MerchantCircle's Challenges of Growth
Google Analytics told me that I'd been getting more traffic to an old Yahoo vs. MerchantCircle story from a link in Battelle's MerchantCircle post.

According to Battelle's recent post MerchantCircle began calling those folks in its listings (which it auto-populated) that had received negative reviews from local clients.

Local business owners flipped out over the phone calls and went to search engines to learn more about these negative reviews.

There's a strong demand to be removed from MerchantCircle in SEL comments.

I'm happy to note that MerchantCircle's on top of it, and left a link for folks to follow and get removed from the MerchantCircle database.

My concern though is the knee jerk reaction local merchants have to removing themselves. What about addressing the raised issues? What about MerchantCircle being a proponant of proactive customer service and an ambassador of cluetrain conversation marketing to local merchants?

What's your take on this Ben?
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Search Engine Lowdown Sponsorship Opportunities
Geoff Lamm, our Manager of Interactive Media Buys at MarketSmart Interactive, helped me develop out our sponsorship pricing collateral.

Send inquiries to selowdown@gmail.com and I'll get them over to Geoff :)

About
Search Engine Lowdown is dedicated to interviewing and occasionally skewering the CEOs, COOs and CTOs behind the newest and freshest companies in the search space.

In addition, Search Engine Lowdown leads the exploration of marketing in the emerging social search space and the intersections of business intelligence and interactive marketing while keeping readers up to date on the major happenings at the major search engines.

Demographic
Search Engine Lowdown appeals to marketing, business and technology strategy executives seeking insight into today's shifting, roiling search space. We received 25,000 uniques a month for an average of 30,000 page views.

Legacy
Search Engine Lowdown, created by blogging pioneer Andy Beal, is a mainstay of the search media space, and one of the industry's earliest search-related blogs.

Its continued focus on relevant and timely news and interviews has won links from all the major search engines' blogs (Google, Yahoo, Ask) as well as an array of leading industry thinkers such as John Battelle, Brian Smith, Gary Stein, Loren Baker, Mike Manuel, Peter Krasilovsky, Greg Sterling, and Ed Batista.

Staff
Garrett French is the managing editor of SearchEngine Lowdown, and our regular contributors include JP Sherman, Jeremy Swiller, Jon Revill.

We've been quoted and linked to by Slashdot, CNet, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, eWeek, ZDNet, the Boston Globe, and MarketingVox.

Articles from our writers have appeared in SearchEngineGuide, MarketingProfs, TechJournal South and WebProNews.

Ad Cost and Location:

Position A — SEL Premium Site Sponsorship
6 months........$6,600
12 Months.......$12,000

Position B — Leaderboard Preferred Advertiser (468 x 60)
1 month.........$750
3 months........$2,000

Position C — Partner Sponsor (150 x 30)
1 month.........$500
3 months........$1,300

Text Link
1 month.........$125
3 months........$325
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
the Triangle Science Blogging Conference
Anton Zuiker, a blogging mover and shaker in the RTP, is organizing the first annual Triangle Science Blogging Conference on Jan 20, 2007 in Chapel Hill.

Learn more here: http://wiki.blogtogether.org.

I'm going so I can learn more about science bloggers and to connect with a scientist or two who blog relating to work they do for their company.

Also I'll be preaching from my text "Driving Search Presence through Industry Participation" ;)

I'll also be seeing Mr. Zuiker October 10th at the CED's Un-Conference, for which there are 28 spots remaining.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Qualitative Research, Personas and Link Bait Projects
In developing out service concepts for MSi I've been going nuts for personas. At the core of persona creation is research of course. I wanted to share the resources I've gathered for qualitative research thus far, as well as some persona-related reading.

Qualitative research and the creation of personas is crucial to any social media project that will have any legs in its space. And it wouldn't hurt your link bait projects either ;)

This post has many links I haven't visited yet - it's more of a road map starting point for myself. I'll update this post or make new ones as I develop our framework. (also I bought the book Doing Qualitative Research)

Here's my qualitative research treasure-trove page: http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/qual.htm

Qualitative Research Methods:
really an introduction to qualitative methods. What is qualitative research, how to do and analyze.
http://pweb.sophia.ac.jp/~t-oka/papers/2000/qrsw/qrsw.html

qualitative research methods:
http://www.journalism.org/resources/tools/reporting/accuracy/online.asp

Quality in Qualitative Evaluation: a framework for assessing research evidence
http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/evaluating_policy/qual_eval.asp

Using qualitative methods in health related action research
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/320/7228/178
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/collection/qualitative_research_descriptions

Qualitative Research Resources
http://don.ratcliffs.net/qual/

Qualitative Methods Workbook
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/qualmeth.html

a basic guide to doing ethnographic research.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/CPIA/methods.html

key informant interviewing
http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/~PPA/KeyInform.htm

Persona marketing
http://www.textor.com/page_135.html
Persona-lization and Behavioral Marketing
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3430871
Persona Development and SEO
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3610796
Persona Development and the Law of Averages
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3457531
Persona Development for Information-rich Domains
http://www.rashmisinha.com/articles/sinhaRashmi-CHI03.pdf
Personas: Discussion articles (64 resources!)
http://www.deyalexander.com.au/resources/uxd/personas.html
Identifying and selecting users for user-centered design
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1028060
Dealing with interviews when creating Personas: a practical approach
http://www.nada.kth.se/~adler/papers/2005-Adler-Persona-a_Practical_Approach.pdf
Personas in the Design Process: A tool for understanding others
http://etd.library.gatech.edu/handle/1853/11623
Personas, Participatory Design and Product Development: An Infrastructure for Engagement
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~comp4501/_2003/_Readings/GrudinPersonas.pdf
Creating and Using Personas and Scenarios to Guide Site Design
http://www.nycupa.org/past_events/razorfish-2003-05-20.pdf#search=%22persona%20research%20process%22
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
PodZinger's Alex Laats on Financials, APIs and a PodZinger Advertising Network
I had a previous Interview with PodZinger's Alex Laats in January of this year.

In this interview Laats discusses financials, APIs, PodZinger's upcoming advertising network launch and their new Spanish search offering.

Thanks to Jasmine Chng, who graciously helped make this happen.

1. Are you profitable? If not, when do you predict you will be?
PodZinger believes that the explosion of audio and video content will result in a re-allocation of advertising dollars that are currently delivered through broadcast radio and TV. In the US alone, the total advertising dollars delivered via broadcast radio and TV totaled $76 billion in 2005 (IAB/PWC). PodZinger’s audio and video search capability will be a crucial enabler in the re-allocation of these advertising dollars to the online world. Because of this large market, PodZinger believes it has an excellent opportunity to build a fast growing, highly profitable business. In terms of the details of our financials … sorry, we’re a private company, and we do not discuss our financials publicly.

2. From a percentage perspective are your partnerships or onsite advertising more valuable right now?
PodZinger’s business plan has two major elements, (1) the ongoing growth of the consumer-facing site and (2) the delivery of audio and video search on a “white label” basis for customers. So, PodZinger is working aggressively on both of these aspects of the business, and they have equal importance in the ongoing growth of the PodZinger business. You’ve seen that we have been rolling out co-branded sites, e.g. Rocketboom, Entercom and TED Talks, and you’ll continue to see a steady stream of them in the upcoming months. We are also dedicating a significant amount of resources to improving the way that advertising messages are delivered in connection with online audio and video content.

In the next month, we are formally introducing our own online video advertising network to both publishers and advertisers. Early reaction has been very positive and we think that this will grow quickly.

3. Where do you see those percentages in five years?
I anticipate that we’ll see the business split evenly between partnerships and onsite advertising.

4. How long could your company last on five million if you continued on at your present income levels?
As a private company, we do not discuss our financial plans publicly. Needless to say, the company is well capitalized to execute its plan, and the company is always building relationships with private equity investors for future rounds of financing.

5. Talk about your plans for advertising - right now you have AdSense. What is the timeline for sponsored audio/video ads? Would it make more sense to wait for Google to create an AdSense model for audio/video ads?
As I mentioned previously, we are kicking off our audio and video advertising network this Fall. PodZinger’s advertising program is unique because of our ability to assess “consumer intent” and to filter the best content from the less desirable. Consumer intent is assessed via a combination of query terms and usage filters, and PodZinger automatically classifies the incoming content using sophisticated natural language processing. The result is an ability to deliver more relevant audio and video ads to consumers, while making it possible for advertisers to associate with the most appropriate content for the delivery of their brand messages.

6. How many developers on the project?
Currently, we have approximately 20 developers on staff.

7. Can you describe the team and the process for the Spanish-language launch?
We have a very diverse product team hailing from different geographies, plus many of our speech technologists are well-versed in multiple languages including Spanish, Chinese, and Russian. As a result, the Spanish language launch was managed by the same team that manages PodZinger. We spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning the underlying technology to ensure high quality results in Spanish and we ran tests with Spanish speaking friends and family to iron out those often overlooked items such as the meaning of words and phrases or interpretations when an English site is translated.

8. Do you have plans for leveraging usage data for PodZinger users or advertisers?
Aggregate data on usage patterns helps PodZinger to deliver better search results for users and a more targeted audience for advertisers. The power of search is that this capability does not depend on any personally identifiable information. Any personal information for users, publishers and advertisers is considered private and is used solely for the purpose of enabling these constituents to manage their PodZinger accounts.

9. Would you/will you keep users anonymous the way that Findory does or would you keep them more public like YouTube?
All user information is private, in fact, any user can search for audio or video on PodZinger without the need to register.

10. How many RSS subscribers do you have?
PodZinger provides updates for thousands of RSS searches every day. We do not publish details regarding volumes of RSS searches, as these numbers are changing every day.

11. What are the most popular RSS subscription terms?
We find that we find that we have a long tail of very, very diverse subscriptions, that is from health-related topics to proper names to favorite sports teams. Most popular RSS subscriptions have to do with video and entertainment including video games. These are followed by RSS subscriptions for current events and politics, e.g. “iraq war”.

12. What are your thoughts about an API that would enable me, a hypothetical developer, to section out vertically oriented podcasts for my vertical content site? (Can I post JUST your search marketing and search interview podcasts in a box on SEL?)
PodZinger’s ability to classify content based on our sophisticated natural language processing technology makes applications such as your hypothetical possible. With PodZinger, the spectrum of new application ideas is very broad and very deep, and PodZinger’s product team is aggressively pursuing this and other application interfaces.

Our objective in all cases is to help improve the consumer experience, and your application idea is consistent with that goal, so we like it!

13. Why don't the majors offer podcast search? (Or do they?) Is it too challenging, do you have patents that protect you, is it not popular enough?
Right now the “majors” as you call them only search the metadata of audio and video files, including those of podcasts. Going beyond the metadata to search inside the audio and video is a very difficult thing to do. PodZinger is built on over 30 years of research in speech recognition and natural language processing from BBN Technologies. Post 9/11, the technology was greatly improved via a government program whose mission was to extract information more easily from audio. BBN was the leading participant in this government research program and went on to deliver specialized systems to the government for broadcast monitoring of foreign language broadcasts. This is not an easy problem to solve. It takes both money and a lot of time. We’ve solved this problem and the industry is beginning to take notice.

14. How many Spanish-language podcasts do you have now?
PodZinger has approximately 800 active Spanish-language audio and video podcasts as of today.

15. Why Spanish first instead of Chinese?
The audience for Spanish podcasts is very interesting particularly in the U.S. since Hispanics spend more time on line than the general population, with about two-thirds rating the importance of Spanish language content very high. The growth in Hispanic advertising was about 10% in 2005 vs. 3.4% for the general population. The available podcasts are very informative, relevant for current events and very good quality. Our early testing showed that they were very well received.

It is interesting that you mention Chinese’ since we have done some work in that area. The number of Chinese podcasts has been growing rapidly however, the biggest challenge is that many of these have not followed a standard convention for publication,i.e. RSS or audio and video formats. That is changing. I expect you’ll see a dedicated site sometime in the next year.

16. Do you compete head to head with Blinkx or do you have different customers?
PodZinger is recognized for its highly differentiated audio and video search capabilities. On the white label side of the business, PodZinger will often find itself in accounts that are currently using (or planning to deploy) Google or Yahoo for text-based search. These customers recognize PodZinger’s value proposition for audio and video and are working to deliver a best-in-breed solution with PodZinger side-by-side with the major text-based players. PodZinger rarely sees any other start-ups in target media accounts.

17. To whom do you think PodZinger and podcasting in general is mission-critical?
PodZinger is mission critical for consumers because it makes it possible to rapidly find the most relevant audio and video content, and then provides unprecedented access via PodZinger’s “jump-to” capability. For content creators and advertisers, PodZinger provides a nexus between consumers and targeted brand messages. The bottom line is that PodZinger is critical for anyone seeking to (a) deliver a great consumer experience for their audio and video content and (b) generate revenue based on relevant audio and video advertisements.

18. What keeps you awake at night?
The “idea space” for audio and video search is so vast that it is hard to rest while there are more opportunities to pursue. What keeps us grounded is our focus on continually improving the consumer experience with audio and video search while simultaneously pushing the envelope for online audio and video advertising.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Windows Live Search Review + Search Share Predictions
Windows Live Search recently came out of beta and now powers search on MSN.com. According to September 19th ComScore numbers, MSN is down 3.3% in search share from August of 2005 to August of 2006. They're down 0.3% from July to August of this year.

I start with these numbers because, like your conversion rates by engine, search share is an important factor for deciding what engines to be concerned about in your marketing efforts.

I'd like to note at the outset too that when Microsoft launches Vista I think we'll see those numbers go up as they integrate Windows Live Search into users' daily work activities. I think adCenter's going to get lots more interesting for advertisers, though it's going to take awhile.

I've not seen it overtly stated that Windows Live Search will be a part of Vista, though it's been shown that Microsoft Embeds Windows Live Links in New Vista Builds.

According to the MSN Search blog there are six new aspects of Windows Live Search. I went through point by point and gave my thoughts on each.

All predictions below for the affects of the changes on MSN's search share are for the next three months. MSN has a long way to go before they become my default search engine, but these are some pretty interesting changes overall that should provide a more unified search experience and strong potential for integration with Vista.

1) "scope bar"
This function enables searchers to switch from image search to video search without having to reenter their query. Pretty basic stuff but important - by tying disparate search functions together it could serve to increase search share a little. I'll put it at a 0.1% increase.

2) "related searches"
The related search function helps users refine their searches. I see this as a Berkowitz addition, as its position and functionality is similar to Ask's concept zoom. It's a great way for MSN to get quick information about its relevance. I'm not able to discern if the WLS query refinements are derived from direct user behavior or a machine's estimation of concepts. I'll give this one a 0.1% increase too.

3) "image search"
WLS image search has endless scroll, which is nice for images. WLS used to have endless scroll for its web search results.

The MSN blog talks about image search features like "dynamic image resizing," "related people lists" and a "scratch pad" for saving your images for future reference. I saw nothing of these on my Oprah Winfrey search, perhaps because I'm not logged in. I'm curious about the scratch pad, whether these will become searchable in themselves. Companies like PreFound and JetEye have all-media scratch pads of sorts, as do Google and Yahoo.

Image search is one of the fastest growing areas of search right now, according to the CEO of Pixsy. I'll give these improvements a 0.1% increase in overall search share.

4) "local search"
Greg Sterling provided an excellent review of this aspect of WLS in Windows Live Local Better, But Still Not There. He notes that local results have been augmented with web results.

I don't see this coming anywhere close to Yahoo's local search, which enables users to add their own reviews to local business listings. I'm not going to allow any search share increase for this one.

5) "live QnA"
The Windows Live response to Yahoo Answers. And Google Answers. And many other live question and answer services before it.

This is a fun but unproven area of search in terms of monetization. I'd love to hear from Yahoo how Answers has affected searcher behavior, and what types of queries move from algorithmic search to Answers (Yahoo's down a .1% from July to August...). Like local, I don't think this will have a significant affect on search share.

6) "video search beta"
I'm not sure where they're getting videos - they appear all to be mainstream geneterated rather than user or amateur created as you're more likely to see on YouTube. Video search is big now - I think this will have a short term boost (three month) on search share but that it won't be sustained. .1% I'd say.

Overall
So, overall I think we'll see Windows Live Search increase by .5% in search share over the next three months. And when/if Windows Live search is integrated into Vista I think we'll see that search share increase, as will their adCenter offerings.

Resources:
Windows Live Search goes live
Who’s using Live Search?
Microsoft Upgrades Live Search Offerings
MSN Says Live.com Referral Bug "Not By Design"
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
8 Social Shopping Sites + Ideas for Testing their Marketing Value
I read about 2 new-to-me social search sites yesterday and decided to take this opportunity to share the new ones I heard of plus several I've had catalogued but not published.

Springwise hipped me to:
Crowdstorm
http://www.crowdstorm.com/
Crowdstorm would be, based on my first glance, a good tool for folks who like to buy new stuff first. Crowdstorm will help users determine, based on buzz from blogs and comments from other users, whether that sexy new cell phone is worth buying.

ThisNext
http://www.thisnext.com/
ThisNext enables users to create and label lists. Such as Artisan Wines Under $20. Further, you can publish wishlists or recommendation lists on your own site. I wonder if Amazon will enable this (have they already?).

And here's what I'd put together for that social search article but won't be including because it's too granular:

dealbundle
http://www.dealbundle.com
If you sell goods based on price then consider becoming a member of dealbundle and submitting your deals to its members. Your prices will be reviewed by the dealbundle community and rated. It's Digg, but for good deals.

Quick test: If you sell on price, pick your lowest priced product, check dealbundle for competition and undercut them. See what happens for a week.

Zixxo
http://www.zixxo.com
Online coupons with a social twist - use Zixxo to create coupons and the Zixxo community will tag them and rate them for each other. Further, Zixxo users can subscribe to feeds in which your coupons will appear if they subscribe to your category. Site requires registration, which is likely to slow adoption.

Quick test: like dealbundle, Zixxo is great for those who sell on price. Unlike dealbundle, Zixxo enables its coupon creators to drive traffic to brick and mortar stores as well as ecommerce stores. You have complete control over how long your deal is good for. Once you create a coupon post it in dealbundle. Test two birds with one stone.

Yahoo Shopping
http://shopping.yahoo.com/shoposphere/
Yahoo enables shoppers to create "pick lists." Target created one for its patio furniture. Creativity and utility are both huge plusses here. Standouts from today (7-21-6) include the cheeky but insightful "Jean Guide for Men", and the dorky but endearing "I want to be Napoleon Dynamite." Both lists include commentary and items for purchase.

Quick test: Tell your favorite customers about Yahoo's pick lists. Incent them to create pick lists that include your products. Create a pick list with your company's top selling products perhaps as a way of sharing the Yahoo social shopping experience with them.

MyPickList
http://www.mypicklist.com/
Sort of like Amazon, except they pay if items that users recommend are purchased. This is more of a serendipity find site than a good deal hunting site.

Quick test: you have to be an affiliate on this one, because the site pays recommenders of its affiliate members only. Try this if you're an affiliate, but my guess is that in the long term this model will be too limiting for strong and sustained growth.

StyleHive
http://www.stylehive.com/
Stylehive enables the stylish set to login and post especially stylish finds. This site is crucial to boutique fashion site marketers and no one else. If you participate be strategic - try just mentioning the site to your site visitors first rather than posting anything.

Quick test: Incent your customers to list your products in StyleHive, and share the site with them as a resource for their endless pursuit of personal style.

Wists
http://www.wists.com/
This goes in the stylish category along with stylehive, though it covers a wider range of items. The userbase appears to be "hipsters."

Quick test: Incent your customers to list your products there, and to check the site out as a resource for finding cool stuff.

First 2 social shopping sites via: Social shopping | Update

Allegedly social shopping sites for consideration for this list, from the Springwise post:
http://www.shopwiki.com/
http://www.kaboodle.com/
www.zlio.com
http://www.amie.st

From twistermc in comments: http://wize.com/

What social shopping sites (besides Amazon and eBay ;P) am I missing?

Ad for MSI:
If you'd like to take a creative approach to your holiday marketing call MSI's Elliott Greene at (877) 433-3013 and he'll set up conversations with me, JP Sherman and Geoff Lamm on competitive intelligence and integrating your media buys, social media, search and email marketing for maximum holiday ROI.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Pixsy to Offer PixsyPower: Video Search Monetization for Blogs and MySpace
I just spoke for two hours with Chase Norlin, CEO of video/image search site Pixsy. My longer post will come out some time next week, but I wanted to get a couple of scoopy things out there.

First, Pixsy's soon to launch PixsyPower, which enables bloggers, MySpace users and vertical sites to create their own video and image thumbnail indexes. And Pixsy pays out a portion of revenue.

Think of it as a Eurekster for video and images, only Pixsy owns their own index (does Eurekster have a Yahoo index?).

(oop - he mentioned PixsyPower last month... not a scoop, but still cool.)

Second, Pixsy launched StarHabit last week, a celebrity vertical. They have plans for 30 more verticals in the next 6 months. The next one is a news vertical. RSS fed video and image thumbnails means their site has video 15 minutes after it hits the web.

Cool stuff - look for a more in depth interview next week. Thanks Chase.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Sending Gifts by Text Message
Springwise reports on Cadeaucode, a Dutch company that enables users to buy products for people and then send text codes to recipients that they can redeem online.

Check out the post Gifts by text message, which points out that gift code redemption is old hat in email.

Apparently the gift options are limited on purpose, and "gifts are provided to Cadeaucode at no cost by brands hoping to gain a bit of inexpensive exposure."

Imagining Cadeaucode + Google's mobile ads gives me visions of fat stacks of cash.

Also from Springwise, this you owe me a beer text messaging service would have been great for Andy's drinks for links campaign ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Gaming Search Engine Gazerk Gets a New Look and Feel
When Ziff Davis and the 1UP network rolled out their vertical search engine Gazerk, as a gamer and an industry watcher, I wrote a review about it. That review was pretty scathing and while I firmly believe in the usefulness of vertical based search, I felt that Gazerk’s design issues were a barrier to their target audience. To give a little bit of history, Gazerk’s interface was essentially pink text on a black background. I wrote, back in May, that the SERP (search engine results page) was almost an assault on the user. Google, MSN and Yahoo have all set the standard high in terms of design and layout. I wrote that it appeared that Gazerk essentially ignored their target audience and ignored best practices in search design.

With their new design, they have obviously corrected almost all of those issues and presented a new design that is sleek and very cool.

There are two principles that Gazerk failed to implement when they first launched.

1: Provide relevant information in a format designed for scanning. Initially Gazerk’s interface was too much of a visual assault for users to not notice. That, I believe, was the key to Gazerk’s problem. Users noticed the design more than they noticed the results. In search engines, it’s the results that really matter and the design should enhance and guide the users, not stand out. It’s like plumbing, you only really notice it when something goes wrong. In the new design, Gazerk is user friendly and displays information and results in a template that is familiar and intutivie. The color design is accessible and doesn't get in the way of the actual results. The results themselves are organized, easy to read and provide enough information for the user to be confident that what they are about to click on is what they want to see.

2: Know your target audience and give them what the need and what they expect. Every site should focus on the informational needs of the users. Gamers are task and goal oriented. They need to be informed and attracted to the product or service in order to continue to use the site and ultimately convert. While Gazerk provided their users with information, they presented it in a way that didn't suit their users' needs or expectations.

User purposes can be categorized by the following:
· Users may come to a website because of a personal interest
· Users may be searching for specific information that helps them learn, make decisions, or take action
· Users may be looking to buy a product or service
· Users may need to communicate, share information, or perform tasks.

Gamers are notorious for wanting the latest information about upcoming games, recently released games, cheats, mods, downloads, videos and other game related media. The gaming industry feeds that desire by releasing snippets of information, new videos, new developer diaries, contests, interviews and other marketing media to feed that interest. Gazerk has a hungry audience that is ready to search for information The gaming industry lobbed a soft-ball to Gazerk by creating a user base that is starved for information… all Gazerk had to do is provide that information and hit it out of the park. After Gazerk's redesign, it paves the way for them to start enhancing their search capabilities, adding different and unique functionalities and serving their community.

Gamers Get Gazerk: Redux

Jason Freidenfelds, the PR manager for the 1UP Network, which includes EGM, OPM, CGW, FileFront.com, GameTab.com, and 1UP.com shot me an email last week letting me know that Gazerk just completed a redesign (along with a few under-the-hood upgrades as well).

Gazerk’s Home Page

I went to the newly upgraded Gazerk and I must say that I was impressed. Gazerk’s new look is sleek and clean. The search function is central and very well placed. The Gazerk logo hovers, with its little space invader reminding me of all those hours I wasted in grade school. The last time I wrote about Gazerk, I made a pretty snarky comment about its retro design. However, the logo coupled with the new look is actually quite reminiscent and cool. It’s an interesting statement to notice that my mood was instantly affected by Gazerk’s old design and how that mood affected my analysis of every other aspect. As before, it is instantly obvious to the user what they need to do to go forward. Once I enter the search term, I am no longer concentrating on the design, in fact, I’m not even noticing it. The design enhances the homepage without overpowering it. Very Nice!

I do however, have a critique. On the homepage, below the search bar, Gazerk makes the following statement: ”Welcome to GAZERK: the Web's only search engine dedicated to finding videogame content!” While Gazerk is currently the only exclusively gaming oriented search engine in the US, the Wazap! Network captures millions of users in Germany and Japan. Wazap! is currently expanding into other markets as well such as China and the US. When Wazap! enters the US market, I believe that the competition is going to heat up between Gazerk and Wazap! to capture the interest of the US gaming community. When that happens, the real winners will be the gaming community.

The Search Results… Design and Relevance

The last time I talked about Gazerk’s design and relevance I chose a game that is going to be coming out in the not too distant future: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar from Turbine Inc. What I did was take the exact same keyword search on Google, MSN and Yahoo compared to the results in Gazerk. I took the top 15 in Google and the top 10 in MSN and Yahoo to compare the results of the search in Gazerk. What I found was that the top 6 results for Gazerk fall in fairly well in terms of relevance with the results from the other search engines. Gazerk’s outliers, the last 4 results, (it’s really a toss up to include Turbine’s forums, because they are a part of the official Lord of the Rings Online network, however, because they still don’t appear in the other results, I will include them), don’t appear in any of the other searches. Naturally, you want some variation between search engines, you don’t want to discount the results, the true test is if those results are relevant and not “spammy” or obviously off the mark. Gazerk’s search result outliers add to the variety of results rather than detract from them.

The fact that Gazerk gets different results is not an issue in and of itself. However, the only thing that I don’t like is the fact that Turbine’s official LotRO page is the first result on Google, MSN, and Yahoo and #4 on Gazerk and like the last time I did this experiment, using The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion as a keyword search, neither Bethsoft or The Elder Scrolls homepage came up on the results. Naturally, that kind of refinement takes time and I look forward to keeping track of how Gazerk changes its relevance.

My suspicion about those results lead me to hypothesize that Gazerk's linking algorithm is still a bit immature. With Google, MSN and Yahoo, they are able to determine very high quality links coming to the site. However, with Gazerk, it may recognize those links as incoming and relevant, the algorithm may just not be robust enough to determine the value of those links. Secondly, because of the specific nature of Gazerk, it may be possible that the crawler itself is not crawling sites that link to gaming related content. With time, as Gazerk indexes more and more pages these issues may possibly self correct over time.

In terms of design, Gazerk has done a good job with the results page. The primary aspect that I really like is the top positioned “Latest News” section. Very nice Gazerk, this is a good solution to keep up with the pace of information. The rest of the page conforms to a quick scanning “F” shaped pattern. The filters show up and it’s intuitive to the user what they do, and they are in a great position for the user to click on them rather than refine their keyword search. The only critique I have about the results page is the light grey URL below the description, but for all things considered, it’s really a minor suggestion and much more “personal preference”. When I forwarded the newly designed Gazerk to a friend and co-gamer, he said “muuuuch nicer, I like the design…but it’s still got pink”. While I still don’t like the pink, I think that it separates the results from the filters nicely, I just wouldn’t have chosen that color.

Why Gazerk and not Google?

In theory, search engines are all about the results. However, as we see Google add everything from maps, satellite pictures and even spreadsheets to their site, it’s obvious that the goal of search engines is to become almost a total usefulness portal. It’s no longer the focus of Google, MSN or Yahoo to have people come to their site just so they can leave. Google’s personalized page is my homepage, on it I get information about everything from Gmail to Wired News to Scientific American to the MMOG news site Ten Ton Hammer. The whole concept of Google is to allow the user to determine what information they want to see, and to provide the search results that best fit the user’s preferences.

Gazerk taps into that desire to customize information by having the search filters. The user can search for a game, and with a mouse-click, they can get information about blogs, screenshots, news, downloads, videos and cheats. Beyond that, they don’t really add more. To put that in perspective, Gazerk has been around for only a few months, and Google has been around for years. I'm sure that the creative people at Ziff Davis have a few upgrades planned. As the needs of the users increase, Gazerk will have to be on the forefront of those needs to stay fresh, relevant and useful.

It’s undeniable that the Ziff Davis network knows games, they’ve spent years perfecting their art and reputation. While they’re new on the search engine front, it’s going to be an exciting time to see how they add their expertise to Gazerk as more media moves online.

Conclusions and Last Thoughts

It’s exciting to see Gazerk changing through iterations. It’s that kind of mobility and flexibility that will help them capture more and more users. Despite my minor critiques, I like what they’ve done with the site, I like the changes and I like the fact that they are continuing to tweak the engine under the hood. Am I going to switch from searching Google to Gazerk? I just added their plugin for the FireFox browser to my search bar and I will be putting Gazerk through some more tests over time. If they continue to provide good information and if I find that they consistently have what I want to find, I will probably find myself using it more and more. I have always liked Ziff Davis and I am thoroughly enjoying my experience on the 1UP network as well. Gazerk has made some very good first steps in the right direction. However, with the global Wazap! gaming search engine making some serious inroads, I look forward to seeing how Gazerk responds to the emerging challenge.

JP Sherman is the Manager of Business Intelligence for MarketSmart Interactive. His team includes experts in usability and design, competitive intelligence and analytics. He's always open to have a conversation about a wide range of subjects, from search engines, to statistics, from online gaming to behavioral analysis. Contact JP Sherman at jp.sherman@marketsmartinteractive.com to start that conversation.

J. P. Sherman MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Social Search and Other Moving Targets
I finished my second draft of Andrey's article on social search marketing today.

Below are some of the bits I cut because they were needless to my framework. And overly redundant through repeated mentionings of ideas repeated earlier in the text. Or off base. I hope you find them useful:

Your social search marketing efforts should be an extension of your current industry participation efforts.

Market conversation through good-will community involvement (blog writing, blogger outreach/PR, article writing, forum participation, target-audience media research and experimentation, public speaking, etcetera) is the necessary core of any social search optimization project.

If your company or clients don't currently create content that users/readers find valuable it is not likely that you are a candidate for social search optimization.

The Importance of Social Search to Marketers
I submit to you that social search is important to the search marketing community - both paid and organic - for the following
reasons:

a) Social search in some of its iterations enables communities to directly determine niche relevance for themselves. Theoretically this can increase community loyalty and usage, especially for niche sites with already strong followings.

b) Social search promotes the fragmentation of methods by which people find and discover relevant information. Much as cable television has drawn viewers away from network television, we will see niche-targeted social search draw searchers away from the big 4 mainstream search engines.

c) Social search is fertile soil for CPA search ad models because it's both untested and its environment is one of interactivity. We will likely see new paid search models emerge from social search as the current crop of funded companies seeks revenue.

e) None of the emerging social search sites are spam proof, and though I'm not a proponent of search engine manipulation tactics that don't benefit searchers, blackhats should be placing limited bets in the social search engines that appear to drive the most traffic. This article will not investigate what I consider to be value-draining contributions however.

And thanks to Rohit Bhargava for links to The Human Side of Search, a presentation he gave at this year's Search Insider Summit.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
My Social Search Optimization Article Revision Resources
In the time that I wrote my first draft of social search optimization for the Search Marketing Standard to my current revision stage there's been a great deal of writing, thought and developments in the nebulous social search space.

Particularly the emergence of the social media optimization concept, which I have not crunched yet.

As I sit down for some earnest revisions to this article I wanted to share some of the readings I'm doing to make for a stronger piece.

framing social search:
Who’s Who in Social Search
What's the Big Deal With Social Search?
Social Search: Is it Real Yet?

social media optimization:
New Rules for Social Media Optimization
5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)
Social Media Optimization : 13 Rules of SMO

social search news:
Social search site pays users to find answers
The secret to Yahoo Answers' success
Diigo as a master social bookmarking tool
Yahoo! Answers launches API
Yahoo Answers Gets a Search Result Makeover

Also, be sure to check out Search Marketing Standard's most recent issue. Now that I've encountered Andrey Milyan's editorial prowess first hand I recognize that they will have consistantly strong content.

In addition to adding great value to articles with his red pen, Milyan posts on the SMS search blog.

update: Possibly useful paragraphs I cut from article.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Interview with Become's CTO Yeogirl Yun: Communities, Mobile, the AIR Algorithm Advantage
Yeogirl Yun has long been on my interview wish list. His work at WiseNut, MySimon and now Become.com have shown him to be a superior architect in the shopping search space. Spend some time with Become if you haven't before.

Its usability and smart design attest to me of the quality of Mr. Yun's thought and his internal tech leadership.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him and learned a great deal about where Become is now and where it's headed. Mr. Yun shares some possible vertical directions, as well as offering the intriguing glimpse of future innovations that involve shopping communities.

I hope search marketers find this article useful for its look into where shopping search is headed, and that search engine developers find it useful for the expertise Mr. Yun shares.

General:
1) Question: What would you estimate is Become's shopping search share?

Answer: We launched just over a year ago and Become.com has already become one of the top comparison shopping sites and, according to ComScore, the fastest growing. Right now we have over 1.5 million users visiting us every month, and are looking forward to especially rapid growth during the upcoming holiday shopping season.

2) Question: What metrics are most useful to you in determining Become's success? Can you discuss where those metrics are now in relation to a year ago? Where would you like them in a year from now?

Answer: We have two key external groups to serve. First are our users, and site traffic and merchant clickout rates are good measures of the job we are doing.

The better we serve our users, the more often they will come back and the more people they will tell about us. In addition, when we do a great job of helping users through the research and shopping process, they are more likely to clickout to the merchants participating in our comparison shopping service.
The second group we serve is our merchant partners. They want highly qualified leads, so we look at both conversion rates (as reported by merchants) as well as bid prices. As we continue to create greater value for merchants, they are increasingly willing to bid up CPCs for the high ROI traffic we deliver.

One year ago, we had just launched our combined Research and Comparison Shopping, and we’ve seen huge traffic growth coupled with corresponding growth to merchant leads and CPCs. We’ve grown significantly every quarter and the upcoming holiday season should see an even more rapid expansion.

3) Question: Where is Become in its development? Where do you see it in five years?

Answer: We have built a solid platform with our AIR™ ranking technology, 3.2 billion page index and comparison shopping. We also have some very innovative features such as dynamic suggestions and our new Search Zoom feature and we are constantly innovating.

For shopping, our goal is to be the first destination people choose when they are looking to research and buy products. In five years I’d love to hear people say “When I want general information I go to Google, but when I’m looking for products to buy I go to Become.com.” AIR™ is a highly scalable vertical search technology, so, in the future, you may see us expanding into other vertical search areas like travel and health.

Also, we are looking beyond the U.S. We recently launched our site in Japan (www.become.co.jp) and have created a globally expansible technology platform. (see SEL's interview with Become Japan's CEO Masahiro Ueno)

technology:
4) Question: building a crawler using Java - how and why is this a big deal to the developer community? what languages are most crawlers built in? do you use Java in your new developments?

Answer: In hindsight, it was not a big deal to write a crawler in Java.

But back then (2 1/2 years ago), most crawlers were written in C++. (I have still not heard anyone claim that they have written a crawler in Java that crawls more than billions of web pages.)

You can write a simple crawler that crawls a million pages in a school project. But in order to scale it up to a billion pages, there are serious architectural and implementation challenges which demand a very high efficiency in IO and CPU usage.

We overcame those challenges with an innovative distributive architecture and ingenious algorithms which take advantage of Java’s clean-architecture style of programming benefits (which help avoid debugging-intensive tasks such as detailed multi-threaded implementation and memory management).

Java has advanced quite a lot ever since it was introduced and remains one of the best programming languages when it comes to a serious, scalable architectural problem. We also use Java in a variety of other projects, including our next-generation crawler platform called CyberShuttle. C++ and Java are very complementary and bring unique merits. We use about equal amounts of C++ and Java.

5) Question: You developed the crawler in - nine months was it? (it was actually three months) - this seems quite fast. Can you describe that process? Had you developed at that pace in the past? What would have been a reasonable/average pace for that project?

Answer: At Become, every project moves at lightning speed. With only about a dozen engineers, we completed development of a fully functional search engine in nine months. The crawler was operational in three months . We hired an extremely strong team that worked exceptionally hard to meet these deadlines. As a comparable, I recall reading a BusinessWeek report describing how Microsoft spent 20 months and $150M to develop their search engine (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2005/tc2005022_6663_tc024.htm)

directions:
6) Question: In what ways are you leveraging user data to increase the value of Become to your users and advertisers?
(I'm following up on this one -G)

7) Question: in what ways is mobile/local search in Become's future? maps?

Answer: Local and mobile are highly interconnected. Local becomes much more powerful once it’s on a device you always have with you. We have already launched a Nearby Stores feature that lets users find local stores that have the products they are searching for.

Example: http://www.become.com/shop?q=ipod&pid=206234272&mid=2048&zip=94043

We have also worked to make Become.com accessible on some of the leading-edge mobile devices like Treo and BlackBerry. Our CEO Michael Yang uses Become on his Treo all the time to check online prices and information before making offline purchases.

8) Question: What are your thoughts on tracking buying behavior and providing product recommendations, or sending out pricing alerts? In other words, why can't users "join" Become for a different level of services?

Answer: First, we believe that personal privacy is very important, and we do not collect personal data without consent. We have, however, recently been investigating the power of online communities and their impact on shopping. You can look forward to announcements in this area in the future.

9) Question: Your SERPs have no entry point for my personal experience, whether that's experience with a product, a vendor, an information source or even the collection of links and text you provide. Why is this?

Answer: Many companies have tried to get their users to enter product reviews, rate vendors, etc. We initially focused on helping people read not only the reviews of Become users, but also all of the valuable reviews located across the web. To this end, we have used our search engine to crawl over three billion pages of shopping-related content and provide an extremely comprehensive set information that our competitors can’t match.

10) Question: What are your thoughts on price prediction technologies such as http://www.farecast.com/? For what products in Become would this make sense? How does this or doesn't it fit in with Become's mission?

Answer: The issues on price prediction are mostly around scalability and market forces. Each type of product has different rules that govern how prices change over time. A company like farecast is trying to back work the systems used by the airlines, but for many items there isn’t a system per se, just market forces. In a particular vertical like travel though, price prediction would fit very well with Become’s mission which is to help people make ideal buying decisions.

11) Question: Are you familiar with mpire, which shows average sale prices for products on eBay, giving shoppers the "true value" of a product? How would this or wouldn't it fit in with Become's mission?

Answer: If you have enough buyers and sellers for an item to create something close to “perfect competition,” you arrive at the true value of the product. So Become is able to offer “true value” information to our users.

Become has multiple merchants for most top products and these stores sell thousands of each item, so the prices naturally gravitate toward the “true value.” The value we show is also a more complete measure since it reflects the fact that people will pay more to some sellers than others.

Shoppers take things like brand value and quality of service into account.

12) Question: discuss the split screen for research and shopping: how did this idea evolve and develop? how do you determine if it's successful or not?

Answer: We wanted to help shoppers get all the information that they need in one place. Showing them great web search on what/how to buy alongside comparison shopping to determine where to buy was a natural integration. Since the launch, we have done user testing and focus groups to continue to improve this experience.

Our first version just had one column of products on the right side of the screen which some users mistook for static ads since that’s where Google and many others place ads. So we added price and brand filters along with a second column of products. With that change, users clearly understood both the integration and the value it provides.

AIR:
13) Question: What kind of competitive advantage does AIR give Become?

Answer: AIR is a hidden jewel in the search industry. We have not done extensive publicity yet due to our patent and IP strategy. AIR gives additional dimension to the existing link analysis algorithms. It is not just an incremental improvement over PageRank.

AIR is a systematic framework, founded on a sound mathematical model inspired by physical phenomena, to allow inclusion of vertical context and thus differential authority to the analysis of link structure on the web. Google’s PageRank projects authority purely based on the popularity of a web page derived from its static link structure.

Become’s AIR projects authority based on both the context of a web page and differential authority it receives from its dynamic link structure. I say “dynamic link structure” because AIR treats link property dynamically rather than staticly.

14) Question: Does AIR work better on the more structured data that you analyze for shopping than the "wild web" that web search engines provide?

Answer: AIR is only applicable to the “wild web.” For more structured data such as merchant data feeds, a conventional IR technology is well suited.

15) Question: In other words - what's stopping Google, MSN, Yahoo or Ask from copying your AIR concepts if they truely are superior in terms of quality?

Answer: It is the patent. We have already filed two patents around AIR technology and are doing our best to protect our core intellectual property. I am sure they will immediately appreciate the superiority of AIR as it becomes widely known. However, it is very difficult for them to just copy the algorithm and use it in their search because AIR is a vertical search algorithm. It is not very applicable to general search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN.

making money:
16) Question: what percentage of Become's income is AdSense and what is direct from merchants? what is your most profitable/strongest vertical for direct sales? how about for AdSense?

Answer: The majority of Become’s income comes from merchants that participate in our comparison shopping service. AdSense links appear on the bottom of our pages and serve as a backup source of revenue.

Top categories of products include Apparel, Home&Garden, and Electronics.

17) Question: you guys have a history of flipping your projects. how does this affect your approach to building your business? what internal processes and infrastructure do you put in place to ensure that your project thrives after you sell? are there conscious processes you follow?

Answer: Great technology and businesses are often acquired. We are committed to grow this business in the long term, but at the same time we have to do what’s best for the shareholder’s interest.

In case of MySimon and WiseNut, I believe acquisition was the right choice. At Become, we have a solid management and engineering team. We also have very refined and rigorous engineering processes for development, deployment, documentation, and code releases. I am very confident that even in case of a potential acquisition, the business and its technology at Become will thrive under a right guidance and leadership of the acquiring company.

personal:
18) Question: what drew you to study law in Korea after selling WiseNut? was it hard to leave your studies and do you wish to pursue law further?

Answer: I had some interest in studying law when I was getting my undergraduate degree. After the sale of Wisenut, I had to leave the US due to my visa status. 2002 was not a very good year to start a new venture given the economic downturn and Internet bubble burst. So I thought it was very opportune to study law.

I enjoy studying for the sake of studying. Studying helps me keep my mind and body healthy. In Korea, law study is a big deal. People spend several years in a Spartan study program to pass the exam. I only spent 14 months in studying. I have not passed the test, but I learned a great deal during these 14 months. I was quite happy with my test score, which was only slightly below the cut-line.

I occasionally have the urge to go back and finish the test, but I think it’s primarily based on the pride I take in doing things well. I intend to continue my endeavor in technology innovation and entrepreneurship.

I used the following interviews and writings to develop my questions for Mr. Yun:
Q and A With Become CTO Yeogirl Yun
Become.com's Web Crawler: A Massively Scaled Java Technology Application
Competing with Google
Starting Up, Post-Bubble 2005
Become.com Founders Aiming for Google-Sized Success
Interview With Michael Yang of Become.com
Become Launches Filtering Feature Called Search Zoom
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

 
Search Engine Consultant Joe Holcomb Finishes Up Gig With ExactSeek and Jayde Online
Joe Holcomb reached out to me regarding ExactSeek a month ago, resulting in: Mel Strocen on ExactSeek Relaunch and the ISEDN Second Tier Search Engine Network.

Holcomb's a former SVP of Marketing for BlowSearch and was a Business Development Manager for Kanoodle. Now he's a search engine consultant as he seeks funding for his AIGateway search project.

He wrote a post today that wrapped up his work with ExactSeek and Jayde, and gave a bit of information about his resposibilities:

"My role was in helping Jayde to expand its marketing reach a little bit and to establish a schedule and habit around maintaining contact with the industry insiders and keep them aware of the developments of Jayde’s various brands.

We consolidated a lot of marketing materials for the ISEDN and I assisted Barry in getting that organization through its first debut at SES. I helped spec changes for ExactSeek and supported in whatever way I could based on the other needs they had."

In his post he offered some useful thoughts for other search startups:

"I personally believe it is crucial to any smaller search and online marketing company’s success to have that level of communication whether or not you get ANY traction from it. You create evangelists for your products and/or services for when you have exciting opportunities. Over time because of that level of communication your horizon can greatly expand. It takes time and plenty of legwork but it’s definitely worth it."

This post is to let my search start up readers know about a strong player who's up for draft ;)

Check Joe Holcomb's blog for contact info - and dig his Danny Sullivan prediction: "Danny Sullivan + Brett Tabke = A whole new universe for WebmasterWorld.com."
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |