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Google and new search options

Google Testing Search Product Options

Google seem to be experimenting showing their own product search options within SERPS. Running a search for ‘ppc’, brings back a new ’search for ppc’ option box that appears in the top right hand corner just above the paid results. You can then choose to run the same search on one of Googles other products, whether thats images, news, groups, books or Froogle.

Check out the screen shot below.

Read it all : http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/google/google-testing-search-product-options/

Buzz Marketing : road to succes

" The #1 Secret of a Wildly Successful Buzz Marketing Campaign

Posted by Ephraim Cohen on March 4th, 2007 filed in Advertising, PR Strategy, Positioning, Reputation Management, marketing

Numerous articles are being published (the latest from Business Week) on how companies like Chipotle are seeing great marketing success through word-of-mouth campaigns that cost a fraction of a typical marketing campaign.  These articles point out a lot of elements of a successful buzz campaign - a recommendationfrom a friend is worth more than a corporate message (if you had to pay for that advice…), free trials get people to try the product, good customer service counts for a lot etc etc etc.   But these buzz marketing oriented articles rarely focus in on the most critical ingredient to a buzz marketing campaign.  Here is that ingred….

But first, a small editorial to make sure you understand the secret to a successful work-of-mouth/buzz campaign. 

Buzz or word-of-mouth as marketing and communications disciplines have gotten way out of control.   We’ve actually managed to take the obvious (word of mouth recommendations are the most valuable kind) and turn it into a paid area of expertise.  Even worse, companies are convinced that a good buzz can be bought and paid for like an advertisement.

Wrong!  Good buzz is the result of properly communicating a strong business story.  Communications as a discipline does not create a great business story, it knows how to deliver it to the market.  It is an important and fundamental difference that is often ignored.  In the following equation, the first part is usually treated as almost incidental: great businesses+great public relations = great reputations. 
"

Read it all : http://b2binsight.com/blog/2007/03/04/the-1-secret-of-a-wildly-successful-buzz-marketing-campaign/

Use MSN Live and get paid

" SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft began offering large businesses rewards if they have employees scout the Internet with the software giant's Live Search service.

In a move intended to wrest users from rival search engines such as market dominating Google, Microsoft will give business customers service or training credits based on how much employees use Live Search.

"We are conducting a trial programme through which Microsoft is providing service or training credits to a select number of enterprise customers based on the number of Web search queries conducted by their employees via Live Search," the Redmond, Washington, company said in a written statement on Friday."

Read all about it : http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1085409

Google shopping cart

Google has been very busy on the acquisition front lately, it was revealed today. This afternoon, Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience, announced the acquisition of Gapminder's Trendalyzer software. Trendalyzer is a data display technology for creating data maps and moving visual representations of data.

Mayer was short on detail of how the Trendalyzer application would be incorporated into Google's offerings, but it seems likely that it will be used to enhance the reporting capabilities of Google Analytics, or possibly as an addition to Google Apps. Trendalyzer's developers, previously based in Sweden, are part of the deal, and will join Google's team in Mountain View.

Later in the day, Google confirmed the long-rumored acquisition of in-game advertising technology provider Adscape Media.

In a post on the Google blog, new "dean of games" Bernie Stolar shared the news that he and his team will join Google to continue building the technology. An FAQ provides the reasoning for the move:
"In-game advertising is an area where we believe Google could add a lot of value to users, advertisers and publishers. Adscape Media's technology and talented team are a great addition to Google's current advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers."

Google also sees great value in video game advertising, according to the FAQ:

"Over the past few years, the video game experience has become richer and more interactive. We think this rich environment is a perfect medium to deliver relevant, targeted advertising that ultimately benefits the user, the video game publisher and the advertiser

Online advertising on the rise

News from the IAB via MediaPost announces media spending online reached a record $16.8 billion in 2006, an increase of 34%. IAB President Randy Rothenberg said, "The increase underscores marketers' understanding that interactive advertising can engage consumers, build brands and sell products and services."

This is not surprising to most and the trend is likely to continue though most see the growth adjusting to around 15-20% per year from here on out. The article goes on to mention Microsoft CMO Mich Matthews' recent announcement at the 4As Media Conference (Barbara comments on Mich's talk) that the technology giant will shift the bulk of their $1 billion spend online by 2010.

Mobile Marketing

" The New York-based Online Publishers Association released its “Going Mobile: An International Study of Content Use and Advertising on the Mobile Web” report yesterday. It said that mobile Web was gaining momentum as a content and marketing platform.

The OPA study reported growth in usage of the medium, with 76 percent of all consumers in the United States and Western Europe accessing the Web with their mobile devices and about 32 percent actually using it. An average of 18 percent of mobile Web users expected to spend more time online with their devices this year.

The study said that consumers were watching and acting on advertisements. The international average for users who reported they would watch an ad for free mobile content was 34 percent. This trend was highest in Europe with 37 percent of users willing to watch ads.

This study was the first for which the OPA went overseas, with more than 6,000 interviews in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The OPA conducted the study in partnership with Atlanta-based TNS Media and Entertainment.

For Western consumers with mobile access, Britain leads in actual usage at 54 percent. The U.S. and Italy each reported 41 percent usage. Users from the same three countries expected to increase the time they spend on mobile Web with the U.S. at 25 percent, Italy at 22 percent and Britain 20 percent. Internationally, 41 percent of those without mobile Web access expected to have it on their next mobile device.

Consumers also reported being responsive to ads. According to the report, almost one-in-ten consumers make purchases based on a mobile Web ad. More than twice that number will visit the company’s Web site for additional information. Consumers also said ads prompted them to request more information about a product or service (13 percent) and to visit a store (11 percent).

The OPA study found that brands play an important role in driving mobile Web activity. More than half of consumers frequent the same sites on their mobile Web that they visit on their PC.

The study also revealed that mobile Web may be driving PC Internet use. An average of 18 percent of users surveyed said they were accessing the Internet on their PCs more now that they were also using mobile Web.

Mobile Web was popular among consumers of certain key content, such as weather (53 percent), sports (49 percent), news (36 percent) and stock quotes (35 percent). This content is often personalized, too. For example, 66 percent of consumers accessing stock quotes register for that information and 61 percent personalize the content. "

Read more : http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/internet-marketing/40333.html

Guy kawasaki on Iphone

"Great Expectations

On the day that Apple announced the iPhone, my eleven-year-old son decided that he wanted one. Since then he’s done chores above-and-beyond the call of duty in order to earn $500 to buy one. Fast forward to last week when this news appeared in the business press:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty reiterated her buy rating on Apple Inc. shares (AAPL :87.06, +2.45, +2.9% ), saying she believed the market is underestimating the likely success of the iPhone. She raised her 2007 iPhone sales forecast by 33% to 8 million units from 6 million, following a survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers. Huberty also believes Apple’s ability to leverage strong iPhone demand is being underestimated. “While we see positive leverage drivers across Apple’s product segment, the iPhone alone increases scale (better pricing from suppliers), strengthens retail store leverage (increased velocity on fixed-cost base) and takes advantage of lower NAND [memory] pricing in the market,” Huberty said in a research note.

(She is forecasting eight million units in six months. As a data point, Motorola shipped fifty million RAZRs in the first twenty-four months. You can currently buy a RAZR for $30 after rebate with a two-year contract.)

Of all people, I support unabashed exuberance for Apple products, and our family will evidently buy at least one iPhone, but I don’t understand this kind of coverage three months before the product ships. Clearly it’s a cool phone, and as with many Apple products, you have to ask, “Why didn’t any other company do something like this before?” Still, just off the top of my head, I have a few questions about the iPhone:

What’s battery life with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and iTunes running on a big color screen? The battery life of my Motorola Q sucks, and I don’t have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or music running. Based on Apple’s record when it comes to battery life of laptops, this is at the very least an “open issue.”

Will people tolerate Cingular’s Edge network? I switched from Cingular to Verizon to get EVDO. Edge is supposed to be three to fours times slower than EVDO. The knock on EVDO is that it has much less coverage, but I’ve seldom had coverage problems. Maybe only people like me who have used EVDO will ever realize that Edge is so much slower...

Will a phone without a hardware keypad work in the real world? I mean a world where you’re driving while trying to dial numbers as well as access and delete voicemail (unless you’re a SpinVox user). Can a person dial an eleven-digit number without looking at the touchscreen at sixty mph?

Is there voice navigation? This will help the keypad issue, but I haven’t seen anything that says that there will be. If you can do this on a Windows Mobile smartphone, I’d be astounded if you can’t on an iPhone. But I’ve been astounded before.

What’s Trixie and Tiffany going to do when they send 1,500 text messages a month without a keypad? Which is to say, will forefingers be the new thumbs? Or, will teenagers sprout much longer thumbnails?

Will people pay $500-600 for the convergence of phone, Internet device, and music player? And this doesn’t even count the $100 or so contract-termination fee since carriers treat current customers worse than new ones. Perhaps we should look at the iPhone as an Internet tablet or a PSP for old people—if you didn’t have to buy a service contract. (Will an iPhone run without a SIM card in it?) Maybe Apple could remove the phone from iPhone and make it a high-end iPod.

How will the sealed battery work? With most phones, you can replace a battery if it goes bad. What happens when this happens with the iPhone? (With my Motorola Q, I was able to buy a larger battery so that battery life went from horrible to merely dismal.) iPods have sealed batteries too, but it’s one thing to be unable to listen to music; it’s quite another to be unable to make or take an important call.

What’s the impact of a closed system where developers cannot create software for a phone? Imagine, for example, if you could only use iLife and iWork on your Macintosh. Is that what using the iPhone will be like? What about VPN? What about synching with an Exchange server? This is a consumer phone, but consumers do have corporate jobs.

There may be great answers for all of these questions. (Meanwhile, my son has amassed $400 of the $500 that he needs.) If not answers, there will be great reality distortion. If not great reality distortion, Apple will fix shortcomings in future iterations. However, it’s a tad bit early to declare this the greatest phone in the history of mankind—though many of us are hoping it is. We should at least wait until the phone reaches huberty. "

see the blog : http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Search on mobiles ? Nah ....

who can use a phone to do online search ?

Com'on its just plain impossible and really not handy

"A recent UK survey of mobile phone users suggests that there may be no where near the amount of people using their cell phones for search, as believed.

Just 20% of UK subscribers actually search for content on the mobile internet, despite an industry perception that 89% do, according to research released today, from the Mobile Entertainment Forum and Ovum

What’s more, they’re not searching for restaurants, or directions. Just 2% conduct a search on a daily basis and those searching less frequently, search for ringtones and music downloads.

And remember, this is a UK survey. The Brits are ahead of their US cousins, when it comes to mobile phone adoption and technology. The stats hardly send a warm and fuzzy message to those looking for a broader adoption of mobile content. "

Read more about it : http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Feb2007/4267.htm?mp

Print Advertising is down, Online is on the Rise

" Survey of Advertisers Who Control $6.5 Billion in Spending Also Shows the Continued Decline of Print and Broadcast Ad Shares; Rising Click Fraud Concerns

Burlingame, CA, January 29, 2007--Outsell, Inc. has just released its second annual report on ad spending, forecasting U.S. advertising to grow 5.8 percent in 2007. The comprehensive national study of advertisers, who control about $6.5 billion of spending, shows that companies plan to increase their online spending by 18 percent this year, faster than for any other major media type. Advertisers also plan to raise their spending for advertising on search engines by 39 percent, the fastest of any online media method.

Outsell fielded a Web-based survey of 1,010 advertisers and looked at five media types—online, print, events, TV/radio/movies, and other. Among this year’s findings:

• Print, while still the largest recipient of ad dollars (40 percent), will continue to lose share as online’s share grows to 20 percent. This is a major milestone for online advertising.
• Advertisers’ share of online spending for pay-per-click (PPC) ads will fall one percent in 2007, while cost-per-action ads’ share will grow eight percent and online sponsorships’ share will rise 12 percent.
• Click fraud concerns are a driver in PPC’s drop in share. Forty-nine percent of advertisers have reduced or plan to reduce their PPC spending because of click fraud, up from 37 percent when Outsell first surveyed advertisers on this issue in the Spring of 2006. Advertisers also rate their own Web sites and e-mail marketing more effective than search engine ads, additional drivers in PPC’s slowdown.
• Advertisers rate online advertising very effective for branding, contrary to common wisdom that online shines at leads but is weak for branding.
• The share of TV/radio/movie ad spending will decline about 3.5 percent this year.
• This is the first study to reveal that advertisers are redirecting more trade magazine ad dollars to events than they are moving to paid search."

Buy the report : http://www.outsellinc.com/press/press_releases/ad_spending_online_search_engine_print

Online video and copyright

" Gootube fanboys would argue that copyright owners shouldn't complain. Thats its free pub for the content. Except that on Google Video, you can post any length video and people are putting up full length movies all the time. Thats not promotion, thats Google profiteering.

Google in one breath says they can't monitor the uploading of the 60k or however many videos are uploaded per day. Yet according to the WSJ:" Viacom spokesman Carl Folta also took issue with the idea that YouTube would only make filtering available to companies who make deals a la Warner Music." "

Mark says it all : http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/02/04/gootube-terrorizes-copyright-owners-by-withholding-filters/