Archive for February, 2009

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Google Innovations

February 28, 2009

David Pogue with The New York Times recently created a list of  innovations Google has produced or bought in its relatively short corporate history.

His list consists of Google products most any consumer who has been online in the last year would recognize including Google Earth, Gmail, YouTube and Blogger.

Some of the lesser known Google products and tools mentioned in Pogue’s New York Times article are: Google Docs, Picassa, iGoogle, Google Reader, Google Trends, Google Maps, Street View, Translator, 1-800-Goog411, Google SMS, Google Alerts and Google Sets.

Although the article begins by mentioning Google’s search box, Pogue doesn’t mention the greatest commercial result to come from Google’s search box by name: Google Adwords – arguably without which – none of Google’s other products would exist.

Maybe therein lies the keys to Google’s success.

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Posted in Gmail, Google, Google Adwords, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Trends, YouTube | 1 Comment »

Google Music: Albums, Artists and Selling Songs

February 27, 2009

Last night while watching Stephen Colbert interview Kris Kristofferson, I became interested in learning more about the singer songwriters career.

Colbert’s interview mentioned some of Kristofferson’s accomplishments which included his being both a Rhodes Scholar and a Helicopter Pilot.

While watching the interview I searched Wikipedia and was surprised to learn Kristofferson flew helicopters in the Gulf of Mexico for Petroleum Helicopters Inc. (PHI) a firm who’s helicopters I had flown in many times while commuting to my offshore oil drilling job when I was a teenager.

Even more surprising to me was the fact, according to Kristofferson:

‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ I wrote sitting on top of an oil platform.”

I did no such thing on top of the oil platform where I worked and I am pretty sure neither did anybody else.

I then decided to search for Kris Kristofferson in Google and noticed “Music” as an option in between “Web” and “Video”.

Google Music has been around several years, but I don’t ever recall seeing it as a vertical search option while searching for a particular recording artist.

Google Music

Google Music

Clicking on the recording artists name lead me to a list of Google Album results for Kristofferson which were presorted by popularity.

Google Music Sorted by Popularity

Google Music Sorted by Popularity

Clicking on the “More music results for Kris Kristofferson >” link produced both a list of Albums and Songs which featured Kristofferson.

Google Music Artists Albums Songs

Google Music Artists Albums Songs

A Google search for Johnny Cash produces a Music search option yet displays YouTube videos in the initial search results.

An extra click or two will get searchers to the same type of Album and Song page for Johnny Cash as Kristoffersons.

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

Is Google now monetizing their music related search with Album or Song sales?

When Google displays Artist information atop their search results are they in turn generating affiliate income from clicks to the iTunes Store and the others listed who are featured next to “Buy Album” call to action?

Google Buy Album

Google Buy Album

My question is  – Who’s really selling the songs?

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Posted in Google Music | Leave a Comment »

Finding Jobs on Twitter

February 26, 2009

Today while searching Twitter I discovered what was essentially a classified ad for a specific job.

Researching Twitter further, I found a variety of job offerings posted under generic searches for keywords including – jobs.

I stepped away from my computer for several hours this evening and upon returning I refreshed my browser where I found 1,364 posts had occurred with the keyword “jobs” in the Tweet.

Search Twitter For Jobs

Search Twitter For Jobs

An example of one of types of jobs I found on Twitter tonight was for an “Internship” at the White House.

White House Internship

White House Internship

Will Twitter’s platform one day evolve into an instant job messaging board?

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Posted in Jobs, Twitter, Twitter Search | Leave a Comment »

WhereImAt.com Google Maps Store Locator

February 25, 2009

Mel Bass with WhereImAt.com saw my post yesterday on IHOP store locations and decided to show how incorporating IHOP data would look in his site which uses Google Maps.

WhereImAt.com

WhereImAt.com

Drilling down into WhereImAt.com’s store locator data within Google Maps gives searchers viewing options they are probably already familiar with – the Map, Satellite, Hybrid or Terrain views.

WhereImAt.com Map View

WhereImAt.com Map View

What I think is unique about WhereImAt is the ability for searchers looking for a particular store to zoom in and see their target location in Google state of the art Maps.

WhereImAt.com Satellite View

WhereImAt.com Satellite View

Whether viewing by traditional map or satellite view, WhereImAt.com’s corporate store locator Google Maps application lets franchisors and their customers get more more dynamic store location image data than the mapping alternatives offer.

Where Im At Map View

Where Im At Map View

WhereImAt.com Map View

Store Locator Satellite View

Store Locator Satellite View

Store Location Satellite View

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Posted in Google Maps, Store Locator, WhereImAt.com | Leave a Comment »

Find and Map IHOP Restaurant Locations with Know Where Systems

February 24, 2009

Looking for the nearest IHOP restaurant to grab some free pancakes?

The International House of Pancakes restaurant chain is offering a free short stack of pancakes to diners today who in turn consider making donations to the Children’s Miracle Network.

Not sure where the nearest IHOP restaurant is located?

IHOP Know Where Systems

IHOP Know Where Systems

The IHOP website has an excellent store location map powered by Know Where Systems.

Free pancake hunters can locate their nearest IHOP by any one of several attributes on the IHOP site: State, Area Code, Area Code + Exchange, City + State, City name, State name or State abbreviation.

Planning a cross country trip on National Pancake Day?

IHOP Trip Planner

IHOP Trip Planner

IHOP in conjunction with Know Where Systems will plot all the pancake stops along a travel route too.

IHOP Locations

IHOP Locations

With IHOP’s store location finder and trip planner, pancake searchers should be able to easily locate their next and nearest stack of pancakes anywhere along their travel route.

Pancake Path

Pancake Path

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Posted in IHOP, Know Where Systems | 1 Comment »

Telonu.com and The Layoff Tracker

February 23, 2009

Today I came across an interesting AP story about two innovative websites.

With non stop media coverage on the state of the US economy and over 5 million workers collecting unemployment, worker layoffs have become commonplace.

Layoff Tracker is a website focused on tracking and reporting on the ever increasing number of layoffs occurring both in the US and abroad.

From Layoff Tracker:

These are tough times and we all have a layoff story to tell; something that happened to us or someone close to us. Share without linking to a particular company.

Layoff Tracker

Layoff Tracker

Layoff Tracker also provides a widget for website owners to publish Layoff information on their website.

Layoff Tracker Widget

Layoff Tracker Widget

Within information about each specific company, Layoff Tracker also provides user generated scores of up to five stars in several categories including an “Overall” rating, “Pay/Benefits”, “Work/Life Balance”, “Culture/Environment” as well as the company’s “Reputation with Recruiters”.

The website Telonu covers lets employees “Rave, Rant and Rate” about their workplace anonymously.

Telonu.com

Telonu.com

Telonu.com appears to be filling the void left by the web based workplace complaint category’s founding site ( …ked Company) which was launched during the tech bust.

I might go so far to say Telonu.com is …ked Company 2.0.

Whether Telonu institutionalizes the web based workplace complaint category or not remains to be seen.

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Posted in Layoff Tracker, Telonu.com | Leave a Comment »

Twittad: Monetize Your Twitter Profile

February 22, 2009

With Twitter continuing to make inroads into the consciousness of both the mobile and web communities, questions persist about how Twitter will make money.

Companies like Twittad.com have already begun trying to monetize Twitter traffic.

Twittad.com

Twittad.com

From Twitaps.com:

Twittad allows users to monetize their Twitter profile by serving a ad on the background of their profile page. With over 54 million page views on Twitter.com, and 50%+ of Tweets coming from the web advertisers are willing to pay for that space. Twittad allows the transaction to occur.

How Twittad works:

Twitter Users

Twitter Users

For Twittad Advertisers:

Twittad Advertisers

Twittad Advertisers

From Twittad.com:

TwittAd is not affiliated with Twitter.com. TwittAd was built using the Twitter open API.

It will be interesting to learn whether Twitter or another company discovers first how to capitalize and then monetize Twitter’s traffic.

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Posted in Twitter | Leave a Comment »

How Not To Market on Twitter

February 21, 2009

I received the following email from a Twitterer today which in turn has prompted this post: How Not to Market.

Twitter Follower Notification

Twitter Follower Notification

How Not to Market?

First set up a Twitter account under a sexy sounding girls name and then grab an image of the hottest looking girl you can find (preferrably a stock image you don’t have to pay for) Actually image ownership rights of the girl won’t matter because your site won’t be visited by anyone other than those you follow.

How Not To Market On Twitter

How Not To Market On Twitter

Next, get an affiliate account id for some spammy product that purportedly sells well with possibly your own domain pointing to the spammy affiliate page and then post your new prized domain on your Twitter profile page under your Web address.

Begin search for Tweets about Twitter or other generic non specific terms in Twitter Search.

Compile a list of recent Tweets and their authors to first stalk and then follow in the hopes their Twitter accounts will automatically follow you. If “stalkees” don’t automatically follow you back,  your hot girl picture should at least do the trick to get the followed to at least click through to your web address to learn more about what it is that you do.

This assumes the followed aren’t suspicious about your single update which upon reading sounds like the introductory sales script from a telemarketer’s cold call.

Then – PRAY! – those who you followed actually eyeball your spammy affiliate web site are also in the market for whatever it is your affiliate site is selling.

Twitter Web Address

Twitter Web Address

Increase click-throughs to your site and hedge your bets by making the biggest promise of all –  that your giving away endless quantities of cash – just like the latest Twitter spammer above who followed me did.

The problem with this “social media marketing model” is if anyone of the followed actually visit your website – they will do so only once and then they will probably be mad they were tricked into visiting your website to begin with.

If the new / social media marketer is lucky, they may even get a special  blog post written about just how special their social medai marketing  “user experience” was.

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, User Experience | Leave a Comment »

Top Twitter HotSpots in Google Trends

February 20, 2009

TechCrunch has produced two lists – one of the Top 21 most used Twitter clients according to Twitstat and  the other a list of the Top 20 most visited Twitter web application sites according to Compete.

Either of the TechCrunch lists can provide would-be and existing Twitter users with plenty of tools for launching or improving their Twitter experience.

Looking at Twitter usage through Google Trends and Insights for Search shows increasingly higher search interest in Twitter from 2004 through the Present (Twitter was founded March 1, 2006) as well the geographic regions Twitter searches have originated from most often.

Twitter Web Search Volume

Twitter Web Search Volume

The Top 10 Countries with interest in Twitter (2004-Present):

Regional Interest for Twitter

Regional Interest for Twitter

Interestingly, searches for Twitter over the last 12 months show slightly increased interest from Canada, Australia and New Zealand with less search activity coming from Norway.

Regional Twitter Interest Last 12 Months

Regional Twitter Interest Last 12 Months

Sorting search interest over the last 90 days shows yet another level of interest in Twitter by country.

The United Kingdom supplants the United States as the top most interested region in Twitter while Portugal makes its first appearance on the list.

Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

Drilling further down into Google Insights for search within each country produces maps showing interest levels by state and city.

In the United States, Oregon has had the highest level of state interest in Twitter followed by Vermont, Washington, District of Columbia, California, New York, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Kansas and Iowa.

United States Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

United States Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

The U.S. cities with the highest level of search interest in Twitter over the last 90 days are San Francisco, Austin, Portland, New York, Pleasanton, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Washington and Chicago.

United States Twitter Regional City Interest Last 90 Days

United States Twitter Regional City Interest Last 90 Days

Use Google Trends Insights for Search to further explore where Twitter is most searched for in the United Kingdom or in your particular corner of the world.

United Kingdom Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

United Kingdom Twitter Regional Interest Last 90 Days

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Posted in Google Trends, Insights for Search, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Live Blogging and President Obama in Canada – Two Firsts

February 19, 2009

Today is U.S. President Barack Obama’s first trip outside the United States since becoming President.

Today is also the first time a U.S. President – albeit through his new media staffer Jason Djang – has live blogged from the road.

From the White House Blog: The first live blog post from the White House:

President Obama is on his first foreign trip today — to Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. He’ll meet with Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Leader of the Official Opposition Michael Ignatieff, as well as US Embassy employees and their families. White House New Media staffer Jason Djang is along for the ride and will be liveblogging from the road.

The first live blog post from the White House:

9:12 a.m.: Just loaded press bus bound for Parliament. We landed ahead of AF1 and will get to Parliament ahead of POTUS, so no reports on him. Ottawa is white, and the snow’s still coming down. Police are on snowmobiles. About to head out.

For more details about President Barack Obama’s activities abroad visit the White House blog.

If the White House blog accepted Trackbacks, would this blog receive the first trackback posted on the White House blog?

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Posted in Barack Obama, Live Blogging, White House | Leave a Comment »

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