Alert Blog Reviews

Back in November we talked about AOL’s need to trim their headcount by some 2,500 people . At the time the hope was that enough would walk away from their positions to avert the need for playing the bad guy and actually firing anyone. Well, according to All Things Digital the numbers didn’t quite add up with that plan and now AOL needs to start the proactive force reduction. Call it what you will. Here is some information from the ATD article In November, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said he needed 2,500 “volunteers” to give up their jobs, but not enough of them got the message — only 1,100 walked away on their own. Now Armstrong is entering the second phase of his corporate slimdown, and is firing some 1,000+ employees. AOL officials say the company has begun notifying European employees of its plans to shut down many of its offices there, and has started tapping some American workers as well. The bulk of the US layoffs are slated for this Wednesday, the company says. This is a very sad story indeed. While we keep hearing forced words of hope and encouragement that “things have turned around” we get crap unemployment numbers in December and news like this from one of the industries that is supposedly “doing well”. Let’s be honest, you need to simply count your blessings if you are in a pocket of performance no matter what industry you call home and the online space is no different. To underline just how different this world is the following was noted in the article written by Peter Kafka. The company hasn’t released a breakdown of cuts by territory or by department. But I’m told that the company’s editorial/content production staff, which Armstrong and his lieutenants have been emphasizing as a priority in recent months, will not remain untouched. This just means that the outsourcing of content production is likely the way that AOL will go more and more. Pure speculation on my part but if your strategy moving forward is creating more and more content then taking away part of that internal team just means it’s likely cheaper to outsource. The full release can be found at ATD but the closing remarks are as follows. We will be offering packages to impacted employees in the U.S. that will include severance, benefits and outplacement assistance, among other things. All of our cost alignment work is about ensuring AOL’s sustainability and future success. Project Everest is the completion of phase one of AOL’s turnaround. Interesting how they name something like this as if it were a military undertaking and the curious use of a mountain’s name that few have conquered and many more have failed to climb. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Original post:
AOL Employees to Be “Involuntarily Laid Off”

In what may be a mini ‘bell weather moment’ in advertising, Pepsi has decided to keep its usual Super Bowl advertising money in its bank account. While they are not exactly saving it they are certainly redirecting it to online opportunities. I say this is a potential ‘bell weather’ moment because it ends a streak of 23 consecutive years where Pepsi has advertised during the event that attracts some of the largest viewing audiences in the history of television. So what is Pepsi saying with this move? It’s more like a question they are asking the NFL and the advertising world that has made such a big fuss over Super Bowl ads for years: Where’s the value? Not to worry about the NFL though because they are still getting Pepsi-bucks……just not in a big chunk for the big game. Compete tells a little more Pepsi is already a large sponsor of the NFL, having paid millions back in 2002 to replace Coke for the title of the official soft drink of the NFL. The company also sponsors Rookie of the Week section on NFL.com. So the big moment is more about the how Pepsi is deciding to spend its money rather than with whom. The NFL is a marketing juggernaut (I had to use that word before the close of 2009) and will remain so. Even the NFL though is going to have to adjust to the dollars that are moving online that once fueled the just as important Super Bowl activity of watching and rating the advertisements. If last year was any indication that ‘pastime’ may be on the decline as well as many companies didn’t even create specific ads for the big game but simply rehashed old ones. Kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it? So why is Pepsi seeing the online space as the way to go? Compete shows a little data below that may become the new version of the old ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge”. Even more interesting are the differences in competitive share of visitors to Pepsi and Coke sites between control and exposed consumers. Among the control group, Pepsi captures only 16% of visitors versus a lion’s share of 84% for Coke. However, the numbers are completely reversed among the exposed group. So what is your thought about the days of the big Super Bowl advertising buys and the excitement around the creativity of the ads? Are the days of Super Bowl ads being a huge deal going the same way as my NY Giants (meaning directly south and in the toilet)? Your thoughts?

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Pepsi Decides to Use the NFL a Different Way

Yesterday, Andy took a look at the top searches for bing in 2009 (am I supposed to capitalize bing or not, someone PLEASE clear that up for me). Today, courtesy of Digital Beat we look at the top searches for Yahoo for 2009. Whether they are playing follow their new leader or they want to still be known as a search engine, honestly I don’t know. One thing for sure is, as Anthony Ha, wonders aloud While we’re on the subject of “year in review” lists, I’ll add that I’m baffled that these lists are coming out now. I understand why some publications feel comfortable doing a list of the best movies or books or whatever (since critics have often received advanced copies or screenings of what’s coming out before the end of the year), but search terms? Really? Don’t we have another month to go? Gotta agree with Anthony on that one but let’s not nitpick when there’s a silly list to dissect! Yahoo’s top searches read like a referendum on just how shallow we are in this world (social commentary is a freebie for you today) 1. Michael Jackson 2. Twilight 3. WWE 4. Megan Fox 5. Britney Spears 6. Naruto 7. American Idol 8. Kim Kardashian 9. NASCAR 10. Runescape So to prove just how shallow I am, I recognized 80% of the top 10 and I have to ask this: “How the heck did NASCAR make the list?!” Is there wifi at stills now? I have to admit I have no clue about Naruto or Runescape. I’m back because I did a quick search for each of those on Yahoo to goose their numbers and I have determined that I was better off not knowing about them but now I’m in. Now when talking about business related searches we have the classic showdown between Facebook and Twitter and ……..drum roll please……… 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. Hulu 4. Bing 5. iPhone 6. LinkedIn 7. Dollar Stores 8. Palm Pre 9. Rosetta Stone 10. Kindle Well, while it still baffles me that people do searches for these terms at least Google didn’t make the list. So now the question remains if Google will hold out and wait for 2009 to actually end before reporting their top searches for the year. Not much to look forward to, I agree, but it’s a slow news day.

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Yahoo Announces Top 2009 Searches (December, Deschember)

By Karl Staib of Work Happy Now! Follow him @workhappynow . Twitter only allows 140 characters. There is an infinite amount of things you can say, but only so many ideas to pull from. It’s hard to keep people entertained with your tweets. The best way to keep from burning out and giving up is to have a brilliant plan that will allow you to reach your goals and meet amazing people. 1. Stay Creative Tweeting looks so easy, but we all know it’s not. There is a lot of thought that goes into each tweet. Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist ( @penelopetrunk ) has each tweet reviewed by an editor before she sends it out. Well that’s what she told us. You need to find new ways to get onto other tweeters’ radars. Don’t be afraid to switch around words. Tweeting is an art and sometimes you need to stand out by being different. Don’t be afraid to disagree. Don’t do this too often, but every now and again you can spur on an exciting conversation. It’s the routine that kills the most tweeters. All they do is link back to their blog and they wonder why they aren’t meeting cool people and having fun connecting with other tweeters. 2. Find a Brilliant Quote to Share I love finding really cool quotes and posting them on Twitter. It’s amazing how many people will retweet a good quote. I posted a quote from Gandhi that said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” The CEO of Zappos ( @zappos ) liked it and retweeted it to his billion + subscribers. I gained over 200 subscribers in one weekend. I was lucky, but any of you can get lucky too; you just have to keep tweeting stuff you believe in and people will want to follow. 3. Just Listen When I first got on Twitter I wasn’t very active. I just read and listened to others. I began to see what I liked and what I thought would work well for me. After a little while, I jumped in and began tweeting. I learned the value of just listening to other tweeters. Instead of just getting on there and posting my tweet and leaving, I hang around. I notice when some people are jerks or humble or fun. It’s during these ten or fifteen minutes that I become more attached to the people I’m interacting with. You’ll burn out quickly if all you do is broadcast your stuff and you don’t listen to the other brilliant people out there. Believe me, there are some smart people using Twitter. 4. Ask a Question You may want to know what it feels like to stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or if anyone has a long commute to work and how they pass the time. The questions you can ask can be crazy, fun, or serious. I would suggest that your question stay in the theme of the tweets. People like routines and expect to receive a certain type of tweet from you. If you shake it up too much, they may not stick around. I’ve put out plenty of questions that were never answered. Don’t sweat it. Just post it again in a few hours. If you still don’t get a response, move on and try a different question in a few days. 5. Top 5 Tweeters to Follow Darren wrote an excellent post about creating niche lists of tweeters that you should follow. For example, “top 5 marketers on Twitter” or “top 5 most interesting people on Twitter.” When you send out some tweet love you might get a follow from a really cool person. I know that I would love to be included in the top 5 tweeters in the business category. Don’t be afraid to give other people attention because it’s all about Twitter Karma. The more you give the more you will eventually be given back. The more people who love your style of tweeting, the more motivated you will be to connect with other tweeters. 6. Take a Break and Recharge There will be some days when you just don’t feel like typing even a tweet. Then take a break and just let everyone else tweet their hearts out. Stress occurs when we push too hard to accomplish something we aren’t ready for. If you don’t feel like tweeting then don’t. It’s better than sending some big sour puss of a tweet out there and everyone reading it and thinking “Man he is having a bad day.” That’s when people decide to unfollow you. 7. People Will Unfollow You Some people aren’t going to like your tweets. Just like every guy or girl doesn’t think you are hot stuff, there will be tweeters that just don’t like your personality. Don’t take it personally. Your thoughts are not everybody’s cup of wisdom. Even Kevin Rose ( @kevinrose ) has people who stop following his tweets. He is in a position to add way more people than he loses, so his numbers keep growing anyway. 8. Be Yourself Don’t try to be like @problogger because you’ll fall flat. I fell into this trap when I first started blogging. I tried to be like @stevepavlina . I only started succeeding when I let go of trying to be someone else and let my true personality come out. I’ve taken a lot of great ideas from fellow tweeters, but always incorporated them into my own style. You have to trust that your interests will excite other people. As long as you are authentic, people will catch on. I promise. 9. Copy a Leader To step on my own advice, I’m going to tell you to copy a leader and his/her style for a day. See what happens. Are you getting more attention? There is nothing wrong with learning form the masters of Twitter, such as @guykawasaki , and trying to incorporate their style into yours. Be very careful of taking this too far though, because in order to get people who want to follow you and stick with you, you have to be you. 10. Retweet Great Tweets Retweeting other people’s thoughts is a great way to connect and share with your readers. I retweeted a @lizstrauss tweet and she sent me a thank you note. The more that you connect with talented people, the more likely they will be able to help you in the future. If you’re not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish then you must ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” When you figure out the answer, avoiding burn out will be much easier. 11. Know Your Goals When you know what you want to accomplish with Twitter it’s much easier to justify using your time and energy on it. If you have a blog, static website, or an offline business you can define your goals and start to make your dreams a reality. I want to be the one person everyone thinks about when they think about work happiness. Twitter is just another tool that I can use to leverage my expertise. The best part is that it’s easy to see what is working and what isn’t. If you are sending out the tweets and no one is following then you have to change strategy. If you are only on Twitter to pass the time and only want to make friends then that’s your goal. Understanding your needs is the most important way to avoid burning out and giving up. 12. Start a 30 Day Challenge The more compelling the story you tell, the more likely people will want to follow you. One of the best ways to get people involved in who you are and what you have to say is to challenge yourself to become a better person. I created a “No Complaining” challenge that lasted for the whole month. I blogged and tweeted about it. Fellow tweeters gave me advice and empathy. This is when my tweeting became more personal and more compelling. People want to know how the situation makes you feel. The Twitter society on the whole is very caring and supportive. So let them know what you are trying to accomplish and let them help you succeed. 13. Remember Twitter is Supposed to be Fun Twitter should never feel like work and when it does then you know you need to change your habits. I’ve seen some tweeters adding new friends by the hundreds, just trying to get as many friends as possible. They burn out quickly because it stops being fun. They are more worried about how many people are following them instead of the value they are giving and receiving through Twitter. Let your personality come out because that’s the person people want to see. At first Twitter can be daunting and confusing, so find the right tools that fit your needs. Darren has plenty of them on this blog. I would suggest Tweetdeck to anyone who hasn’t tried it. It organizes all the tweets making the experience much more enjoyable and less overwhelming. 14. (What would be your number 14? How have you avoided burn-out or overcome it and came back better than ever?) I’ve posted over 1,500 tweets and I feel like I’m just grasping the art of tweeting. The more that I tweet the better I get and the more fun it becomes. I felt close to burn out a few months ago, but I realigned my goals and I’m back to tweeting up a storm. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . 14 Ways To Fight Twitter Burnout

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14 Ways To Fight Twitter Burnout

Before you read any further just lean back and take a deep breath. You are about to enter the “Research Zone”. You know the place well. It’s where we give you shocking numbers that someone has come up with using their “methodology” and it is then used to create shocking headlines around the Internet for your reading enjoyment. It’s almost like having an informant who whispers something in your ear then you get to blab it all over the place and set the masses running. It’s fun! Today’s “OMG stat” is brought to you by comScore via TechCrunch . Apparently, Twitter had a rough October. Ever since last summer, Twitter’s growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter’s domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September. On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market. Things to consider: Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, has acknowledged the slowdown so there must be some validity to it. His hope is new features will help slow or stop this trend These results do not measure those accessing Twitter via third party clients. Only Twitter knows how many actual accounts they have and which are showing activity. Of course, I challenge them to present a number of accounts that are real users and not spammers. What would the numbers look like then? This could be a hiccup Facebook is possibly cleaning their clock US growth is one piece, albeit a very important one, to the grand Twitterscheme of things Here’s the pretty picture for you to look at wonder over. So what’s your take? Twitter – thumbs up or thumbs down? Can adding new features attract more users or are they just tools that “preach to the choir” meaning only helping those already on board? Should anyone be worried about this?

The rest is here:
US Twitter Visitors Down in October – Sound the Alarm?

Welcome to this Friday’s version of surveys, research and statistics to ponder. Of course, how and what you ponder always has more to do with the source of the statistics and your mood which makes the numbers kinda funky but ‘Hey!’, if we didn’t have stats what would we do with our days? This latest statistical ‘he said / she said’ consists of different numbers regarding the state of e-commerce. Today’s particpants are, “In the red corner”, comScore. They are in the red corner because they are reporting that e-commerce is slipping for the first time in the history of the world (you get it right?). “In the blue corner” is Forrester who tells everyone to not get our knickers in a twist because even in the cruddy economy e-commerce is the light on the hill or a veritable economic ‘beacon o’ hope’. Today’s match is brought to you by the Wall Street Journal . On Thursday, comScore reported that U.S. online spending in the third quarter slipped 2% to $29.6 billion versus last year. That represents the first time since comScore began tracking the figures that online spending has shrunk for two quarters in a row. (Online shopping was flat in the first quarter, and slipped 1% in the second quarter.) ComScore was slightly more upbeat about the potential of growth in the fourth quarter, if only because we’ll be comparing it to last year’s dismal fourth quarter. But on Monday, Forrester Research put out a report that reached a different conclusion: online sales in November and December are likely to grow 8% compared to last year. Moreover, a survey Forrester conducted with the National Retail Foundation found that online retailers reported sales in the third quarter grew 16%. Geesh, can’t we all just get along? Let’s just say this. The rest of the article is the two researchers pointing fingers at each other saying that how they collect data is better than the other guy and having a researchers equivalent of a “my dad can beat up your dad” argument. How about we do this? How about we look at what has happened and then work toward getting better. Then we assess if we did or did not get better after we actually DID SOMETHING! What a concept. Aren’t rosy predictions and unfettered prognostications how we got into this mess in the first place? Isn’t predicting the future that never was a mistake? If the Internet truly is a better way to do things then why can’t we find a better way to assess things rather than act like we have some magic 8-ball or crystal ball that tells the future as well. We don’t. My prediction? People will go out and do their very best to make something happen in Q4 regardless of these predictions and then they will live in the world of reality of whether things are good or bad, not in the fantasy land of what they may or may not be in the future. This research is for the big boys and not the rest of the world and even then it’s dicey at best. One man’s opinion. Have a fun Friday!

Excerpt from:
E-commerce. Up? Down? All Around?

Imagine for a second that I’m a doctor. Now imagine that I specialize in…ahem…erectile disfunction. Let’s say the average married couple has sexual intercourse 3-4 times a month–backed-up by most national surveys. But, I conduct a survey among my viagra-popping patients, and release a report that suggests married couples are in fact having sex 8-10 times a month. Would you throw out the other data? Or, would you piece this together and say, "wait a minute, of course you’re seeing a higher number?" Well, that’s the observation I made when reviewing iCrossing’s new study that suggests Google accounts for almost 77% of search engine visitors–compared to the 65% and 71% suggested by comScore and Hitwise respectively. Either I’m the only one seeing this, or it’s all in my head, but wouldn’t a company that helps its clients improve their Google traffic, see higher numbers like this? Now, I know that SEO firms supposedly help you with all your search engine traffic, so this Google-bias should be negated, but do they? I don’t know a single search marketing firm–or client for that matter–that doesn’t focus 90%+ of its efforts on increasing traffic from Google. With that kind of focus, aren’t you artificially increasing the search share you realize from Google? Look, I’m not out to bash iCrossing. I just want to help you connect the dots that this data is no more unbiased than Click Forensics’ reports on click fraud. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Why iCrossing is to Search Share as Viagra is to Sexual Intercourse