Alert Blog Reviews

Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. As the Internet allows advertisers to slice and dice large segments of desirable markets into thinner, more defined slices it also creates something that is much less desirable: smaller profits. How is that you say? How is it possible to make less on my advertising spend when I am advertising directly to the group that most needs or wants my products? Well, it’s simple supply and demand. While you are targeting a much more defined market you are not going to be alone in that quest to advertiser to just the people that will buy. Remember those pesky competitors? They want those people too because their claim is that they are better than you. Now you are going to find a price war that drives up costs for advertising and makes customer acquisition costs rise which in turn hurt the bottom line. So maybe there is too much of a good thing after all. MediaPost tells about a study performed by the MIT School of Management that has looked at this in detail Professor Alessandro Bonatti, working with Yale University economics professor Dirk Bergemann on this research, says “… newspapers have a very limited ability to target audiences… specialized magazines can do better… Google has a very good ability to target who’s browsing each page… (though) online advertising has the potential to drive out traditional advertising, it does not necessarily follow that online advertisers will make more money… ” Bonatti continues, “…as technology keeps improving, more and more web sites can sell very narrow products to very specialized audiences… with lots of people targeting the same audience the profits to be made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out… instead of competing for one large pool… you will have price war in each targeted segment as the slice gets more and more narrow.” Bonatti concludes that, “… the better the technology, the lower the profits for advertisers… “ Not the news that advertisers want to hear but it sure is music to the ears of the niche ad networks that attract these more narrowly defined groups. Advertising price war? We’re in! Woo-hoo! Different verticals are responding more rapidly and it also is dependent on just how far CPM’s fell during this downturn / recession / economic morass. Real estate is seeing an increase in CPM’s jumping 17% from Q2 to Q3 of last year while foodies are driving that category up almost 91% in the same period. Here is a chart from Adify Vertical Gauge for you to gloss over and wonder what it really means. So be careful what you wish for advertisers. Sure it’s great to advertise as close to the buyer as you can but you’re not the only one with that strategy. Let’s hope you are the one with the deeper pockets at least.

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For Ads the More Targeted May Mean Less Profitable

We in the online world take every opportunity to turn our nose up at traditional media like newspapers because they are so 1900’s. Just take a look over the past year of posts that I have done and I at times can lead that charge. For the record, I do not relish in the fact that newspapers are going by the way side in many ways. I see that they are and it’s hard not to notice. It’s not the idea of newspapers in general that is the trouble, it’s their slow adoption of the online space and the price they are paying that is most difficult to watch. Put simply I would hate to see newspapers “go away”. It’s not likely that there will be no newspapers someday but it is likely that the consolidation and attrition in the industry will continue. Many in the online space so “So what?! Goodbye and good riddance!” I don’t. The reason I don’t has nothing to do with the nostalgia of newspapers. If I never got ink on my hands again from flipping the pages I would survive. What does scare me, however, is just how the news is actually uncovered and then reported if there was not the front line of the traditional media. A recent study in the Baltimore metro area showed that while there is significantly fewer traditional media outlets in the area the remaining ones are still responsible for the reporting of 95% of the “first run” news. The New York Times reports : Looking at six major story lines that developed over one week last July, 83 percent of the reports in local news media “were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information,” said the study, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center. Despite diminished resources of established news organizations, “of the stories that did contain new information, nearly all, 95 percent, came from old media — most of them newspapers,” it said. “These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets.” 95%? That’s a little scary if you are trumpeting the end of the newspaper medium. From an advertisers perspective it’s easy to pick on the industry but from a news uncovering and development perspective we need to be careful to not cut our online noses off to spite our face. So is Baltimore indicative of the rest of the country? Maybe, maybe not. What is of interest though is that people crave information. They crave details on events. Let’s forget about the mindless blather of the celebrity world. If you want something that superficial and fluffy then anyone can produce it. It doesn’t matter. If a mistake is made in reporting about Oprah Winfrey’s weight we’ll all survive. In things that truly impact lives it is still the job of “journalists” to report and to hopefully give the information without bias (I know, I know that doesn’t happen but one can dream….). It’s at that point that bloggers and the like can comment and help shape the news. Where are you on this one? Would it really be a good thing if newspapers and their reporting dried up and went away? Are there enough credible and scalable online news agencies to cover the amount of “stuff” that is generated and deemed important in each new 24-hour period? I don’t think so. As a result, I am a little concerned about what might actually happen if the online world got its wish and made the newspaper industry disappear. Your thoughts?

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Newspapers and Traditional Media Still Produce Most News

If you are easily the number 3 horse in a three horse race does it do you any good to start saying negative things about how you race? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably better for you to act a little more confident, train a little harder and do something that will move you out of the basement. This horse I am referring to is Microsoft’s Bing. One of the ways that they have decided to move up in the race is to ingest the number 2 horse (Yahoo), which is a decent play but the final product is still very far off. In the meantime it’s best not be saying the following in a Bing forums thread as reported by Search Engine Roundtable , especially if you are Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, Brett Yount It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow. Ok, maybe it is well known to the industry insider but the rest of the world may not have that level of understanding. When you say something like that though now they can and not much good can come from that kind of ‘exposure’. Bing has had a pretty quiet start to the new year thus far. With all of the talk of mobile devices and mobile ad platforms and things of the future maybe that warrants Bing being left out of the conversation? Whatever the reason, maybe the better way to make the news is to be reporting on upgrades and improvements like the number one horse has been doing for the past three plus months. Ooops, I forgot. Steve Ballmer was busy promoting Bing at CES this week with inspiring words of innovation like these which I found in Forbes “More than ever we are delivering the experiences that people want, where they want them, wherever they are,” Ballmer said in his second-ever keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday night. “And of course we Bing we Bing we Bing we Bing Bing Bing all the time, at least in my world.” I don’t know about you but this kind of ‘activity’ isn’t exactly inspiring me to confidence that Bing may never be more than a distant second with its Bingahoo offering to Google for a very long time. Your thoughts?

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Bing Needs to Say Something Different

How many times have you heard it said in business (or anywhere for that matter) that how you respond to a problem is more important than the problem itself? It’s said over and over again because it’s simply good advice. Well, Google had a chance to practice that principle last night when it began sending out e-mails to those with listings in the Local Business Center. Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz reports of the issues that occurred . Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google LBC analytics dashboard. But instead of these emails going to their actual business owners, they went to the wrong business owners. Schwartz received information for a business that was 1,500 mile from his location and he was not the only one having the experience. To Google’s credit they recognized the error and set things straight as quickly as one might expect. The following was sent to Barry so he could help the rest of us get some clarity on the issue. Of course, it doesn’t hurt your ability to get these kinds of responses when you are the News Editor of Search Engine Land. In other words, not everyone received the following explanation right away. As you’re aware, we send a monthly newsletter to our Local Business Center users, featuring product news and a glimpse at the Dashboard statistics which show the traffic Google properties drive to their listing. Shortly after sending the newsletter to a small portion of our users last night, we discovered that some emails included incorrect business listing information. We promptly stopped sending any further emails and investigated the cause, which we found to be a human error while pulling together the newsletter content. We’d like to sincerely apologize to all the business owners impacted and assure all our users that we’re working hard to ensure that nothing similar will happen again. Oh no! It appears that there may be a Googler who is, gulp, human and made a mistake. Of course it would never be one of the thousands of faithful servers around the world, it had to be one of those pesky human thingys. All kidding aside, as Schwartz points out, the data is pretty innocuous. It could even be looked at as a sideways form of advertising to a very small market because now people know about a business somewhere else that they never heard of before. Google later sent an automated reply to all those impacted by this glitch and it appears that all is well in the world again. While I would rather not have something like this happen I have to give Google credit for calling themselves on the error and working to make it right. Hopefully, any of the business owners who got the wrong data would treat one of their mistakes with the same approach. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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For Google Maps It’s Not the Problem but How You Handle It

If you want to know what’s hot, what’s not, and what the freshest news seems to be, Twitter might be the place to be on the cutting edge. However, just how reliable is the news you see on Twitter? Just like you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers or magazines, or believe everything you see on television, Twitter has its good points and bad points when it comes to breaking news. Twitter is populated with journalists, writers, photographers, and a plethora of celebrities. Sometimes false rumors can make the rounds, such as the reported death of Jeff Goldbum back in July, and sometimes breaking news hits the nail on the head, as in the case of the Iranian election. The first thing to do when you see a breaking news item on Twitter is to consider the source. Is it reliable and from someone you trust? In other words, has this person reported other newsworthy items on Twitter that has proved to be true? Even so, your best course of action before passing along a news item is to check out the source yourself and try to verify it from more than one. Misinformation can be damaging and hurtful, so check out where it’s coming from carefully before telling the Twitter universe something that turns out to be false. Consider with care the actual rumor. Jeff Goldblum ’s presumed death was nothing more than misinformation that traveled the landscape of Twitter, until his agent made a statement to the press. Imagine the worry and panic of his family until frantic phone calls were made to ascertain the truth, and the trouble taken to refute the ugly rumor. Someone, somewhere in Twitter failed to vet their sources, and passed along something that was patently false. Although having no lasting effects in this case, some rumors can cause irreparable damage to innocent reputations which can be difficult to refute in the court of public opinion. Just as in television reporting and newspaper or magazine coverage, errors can be made but in the case of Twitter, they might be a little more difficult to refute or retract. By the time a rumor makes the rounds, it could be nearly impossible to squash it and mitigate any damage. The old adage still applies – if you can’t say anything nice (or verify its veracity!), it might be best not to say anything at all. All Twitter users bear a certain amount of responsibility for the content they create and pass along to other Tweeps. If you can’t confirm a breaking news item, the best thing to do is keep quiet about it. Although not perfect, Twitter can be a source of what’s happening in the here and now, but in order to keep its credibility, Twitter users must use good common sense when assessing information. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . The Reliability Of News On Twitter

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The Reliability Of News On Twitter

As expected it looks like this week may be a bit light in the news department. That’s fine. Everyone needs a break from time to time. So as I am looking around this morning I come across an op-ed piece in the New York Times that is written by Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology company. From what I can gather, Mr. Raff is upset that his site was banned from Google’s index. There is no explanation as to why this happened so I am not going to assume anything although an article from eConsultancy looks at his plight and we get some insight as to why Google is so ‘mean’ to him. As a result, Mr. Raff contends that Google simply is too powerful and that the government should be considering a ‘search neutrality’ platform that falls in line with the ‘net neutrality’ platform. Here is a bit of his concern: Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance. I had to shake my head that this was actually put in print but I kept reading. I bumped into more ‘complaints’. Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning. I guess my question is “What is a company supposed to do in that situation”? Why should anyone in the free market be obligated to being relegated to a ‘public service’ status just because they do something better than most? I admit that it seems a bit creepy at times to see just how far reaching Google is with regard to services. I also believe that as they get bigger there are likely to be many vulnerabilities that will be discovered and exploited as the free market has seen in the past with seemingly invincible powers like IBM and Microsoft. It just happens. There’s a lot more to this op-whine piece that I am surprised the Times even allowed to see the light of day. Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books. Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented. Ask Cisco if they ‘invented’ everything they own. The folks who make Flip cameras are thrilled that Cisco likes to buy good ideas. Interestingly enough, Mr. Raff actually shows that Google PROVIDES market opportunity for the little guy. There are small companies out there that make good things that Google could buy thus making the companies that were innovative enough to be recognized successful beyond what was likely to happen on their own. Maybe Mr. Raff needs to think about making something worthy of being purchased by Google rather than worming his way into the media to complain about his issues. I do have a solution for Mr. Raff. If there is this need for an impartial search engine (which is a ridiculous concept because in order for anything to be ‘ranked’ in numerical order there needs to be some guidelines thus implied ‘partiality’) that is based solely on merit (Whose definition of merit? Someone has to be judge and jury here, right?) and relevance (as defined by whom?) why not let the government build its own search engine? Why put this constraint on the private sector? Our current situation here in the US is that the government wants to be knee deep in everything so why not let them create the engine ‘for the people and by the people’ then let the people decide? Are there any Googlers out there who would like to address this kind of thinking? As for Marketing Pilgrim readers how do you really feel about Google’s place in the market? Is there any validity to this argument? Is Google’s dominance something to be concerned about or just accepted? Is there a real threat of this becoming a Google world? What if that did happen? Is there any validity to the concept of ’search neutrality’? Weigh in please. I have a better idea. Would someone please make some news so we can move on to other things?

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Search Neutrality?

Don’t look at me like that, who doesn’t like the The Carpenters ? OK, so the news. Google has, finally, released Google Chrome for the Mac . As Google admits , "it took longer than we expected" but it appears to have been worth the wait. The beta browser is blazingly fast, and packed with all the cool features of Chrome–and a few extra that are Mac-flavored. The video below provides a quick overview for Mac users: In addition, Google has launched a gallery of more than 300 Google Chrome extensions (plugins), which despite the above announcement, are not available on the Mac version. Lastly, though not Chrome-related, Google has announced updates to its Offline Gmail project –removing it from Labs and throwing in a few extra functions. Perfect for when you go "over the hill to Grandma’s house"–who likely doesn’t have internet access.

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Oh, There’s No Place Like Chrome for the Holidays