Archive for October, 2009

Halloween Search Insights 2009

October 31, 2009

Using Google Insights for search tool is excellent way to visualize search behavior over time particularly the cyclicality of seasonal shopping.

For instance as expected, interest in Halloween is virtually non-existent during the majority of the year and then begins to gradually increase as Halloween approaches.

Halloween Web Search Interest

Halloween Web Search Interest

The commercialization of Halloween is reflected through regional search interest in the subject with the United States and Canada generating a disproportionate amount of search queries as compared to other countries.

Regional Search Interest

Regional Search Interest

Halloween costumes and parties searches illustrate the commercial nature of Halloween while also signaling purchase intent.

Halloween Search Terms

Halloween Search Terms

Businesses of all types and sizes can use Google Insights for search to investigate and identify what if any seasonal shopping trends may exist within their markets.

Google Social Circle Search Results Examples

October 30, 2009

Today while logged into one of my Google accounts, I was searching for a keyword phrase and noticed my own blog (gleaned from another Google account) appearing in the search results.

Google Social Circle Search Results

Google Social Circle Search Results

I then ran several other searches for subjects I had written about recently.

Although I couldn’t find any more of my own posts, I was able to find results for Barry Schwartz’s Twitter account from within a search page as well.

Google Social Search Results Twitter Bing

Google Social Search Results Twitter Bing

Each search result from within a Google Social Circle experiment begins with the link: “Results from people within your social circle for…” and is preceded by a nondescript silhouette.

Each of my Google account’s have avatars available, so I am not sure why silhouettes are generated in lieu of avatars.

It remains to be seen whether this Google trial will be adopted much further than beyond the borders of the search engine marketing community.

The Google social circle search product reminds to some degree of the previous Google product: “subscribed links”.

Although they take different approaches to providing Google search account holders trusted content, I believe both provide the same outcome – results links embedded within search pages from known and thus trusted sources.

Find Chief Executive Officers Via CEO Dashboard And Twitter

October 29, 2009

John Sviokla has assembled an interesting list of Chief Executive Officers and their Twitter accounts on his blog under the CEO Twitter Dashboard.

The CEO Dashboard has CEOs categorized by their respective industries.

Twitter users can find CEOs from each of following industries on CEODashboard:
Advertising & PR, Construction, eCommerce, Education, Energy & Utilities, Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, High Tech, HR Services, Industry Association, Legal, Market Research, Media, Non-Profit, Professional Services, Restaurant & Hospitality, Retail, Software, Sports & Entertainment and Travel & Transportation.

CEOs from the Advertising & PR, eCommerce, Market Research and Media fields can be found below.

Clicking on their names opens each CEO’s Twitter profile.

Web visitors can subscribe to changes via RSS from the CEO Dashboard and can follow CEODashboard on Twitter to get notified of new CEOs as they are added.

The CEO Dashboard provides an interesting version of how Twitter accounts may ultimately be organized and searched – by Twitter account users industry category.

Advertising & PR

Ryan Allis, CEO of iContactJohn Battelle, CEO of Federated MediaTom Bedecarre, CEO of AKQAJeff Dachis, Co-Founder and Former CEO of RazorfishKel Kelly, Chief Executive, Kel & PartnersMike Lanese, CEO of ClearSaleingMichael Lebowitz, Founder and CEO of Big SpaceshipEric Litman, CEO of MedialetsLois Paul, CEO of Lois Paul & PartnersChristine  Perkett, Founder and CEO of PerkettPRTod Sacerdoti, Founder and CEO of BrightRollIan Schafer, CEO of Deep FocusGary Stockman, CEO of Porter Novelli

eCommerce

Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOLJana Eggers, CEO of SpreadshirtMitch Free, Founder, Chairman and CEO of MFGBill Gross, CEO of IdealabChris Hitchen, CEO of GetpriceChris Moreschi, CEO of Event BranderPierre Omidyar, Founder of eBayBob Parsons, Founder and CEO of GoDaddy

Market Research

George Colony, CEO of Forrester ResearchSteven  Goldstein, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of AlacraDiane Hessan, CEO of CommunispaceJ'Amy Stewart, Co-Founder and CEO of Infonetics

Media

Jay Adelson, CEO of DiggSamir Arora , Founder, Chairman and CEO of Glam MediaMichael Arrington, CEO of TechcrunchPeter  Bordes, Founder, Chairman and CEO of MediaTrustJohn Borthwick , CEO of BetaworksRichard Branson, Chairman of Virgin GroupStewart  Butterfield, Co-Founder of FlickrPete Cashmore, CEO of MashablePaul Dawalibi, President and CEO of Praized MediaJack Dorsey, Co-Founder and Chairman of TwitterCaterina Fake, Co-Founder of Flickr and HunchPeter Friedman , CEO of LiveWorldReid  Hoffman, Founder of LinkedinMichael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson PublishersShafqat Islam, Co-Founder NewsCredChristopher  J. Alden, Chairman and CEO of Six Apart Ltd.Bob Jeffrey, Chairman & CEO of JWT WorldwideRyan Junee, Co-Founder of Omnisio (acquired by Google)Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder and CEO of AlltopChris Knight, CEO of EzineArticlesDavid Langer, Co-Founder and CEO of GroupSpacesSam Lawrence, CEO of Blackbox Republic.Jim  Louderback, CEO of Revision3Alan Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrandsTim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly MediaRajiv Parikh , CEO of Position2Jules Pieri, Founder of Daily GrommetGreg Reinacker, Founder and CEO of NewsGator TechnologiesRichard  Rosenblatt, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Demand MediaAxel  Schultze, Founder and CEO of XeequaDan Serfaty, CEO of ViadeoDavid Sifry, Chairman of TechnoratiBiz Stone, Co-Founder of TwitterEvan Williams, CEO of TwitterColin Wong , CEO of Sharein

Twitter #140Conf

October 28, 2009

Found this new pop up box in Twitter search results today while searching for Twitter #140Conf.

Twitter #140conf

Twitter #140conf

This new Twitter search box popup explains what obscure hashtags mean.

Twitter gets their data from WhatTheTrend.com

In my next blog post, I will discuss the several thousand Tweets which have been made in conjunction with this year’s #140Conference.

The Attention Wars

October 27, 2009

Now playing on a screen near you – The Attention Wars.

Some time ago I wrote a piece characterizing Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo as their attempt at reinforcing and fortifying the habits of computer users to remain on Microsoft owned property.

Not because Microsoft needed Yahoo for additional desktop market share but because Microsoft needed Yahoo’s search audience share and still does.

Why?

Microsoft doesn’t want to lose any more attention, audience or keystrokes to their now main strategic rival and desktop franchise threat – Google.

I also thought Microsoft’s offer was dubious at best – offering just enough money to get everybody’s attention including half Yahoo’s board of directors – but not enough in the end to cause Co-Founder Yang to surrender his baby.

The whole act was really a masterstroke on Microsoft’s behalf.

Because as we all now know, Yang was excommunicated for not agreeing to sell while Microsoft also got to add the latest chapter to their Embrace, Extend and Extinguish playbook.

I digress…

Anyway – as the web has matured every large internet property has become visitor retention focused – ie., motivated to retain what audience and attention they have.

Hence, the recent introductions of new web homepages for each of the three largest internet audience properties – Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

In case you hadn’t noticed, each property has recently introduced a more sticky homepage.

Google has introduced their “fading” home page.

Google Attention

Google Attention

No links are shown on the page until a user mouses over the links.

The Google home page links “fade in” only after a cursor moves onto the page.

This may not seem like much of a change, but over the course of a day and with it 100s of millions of users – the amount of additional time spent collectively by visitors on the Google home page will  increase.

Bing’s Home Page Picture

Bing Attention

Bing Attention

Even before Bing became Bing, Microsoft had added an eye catching image to their homepage with several pop up boxes throughout the image to capture and retain searchers attention.

I am not sure what direct branding effect this will have on the Bing brand, but it will definitely increase awareness and recall for each of the images featured on their home page.

Yahoo My Favorites

Yahoo Attention

Yahoo Attention

Yahoo moved “My Favorites” to their home page’s left rail in the hopes of both  increasing their users attention and keystrokes.

I suspect Yahoo’s efforts will achieve both.

Expect to see every media company with a screen presence whether on the world wide web, television or mobile phone going to ever greater lengths to try and capture the growing more elusive with each passing day audience’s attention.

Newspaper Industry Circulation Continues Decline

October 26, 2009

The Audit Bureau of Circulation has released figures for the last six months through September showing the newspapers industry’s circulation has continued to decline after many publishers raised subcription and newstand prices to offset declines in advertising income.

Newspaper Circulation Drops

Newspaper Circulation Drops

Daily average circulation for 379 newspapers fell 11 percent to 30.4 million compared with a year earlier.

Falling circulations combined with Newspaper Association of America data showing Industry wide ad sales plunging 29 percent in the first six months of the year spells more bad news for the newspaper industry.

Of the top 25 largest circulated newspapers, only the Wall Street Journal experienced an increase of 0.6% while the Dallas Morning News, The San Francisco Chronicle and Newark Star-Ledger each experienced circulation drops in excess of 20%.

Top 25 Newspapers' Average Circulation

Top 25 Newspapers' Average Circulation

Based on these numbers and this apparently irreversable trend, I would have to agree with Ted Turner’s assessment of print as summed up on Bloomberg TV last Friday: “Print is obsolete.”

Twitter Search Fail in Firefox For Mac

October 25, 2009

I don’t know why, but I seem to have more problems than not trying to use Twitter search in Firefox for Macs.

Twitter Search Fail

Twitter Search Fail

I can search in Safari for Mac and get results.

The only difference as far as I can tell is that when I enter a search term in Firefox, the query doesn’t appear to embed itself in the Twitter Search box.

I refreshed my Firefox browser and still no luck.

Twitter Page Doesn't Exist

Twitter Page Doesn't Exist

The Twitter search process as it stands now at least in Firefox for Macs produces a 404 error stating – “The page you were looking for doesn’t exist.

WordPress: When Will My WordPress Blogs Have Tweetmeme Built In?

October 24, 2009

Recently WordPress added a “Publicize” button to their blogs so publishers could Tweet their posts directly to their Twitter accounts.

Isn’t it now time for WordPress to add a “Socialize” button to their bloggers dashboards?

Self hosted WordPress publishers can add plugins like those from Tweetmeme to let their visitors Tweet blog links to the Twitter audience.

Tweetmeme WordPress Plugin

Tweetmeme WordPress Plugin

However, WordPress hosted blogs lack any type of plugin tools for bloggers who want to enable their visitors to share their discoveries via Tweets beyond the WordPress walls.

Adding a Tweetmeme feature to WordPress bloggers dashboards and in turn their blogs would surely have a network doubling effect on the WordPress.com audience.

Wordpress Plugin

Wordpress Plugin

#w2s 2009: Top 50 Web 2.0 Summit Tweets

October 23, 2009

The fifth year of the Web 2.0 Summit was held in San Francisco over the last several days.

This year the Web 2.0 conference theme was Web Squared.

About the 2009 Web 2.0 Summit:

We believe that nothing is going to get better if the world collectively hides under its desk. It’s time for the Web to step up and step into its role as a platform for positive change—be it in our economy, our culture, or our society.

Last year we focused on where the Web met the world. This year, the Web is the world. And we’ve got a lot of work to do.

Entire industries are in the process of painful rebirth—finance and energy, to be sure, but also information technology, media and communications, healthcare, retail—nearly every major sector, in every major region of the world. And while these changes have been ongoing for more than a decade, the global financial crisis has accelerated and clarified this shift. It’s the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

At the center of both the destruction and creation is the World Wide Web. For this year, we are focusing on demonstrating proofs: showing how the founding principles of Web 2.0 have been put into practice to address the world’s most pressing problems.

Although I wasn’t able to attend in person this year, I have captured all of the Tweets that came out of the conference and posted the Top 50 Twitter Tweets (in no particular order) I found most insightful below.

RT typos – can’t edit multiple Tweets?

RT@Ross I have to say that Sean Parker’s preso was at first too basic and then made leaps beyond reason #w2s

RT@kajbouic Well, they sure do own the behaviour RT @fzanni RT Sean Parker: “Google doesn’t own Networks, they own Info Services.” #w2s

RT@marcedavis Teen Panel at #w2s love Facebook cuz?”that’s where their friends are.”

RT@lwaldal Why pay if I can get it somewhere else for free? (teens on panel) #w2s

RT@alparker To teen panel at #w2s Q: “If Bing paid you to search, would you use it?” A: “Oh, yeah!!!” But would advertisers continue to?

RT@ptoboley Hurrah for Twitter! RT @RodCrawford: Teens don’t use Twitter #w2s #web2 – …because it requires thinking.

RT@mtanne: teens: “if Facebook charged $0.99 a month I would go back to MySpace” #w2s

@benphoster Teen Panel at Web 2.0: Not a single kid could name the company behind Bing #w2s Maybe that’s good for MSFT.

RT@LorenDavie Kids: would rather text than talk. Maybe you should drop the phone part, manufacturers. #w2s

RT@samj putting high school kids on the stage at #w2s is either incredibly insightful or idiotic. which is it? SF kids not stat sample

@sradick: “when you search on Google, do you see any ads on Google?” – Teens answer “Nope” #w2s

@sradick “The iPhone can’t do picture messaging – like, isn’t this supposed to be sophisicated?” – teen at #w2s

@sradick: Teens pay for CDs & music, but only for artists they “want to support” #w2s | All about Trust & Engagement – !ndeed

Have the television viewing habits of teens decoupled from regular televised programming?

RT@kristathomas Social networks as still more walled gardens. -TBL @ #w2s

RT @mtanne: Sergey Brin says we can use Chrome for Mac by going to http://bit.ly/DUqUc pre-beta. #Chrome #w2s

RT @moyalynne: Berners-Lee – “Semantic Web is not about adding meaning – it’s about where you’ve already got meaning” #w2s

RT@ginablaber Berners-Lee: it’s most important to just get data out there. put yr data out there, & let people link to it. linked data #w2s

RT@jhagel @fzanni: Tim Berners-Lee: the original idea back in 1990 was creating together. That was lost for some time #w2s

RT@moyalynne The idea that links can break is key to scalability of the Web. “404 the most important invention on the Web” #w2s

RT@dberlind Sir Tim Berners-Lee @ #w2s: One of the gating factors for the whole world of Web apps to take of is trust.

RT @hetavs@davemcclure: Sean Parker: “Friendster lost due to infrastructure probs, but MySpace lost to Facebook due to CAMPUS WARFARE.” #w2s

Web 2.0 Summit 2009 http://bit.ly/Web2_0Videosabout 3 hours ago from bit.ly

RT@jwoolson what is most exciting to you on web right now – Berners-Lee: HTML5, GeoLocation, move from web pages to mobile and apps. #w2s

RT@mworrell @mager “A set of connected social networks will defeat a lone, unconnected one.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee @ #w2s (via @dberlind)

RT@rlavigne42 @stumm :17 cents of every dollar in health care spent on billing. –Aneesh Chopra #w2s A simply astonishing number.

RT@yago1 “Only 20-25% of humanity actually uses the Web at all.” Tim Berners-Lee #w2s (via RT @rww)

RT @the_standard VentureBeat has a #w2s photo gallery. http://bit.ly/Av9IU

Pretty cool free video chat and video messaging http://bit.ly/Tokboxabout 3 hours ago from bit.ly

KoolAid Alert! “We’re moving from information economy to social economy.” – Sheryl Sandberg #w2s

RT @katiemoffat @thenextwomen: Cool! via @LATimesNystrom “The very 1st website can be found here” http://j.mp/TIqiI re #w2s @timoreilly

RT @onlythoughtwork @web2summit: “HTML5 is a computing platform” – @timberners_lee #w2s !mportant Web 2.0

What problem couldn’t you solve if spent 8 hours a day of concentrated effort focused on solving it?

RT @onlythoughtwork Location is THE input to rule them all. Location has the potential to change all outputs #mobile #life #quotes

Great idea from #w2s: What associations does an audience have with your brand? http://bit.ly/BrandAssociat…

Advice To Marketers: Advertising Accountability: http://wp.me/p4KvI-eAabout 4 hours ago from WordPress.com

RT@BertVanKets @makerbot @doucet: $750 DIY 3D printer @makerbot explained and demonstrated (video) http://bit.ly/3omyls #w2s

RT@psael HP @Web2Summit: 2.3 billion magazines are shipped to newstands & never read; HP answers with print-on-demand service @MagCloud #w2s

RT @andrescatalan What Do Teens Want? Their Moms Off #Facebook http://bit.ly/2gdbkC #w2s (via @alexiatsotsis)

@timberners_lee is on Twitter.

RT @moyalynne Tim Armstrong / AOL drops teaser about significant shift in their tech emerging next few months around content creation #w2s

RT @simeons Brin: excited by hardware (Moore’s Law persisting). #Google is about figuring out what we can do with what the HW can do. #w2s

RT @web2summit Google founder sergey brinn @ #w2s: “Please forgive Chrome for Mac if it crashes, it is not even in the beta stage yet.”

RT @shawncunningham #w2s I just asked Sergei Brin “where is chrome for mac?” – apparently u can download a dev alpha version, he’s not happy

RT @dberlind Goog Sergey Brin #w2s: “They [the AP, Murdoch] are conflating Google with change [in their complaints that Google is stealing]”

WordPress Listens to Their Customer Audience

October 22, 2009

Several months ago WordPress announced the introduction of their own url shortening service under the WP.me branded domain.

At the time, I congratulated the WordPress staff on their blog while also asking when or if I could ever Tweet WordPress blog posts directly to my Twitter account.

The Official WordPress blog approves or disapproves comments and my suggestion went – for what seemed like an eternity – without being published.

Then within the last week or two, WordPress announced their new Publicize feature which Tweets WordPress blog posts directly to Twitter accounts.

I thought – unbelievable, Are you kidding me WordPress?!

As a consultant I am used to sharing strategies and techniques for growing businesses with my clients, but I provide them because my clients reciprocate by paying my fees.

Sharing ideas freely on the web is a requisite for participating in web culture yet not giving credit where credit is due is what keeps additional ideas from flowing and then multiplying.

This morning I woke up thinking about the above process and how I was going to write about how my suggestion had been perpetually embargoed in an approval que at WordPress while they went ahead and launched their Publicize to Twitter service.

To my surprise, my comment and suggestion were actually published several weeks ago while also being acknowledged by Automattic’s User Engagement head @Wordpress –  Heather.

Wordpress Listens to Their Customer Audience

Wordpress Listens to Their Customer Audience

Congratulations WordPress… you not only listen to your customer audience, you also act on that which you have heard.