Archive for November, 2010

Recommendation Engine: Google Places With Hotpot

November 30, 2010

Google’s recent addition to its local search product lineup is called Google Places with Hotpot.

From Google:

Hotpot is a new local recommendation engine for Google Places, powered by you and your friends.

You tell us the places you like — restaurants, cafes, book shops — and we’ll recommend new places to you the next time you search. Start rating and reviewing now @ http://www.google.com/hotpot

Google Places with Hotpot

Google Places with Hotpot

According to Google Product manager Mat Balez, over 20% of Google search queries have local intent.

As such, Google plans to integrate ratings and reviews from Hotpot users into its database of 50 million places.

With enough user participation, Google foresees creating a more informed local search experience  – one that turns all of its users contributions into a recommendation engine for all searchers looking for that special local place in Google.

Innovation: An Algorithm?

November 29, 2010

Can innovation be reduced to an algorithm?

Has someone already reduced the process of innovation to an algorithm?

Who?

What are the attributes of the innovation algorithm?

If not, what are the attributes of innovation that can be reduced and written as an algorithm?

Media Free Holiday

November 28, 2010

I effectively went cold turkey shunning almost all media for the last four days – at least not consuming eight hours worth of media a day.

As a result – I have little to say.

Sharing Content

November 27, 2010

Why do people share content?

Is it because the sender gets value from sharing it?

Is it because the receiver gets value from having received it?

Or is content shared because doing so produces some form of value for both the receiver and the sender?

Google AdWords Class Action Settlement Notice

November 26, 2010

I received the following Class Action Settlement notice from Google yesterday – Thanksgiving Day.

Google is sending you this notice of a proposed class action settlement that may affect your legal rights as a creator of an AdWords campaign between October 2007 and July 2009. This notice is being sent to you by Court Order so that you may understand your rights and remedies before the Court considers final approval of the proposed settlement on March 11, 2011.

This is not an advertisement or attorney solicitation.

A settlement agreement has been reached by the parties and is pending approval by the Court. Under the proposed settlement, Google will pay a total of $3,500,000 to the settlement class, including attorneys’ fees and costs, for charges accrued by AdWords users who left the “CPC Content bid” input blank upon creating an AdWords campaign, and were charged for content ads appearing on Google’s Content Network.

IMPORTANT. If the settlement is approved, your legal rights may be affected whether or not you act. You should therefore carefully read the documents filed with the Court concerning the settlement, the reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and litigation expenses, and the litigation generally.

Please go to http://www.largocargosettlement.com for full details on the settlement and further instructions on what to do to submit a claim, opt out of, object to, or otherwise comment upon the proposed settlement.

Please do not reply to this email.

Please note that Google will never ask you for password information or other personal credentials when sending you notices.  If you suspect someone is improperly using Google’s name or products to obtain your personal information, please report the message as phishing.  See http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=184963.

This mandatory announcement was sent to certain AdWords users in the U.S. as part of a legal settlement and was authorized by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043

LargoCargoSettlement.com provides the following details regarding the proposed settlement.

Largo Cargo v Google Settlement

Largo Cargo v Google Settlement

To qualify for inclusion in the proposed Largo Cargo v Google Class Action Settlement, Google AdWords advertisers must first answer and submit their responses to the following three questions.

AdWords Class Action Settlement Questions

AdWords Class Action Settlement Questions

Whether the time and energy required for answering three simple questions to qualify for any potential reimbursement from Google is worth it or not will be left up to the individual advertiser to determine.

Visual Search And The Google Goggles Marketing Experiment

November 25, 2010

Google Goggles is Google’s brand name for their visual search product.

Google has launched a Google Goggles visual search marketing experiment featuring five top advertisers – Buick, Delta Air Lines, Diageo, Disney & T-Mobile.

Whether visual searching will be embraced by the general public let alone ever exceed the number of text searches conducted remains to be seen.

Google AdWords Contextual Targeting Beta

November 24, 2010

I finally got a Beta invite to Google Adwords Contextual Targeting tool.

Contextual Targeting Beta

Contextual Targeting Beta

Although I haven’t yet had a chance to utilize the Contextual Targeting tool to its fullest, I did put it to some quick tests.

Contextual Targeting Suggested Ad Group + Keywords

Contextual Targeting Suggested Ad Group + Keywords

The Contextual Targeting tool appears to show great promise for several obvious reasons and one not so obvious reason.

The tool performs as described for its intended and obvious uses  – establishing tightly focused lists of keywords and then grouping them into respective ad groups.

What the tool also does in a not so obvious way is winnow down potentially unmanageable long tail keyword lists into lists of mostly head only terms.

The resulting lists of keywords and ad groups thus provide great insight into what type of contextual targeting inventory Google has available.

Does this tool then not in the process also identify true keyword head inventory?

It appears to do so to me.

What do you think?

Google Video Site Maps And Video Search Optimization

November 23, 2010

Can your videos be found on Google?

If not, watch this video to learn how to optimize your videos for Google  with Google Video Sitemaps.

Use Google Video Sitemaps to help make your video content easier for users to search for and find on Google.

For more info about Video Search Optimization and Google Video Sitemaps, visit http://www.google.com/videositemaps

Coming Soon: Sentiment Optimization

November 22, 2010

For some time Google has been providing a list of “What people are saying about” reviews of a particular business within their lists of local business search results.

Google Maps Reviews

Google Maps Reviews

The “opinions” can be found in the reviews of a business in Google Maps.

“What people are saying about” is the consumer term for a new process called Sentiment Analysis.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis

While these reviews appear helpful at first glance, the idea of online consumer reviews of small businesses is uniformed at best.

Why?

Because the average consumer will not go out of their way to comment on superior customer service or product selection let alone average service or selection.

The average consumer will however go way out of their way to tell whoever will listen about how ABC small company didn’t live up to their expectations regardless of whether their expectations were reasonable to begin with or not.

Case in point: look at five or ten business reviews in Google Maps where a company has a handful of reviews. Of those companies with a few negative reviews, you will often see owner generated reviews added in an attempt to offset any negative “sentiment”.

While online reviews may be good at smoking out the bad players, having to police then manage any unfavorable customer sentiment in online reviews puts an additional burden on the already overburdened small business owner.

Soon small business owners will have to add sentiment optimization to their shopping list.

Google Analytics TV Episode #14

November 21, 2010

Google Analytics experts Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer questions about Analytics and other Google tools.

Topics covered in this video include macro vs. micro conversions, using Google analytics on affiliate sites, tracking different domains, and more.