Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Pilgrim’s Picks for July 16

Posted: 16 Jul 2008 09:14 AM CDT

There’s still space (and an early bird discount) for my upcoming Online Reputation Management Workshop. If you want to learn reputation management for your company, or perhaps want to add ORM to the list of client services you offer, you might want to secure your spot! :-)

After you’ve done that, you can take in these Picks:

  • Securiteam found an interesting Gmail vulnerability.
  • Microsoft told congress that Yahoogle would control 90% of the ad market. MSFT clearly wants Google treated the same way it has been treated over monopolies.
  • Nokia owned Symbian controls 60% of the software in smart phones, yet it must fear Google’s Android–hence talks of closer partnerships between the two.
  • Google’s US market-share reached 69.17% in June. That was enough for CNET to throw basic laws of rounding out the window, and declare a 70% share.
  • Studies show that people trust the opinions of others "like themself." Culture Clique jumps on that theme with a new social commerce site that allows groups of friends to share reviews with each other.

Pilgrim’s Update: Learn online reputation management skills directly from Andy Beal. Attend the Online Reputation Management Workshop and save $400 when you register today!

Lawyer Sues Google Over $136.11

Posted: 16 Jul 2008 08:49 AM CDT

Leave it to a lawyer to come up with a new Google complaint and then turn it into a class action lawsuit.

InformationWeek reports that attorney Hal K. Levitte is suing because his ads were shown on Google’s Adsense for Domains and AdSense for Errors partners.

Levitte spent $136.11 for ads on parked domains and error pages, which works out to 15.3% of his $887.67 ad campaign.

In seeking class certification for the lawsuit, Levitte’s attorneys hope to represent other aggrieved Google advertisers. "We believe it’s a problem that affects all [Google's] advertisers equally," said Kimberly Kralowec, partner at the law firm representing Levitte.

Levitte’s ads received around 203,500 overall impressions across the two programs, generated less than 700 clicks, with zero conversions.

I’m guessing that his ad campaign just plain sucked. After all, if it didn’t, surely he’d have enough leads coming in from Google’s other channels to keep him busy enough to not have time for frivolous lawsuits.

Still, he’s smart. There’s no point pursuing $136.11 in the courts. By seeking class action status, he’s hoping others will join in. $136.11 multiplied by a few thousand advertisers, becomes a more interesting number.

What do you think? Will he win? Will Google prevail? Or, will this just get quietly settled in 9 months from now?

(via)

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

Don’t Blinkx, You May Miss New Video Search API

Posted: 16 Jul 2008 08:22 AM CDT

I’m shocked that video search engine Blinkx has not been acquired by a larger company. It seems like Blinkx is continually in the news, is constantly innovating, had a UK IPO in 2007, yet appears not to be an acquisition target for one of the "big boys."

Maybe Blinkx is feeling the frustration of not being invited to the big dance. Today it announced the launch of Red Label, a public API for anyone looking to include Blinkx’s video search results in their own search results.

"If you have fewer than 10,000 searches per day, you can have access for free. If you have more than 10,000, we ask you to monetize it and share with us," [Chief Executive and founder Suranga] Chandratillake said. Sites can incorporate Blinkx’s advertisements and split revenue evenly; those sites that already have monetization under way must work out a specific revenue-sharing plan with the company, he added.

It looks like Blinkx is following the lead of Yahoo–which recently opened up its search results. Maybe if Blinkx can get hundreds (or thousands) of other web sites using its search results, it will finally get the attention of a sugar daddy.

Pilgrim’s Update: Learn online reputation management skills directly from Andy Beal. Attend the Online Reputation Management Workshop and save $400 when you register today!

Microsoft Asking for Sign-Ups for adCenter Desktop Beta

Posted: 16 Jul 2008 12:06 AM CDT

The official Microsoft adCenter blog announced the beta testing of a desktop utility for their paid search platform.

For paid search managers, this software will function much like Google’s Adwords desktop application.

Basically you will be able to manage your adCenter campaigns from the convenience of your desktop without the use of a browser. The positives of software like this are numerous. The most obvious is that it allows you to make wholesale edits and revisions without worrying about the real time implications on your account. Such software also makes the initial process of paid search account setup much easier.

According to the blog teh adCenter application allows:

  • Quickly navigate through multiple accounts
  • Copy and paste keywords, negative keywords, match types and bid amounts from the adCenter Add-in for Excel into the Desktop application
  • Bulk edit multiple items at once (bid prices, destination URLs, ad group targeting, etc.) —within or across groups of items
  • Scan campaigns for editorial issues before uploading to adCenter
  • Upload changes to the adCenter user interface instantly with one click

You can participate in the beta testing by visiting the applications official page on the adCenter website.

This is just one more notable move in Microsoft’s visible focus on their paid search initiative. It seems as though the minds at Microsoft are focusing on showing on the value of paid search to advertisers as a way to grow their market share. I am not sure how this works since their low quality organic results keep their search share at such a small share.

Microsoft should probably take a look back at what the big G did. Their high quality search results gave birth to their industry changing paid search program, not the other way around. Traffic is based on users, and until the organic results of Live become usable to searchers adCenter will suffer no matter the initiatives of the company.

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Linky Goodness, July 15

Posted: 15 Jul 2008 03:07 PM CDT

Oh, it’s the ides of July! How ominous. Do you think it’ll bode poorly for any of these headlines?

  • Twitter says it’s official: they’ve acquired Summize, the Twitter search tool.
  • Not everyone wants to tell Yahoo they’re doin it wrong. BusinessWeek has found people that actually think Yahoo’s doin it AWESOME. Or at least somewhat right.
  • We love to tell you about what a difference testimonials and user reviews can make to your visitors. But are your testimonials properly optimized?
  • Are paper newspapers going the way of the dinosaurs? I think reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated—they’re not gone yet. But Steve Outing has written an open letter to craigslist asking Craig to save the newspapers, with detailed instructions on how (via).

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google Gearing up to Battle

Posted: 15 Jul 2008 02:48 PM CDT

Yahoo is in the midst of a three-front war—and yet not one of these fights is for dominance in any field of operations business.

The Eastern Front
Dateline Washington, DC. Yahoo is facing a Senate hearing on the Yahoo/Google search ads deal today. paidContent reports:

Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will point out . . . that the agreement does not expand Google’s share of the search market, and that the alternative outcome, Yahoo selling to Microsoft, would be much worse for competition.

Aside from facing the Senate now and other regulatory committees later, Yahoo and Google will face individual states, which are also subpoenaing them.

Yahoo is lucky to have an ally in these battles, even if the ally also happens to be their biggest rival. But that biggest rival happens to be the “enemy” of their next most formidable opponent, Microsoft—and you know what they say about the enemy of my enemy.

The Northern Front
Coming down from Redmond is the next threat: Microsoft. Microsoft is finally responding (via) to Yahoo’s latest rejection (this weekend).

Among other things, Microsoft states that the latest plan was submitted to Yahoo at the behest of Yahoo’s own chairman, Roy Bostock, and did not include a change of governance for Yahoo. However, the deal was for only the search portion of Yahoo, which deal Yahoo was apparently not interested in after all.

While Microsoft claims that they’re no longer interested in Yahoo, they continue to sally on the already-beleaguered Yahoo.

Space, the Final Frontier
And, as always, there’s Carl Icahn, still pushing to elect his proxy board in the August 1 shareholder meeting.

Is it any wonder that Yahoo’s turned to Google for support? But will the search ads provided by their biggest rival be enough to sustain Yahoo through Microsoft’s and Icahn’s continued attacks?

Pilgrim’s Update: Learn online reputation management skills directly from Andy Beal. Attend the Online Reputation Management Workshop and save $400 when you register today!