Techno//Marketer

Google is (still) stalking me

A little over a year ago I wrote a post that turned out to be one of my most popular ever. So, to have a bit of fun, I want to revisit that post and see how my relationship with Google has evolved in the past 365+ days.

So come on. Take another trip with me through my day with Google.

	5:15am: Ugh. The day starts to my blaring clock radio. There is an ad running that Google has sold through ClearChannel.
	5:30am: I get up, take a shower and go to the home office to check my Gmail account.
	5:40am: While I am at it I check my Feedburner account to see where my traffic is coming from. Google owns Feedburner now.
	5:45am: Once the email is done I let the dogs outside and turn on the TV. There is a spot running placed by Google.
	7:00am: I start up the car and hear another ad placed by Google.
	7:30am: Driving to work I pass 10-20 ClearChannel billboards. Probably pretty likely Google will place ads on those as well.
	7:45am: I roll into work and sit down. Having stopped at Starbucks in the lobby I open the paper to see what's happening in Cleveland. Again, more ads placed by Google here too.
	8:30am: I jump online, check Google News and my GMail acccount again.
	9:00am: I surf my favorite blogs, most of them have Google AdWords placed on them even in the feeds. I am reading those feeds with Google Reader.
	9:45am: I check my copy of AdAge and see a couple more ads placed by Google.
	10:00am: Finally! I am free from...damn...it's another Google SMS alert on my phone. No peace.
	10:10am: I go to buy an item that I found in a Google search and purchase it with Google Checkout.
	10:30am: I continue writing a client brief in Google Docs (formerly Writely).
	11:00am: Head to the kitchen and see a couple of ads running on TV through the Dish Network which Google placed.
	12:00pm: I'm heading to lunch now, but I can't find that new trendy sandwich shop. I ask Goog411 and get the address and phone number.
	12:15pm: I take a stroll through YouTube to see what videos are hot and why they may be gaining traction.
	1:15pm: I am back at the office now and my phone vibrates again. I have new Gmail. I check it and respond from my phone.
	1:30pm: I am going to a meeting after work and I don't have the address yet. I turn to Google Maps and send the directions to my phone for easy access in the car.
	2:30pm: I take a break from work and veg out with an online racing game. Throughout the game are product placements and pre-rolls. Google places those too through AdScape. I wrecked and lost the game.
	2:45pm: I check my RSS feeds again through Google Reader. I go through about 150 feeds and post the best to my blog roll (it's embedded on the left column of my blog).
	3:00pm: I check on the stats for my blog over the past week using Google Analytics. Interesting to see where readers come from. Hello New Delhi!
	3:45pm: Just in surfing the web I come across 2 or 3 major sites that run Google for searching site content. MySpace is one of those.
	5:30pm: I see some display ads running on a couple of sites powered by DoubleClick's DART system. Google owns them now too. More on this development in a future post.
	6:15pm: One last check of my Gmail and I wrap up a blog post and head home.
	7:30pm: I get home, turn off the phone and play ball with Copeland and Crawford. Just then, the phone rings. Is that Google calling me? They certainly have my number.

Oddly, not that much has changed. Google has crept in a little more through M&A, but they definitely aren't going away. I know I am missing things that Google offers. Leave me a comment with the other ways in which you are impacted by Google in your everyday life.

 

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, Google, search

Do you communicate at the speed of Google? Why you must

Communication is happening at a faster pace than ever before, but many companies are not adapting their communication strategies/processes to keep up.

Search engines are indexing content within minutes, micromedia outlets like Twitter are delivering messages real time and blogging allows mass communication to happen with very few barriers. Rumors and leaks will never go away, but companies now have the tools to be the first to provide key, relevant information.

The 15 minute Google rule.

Almost without exception within 15 minutes of posting to this blog I receive a Google alert email that there was a new post matching one of my keywords. (Seriously, if you haven't done this yet, do yourself a favor and click here to set them up.) I have "Matt Dickman", "Techno//Marketer", "technomarketer" and "Fleishman-Hillard" alerts set up as well as alerts for competitors and clients. I often get Google alerts for items before they show up in my RSS reader or are floated to me in email.

[Update: I posted this entry at 9:43pm and I received my Google alert email that it was indexed at 10:02pm. See screenshot below.]

This is invaluable information to have and it illustrates the point that I am trying to make. Companies who have typically thought that they could control the news and release it when and to whom they saw fit are at the end of the line.

Mergers and acquisitions, executive departures, layoffs and regulatory approvals are just a few of the topics that employees, shareholders and the general public are hearing about in near real time. It takes just one blog post, a Twitter message (the example that comes to mind was the Yahoo layoffs that were broadcast on Twitter as they happened) or an email that sneaks past the firewall and the story is broken. Google's search spiders are constantly scouring servers looking for new information and once found (or told) they broadcast it to the world.

Danger Will Robinson
There is danger for companies in communicating in real time. Facts still need to be vetted and rumors that are unfounded can hurt a company's reputation. However, the tools are in place to allow faster, transparent communication to all of the stakeholders so that they don't find out from a Google Alert. Companies should be using these tools to become more connected with their audiences and be the first voice on any issue that impacts their people or their business.

How might this play out?
Here are a couple of ways that I can see companies adopting new technologies to communicate more quickly and more accurately in the future (and some are already doing this today):

• Sales force empowered by micromedia. Go beyond names like Twitter and Jaiku to the core technology behind those services. Imagine a company that has a private version of Twitter to communicate in real time with their sales force. Price changes roll out in seconds, questions are answered quickly and customer service follow up is prompt.
  
• Internal communications blog. Some companies are using internal-only blogs, but more will definitely start. This is a great way to create a two-way dialog and communicate information and changes quickly and transparently. Once information is in the open, everybody feels like they're on the same page.
  
• Targeted blogs. Companies will start creating blogs that are focused on key audiences (investors, customers, employees) and communicate to each in a more open and rapid manner.
  
• Email is still key. Many executives and employees will be more easily reached via emails that fit into their existing workflow. Companies will need to adapt their processes to use this as a key delivery vehicle for internal communication.
  

Need to adapt the communications process
How many times have you read a press release or seen a story that you heard about weeks ago? I would venture that happens a lot and a big reason is the outmoded model most companies use to create, refine and release information. Let's look at two models, first the old model and second the new model.

Do you want to communicate information to your audience or do you want Google to do it?

The old model: In the old model (which is still the predominant model) news is written in the form of a release. It goes from agency to client with some back and forth for refinement. Then it gets refined to a final version. This version goes through legal review and some type of corporate communications review. If there are changes, it goes back and loops through the process again. The final version gets scheduled for release, the wire service queues it up and on the agreed upon date/time it drops.

The new model: In the new model, communications are an open book. Issues are addressed in real time, communicated quickly with thoroughly written copy, supported with video/audio and open to feedback/discussion. The good and bad are handled in the same way. Everyone stays on the same page and nobody feels like they're the last to know or that they've been blindsided.

This won't work for highly regulated companies, but it could work for a majority of the rest. Companies have to get over the command and control mentality to communications. Don't get me wrong, there is still strategy to messaging and communications need to be thought out, but it needs to happen more rapidly, more flexibly and less forcibly.

What do you think? Can this work? Have you seen examples of companies using new technology to communicate more quickly with the right messages? Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, PR, communications, strategy

Faster than a speeding bullet, more trendy than a SoHo hipster; the power of search data

Are you a spotter of trends? Do you revel in knowing things before your friends and colleagues? If so I am going to share a little information that will make you a very happy person.

A couple of months ago I came across one of the coolest RSS feeds that I've ever seen. Google Hot Trends now offers an hourly feed that shows the top 100 search terms. Every hour a new item is sent to my RSS reader for my consumption.

Why is this cool you ask? Imagine the power of the collective, "crowd sourced" data of millions of Google searches aggregated into one place. It's pop culture at its best. Want to get the scoop before mainstream media? Subscribe to this feed.

The type of information is unfiltered so you will get things like:

• Scoops on sports trades
  
• Celebrity news
  
• Breaking business and economic news
  
• World news
  
• Scandals of all sorts
  
• See how powerful TV is at driving search
  

To me, Google Hot Trends represents the real power of collective intelligence. In the case of Google Trends this is information aggregated across the globe, but imagine if you could do this only for technology or social media. The trends that you uncover would be catalysts for innovation and change.

What are you doing with your search data?

If you are running a web site, what are you doing with your search data? Are you storing it? If you're storing it, are you looking at it? If you're looking at it, are you analyzing it for trends and insights?

Search is as key to a site as your navigation. The data is extremely powerful and can tell you what your customers are looking for, what they really want and what you need to create more of.

How are you using your search data?

Technorati Tags:
50Matches, Google, marketing, Matt Dickman, Search, Techno//Marketer, trends, data

When did you switch?

I was reading a post from David Armano today about association and it got me thinking. He wrote out a number of brands and the word that he associates with each. It's a pretty clear and powerful exercise in the emotive power of brands.

As David pointed out in his post, he started (back in 1996) using and admiring Yahoo! as the de-facto internet company that "got it". They were to search and the web the way Google is today.

So when did you switch? When did your default search go from silly-sounding Yahoo to (at that time) ridiculous sounding Google?

For me it seemed like an overnight thing. One day I was a Yahoo! guy and the next I was committed to Google. It was nothing that Yahoo did wrong per-say, but Google fit my needs better. I didn't want the content that came with the portal concept, I wanted to find what I wanted in one click. Over time, the Google brand grew and it grew on me.

Did you switch? Millions of people still use Yahoo. They are still satisfied or unwilling to change major markers like email addresses or IM accounts. Why did you (or didn't you) make a switch?

In light of the Microsoft takeover bid, what would you do if you were Yahoo's shareholders? Would you merge or would you try to reinvent search like you did back in 1996?

On that note I saw this quote on Noah Brier's blog from Fake Steve Jobs on the Microsoft/Yahoo merger:

"The Borg-Yahoo merger won't work. Here's why. It's like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they'll run faster."

Technorati Tags:
Google, marketing, Matt Dickman, Microsoft, Search, Techno//Marketer, Yahoo

Inside//Out: Jaiku

Jaiku is a service that has been on my radar screen for some time now and I've been meaning to do an Inside//Out post on them. So why do one now? Simple, Google acquired the company yesterday (10/9/07). That alone has sent a deluge of marketers to the web trying to learn more about this presence application.

To keep it simple, Jaiku is on the same principle as Twitter (see my earlier video on Twitter here) or Pownce. You have 140 characters to tell people what you're doing, promote something of interest or communicate with colleagues and friends. Communication is one- and two-way through the messaging system. Here is the video with a more in-depth look.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video]

Similarities to Twitter/Pownce:

• There are 140 characters to each message
  
• Brands can participate by creating an identity in the system
  
• Users are added to each profile to receive updates
  
• There is a developer API to pull information from the system
  
• You can send and receive messages from a mobile device
  
• Both services allow users to create a badge widget to post on their blog or website
  
• Both allow updates from IM
  

Differences:

• Twitter lacks the channel functionality to target messages to users of similar interests
  
• Jaiku messages are threaded so that people can reply to an individual message and create a new, focused conversation
  
• Jaiku can act a a life streaming repository to pull content from multiple places into one feed
  
• Jaiku allows icons for each post to add visual context
  

[Extra:]
Robert Scoble did an interview with the founders of Jaiku on Podtech.

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If you use another reader/podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

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Technorati Tags:
Conversations, Inside//Out, interactive marketing, marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends, Twitter, user generated content, Web2.0, Jaiku

Inside//Out: Google Orkut (beta)

Following up on yesterday's Yahoo Mash video, here is a look at Google's Orkut social network. There are a lot of similarities between the two search giants as they try to find their place in the social media universe.

Orkut is a little more refined and has more community hooks to join groups, etc. It lacks, however, the integration with third party applications like Facebook, MySpace and even Mash. The functionality in Orkut is pretty basic and requires some more advanced editing to really personalize the content. Orkut also suffers from a bit of identity confusion and sits at the "pro-social" (part social, part professional) divide.

Check out Google's Orkut:

[Feed readers please click through to the post for the video.]

Key takeaways:

• As with Mash, enable people to do cool stuff and get out of their way!
  
• Find out where your target audience is and focus there (Facebook, MySpace, Mash, etc.) - don't get sucked in to the hype of one network over another
  
• If you're looking to build on the platform, you will need to wait until Google opens this up
  
• Future hooks into outside content sources could make or break Orkut as network consolidation starts setting in
  
• Expect Google to make some moves around this network to bring its content into one place and allow users to even further customize their branded search experience
  

Related Videos:

• First//Look: Yahoo Mash (beta)
  
• Inside//Out: Facebook
  
• Inside//Out: MySpace
  
• Inside//Out: Twitter
  
• Inside//Out: LinkedIn
  

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If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

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You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your video channel of choice:

   
   

Technorati Tags:
interactive marketing, LinkedIn, marketing, Matt Dickman, MySpace, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, Twitter, user generated content, Web2.0, Yahoo, Yahoo!, Mash

In search of the best, or why Google and Yahoo may not win the war

The idea of universal search is a hot one in the online marketing world. If you're not familiar with the term, it's basically the joining of multiple types of content into one cohesive result. For example, if you go to Google right now and search for "apples", the main listing that returns to you are text links to text content (sometimes photos and video are added in-line). They are including blogs and other social media, but it's all text based. If you want to expand your search to video, photos, pro message boards, etc. you have to click another link and you get another set of independent results. Universal search combines everything you need into one set of results.

There are a couple of sites (experimental and otherwise) where companies are playing around with this idea. Ask.com is leading the pack with their current integrated solution as Google and Yahoo play around with the idea in beta (here and here respectively).

Here is a screenshot from Ask's result page. Note the images, Wikipedia and news items pulled into the right column to supplement the text results

If you look at the text results from each of these services, there is little differentiation. Different algorithms give different priorities, but for the most part you get the same results at Google, Yahoo, Live search or Ask. Wikipedia is universally accessed as are dictionary.com and sites like Amazon.com.

The difference comes when you look at the unique properties that each search company owns. Take a look at the following, ultra-simple diagram.

[Click to enlarge]

My main question here is can Google win at search if Yahoo owns the best photo content? Can Yahoo win if Google owns the best user-generated video content?

Right now there is almost no sharing between them, so if you do a Google image search, you will not get Flickr images in your result and the same goes with searching for video on Yahoo as you won't get the best YouTube results.

Some questions for you to ponder and share:

• Should the companies open up all of their content to one another for the benefit of the end users? Or will they start blocking access?
  
• If you were Google would you sacrifice the content in the Yahoo network to make sure they can't access your content?
  
• Would they be violating each other's terms of service since they both make money selling ads based on the results?
  
• If it's not Google or Yahoo or Ask or Microsoft, who will emerge? Could it be a human-powered option like Mahalo?
  
• Are people getting enough from their search engine of choice that they don't need a new option?
  

I can't wait to hear what you have to say.

Technorati Tags:
alpha, Ask.com, Flickr, Google, Matt Dickman, Microsoft, Search, SearchMash, Techno//Marketer, Yahoo, Mahalo

Google's community-powered video

A while back I wrote about Google's call for submissions for a short video promoting their GMail product. Each person had to submit a clip where the GMail icon travelled from one side of the screen to the other in order to patch them all together into one continuous handoff. The concept is old, but the community-powered nature makes it intriguing at the very least.

Technorati Tags:
Google, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, Word of Mouth

Where have you gone John and Stephen?

 

Let me ask you an honest question. Since YouTube was forced to remove all of their Viacom content, have you seen any web footage of John Stewarts's Daily Show or Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report?

At one point the two had a very high following on YouTube that resulted in millions of impressions. Then one day they were gone. Personally I haven't see one single clip since that point in time and I would wager the same is true for many of you. YouTube (according to a May 2007 HitWise survey, YouTube has a 60.2% market share in online video. It gets 50% more traffic than the closest 64 rival sites combined.

What have you noticed?

[If you cannot see the poll in your reader, click through to the post to weigh in.]

Yesterday, in an odd legal maneuver Google requested to have the two comedians deposed for trial. Surely Google wants them to talk about their exposure, but I wonder if the two know enough about it personally to make any difference.

Technorati Tags:
Google, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, video, YouTube

Metrics shape our perceived value; why the formula matters

Okay marketers. Let's say you are prepping to run an ad campaign for a mass, commodity good and you have to rank your ad buys over the top content networks. How would you rank the following and what metrics would you use? Go ahead and try it.

• AOL
  
• Ebay
  
• Fox Interactive Media
  
• Google
  
• Microsoft
  
• MSN/Windows Live
  
• Yahoo
  

Would you have ranked them by total audience knowing that you could reach a more robust and accurate subset with targeted ads? Or, would you have opted for total page views thinking that the more pages served the more eyeballs will take a look? Better yet, did you opt for the new Nielsen-suggested standard of time on site knowing that time leads to engagement and better eyeballs? You may be surprised at how different these results are.

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings, U.S., home and work, May 2007

Take a look at the chart to the left. The first chart shows each network based on total unique audience with Google in the lead. It is followed by Yahoo, MSN/Live, Microsoft and AOL. Remember AOL's last-place position in this chart for later. There is a gap of roughly 20 million people between first and last place.

But you may not have wanted to go with total audience, instead you want to use page views as your metric. Well, in that case Yahoo is your network of choice. Yahoo is followed by Fox (including MySpace), Google, MSN/Live and EBay. In this case there is a roughly 20 billion page view difference.

However, you may be detered by page views and total audience and find yourself looking at total time on the site. In that case AOL comes out of nowhere to take a firm lead (remember they were last in total audience). They're followed by Yahoo, MSN/Live, Fox and Google who drops like a stone. There is a difference of roughly 17.5 billion minutes between AOL and Google.

So what the heck does this mean to you? Let's look at each network to see what the metrics tell us.

AOL - The AOL network is where to go if you want people who spend a lot of time there, but they are not generating a lot of page views in that time. There are an estimated 90 million people in the audience.

Ebay - EBay pops up only in the page views metric as you would expect. Each listing is a page and visitors crank through them quickly. Total audience is lower as is the time on the site.

Fox Interactive Media - The Fox network, while not large, generates quite a few page views and stays engaged with that content longer when you consider its size. I think MySpace has a large part to do with that summary. as people stay engaged, but constantly churn through pages of friends as well as adding content.

Google - Google is still the king of search so if you're looking for SEM and you want the volume, this is your stop (according to 2007 April figures from Nielsen//NetRatings, Google has the largest share of U.S. based web searches at 55.2% (Google Acquisitions), Yahoo is second at 21.9%, MSN is third at 9.0%, AOL is fourth at 5.4%, and Ask is fifth at 1.8%). The downside of Google is that people are coming for a specific task and jumping off hence the low engagement times and high audience.

Microsoft - The Microsoft audience is large as you would expect, but that's where the company's advantage ends. They don't show up on the total time on site or the page views metrics.

MSN/Windows Live - MSN represents Microsoft's consumer facing entity and their Live search function. Live has been picking up some momentum in total search volume, but they've a long way to go to catch Google. MSN comfortably sits in the middle of the pack on almost every point. They dip below when it comes to page views. It's a large audience that spends an average amount of time on fewer pages.

Yahoo - Yahoo comes out the best of any network when you look at each metric. They have the second largest audience, the most number of page views and the second most time in minutes. This should be an attractive combination to marketers especially in targeted display ads. Yahoo still lags behind Google for SEM where there is still a 30%+ gap.

In the end, no matter who you are or who you are marketing to, it comes down to a few key factors:

• Find your audience. If they're not using Google then you're wasting your money
• Relevance is key. Making hyper-targeted ad buys will help make sure relevance is there and waste is minimal
• Nobody likes iterruption. The last thing I want is to have my visit to a network interrupted by your ad. Give me some value and be relevant to what I am looking at. If I'm in the auto repair section, don't offer me camera equipment.
• Think outside the banner. Look at sponsorships or creating value-add programs to hook users.
• Think social. Engaging with the community on a social level will lead to more success. Think about shifting dollars to social/conversational media. You may get more bang for your buck.

What do you consider when you run ads? Have you started shifting dollars to digital? Are you shifting those dollars to social media? Let me know in the comments.

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, Search, SEM, Google, advertising, interactive marketing, trends, social networks, Microsoft, relevance, Techno//Marketer, Matt Dickman, social media