US Regulators Clear Google-DoubleClick Deal
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 12/20 at 10:31 AM |
Google’s three billion-dollar acquisition of DoubleClick was approved by the FTC this morning. They aren’t out of the woods yet as the deal will not be 100% finalized until approval is given by the European Commission which has a self-imposed deadline of April 2nd to complete its review. Should the deal receive full sanctioning, it will broaden Google’s reach for online advertising by giving them access to major advertisers such as Sports Illustrated, Friendster and MTV Networks whom DoubleClick has exclusive contracts with.
OrlandoSentinel.com Re-design
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 06/22 at 04:08 PM |
The Orlando Sentinel has recently launched a re-design of its Web site. Mike Thomas, a popular columnist for the paper, has rounded up some reader reviews of the site over on his blog.
Orlando PRSA Links
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 05/17 at 02:43 PM |
I had the chance today to address a large group of public relations professionals at the Orlando chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (www.prsaorlando.org). As part of my talk, I promised to post some links of some of the sites we discussed. Here is a brief run-down:
Thanks again to the group for having me...I genuinely enjoyed the exchange!
Just how important is Google?
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 04/11 at 01:57 PM |
Reuters is reporting that Google accounted for 64% of all searches in March according to Hitwise. Yahoo got about 22% and MSN had roughly 9%.
Next week Yahoo and Google will report their quarterly financial statements as well. When those are released, keep an eye out for the size of their increases. Yahoo has released their new search marketing system to more and more advertisers recently which is drawing a lot of attention. So we will see if there is any immediate impact from that and if people feel compelled to abandon adWords for it.
Ernie Els & Co. Take Tavistock Cup
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 03/28 at 11:55 AM |
I had a chance to catch a few holes of the Tavistock Cup yesterday. It is a truly extraordinary golf event put on by our client, Tavistock Group. The event was held at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club and features many of the world's top golfers including Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen, Mark O'Meara, and Ernie Els. Congratulations to the Lake Nona team which beat the Isleworth team handily! Congratulations to the entire Tavistock family, a truly remarkable company, who put on another fabulous event.
Social Networking's Gold Rush
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 03/03 at 08:14 AM |
The New York Times has an interesting article today about social networking and its next phase. Most have followed the meteoric rise of social networking sites like MySpace.com, FaceBook, and others. They became so very popular when users discovered that they could not just read content, but congregate with others around the content, communicate with others about the content, and in some ways actually become the content. Advertising dollars and investment capital have quickly followed.
At this point, it seems like countless sites are trying to figure out how to tap into the social networking phenomenon (and capital pool). You hear fairly often that we're going to be "the MySpace of X" or "the MySpace of Y." While this isn't necessarily a bad goal, I wonder how realistic it is.
The article in The Times brings up two good points. First, it's tough to convince users to join a social networking site when there are few other members; starting from scratch has even proven difficult for Nike's Joga.com. Second, it is inconvenient for users to go through the registration process for more than one or two of these sites.
It's almost a necessity for every corporation to be thinking about social networking and how to integrate it into a marketing and/or customer service strategy. But I think that most would do better to explore joining existing ommunities instead of creating new ones.
Google: Getting to the Top
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 02/13 at 02:05 PM |
Almost every day I entertain the question of how one can snatch a number one listing on Google for a particular keyword or keyphrase. As anyone who has worked with search engines know, this is not at all a simple answer. There are too many variables to consider in terms of industry, stature in the marketplace, target market, and longevity. My typical tact is to try not to give a definitive answer (because, often, one does not exist) but to help clients think about how Google functions and how it might work for them. Similar to the 'training versus educating' line of demarcation, the first step toward Google success is learning how to think about it.
In my conversations with clients, I try and help them think through several concepts related to how Google functions with a Web site and how it assigns rankings. Many of the mechanics of Google are trade secrets (think the Coca-Cola recipe) and unknown by anyone outside of a select few employees. There are several widely accepted principles, though, that guide search engine marketers in how to cozy up to high Google rankings.
For the sake of simplicity, let's think of these accepted principles in two categories:
1. On-site factors: Google takes a look at the content and structure of your Web site to determine how relevant it is to a particular keyword or keyphrase
2. Off-site factors: Google looks at the greater Internet (factors external to your Web site) and how it relates to your site
Once you understand this delineation, you're on the way to understanding higher rankings. Let's take a look at some of the invididual principles within each of these categories.
On-site factors
1. Google cares about your content, how original and genuine it is, how often it is updated, and how many times a particular keyword/keyphrase is used.
2. Google looks for specific, descriptive tags (called META tags and TITLE tags) and the keywords therein.
3. The presence of a site map (similar to an outline) within your Web site denotes structure, organization, and a specific hierarchy to Google.
4. Google evaluates your site to determine how structurally sound (i.e. strong coding) your site is as a measure of its relevance.
5. Google can't often interpret images and FLASH content, so the site must contain a balance between readable text and graphics.
Off-site factors
1. Google counts the number of sites that link to yours.
2. Google determines how relevant/important those linking sites are; a link from a heavily-visited site is more valuable than a link from a site with little traffic.
3. Google looks to see how long your domain has been existence and in its database; as a rule of thumb, domains with longer lives are seen as more legitimate.
4. Google evaluates the text within incoming links as a way to characterize what words are associated with your site.
5. Google looks to other closely-related sites like a corporate blog or other affiliated site as a way to determine how relevant your site is.
This list isn't meant to represent a be-all / end-all. Anyone who tells you that they have such a list is likely exaggerating (or violating a Google patent protection). It hopefully is, though, a start toward helping you to strategically think about Google and how to find your way to the top!
Vroom, Vroom... Increasing Traffic Online
|
Posted By Rochelle Knight on 02/06 at 03:46 PM |
In the spirit of my post-Super Bowl glow (yay Colts!), I came across this blog about Toyota Tundra’s commercials’ “actual demonstration” disclaimer.
Now, I usually don’t pay too much attention to the ads unless they’re pretty funny but I did in fact see one and thought something along the lines of “Actual demonstration? That’s weird they’d put that there since that would take a lot of work.”
Turns out I was wrong as well. More interesting to me now is that the end of the video had no compelling call to action to go to toyota.com to see the behind-the-scenes video.
Well, I went to the site today and the video -- although shorter than I expected -- is surprisingly interesting. Even though it's a great idea, I just can't help but feel that if you were going to spend money on an ad during the pricey Super Bowl timeslots, then there should have been a call to action to push viewers to go online for the video. By using a cross-media reference, the web site's traffic would have increased as well as audience exposure (to more than just the one truck) without costing any more.
Though I’m now promoting the video myself, I would be curious to see the ad campaign results in relation to the behind-the-scenes page views and compare the ad's success vs. how many people will “happen across” this page. It’s not likely I’ll find out, but I’m still curious.
Keyword Research & Search Engine Marketing
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 01/24 at 10:00 AM |
Many of the marketers and business owners that I speak with are highly interested in being highly ranked in search engines--especially Google. Many have gone to the trouble of performing some surface level research on the basics of search engine success: things like meta tags, title tags, and incorporating keywords and phrases into the site's text.
But one of the key issues that is surprising to people involves keyword selection. I have found that those keywords and phrases that you assume will be successful are often not. Using software tools, we often explore the real data reflecting the words/phrases that searchers are using and how often they are being used.
I'm usually surprised when I look at the search volume of various terms (which I assume to be popular) in contrast to those phrases which are similar in nature. For example, I once saw that 'personal injury law' didn't have close to the level of search volume as 'auto accident attorney.' Humans search differently than that of the marketer's perception. Keyword research is essential to search engine success.
Brian Clark has a great piece on his blog describing the art of keyword research and why it is important.
One HUNDRED MILLion Web Sites (ah-ha)
|
|
Posted By Rochelle Knight on 11/06 at 11:15 AM |
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox email came in and the “100 Million Websites” title caught my attention (as well as started me quoting Austin Powers / Dr. Evil lines in my head). Those who use the web always talk about the internet in terms of “large” and “vast” and that weird cloud image but probably never really think about what those words really mean when it comes to numbers. The article quotes "even if only half the sites are maintained, there are still more than 100 M sites that people pay to keep running” --- that’s a lot of information out there… 101,435,253 million and growing to be exact.
Nielsen, one of the founders and advocates of web page usability (read his bio), further goes into a little bit of the history of web sites, the growth stages, web usability changes, and future predictions. Ultimately it’s just a teaser for an upcoming seminar on web usability but I thought this information was interesting in showing how many people currently use the internet and not just for searching.
So… 200 million by 2010? I agree with Nielsen, I think we’ll surpass that as more and more companies recognize the benefits of having a presence online (not to mention the personal sites, blogs, etc.).
Yahoo's Recent Re-design
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 10/10 at 11:30 AM |
BusinessWeek had a great article last week about the process Yahoo recently used to re-design its Web site. In my years consulting with corporations about re-design efforts, it is interesting to see the dynamics involved with design choices. Unfortunately, many of these efforts are about gut feelings, ego, or turf battles; every department or branch seems to want a link/icon/banner/button on the home page to gain exposure or generate traffic. Re-design efforts can often result in poor visual output and even poorer results.
The article chronicles Yahoo's pragmatic, customer-centric process in which ego was checked at the door and actual cutomer data drove the endeavor.
Traffic, traffic, and more traffic...
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 09/22 at 05:36 PM |
Copyblogger has a great list of resources regarding the ever-lingering and ever-changing concept of building Web site traffic...nice job on this post!
One strategy involves linking. Honeymoons, for example, are a good target.
What's In a Name?
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 08/21 at 03:08 PM |
I've been knee deep in domain names as of late. A handful of clients I am working with are all wrestling with picking the 'right' domain name(s) for their various projects. This has truly become both an art and a science. And each year, it seems, the situation becomes more complex. Implications extend to trademark law, cybersquatting regulations, and search engine aspirations.
And with .com names being in short supply, it has become increasingly difficult to find a name that really works. Most companies we work with find that their first, second, and third choices for names are already taken. So they're forced to get a bit creative.
While this list could go for miles, here are a couple of things I think about when trying to advise on domain names:
How do you tell a customer from a click?
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 07/01 at 10:11 AM |
Microsoft is asking this question in its campaign to win advertising dollars from Google. The campaign is built around a recent study by Web analytics specialist, WebSideStory. The study compares major search engines/portals where pay-per-click advertising is utilized. Surprisingly enough, Google comes in dead last among major search engines in terms of the percentage of conversions derived from its pay-per-click ads.
The possible explanations are pretty interesting. WebSideStory commentary on the study suggests that portals (where rich content and hand-holding are prevalent) appeal to a more purchase-hungry demographic. Google, on the other hand, is built upon a foundation of simplicity and speed; perhaps this audience is less inclined to buy. More likely, however, is the rising prevalence of click fraud: pay-per-click's dirty little secret (which isn't so secret anymore).
For those who don't know about click fraud, check out the Wikipedia entry for a quick explanation. Mark Cuban has a pretty good take on how big the problem is becoming. Intuitively, my hunch is that Google takes the biggest hit from click fraud because of its size and reputation...almost the same way that Microsoft is the largest target for viruses/worms from would-be hackers. Apple fans have always bragged that they're better at virus protection than Microsoft; not much of a claim, though, when the overwhelming majority of viruses are written for Windows--not MacOS.
What does all of this mean? Things are clearly heading toward the pay-per-acquisition model instead of the pay-per-click model. Google appears to be testing something along these lines that would limit click fraud severely. I have a hundred questions in terms of how this would be implemented, but I love the direction.
Subscribing to Web Pages
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 06/22 at 09:20 AM |
Many people still don't know about RSS, a tool that lets one subscribe to updated Web pages or blogs. Brian offers some ideas on how to make RSS more mainstream. Seth Godin has some interesting comments about this. All of this was sparked by Steve Rubel's list of "35 Ways You Can Use RSS Today."
Information as an Incentive
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 06/21 at 04:31 PM |
For a customer, information is an incentive. An asset.
I received an email from Brooks Brothers today inviting me to visit the firm's Web site to learn how to tie various tie knots. The presentation is well done. It's built in Flash, is animated, and very user-friendly. It motivated me to go because I have always been curious about various tie knots. There was something in it for me...and the incremental cost to Brooks Brothers was virtually nil. I didn't buy anything today, but perhaps I will in the future.
A marketer can use information to get a prospect to do something. I wonder why more marketers don't use it more often.
Most ads I see focus on what's in it for the company, not what's in it for the customer. Take this week's (6/26/06) issue of Time Magazine. I had it on my desk and picked it up to do a quick poll. Of the first twelve ads in the magazine (from Apple and Land Rover to Edward Jones and LG), all had Web site addresses. But the calls to action were about them, not me. One told me that the site would help me find their store (so I could give them my money). Another told me that the site would explain to me how well the product performs (so I could be convinced to give them my money). Several offered me the very exciting prospect of 'learn[ing] more' or 'find[ing] out more' (so I could give them my money, I'm sure).
LG, maker of HD televisions, would be better off offering me some sort of information. How about this: "Confused about HD? Please visit our Web site to download your free copy of Consumer Reports' comparison report on different television projection types."
Edward Jones, investment agency, would get a lot more mileage out of me with an information incentive. Perhaps something like this: "Curious about saving and investing? Log on to our site today to see the top 10 investing mistakes that baby boomers are making today."
Creating and uploading this information costs nothing to these companies. Creating the impression that it's 'all about them' (and not about me) does.
Big changes in the realm of search
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 05/16 at 11:41 AM |
We’ve had a few large products go out the door recently so I’ve finally been able to catch up on many of the things going on in the world of search engines. The major search engines have all been trying to do what they can to get your advertising dollars. I'd like to highlight the biggest things for you.
Google
Google has unleashed a few new products that are really cool. 1st off would be Google Calendar which, when combined with GMail, competes head to head with Microsoft’s Outlook. The interface is very slick and it offers a lot of convenience. The latest entry into the battle is Google Notebook. Essentially it’s a way to categorize and organize your research and notes and make it accessible publicly if you wish. The last new tool is a utility called Google Trends. This is more of an extension of Google’s infamous Zeitgeist (which also got a nice makeover) that allows you to search and compare trends for searchers. It’s a great tool for web marketers and SEOs.
Yahoo
The biggest news for Yahoo has to be their long overdue redesign for their home page. It’s not 100% live yet however they are letting anyone view it. It’s a great, modern look with lots of integration of their various products and services. The new page fuses AJAX programming seamlessly and makes for a very enjoyable user experience. The other thing Yahoo has done is reawaken the beast known as AlltheWeb. They have brought some very slick AJAX coding to the search engine world which is a refreshing change. The AJAX functionality adds a new dimension to searching through Yahoo’s massive index by giving vertical search suggestions. Even if you prefer another search engine, it is definitely worth the time to take a look at.
MSN
Microsoft has been pretty quiet as of late. They are slowly rolling out their online advertising program called adCenter. This will be replacing their current model of using Yahoo’s sponsored listings and help give MSN its own identity. With Microsoft putting a lot of money into the Xbox360, I expect them to invest heavily into MSN in the near future. Amazon recently dumped Yahoo in favor of Windows Live search (which is another great AJAX based web site). Steve Balmer has stated he wants to compete more heavily against Google for the online advertising dollar.
Shooting for… Reality
|
|
Posted By Rochelle Knight on 04/14 at 10:46 AM |
Almost everyone looking for a new Web site wants it to be the latest and greatest, to be better than the competition. But more often than not, the wow factor is not practical and you have to bring them back to reality gently in order to achieve a successful online presence while remaining practical.
MSN has a great example of a wow factor that is not realistic for this type of media: high-definition videos online.
Things like bandwidth and filesize are constant concerns for those involved with online media. In this case, high definition filesizes almost triple the standard filesize – resulting in enormous delays during download, a much slower internet speed, and poor quality of video… It would be hard to find a practical reason for using that level of clarity online for most Web sites out there.
One part of the article that stuck out in my mind was a comment by Josh Martin, an analyst for IDC:
"Is that story less compelling because it's not high definition?" Martin said. "I don't think so."
When it comes to the Web, the ability to browse through sites quickly is one of the most compelling reasons to go online. While you should always want to shoot for greatness, it's more important to accomplish your users' goals successfully than to overshoot your own.
Web Continues to Change Game
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 04/04 at 10:56 AM |
CNN has a great little item about RCA/SonyBMG Records signing British singer Sandi Thom to a recording contract. The signing of the virtual unknown comes after her 21 daily consecutive live performances to a grass roots/Internet audience. To think that the conglomerate that touts names like Alicia Keys, Usher, Bruce Springsteen, Maroon 5, and Santana would sign an artist from an up-start Web site is pretty amazing. Sandi Thom is not the first to Webcast a live performance from a garage band-like atmosphere, but she is among those pioneers to really have an effort materialize in this sort of fashion. It really shows how the Internet has changed the game in terms of traditional business channels.
Best I've Seen in a Long Time!
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 02/28 at 03:40 PM |
Viral marketing has become a bit of a cliche over the years. Many try to use the tactic without really thinking it through. But the latest promotion from CareerBuilder called monk-e-mail is the best execution I've seen in several years. Not only is the creative hilarious, but it's customizable via telephone, text-to-speech, and microphone. I would bet that CareerBuilder's market awareness will benefit significantly from this approach.
Connecting with the fans
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 01/31 at 03:48 PM |
Last year I became addicted to The Ultimate Fighter and by association, Ultimate Fighting Championship. I cannot get enough of this competition. The UFC has really turned around from what I remember watching in the late 90’s with Ken Shamrock and Dan “The Beast” Severn. Recently I was trying to get the latest news on the 3rd season of “The Ultimate Fighter” and noticed that the UFC has created individual blogs for many fighters. This is amazing to see. How many NFL teams have created this feature? None that I am aware of. The UFC has always been a grassroots organization with a rabid fan-base and having blogs for fans and fanatics to get the latest news straight from their favorite fighter really brings everything together and creates more excitement.
Rules for Webmasters
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 01/26 at 10:08 AM |
Google's rules for Webmasters has a little quote that has been on my mind. When explaining to Webmasters what is reasonable and ethical when optimizing your site for its index, the rules encourage you to ask yourself: "would I do this if search engines didn't exist?" Their point is that too many sites/Webmasters are letting the search engines drive their design and construction decisions.
Unfortunately, Google's success makes us all fail their litmus test. It's not a fair question. They're building a culture-altering business based upon Web searchers -and- Web advertisers. The impact has been so significant that an aggressive marketer is almost forced to alter their online efforts because Google exists.
I'm all for fair play, but Google's search formula seems to really reward the folks who play the game well. Try a few searches on some general keywords and notice that a fair percentage of the high-ranking sites are ones who excessively repeat words to a point where the text on pages doesn't even make sense to a human being. That's just one of many 'violations' that many employ. Yet, they're rewarded.
What's needed? More policing? Harsher penalties? From my perspective, the 'rules' seem to be in a bit of conflict with the rewards.
Google: Shooting Itself in the Foot?
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 01/23 at 05:13 PM |
Christoper Kenton doesn't create new blog posts all that often (not necessarily a bad thing, by the way), but I usually learn something from his posts when he does. Take a look at this recent post where he discusses a very interesting point: Google's new analytics product, and the accountability data it provides, may end up deflating enthusiasm for its Adwords program (and the PPC model in general). I have to say that I agree with his assertion.
Fun with Funnels
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 01/20 at 09:08 AM |
Seth Godin has an interesting post today about the "funnel" that is customer acquisition. Our work and research in the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has left us with many of the same thoughts and questions as the ones Seth seems to be thinking through.
The notion of pay-per-click advertising is a wonderful one. Why pay for a billboard and hope for the best when I can simply pay only for those who express an interest in my product (by clicking on my Google ad)? As long as I am converting a certain number of those folks, I should be fine, right?
It's not that simple. First, let's remember that those who click today might not be ready to buy until next week. That said, a Web site should not only sell; it should carry the water through the entire sales cycle. Second, PPC ad copy should limit inappropriate prospects. If a user searches for 'bass,' our copy should distinguish between bass (the fish) and bass (the drum). Silly example but true. Also, let's not forget about click fraud and how that should be accounted for. I wrote about this not long ago.
When it's all said and done, this entire process should be supported by a glorious spreadsheet. PPC is a science, not an art. Building a good model is our best bet!
Crash of the Online Economy?
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 01/18 at 10:50 AM |
This month's Wired Magazine has a pretty interesting article about click fraud and the potential for it to 'swallow the Internet.' As most of you know, 'click fraud' refers to the practice of falsely clicking on pay-per-click ads in an effort to cost a company money or remove its ads on the basis of artificial or contrived non-performance. Here's an example of how it works:
Let's say I go into business selling neck ties on the Internet. I set up a Web site to facilitate the ecommerce and then place some pay-per-click ads with Google to attract visitors. If I happen to notice a competitor's ad showing up in the list with mine, I could simply click on their ads multiple times to drain their onilne ad budget with Google. Ethical? No. But it is happening all too often with Google ad buyers and sellers alike.
The article lays out a number of derivative schemes being employed by scammers and vaguely describes some of the counter-measures being employed by Google and Yahoo. In the end, I feel that this will be a perpetual cat-and-mouse game between both sides. The article seems to suggest that a lack of improved enforcement could threaten the lifeblood of the Internet economy and cause a crash. Below is a diagram that appeared in the article that does a good job of describing how it works.
Google Zeitgeist 2005
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 12/21 at 09:02 AM |
Google has released its 2005 Year-End Zeitgeist. What's a zeitgeist, you ask? Wikipedia gives you a good definition. Nonetheless, these terms should mean something to marketers.
Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci
Google News - Top Searches in 2005
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter
Froogle - Top Searches in 2005
1. ipod
2. digital camera
3. mp3 player
4. ipod mini
5. psp
6. laptop
7. xbox
8. ipod shuffle
9. computer desk
10. ipod nano
Thanks to Matt Cutts for the tip.
Get paid by Bill Gates
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 12/14 at 08:50 AM |
It seems Bill has an issue with other companies hording their income selfishly so he is proposing something to change that. In his campaign to prove MSN search as the superior search engine, Bill said Microsoft may kick start a new program where you, the user, is paid to use MSN Search. In the current business model, Bill argues, Google keeps a large chunk of its revenues from advertisements. To my knowledge, Google does not publish an exact figure of how much they distribute to publishers of adSense. So would either a check or free software entice you to change your homepage from Google.com or Yahoo.com to MSN.com or Search.MSN.com?
The true search king?
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 12/06 at 10:05 AM |
John Battelle has indirectly opened up a discussion about who the true king of search is. eBay is claiming they process upwards of 2 billion (yes, that’s with 9 zeros) searches per month which they claim is “on par with Google” (slide 18). Now officially Google refuses to disclose how much traffic they process but some estimates have put it at much more substantial number than 2 billion a month. This leads me to ask, where did eBay get their figures?
Lyrical Heartbreak
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 12/01 at 09:47 AM |
I heard about Pandora today via Seth's Blog. Free site which features deep personalization for music lovers based upon The Music Genome Project. You type in one of your favorite artists (I put in Dave Matthews). From the artist(s) you select, the site suggests other (lesser-known) songs/artists based upon the underlying likes/dislikes you indicate as each song plays. As it suggests each new song you can ask why it suggested the song. For me, once I passed Coldplay, Travis, and others, it told me: "based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mild rhythmic syncopation, use of a string ensemble, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and heart-breaking lyrics..."
This site is another great Web 2.0 demo which should get marketers thinking way past the Web as a vehicle to put your brochure online! Naturally, the site is peddling the records it's suggesting via Amazon.com and iTunes. Can't say that I blame them!
Google Site Map Tool
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 11/21 at 07:28 PM |
John Jantsch has posted a very worthwhile read about his recent experience with the Google Site Map tool. He seems impressed with the marketing implications of the new offering from Google.
Google Hacks
|
|
Posted By Matt Certo on 11/21 at 04:21 PM |
Nick Wilson has some cool Google tricks listed and defined. Thanks to Steve Rubel for the tip.
The fun never stops: Google Base launches
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 11/16 at 09:02 AM |
After letting the cat out of the bag last month, Google Base has finally gone public legitimately. Essentially Google wants you to post up whatever you want and they will make it searchable. Its not for blogging but for information, recipies, non-profit associations, and class descriptions are just some of what they are looking for. Should be interesting to see where this leads down the road.
2 fingers on the pulse of search
|
|
Posted By Keith Ort on 11/15 at 10:57 AM |
Google has 2 different ways for those curious enough to wonder what people are searching for and how they search. Since July 2001, Google has had their Zeitgeist available. It shows what people are searching for in various areas of interest. The great thing about it is that they archive this information. So say you want to relive what was the big story 1 year ago in January, it is right there for you.
The fun doesn’t end there for stat freaks though. I just came across an area where Google posts