I'm officially dropping out of the Twitter gab fest

Back from vacation and it's grand to see that the blabosphere's obsession du jour with all things Twitter remains as rabid as ever. For a while, at least, I suppose it elbows aside the other obsession du jour--the truly distressing state of newspaperdom--at least until word of the inevitable next bankruptcy hits the wire. 



But with all due respect to the armchair commentariat, I'm sure there's something more interesting to write about in the wider world of technology. You wouldn't get that impression after randomly scanning headlines on the tech news aggregation sites. That's where the usual suspects are again cluttering up the transom with their latest random brain farts about what Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone ought to do with their amazing little toy. 

And I'm not letting us off the hook, either. At one point on Friday, CNET had five--count 'em, five--posts on Twitter (and unfortunately, I'm No. 6). 

I can understand why certain folks might be drawn to Twitter--even to the point of pondering the existential import of Oprah's tweets, but come on already. Twitter's a terrific conversational and research tool. Still, can we get a grip? 

I'm so thoroughly bored by the mandatory wide-eyed wonder that now accompanies any news event where the story is that people actually post updates on Twitter. "Wow, they're tweeting about the earthquake;" "they're tweeting about the airplane in the East River;" "they're tweeting about the bunion on the president's left toe." Blah, blah, blah. 

Despite the outpouring of attention, not everyone is so enamored. I was recently at a dinner hosted by venture capitalist Bill Gurley, whose company, Benchmark Capital, is an investor in Twitter. The person sitting next to me that evening was only a few weeks into her Twitterhood. She didn't get what all the fuss was about. I did my best to convince her that Twitter was a game-changer but she wasn't buying. 

Maybe in time her opinion will change, but her lukewarm response offered a reminder. A lot of serious, smart people take a more sober view of Twitter, viewing it as one (possibly useful) technology tool among others in their daily routine. They're not close to drinking the Kool-Aid, and that's something the media forgets. 

Well, if Ev & Biz ever do figure out how to harness Twitter's financial potential, wonderful, that would rate as news, and at that point, I'll give a damn. Until then, I'm leaving the daily hand-wringing to others.

What's up, bot? Google tries new Captcha method

Google has released research results about a new test to foil computers pretending to be humans by requiring them to orient an image so it's upright. 

A persistent problem on the Internet is screening out automated computer systems that can be used, for example, to sign up for spam-sending e-mail accounts or post comments designed to improve a site's search results. Google, which already devotes a lot of resources to block e-mail and Web spam, has tried a new test to keep the bots at bay. 

The test is the latest variation on a screening technique called a Captcha (completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart). The idea is that people can often tell which way is up in a photo, but computers have a harder time. 

Captchas are in widespread use today, usually in the form of obscured or distorted text that people can still read. But there's a lot of work in the area, including identifying 3D images and distinguishing between cats and dogs. 

Here's how Google authors Rich Gossweiler, Maryam Kamvar, and Shumeet Baluja described the image-orientation technique in their paper (click for PDF): 

This task requires analysis of the often complex contents of an image, a task which humans usually perform well and machines generally do not. 

Given a large repository of images, such as those from a web search result, we use a suite of automated orientation detectors to prune those images that can be automatically set upright easily. We then apply a social feedback mechanism to verify that the remaining images have a human-recognizable upright orientation. 

The main advantages of our Captcha technique over the traditional text recognition techniques are that it is language-independent, does not require text-entry (e.g. for a mobile device), and employs another domain for Captcha generation beyond character obfuscation. This Captcha lends itself to rapid implementation and has an almost limitless supply of images. 

We conducted extensive experiments to measure the viability of this technique...Our Captcha technique achieves high success rates for humans and low success rates for bots, does not require text entry, and is more enjoyable for the user than text-based Captcha. 


Images can be hard for people to orient upright, too. One 500-person test showed wide disparities in the opinion of which way was up for the left image but not the right image.
(Credit: Google)

The tricky part is finding the right balance between too easy and too confusing. Some images are hard for people to orient correctly, and some have cues--faces, text, blue skies, and green grass--that computers can use to figure out which way is up. 

To get around this issue, while being able to draw from the large number of images on the Web, the technique presents people with new images as well as those known to perform well. If people have trouble consistently telling which way is up, that image isn't included in the library. 

The researchers like their system in part because the image doesn't have to be obscured or distorted, as in text-based Captchas such as those Google currently employs. But image-based Captchas aren't immune from the bot vs. Web site arms race. 

"As advances are made in orientation detection systems, these advances will be incorporated in our filters so that those images that can be automatically oriented are not presented to the user," the researchers said. "The use of distortions may eventually be required."

The city where every arrest gets Twittered

For a short time, it seemed as if the Denton Police Department outside Dallas had been inspired by great communicators such as Ashton Kutcher and CNN.

A Twitter page, headlined "Denton Police," fed details of every arrest the department had performed, coupled with TwitPic mugshots.

This remarkable, real-time communication between the police and outside world surely was a futuristic forerunner to Texas' progression towards secession.

Until it was revealed to be the work of University of North Texas senior, Brian Baugh.

Mr. Baugh studies photography and is clearly fascinated by the plethora of things that can be seen online. One of them is the Denton City Jail Custody Report, which Mr. Baugh happily transposed to the unofficial Denton Police Twitter page.

"I just thought it would be a thing between me and my friends," he told the Dallas Observer. 

Perhaps you might be thinking that he is to be awarded a commendation from the Denton Police for his ingenuity. And perhaps you might be thinking that all humans should have three feet, two noses, and hair made of recyclable plastic.

Yes, the Denton city attorneys are trying to get the feed shut down, which seems a little peculiar as it isn't as if Mr. Baugh is tweeting anything other than perfectly public information.

"The only way they might shut it down is if they wanted to use the account for themselves," he sagely declared.

But would they use it well?


You see, the Denton police has a MySpace page. It could, perhaps, be this one. However, according to Denton police spokesperson, Ryan Grelle: "It hasn't been updated for months."

Facebook vs. Twitter: How will you stream your world?

The future will be streamed. And streamed some more.

Earlier this week, Facebook unveiled a few notable product revamps: "fan pages" for brands that look and act more like regular member profiles, and a redesigned home page that emphasizes a real-time version of the site's iconic news feed. The keyword here is "streaming," encouraging an even more extensive flow of information with a status update prompt that asks, "What's on your mind?"

Needless to say, "What's on your mind"--which also allows the posting of links, videos, and other content to news feeds--bears quite a bit of resemblance to Twitter's "What are you doing?" prompt. So, especially in light of more rumors and reports about Facebook's spurned attempt to acquire Twitter, expect comparisons between the two services as means of ultra-customized media consumption to escalate.

When Facebook unveiled its redesign I predicted that we'd hear a lot more about the news feed as the new personal portal. That's sort of what many prolific Twitter users have turned the microblogging service into, too. Our Twitter feeds, after all, deliver a whole lot more than updates about what kind of beers our friends just ordered at happy hour: Depending on what you subscribe to, you can get ski reports, links to news headlines and blog feeds, mini-recipes, and celebrity-stalking intel.

But for all the talk about brands building presences on Twitter, Facebook may have gained a slight lead here. I spoke on Thursday to Dan Hart, senior vice president and general manager of MTV Digital, about how the Viacom-owned entertainment brand is using the new Pages to push out more content to members' news feeds. For the first time, brands using Fan Pages can set "status" messages, too, which MTV plans to use for news and updates.

"The status update function is effectively becoming a publish function, and that publish function is text, photos, video, a variety of media," Hart said, "and that media is experienced more as a real-time stream by a Facebook user, and the Facebook user has more control over what occurs in that stream."

That's basically what media companies do with Twitter accounts. And Hart said that MTV has no plans to abandon its presence on Twitter. "I don't think it's a zero-sum choice at all," he said. "We've done really interesting things on Twitter."

But Facebook's advantage is that the revamped news feed can handle different types of content, too: it'll have actual photos and event listings instead of TwitPic and TinyURL links. Filtering controls won't require a third-party app like TweetDeck. On the other hand, Twitter is obviously more open-ended. The messages on it are public and accessible, rather than hidden behind a log-in wall. As useful and innovative as the Facebook news feed may be, it's not searchable--and Twitter clearly hopes that its search feature, which it built in with the acquisition of Summize last year, will be a sort of secret sauce. (Maybe it'll even make money with it.)

Honestly, though, with the amount of buzz about both Facebook and Twitter as the future of real-time information, I give the advantage to whichever one can make all this content less of a mess.

On a related note, this gives aggregation services like FriendFeed a run for their money--why join an external "all-in-one-place" service when the same content is available on Facebook? FriendFeed is better optimized for longer discussion threads, true, but you don't hear a whole lot about marketers jumping on the feed-aggregator bandwagon. If anything, I see FriendFeed moving more toward a message-board role rather than another player in "the stream." But that's a tale for a different day.

Amazon’s Affiliate Program Ends PPC Arbitrage

Maybe I’m not the best qualified to make assumptions about why Amazon Associates–the online retailers affiliate program–just pulled the plug on allowing affiliates to send referrals via paid search, but that doesn’t stop me from making an educated guess.

PPC Arbitrage.

I suspect that Amazon finally realized that it could do its own keyword bidding and cut out the middle-man–those bidding pennies on long-tail keywords and making dollars in affiliate commissions. Here’s the email that Amazon just sent out to its affiliates:

Dear Amazon Associate:

We’re writing to let you know about a change to the Amazon Associates Program. After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, and their extended search networks. If you’re not sure if this change affects you, please visit this page for FAQs.

As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search.

This change applies only to the Associates programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

We appreciate your continued support and participation in this advertising Program. If you have questions or concerns, please write to us by using the Contact Us form available on Associates Central.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Program

Is this the end of search marketing for Amazon affiliates? Yes, and no. While you can no longer send traffic directly to Amazon via paid search, I’m assuming you can still send searchers to a landing page and THEN send them to Amazon.com. Also, there doesn’t appear to be any restrictions on using search engine optimization (SEO) to send referarals, but good luck trying to get your own affiliate link to rank in Google.

OK, time to hand this over to the Pilgrims that live for affiliate marketing. What’s your take on this move by Amazon?

Google’s Voice Recognition Improves; Please Keep Some Searches to Yourself!

I’ve not had a lot of luck with voice recognition technology. My Acura MDX tempts me to use the built-in voice commands, but my request for "Nearest Mexican restaurant" ends up with the mind-boggling confirmation that my "Air conditioning is set to 74F."

So, you can imagine just how easy it had been for me to resist using the voice command feature of the Google search application on my iPhone. I simply didn’t have the time to make a fool of myself repeating the same search query over and over again. However, just last week I ended my Google voice virginity and finally used a voice command, instead of typing. The result? A surprising–and satisfying–success!

Apparently I’m not the only one switching from typed searches to voice ones. According to Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering for Google:

"We launched it on the iPhone and have seen a 15% jump in accuracy because, as more people use it, we collect more data and our accuracy gets better."

He also went on to tell San Francisco’s Web 2.0 Expo audience that Google sees a bright future for voice search:

"We believe voice search is a new form of search and that it is core to our business," said Vic Gundotra.

Some people are not so optimistic though. Take the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. He tried the service last year and claimed the results were "pure gibberish."

For example, his query about the next train, West Ealing to Paddington "delivered some useful information about ‘neck strain’ - but no train times".

The misunderstanding came due to Google struggling to understand non-American accents–in this case the Queen’s English–but those issues have since mostly gone away. (Heck, if it can understand my American/British mongrel accent, it can understand anyone’s!)

The big question is, just how many of us will switch to voice recognition for our search queries? And, do we really want to stand next to some guy at a train station while he asks Google: "How do I treat my hemorrhoids?" 

Google Hate Is in the Air

We live a world that talks about winners and losers all the time. Trouble is it’s OK to lose big because “Hey, we’re only human and we love to give second chances. Here, have a boatload of taxpayer money to pay your executives who don’t deserve it and have a nice day!” Meanwhile, when a company actually does well there are those to who simply can’t stand a winner that has earned its power. We citizens of the Internet world know that the biggest winner, and as a result the biggest target of haters, is Google.

I read a bit of a rant from a journalist over in the UK and I encourage you to do the same. It is likely to polarize readers pretty quickly. The author uses the following terms to describe the search giant:

WWM – World Wide Monopoly

A threat to the livelihood of individuals and the future of commercial institutions important to the community

A classic monopoly that destroys industries and individual enterprise in its bid for ever greater profits

Delinquent and sociopathic, perhaps the character of a nightmarish 11-year-old

Having a brattish, clever amorality

Well, you get the picture. He is apparently upset about how Google uses its weight to get things done. I can see how that is annoying in many cases but the name calling bit is kind of over the top don’t you think? In North Carolina where I live, if you said those kind of things about anyone you might hear a good ol’ fashioned “Them thar is fightin’ words!” I’m sure Google considers these kind of evaluations like that of a gnat and ignores them or swats them away. What’s interesting to me is that in this world, you can be successful but don’t you dare go past whatever standard of “enough is enough” that some group somewhere has established to fit their own agenda. We want success but if someone else gets it in a way that we don’t like we whine. You can only be as successful as I think you should be. Huh?

I see Google differently. Sure they’re the 900 pound gorilla. Sure there is a bit of bully in them. This bully however is created in many cases just from sheer size. Oh and by the way, they have competition. I look at search like the Big 3 for automobiles in the US. There are huge barriers to entry and the competition is not large in number due to the very nature of the business. Google, however, unlike the automakers who apparently have adopted the Three Stooges as their mascots, has simply done a better job at search than Yahoo, Microsoft, Wikia Search, Lycos, Alta Vista etc etc. by creating a product that helps people get more done at the time that it was needed. They have simply done a better job. Because of that they have won big.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have a business if Google hadn’t done what it has done. So as for the destruction of industries that is called progress. It’s called change. If there was nothing created as a result of the destruction then there is a problem. That’s not the case with the Internet though. The world economy is shifting and Google is helping it happen.

In this world of business, if you create a better mousetrap then you catch more mice. Google catches a lot of mice but they do a lot of good too. Last year, Google’s gift to me for the business I did with them was the chance to help out a local school through DonorsChoose.org. I have an incredible book of letters from kids who benefited from them “forcing me” to help. I would not have done this on my own. They could have sent me a box of t-shirts but no. They helped me to help someone. I am grateful and the kids were ecstatic. No mention of these kinds of things from Google haters is there?

I am not a Google apologist. They are far from perfect. We all are. I just don’t see the point in sitting around and wringing our hands about fairness. Nothing is completely fair. Why do we want it or expect it? Google does a pretty good job in making sense of the Internet for a lot of people. That is actually a good thing. Are they not supposed to make money along the way?

So where are you? Google hater, supporter or do you just tolerate them? Is Google a bully, an enabler or amoral? I bet you have an opinion so please join the discussion.

Twitter Wouldn’t Sell for $1B—Better Make Sure It’s Worth It!

It looks like the biggest April Fool’s Joke was on all of us. Despite persistent rumors that Google was in talks to acquire Twitter (the coolest thing since the last coolest thing since sliced bread), no deal is forthcoming. On its blog, Twitter explains that sometimes they tease talk.

While all this may be protesting too much from both parties, sources are now saying that Twitter CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars, four times what Google is rumored to have placed the microblogging service’s value at.

When it comes to Internet businesses, though, Twitter needs to remember that timing is everything. If their endgame is acquisition, there are a few points they might want to keep in mind:

the economy is down

the mainstream (and less mainstream) media hasn’t yet turned on Twitter (as it has with previous darlings, including MySpace and Facebook)

Twitter doesn’t have a (publicly-discussed) business model

Google has, of course, paid top-dollar for big-ticket properties before. But although its biggest purchase, the $1.65B YouTube, continues to dominate its niche, Google is still struggling to monetize the most popular video site in the world. Are they prepared to take a chance on another service that doesn’t have a concrete way to turn a profit?

BoomTown’s Kara Swisher points out that Twitter could well be worth the price tag—with one caveat:

It is clear that it is onto something significant and perhaps even something quite profitable someday.

That is, providing its execs focus on what’s important—building Twitter’s business and audience—and trying as hard as they can to ignore all the noisy and pointless tweeting from and about its many suitors.

If they can’t, though—and it would be a crying shame—they should just start responding to all those pretty swains and sell out to the highest and most attractive bidder.

Personally, I am hoping they pick the former, as Twitter is turning out to be yet another of Silicon Valley’s great stories of possibility and promise.

Personally, I think it’s a bit soon to say that about Twitter (I Tweet, but I haven’t drunk the Kool aid yet—I could take it or leave it). I think the company’s hype is influencing this (ahem, timing). Back in February, she made a bit more evenhanded assessment:

Twitter—while it says it is poised on the verge of announcing its grand plan to make money—is operating in an arena I have seen many other shooting stars in, traversing a very dangerous crevasse of hype and expectation.

Due to that, it has a very big red target on its back, one that a competitor in the status space—such as the spurned Facebook, whose update business is much bigger—will not ignore.

Right now, Twitter could ask for a lot, as one of the only Web 2.0 companies that everyone is uniformly excited about.

That’s one I can agreement. Right now, Twitter could ask for a lot. But I hope they’ve seen examples of other media-sweetheart social companies holding out for top dollar—only to end up losing their valuation momentum.

What do you think? Should Twitter hold out for either a higher price tag or a viable business model (which would probably garner a higher price tag anyway), or should they take what they can get now?

Pay Your Fake Friends with Fake Money on Facebook

Facebook is really stretching the boundaries of a lot of things lately. The newest ‘deal’ they are offering their users is, how do I say this, pretty stupid. TechCrunch goes into some detail regarding this new opportunity for someone to part with their money for no real good reason.

Facebook is offering a virtual gift product that revolves around credits that you toss to your ‘friends’ in lieu of simply liking something they do. Kind of a pay for performance model of friendship. Talk about taking relationships to a new low. For just $1 you can purchase 100 credits that you can give to your ‘friends’ when they do something you like. I don’t know about you but I think that throwing money at my ‘friends’ when they do something I like is not something I consider regularly. I guess my ‘friends’ would like it but it seems pretty ridiculous to me. It’s like treating your ‘friends’ like performing seals. When they honk the horn on the stage by the pool you can throw them a fish and a sincere “Nice job. Atta boy!”

Well, it’s no more ridiculous when done on Facebook. In a not so transparent play to generate some revenue it looks as if the folks at “the ‘book” are thinking that if just a small percentage of their 200 million users are empty headed enough to spend a buck a month to throw credits at their buddies then they can generate some dollars. As TechCrunch put it

And it’s far better than having to return to the capital markets to raise money at what’s likely to be an embarrassing large discount from that ridiculous $15 billion valuation that Microsoft gave them in 2007. Maybe if enough users buy credits that can never be redeemed back for cash they can stretch their runway a little farther.

From a business perspective these are the kind of ideas that makes one wonder if Facebook’s management hasn’t jumped the shark. There has to be another way to pry a dollar out of the pockets of their users. I don’t have one personally but you have to figure that if a few smart people sat in a room over lunch they can come up with something that doesn’t require giving your ‘friends’ the equivalent of an online tip for their efforts.

Hey, if you comment here I’ll give you some credit. Doesn’t that feel good?

AP May Now Mean “All Paid”

The Associated Press is angry at bloggers and the rest of the Internet for that matter. It appears as if the AP is so enamored with their ability to come up with completely original material 24/7 that keeps the Internet news machine going that they think we should all pay for the privilege to read it and spread the word. Now, there was more than a little sarcasm there because as many folks in other outlets like AllThingsD, Daggle and more have pointed out that this vision the AP has of being the creator of all things printed is a little overdone.

The AP is of the belief that the repackaging of their stories and the use of their stories by news aggregators online is something that needs to be paid for. I am not against anyone trying to make money on their business. We are a capitalistic society for now at least. It’s the vilifying of people who use these stories that is the trouble here. The Internet is an open forum of sorts and the ability to have so many more people see your work is part of the appeal. By closing the door to those who will not pay for the right to use AP ‘stories’ they are certainly drawing a line in the sand.

I like Larry Dignan’s take over at ZDNet. He contends that the AP is actually running the risk of exposing their shortcomings rather than solidifying their perceived leadership position in the journalistic food chain. Dignan says

So the Associated Press is mad and isn’t going to take it anymore. It’s eyeing news aggregators who are stealing a few paragraphs and failing to link to it as an authoritative source.

Be careful what you wish for AP. Bloggers and news aggregators are a smart bunch and if AP isn’t careful the whole world will soon know about its dirty little secret: Much of it is rehash from statements of some sort.

What else can you say to that? Sounds to me as if the AP may be crying wolf to some degree. If they are literally doing what they accuse bloggers and the search engines of doing then it may be best to let sleeping dogs lie. Of course, if you are a blogger and you are not linking to your sources please stop it. While I realize that my sources rarely if ever go to the AP I always include the story source for my posts. It’s a courtesy that is part of the Internet culture. You would want the same from someone else.

Are All of Your Eggs in One Social Media Basket?

So your company has stumbled upon the next big thing (no reference to StumbleUpon intended, necessarily). Twitter. There is a gigantic scramble to jump on the newest ‘it-girl’ of the social media world and make money, be a presence, play in the pond so to speak. “This is going to revolutionize how we manage [insert subject matter here ranging from: customer service, customer engagement, branding, marketing, advertising, etc.]” is something we may have all heard from our clients or management.

Haven’t we heard this before? Isn’t there a pattern forming here? The ‘curve of cool’ that dominates the product marketing sphere is starting to resonate in social media.

The curve of cool represents the pattern a product or brand faces in the market place. It slowly builds traction. Before long it has an underground following, leading into the early adopters. Eventually the product is the new must-have for everyone. At this point however, the early adopters are already beginning to familiarize themselves with what will be the next ‘must have.’ The product or service becomes completely mainstream to the point where it eventually burns itself out. Now it is so cool, that it is no longer . . . cool.

So that’s not to say that a social media effort should be abandoned once it goes mainstream. Far from it. MySpace is still earning revenue and some might argue that that shark has been jumped. Facebook is still earning revenue and it’s fairly mainstream at this point. Twitter. The T-word. Twitter has yet to earn any revenue, but its popularity is sky-rocketing. Once, only individuals living in the tech-o-sphere and online marketing communities knew about this little gem. Now you can fine everyone from my mom, yes my mother, to Shaquille O’Neal and President Barack Obama. Twitter is all over the mainstream media for its new found popularity. Speculation over how this social media pop princess will turn a profit doesn’t hurt its media popularity either.

What’s next for Twitter? A Google buy-out? Selling ads? Who knows? They’re talking, they’ve admitted that. The real question is “What’s next for social media?”

Diversification is a common practice in strategic business thinking. Diversification also has a place in planning out a social media strategy for an organization. If your organization is aware of and has a presence in as many social networking sites as possible then it will be poised and prepared for the ‘next big thing.’ Social media isn’t all about Facebook, MySpace and Twitter though. During his keynote at IM Spring Break, as covered by Shana Albert, Chris Winfield outlined the types of social media businesses should be involved in. Not just Twitter, but blogging, bookmarking sites, online reviews and others.

The point is, no one knows where social media/marketing/networking will take us. The key is to be ready and by all means, do not put all of your eggs in one basket. Be ready to leverage your presence wherever possible (and appropriate for your audience), engage, and dominate.

Kristy Bolsinger is a full-time MBA Candidate at Willamette University in Salem, OR, set to graduate in May 2009. She currently works part time as a social media and online marketing consultant.

Facebook Does the TOS Dance

This year April 16th is no longer just the day after your taxes must be done (or extensions filed depending on what’s going on). This day is now a new Opening Day of sorts. It is the day the Facebook’s new terms of service (TOS) will be unveiled after the 30 day public comment period. The new document called the Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities will be open for a vote through April 23rd. The whole process is starting to have a game show kind of feel to it as the entire process is being audited by Ernst & Young. I wonder if the envelopes will be hermetically sealed as well. So much suspense!

Over at MediaPost the entire process and all the specifics are outlined. Of course, going to the source at Facebook’s blog would be a good idea as well. While this sounds all nice and democratic, one needs to drill only a little below the surface to see where all of this positive PR that Facebook has garnered after making their terms of service gaffe back in February could wind up with literally no change occurring.

To review, Facebook’s TOS’s were reworded ever so slightly and gave the distinct impression that content on Facebook was actually Facebook’s content even after a user closed their account. The following maelstrom of outrage caused Facebook to do a quick about face and go back to business as usual under the old TOS. Shortly thereafter, Facebook’s mea culpa led up to the new matter of putting these brand new terms to a vote among Facebookians around the globe. (I doubt I just coined a phrase there but what else do you call a Facebook user?)

Here’s where everything gets very Facebookey, meaning that things are never as they appear with this bunch. Simon Axten, a privacy and public policy associate at Facebook, stated last week

“On April 16, we’ll be posting revised versions of the documents based on the feedback we’ve received. We’ll also be sharing a written response to the main concerns people have expressed. This will explain in clear language why we did — or did not — make certain changes. This is similar to how U.S. federal agencies create regulations.”

These proposed changes are actually the result of speaking with only about 3,000 members. Not exactly an avalanche of response to match the outcry. Once again it may be that just social media industry types are concerned about any of this and even that concern is superficial at best. If approved the new number of folks involved for future changes to be considered jumps to 7,000.

The MediaPost article then said

He (Axten) added that if at least 30% of active users (people who have logged into Facebook at least once in the previous 30 days) vote, and the agreements are not approved, the current terms of use (last revised on Sept. 23, 2008) will remain in effect. If less than 30% vote, the outcome would be advisory rather than binding, and “we’ll take the results into consideration as we determine next steps,” said Axten.

So here’s the kicker.

That means that more than 52 million of Facebook’s 175 million active users would have to vote next week on the new terms for them to be binding.

So in plain English it seems that Facebook is simply looking to be able to say that they are a democracy knowing full well that their voter base will respond like most people do to mid- term elections by saying “Oh, those were today? Oh well”. In the case where changes are made that pass this test and are then complained about by the rest of the Facebook rank and file Facebook can say “Hey, you had your chance. Sorry”

Same Facebook, different day.

Twitter Traffic Older Than Many Think

The folks at comScore put some numbers to what everyone already suspects. Twitter traffic is growing at a very rapid rate. What may surprise some are the people that are leading the charge. They also say that the March numbers to be released in the next week will raise some eyebrows as well.

Twitter has grown in legend and lore as of late. It is being used by Shaquille O’Neal, Ashton and Mrs. Kutcher, big business like Dell and Southwest Airlines and President Obama. You can’t seem to turn around without bumping into someone either blubbering over the importance of Twitter or another person bemoaning the decline and fall of Western civilization as a result of it. One thing is for sure, people read, write and talk about it a lot and as the talk grows so does the usage.

A look at the age demographics of Twitter users may be a surprise to some.

A Reuters blog post takes a look at this pattern and discusses the move toward older demographics using social media in general more.

Why this is a surprise to many is a surprise to me. Most users of social media are being attracted by the business applications of social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. Many of the youngest people who have grown up squarely in the Internet Age are probably not that excited about these things anymore simply because their parents are now involved! I know that when I talk to my kids about something that they think is cool it immediately takes a lot of the cool out of it for them. Their logic is that it can’t be that cool if Dad is into it (welcome to my life).

Another driver for this business application by an older demographic is the economy. Twitter probably benefits greatly from the fact that everyone is scrambling to survive in this economic mess. As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Since it doesn’t cost anything other than time to be on these social media outlets and people don’t need to leave their house or office to do it the option becomes more attractive particularly to those who have to pay the bills.

Now, did the people at Twitter predict this type of usage pattern from the start? They will say yes I suppose but who knows. The reality of social media though is that no one can truly predict how any one avenue will be adopted by any particular group. It’s the newness and the Wild West aspect of all of this that keeps it interesting.

As things are shaping up though it appears that the money for social media will ultimately be from those who want to apply it for commercial use and not for those who want to simply share the incredibly ridiculous and inane details of their otherwise empty lives. Was that too harsh?

Google Exec Exodus Continues

Ok, so exodus may be a bit strong but it got your attention right? What is certain though is Google is leaking some big executives. If you have ever worked in a corporate environment, be it large or small, these kind of changes can indicate either concerns with how the company is going or opportunity for new ideas and new spirit to be injected. Regardless of the real reasons which may never be known anyway it does cause disruptions in the course of normal business that more often hurt than help.

The latest big name to leave is Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google’s president for Asia-Pacific (APAC) & Latin American Operations. She has departed for Accel Partners, a Silicon Valley VC that has invested in the likes of Facebook. As reported at VentureBeat

Singh Cassidy will join Accel in a position known as “CEO-in-Residence,” where she’ll help Accel’s portfolio companies and have the option to study to become a chief executive of one of Accel’s future companies.

Sounds like a pretty neat opportunity when you get to choose which company you may eventually lead.

So why the parade of executives exiting the Googleplex for the last time? If there was ever a chance for wild eyed speculation this is it. Just a few weeks ago Tim Armstrong, left Google’s top sales position to lead the good ship AOL. Also, VentureBeat reported that yesterday Google’s director of Latin America, Gonzalo Alonso left for greener pastures.

So Google has recently lost top talent in major positions around the world, with the Latin America operations bleeding a little more than the others. What does it mean for the company that many are looking to help pull this economy out of the ditch? In the short term, you would expect business as usual. It’s the next generation of the company’s expansion and ability to innovate that is really in flux.

While Google hating is popular around the globe there may be some discord within the walls of the company itself. The reality is that Google has been dealing with these defections for as long as they have been as powerful as they are. With so many alpha dogs running around the company it seems natural that not everyone will be satisfied and want to move on. What the Google watchers of the world need to pay close attention to is how many times it happens and if the powers that remain at Google can replace these defections with equal or better talent.

YouTube Could Lose $470 Million

First, the good news. YouTube is the most popular video site on the Internet. They’ill make $240 million in revenue. They just signed a deal with Disney to help bring in that money. But the bad news is pretty bad—$711 million in expenses, according to Credit Suisse.

About half of that bill is bandwidth alone, $360 million. Don’t worry, Credit Suisse showed its work:

To arrive at the estimated $360 million bandwidth tab for YouTube, the analysts assumed the site will receive 375 million unique visitors in 2009 and that a maximum of 20% of those users are on the site at any given time. Credit Suisse’s analysis then assumed each user downloads a video at 400 kilobits per second, to yield a peak bit run-rate for YouTube of 30 million megabits per second. 

Other reports have placed YouTube’s revenue this year anywhere from $120 million to $500 million.

Of course, bandwidth costs aren’t new: Facebook has been battling rising costs and falling revenue-per-users for some time. On the other hand, YouTube has been searching for effective monetization basically since Google acquired the company.

What do you think? Can YouTube make money to sustain itself long enough to find a business model that really works?

Spammers Show Resilience

Spammers are stepping up their efforts as the “industry” recovers from the loss of McColo, a web hosting company whose clients generated some 75% of the spam e-mail we get to enjoy on a daily basis. It seems that these folks are back up to their old levels again according to a report from Postini, which provides the security for the approximately 15 million users of Google’s enterprise e-mail offering.

The rate of growth for spam is higher than ever 

Overall spam growth is the highest it’s ever been, increasing 1.2 percent a day in the first quarter of 2009 (compared with 1 percent a day in the first quarter of 2008, which was a record at the time). 

Clickz tells us that immediately following the shut down of McColo the average number of spam e-mails went from 100 per day for the average Google Enterprise user to around 25. Those numbers are already back up in the low 60’s. All of this goes to show that like with most negative aspects of the Internet most ‘fixes’ are at best temporary. Maybe the folks on the dark side just try harder?

“It’s difficult to ascertain exactly how spammers have rebuilt in the wake of McColo, but data suggests they’re adopting new strategies to avoid a McColo-type takedown from occurring again,” commented Amanda Kleha, of the Google security and archiving team, in the report. “Specifically, the recent upward trajectory of spam could indicate that spammers are building botnets that are more robust but send less volume — or at least that they haven’t enabled their botnets to run at full capacity because they’re wary of exposing a new ISP as a target.”

In the wake of the Conficker concerns the other side of this issue is the concern that the number of spam e-mails containing viruses is also on the rise. The numbers between February and March of this year showed an increase of nine times the e-mails with viruses.

It may be that spammers have just reworked their thinking to avoid getting shut down to the degree they did around the McColo incident. The techniques being used now include spam based on location. By saying that there is some news event of local importance people are opening these e-mails then clicking on videos that set the virus. Basically, whatever plays on the emotions of an inexperienced Internet user (or less discerning one) is what works for now. These attacks are now being spread evenly across the week as well when before Sunday used to be the busy day for spammers.

As hyperactive users of the Internet this may sound silly to us but once again as with other areas we need to remember that it’s a big internet and our behavior is , for the most part, abnormal as compared to the vast majority of Internet users.

Twitter Redesign Includes Search & Trends

Reason #253 why you should subscribe to Marketing Pilgrim: Back in October we had the exclusive on the new user interface for Twitter. Today we learn that selected Twitter users will indeed start seeing this new layout.

Twitter admits its recent test of the search box at the top of the interface was a flop, so instead, it’s going back to the drawing board. Well, actually its original redesign drawing:

A subset of users will start seeing the above interface soon. In addition, Twitter is testing a feature that should be welcomed by many:

If there’s a search you want to do on a regular basis, you can “save” the search. That will place the word or term permanently in your sidebar for easy access. So if you want to know what people are saying about the city you live in, the products you use, or just something weird, it becomes a link on your home page.

Lastly, “Trends” will also be added to Twitter–which we suspect will work much like the “Trending topics” you can currently view at Search.Twitter.com.

I’m excited about the new features, what about you? Anything else you wish Twitter would add?

Google uncloaks once-secret server

Updated at 4:08 p.m. PDT April 1 with further details about Google's data center efficiency and shipping containers modules and 6:30 a.m. April 2 to correct the time frame of efficiency statistics. 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google is tight-lipped about its computing operations, but the company for the first time on Wednesday revealed the hardware at the core of its Internet might at a conference here about the increasingly prominent issue of data center efficiency. 

Most companies buy servers from the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, or Sun Microsystems. But Google, which has hundreds of thousands of servers and considers running them part of its core expertise, designs and builds its own. Ben Jai, who designed many of Google's servers, unveiled a modern Google server before the hungry eyes of a technically sophisticated audience. 


Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers--each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts. 

It may sound geeky, but a number of attendees--the kind of folks who run data centers packed with thousands of servers for a living--were surprised not only by Google's built-in battery approach, but by the fact that the company has kept it secret for years. Jai said in an interview that Google has been using the design since 2005 and now is in its sixth or seventh generation of design. 

"It was our Manhattan Project," Jai said of the design. 

Google has an obsessive focus on energy efficiency and now is sharing more of its experience with the world. With the recession pressuring operations budgets, environmental concerns waxing, and energy prices and constraints increasing, the time is ripe for Google to do more efficiency evangelism, said Urs Hoelzle, Google's vice president of operations. 

"There wasn't much benefit in trying to preach if people weren't interested in it," said Hoelzle, but now attitudes have changed. 

The company also focuses on data center issues such as power distribution, cooling, and ensuring hot and cool air don't intermingle, said Chris Malone, who's involved in the data center design and efficiency measurement. Google's data centers now have reached efficiency levels that the Environmental Protection Agency hopes will be attainable in 2011 using advanced technology. 

"We've achieved this now by application of best practices and some innovations--nothing really inaccessible to the rest of the market," Malone said.

Why built-in batteries?
Why is the battery approach significant? Money. 

Typical data centers rely on large, centralized machines called uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)--essentially giant batteries that kick in when the main supply fails and before generators have time to kick in. Building the power supply into the server is cheaper and means costs are matched directly to the number of servers, Jai said. 

"This is much cheaper than huge centralized UPS," he said. "Therefore no wasted capacity." 

Efficiency is another financial factor. Large UPSs can reach 92 to 95 percent efficiency, meaning that a large amount of power is squandered. The server-mounted batteries do better, Jai said: "We were able to measure our actual usage to greater than 99.9 percent efficiency." 


Urs Hoelzle, Google's vice president of operations
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The Google server was 3.5 inches thick--2U, or 2 rack units, in data center parlance. It had two processors, two hard drives, and eight memory slots mounted on a motherboard built by Gigabyte. Google uses x86 processors from both AMD and Intel, Jai said, and Google uses the battery design on its network equipment, too. 

Efficiency is important not just because improving it cuts power consumption costs, but also because inefficiencies typically produce waste heat that requires yet more expense in cooling. 

Costs add up
Google operates servers at a tremendous scale, and these costs add up quickly. 

Jai has borne a lot of the burden himself. He was the only electrical engineer on the server design job from 2003 to 2005, he said. "I worked 14-hour days for two and a half years," he said, before more employees were hired to share the work. 

Google has patents on the built-in battery design, "but I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle said. 

Another illustration of Google's obsession with efficiency comes through power supply design. Power supplies convert conventional AC (alternating current--what you get from a wall socket) electricity into the DC (direct current--what you get from a battery) electricity, and typical power supplies provide computers with both 5-volt and 12-volt DC power. Google's designs supply only 12-volt power, with the necessary conversions taking place on the motherboard. 


Google's data center efficiency has been improving gradually.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

That adds $1 or $2 to the cost of the motherboard, but it's worth it not just because the power supply is cheaper, but because the power supply can be run closer to its peak capacity, which means it runs much more efficiently. Google even pays attention to the greater efficiency of transmitting power over copper wires at 12 volts compared to 5 volts. 

Google also revealed new performance results for data center energy efficiency measured by a standard called power usage effectiveness. PUE, developed by a consortium called the Green Grid, measures how much power goes directly to computing compared to ancillary services such as lighting and cooling. A perfect score of 1 means no power goes to the extra costs; 1.5 means that ancillary services consume half the power devoted to computing. 

Google's PUE scores are enviably low, but the company is working to lower them further. In the third quarter of 2008, Google's PUE was 1.21, but it dropped to 1.20 for the fourth quarter and to 1.19 for the first quarter of 2009 through March 15, Malone said. 

Older Google facilities generally have higher PUEs, he said; the best has a score of 1.12. When the weather gets warmer, Google notices is that it's harder to keep servers cool. 


An excerpt from a video tour Google presented of its data center containers. Like conventional data centers, Google's shipping containers have raised floors.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Shipping containers
Most people buy computers one at a time, but Google thinks on a very different scale. Jimmy Clidaras revealed that the core of the company's data centers are composed of standard 1AAA shipping containers packed with 1,160 servers each, with many containers in each data center. 

Modular data centers are not unique to Google; Sun Microsystems and Rackable Systems both sell them. But Google started using them in 2005. 

Google's first experiments had some rough patches, though, Clidaras said--for example when they found the first crane they used wasn't big enough to actually lift one. 

Overall, Google's choices have been driven by a broad analysis on cost that encompasses software, hardware, and facilities. 

"Early on, there was an emphasis on the dollar per (search) query," Hoelzle said. "We were forced to focus. Revenue per query is very low." 

Mainstream servers with x86 processors were the only option, he added. "Ten years ago...it was clear the only way to make (search) work as free product was to run on relatively cheap hardware. You can't run it on a mainframe. The margins just don't work out," he said. 

Operating at Google's scale has its challenges, but it also has its silver linings. For example, a given investment on research can be applied to a larger amount of infrastructure, yielding return faster, Hoelzle said.

Internet Marketing on the Go

Mobile Internet connectivity improvements through upgraded networks, smart phones, better data plans and more content are the main reasons why mobile advertising is starting to shift from “What’s all the hype about?” to “Finally, it’s catching up to the hype” mode. eMarketer reports that 2008 was where hype and reality crossed paths and now the future of the mobile advertising industry is poised to explode.

Regular readers of Marketing Pilgrim may be familiar with my disdain for predictions of how an industry will grow 5 years from now. These prognostications are educated guesses at best and wild eyed speculation at worst. Though they can be fun to gawk over they often times look ridiculous when seen through the rear view mirror of reality. The following chart shows just eMarketer sees the growth of US mobile advertising spend for the foreseeable future.

The numbers offered in this study contend that the big jump in adoption of mobile advertising will occur between 2010 and 2012. Of course, this is anyone’s guess as to real numbers but the growth should be significant even if it falls short of these predictions.

In this case, I have to lean toward thinking that this part of the Internet industry really does have potential v. just good PR. I know how my mobile usage has gone up exponentially since I got my first Blackberry in 2007. Add the iPhone into the mix at about that same time and the platform has been created for real opportunity with mobile everything. The report points out that the convergence of smart phones, network upgrades and richer content are a perfect storm of sorts to give this industry real momentum. 

Other questions broached are:
How will mobile advertising fare in a down economy?
Can marketers count on smart phones to expand mobile’s reach?
How will changes in mobile usage patterns affect marketers?
What will be the affect of mobile video?
Which ad-funded business models will take off?

So what’s your take on mobile advertising? Hype or reality?

English Mob Stops Google Car

No, this power-to-the-people headline isn’t a belated April Fools’ joke. A Buckinghamshire neighborhood barred a Google Street View car from photographing its homes and streets with an impromptu mob.

The Times reports that after a string of robberies recently, residents had been on the watch for suspicious vehicles. Unsurprisingly, a car with a sphere of cameras mounted on its roof fit that bill.

Resident Paul Jacobs first saw the car. Jacobs went door to door alerting his neighbors, who gathered in the road. They blocked the Google car from passing and called the police. Eventually the driver turned around and left. Jacobs told the Times:

My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime. 

Personally, I had no idea Google was so powerful. I mean, I’ve seen The Googling, but apparently Google just considering taking photos of a neighborhood makes burglars target it. Because guess what? That crime wave they claim Google was “facilitating” took place without any help from Street View.

Naturally, UK law is quite different from to US law in the area of privacy. In the US, it’s well established that anyone can take a picture of your home without your consent (as long as they’re standing on public property to do so). Indeed, it’s only by actually entering your property that an action may be considered an invasion of privacy, and actionable by law.

The UK subscribes to the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 8: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” However, I’m willing to bet that “his home” doesn’t mean that we all have to pluck out our eyes if we walk down the street. If you can see it from the street, it may not be considered “private.”

To make things even more complex, there is no UK law legislating a right to privacy. Even in the US the “right to privacy” emanates from a penumbra from other rights guaranteed by the Constitution. However, the UK doesn’t even have that. According to Wikipedia, “An action may be brought under another tort and privacy must then be considered under EC law. In the UK, it is sometimes a defense that disclosure of private information was in the public interest.”

I’m not going to opine whether an image the exterior of one’s house is in the public interest (though, apparently, the details of the Beckhams’ marriage are…). But the fact of the matter remains: if you want real privacy, plant a hedgerow.

Or, y’know, form a mob to forcibly stop one car with cameras one time. Because that’s totally the proper, legal, mature way to behave.

More Google/Twitter Rumors to Drive You Crazy!

Rumors that Google is in negotiations to buy Twitter have been running rife for the past few months. TechCrunch kicks things up a notch by passing on a new rumor that “Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.”

But, before you either jump for joy, or abandon ship, AllThingsD pulls a Lee Corso’eque “not so fast!”

While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

At this point it’s hard to determine which is the more likely scenario. It seems pretty clear that Twitter will continue to grow in stature, so Google would be wise to buy the company now–before its valuation skyrockets.

However, Google also once tried making a go of the microblogging space–and failed miserably–so perhaps simply doing a partnership with Twitter is the better option.

What’s your take?

Alexa Wants Bloggers’ Attention Again; Gives Back Inflated Rankings

Spotted by Daily Blog Tips, Alexa.com has made a dramatic change to the way it calculates the traffic rank of certain sites. It appears that sites that were recently penalized for having too much of their traffic from social media are once again finding favor with Alexa’s algorithm. And I think I know why.

At the exact time that Alexa cut back the rank of sites like MarketingPilgrim.com and other blogs, us internet marketers stopped talking about, and using, the service. We quietly decided that any metric that didn’t give us the credit due, was not one we wanted to tell our readers and clients about. 

Now, this is just my speculation–after all, I doubt many marketers would admit to this or even be consciously aware that they had turned their back on Alexa for this reason, but trust me, we all did it. So, what is Alexa to do? How can it win back our attention? Attention that has since been focused on competitive solutions such as Compete and Quantcast? Simple! Gradually increase the Alexa rank of influential bloggers, get them bragging about their Alexa rank again, and hopefully ride the wave of free publicity that comes with it.

Or you can skip the whole "gradually increase their Alexa rank" stage and jump straight to the "OMG my Alexa rank just jumped 120,000 points overnight" stage. 

Expect to see Alexa slowly make its way back into blogging conversations again.

RIM’s App Mall Opens at BlackBerry AppWorld

On Wednesday, Research In Motion (RIM), threw the doors open on its much anticipated AppWorld. Thisstorefront is their response to the hugely popular iPhone App Store that provides access to over 25,000 applications for iPhone users to choose from. While not nearly as robust (according to MediaPost there were only 500 apps available upon launch out of a promised 1000) it’s a start for BlackBerry users. Honestly, who has the time to sift through 25,000 apps anyway?

Mobile advertising spend is heating up and poised for serious growth in the near future so BlackBerry’s move in this direction is a good one. Other companies aiming to follow Apple’s lead by launching their own app stores include Microsoft, Palm, Nokia and Google.

While one wonders just how many iPhone converts there would be in the world if the AT&T issue was out of the picture, the BlackBerry is still the corporate smart phone of choice. They had better make sure their offering is as attractive as possible for as long as possible as the prospect of the iPhone being more widely available sits at the end of the initial 5 year AT&T agreement.

BlackBerry’s AppWorld is doing its best to make the experience a good one

I

n addition to offering user ratings, screenshots and app descriptions, App World also lets BlackBerry owners make recommendations via email and other messaging options. A section called My World also lets users keep track of apps they have downloaded and to uninstall any they no longer want. 

Downloading applications from App World requires a PayPal account, and users can access the store via cellular and WiFi networks. 

One big difference between the BB’s AppWorld and Apple’s App Store is price. There is a $2.99 minimum price on the BB apps and just 99 cents at Apple. That combined with the limited number of apps currently offered by AppWorld constitutes the biggest differences in the offerings.

There are many more apps in the market for the BlackBerry that are not part of the store. The expectation is that most of these will migrate to the store over time since the distribution power will be significant as BB users catch on.

Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis , says that AppWorld rates favorably when compared with the App Store.

“Both are well-organized and offer reviews and app purchases over the air,” he said, while noting that it was still “premature” to do a side-by-side comparison. 

It should be interesting to see how the more traditional business user responds to this concept and just what business apps start to become available. Expect some of these apps to be much pricier as well. The BizTrackit app from Shrunken Head Software for professionals with billable clients, for instance, costs $39.99 via App World.

As always we want your feedback. Have you been there? Do you care? Do you dare say that you have a Blackberry rather than the “cool” iPhone at all? Comment at your own risk. For total disclosure, I am a BlackBerry Storm user. Pretty happy with it but now interested to see what else I might be able to do with it in the future.

It’s the Weekend! Have a 10 Pack!

In what could open up a whole new set of search lingo like “head of local search” terms etc. Google is now giving local results in their SERP’s without needing the searcher to ID a local qualifier. Now when you have the emergency need for a lawyer you can save yourself a few seconds by not having to type your city or town name to find one. Well, that is really oversimplified but sounds cool.

As reported by Mike Blumenthal, Search Engine Watch and Cathy Rhulloda, Google is now using your IP address and other location qualifiers to give its local “10 pack” of results as local solutions to your one word request. If I now need a lawyer in Raleigh, NC I can just search “lawyer” and on the first page, usually around the fourth or fifth result, I will see the 10 pack.
These same results will show up at the top of the SERP if you use a local geographic qualifier so Google is not quite committing whole heartedly to saying local is the absolute best result for these types of searches. They are however ratcheting up the level of prominence of a company’s Google Maps profile since the sheer number of searches that it can appear in has gone up considerably in many cases. 

Results initially are spotty. In other words, it doesn’t work for all terms. This is a pretty strong development, though, as it relates to local search. All the more reason to make sure you small business types claim and optimize your listings.

Will You Miss Newspapers When They’re Gone?

I don’t read the Raleigh News & Observer during the week, but I do enjoy reading it at the weekend. There’s something relaxing and familiar about reading printed news with my coffee and breakfast. As much as I enjoy the experience, I’ve noticed that more and more ads are filling up the pages–with less articles, and in some cases, complete sections being retired. I knew the newspaper industry was hurting, but I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten, until I read this report from TechCrunch.

According to the latest industry figures, newspaper advertising is free-falling:

■Print advertising declined 17.7% in 2008
■Classifieds fell 29.7%
■Online advertising–which most newspapers a focusing on–was down 1.8%
Overall, total newpaper advertising revenues were down 16.6% to $37.85 billion. When you look at the quarterly trends, you can quickly see that things are not likely to get better:

3Q07: -7.4%
4Q07: -10.3%
1Q08: -12.85%
2Q08: -15.11% 3
3Q08: -18.11%
4Q08: -19.74%

Why I’m so stunned by the huge numbers is because newspapers have aggressively added more advertising per page. I’ve sometimes flipped through 4 pages of nothing but ads, before finally getting to the next story.

Now, I’m not about to suggest the Obama administration send over a government bailout, but what would our world be like without printed newspapers? I, for one, I hope I’ll always be able to pick up a newspaper at the weekend, but it’s not looking like that will be an option 10 years from now.

How about you? Do you still read a printed newspaper? Will you miss them if the all close down? 

PS? Below is the soundtrack for the newspaper industry. 

Google Hasn’t Stopped Hiring

Last week’s news of Google letting 200 sales and marketing employees go certainly raised eyebrows. Many are wondering whether the search giant is getting leaner and meaner or if they are being dinged by the current state of the economy. If the 360 jobs listed on their website are any indication one has to think that their main reason for the actions of last week were to, like they said, eliminate redundancy and unnecessary layers. Having that many jobs posted certainly is encouraging for those that fit the profiles of these openings.

Of the jobs offered only 30 or so are in the sales and marketing area. There appears to be a rather international flair to the openings as well. If you are looking for that account management position in Cairo that you always wanted this may be your chance. Sales not your thing? How about an engineering position in Krakow?

Other opportunities include being part of the food services group (weren’t they cutting back on that?) or being a Transportation Program Manager which would require overseeing the bike program at the Mountain View campus. A Reuters article notes that while this does seem like a lot of opportunity there is definitely a change occurring at Google.

Google’s headcount has swelled in recent years, reaching 20,222 employees at the end of 2008 compared with 10,674 at the end of 2006.

But the company has slowed hiring in recent quarters as new finance chief Patrick Pichette made controlling costs a bigger priority. In the fourth quarter, Google’s headcount grew less than 100 employees after jumping by between 400 and more than 2,000 employees per quarter during the past couple of years. 

So what’s an analyst’s take on this? Robert Haley of Gabelli & Co. gives Google a buy rating.

Haley said he expects Google’s revenue to continue to grow this year. And as long as Google’s revenue growth outpaced its growth in operating expenses, Haley said he was not worried the continued hiring would work against preserving profit margins. 

Overall, it is unlikely that Google is hurting like the rest of the world. As we have alluded to here before they just seem to be getting older and wiser. This doesn’t bode so well for those other guys who still have aspirations of making a dent in Google’s dominant search position. If Google keeps acting responsibly who knows what might happen. That kind of behavior sure would be a change of pace in this world.

Does Social Media Really Have the Pulse of the People?

Advertising Age has an interesting position in the business world these days. The publication is sometimes representative of the old guard. I remember at PubCon in Las Vegas where that point was made in a video that Rance Crain, AdAge’s editor-in-chief, was shown saying that Blendtec simply needed to take out print ads to accomplish what was done with its “Will It Blend” campaign. Ouch. He didn’t appear to be on top the one of more impressive stories of the social media marketing age.

In a story from Ad Age today, however, there are some interesting thoughts to consider regarding the real power of social media and how marketers should react to it. For those of us who hang around the industry it may seem like we are really on top of everything that is going on. Apparently we are but in a much smaller universe than we may like to think. In other words, if the Twitterati and all the other social media “leaders” screamed at once at the top of their keyboards about anything the sound wouldn’t reach oh, about 90% of the world.

For instance, it was reported that when the mommy blogger army was upset about ads run for Johnson and Johnson’s Motrin they brought J & J to its knees. In a way they did because the ads were pulled. Further research from Lightspeed Research shows however that 90% of women had never seen the ad and once viewed:

■45% liked the video
■41% had no feelings about it
■15% didn’t like it.
■8%, said it negatively affected their feelings of the brand
■32% who said it made them like the brand more
Not exactly the kind of numbers you might expect given the “outrage” of the social media world. So was J & J premature in its actions to pull the ads? Did they give too much power to too few voices? These are the kinds of questions that marketers will be faced with when making decisions about the real impact of social media “buzz”.

Remember the whole hubbub about Skittles and their daring campaign? Well, it seems like that may have looked big to some of us but most of the world didn’t know or even cared if it happened. At Communispace which has a pretty tech savvy group for its make up, only 6% of 300 people surveyed knew about the Skittles deal.

“The data is a really compelling reminder that a lot of our target consumers are not the people who are sitting on Twitter freaking out over a packaging design that they don’t like,” said Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. She added, “These are people online, having conversations, and yet they are totally out of the loop on stuff us marketing junkies love to obsess over.”

The article does go on to say that it is not a good idea to ignore small groups of impassioned people but it may not be in a marketer’s best interest to scream “How high?!” when someone in the Twitterverse yells “Jump!”.

Ms. Hessan summed it up well by saying

“Listening doesn’t mean getting one small piece of data and taking action,” Ms. Hessan said. “Sometimes it means getting a piece of data and probing further.”

So what is Pilgrims? Is this social media thing more important to those who work in it directly or indirectly than it is to the vast majority of the world? What is the real impact of the social media movement? Most importantly, as marketers how do you measure and respond to the voices? How do you tell who they really are and how many of them are really out there and what influence they have at this early stage?

I’m sure there are more than a few opinions out there. But will we hear you?

A Higher Education in Social Media

Forget spending years in grad school toiling away on an advanced marketing degree. Birmingham City University in the UK is going to begin offering a MA course in Social Media. All you social media junkies out there, grab your backpacks and passports!

Jon Hickman, the course convener, had this to say about the year-long program:

It’s not for freaks or IT geeks, the tools learnt on this course will be accessible to many people.

During the course we will consider what people can do on Facebook and Twitter, and how they can be used for communication and marketing purposes.

There has been significant interest in the course already, and it will definitely appeal to students looking to go into professions including journalism and PR.

While the university has expressed that there’s lots of support and interest already, students are voicing criticism that the course is too simple and could be self-taught.

I have to agree that this seems like it’s enough for a course at a community college, but not enough for an entire Masters program to orbit around. Most social media is self-taught, and fairly simple to grasp and master. Programs like this lend credence to the “social media experts” out there that charge $5000 just to set up a Facebook profile for the uninitiated.

Should we give credence to these experts? I don’t think so, but I’m sure others would disagree with me. It’s a great thing to see social media gain such widespread acceptance as to add it to college-level curricula. I’m all for that. But does it really require its own masters degree? What do you think?

Trisha Lyn Fawver is the Director of Affiliate Marketing with New Edge Media, where she manages affiliate programs, blogs, and explores the world of social media.

Google Ventures Launches with “We May Steal Your Idea” Caveat

If you’re a start-up that’s making moves despite the recession, Google wants to hear from you. Specifically, Google Ventures–the newly launched venture capital arm of the search giant–wants to hear from you.

Google Ventures has around $100 million to invest and is interested in "early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care"–basically any hot company seeking seed finance.

According to the NYT, Google Ventures has already made two investments:

Silver Spring Networks, a company that makes technology to help manage electric grids, and Pixazza, which links online images with related products that can be purchased. Google declined to say how much it invested in those companies.

Now, before you go sending big brother your killer business plan, keep in mind that–like most VC firms–you’re practically giving Google Ventures the right to steal your idea and not pay you a penny.

Note the disclaimer language on the site (emphasis added):

We welcome new ideas. However, please do not send us information that you consider to be confidential or proprietary. Because of what we do, we receive a high volume of business plans, presentations, pitches, memos - you get the picture - and because these materials are often similar, because they come to us in a variety of forms, and because we read a ton of stuff, we cannot and do not accept responsibility for protecting against the misuse or disclosure of any information unless we have expressly agreed (in writing) to do so.

In other words, send us your business plan but if we don’t invest and instead launch a competing service, you’re, er, SOL buddy.

Online Ad Spending Grows 10%; Video Ads Strong (Just Not at Google)

In yesterday’s report, we informed you of the dramatic decline the newspaper industry is seeing in advertising revenue. Perhaps the most shocking revelation was that newspapers saw a 1.8% decline in online advertising revenues. You might have downplayed that decline due to the overall decline of online spending. However, new data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, in conjunction with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, reveals growth of just over 10% in online ad spending.

Web ad spending hit $23.4 billion in 2008, up 10.6 percent over 2007. Fourth quarter 2008 revenue growth was more conservative at 2.6 percent; total online ad spending for the quarter was $6.1 billion.

While that 10.6% growth is down from the whopping 26% growth seen in 2007, it’s still pretty darn good–and shines a bright spotlight on just how badly the newspaper business is doing with its migration to online formats.

Breaking down online ad growth, we see that search grew 20% and performance-based ads rocked the house with an impressive 57% share of all ad spending.

I’ll leave you with one stat that left me scratching my head

[David Silverman, partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers] cited video ad spending as a significant growth category. Video advertising revenue rose from 2 percent in 2007 to 3 percent of overall online ad spending in 2008.

So why did Google just shut down its video ad units?

YouTube/Disney Deal: Clips & In-Stream Ads

Google seems to be going back and forth over the video advertising business lately. First they mention Google TV Ads Online, then they pull AdSense video units, despite growth in aggregate online video ad revenue. And now they’re announcing a deal between YouTube and Disney/ABC to show clips and in-stream commercials on the most popular video site on the Internet.

The deal includes several ad-supported YouTube channels with professional content from Disney, including teasers and recaps for popular sitcoms from its child company ABC. Part of the revenue is slated to come from in-stream ads on this content sold by ABC. In addition to YouTube’s InVideo overlay ads and banners, Disney will also test pre-rolls with their content.

ClickZ reports that a pending YouTube redesign will highlight the professional content from Disney and other studios:

the current homepage tabs “videos,” “channels,” and “community” will be replaced with tabs for “shows,” “movies,” “music,” and “videos.” The first three tabs will display premium shows, clips, and movies from Google’s network and studio partners, all of which will be monetized with in-stream advertising. Meanwhile the “videos” channel will house amateur and semi-pro content of the sort major brand advertisers have shied away from. 

The move toward professional content may show that YouTube is a little concerned about the up-and-coming Hulu.com, now number #2 in the overall video site standings. Hulu features premium television content, and has seen amazing growth since its premiere only eighteen months ago.

However, a deal with Disney may not be enough for YouTube, since, as YouTube points out,

Disney/ABC is rumored to be in talks to buy an equity stake in Hulu, the rapidly growing video entertainment portal jointly owned by News Corp. and NBC Universal. If that rumored deal takes place, ABC shows would likely become available in their entirety on Hulu — leaving YouTube out in the cold for the foreseeable future. 

Should YouTube leap on this deal to try to entice Disney to get full episodes? Or is YouTube’s place set as the clip capital of the web?