It seems I have been getting the following message from Google’s Local Business Center more often than not.
Google Local Business Center Unavailable
Looking forward to being able to login again to view my statistics.
Google Local Business Center Unavailable
June 22, 2009Website Advertising with the Google Content Network
June 21, 2009The Google Content Network, the world’s largest ad network, lets you easily place ads – from text ads to rich media and video – in front of the right audience on the right websites at the right times.
From within Adwords advertisers can:
- Find customers’ favorite sites, then reach them while they’re focused on relevant content.
- Add the power of rich media to campaigns with DoubleClick and others.
- Learn where ads just ran and how they performed with Google reporting and measurement features.
- Improve ROI by adjusting your creative and bids with Adwords campaign management tools.
Google advertisers can reach the right audience at the right time with Google advertising tools:
Google Ad Planner
Google Ad Planner
Google Placement Tool
Google Placement Tool
Google Keyword Tool
Google Keyword Tool
Google Contextual Targeting
Google Contextual Targeting
Google Placement Targeting
Google Placement Targeting
Updated Satellite Images of Tehran in Google Earth
June 20, 2009Google partner GeoEye has provided updated satellite imagery of Tehran, taken on Thursday the 18th at approximatly 11:18am PST.
You can learn more about the new images of Tehran from the Google Earth blog.
The following is a screenshot of the updated imagery.
Tehran Google Earth
Technical information about the new satellite images of Tehran from Google:
The images were taken from GeoEye’s IKONOS satellite, which images at roughly 1-meter per pixel. We are continuing to work with GeoEye to see if we can provide a higher resolution update from the GeoEye-1 satellite, which would be at 0.5-meters per pixel, but this is subject to weather constraints.
Social Media Spam: The New Bulk Email
June 19, 2009The reason social media hasn’t become a bona fide sales channel is because the majority (if not all) of a social media’s audience at any one point in time – whether its Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter- are not buyers.
This hasn’t slowed the onslaught of social media spammers nor has it slowed them in their efforts to peddle wares to anyone who might be listening.
Social Media Spammers
Google Interest Based Ads
June 18, 2009How to set your Google interest based ads preferences:
Social Media’s Return on Investment?
June 17, 2009I was fishing in the Tweet stream yesterday when I caught the following job posting for a social media coordinator.
Social Media Coordinator
Several attributes of this job description struck me as odd if not misinformed.
The job description sounds more like a wish list composed by someone in Human Resources rather than by someone who actually knew what they were requesting.
The idea that the future Social Media Coordinator position holder has to report to the “Manager – Interactive Projects” runs counter to the list of skills the job description requires.
Any individual who has experience performing the following “social media” laundry list of tasks including the non-social media related disciplines of search engine optimization and web analytics while generating a return on investment would by definition already be a Manager – Interactive Projects – if not considerably more.
Responsibilities of the position will include the support of Interactive initiatives regarding online Social Media (SM), web analytics/research, news distribution and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In addition, responsibilities of this role will include:
· Strategy, planning and direction to content managers and maintenance of Social Media initiatives including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube and others
· Educating consultants regarding new technology and the Social Media environment
· Utilizing technology to research and measure company Social Media status and ROI
· Interaction with corporate and regional company representatives to promote news and activities of the company
· Management of all company related Social Media registrations
· Providing regular reports of web site traffic analytics
· Interaction with company Studio Team to manage and promote a variety of news and activity videos/broadcasts
The position’s “Utilizing technology to research and measure company Social Media status and ROI” requirement indirectly poses a valid question yet one few if any company’s understand or can let alone quantify – “What is the Return on Investment in Social Media?”
Any search engine marketer or SEO worth their salt can answer the Return on Investment question, I doubt a majority of the new breed of social media marketers can.
Government Innovation: CA Waste Watchers
June 16, 2009California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger administration has launched what appears to be an innovative interactive communications forum called Waste Watchers.
WasteWatchers.CA.Gov asks the citizens of California to “Report Problems / Share Solutions”.
From Governor Schwarzenegger:
I will not stand for waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. I urge you to report wasteful practices in state government here. Also, if you have a suggestion for making government work better, please use this page to let us know.
– Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
WasteWatchers.CA.Gov
According to Governor Schwarzenegger Twitter account, the California Waste Watchers site has already received nearly 1,000 reports since inception.
Governor Schwarzenegger
With a budget shortfall bigger than many states entire budgets, California by definition has the greatest need of any US State for innovative communication methods to speed both identifying and reducing government waste.
The WasteWatchers.CA.Gov site is surely a step in the right direction.
Marketing Consulting and Performance Based Deals
June 15, 2009Having been a marketing consultant for two decades now, I have had the opportunity to experience several business cycles.
In my experience, business owners tend to seek my particular type of outside advice only during economic downturns or when their business has soured other than when times and business are good.
Economic troughs inevitably reveal the greatest weaknesses in every management team’s bench.
I also get a similar amount of calls from recently fired or laid off employees looking to do marketing consulting work until they find another job.
This time is no exception.
Yesterday, I received a call from a person looking for a job as a marketing consultant with my firm.
If no positions were available, the caller was then interested in getting more information about starting their own marketing consulting practice.
I told the caller I am a sole practitioner and didn’t have any marketing positions open at which point the would be marketing consultant asked if I did or had done any performance based deals.
The caller’s question was a legitimate one.
As with any employee, my firm has to produce tangible results for a client in order for me to justify my firm’s fee (paycheck).
Client’s also have to receive a demonstrable value in order for them to justify paying my bill.
The marketing consultant in training then asked “How have your performance only deals worked out?”
I thought about it and replied – “they all worked out, but not without incident”.
The caller then asked – “under what circumstances would you do a performance based deal today?”
My reply?
Only if and when the counterparty in the deal –
1). Has done at least three deals with other consultants.
2). Arranges my access and interview of the three previous consultants regarding their experience with the counterparty and whether or not they received the amount of compensation agreed upon.
Once those terms have been met, I would then begin to consider whether I could help the owner solve his business problems or not.
If I recall correctly, when a prospective performance only marketing client and I have reached this particular juncture in the negotiations – the client inevitably decides to pursue what other options they may have had.
Go figure…
Google Page Creator Shutting Down Moving to Google Sites
June 14, 2009While logged into my Google account today, I visited the Google Page Creator product where I found the following message:
Google Sites
After receiving the above message, I searched for more information about the impending closure of the Google Pages product and found it has apparently been in the works for some time.
Google Page Creator Migration
Google Pages accounts will either be migrated automatically to a Google Sites URL with visits to googlepages.com redirected or page owners can download their content, opt out of the move and have their GooglePages address redirected to a new address of their choice.
More about the Page Creator shut from Google:
Google Page Creator will be shut down in June, 2009. To make the transition to Sites as smooth and easy as possible for Page Creator users, we will be doing an automatic import of Page Creator pages to Google Sites, which will include moving pages to Google Sites and redirecting visits to googlepages.com URLs to their new location on Google Sites. From now until this import begins June 1, Page Creator users who don’t want to be moved to Google Sites have the option to download their content, host it on another service, and redirect their existing URL. Please note that Google Sites does not support JavaScript, some forms of HTML, or web hosting.
What is Google Sites?
What is Google Sites?
Google Sites is an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. With Google Sites, people can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text — and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.
* Customize your site’s interface to resemble your group or project’s look and feel
* Create a new sub-page with the click of a button
* Choose from a growing list of page types: webpage, announcements, file cabinet
* Centralize shared information: Embed rich content (video, Google Docs documents, spreadsheets, presentations, Picasa photo slide shows, iGoogle gadgets) into any page, and upload file attachments
* Manage permissions settings to keep your site as private or widely editable and viewable as you’d like
* Search across your Google Sites content with Google search technology
Quick question: What are the differences between Google Sites and the upcoming new Google Wave product?
Google Wave
Facebook User Names
June 13, 2009I am not much of a Facebook user although I have had an account for several years.
My teenage son uses it consistently while my eleven year old son hasn’t yet embraced it or even MySpace for that matter.
Having worked online since 1999, I have been able to register accounts under my own name in most every type of category leading web platform that has come along.
As a result, I took Facebook up on its offer to register my name as my user name.
Facebook.com began officially accepting new user name registrations last night at midnight.
I thought I would wait a day to register my user name to see if any of the other dozen or so Tim Cohn’s who are online around the world would thwart my registration.
To my surprise, the Tim.Cohn user name had not yet been taken.
Facebook.com/Tim.Cohn
It has now.
Search Marketing Communications 
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