brick and mortar locations then you had best get your site looking good for mobile browsers, advertise on maps, investigate click to call advertising and connect the entirety of your inventory to the web so that searchers know whether or not you have their products in stock.

In that order ;)

Other recent mobile/map items:
How to monetize your Google Maps mashup
Build your own Google Photo Map with a GPS-equipped camera
MSN Local Adds Send To Mobile Phone Feature
Mobile TV: How Big Will It Be?
Mobile Content's Worldwide Audience
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Advertising Locally on Google Maps
Barry Schwartz dug right into Google's new local advertising offering with "How To Add Your Local Business Ad In Google AdWords?"

His step by step guide in the SEW blog gives a great overview for those considering getting started.

It also cleared up a misconception I'd had: I thought originally that advertisers controlled the icons on the map. These are apparently pre-crafted and don't offer opportunity for customization.

Advertisers CAN put logos on the info page that pops up when users click on their map icon.

Any notable map ad sightings? Has McDonalds bought a run-of-nation ad yet? Has your search marketing firm pitched you on it yet?
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
BLOCKED BY GOOGLE!! (Best Prank Ever Played On Me)
The best prank anyone's ever pulled on me was masterminded by Scott Harris back in my WebProNews days. We worked, six of us packed in an office that was about half the size of our boss's.

The Prankster:
Scott was our lead designer. When we collaborated ideas flowed and we made strong contributions to our company's look and feel online.

Scott spent his drive time listening to Rush Limbaugh, from whom he picked up tactics for baiting me. He had a Mark Twain brilliance at architecting pranks that I've only ever seen in country boys.

The Prankee:
Then, as now, I stayed plugged in to search industry news and drank lots of coffee and wrote excitedly about new developments in search and search marketing. I got regular emails from readers who made more money online because of reading the WebProNews email newsletter.

In the interest of open rates (then I paid more attention to open-rate bait than link bait) I tended to take an adversarial approach to covering Google... By regularly interviewing folks like Daniel Brandt and publishing webmaster reactions to major ecommerce events like the Florida update.

The Delivery:
So imagine my SHOCKED DELIGHT one day when I found myself
BLOCKED
FROM
GOOGLE.

Every time I went to Google.com I got an access denied page. No one else in our little room did. I was being singled out, singly blocked by Google. It was one of my most exciting moments ever.

I started writing the story, vaguely aware of some... strain amongst my colleagues. They played it straight though, and shared my awe that I, Garrett French, had struck some journalistic blow against Google that had won me a vindictive counter strike by someone on the inside.

"Which story do you think they blocked you for?" someone asked.

Recognition:
Finally I had to clarify some networking point with Jay Beans, our admin. I ran back to his office - when I'm excited about a story I run. I stood over his desk nodding my head, scribbling, wondering why he kept trying not to smile.

He sniggered, and, before I spent any more of my morning on the article, gently explained to me that network admins can make your Google page show up with whatever they want. My morning's grossly inflated sense of self importance crashed over me and I discovered the true meaning of Poisson d'Avril!!!

May your day be filled with an increase in self knowledge, painful though it may be :)

little-known side note:
It was my post-prank hyper incredulity that caused me to doubt news of gmail later that day... a GIG of space? Yeah right. APRIL FOOLS!! :)

Here's some coverage of search engine april fools day celebration:
Ask's RhymeRank
Zawodny's difficult decision
Google Romance
Google Room Search
I'm still known to bite the April Fool's hook ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |