PardonMyFrench

Ok - This is BIG News from Google

Yes, I know this is my third post tonight, but I can't resist because this is big news for Google especially if you are in the financial services category.  According to Search Engine Watch, New Google AdWords Dayparting and Ad Scheduling Coming.  It seems that the author of the post Jennifer Slegg caught up with Google's Michael Mayzel at a conference and asked him to give her a rundown of new features (BTW - I'm pretty sure I worked with Michael on a number of Google PR initiatives while I was at Harridirect).  Google is expected to roll out in the next month, the following key changes (there are others, but this is what I care about):

1. Ad scheduling allows advertisers to run their ads and modify their bids based on time of day as well as intra-day and intra-week cycles in campaign performance.
2. Small business and local advertisers can now schedule their ads to run only during business hours.
3. More sophisticated advertisers can now better capture & exploit intra-day and intra-week cycles of buyer behavior.

Ok, why is this BIG news, especially for financial services advertisers?  Simple, the traffic dies down during the weekend and slows down considerably after hours during the week.  That pattern was one of the reasons I could not see paying millions of dollars to AOL to market in their rainman platform to customers that could not access AOL during the work day (how many offices let users access AOL via their old platform).  You see if you were an active trader, why would you wait to the end of the day when you got home to monitor your investments?  The answer is you wouldn't and were elsewhere during the workday.  So, that's why this announcement by Google is so critical.

Any financial services advertiser should turn this functionality on the minute Google does.  That way, they heavy up between Monday and Friday during the work day to capture the customer when they are engaged the most.  You should have a small window of opportunity to take advantage of this change before your competitors do.  I'd also assume that several other industries would experience the opposite effect.

Don't wait very long to implement this.  I can guarantee you that any of my clients, especially the financial services, will implement this feature ASAP.  Thank you Google and PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Here's A Surprise - Vonage Customers Upset Over IPO

You know maybe if I wasn't a Managing Director at a brokerage company, I would have jumped on board this Vonage IPO. You see after a few years of paying a little attention to how the industry works, I learned a thing or two.  One was when a company goes for an IPO they spend a lot of time drumming up (or selling) support for their company.  Two, the underwriters need to sell the IPO to stoke up demand.  And three, I learned how risky an IPO is and that you MUST READ THE FINE PRINT IN SEC FILINGS.  This last point is especially important because at an IPO those filings are the closest thing you will ever see to proper disclosures. 

Well, according to three sources, one from the Wall Street Journal in the article called Vonage Vows to Pursue Customers Who Renege On IPO Agreement , one from the NY Times called Vonage Moves to Reassure  Nervous Investors, and finally from the Washington Post in the article called Vonage Customers Irked as Stock Deal Hits a Snag, it seems that current customers that invested in the IPO are in a mini revolt.  This looks real bad and it reminds me of the initial AT&T Wireless IPO, but with the one exception. In the AWE IPO the stock went up initially and then tanked.  Personally, I have my wife to thank who said to me, as soon as the stock goes up. dump it and take the profit, which is what I did (look I've been married for 12 years, I learned a thing or two about marriage grief).

Check out this chart which is very, very bad.  I won't offer advice on this website, because well, as my old Chief Legal Council once told me, you don't need any problems.  However, what I would want you readers to learn about are two financial terms - so go look them up:

1. Support points at a price which this IPO may not have
2. Short sellers getting a hold of a stock

If you own this stock, you need to ask yourself why. If you can't come up with a good reason, go back and read the SEC filings and make an informed decision. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Marketing Rapid Fire - May 31, 2006 Edition

Ok, I didn't think I would have to resort to this again, but there are too many articles out there to let you readers know about.  Plus, I have enough traffic to resurrect this.

Marketing Rapid Fire - May 31, 2006 Edition

1. Over at Bill Tancer's blog which is a must read for me whenever he posts, he looks at the impact of MySpace on Google.  Check this link out for the post, MySpace: Understanding the Impact of a Search Deal.
2. Online Ad Spending expected to grow to $4 Billion in Q1 from ClickZ
3. From Cybernet News, the top 10 most common passwords, most of it from the UK..  Here's a hint "password" and "123" are bad ones
4. And, here's a surprise from MarketWatch.  It seems that Google Executives Say Offline Print Ads Are Below Expectations.  I guess everything Google is not always Gold.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Virgin Is For Lovers, Ad Lovers That Is

I saw this post over at Reuters today titled Virgin Mobile Introduces Ad-Subsidized Calls and my initial reaction was that it is a lame idea and it conjured up memories of MyPoints and e-rewards.  After I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach, I thought about it for a few minutes and decided, well it is not so bad and why not - the only risk they have is that their users don't go for it and all they are left with is a few upset advertisers.

According to the article, Virgin Mobile USA will give its customers the ability to generate free minutes, up to 75 per month when they view and respond via text messages to ads.  Found in the article is this quote from Virgin Mobile USA CMO Howard Handler,  "very practically speaking a lot of our customers are value conscious. They manage budgets that are finite."  And he added,  "It will contribute meaningful additional top line revenue and EBITDA." 

First let's look at the business side.  The math seems pretty simple, have advertisers pay Virgin Mobile a CPM for running ads and then give users back free minutes.  If you take a look at their pricing, which seems a little complicated to me, and focus on the promoted price per minute it translates into 10 cents.  However, we should probably bump that up a little to take into consideration the daily call fees and other pricing permutations, so let's make that revenue per minute 12 cents.  Now all Virgin needs to do is provide competitive CPMs and scoop up the difference.  Sweet.

So, besides earning the "float" where else do they win out?  Easy, they get people engaged in using their phone for surfing the internet, text messaging,  and viewing ads.  Any methods to increase usage of cell phones for something other than making calls is a good endeavor even if this product is mostly geared toward under 30's who should know how to use their phone already.

Of course the downsides are that they could possibly increase churn, customers do not embrace the program, or advertisers see no increases on their post-click/post view actions.  I think the last two represent the biggest concerns and a Forrester Analyst mentioned in the article is not completely sold on the incentive.  I for one think that the advertisers, if they have any sense of post-click analytics, should be worried about Response SPAM or SPARM; people just doing the bare minimum to get paid, kind of like the career focus group participant.

Advertising to today's consumers takes more than just running some ads and paying people to respond.  With all of the buzz regarding social networks, conversational marketing, heck even PPC, it seems that Virgin is going back to the future.  Personally, I think the response will be tepid because it will take a very price conscious consumer who does not care about image to take advantage of this price schedule.  However, Virgin has very little to lose and a lot to be gained by testing it out.  Good luck.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. Other articles on the subject:

1. WashingtonPost also has an article
2. ClickZ with a little more information

Top Finance Sites To Spend Your Money - 5/30/06

Happy Memorial Day!!  As we pass the first unofficial day of summer, let's take a look at the top financial services publishers that you could spend your money on with an online advertising campaign.  However, keep one thing in mind, that as the days heat up, the trading activity cools down so if you don't get your buy in before the 4th of July, you are better off saving the dollars until after Labor Day.

As you know these numbers are reported by Alexa and one flaw in the reporting is that you can not break out sub-domains.  For example, Yahoo Finance only appears as Yahoo.com so I included a few extra sites to balance out that reporting error.

 

A lot of interesting points to raise from this chart with several helpful tips from someone that has bought almost $100 million worth of advertising on these sites since 2001.

1. Yahoo and MSN have 10 times the amount of traffic as the third place publisher; that's why I always started with these two when it came to buying media.
2. If you can't afford to buy on the finance pages of these sites, try their mail properties to reach the audience.
3. CNNMoney and NOT AOL is the third place site which probably comes as a surprise to people, but not me.  I haven't bought on AOL Finance since I canceled a deal in the fall 2001 and that still looks like the right strategy.
4. SmartMoney while not in the top 14 still has a lot of overlap with other sites so you would be better off not paying their rates and looking for their traffic elsewhere.   Audience duplication is real and measurable, so you don't need to buy on every site in the category.
5. MarketWatch and WSJ.com don't have much audience duplication even though they are owned by the same parent company and link to each other (perhaps an Alexa data error?).  Also, check on the other sites that WSJ readers visit, mostly news and not financial sites.
6. Finally, the majority of users of these sites spend time only on the homepage and don't go very deep into other pages.  Buy on the homepage first and look to optimize later.

Anyway, that's your top 10-14 publishers for this week.  We'll check back in with our brokerage friends to see what they look like 2 weeks later.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google Video - I Guess It Is Ok

I saw this post from Bambi Francisco since I'm an avid reader of her blog as well as her posts over at MarketWatch.  Bambi writes in Google Video Exchange Ambitions how advertisers are clamoring to place rich media ads and she herself says that she has created video ads for MarketWatch since 1999.

Now while I believe these points as well as several others are true, I think she misses one crucial point - the ads are NOT available on searches completed on Google.com; they are only available in content.  So, I think we should temper our celebration and forecasts just a little bit.  Look, I've already popped it into a series of political advertising presentations, but while I think it has some cache, I think the amount of traffic it will generate will be very, very small, and therefore, very little CPC for Google.

For all of the campaigns that I've run in search and it has totaled north of $1 million, content has often underperformed and many times I have it turned off altogether.  A few years back at Harrisdirect I was saved from a lot of pain and documentation from a NASD inquiry into brokerage firms advertising on sites that used Google content ads to make themselves look legitimate.  The only reason I didn't have to participate was because I had content turned off.

So, loading video into Google will be about as successful as loading flash display ads into the system - kind of cool, but little results.  You are an idiot for not loading video and display ads into your search campaigns, but I wouldn't want to become an idiot by promising people results of any significance.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

NJ Warns Parents About MySpace

A very interesting letter came home in my son's school backpack on Friday.  It was a  letter from the state of New Jersey and it was warning parents about inappropriate Internet use in and out of school.  It speaks about research linking cyber bullying

and child predators with social networks.  And, the guest of honor for the story was none other than, you guessed it, MySpace.  In fact, there is a whole paragraph devoted to MySpace at the end of the letter.

I took a lot of grief for some of my MySpace bashing when I warned advertisers about using it.  Not, music, video, movies, and other entertainment products, but your every day big companies that care about what their brand is associated with when advertising.  And, this letter in addition to past posts should provide further evidence of the type of traffic that is believed to be on MySpace.

Yes there is a ton of traffic on MySpace and the model has some very good aspects to it.  However, some of the traffic is dubious at best.  If you are going to advertise there you need to make sure it is just not due to a network buy on Advertising.com where you will have your banners shown over and over again until eventually someone clicks because they are bored.  If you do make the conscience effort to advertise there I hope your product is youth oriented and you create a conversational marketing strategy because that's what good social networking is all about.  You just have to wade through some garbage while slogging through MySpace.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

 

 

DC Meetings - Happening Times for Online Politics

Sorry about the lack of posts this week.  On Monday and Tuesday I was in NYC for the Forrester Finance Forum and then Thursday and Friday I was in DC for meetings.  You know I have to do some work and can't spend every day writing on this website.

I was very excited about the meetings on Thursday and Friday.  As Connell Donatelli's Chief Internet Strategist I get to participate in meetings that in my wildest dreams I never thought I'd attend.  However, before those meetings, I had to survive the power failure on Amtrak which caused me to sit on a hot smelly train for an extra 3 hours.  I'll never forget walking out of the train in Philadelphia and being surrounded by news cameras.  Pretty strange, but then I reminded myself that a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is major news in Philly.  As soon as I landed at our offices, I was whisked away for a meeting with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC is charged with supporting House Republicans and you can imagine that the fall elections poise quite a challenge. And, you know what?  They are turning to the internet for advertising.  We just completed a small one month test on a number of sites and it was EXTREMELY successful in generating supporters.  So good that I was envious of the conversion rates and they were thrilled and renewed the buy.  Coupled with the search campaigns on Google it is a very thorough and well thought out plan. After that great meeting, I was off to a late night meeting to review another online advertising campaign.

During that meeting, Mike Connell President of New Media Communications reviewed the mygop platform and I was very impressed with the technology behind the scenes.  Personally, I think it is brilliant because it brings the MySpace model into the political arena by giving you, as a supporter of the GOP, your own personal page that gives you the ability to fund raise, refer friends, create your own team, and register voters.    Plus, it has a neat interface with Google maps to find local events near you.  Truly, a cutting edge use of social networking, but hopefully a good portion of the older GOP base will give it a try; that's probably the only thing wrong with it.  You can check out my page at http://ericfrenchman.gop.com

We are working on a number of projects and I expect them to pay big dividends in a few months.  And, search marketing is sizzling hot for email signups and donations.  And, things are looking up since we hired my former intern at Harrisdirect.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

There Is No Offline or Online Marketing - Just Google ROO

I had plenty of subjects to write about today, especially since I spent the last 2 days at the Forrester Finance Forum.  However, the amount of traffic on the site increased three fold because of my last post, so since the people have spoken, give them what they want.

Yesterday at the Forrester Forum, Jon Kaplan Google's Finance Category Chief (not exactly sure what his title is, but that sounds pretty good) gave a presentation on what your world will look like courtesy of Google.  Unfortunately, they haven't posted all of the presentations yet and because they announced that they would be posted, I did not take detailed notes (I hate it when they do that).  The one quote that stood out for me, however was "There is no online or offline, just return on objective marketing" which is very thought provoking. So, let's examine what that could mean.

GOOGLE BUSINESS MARKETING TOOLS

Ok, first let's take a look at Google's strategy for capturing marketing dollars, err I mean helping marketers.  It starts with a simple chart found over in Google Press Center from their last Analyst Meeting.    See they are just not  interested in search they also want to look at capturing print, radio, mobile, and video.  Google wants to align around your marketing goals and  as Kaplan said yesterday "serve the right ad to the right person at the  right time".  Now let's take a quick spin around the Google Revenue Opportunity Big Wheel, Bob Barker fans.

First Print.  As mentioned in the meeting yesterday, Google is looking to help monetize available print opportunities and offer them up on an auction basis (if memory serves me correctly).  And, guess what sports fans, they also want to extend that model into radio. That was the reason behind the purchase of dMarc a few months back.  So, by offering up similar targeting opportunities Google can extend their intelligence into print and radio, which lord knows can use some help.  Imagine, opting in via AdWords into a radio or print campaign with the same text ad that you are using today....

Next on the big wheel is video. As announced yesterday, Google will now allow advertisers to serve video adds on a CPC or CPM basis.  These videos will be served as a flat image with user-initiated video.  Plus, they are keyed off your current keywords, you can opt-into sites, and geo-target it.  Now, while I think this is a great move into online video because it will extend the reach of plain old TV commercials and ties in nicely with the major networks offering TV shows online, I think we need to temper our enthusiasm just a little bit.  First of all, it assumes that users will want to turn on the video as opposed to what they do now which is get a beer, run to the can, or pound through them with TiVo.  Second, and probably the more damaging of the two, it is ONLY available in content targeting.  You remember content right?  The area that I recommend turning off or down to a minimum for most of my clients.

Finally, on the big wheel is mobile and this is where it really starts to get interesting.  Google believes that it is a big opportunity and I think the talk yesterday scared some people (not me of course).  Jon spoke about the opportunities presented in qr codes being used in Japan.  Not sure what qr codes are - check this out over at Wikipedia.  What you could do with a qr billboard next to say a Disney Store is that when you point your qr enabled cell phone Disney pushes out a coupon to you.  Seems harmless enough right?  Well, lets think about this scenario.

YOUR WORLD DELIVERED BY GOOGLE

Let's say it was your 12th wedding anniversary on Monday and you forgot to make a reservation for dinner and oops, you are stuck in a meeting.  So, you pull out your Treo 700W and log onto your Google homepage.  You type in your favorite Italian restaurant in Madison NJ (Il Mondo Vecchio) to get the phone number, but instead you hit a click to call ad served on the right.  Bingo you get the reservation and your wife is thrilled.  The next day you are in NYC at a conference and the lunch is not very appetizing.  So, you go outside and see one of those billboards and point your phone to get a coupon.  Unfortunately, instead of getting the hamburger ad you wanted, you download a coupon for the pizza restaurant because Google knows you like Italian. Hmmmm, seems like plenty of revenue opportunity for Google.

OK, SO WHAT'S MISSING

Now there are two things that are really needed here.  One is better tracking and two is the integrated channel marketing client. From a tracking perspective I don't mean AdWords  because there is a lot of good data and tracking already available or dMarc because that's what they are using for radio and print.  In order to do this, Google will need to build an integrated tracking platform so that all of these measures come together and that includes some definitions around reach and frequency.  Plus, some metrics around brand awareness which goes beyond Google Trends would help too.  I love Google Trends, but without some numbers on the Y axis, it is hard to justify a bump due to advertising (try this one on your CMO using the chart - yes, that little wiggle in the graph is due to our spend on Google print.  No I don't know how much I increased week over week, but trust me it is a BIG BUMP.)  HEY GOOGLE - WE NEED NUMBERS, PERCENTAGES, SOMETHING ELSE ON THE Y AXIS!!!

Next up is the integrated channel marketing client and that is someone besides the CMO.  The last time I checked most organizations that even realize the internet is around split their groups into offline and online organizations; then they even may split it further by retention versus acquisition.  What Google will need to make this vision happen is an organization that measures the value of marketing to a person and not to an impression or a GRP. 

Your world delivered via Google could happen soon, but what would speed the process up is something that I'm sure Google's engineers are tinkering with - that's the Google Marketer, available of course on a cost per idea basis.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Can You Hear That? Market Barks at Vonage

Check out this - Vonage IPO's heads south.  Check this screen shot courtesy of Yahoo Finance:

That's rough.  Hopefully you didn't cash out your life's savings for this "offering". 'Nuff said.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Behind Google's Numbers

I've been sitting on some very interesting numbers on Google from last week because I was waiting for the right time to publish them.  Well, true-believers, today is the day.

According to a press release by comScore, Google increased its share of the U.S. Search market in April.  Approximately 43% of all U.S. searches were performed on Google, followed by Yahoo at 28%, MSN at 12.9%, and then AOL at 6.9%. 

What was very interesting by the numbers is that everyone but Google saw a decrease in % of search activity.  Also, isn't it interesting that a powerhouse like MSN looks like they seceded search to Yahoo and Google?  I know that is not a newsflash but it still really jumps out of the page when you see the numbers again.  Personally, I like their overhaul of their search platform and they should see an increase as people become more accustomed to the relaunched product. Plus, they moved almost all of their search activity from Yahoo a few weeks back.  

The final interesting point from comScore is that there were 6.6 billion searches conducted in the US for the month of April.  That's a TON of activity and according to the study it grew by 4%.

Last week, Hitwise reported some very interesting numbers on Google's product line, and you know what, it really is still all about search for them.  In a post called Google Properties - Understanding The Breakdown, Bill Tancer took a look at the top 20 Google domains.  The table reprinted to the right shows that if you just look at search and image search, you get about 90% of all of Google's traffic and if you take a look at the top 4 by throwing in Mail and News, you are looking at 96.5% of all activity!!!  Notice that Google Finance which I wrote about the day it launched is WAYYYY down on the list at #17.

I'm a big fan of Google and I love some of the new products, but this is starting to look like a typical product line extension - or is it? One thing I remember from my product marketing sessions at AT&T is that the further you move from your core product offering, the less likely you are to find something that resonates.  Couple this with a post at Google's official blog called Google's 20% in Action actually sheds a little light on why you'd have this extension.  This 20% rule allows Google Engineers to spend 1 day out of every 5 working on projects that are not necessarily in their job description.  With so many engineers working on the "next" thing, it keeps Google on the cutting edge of search technology. 

What does this mean to you?  With 6 billion monthly searches and the number growing month over month, how do you not get in on the game?  Plus, if you are in the game, you need to have buys on Google, Yahoo, and MSN in that order of priority.  The other search activity can be picked up by one of the big three.

Another key point raised in the Forrester Finance Forum today (yes I know I keep pointing them out) is that a lot of product research in the financial services category begins with search.  My guess is that a lot of other product research starts with search too; hence the increasing demand.  The Google product extension which can provide a lot of utility, keeps Google on the cutting edge and assuming that they don't get too distracted, means that they are still the MVP of Search and best positioned to take advantage of the increases in activity.   If you are not there, you really are nowhere. Google's only weakness seems to be in community search, but that's for another blog.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - Google should call their product line extension GoogleX!!!!

Top Brokerage Site Part 2

I was at the Forrester Financial Services Forum in NYC and reconnected with a lot of great people.  One person whom I met was from Sharebuilder and it occurred to me that I left them off my top 10 list.  A quick look at Alexa shows that they should have been sandwiched in between Scottrade and Fidelity.  They had a reach of 530% for last week.  Oops, my bad.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Top Brokerage Site 5-21-06

So, I got this idea from fellow Marketing Prof daily blogger Mack Collier who has a blog over at The Viral Garden.  Mack publishes a weekly Top 25 Marketing Blogs according to Alexa, so I decided why not do the same thing for financial services companies, but with a little twist.  Anyway, there are issues with Alexa and they are not perfect because it tracks their users so you only get data on that audience, but anyone can get access to it.  Here goes...

                       ALEXA'S TOP FINANCIAL SERVICES SITES 5-21-06

So, for this week our top financial services marketing sites is none other than TDAmeritrade.  This is measured by Alexa's reach so their number is a whopping 8.5 million visitors to the website last week.   Scottrade came in second, followed by Fidelity. 

What is very interesting regarding the list is that Wells Fargo is so high up on it which given its brand recognition and link to banking (notice the top sites that their browsers also visit) makes it a very interesting player to watch.  They are even ranked ahead of E*Trade and Schwab.  Scottrade seems to have a problem because the people that visit them also visit other brokers and it predominantly looks like for cheap trades.  Finally. TD users seem to like their technology or there is an error in the data, perhaps due to their large reach.

Anyway, that's it for this week.  Next week, I'll take a look at where people get their financial trading ideas from.  Thanks Mack for the good idea, even if I had to put my own spin on it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

More Bad Marketing From Vonage

Wow, I'm really piling on Vonage these days.  Oh well, why not?  Ever since they lost their ex-CMO Dean Harris, their self-reported cost per acquisition has gone up and they've tried old marketing ideas that I think are not appropriate for their target audience.

Back in April I wrote about their lame attempt at direct marketing to people that have already been bombarded by their online and TV ads.  Well, it seems that the marketing geniuses at Vonage must have found an AT&T marketing plan from circa 1995 because in this morning's mail stuffed in a Columbia House DVD mailer, a full color Vonage bill insert slipped out with the rest of the garbage in that envelope.  You know the kind of garbage I'm talking about - free checks, credit card offers, and commemorative coins.

Now before you start to think, well Eric their marketing can't be that bad if they found you.  Well it is.  Let me explain the numbers behind their bill insert program based on my own experience. 

Let's use a number of 1,000,000 inserts and based on costs that I've seen over the years, let's assume it costs 12 cents per insert to produce and place in the mailers.  That's a cost of $120,000.  Now, typically the reason behind doing a bill insert program is that it is cheaper than DM and it can hit a wider, yet untargeted audience.  So, response rates are typically around .1%,  so that means  1,000 responders.  Of course, not all responders translate into a sale, so let's say they do really, really well and convert 25% of them into sales.  That's a glorious $480 per gross sale.  Don't agree with me?  Believe me, I've done a TON of these programs since 1990 and they all look about the same.  The only way these programs work is if you don't pay the inserting costs, but almost no one waives that fee today.

Bill inserts and direct mail to their target audience are some of the factors that are driving their cost per acquisition to nearly $210 as reported in their latest SEC filing.  What the team at Vonage should do is put aside these ideas and focus on TV and online.  TV for putting that annoying WooHoo song from the Kill Bill soundtrack in your head and online for delivering the sales.  For online advertising they should continue to pursue their shopping cart mentality and be almost everywhere their audience is, but to do that you have to be ultra aggressive in optimizing the placements as well as the creative.  Their creatives look the same and because of that their ads are fast becoming internet wall-paper.  Poor optimization of creatives and placements is a recipe for disaster when using a shopping cart online advertising strategy and with their huge online buys, this is the other factor in their rising costs.

Optimizing TV and online campaigns in a very aggressive, yet scientific manner is what they should be doing, not testing offline marketing for this customer base.  Maybe it is a little too boring for them, but it will keep their cost per sale numbers down and if they really have money burning a hole in their pocket, maybe they should fix their churn problem.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

More Vonage Complaints

Here's some more links:

Time to Dump Vonage
Technology Same As It Ever Was
Vonage Problem's Building

What The Vonage - Again

With its fast approaching IPO, Vonage looks like it is barely going to make it to the starting gate.  First, a really nasty article in today's WSJ called Vonage Faces User Complaints As IPO Looms.  I was actually going to write about this a few weeks back, but decided against it after running the idea by a few friends.  Now, it seems like I was right, so here goes...(serves me right for listening to them)

According to the article. it seems that Vonage needs a helping hand on the customer service side especially when trying to transport your number. I've also experienced problems when dialing Vonage users with the call not going through or cutting off.  Also, I've encountered an old narrow-band term called "network busy" when the calls don't complete or get dropped.

I wrote back in my original Vonage post called What The Vonage about their really high marketing acquisition costs as a danger sign.  Guess what?  The numbers are still bad as you can read for yourself in this link to a recent filing with the SEC.  Their 1Q'06 Marketing Cost Per Subscriber is a pathetic $209 which is an increase of 5.6% over same time in 2005.  Maybe it was all of that direct mail the marketing geniuses decided to drop.  Look, if you are bombarding the internet and TV with your bad ads and I've ignored them, what makes you think direct mail will be a good channel for me?

You know what else is a danger sign in the telecom industry?  You guess it fans, high customer care costs and high churn rates.  So, let's take a look at that recent filing again.  You know what I see?  Increasing customer care costs and increasing churn rates.  Average monthly cost per subscriber line has gone from $7.83 to $8.74; that's a bad trend especially for an internet company.  At AT&T we were starting to move our costs down because we pushed people to e-bills and e-care, but if you are already there... well you guessed it.

How's the churn game going for them?  Well, bad.  It has increased from 1.70% to 2.11% per month and that's a really, really bad trend.  Why?  Well, as a veteran of the mid-90's telecom wars between AT&T and MCI I can tell you that when you couple high churn with high acquisition costs, you are in a lose-lose situation as your costs spiral out of control. It reminds me of the lunch my mom used to make me in grammar school - peanut butter and sardines.  I wonder what our let's get rich now folks have to say about churn; read this from the risk section:

Our rate of customer terminations, or average monthly customer churn, was 2.11% for the three months ended March 31, 2006. During those three months, approximately 77,000 of our customers terminated. Our churn rate could increase in the future if customers are not satisfied with our service. Other factors, including increased competition from other providers, also influence our churn rate.

Because of churn, we have to acquire new customers on an ongoing basis just to maintain our existing level of customers and revenues. As a result, marketing expense is an ongoing requirement of our business. If our churn rate increases, we will have to acquire even more new customers in order to maintain our existing revenues. We incur significant costs to acquire new customers, and those costs are an important factor in determining our net losses and achieving future profitability. Therefore, if we are unsuccessful in retaining customers or are required to spend significant amounts to acquire new customers beyond those budgeted, our revenue could decrease and our net losses could increase.

More customer complaints, higher churn, higher cost, and higher customer acquisition costs in a space with a lot of growth opportunity is a recipe for disaster.  Like the sandwich my mom made me, I'm sure they will have a lot of lunch partners to trade with.  If they end up like I did in the cafeteria, they'll just gulp it down as quickly as possible before their friends and family found out what mom actually hid in the sandwich.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Y R U NOT USG RSS 4 MKTG?

Ok, a quick one tonight with a few links on RSS.  I've been researching this for a while now and it looks like I finally get to present a strategy on using RSS for marketing to a financial services company's client base.  Even with the adoption rate being on the low side right now, using a company like SimpleFeed's secure RSS solution makes a ton of sense for banking and brokerage.

First study was released by Jupiter Research and it is titled RSS Comes of Age which looks at the spending of companies on RSS.  The first key point in the study was that 63% of large companies plan to push out content by the end of 2006; up from the 29% recently reported.  The study also found that 48% of current RSS publishers are spending at least $250K managing the content.  So, you have to ask yourself why are you ignoring this channel?  It is very easy to generate content and have it formatted for free over at Feedburner so it is just not headlines and text.  Or, you could go to a company like SimpleFeed and customize while pushing it out in a secure fashion.  Plus, SimpleFeed's tracking tool rival anything you might get from your email vendor (I know it sounds like I'm a shill for them, but so what?)

Pheedo released a quarterly Pheed report on RSS and it provides great information on advertising in RSS feeds as well as penetration.  I've seen a few sites that are talking about the click rates of ads placed within feeds, but for me I'll take a pass for now.  Not on advertising in RSS, but more on the data.  I think right now any numbers that are being reported are more of a halo effect because it is so new.  Witness the chart which shows the categories receiving the highest CTR - comics, travel, and kids.  None of the feeds I'm receiving include them and you can be sure when I see the first few I'll click on them too. 

What is very interesting is the number of people that read entire feeds via their feed reader (90%) which again means that you should be formatting it properly so it appears like a web page or an email.  Bloglines still maintains the largest share of the feed readers coming in at 30%, but down from last quarter.  Yahoo is next followed by Mozilla (firefox - pick it up today.  Why are you still slogging away with Explorer?).  The market is very fragmented so the best thing you can do is include enough versions to please as many people as possible. 

RSS is coming fast to the average web user and once a critical mass of retailers embrace it, I think you'll see a tipping point.  Try this out if my posts haven't convinced you yet.  Go to bloglines and setup a free account.  Then go over to ebay and type your favorite product search in and instead of looking via ebay, click on the RSS feed at the bottom of the page.  Now, whenever something new is added to the auction, you'll get a news feed.  If that doesn't convince you, send me an email or comment back below, and we'll talk.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Yahoo's Advertising Face-lift

Ok, so this is a little on the slow side for reporting a major story, but if you are coming here you are probably not looking for recent news, but comments with a little attitude; plus, maybe a little insight from someone that has bought a ton of media.  As reported by every major news site (some listed below), Yahoo! is in the midst of rolling out a new homepage.   Just go to Yahoo.com and hit the link in the upper right hand corner to test it out for yourself.

          OLD YAHOO PAGE                                                    NEW PAGE

Ok, the first thing you should notice is a much wider page which I think is awesome.  Also, search is at the top of the page which hopefully foreshadows renewed focus on that platform.  The page has a silvery feel to it which makes the ad units stand out more.  I also like the module in the right hand corner that pulls in your weather, IM, and mail right on the page and expands when you roll over in that new section. The right hand ad unit stands out more than ever before and I also like the marketplace section on the bottom left, but unfortunately it is below the fold.  The final ad unit is the text link at the top of the page which is a very interesting spot.

It is too bad you can't customize the section with your content in it and bring your own news feeds in.  I wish they would have had a unit that said MyNews and then had it expand out.  One has to wonder what the point of a MyYahoo page is (besides the customized news) and what the long-term plan is for it besides the trash bin.  I could also do without the Yahoo travel section which occupies valuable real estate, especially for someone that doesn't travel a lot.  Personally, I wish it was a finance section.  The only other negative I can see is the duplication of MyMail units which seems like a complete waste of space.

From an advertising perspective I think it is a home run.  You now have three positions on the page with obviously three different levels of importance.  The right hand mantel unit (Yahoo lingo) is the premier spot, with my guess the text link at the top right costing more than a link in the marketplace section.  I've advertised on Yahoo's homepage back in September 2003 and I couldn't get enough of it.  The page generates tremendous amounts of traffic and with the help of the Yahoo! team it performed very well.  As I recall, it generated about 10% of my average monthly visits to my acquisition landing page in one day.   

YAHOO FACE-LIFT STORY LINKS:

• WSJ JOURNAL  - basic reporting of launch
• TECHCRUNCH - old and new site shots, but the commentary is pretty good
• CLICKZ - a little more detail plus information on AJAX which lets users add content on the fly without leaving the page (middle content on page)
• CNET - quick post but includes quotes from Jerry Yang and information on which browsers can see the new site
• CNET #2 - I love this one.  It shows the transformation of Yahoo's homepage through the years.  As pathetic as this sounds, I remember that first homepage when I used to slog through the world wide web using my Compuserve account.  Those were some times especially when I used my black and white AT&T laptop.

I think that's a great recap of Yahoo's new face-lift (pat on my back).  As a whole I think it is a great balancing act between advertiser's needs and user's needs which is what you should expect from the professional management team there.  I only wish they would have given me an expanding news unit.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

My There's Some News on MySpace This Week

Ok, some folks think I've been a little harsh on marketers and politicians using MySpace to have a conversation with that user base.  In fact, over at Marketing Prof's Blog which I write for, I got into a debate with one of these MySpace zealots.  As I've written quite a number of times - MySpace is not appropriate for all advertisers even though they have like 75 million registered users.  Well, some forward thinking advertisers as reported by a number of sites and newspapers (listed below in a second) finally started using MySpace for what it was meant for.  Look, by definition online advertising should be more targeted than other mediums out there, so there is no excuse to flush good marketing dollars down the bowl.  MySpace with their very young audience is the P-E-R-F-E-C-T place for music, video, movies, TV shows, etc as witnessed by these new campaigns.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal and CNET, MySpace via Fox will offer $1.99 downloads of the popular show 24.  Burger King will sponsor the downloads and get a MySpace themed page.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, said MySpace will likely offer more content in the future such as television shows, games, and movies.  At least Burger King got a clue about social networking or at least they are willing to try it.  Thank goodness they didn't slap up a MySpace page so you can link to your favorite Double Whopper with cheese.

AdRants got the jump with reporting that HBO's Entourage has a MySpace page.  As you can see, the page includes a contest to create your own MySpace page featuring your group of friends.  HBO will choose the finalists and MySpace the winner.  Of course included in the contest was the ability to pass the page out through your network.  As of 9PM tonight, Entourage has 308 "friends".

While these are all great uses of MySpace and targeted at the right audience, it is not for all advertisers.  You think that I've been exaggerating or I have an axe to grind with them?  Well in today's Wall Street Journal, on the front page no less, there was an article titled A Problem With Hot Web Outfits: Keeping Pages Free From Porn.  Basically it describes how big web destinations, and in particular MySpace, are working with the  photo hosting companies like PhotoBucket to screen out pornographic photos which are against their policies.  The article described one poor sap that looks at 300 photos PER MINUTE to screen out these HOTT (2 T's on purpose) photos.  (I wonder how this guy would fair in a Rorschach test :-))  The article also reminded people how Verizon pulled its ads out of MySpace because of these photos.  BTW - why would Verizon think that anyone would want to have a social networking relationship with a land line phone?  Can you spell new product development for screening out photos on the internet?

MySpace is not for every marketer even though it has a ton of traffic and a good, youthful demographic.  Remember that you can always find this audience elsewhere on the internet if you are afraid of having your ads run next to content that would make your PR officer pull a Flounder on Dean Wormer.  The only problem you'd run into then would be a lack of a social networking relationship unless you figure out another angle, but I guess that's what boring display and search ads are for!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Take Your SiteAdvisor If You're Googling for A Good Time

I’m surprised this didn’t get more notice in the typical marketing sites, perhaps because it is masked as a product pitch for McAfee’s SiteAdvisor. Ben Edelman, you remember him from previous posts on search click fraud and spyware, just completed a study I’m assuming on behalf of SiteAdvisor looking at The Safety of Internet Search Engines and I thought it was fairly interesting. Not from an online marketing POV, but from a general internet use POV. Here are the highlights or low-lights if you’ve been snagged by one of these unscrupulous types. Oh, before we dive in, let me just set two definitions for you.

- A red rated site by SiteAdvisor means it failed their safety test and they are likely to distribute adware, send spam, or make unauthorized changes to your computer

- A yellow rated site by SiteAdvisor means it engages in practices that warrant important advisory  information.   These sites send a high volume of non-spammy email, display many pop-up ads, or prompt users to change browser settings.

Summary information:

1. MSN has the lowest percentage of dangerous sites while Ask had the most
2. Sponsored search results contained 2-4 times as many dangerous sites as organic
3. As many as 285 million monthly clicks to these unscrupulous sites as a result of search
4. Sponsored links were 2.75 times more likely to end up on these sites than organic links
5. Free screensavers as a search term returns 57% bad sites and the results differ by search engine.  Other words such as Digital Music, tech toys and popular software return high percentages of evil sites.

Ok, so what does all of this mean?  Simple.  You really have to be careful out there.  Personally, this debunked a theory that I had which was clicking on sponsored links would return better results; clearly that is false and now that I think about it, makes sense.  You see in order to get listed high in the organic listing you have to have links and relevancy while being listed high in sponsored links requires good text ads and high bid amounts.

I don't know why Yahoo, Google, and Ask don't do more to clean up these listings.  It really is in their best interest over the long term to have  a lot of credibility in the sponsored links area.  If consumers think that the sponsored links are worse than organic search, than POOF there goes a revenue stream.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Nacchio Flips Bird at US Government

Ok, the news is everywhere on the Government getting access to phone records and you can draw your own conclusions on whether it is illegal or not.  I will not be offering any opinion because that is not what my site is about and I don't want to get mixed up with becoming a political news site/blog; there are already too many of them out there.  However, a number of friends and readers of my site sent me links as to how Joe Nacchio while heading up Qwest Communications as their CEO turned down the government's request for the data.  There are several articles out there including:

• Qwest Ex-Chief Is Suddenly Cast as Defender of Privacy from the NYTimes
• Nacchio Confirms Rejecting Request from NSA from the WSJ
• Lawyer: Ex-Qwest Executive Ignored NSA Request from the WashingtonPost

Now, do I think that Joe Nacchio turned the government down?  Absolutely. I only had a few meetings with him while I was at AT&T, so I'm not quite the expert but what I can tell you is that when he gave corporate-wide meetings, you know the kind that you would fall asleep in as finance bored you with numbers, he packed them in with standing room only availability.  Literally, he was like having your own corporate rock star and when he put out goals for the group, you did everything you could to hit those numbers. 

Anyway, to add a little background to the CEO that many news companies are celebrating as a privacy hero, I thought it would be fun to list out some legendary stories about Joe's time at AT&T - and if you want to add to the list by all means drop me an email or add a comment.  However, before we start a warning:  THESE ARE LEGENDARY STORIES AND I CAN NOT CONFIRM THEIR ACCURACY.  REMEMBER THE PHONE GAME YOU PLAYED AS A KID?  WELL THESE ARE PHONE GAME STORIES FROM WHAT WAS THE WORLD'S LARGEST PHONE COMPANY. 

So, without further ado, the Joe Nacchio Top 10 Legendary Stories:

1. When in the midst of a large consumer lay-off Joe had bullet proof glass installed in his office and was watched over by body guards.
2. After he left AT&T because Bob Allen didn't deem him worthy to take over for him (personally I believe that was the beginning of the end of AT&T), Mr. Nacchio leaves and starts a twice per week commute to Denver-based Qwest.  Whenever he drives by AT&T's Basking Ridge building on his way to the Morristown airport, he flips the bird outside the window of his Porsche.
3. He once said in reply to a manager saying his new business compensation plan was unfair "Fair is a place you take your daughter to see the pigs"
4. In the late to mid 80's Joe didn't like the AT&T ads geared up for the Super Bowl, so he commandeered them and had them re-shot with himself cast in the starring role.
5. He once told managers on the business side "if your presentations are way too fancy, then you have way too much time on your hands".
6. Speaking of presentations, he had strict rules on how to construct power point presentations.  He laid out the font size and type (Ariel 16) and margin amount.  He also had you draw a line at the top of the chart and dictated that whatever was above the line explained what was below the line.  Coincidentally, I still construct my presentations or decks in this manner.
7. He had a brother who worked at AT&T as a career b-band.  Joe never showed any nepotism.
8. Was the starring member of a famous call center located either in White Plains or Pittsburgh where many of AT&T's best executives originated from including Dan Schulman, Jack McMaster, Gail McGovern, and Cliff Holtz.
9. Started the brain-drain at AT&T by taking numerous VPs and directors with him to Qwest
10. And, my personal favorite which is a little long.  While I was running next to a friend of mine, Charlie K., Charlie explained how a division manager in winback named Ozzie deFaria said that if they deliver 1 million new winbacks in the next month, he would shave his hair off.  Unbeknown to us, the then current CEO of AT&T Wireless Steve Hooper was next to us and over heard our conversation.  It seems that Joe was bragging to Steve that we were going to step it up and winback a million customers.  Steve walked over to Joe and told him what he just heard and after showering Joe called Ozzie and told him to get his razor ready.  Mr Nacchio then announced the bet at a consumer wide meeting, forcing Ozzie to eventually shave his hair when the number was reached.

Well that's it for now.  I don't know about you, but based on what I know, I'm 100% sure that Nacchio gave the government the bird when it came to asking for phone records.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Kos Online Politics Is Growing Up

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, actually in Opinion Journal Online, there is an article called the Kos Celeb. It is about Ned Lamont trying to get into the Connecticut Democratic Primary to challenge seating Senator Joe Lieberman. Now, I'm not going to try and politicize this article because most of the Kos Celeb article has to do with Mr. Lamont's views on national issues and why he is running against Senator Lieberman.  What I want to do is point out a few interesting points in the article from an online advertising POV.

First of all, it seems that Mr. Lamont is favored by a lot of bloggers, most notably the Daily Kos (ding, ding, the reason for the title of the article) and other internet organizations particularly moveone.org which can bring donations and some support. A quote from the article says "...you walk in there not knowing whether there's going to be 10 guys...or 100 guys ....and thanks to Myleftnutmeg.com there's more likely to be 100 people there." A little later on the article (if you still are awake after reading his views :)) it says that Mr. Lamont has an uphill battle (senators get re-elected at an 85% clip) and Mr. Lieberman can take comfort in the failure of netroots thus far to produce many election victories. Hmmm - what about Howard Dean and moveon.org support? Well you know what happened to Dean and according to the article moveon.org endorsed 27 candidates in 2004 and only 5 won; I wonder if those 5 would consider moveon.org a significant reason for their victory.

Check this out. According to Google Trends, Mr. Lamont was more popular than Senator Lieberman up until about the end of March and now it looks like his "noise" is falling off a table like a Roger Clemons split finger fastball. I guess being loved by internet political bloggers only takes you so far when faced with a sitting, popular Senator.

What's wrong in Whoville? Nothing actually. Political campaigns build websites, blogs, and are voracious users of email to push messages and donations. There are more list swapping and list purchases than what I'm accustomed to (at Harrisdirect, I NEVER used 3rd party lists). They know they can generate enough buzz online to fill a speaking event or rally and spend a lot of time keeping their websites up to date.  I've been in many meetings discussing how to get web ready photos and videos for streaming on their website. How many of you private companies out there spend time shooting pictures and videos specifically for the web? While at Harrisdirect I was a maverick for shooting photos for our online advertising campaigns - woohoo.

You know what else politicians are starting to embrace? Search. I can't run enough paid placements campaigns on Google, Yahoo, and eventually MSN. In fact, I have a lot of fun running Google campaigns because I can run many difference creatives, geo-target issues related words and the reporting is easy. I also make sure that all search campaigns have email and donations tracked by every keyword; that way I can measure Cost per Donations (CPDs) and Cost per Email (CPEs). Even though search is working, we still have a long way to go in optimizing campaigns and bid management. It helps that I've managed over $2 million worth of search campaigns since 1998.

Display advertising to drive donations, push messages, gather emails, and drive traffic is really in its infancy. And, you know what? I like the challenge even if it takes a while. What we need to prove is that ongoing online advertising campaigns can produce donations, emails, traffic to websites, and eventually a winning election that online is one of the main reasons for the victory. I don't want you to think that there are no online media buys; there are quite a few because I'm buying the media for them. You just have to keep working the equation and eventually something will pop.

Until that time, don't sit back and think nothing is happening. There are tons of websites, blogs, email, communities, streaming video and audio, and a ton of paid search placements - a lot of techniques that most private companies should be jealous of.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

RSS Feed v.s. Email Part 2

About a week ago I wrote a post called RSS Feed v.s. Email - Just A Lightweight Bout Part 1, so I figured I'd follow-up this week with part 2.  About 2 years ago or so (they all start to blend in together now), my COO and head legal council at Harrisdirect called me into his office.  Mike was concerned about the new anti-spam laws and the requirements surrounding .ADV being in the subject line.  Mike muttered at the end of the meeting "we'll have to figure out how to get around using email" because it will be nearly impossible to push it out due to phishing.  Phishing? UGH.  What the heck is that?

Phishing is a huge problem for financial services companies.  All you need is some rat to grab a copy of your email, change the links, and redirect to a site where they grab your login information and then use it to say, withdraw money. And, because of phishing, every time there is a problem with your email delivery you end up scrambling to make sure you weren't phished.  I actually had a way around communicating with customers by dropping a cookie on them when they logged into the site and then when my ad server BlueStreak saw them on our internet advertising buy, we would serve them retention banner ads instead of acquisition ads.  Mike Hogan, our COO, gave me a look that told me "that's clever, but now go figure something else out."

FAST FORWARD TO A REAL LIFE PROBLEM

Well, we continued down the email path right until E*trade acquired us, so I'm not privy to their current plans.  However, one of my financial services clients does not send out emails to  a significant part of their client base because of phishing concerns.  So, when they sent me the internal documents, I thought to myself, hmmm maybe there is something to this RSS thing.  Plus, how do you take advantage of customers who want to communicate in this manner? 

SIMPLY SIMPLEFEED

So, I started sniffing around and rummaged through very old blogs and techie documents and eventually stumbled across SimpleFeed which is a company started by Mark Carlson (relax Mark, I'm only referring to information found on your website!!).  With SimpleFeed you can publish information your clients want and use a template to make them look like your website.  Plus, you can make the transaction secure and authenticate it eliminating SPAM and Phishing.   Plus, by using SimpleFeed you can track it just like it was an email.  Looks like a great product to me.  I love the fact that the product can make RSS feeds look like an email or your webpage; plus, the security features make it very attractive to financial services companies.

OK, SO YOU HAVE A TOOL, NOW WHAT?

What are the problems keeping marketers from using RSS?  Well, a couple of things.  First of all it is the low penetration which a lot of folks think will grow.   So, what should you do?  How about just implement it on a few pages where the information is updated frequently?  In order to do that, you need to come up with a naming convention.  Sure people recognize the RSS icon, but the majority of folks wouldn't even know to click on it.  I'd suggest something like your company name:NewsFeeds or InfoFeeds or Feeds.  So, if Harrisdirect was still in business, I'd put a link next to the RSS icon and call it Harrisdirect:InfoFeeds.  When someone clicked on the link, I'd jump them to a page where they could check off the feeds they were interested in and then link them to a page where they would choose from a variety of popular RSS readers.

Next problem would be the look and feel of the feed and the security question.  That's where SimpleFeed's platform would come into play.  You could use one of their templates and create a great looking feed that would look like a webpage or even an email.  Plus, you could even use the feed for cross-selling.  Don't think you could handle it?  How about checking out  Lillian Vernon's RSS feed?

Do I think email will be replaced by RSS?  Hardly, but it is complimentary.  It is much easier to pound through a few hundred RSS feeds than a few hundred emails.  However, I believe secure RSS feeds have a strong position in the marketplace especially in transactional businesses like financial services, online banking, and retail.  And, with phishing concerns not going away, it looks like RSS could be the real deal.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

What's New At GoogleSpace

So much going on at Google these days especially after their press day.  I'm sure you've already seen the news.  So, as usual I'll give you my unique perspective on the announcements.

First, let's take a visit with Bambi Francisco's blog.  Don't know who Bambi is?  Shame on you if you are in the financial service's space.  Bambi writes for MarketWatch.com and covers the internet industry.  I was lucky enough a few years back to be turned onto Bambi's column from my CBS MarketWatch account exec Matt S.  Bambi wrote a post a few days back called MySpace-engine which I found very interesting.  No, I'm not going to bash MySpace again, I'm actually going to give it some respect.  According to the research that Bambi asked Bill Tancer from Hitwise to pull for her, 8.2% of Google's revenue came from MySpace.  Let me repeat that, 8.2% of Google's search revenue came from people searching and clicking on ads within MySpace.  If that doesn't scare you, especially if you own stock in Google, I'm not sure what will.  How about this  additional factoid from Bambi?  MySpace served a little over 19 billion pageviews in March versus 14 billion for Google.  If I was MySpace, I'd say let the bidding begin on who gets to power the search platform.  I wouldn't be surprised if Ruppert Murdoch and Barry Diller (owner of ask.com via Interactive Corp) hooked up; after all, aren't they really the same guy :-)

Now, over to Google's press day from yesterday, found over at Google's official blog in the article called Yes We Are Still All About Search. Google launched or announced the following products: Google Coop, Google Notebook, Google Desktop, and Google Trends.  You can read what they all are, so I won't waste your time, but let's take a look at a few.

GOOGLE TRENDS:  This is fairly interesting for people that are tracking buzz or chatter about certain products or issues.   Whenever I ran branding campaigns, I liked to look to see whether I increased people searching about my product.  I also recently compared product search results to show a client that their old brand name was still worthwhile.  I personally called this Google Buzz.  I ran a search comparison for one of my current clients at my political agency and included the link here.  As you can see, it shows a graph of recent activities in the Senate Race in Pennsylvania, so I think marketers would find this tool useful.  However, I'm not sure it is an everyday tool, but it should help with measuring brand impact of a campaign.  BTW - in case you are wondering, Santorum has more buzz than Casey. 

Here's another political comparison between Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman.  It seems that Reagan normally is more popular (hit the all time link), but there was recent activity around Truman's library which caused a spike.

GOOGLE COOP:  This is basically community search where people can help others refine their Google searches into more meaningful categories.  Looks a little like Rollyo to me, but the one big difference is that it seems a little confusing.  I read through the instructions a few times and then gave up.  I even went over to Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion and it looked like he thought it was complicated too, so I guess it is not just me.  The only easy part seemed to subscribe to other user's refined search, but after I did that I didn't see the results.  I'll fool around with it some more later because according to Bambi, Google's Eric Schmidt thinks this is their most exciting product launch this year.

Now, finally back to Bambi's blog.  Bambi of course was invited to Google's press day, was able ask a few questions, and also provided more information on Google Coop in the post called Google's Community Search.  While the first part of the post is interesting, read sections 2-3 which were about questions she asked during the meeting.  She asked Google's Eric Schmidt  about social networks and according to Bambi he said they don't make any money (surprise), but he would like to get involved to help them make money.

Well, it was a busy day with Google's new product launches.  I think Google Trends can provide marketers with some good branding information and I can't wait for Google Notebook.  I'd also keep a close watch on what MySpace is doing with their search product because if I was them, I'd offer it up to the highest bidder with a slight weighting towards click rate.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Search Battelle

I'm finding the posts and comments over at internet industry pioneer John Battelle's blog very interesting on a number of fronts.  It seems Mr. Battelle has finally started an AdWords campaign over at Google and decided to write about his experience on his blog. While he has received a lot of support from people helping him out he is also being criticized for not having used the product sooner.  He is tracking and reporting his experience and while it does provide some valuable insight into Google, I am also a little upset that he is finally turning on a Google campaign after writing and speaking about search.  His first post is My First Day As An AdWords Advertiser and his second is Ok, How Do I Make A Word Bold.

I posted the links to the blog/comment combination because I want you to read the comment sections for a few reasons. One it is interesting to read about some of the heat he is receiving and two there are some very helpful, yet basic tips from search people.  The many tips can be very useful if you are running your own campaign and don't want to hire an expert.  However, I think he deserves a little heat for having never run an AdWords campaign up until now.  Mr Battelle responds with this post:

"As usual you all are keeping me on my toes. No, I'm not a CPC expert, never claimed to be one. I studied how AdWords and Overture worked, I reported on it thoroughly, I spoke to the people who built the systems, I spoke to tons of folks who used the systems. But I was not an advertiser - I had nothing to sell! Nor do you need to be one to report on the systems. If that were the case, well, why not criticize a film critic for not being a director or actor? Or a financial journalist for not being a CEO?"

Which is a fair enough comment, but I think it falls a little short. He claims that he had nothing to sell, but how about just testing it out sometime to understand the product he was reviewing.   He could have ran a campaign to push speaking engagements or to drive traffic to his blog, which is what he is doing now.

Yes he claims that it should be unfair to criticize him because as he points out in his post, a movie critic never made a movie and a financial journalist probably has not been a CEO. However, doesn’t the same movie critic pay to see the movie or the restaurant reviewer pay to eat the food?  The examples he is giving are multi-million dollar products, not something he could have tested out for a few dollars per month.

I am not a noted author nor a well-sought out speaker on search, though Google did have me featured in a number of case studies and I was invited to present at a Google panel at Ad:Tech a few years ago – you know back when it was still a good secret to having successful marketing campaigns. So, I don’t have a lot of free cash, but I am running a Google campaign to drive traffic to my site at a clip of almost $9 dollars per day and I spend about a $1 per day on Yahoo. (I know not a lot of money on Yahoo, but that platform was let’s just say not up to Yahoo’s standards.) Oh BTW – that does not count the million dollars or so I’ve spent on search for the companies I worked for or continue to work for (ie, Harrisdirect, BMO, AT&T, and quite a number of major republican campaigns right now).

I think if you are going to describe Google, Yahoo and the search industry you should have at least ponied up a few dollars to see the movie. Who would you rather have review your meals, someone who just picks up a menu and criticizes it or someone that sat down and actually drank the Kool-aid?  It is after all a few dollars per month, nothing compared to the money he received from writing a good, well thought out and researched book on the industry.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Phishing in Safety Town

The marketing team at Symantec put together a great site to highlight the dangers of phishing through a fun interactive movie found at www.safetytown.com.  They created a movie that plays in a mythical movie theater in Safety Town complete with a popcorn counter where you can download screen-savers and music, plus of course purchase Norton's 2006 Internet Security.  On a side note, the movie is not that bad, but what I like the most is the overall design and the message they are promoting.

Phishing is a pretty bad problem on the internet these days especially for financial services companies.  In fact about 2 years ago my COO at Harrisdirect Mike Hogan told me "in a few years we won't be able to use email, so figure something out!"  Phishing is when your credentials are stolen by either sending out a fake email with links to a site where you try and log in with your actual password and ID or even worse, the URL is hidden on the clicks and you end up on one of these sites.  In fact, I saw presentations where they had screen shots of sites where these stolen credentials were bought and sold.  BTW - the site in question was busted up by the FBI.  Don't believe me - check out this link from Chase.com

The more you know about phishing the better off you'll be and if you can learn about it in a fun interactive way, so much the better.  Personally, I want to see what happens in the movie.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Shock and Awe Would Work Well For Yahoo

This is not new news because it was announced yesterday, but Yahoo Search is finally releasing a new version of their search platform.  The details can be found pretty much all over the internet, but I picked up the ClickZ article called Yahoo Details Search Platform Revamp.  In the article it details Yahoo's plans which include keyword groupings, IP based mapping, expression of goals, and indirect conversion mapping.  Tim Cadogan Yahoo's VP of Search and Sponsored Search called the changes sweeping.  Cadogan also said, "the reason for phasing is to get advertisers into the new system before we start modifying the ranking scheme, so they can react in their comfort zone before we implement that additional change. We want to walk advertisers through it as best we can."

It is too bad that they are rolling this out slowly because it needs this major overhaul NOW.  I was an early user of Yahoo back in the day when it was known as Goto.com and the platform back then was great.  Unfortunately, it has fallen quickly behind Google and I personally find it difficult to use these days.  There is no geo-targeting, can't run multiple creatives per keyword, can't track different conversions, and the reporting platform is cumbersome.  There are really only two positives about running search with Yahoo these days which are the ability to have visibility into competitive bids and the traffic itself. That's about it.

Because of the reasons outlined above, I often make sure my Google campaigns are running as optimally as possible and then take the best performing keywords over to Yahoo. I also use Google for testing different search strategies. I can't believe I'm the only marketer that is frustrated with the platform.  That's why a little shock and awe roll-out of the new platform would be helpful.  The 3Q'06 date when it is scheduled to go live can't come soon enough.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Slip Sliding Away

As reported in today's WSJ article Many Major Newspapers Post Circulation Declines, most of the top 10 newspapers posted lower newspaper circulations.  The most surprising one was the San Francisco Chronicle that saw a decline of almost 16% which dropped them out of the top 10.  The reason according to the article was not defections to the internet.  Wait, stop the presses - not the internet?  Nope.  According to Patricia Hoyt a Chronicle spokesperson, the newspaper stopped giving free weekday copies away to people who subscribed on the weekends and cut back on sponsored copies.

Interesting isn't it?  You see, I always battled with my marketing counterparts about spending any money on print advertising.  In fact, I think I had myself thrown out of a few planning meetings because I was the guy that hated advertising in newspapers.  My argument went something like this:

• It is static
• Mostly black and white
• No shelf life
• No sound
• No way to track results
• It is expensive
• When was the last time you (the marketer) responded to a print ad
• And in 8 years of managing online advertising campaigns, I have NEVER SEEN any impact on online results

That's right true believers.  I've never seen any print campaign impact my online results.  I looked for visits on the website, logins to an account, trade volume, assets under management, click-thru rate, conversions into sales, sales per day, and EVERYTHING ELSE and never found one shred of evidence.

Now surprise, the newspapers are cutting back free subscriptions that inflated readership and allowed them to get more ad dollars.  Look, you have to ask yourself why spend any money on newspaper advertising.  Wouldn't you be better off running online ads on the digital versions of the newspapers?  At least the ads would be pretty, trackable, and more cost effective.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

It Is About Planning and Keeping Commitments

In today's MediaPost, Chris Young, CEO of Klipmart, gives a rebuttal to a few posts about late online creatives in the article Who's Afraid of Late Creative and I have to say the argument is a little ridiculous.  Basically, Chris' argument is, hey we're the internet and it is ok if your creatives are late because we'll just run somebody else.  This is not newspaper where the presses need to run or TV where you can't have a blank ad spot.  The internet is so flexible that it is ok when your creatives are late.

Ugh, whatever happened to keeping commitments and planning?  We don't need that on the internet?  For 5 years I ran a very large online media campaign for Harrisdirect (or CSFBdirect or DLJdirect - depends on what year it is) and while I can't say I was never late with creatives, I made sure the agency and my staff kept dates and deliverables.  No matter how much I acted like a cowboy in the office, I was very serious when it came to planning, dates, and commitments. I had weekly meetings with our agency Grey Interactive to review progress on all projects and the first thing I checked was ANY movements in dates.  I mean how were we supposed to meet our objectives if timelines kept slipping?  Dates need to be met so that all involved parties can meet their numbers; I'm surprised that Chis doesn't know that as a CEO.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Looking for Voters In All The Wrong Spaces

I know you are thinking another MySpace bashing post, but that’s not entirely true. I don’t dislike MySpace, but I do think people need to put it in perspective and use it wisely for advertising. Take this article posted on the San Francisco Cronicle called Candidates invade MySpace. Gubernatorial hopefuls seek younger voters on teen chat site.

The article goes into detail how Democratic California Gubernatorial hopeful Phil Angelides has a MySpace page in addition to your typical website, blog, etc. It seems Mr. Angelides has 1200 friends over at MySpace (link here), undoubtly all there to help him win the election right? As Theo Yedinsky, director of the New Politics Institute, a part of the New Democratic Network said in the article “"I think it is unbelievably important,'' Yedinsky says. "And my question for the future would be: If you are a presidential candidate (in 2008), do you have MySpace organizers? And if you don't, why not? Because this is way too big to ignore.”

Need a few reasons? I can come up with a few reasons that MySpace is not the holy grail for political advertising. Sure the web is the place for candidates to push a message, socialize with voters, and raise donations, however is MySpace the place for that?  I think the vote is still not in.   You see you need voters and the first key to being a voter is…..bingo – age. You have to be ummm, last time I checked – 18 to vote. This article clearly forgets to outline how many people in MySpace are over 18.  Plus, a rule of thumb is that younger people are less likely to register and vote (sorry, I'm down in DC today for meetings and I can't find my  demographic report or else I'd back that up with numbers). Finally, most elections are state specific, so he needs all of the friends he can get in California only.  Having friends elsewhere unless they donate is pretty much useless.

Now why do people go to MySpace? The answer is to have their personalized page (more on that in a sec) and to socialize. Is Mr. Angelides writing posts and having a conversation or is it a static page? I couldn’t tell for sure from his MySpace page and the article didn’t specify.  MySpace is about socializing and is more than just a one-way communication vehicle. Also, does he have email addresses from any of these new friends and have they donated any money? Political friends provide grass-root support, emails, donations, and hopefully votes and again the article fails to point out any of those important points. I guess all you need to win an election in 2006 is to have a MySpace page with a lot of friends, right?

Enough about MySpace for a second.  I think candidates can pretty much ignore it for now without damaging a campaign, but they should not ignore the social networking or social aspect of the internet. Candidates should have an ongoing communication with perspective voters and supporters and they can do it in a more effective manner.

First of all using the internet for messaging and communicating with potential voters would be powerful and is virtually untapped today. Second, two-way communications via a blog or their own site could be helpful if done correctly; for example, one has to wonder about a few of Mr Angelides’ friends especially the one with the button that say Bush Sucks Dick Cheney Too. I think allowing people with their own sites and blogs to link to a candidate’s site and vice versa could be very powerful, provided they supply a few critical pieces of information like zip code, email, name, etc. Allowing them an open forum with certain members of the staff again after they provided information could be useful too. Finally, if candidates really want to get into social networking, I’d venture into LinkedIn or Meetup, but that’s just me of course.

As Yedinsky says at the end of the article "I don't think we've seen the first big MySpace story in politics.” You are right and I’m betting you won’t see many coming soon. MySpace is filled with teenagers who can’t or typically don’t vote in elections and even when they do come of voting age may not think MySpace is cool anymore.

Don’t agree? Ask people you know who are in college how often they use MySpace. I’ve asked every college student I’ve run into and they all say the same thing – “MySpace is for high school kids” and the last time I checked they don’t donate and frequently don’t vote. If social networking is where it is at for political advertising, I’d be looking in other spaces.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

GE Goes Back To The Future

I just really love this idea for GE's new advertising campaign called Got A Second.  As reported by Stuart Elliot in The New York Times article, Got A Second?  G.E. Has A Quick Message, GE has created 1 second commercials about a behind the scenes look at recent filming of commercials.  Now, besides being humorous, DVR owners can expand the ads so that they can view more of the  "show" and myspace users can also link to Elli the elephant star of one of the commercials.  After searching what was mostly strictly Rate R entries, I did find Elli's homepage and she now has 10 friends; sorry, I refused to link to her.  The myspace page for Elli is http://www.myspace.com/ellifont and here's a picture of the star of the commercial.  Finally, there is a website where you can view the ads and get a little more information on their strategy.

I love this approach for a number of reasons, but most of them all revolve making the commercials pass what I simply call the TiVo Test.  Whenever I reviewed ads as part of an upcoming campaign, I was frequently the only one in the meeting with a DVR.  BTW - my daughter just turned 4 and she has NEVER watched TV without TiVo.  Anyway, I took it upon myself to voice my opinion on whether the concept we were looking at would pass my own TiVo Test; most of them did not, but the concept that GE is running right now will pass for the first few times.  I love the concept because it:

• Tightly integrated with the web
• Allows you to create a friendship with Elli, if you are so desperate that you need one friend
• Takes advantage of the DVR owners and lets them watch an interesting commercial if they want
• Re-introduces marketers to an old, but effective advertising technique

Back in the old days as referenced in the NY Times article, advertisers sponsored shows and were tightly integrated into the content - the article even references GE Theater that was hosted by then actor Ronald Reagan.  With all of the talk now about product placement in TV shows, video games, user generated commercials, and etc I think GE is leading the way back to the future where major advertisers sponsor an entire show and effectively roadblock out the competition.  In fact, while surfing TV last night when nothing was on, my wife and I watched a re-run of Jerry Maguire on TBS.   What was fascinating about the  re-run from an advertising perspective was that before they cut to a mainstream boring commercial, they focused on Tom Cruise and his upcoming Mission Impossible movie.  The mainstream commercials resulted in me either pounding through them with TiVo or when it was live, reading my book or surfing the internet.  However, we always watched the focus on Mission Impossible.

I love the GE ads and for a few times they will pass the TiVo Test.  I'm not sure about becoming friends with an elephant, but if that's what floats your boat make sure you bring plenty of virtual peanuts.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

What Are You Waiting For?

Just download Firefox, you are really slowing yourself down while surfing the web and missing out on some cool add-ons like an inline spell check that is coming soon.  To see the demo, visit this site here and then come back and download it from my site.

PardonMyFrench,

Eroc

More Yahoo Fun With Spyware Click Fraud

My friend, Art beat me to the punch this morning by referencing a WashingtonPost article on a suit by Newark NJ based Crafts by Veronica against Yahoo.  I was originally going to reference the Star Ledger article but a combination of the two will work fine.

It seems that Crafts by Veronica brought a class action suit against Yahoo Search for search engine syndication fraud.  They claim that Yahoo allowed the ads to appear on dubious sites and to show-up in pop-ups.  According to the Star Ledger article, Ben Edelman (remember him?) said "these advertisers paid a premium price for their ads to be shown on Yahoo, but instead, they're being shown on the sleaziest of spyware and other unsavory places."  Hmm, seems like trouble in the land of Yahoo.  Courtesy of the WashingtonPost, you can find a copy of the lawsuit here.

Ok, so what does this mean?  Simple, be very, very careful when you run in the content targeting section of Yahoo and Google.  I'm not saying that all content is bad, but you have to watch what you are doing.  Almost all search campaigns that I run either have the CPC for content set at about 10 cents or shut off altogether.  What I frequently find is that my campaigns that run in content generate a ton of clicks with very little conversion; they also coincedentally have a ton of impressions.  Not saying it is click-fraud, but when you get a ton of impressions, a ton of clicks, and little conversions you have to be smart about using it.  Plus, the other aspect of content targeting I can't stand is the lack of visibility into where the ads are running and which ones are working.

As I've written before, the best way to safe-guard yourself, though it is not 100%, is to:

1. Always use post-click conversion tracking codes so you can measure your true cost per sale; don't just rely on cost per click.
2. Pay close attention to content, you'll probably find that you generate a ton of clicks with little sales.  If that's the case, turn on separate bids for content versus search.  If a search company does not have that feature, turn it off altogether.
3. Investigate using a big management solution like Did-it.com (I've used them) or the bid management solution from Atlas.  It is the only way I know of to actually see some of the referring URLs - again, not 100% but more visibility.

Almost all search campaigns that I manage either have content turned off or much lower cost per click bid amounts; that, combined with the conversion tracking codes allow me to have more control over content.  Content targeting is like being on Atkins and going to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant; sure it tastes good in low amounts, but if you eat too much meat all you'll end up with is a huge belly ache.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

RSS Feed v.s. Email - Just a Lightweight Bout Part 1

The person that founded the Internet One Hundred Club, Bill McCloskey seems to be taking a lot of heat from a few posts he wrote a while back on claims folks have been making about the penetration of RSS feeds and their ability to replace email.  I read Bill's original posts and while I was surprised by his wait and see approach, I did find his post very informative and included it as part of a project I was working on for a major financial services company. 

For one thing, Bill was right when he talked about how people are reaching when they talk about the penetration of RSS and was also right to remind people regarding PointCast.  Now, I don't believe RSS will replace email altogether, but I am working on a project to use Secure RSS feeds as a replacement for email to circumvent phishing concerns for this client who is NOT sending out email.  I do think RSS will move website traffic because people can use RSS readers and not visit a site.  That's how I pound through my feeds.  Ok, before I lose you, here's what they are and why you should care about RSS.

WHAT IS RSS?

RSS stands for really simple syndication and was invented sometime ago by Netscape.  In its simplest form, it is a news clipping service that provided a header and few lines of text.  It has evolved however, to look, resemble, and act like email.  Most major newsites (WSJ, NY Times, Yahoo, etc) allow you to tag a section and grab a RSS feed.  That way instead of visiting the page you can grab a feed.  For example, the RSS feeds on the right hand column of my site will allow you to get the RSS feeds of my recent posts and access them through your favorite reader (Yahoo, Google, Bloglines, etc).  There are plenty of places to go to read  more about RSS so, if you need help drop me a comment and I'll direct you.

In order to read a feed, you either need to have a web-based provider like MyYahoo or Bloglines, a desktop version that most-likely adds-on to Outlook, or use Firefox, IE 7.0 which is in beta or Safari for MAC.  No busy executive should be without one.  A screen shot of my Bloglines feeds are shown on the right.  Since yesterday, I added about 6 more.

WHAT IS THE PENETRATION OF RSS

As reported by Bill in his MediaPost article, Yahoo and Ipsos ran a study that was released in 4Q'05 that showed that 4% of internet users are aware of RSS and that another 27% use it but are unaware.  Huh, you are probably asking yourself, what does that mean?  Yes, true believers, a lot of your added content onto MyYahoo is coming from RSS feeds, but you don't know it.  So, the number from that study is 4% not 31%.  I can't talk more about what I think the penetration is now, but let's just say I think it is probably closer to 8%.  If you would like a copy of the study, make a request in the comment section and include your email.

WHY DOES IT MATTER TO MARKETERS? - PUBLISHER SIDE

Simple, it is another form of communication that makes it very easy to push out information to clients.  Plus, it is very simple to create and simple for someone to opt-in to receive it.  Now, the feeds themselves are not personalized so you theoretically don't have the 1:1 communication power of email, but there is nothing simpler than signing up for a feed and then accessing the feed. 

As you can see from the image above, I have a lot of feeds set up.  They have not decreased my email usage, but what they have done is decreased my site visits.  For example, I set one up for a few ebay products that I like to watch, so instead of going to ebay and searching for them, I just access the feeds.  RSS is also great for getting breaking news and staying on top of your favorite sites in a matter a minutes.  Again, in this case think of them as a news clipping service.

So, if you own a site, you should start thinking about providing RSS feeds of frequently updates pages.  Perhaps, news, research, PR releases, job searches, and etc.  That way people can grab them and read them very quickly.  There are other uses for marketers, but that is for another post.

Next time I post about RSS, I'll review how Secure RSS feeds can be an effective tool for communicating with clients, especially as a tool to combat phishing and what I think it will take to increase RSS penetration.  Remember, if you want a copy of the Ipsos/Yahoo RSS study, drop me your email in the comment section.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Rebranding Cingular to AT&T Wireless - More From The Marketing Geniuses at AT&T

My very good friend Vance LaVelle, former CMO of PNC Bank and Director of Marketing at the old and obviously smarter marketer AT&T, sent me this link yesterday from AdAge titled AT&T Plans To Kill Cingular Brand.  Wow, the New, New, New, Really It Is New AT&T has a lot of great ideas for your world delivered, right?  As reported in the article the old SBC and Bell South spent about $4 billion in advertising to launch the brand that has attracted a ton of customers and repositioned them to the youth market.  So, the marketing geniuses there decide to throw it all away because they can't figure out how to market two brand names at once.  Not only are they potentially killing their youth and tech positioning, it may cost them another $1 Billion to relaunch. Hmmmmm

A few years back as part of our online agency review, we included Cingular's online advertising agency Atmosphere BBDO.  The pitch team quickly figured out I was from AT&T and centered their approach around Cingular.  Their head creative director, Andreas Combuechen, presented their thought process behind the Cingular logo and how they breathed life into the brand.  I have to tell you I was impressed as well as the rest of the marketing team at Harrisdirect.  Now, to see all of that good strategy get thrown away and replaced with an old brand name is really disturbing.

I will give the marketing team at the New, New, New, Gosh We Have New Ideas Here at AT&T, some credit.  There is nothing like convincing the people running AT&T that you need two rebranding campaigns, plus an extension of one when you complete the acquisition of Bell South, when it comes to job security.  Music to a marketer's ears is when you hear the words Rebranding Campaign.  It means big, flash brand units with little accountability for financial numbers other than brand awareness.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I Really Hate These Sites

You know what really annoys me about search these days?  It is when you are looking for say a general product and you click on a sponsored link and get a site that looks like this found at http://letsgorealestate.com or www.flashgames.com.  I don't know about you, but an increasing portion of my search results end up clicking on these empty shell of a site; of course this calling these blights on the internet a site is insulting to sites world wide.  All they are is a shell with more organized sponsored links, so you basically end up with the search equivalent of the voice response from hell on an inbound telemarketing call.  I always wondered who was responsible for these sites and how they made money.

In Monday's Wall Street Journal (yeah, I know it is a few days ago :-P ), I found my answer in the article called For These Sites, Their Best Asset Is A Good Name.  The way these sites generate money is by basically paying for clicks that drive people to the site and then hosting, creative, design fees; while the revenue they make is when people click on the links on the pages on the site, they get a share of the revenue.  Obviously, they are part of a content targeting network.  Pretty decent model right?  Too bad you didn't think of it sooner.

It seems now the former Myspace.com Chairman Richard Rosenblatt is leading a group of investors that was expected to announce this week that they raised $120 million to start a company called Demand Media that will be centered on acquiring and building out generic names.  Great more of these completely useless sites and less availability for decent .com URLs.  Personally, I still consider these sites squatter sites on good urls.  In fact, I think the .com version of my favorite url www.pardonmyfrench.net is one of these sites.  How much do you want to bet that included in this business plan is the ability to buy URLs and then turn them around for a profit when someone really wants that URL?

How do you combat these sites?  Well, if you are looking for a good .com URL, you better be creative.  For myself, I like using either community based search products like Swicki or Rollyo or the awesome Google search tool bolted on top of Firefox.  Other than that, you land on one of these pages - run.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Sphere Provides More Blog Visibility

The folks at Sphere just launched a new blog search tool and entered an already crowded field that includes Technorati, Google, Yahoo, and others.  Among one of the founders is Tony Conrad whom I believe I met a while back as an advisory board member of CentrPort.   

Their new search tool searches blogs and lets you look at headlines, blog posts by certain individuals, and the ability to exclude certain terms. Also, their search results are much different from Technorati, so my guess is that unlike Technorati they don't rank blog results by links only.  I also like the link next to the results that show the blog profile. 

You can search by relevancy and date range and if you choose to customize the date range, a graph will appear above the results.  This graph allows you to group the search range search results and view the amount of posts by day.

Other cool tools is a featured blogs tool that lets you list a link to top blogs, according the Sphere, that blog about the subject you are researching.  Plus, you can add a neat tool to your Firefox or IE browser called Sphere It, that lets you view recent blog content on the page you are on. 

Anyway, Sphere is a very useful tool for browsing the blog world and I love all of the neat features.  Time will tell how much traction they can get in an already crowded search field.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric