In years past Cyber Monday received a lot of coverage from mainstream media which culminated with the day itself – the first Monday after Thanksgiving.
CyberMonday
However this year I don’t recall seeing or hearing much news about Cyber Monday.
Cyber Monday 2009
It will be interesting to see after Cyber Monday has came and went this year whether or not the term and its significance will mirror the interest or lack thereof found in the Google Trends data above.
“A grateful heart is close to the riches of the Universe.”
Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving 2009
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours…
Today I unexpectedly discovered all of the Wall Street Journal’s Twitter lists.
Won’t setting these all up via RSS to be fed into my Google Reader and iGoogle account excite Mr. Murdoch even further?
Scanning all of the Wall Street Journal feeds (and now their listees) in one homogeneous format like an iGoogle page should make identifying the articles I would like to read much easier than trying to visually strip out all of the extraneous information that usually occupies the Wall Street Journal’s homepage.
 @WSJ/news Get the latest breaking news headlines from top news organizations on Twitter. |
Following: 16 Followers: 111 |
| @WSJ/all-things-digital Twitter list with writers from All Things Digital (ATD). |
Following: 3 Followers: 51 |
| @WSJ/economics A collection of tweeters discussing the latest on the economy and its recovery. |
Following: 22 Followers: 73 |
| @WSJ/wall-street-journal Get the latest headlines and breaking news alerts from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). |
Following: 60 Followers: 36 |
| @WSJ/wsj-economy The Wall Street Journal’s economics reporting team on Twitter. |
Following: 9 Followers: 30 |
| @WSJ/wsj-politics The Wall Street Journal’s latest tweets on politics and policy. |
Following: 6 Followers: 43 |
| @WSJ/politics A collection of VIP tweeters discussing U.S. politics and policy on Twitter. |
Following: 18 Followers: 19 |
| @WSJ/entertainment |
Following: 13 Followers: 20 |
| @WSJ/world-news Get the latest headlines on world events from the Wall Street Journal and more. |
Following: 11 Followers: 16 |
| @WSJ/wsj-staff A comprehensive list of eporters, editors and columnists from the Wall Street Journal. |
Following: 66 Followers: 155 |
| @WSJ/business |
Following: 11 Followers: 43 |
| @WSJ/iran-elections Tweeters discussing Iranian elections. |
Following: 7 Followers: 6 |
| @WSJ/healthcare Tweets on healthcare, including updates from the Wall Street Journal’s health team. |
Following: 7 Followers: 26 |
| @WSJ/investing Tweets on investing. Woot! |
Following: 17 Followers: 21 |
| @WSJ/wsj-life-style-staff The Wall Street Journal’s Life & Style reporters, editors and columnists. |
Following: 8 Followers: 23 |
| @WSJ/autos |
Following: 8 Followers: 5 |
| @WSJ/sports-news The latest tweets in sports. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Hockey. NASCAR. Soccer. |
Following: 16 Followers: 8 |
| @WSJ/wsj-news The latest headlines from the Wall Street Journal. |
Following: 36 Followers: 19 |
| @WSJ/wsj-blogs The latest from the Wall Street Journal’s blog coverage. |
Following: 22 Followers: 22 |
| @WSJ/future-of-news The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray and his list of top tweeters discussing the future of news. |
Following: 13 Followers: 67 |
The Google TV Ads blog has announced a new feature called Campaign Builder.
From Google:
What if you could have a custom TV campaign created for you in minutes that optimally reaches your target audience? We’re pleased to unveil Campaign Builder, a new Google TV Ads feature which enables advertisers to create targeted campaigns in just a few minutes.
Google TV Ads Campaign Builder
How to get started with Google TV Ads Campaign Builder:
Navigate to Campaign Builder underneath the “Add Targets” tab of any TV campaign. Then specify your target audience demographics, interests, and/or Nielsen PRIZM clusters. Campaign Builder will produce a comprehensive list of dayparts and TV programs that reach your specified audience in the highest concentrations. What’s more, the tool will automatically set strategic bids to increase your likelihood of winning optimal targets and spending your budget. After that, one click is all it takes to port the selected targets and bids into a newly created campaign that can begin running immediately.
Google offers two different tools for creating TV ads either a self-service tool called SpotMixer or they will help find a vendor to create an ad for you.
Watch this video “How To Create A TV Ad” to learn more about creating TV ads in the new Google Adwords Interface:
Preparing to take my Google Advertising Professionals exam, I have had to spend a lot of time poking around in the Google Advertising Professionals section of Google Adwords.
From within the Pro Center in my Google Adwords Client Center, I discovered Google Professionals Search.
According to Google Adverting Professionals Search:
Google Professionals Search is a way to find a list of agencies that are Google Advertising Professionals. Advertisers might use it to look for agencies to help them manage their AdWords campaigns, or they may be just starting out and looking for help getting started.
One of the drivers for agencies or consultants to become qualified and badged is to support their new business activity. Many agencies and Google Advertising Professionals have asked for additional visibility of their certified status, so we’re adding another way for advertisers to find our agency partners.
We’ll direct advertisers looking for help through information in help centers and other appropriate places.
To be included, you’ll need to opt in to the Professionals Search; you won’t be included without your express permission. If you opt in, we’ll ask you to provide additional information to match you with advertisers you’re willing to help. We’ll ask you to choose a minimum budget range you’re willing to work with, the type of services you offer, as well as provide your website and company name so interested advertisers can contact you. Note, if you opt in, but don’t provide this information, you will not show up for any searches (since parameters will not be set). We think this helps match suitable professionals, and we’ll test and refine as we learn more about the success of the Professionals Search.
Search For Google Advertising Professionals
I am not sure whether Google Advertising Professionals Search is a new or old feature in Google Adwords, but the search function isn’t enabled or active.
Google Advertising Professionals Search 404
In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state admitted to the union. 50 years later, Google has included Hawaii as the 50th state in their Street View in Google Maps.
With Google’s imagery of Oahu and Maui, visitors can now take a virtual vacation to Hawaii’s white sandy beaches or plan their next trip.
Take a virtual vacation to the beaches of Hawaii by visiting Google’s Street View Gallery.
Take A Virtual Vacation To Hawaii
I am in the process of renewing my Google Advertising Professional certification and have found several inconsistencies between the previous Adwords interface and the new one.
A lot of the links don’t work.
For example, clicking on the Google Advertising Professionals Help link from within My Client Center produces the following “Page not available” message.
Google Advertising Professionals Help
Although I haven’t ever generated an online or offline transaction from my own firm’s Google Local Business Center listing, I have closely monitored my listing and its appearance or lack thereof in Google search results since business listings were first introduced.
Over time, the type of results have changed from lists of ten to as few as one result for specific business or category localized search queries.
I have also watched Google’s Local Business Center product evolve to its present version which includes rudimentary search traffic stats.
Because of the nature of my firm’s listing categories (advertising and marketing), generating a search referred transaction isn’t expected.
However, many small businesses have come to rely on the referrals Google local search listings provide.
Fortunately I haven’t relied on Google’s free local search referrals for generating new business; because if I had, my business would have since dried up with the recent changes impacting what appears to have only occurred in geo-modified advertising and marketing search results.
Prior to the recent paring of local advertising and marketing results, firms like mine could count on their local business listing being displayed for queries in their respective markets.
A generic web search query for marketing + city used to produce the following type of results.
Marketing
A generic web search query for marketing consultant + city used to produce the following type of results.
Marketing Consultant
In both instances and because of my firm’s listing presence, Google saw fit to publish my company’s details for these types of queries.
Once my Local Business Center listing even appeared inexplicably atop a Google Maps search for “marketing consultants”.
Google Maps Search Marketing Consultants
However, today the same search query for marketing + city produces the following results sans One Plus Box or any other type of previously seen types of multiple listing results.
Marketing Oklahoma City
The same holds true for a search for marketing consultant + city. No One Plus Box results or any type of multiple listing results.
Marketing Consultants Oklahoma City
Nor does my listing still appear atop a Google Maps search for marketing consultants. My listing shouldn’t have probably been there to begin with but its unclear to me as to why any of results that do appear for this particular search appear as they do.
Marketing Consultants Google Map Search
Historically when these types of changes have appeared in search results, the new results types were evenly distributed across all business categories.
I am not so sure that is the case this time.
It looks like the advertising and marketing categories are the sole beneficiaries of these new types of category search results.
A quick search for other categories still produces any one of the previously identified One Plus Box results types.
A search for a local Doctor’s listing still produces his Google Local Business Center listing data.
Dr Local Web Search
A search for “Luxury Apartments Dallas” produces the recently discovered seven local results format.
Luxury Apartments Dallas
However, a local search for my business name and city no longer produces a Google Local Business Center result like the the Doctor’s listing above.
Instead it produces a traditional search engine results page.
Google Web Search Advanced Marketing Consultants NIchols HIlls, OK
Although my local business center listings information still appears in a specific business name search in Google Maps, the One Box type result for my categories appears to be totally gone.
Google Maps Advanced Marketing Consultants Nichols HIlls, OK
To confirm my experience isn’t unique, I ran several search queries in other markets for the same generic terms and produced the same type of results.
A search for “Advertising Agency New York” produces the same type of results as those identified above – no One Box or any type of multiple listings.
Advertising Agency New York Web Search
Yet a search for “marketing + city” produces a buggy list of non marketing related business listings ( (must be the data center).
Marketing New York
I have seen these type of results before where similar nonsensical business listings appear in search categories unrelated to their primary business. Could these types of results been a catalyst for these recent category results changes?
However, a search for “marketing consultants new york city” produced the same type of search engine results pages mentioned initially.
Marketing Consultants New York City
Are these new search engine results pages for advertising and marketing related category + location specific search results by design and the new norm or are these new results the by-product of a bug?
If these results are indeed the new norm for the advertising and marketing industries, agencies and marketers alike may need to get acquainted with Google’s advertising product – Google Adwords – if they want their businesses to have a higher level of visibility in both Google search engine results pages and Google Maps.
Search Marketing Communications 
BusinessWeek Testing Google Voice Call Me Voice Comments
November 23, 2009Clicking through to a BusinessWeek article today, I noticed what I thought was an ad for Google Voice.
Call Me Google
After closer inspection, I realized BusinessWeek is testing a “voice comments” feature for their Byte of the Apple column.
When I first saw the ad, I had no idea what it offered. Even after several minutes of playing around with it and clicking on the learn more link did I realize the BusinessWeek page had refreshed with the following explanation page:
Understanding what the ad offered, I then gave it a try.
I entered my Google Voice telephone number in the fields provided and clicked Connect.
Connect Call
Within a second or two of clicking connect, I reached a voice mail box where I heard Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek explain why they are testing the Google Voice product.
I was then urged to leave my comments about their Byte of the Apple column.
This is the first time I have noticed a website of any kind incorporate voice commenting into their user engagement mix.
Although I don’t have any comments about their Apple column per se, I do have one question about the Call Me Google Voice messaging product: When can I get a Call Me Google plugin for my WordPress blog?
Isn’t this type of audience interactivity something every publisher would want for their website?
Tags: Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress Blogs
Posted in Arik Hesseldahl, Blog, BusinessWeek Blog, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress | 1 Comment »