Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

Google Aggregating Ideas: Project 10 to the 100th

September 24, 2008

To help celebrate its 10th birthday, Google has announced their latest iteration for crowdsourcing ideas with their Project 10^100.

Google’s Project 10^100 ( “ten to the hundredth”) aims to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas Google believes could have broad and beneficial impact on people’s lives.

Google Inc. plans to award a prize of up to $10 million to help make winning ideas a reality.

People are encouraged to submit their ideas, in any of 25 languages, on Project 10 to the 100th through October 20. Entrants must briefly describe their idea and answer six questions, including, “If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?”

CNN will be covering this Google project, including profiles of ideas and the people who submit them from around the world.

A Google spokeswoman was reluctant to set parameters for the submissions, although the project’s Web site suggests that successful ideas should address such issues as providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy.

“We don’t want to limit it at all. We want a wide range of ideas,” said Bethany Poole, product marketing manager at Google, who announced the project live Wednesday morning on CNN along with Andy Berndt, managing director of Google’s Creative Lab. “We think great ideas come from anywhere.”

“These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple — but they need to have impact,” said Google in a press release. “We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition.”

Learn more about Project 10 to the 100th @ YouTube:

Top Search and Web Properties Query Share

September 20, 2008

comScore has released its August 2008 qSearch analysis of the the U.S. search marketplace.

According to comScore, Google core search sites continued to lead the U.S. core search market in August with 63% of the searches conducted, up from 61.9% in July.

Yahoo core search sites had the second largest amount of search traffic with 19.6%, followed by Microsoft with 8.3%, the Ask Network with 4.8% and AOL LLC with 4.3% of searches conducted.

At the top web properties where search is observed, Google web properties led with 10.2 billion searches followed by Yahoo web properties with 2.4 billion searches, Microsoft web properties with 1 billion searches and AOL LLC and it search sites with 839 million search queries.

What I found most interesting in the comScore top web properties search data was Fox Interactive’s web sites – including MySpace.com – conducted 593 millions searches compared to Ask Network’s properties 572 million searches.

July August 2008 comScore Site Search Share

July August 2008 comScore Site Search Shar

Also, according to comScore data and to my surprise, MySpace.com has even surpassed AOL’s Search Network – not including MapQuest – fielding 117 million more search queries per month than AOL search.

Even with MySpace network’s growth slowing, at some point won’t its user base and growth cause it to generate an equal and then ever increasing number of search queries per month?

At its present size and barring any significant search market disruptions, will MySpace.com eventually generate more searches per month than AOL?

Ultimately, will MySpace.com generate more search queries per month than even Microsoft’s web properties?

MarketingConsultants.com Domain Auction

September 16, 2008

I received this email regarding the auctioning of the domain marketingconsultants.com. My thoughts about this domain and the auction are in [brackets] below.

Hello Tim,

I am the owner of the generic premium domain name MarketingConsultants.com.

Since you are a Marketing Service provider, I thought you or your firm would be interested to know that I am auctioning off the domain through domain broker Sedo.com.

[ I am, I have been a marketing consultant for 19 years.]

The auction for MarketingConsultants.com ends in about 3 days.

You own MarketingConsultants.org.

[Yes, I do.]

Advanced Marketing Consultants

Advanced Marketing Consultants

Why not get the best extension for marketing consultants? .Com is king and this domain has it!

Why should you buy MarketingConsultants.com? Besides the points below, you can also refer to the article here:

dmueller.com/benefits-of-generic-domains

MarketingConsultants.com is without doubt the best domain for Marketing
Consultants. It would be a perfect name & a growing asset for your company.

[Agreed, depending on the price.]

It caters to a highly lucrative niche – Offline & Online Marketing.

There are 612 Pay-per-click Sponsors for the term “Marketing Consultants” on Google.

[I actually found 83 pages of sponsored ads on Google totalling 996 advertisers.]

Marketing Consultants

Marketing Consultants

Pay per click rate for “Marketing Consultants” is $3.00-4.72 at Google Adwords!

Just 750 clicks per month would cost you $3,300+ monthly if you are one of the top advertisers for this keyword, but with this domain, you can get even more targeted traffic consistently for free.

This is just a one-time investment.

[ Actually there is a one time purchase price and then an ongoing annual renewal fee between $7 and $10 depending on which registrar the domain is transferred to.]

This premium domain will bring instant brand recognition!

[ Generic descriptive names can not become brands by definition, however established brands can benefit from owning their generic equivalency.]

It would bring authenticity and trustworthiness to any Marketing Consultancy or Marketing Service business.

The majority of clients are aware that only a serious and successful Marketing Consultant would invest in the most premium domain of their industry. A domain of this generic nature adds credibility to any existing Marketing business.

[ Correct ]

Incredible: over 2,880,000 Google Search Results for “Marketing Consultants”.

Keyword Rich domain: Search engines give lot of importance to keywords in the domain.

Once developed, it will easily get high ranks on Google. Getting 1st spot 1st page position for “Marketing Consultants” would not be difficult at all.

[ If getting first page, first result weren’t difficult then every domain would be first and there wouldn’t be any need for second place results or beyond.]

Sub-domains can be used for high search engine rankings. For example, if the new owner creates sub-domain: Internet.MarketingConsultants.com then the site is most likely to top search engines for the term “internet marketing consultant”.

Same with:

NewYork.MarketingConsultants.com

Top.MarketingConsultants.com

Sophisticated.MarketingConsultants.com etc.

[ Sounds good, but I don’t think I have ever seen a sub-domain on the first page for a competitive keyword.]

MarketingConsultants.com is a 10 year old domain: it is an authority aged domain. Will easily get top ranks in search engines.

[ If so, why isn’t it there now after 10 years?]

Domain is concise and to the point. It would describe the business very well.

No hyphen. No numbers. Correct Spelling.

Domains are growing in value consistently. This domain will be a valuable growing asset for your business.

[ Possibly ]

In the long run, this domain will bring a significant number of clients and build brand awareness for any marketing consultant business. This domain will, without a doubt, give unfair advantage to any Marketing business over competitors. Increasingly larger numbers of businesses are searching, researching and buying online, and with this domain, you will dominate this sector. Disney owns family.com, Intel owns chips.com, GE owns TransportationServices.com.

Who should own MarketingConsultants.com?

It’s a rare gem of a domain. Once sold, the buyer might never sell or will sell for much higher price. Do not miss this only chance!

This domain has been professionally appraised at over $45,000, but I have not put any reserve and the current bid is only at $9,100.

MarketingConsultants.com Sedo Auction

MarketingConsultants.com Sedo Auction

[ A professional domainer will probably end up buying this domain and then monetize it with ads. ]

— More info below—

32,000 searches are done by businesses looking for Marketing Consultants on Google (below is the exact search count). That is 32,000 potential clients for the new owner of MarketingConsultants.com. Since this domain will easily rank high for search phrases like “marketing consultants”, you can expect lot of business traffic from Google alone, and these searchers are targeted and are actively looking to buy Marketing services.

Please refer to search count below:

Searches Keyword

8,967 marketing consultants
6,750 internet marketing consultants
5,484 marketing for consultants
5,229 consultants marketing
620 direct marketing consultants
501 interactive marketing consultants
490 web marketing consultants
475 business marketing consultants
459 search engine marketing consultants
443 marketing strategy consultants
417 search marketing consultants
325 strategic marketing consultants
318 email marketing consultants
310 sales marketing consultants
280 small business marketing consultants
276 network marketing consultants
276 consultants marketing network
242 online marketing consultants
211 marketing consultants houston
211 software marketing consultants
210 boston marketing consultants
193 marketing consultants san diego
175 sales and marketing consultants
152 law firm marketing consultants
145 marketing consultants uk
144 automotive marketing consultants
139 internet marketing strategy consultants
134 marketing consultants new
134 marketing consultants new york
129 real estate marketing consultants
117 marketing communication consultants
110 marketing research consultants
104 affinity marketing consultants
102 marketing communications consultants

Source: PageRank.net/keyword-suggestion

Important:
Sedo requires member verification for bids above $10k, so if you are going to bid, do not forget to verify your account at Sedo first.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. You can also call me at
xxx-xxx-xxxx

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

X

[ Considering I bought marketingconsultants.org for $7.41, I am having a hard time justifying entering a domain auction for the same domain albeit with the superior extension at over 1,300 times the price I paid for mine.

I will check back in a few months to see what price marketingconsultants.com was auctioned for as well as to learn what steps its new owners have taken to generate a return on their domain investment. ]

Google Knows Everything or Just Enough?

September 9, 2008

From the Official Google blog yesterday:

“Today, we’re announcing a new logs retention policy: we’ll anonymize IP addresses on our server logs after 9 months. We’re significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users.”

“Although that was good for privacy, it was a difficult decision because the routine server log data we collect has always been a critical ingredient of innovation. We have published a series of blog posts explaining how we use logs data for the benefit of our users: to make improvements to search quality, improve security, fight fraud and reduce spam.”

“While we’re glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we’re also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data.”

From these comments, can we infer search quality, innovation, searcher privacy and security are built on having the most search data?

What impact can anonymized data have when you still control it?

Photo Marketing and Monetization with Photrade.com

September 8, 2008

From the DEMO Fall Conference in San Diego and Photrade.com:

“Photrade is where photographers reclaim ownership of their photos. Photraders decide how, when, where and at what cost their photos are used online. We provide unprecedented protection for photos and offer a free photo marketplace where photographers can sell stock, prints and merchandise or use our Adcosystem (TM) where photographers get paid for every view of their photo, anywhere on the internet. Through Photrade, publications and blogs can access a fast-growing library of legally licensed, ad-supported photos. Reclaim your photos, start photrading.”

Photrade.com

Photrade.com

Can Photrade.com transform the marketing and monetization of photos like Google transformed the marketing and monetization of text?

Google Advertising Outlook

September 7, 2008

Tim Armstrong President, Advertising & Commerce North America for Google recently spoke about Google’s search advertising outlook at the Citi Investment Research Technology Conference in New York.

Highlight via Forbes, PaidContent.org and David Kaplan:

1. The business of search: Over the next three years, will we have continued deceleration?

Definitely not, according to Armstrong. He said there’s still a lot of headroom for search because Google still has a lot of the world to conquer. Plus, the improvements in quality that Google has released over the past few months will also show some lift over the the next three years.

2. An advertising pullback? No, Armstrong doesn’t see any retrenchment from the poor economy affecting advertisers’ spending. However, they might be experiencing “a pause” in general. As for search as a branding tool, it’s too early to tell if marketers are starting to view that format as a vehicle for anything more than direct response.

3. Pain points: The major pain points that need to be addressed: complexity is one. There are a lot of offerings on the web today. A lot of companies spent the last four years getting “digitally certified”. The next is measurement and ROI. The third is education.

4. On mobile advertising revenue potential: Citi analysts don’t think mobile will be a material source of revenue in the U.S. this year, but perhaps in Asia. Armstrong: It all comes down to scalability. Will the iPhone grow more quickly? I think the non-iPhone analog devices will see search grow. Typically, we don’t scale all of our resources until we see movement on the consumer side. We’ve been selling ads on mobile for the last 18 months. You should expect to see more over time. But it took a number of years for search to get going, and it will be the same for mobile to pick up as well, from an ad revenue perspective.

My thoughts on Armstrong’s comments:

1. Indeed Google still has a lot headroom because the vast majority of money spent on advertising can’t be measured like Google’s can and thus it can’t be managed to produce a predictable return on the advertiser’s investment.

2. The only advertising pull back will be from media that aren’t delivering measurable financial results for their customers.

Why would an advertiser who is predictably generating a return on their advertising investment do anything but continue to advertise with the media that is producing it?

3. Complexity is indeed an issue on more than one front. The average small business doesn’t have the time or resources to attack the learning curve that accompanies search engine advertising. Secondly, advertisers who haven’t yet embraced search engine advertising whether they are still in the middle majority or are laggards historically won’t change until they have too. The present economic downturn may actually nudge them to explore their other advertising options. However, they may not have the luxury of time needed to make the necessary changes because they may already be competing with businesses who have already begun measuring their advertising investment and its return on investment. Advertisers who measure their advertising ROI have a non-arguable competitive advantage over those who don’t.

4. Mobile advertising revenue although growing will not reach escape velocity anytime soon because Google’s technology is out ahead of both the consumer demand and the average advertisers ability to implement advertising campaigns to reach a large enough group of consumers with demand which would justify the advertiser’s decision to devote resources for reaching them.

Google Chrome Browser and Comic Book Marketing Communications

September 1, 2008

The Official Google blog has announced they will be launching the beta version of Google’s new Chrome browser tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

Sorry Mac and Linux users – no Google Chrome browser yet developed for your operating systems.

What I find most interesting about this product launch is Google’s use of a comic book to market and communicate their new browsers story and value proposition.

Google Chrome Browser Comic Book

Google Chrome Browser Comic Book

Additionally, they have posted their comic book “tutorial” in Google Book Search which will surely drive more traffic and create more awareness of one of Google’s less visited search properties.

Could comic books become the new preferred marketing communications media for making a case for switching from one technology provider to another?

At a minimum, using a comic book to market a new browser is novel…

Google Hot Trends Gadget Error

August 28, 2008

Google Hot Trends offers a “Top 10 Trends” gadget that I display in my iGoogle account.

Google Hot Trends Gadget

Google Hot Trends Gadget

The Hot Trends gadget appears to be on the blink and has been for the last several hours.

Google Labs can you get this fixed?

Googe Trends Gadget Error

Googe Trends Gadget Error

Top 10 Internet Yellow Pages Searches

August 27, 2008

From the Yellow Pages Association:

According to research firm Knowledge Networks/SRI, the Top 10 category searches among 2007’s 3.8 billion total IYP (online) searches were:

1. Restaurants
2. Physicians & Surgeons
3. Hotels
4. Auto Repairing & Service
5. Florists-Retail
6. Auto Dealers-New & Used
7. Dentists
8. Auto Parts & Supplies – New & Used
9. Beauty Salons (tie)
10. Hospitals (tie)

According to Larry Small, research director at YPA: “It may come as a surprise to some but the top 10 IYP headings mirror the top 10 print Yellow Pages headings — typically because these headings drive so many on and offline queries. These differences can be attributed to differences in consumer’s local search needs for product vs. service-oriented information and long-term vs. short-term purchase plans.”

Their research profile of IYP users shows that:

— 63% are female
— 89% are aged 25-64
— 54% are college graduates
— 42% have lived at the same address for 10+ years

The top (Offline) 20 Yellow Pages Headings for 2007 in numeric order followed by their number of references were:
Rank / Heading / Classification (millions)

1. Restaurants-Fast Food-Other & Non Specific 1,288.4
2. Physician & Surgeons-Specialist & Non Specific 1,122.7
3. Automobile Parts-New & Used 485.2
Automobile Parts-New 312.2
Automobile Parts-Used 173.0
4. Automobile Repairing & Service 411.9
5. Pizza 317.7
6. Automobile Dealers-New & Used 266.0
Automobile Dealers-New 189.7
Automobile Dealers-Used 76.2
7. Attorneys/Lawyers 260.6
8. Dentists 246.7
9. Plumbing Contractors 228.6
10. Beauty Salons 203.7
11. Hospitals 199.8
12. Department Stores 195.5
13. Insurance 183.8
14. Veterinarians 171.4
15. Hardware-Retail 145.7
16. Tire Dealers 142.4
17. Pharmacies or Drug Stores 130.8
18. Theaters 126.2
19. Florists-Retail 120.5
20. Banks 115.5

eBay Being Distintermediated by Google?

August 21, 2008

“eBay will be permanently marginalized by Google.” – Inspired by Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch

via FastCompany:

“Although eBay is making changes to its fee structure – emphasizing fixed prices over the auction model it’s known for following, Schonfeld writes, “the Web has moved on and eBay is stuck in still waters.” Page views are down 15% year-over-year, while the stock is down 26%.

eBay’s main challenge, he says, “is that it is becoming easier and easier to find things to buy on the Web simply by searching for what you want on Google. During the early days of the Web, people needed a few big e-commerce sites they could trust and that could organize everything that was for sale online. That need was filled by Amazon and eBay. But now people are comfortable trawling the Net for the best bargains, and eBay is no longer the first place they go.”

Just as the tens of thousands of middle men and their companies like travel agents were disintermediated  by Web 1.0, eBay who became the middle man for millions of buyers and sellers now faces being disrupted itself by the web’s largest middle man: Google.

Why go to eBay and pay their toll when you can go direct to any seller via a Google search – toll free?