StumbleUpon Launches New Advertising System

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

StumbleUpon has launched a new advertising system, which the company says helps cost-effectively deliver advertiser content to targeted audiences, while increasing the opportunity for content to go viral.

StumbleUpon finds and recommends ad content it deems relevant to targeted audiences' interested based on demographic and topic areas. StumbleUpon users by simple nature of the site choose the content topics of interest to them, and are delivered random content based on this). This makes for an interesting way of delivering ads.

"With StumbleUpon Advertising, we’re solving the challenge of how advertisers can get more content that is relevant and impactful in front of their targeted audiences," says StumbleUpon CEO and Founder Garrett Camp. "We are dedicated to providing the tools that help advertisers identify and reach their audiences, measure campaigns effectively and gain real-time user feedback."

"After testing the StumbleUpon Advertising system for eight months, we know it's an extremely cost-effective way to drive qualified traffic and let the content speak for itself," said Jason Clement, Director of Findability at Wieden + Kennedy. “Since StumbleUpon Advertising targets content to users based on their personal interests, we can be confident that our content is reaching the most receptive audience possible. And when an audience enjoys our content, the reward is a healthy amount of free, organic traffic."

"StumbleUpon Advertising makes it easy and cost-effective to deliver the right content to a new audience of our target users," said Ben Tider, Assistant Director, Audience Development at Time Inc. Lifestyle Digital Group. “With streamlined campaign set-up and management, we can better optimize ads and recommend content based on the individual user. Because readers can self-identify the types of content we show them, they are more engaged and likely to share it with friends."

"StumbleUpon Advertising enables brand advertisers to serve up compelling content while users are searching or ‘stumbling’ around the Web," said Josh Spear, Founding Partner of Undercurrent. "With StumbleUpon Ads, an advertiser’s content is not an interruption, but rather a fully integrated experience that affords an opportunity for additional exposure when audiences like or respond well to the content. It is comparable to a banner that becomes more cost efficient based on positive viewer feedback. The new user interface also greatly enhances the service by delivering advanced analytics and more detailed campaign management tools."

StumbleUpon claims to generate nearly 600 million recommendations per month for its community of almost 11 million members.

Related: About a year ago, we interviewed StumbleUpon's VP of Business Development about advertising on the site.

Google Scores Major Italian Book Deal

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Google Books has done it again.  Despite heavy opposition to its book-scanning project, another deal's been established, and this time, the agreement involves the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (along with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome).

Up to one million out-of-copyright works may be digitized as a result of this arrangement, which is one reason it's important.  There are probably some academics who would kill for access to just 20 or 30 of them, never mind such a huge number.

Two other interesting facts are that Google's never before worked with a ministry of culture or any Italian libraries, meaning it's done extraordinarily well on this first try.

Anyway, on the Official Google Blog, Gino Mattiuzzo, a strategic partner development manager, hinted that more deals are on the way, writing, "We believe today's announcement is an important step, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners.  We envision a future in which people will be able to search and access the world's books anywhere, anytime."

That short statement also makes clear that Google doesn't see any lawsuits or new regulations putting a stop to its digitization project.

More Than Half Of March Madness Fans Will Watch Online

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

With the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament starting next week (March 16), it's no surprise the majority (83%) of fans will watch coverage on television, while 44 percent will go online and 10 percent will use a mobile device, according to a new survey by Unicast.

Among those planning to follow the tournament online or on a mobile device, a majority will visit ESPN.com (69%). Other branded popular sports sites fans plan to visit include Yahoo Sports (42%), Fox (24%), CBS (29%), and AOL (17%).

More than a quarter of fans following the tournament (26%) will visit NCAA.com, while 17 percent will type in the URL for their favorite team.

Fans will also gather information on the tournament via search engines (22%), social networks (18%), or newspaper/magazine sites (20%).

"On the heels of the extensive online coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament offers online publishers another premium sporting event that will generate high traffic from consumers looking to follow the tournament outside their living rooms," said Bryan Hjelm, VP of Marketing for Unicast.

"Digital innovations like iPhone apps, online bracket tools and streaming video are bringing basketball fever to a growing online audience of fans.

"Sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports will dominate traffic due to their inherent sports fan user base, which make them prime real estate this month for marketers targeting the typical visitor - men aged 18 to 35."

The most popular online activities for those following March Madness include:

        *58%    Monitor scores
        *54%    Watch games live
        *53%    Check the status of brackets
        *49%    Watch game highlights
        *42%    Fill out brackets/participate in a pool


 

 

CNN President "Really Afraid Of" Social Networks

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Over the years, there have been more than a few arguments about whether online news sites are killing newspapers.  Now, due to some almost startling comments made by the president of CNN, it looks like the next round of old media-new media disputes might concern social networks and cable news organizations.

According to the AFP, Jonathan Klein's remarks on this subject were in no way ambiguous.  He said at Bloomberg BusinessWeek's 2010 Media Summit New York, "The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites.  That's an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us."

Klein then explained, "The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. . . .  Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news.  We don't want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you. . . .  So I'm far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox."

That's an interesting take on the power of social networks.  It implies - at the very least - that CNN anchors are going to spend a whole lot more time referencing Facebook and Twitter from now on.  An ad campaign and new apps could follow, too.

On a broader scale, Klein seems to be saying that social networks' users can easily - even unwittingly - make or break major corporations.

Schmidt On China: "Something Will Happen Soon"

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Two Google executives have again assured onlookers that the company is dealing with the situation in China.  While in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt indicated today that something will happen sooner rather than later, and Nicole Wong told politicians in D.C. that leaving China is still an option.

Unfortunately, not a lot of other details and/or promises were forthcoming.  Eric Schmidt's exact words, according to Jerry Dicolo, were "something will happen soon," and whether that's "soon" as a five-year-old would perceive it or in terms of continental drift is hard to say.

We should note: it's already been almost two months since Google stated in an official blog post, "[O]ver the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

As for what Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the company, had to say, there was less wiggle room.  The AFP reports that she maintained, "We are not going to change our decision on not censoring results anymore."  Also, with respect to abandoning the country, Wong added, "We are prepared to do that."

Google and Baidu investors are sure to remain on pins and needles until the situation is resolved.

MySpace Launches New Games Site

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

MySpace launched a new gaming experience at myspace.com/games today. The company says it empowers developers with new tools, analytics, and opportunities for driving usage and revenue.

"Gaming is core to the overall entertainment value of MySpace; we are replicating our success from MySpace Music for this next round of platform improvements," a representative for MySpace tells WebProNews. "Nearly a third of MySpace users engage daily in games and there are more than 28 million active app users on the site." She says the site "offers users discovery and sharing of games in a simpler and cleaner experience."

"Nearly one-third of MySpace users engage daily with games. We believe the new experience will empower even more of the MySpace audience to discover, share, and showcase games, which along with music and movies, are core to our content strategy," said MySpace Co-President Mike Jones. "We've been working with our developer partners to understand where they’d like to see MySpace go; based on that feedback we started rebuilding MySpace Games. These are the first steps in offering robust tools for developers to help their businesses thrive."

MySpace says developers can now:

- Review application-specific analytics via a new API, including invitation conversions, active users, notification responses and demographics.

- Build games in rich, 3D-like quality with Unity's powerful 3D engine and allow MySpace users to access the games with a new plug-in. For example, Paradise Paintball utilizes this technology.

- Encourage cross-platform competition with Scoreloop, which allows games on different platforms to share the same high scores, achievements, challenges and buddy lists.

- Utilize GroovyCortex, which is a cloud-based solution for onsite application developers, to provide low latency push data for multiplayer games.
 
- Track the source of application invitations and utilization to learn how users are finding and choosing specific games.

Along with the new MySpace Games site, MySpace announced a MySpace Games iPhone app, nine new social games, and a Gallery. Earlier this week, MySpace announced that it has the most popular social app on Android.

It appears that the new MySpace Games experience hasn't fully rolled out yet. 

Online Media Key For Local Consumers

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching products or services locally, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat.

Among consumers surveyed, 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.

"The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers' local commercial activity," said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey.

"The data suggest we're at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online."

The study found on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services locally, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, indicating an increase in audience fragmentation.

Additional finding include:

   * 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
   

 * 19 percent of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service).

"The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers," said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director, Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey.

"These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going."


 

Google, Bing Make Small Gains

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

February was a quiet month for the search market; we're not going to suggest any companies either break out the champagne or fire their CEOs as a result of the small changes that took place.  Still, for those who are curious, comScore believes it was Google and Bing that came out looking like winners.

Google managed to increase its share of the U.S. search market to 65.5 percent, up from 65.4 percent in January, according to comScore's data.  Bing, meanwhile, accomplished a more impressive feat (in overall terms, and especially in relation to its size) by grabbing 0.2 percent of market share.

That put Bing in control of 11.5 percent of the market, up from 11.3 percent the month before.

Yahoo's share of the search market then decreased, heading from 17.0 percent to 16.8 percent.  Which is embarrassing, but not yet catastrophic, as the company's partnership with Microsoft moves towards completion.

The interesting thing will be if Bing and Yahoo keep trading share.  Also, of course, if Google keeps increasing its dominance.  We'll be sure to cover comScore's next report to see if any trends have emerged.

Longtail SEO For Ecommerce

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The significance of longtail keywords can be exemplified by thinking about the following two people:

 

Bill is a cafeteria worker who spends his spare time fishing and has heard that his favorite TV shows will look even better on on this new-fangled technology called “HDTV”. He might as well upgrade from his 20” to something a little larger while he's at it his friends tell him (though they don't know much more about it than he does). He sits at his computer and enters “hdtv” into the Google search box.

Steve also works in a cafeteria but is a bit more tech-savy. He has and uses a Facebook account, watches videos on YouTube and looks up information on Google when he's looking for an answer to one of his questions. He too is interested in HDTV but decides to check out a few review sites first before making the leap. He reads a great review on CNET and likes the specs of the “Panasonic Viera TC-P50G10” and decides to look around for pricing. He heads back to Google and searches for “panasonic viera tc-p50g10” or perhaps even “buy panasonic viera tc-p50g10 online”.

The difference between these two? Other than the fact that one has a dismal likelihood of conversion and the other a high likelihood - the difficulty in attaining top rankings for the two phrases is very different as well. Now, I'm not saying there isn't a place for going after the generic, high-traffic phrases but ignoring the higher converting, less-work-per-conversion phrases that are easier to attain rankings for – well – that just doesn't make good business sense does it?

So – how do you rank for the longtail?

We all understand that the factors of SEO are the factors of SEO. Just like any other phrases – your ability to rank is quite simply based on a combination of page strength and relevancy (yes there are tons of signals Google uses but they essentially break down to these two points). To affect these areas we use a combination of onsite optimization and link building. Sounds easy so far? Perfect. So let's take a look first at onsite optimization.

Optimizing your site for the longtail

I can't possibly cover the different technologies and how to make sure your site is crawlable. Let's just say – the first step is to make sure that the crawlers can get to your internal pages and that strength passes down. If the crawlers can't get through to the internal pages then you've got bigger problems than tweaking your content and building some links. Contact a developer immediately and get that sorted out first – then continue reading.

Once you know that the crawlers are getting through and strength is passing we move on to the actual optimization. The first thing one wants to look at it how to push the items with the highest ROI potential up in the hierarchy of your site. Let's use Amazon as an example of how that should be done (they know a thing or two about ranking for products).

Amazon uses one of my personal favorite tactics in that they automate the process but it's not necessary. You probably don't have the same number of products so you can likely do manually what they have to automate but let's look at what they're doing and you can apply the strategy as you see fit.

If I was Amazon and I wanted to rank my site for longtail phrases I'd want to rank for the phrases that had the highest search volume and highest chances of conversions. I'd have to apply global rules to a massive site (you don't have to – you can likely do things on a case-by-case basis but I'm sure we can all agree – Amazon cannot). So to keep the most profitable phrases high in the hierarchy but still not ignore the other longtail phrases they have created a hierarchy that puts the top product categories one hop from the homepage (Laptops & Netbooks For Example) and on that page they have links to all the major brands and uses but my favorite tactic is that they have the bestsellers. This information is easily created from their database and insures that the more popular products are two hops from the homepage and linked to with the brand and model number. At the time of this writing they have a link to the “ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-MU17-BK 10.1-Inch...”. If I search “asus eee pc 1005pe-m” who do you think shows up first? Amazon.

So step one – make sure you're linking to the product pages with the brand and model number of the item and also put the more important items higher in the hierarchy of your site. Now this doesn't mean cram all your products on the page. You have to apply the same principles to links with onsite as you do with offsite optimization. A page has a vote. It you have a page with 10 products listed on it – each product gets 1/10 of the weight passed to it. If the page has 500 products listed on it – well, you get my point. Figure out what matters and focus there.

Of course – you don't want to ignore the other potential phrases. You'll notice that as well as linking to the top products in each category they link to sub pages with brands, specs, etc. This is why they rank so well for so many phrases. Well – that's part one.

Once you've got the internal linking sorted out you need to follow that up with some onsite relevancy. Here we're referring to optimized titles, descriptions, H1 tags, content, etc. I'm going to have to leave a full breakdown of onsite optimization for another article but I can discuss some of the differences you'll encounter with longtail optimization with ecommerce sites.

With “traditional” optimization we visit a page and adjust the relevant aspects (titles, content, etc.) manually. With large ecommerce sites we need to come up with rules that apply site wide. Developing titles, descriptions and content for each and every page one-by-one is likely not an option. If you look at Amazon again you'll see that they automate the process by using the brand, model and categories in the title, description, keywords and H1 tag. Easily automated. Through their use of automated elements (“Customers bought with ...”, specs, descriptions, reviews, etc.) they are also able to insure that that the brand and model number appear on the page.

Now that works well for Amazon. They have millions of links and huge site strength. But what if you don't have that behind you. They can build a page, put it on their site and rank. You may need to invest some of your time in link building.

Link building for longtail optimization

There are two primary aspects of link building that one needs to address when we're looking at longtail optimization. The first is to the homepage for site strength and the other is to specific internal pages. The reason that we'll want to link to specific internal pages is that like it or not, you're not as strong as Amazon and so you need to build links to compete where they do not.

I'll leave the discussion of how to build links to other articles (you know – one of the 800,000 written on the subject) however we will discuss the purpose of the links and thus you'll understand the pattern of the link building.

The homepage links are in place to simply build overall site strength and should be geared to your generic, homepage phrases – it's the internal links that are specifically geared to brands and models. So we'll focus on those links in this article.

How to build links to internal pages

Building links to internal pages is virtually identical to homepage. True you can't use directories but that's about the only link building tactic that doesn't apply. There are two points that you're going to want to direct links to:

1 – the category/brand main page.

The first point you're going to want to direct links at is the main category page and the main sub-category points of the ecommerce site. You'll want to direct these links in with anchor text that suits the brand and/or category subject. Let's use Amazon as an example again.

For the purpose of longtail optimization – the links we'd direct to http://www.amazon.com/Netbooks-Computers/b?ie=UTF8&node=679517011 would primarily be geared to strengthening the page. Oh I'd use anchor text geared at “netbooks” and the link but the main point is to make that page stronger and in turn – the pages it links to. These links will also get the page spidered more.

What this will do is make the links to the brands stronger but most important – the links to the top sellers stronger and more quickly picked up. This is why they rank for new products in a matter of hours.

The individual brand and usage pages are the same from this perspective./ You'll want to optimize the pages and you'll want to focus the links for long term gain but the short term purpose is to pass strength to the product pages.

2 – the product pages.

On top of building links to pages one level up (as we've just discussed) you'll also want to build links to the individual product pages. Amazon can build a page, link to it and have it rank – you probably cannot. For products and models you know will stand the test of time – building links can be a long term strategy but not my favorite (due mainly to the fact that it's not exciting). Personally I like building links to “Coming soon” product pages and getting them spidered before there's any competition and then adding in the product the day it launches giving you a one-up over your competitors in both timing and strength. Heck, you might even win out over Amazon for a while. :)

Don't overdo it in the link building. You've got a lot of products. Unless you know a specific product is going to be HUGE you'll want to just build a few links and move on. You've got a lot of products to cover.

Moving forward

Obviously I can't cover all the various aspects of ranking for the longtail in a single1800 word article and in fact, if I turned this into a 180 page book I'd still not be able to cover all the variables but my hope is that I've given you food for thought in the tactics and timing you'll find helpful in moving forward and ranking your website for the longtail phrases that convert so well and for which you can rank so quickly if you do it right.

YouTube Launches New Mobile Ads

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Google is launching ads on the home page, search page, and browser page on the mobile version of YouTube in the U.S. and Japan.

"This is a great way for advertisers to reach YouTube viewers across multiple platforms," says Google Strategic Partner Development Manager Taylor Cascino. "In fact, at launch YouTube will immediately provide one of the largest audiences for a mobile ad campaign anywhere on the mobile web. And because YouTube mobile attracts early adopters, the site can deliver to advertisers a coveted demographic of tech savvy trendsetters. We've already seen some early campaigns run on YouTube's mobile site by advertisers like Sony (for the DVD release of "District 9") and Kia, both of whom were able to easily reach their target audience, no matter where they were looking for video."

YouTube's mobile site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, and you can probably expect that growth to continue along with smartphone usage. Don't forget that YouTube is the number 2 search engine on the web. That's a lot of people searching for videos.

"The increased usage of high-end devices like the iPhone and Android is also making mobile advertising easier and more effective for advertisers," says Cascino.

Ads on the YouTube mobile site will come in the form of banner ads sold on a full-day basis. YouTube tested the mobile ads with brands like L'Oreal and Land Rover, and the company says these showed strong results in terms of click-throughs, user experience, and brand awareness.

Google Maps Now Has Biking Directions

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Google has partnered with Rails-to-Trails (RTC), a nonprofit focused on creating a network of trails from former rail lines, to add biking directions to Google Maps.

Google Maps now has biking route details for more than 150 U.S. cities covering more than 12,000 miles of trails and bike lanes. Google says it plans to continue to add new trail information to Google Maps and is requesting feedback from riders via the "Report a Problem" tool.

The new feature allows Google Maps users to type in their destination and receive directions for the best bicycling route. Google says its algorithm is weighted to prefer routing on trails instead of roads open to automobile traffic as long as it won't take cyclists too far out of the way.

"We're thrilled to be working with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to make RTC's extensive bike trail data available through Google Maps and Google Earth," says Shannon Guymon, Product Manager for Google Maps.

"Bikers all over the country now will be able to explore new trails or find specific directions in their local community with just a few clicks of their mouse."

 

Twitter Inspects Links To Prevent Spam, Abuse

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Clicking on links that different people send can often be a cross-your-fingers experience, considering that there are malicious tricksters, unknowing victims, and hijacked accounts to watch out for.  So Twitter's attempting to make the experience less dangerous by checking (and sometimes rewriting) the links found in direct messages and email notifications.

Del Harvey, Director of Trust and Safety at Twitter, explained on the official corporate blog, "[W]e're launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks.  By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter."

Harvey later continued, "For the most part, you will not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but you may notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and email notifications."

This move is bound to ruffle a few users' feathers - changing the text in private messages is a sort of bold step - but on the whole, it should prove welcome enough.  A safe environment is in just about everybody's best interests, from regular users to marketers to Twitter itself.

Let's just hope the new feature works well and doesn't create a false sense of security.

Actor Corey Haim Reported Dead

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Actor Corey Haim, best known for roles in movies like the Lost Boys, License to Drive, and many others (a number of which also featured Corey Feldman), has reportedly been found dead of an apparent drug overdose. 

>>> You can leave your condolences on FamousDead.com.

The LA Times reports:

The Los Angeles Police Department said Haim, 38, was pronounced dead after 3 a.m. at a Burbank hospital. He had been living in the San Fernando Valley.

Details of his death were not immediately available. The L.A. coroner's office was investigating. A police spokesman said more details would be available later.

Haim connected with his fans through social media, specifically a MySpace page, which currently has 4,253 friends.

The "about me" section reads:

The real Corey Haimster here! I asked Jenny J to set this up for me, so here it is. I'll be checking in to read all your shout outs & when I get the time, I'll leave a message for you all. Thanks for hitting my MySpace page!
Love & peace out,
Corey

"Actor Corey Haim" and "Lost Boys" are currently both trending topics on Twitter.

Haim's latest movie American Sunset premiered in Las Vegas in January. He had also been seen in the realty TV show The Two Coreys with Feldman. More on Haim here.

Google Apps MarketPlace Greatly Expands Google's Enterprise Offerings

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Last night at Campfire One, Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace, where developers can create apps that integrate with Google Apps and sell them to users. According to Google, they can reach over 2 million businesses and 25 million users.

Right off the bat, the Google Apps Marketplace launched with over 50 applications from companies like Intuit and Atlassian, with more coming soon from companies like NetSuite and SuccessFactors, a Google spokesperson tells WebProNews.

"Once installed to a company's domain, these third-party applications work like native Google applications," explains Google Apps Marketplace Product Manager Chris Vander Mey. "With administrator approval, they may interact with calendar, email, document and/or contact data to increase productivity. Administrators can manage the applications from the familiar Google Apps control panel, and employees can open them from within Google Apps. With OpenID integration, Google Apps users can access the other applications without signing in separately to each. The Google Apps Marketplace eliminates the worry about software updates, keeping track of different passwords and manual syncing and sharing of data, thereby increasing business productivity and lessening frustrations for users and IT administrators alike. That's the power of the cloud."

This is the 2nd big move by Google regarding the cloud and Google Apps in less than a week. Late last week, the company acquired DocVerse, which "makes Word, PowerPoint and Excel Work like Google Docs," as the DocVerse title tag explains.

Developers can get more info about the Google Apps Marketplace at Google's Developer Programs site. The company will also be talking about developing apps for the enterprise at Google I/O in May.

Google Suffers Market Share Stumble In The UK

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

While we normally don't comment on market share fluctuations that occur in places other than America, some recent changes in the UK may bear mentioning.  According to the AT Internet Institute, Google's share of the search market slipped by 1.6 percent between January and February.

That's a significant amount.  Indeed, as the slightly upsized figure below shows (sorry for any blurriness), if Ask and AOL had suffered similar losses, they'd have been wiped out, hitting zero.

Of course, that didn't happen.  Instead, both Yahoo and Bing benefited from Google's dip.  Yahoo gained a not-bad 0.6 percent, and Bing increased its share by an even-better 0.7 percent.

Google's still in an extremely dominant position, but given that Microsoft's about to spend $2 billion on Bing commercials in the UK, these changes are noteworthy.  Microsoft might not be throwing its money away, as some people have speculated; there's now the possibility that it could extend or accelerate this growth trend.

We'll be sure to write again about the UK search market next month if anything out of the ordinary happens.  In the meantime, it should be interesting to see how those Bing commercials are received.

HR Pros See Value In Social Media

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Social media plays an important role in problem solving and strategy development in the workplace according to a new survey of 900 human resources executives conducted by Toolbox.com and PJA.

Among HR executives and professionals, social media usage outpaced editorial and vendor content consumption. Respondents used social media at a rate of 3.77 hours per week, compared to 2.77 hours of online editorial content and 2.13 hours of online vendor content.

The survey indicated active participation in social media is an important part of the HR job role and acts as a resource for experience-based knowledge in the workplace. Respondents said staying current (78%) and networking with peers (71%) as the most popular uses of social media.

Additionally, more than half have responded to a question asked by a peer in an online community, while nearly 50 percent have built their personal knowledge network by making connections with peers.

"This survey proves HR professionals have been fast adopters of social media, not just for networking but for improving their value as professionals," said Mike O'Toole, president at PJA  Advertising + Marketing.

"They clearly identify social media channels as a way to increase their expertise and build their professional reputation."

Key highlights from the survey include:

*Social media represents 43% of total media consumption among HR respondents (compared to 32% for editorial and 25% for vendor content).

*Deep experience is seen as the most important attribute in a social media expert, followed by thoughtful and detailed responses.

*Nearly half of respondents say that a social media presence greatly increases or increases their value as a job candidate, while more than 50% claim that social media is important or very important in building their personal brand.
 

 

Google May Offer Services In Cuba, Iran, Sudan

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

It looks like Google may be ready to wade into another controversial censorship vs. availability of services situation.  A high-ranking corporate representative has welcomed the U.S. Treasury's decision to allow the exportation of online communications tools to Cuba, Iran, and Sudan.

According to Frank Jordans, Bob Boorstin, Director of Corporate and Policy Communications at Google, said during a human rights meeting in Geneva, "This is a great accomplishment.  We are hopeful this will help people like yourselves in this room and activists all over the world take a small step down what is certainly a long road ahead."

What's more, Boorstin indicated that Google isn't going to just sit on the sidelines, wishing everyone well.  Boorstin reportedly "said the Web search company would now be able to offer some of its other products in those countries," including Google Earth, Google Talk, and Picasa.

This is an interesting turn of events, considering that China recently threatened to leave China over free speech issues.  If Google follows through on Boorstin's remarks, the search giant's sure to face fresh questions over whether it's more interested in profits than human rights.

We'll of course report on any further developments as they occur.

How Important is Your Domain Name to Your Brand?

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

How important is your domain name to you brand? Most online businesses would probably consider it to be quite important, and with good reason. Sometimes before searching, customers may simply opt to go to the "yourbrandhere.com" URL simply because it makes sense. Now, sometimes that URL is already taken, and for start-ups, that's something to consider in itself.

As Monte Cahn, Founder and President of Moniker mentioned in a recent interview with WebProNews, it's a good idea to make sure the domain name is available when coming up with a name for your brand, or at least make sure that you are able to acquire it. Products have their own brands, and this way of thinking can also be applied to them in many cases. Cahn notes that even the big companies make mistakes in this area. For example, you would expect Apple to own iPad.com, considering the huge announcement about the device the company made this year, but someone else has that domain.

Cahn also stresses the importance of covering your brand in terms of domain names. This means getting all variations possible. Get typos, different extensions and country codes, etc. Use 301 redirects on misspells of key brands (including singular/plural versions). However, when it comes to domain names for different products, he says it's best to build sub-sites around those with their own content, which can help drive link juice, SEO value, and traffic.

Getting the .com that reflects your company name is not always possible, unfortunately. In these cases, it may serve you well to find a different aspect of your brand to center your domain around, but this will require a greater level of promotion of that URL than a simple companyname.com. For example, if there are unique key phrases within your company's slogan, you may find such an opportunity there.

Domains should be easy to remember, not too long, easy to spell, relevant to your brand, and avoid complicating characters such as hyphens. I think one key to a successful domain name is simplicity, although there are always exceptions to the rule.

Report: Facebook Location Feature To Bow At f8

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

At the first f8 conference, Facebook Platform was launched.  Facebook Connect was announced the second time around.  And now, as f8 2010 draws near, a report's indicated that Facebook will finally unveil a feature having to do with users' physical locations.

Consider the difference someone's location can make.  Here's one basic example: Many people would pass over the status update "Kate is warm," but something like "Kate is warm - Miami, Florida" might attract all sorts of attention from Kate's friends (assuming Kate's not a Miami native).  Plus it could mean a different set of ads would get shown.

It's significant, then, that Nick Bilton reported this afternoon, "Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company's yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project."

Bilton also wrote, "The new location feature will have two aspects, according to the people familiar with Facebook's plans.  One will be a service offered directly by Facebook that will allow users to share their location information with friends. . . .  The other will be a set of software tools, known as A.P.I.'s, that outside developers can use to offer their own location-based services to Facebook users."

As for how Facebook intends to deal with privacy issues, this should be an opt-in feature, effectively cutting off the sorts of protests with which some other changes and Google Buzz were greeted.

Now we just have to wait and see if Facebook actually follows through on these rumors.

Problem With The iPad's First Ad

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Pre-sales for the iPad begin next week and the first orders will start shipping in weeks. So it grabbed my intention when Apple aired its first ads for the iPad during the Academy Awards and the only sign of music was a millisecond long flash of an old Doors album cover.

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