Pandora Squared - Web and Business Architects, Consultants, Social Media Marketing, Software and Blogging hope not hype

Now being used by four of our clients and live for more than thirty days. Built upon the Genesis Engine Operating system. Play with it today:

teamfocus

Crappy design could also be one reason why some “popular” sites get a lot of hits. Xeni Jardin demonstrates how this has happened to Myspace.

1. games cheat
2. play games
3. myspace
4. google
5. ebay
6. myspace.com
7. music lyrics
8. yahoo
9. top 100 baby names
10. game cheats for ps2
11. paris hilton
12. swimsuits
13. jenna jameson
14. from
15. dogs

It’s always very interesting what makes this list from month to month.

Games, The New Big Four, dogs, and Paris…

I about jumped out of my seat this morning when I read the article in Australian IT, that was oh so generously linked by Frank Arr Microsoft’s Evangalist and former CTO of NineMSN.

The Australian IT article does so many generic things like research Accenture, Gartner and IBM. They didn’t of course delve too deep into the IBM Blogging world or they would see that IBM itself is a leader in the world in: Blogging, Social Networking, and so called Web 2.0 initiatives.

The point is STOP IT. STOP the WEB 2.0 banter as if it is something new and some wonderful term that encompassess everything.

IT IS NOT ABOUT WEB 2.0 or some other naming cool thing of the day.

We have been saying it for years in Australia, we flew the team in and said it this morning in Manila, and we have been saying it in 5 major markets now for over 3 years:

It is about business and using technology as the enabler.

From the Article:

Accenture Australia technology consulting senior director Darren Russ says consumer sites that adhere to Web 2.0 principles are starting to make their corporate counterparts look tired in the eyes of new entrants to Australia’s workforce. bq. However, he says, he’s yet to find any major Australian enterprises or organisations prepared to commit to adopting Web 2.0 on a large scale. “Not at the moment,” he says. “Enterprises are just dipping their toes in the water, but we’re not aware of any organisation in Australia that’s moving to proper Web 2.0 interfaces.”

Gartner senior analyst Dion Wiggins says the Web 2.0 phenomenon is part of wider trend that has made the consumer market the “testing ground” for internet services, which later supply blueprints for enterprise applications. “I’d say that in a year’s time there’ll be a large number of enterprise products using Web 2.0, but today there are very few,” he says. We have Web 2.0 Enterprise Applications Today

Pandora Squared has an entire family of products that we have released for the Enterprise.

These products are being used TODAY, in corporations throughout south east asia.

Expect Pandora Squared’s announcement soon on these client partners and as well as our exciting investment news…

We have been so busy working on our TEAM Focus Family of products that we have neglected to start communicating about our most recent project…

TS MOO

We call this (for lack of a better definition) Top Secret Maybe One Organisation. OR TSMOO

We are kidding of course.

Truth is we have flown the entire Pandora Squared Team into Manila for The Leviticus Project.

A big part of The Leviticus Project is education, and of course launching brands around the user.

We just finished our Kickoff discussion with our client partner on the shift in the Web, and technologies behind this, most of this mornings discussion was a distilled version of our training program. We perfected this in April when we did our training at the Philippine Defense College, but no matter- each and every time we present and educate I feel we could have done so much better.

Here are the Points we suggest as the most important when it comes to understanding this shift.

Desire Lines

The Search

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Abandoning the news

Small Worlds phenomenon(network)

User Centric Business Models,

Agile and Extreme Programming as part of your markeitng!

(Youtube link of this mornings meeting will be inserted here)

Before leaving back to Manila, I had to get my fix. ManresaRestaurant.com

They were rated 39 of 50 best Restaurants in the World.

Because of that rating and proper site exposure they were ranked under the term “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” in Google. Let me tell you that got them traffic.

Now, they just implemented a blog, not allowing comments, but it’s a step.

Dell also (now) understands that they need a tool to communicate/converse with users.

Direct 2 Dell “one-2-one communications with DELL.” another blog w/ comments.

• You can not control the conversation you can only participate, listen or ignore.

• You must lead in search or be part of the user’s conversations.

• We have an operating system for social networks making the invisible markets and invisible converations visible to your organisation both within and without your company.

What would happen if you enabled your users with the tools that empowered them? Conversation Squared

MySpace, Google Ink $900 Million Search Deal

Adwords meet more low quality traffic.

...Google will provide several new search functionalities to MySpace-including category search, blog search, Web search, and search throughout the entire site—and will also provide a way for Fox to make some money off all the traffic MySpace generates. “This is an opportunity to monetize that traffic that we didn’t have before,” he said in a conference call Monday afternoon.

..David Berkowitz, director of strategic planning for search engine marketing firm 360i, added that Fox was “giving Google one of the best inventory sources out there right now.”

Sorry David, it’s not the BEST inventory source. It will further dilute Google’s AdSense content network & Google’s AdWords network.

No context and Purpose = Low Quality Traffic = Bad for Advertisers

But good for Google Stock Price.

NASDAQ:GOOG 377.95

A year ago MySpace was estimated to be making up to USD3 million per month in advertising, but analysts have now estimated that the new deal could bring in USD25 million per month based on search revenues alone.

Customers are getting more and more fickle. Perhaps more like smarter. Like it or not, companies still need to be more innovative. P&G innovation practices may hold some promise.

In March 2006, the Harvard Business Review showcased a new innovation paradigm in an article titled “Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble’s New Model for Innovation.” Its editor summed it up like so:

Procter & Gamble has operated one of the greatest research and development operations in corporate history. But as the company grew to a $70 billion enterprise, the global innovation model it devised in the 1980s was not up to the task. CEO A. G. Lafley decided to broaden the horizon by looking at external sources for innovation. P&G’s new strategy, connect and develop, uses technology and networks to seek out new ideas for future products. “Connect and develop will become the dominant innovation model in the twenty-first century,” according to the authors, both P&G executives. “For most companies, the alternative invent-it-ourselves model is a sure path to diminishing returns.”

Similar articles are here.

Now Luiz Moutinho argues: “Business products and services are more bought than sold! The internet has given prospects access to almost “perfect” information. They can control the buying cycle on their terms . . .”

Implication: Knowing how consumers think, is just a keyword/tagword search away. Consider that the ability to pull in consumers’ thoughts and insights is a key ingredient to the innovation process.

Then you may wonder: Just what kind and degree of search capability do suppliers/marketers need? We could go beyond google.

MySpace Outage Boosts Google Traffic
Thursday, Aug 3, 2006 6:00 AM ET
MYSPACE’S RECENT DOWNTIME LAST WEEK, caused by rolling blackouts in the Los Angeles area, sent its legions of users scattering across the Web in search of their Internet fixes, causing traffic spikes at Google and MySpace competitor Facebook.com, according to data released Wednesday by Hitwise. Google, among top sites, experienced the greatest spike—shooting from about 4.1 percent of total Internet visits to roughly 4.45 percent at the height of the outage, on July 23. Facebook.com went from .45 percent to roughly .50 percent during the same period. Hitwise also noted that MySpace users looking for love apparently went elsewhere. Dating sites experienced an increase of more than 10 percent in market share, and adult sites also experienced a “mild bump-up.”—Shankar Gupta

Whether a site goes down, or a shift in the industry – your search team should be getting those leads.

The power of Pay-Per-Click is instant TOP results.

Users default to search!

Be TOP in Search, be Part of the Conversation.

I will take those “mild bump-ups”.

After working closely in the moving and storage industry for the past couple of weeks. (Case Study coming soon) I have realized search is even more important then ever.

Companies frequently ask me how they can control the top 10 listings under their company name.

Why? References!!

Google is the #1 place to search for a reference.
Individuals moving want to make sure their belongings are safe and the move goes as smooth as expected. With sites like RipOffReport.com and BadBusinessBureau.com any competitor, disgruntled ex-employee, or unhappy customer can reach 1st page ranking with a single complaint/post if done correctly. Now these sites above are not just for moving companies but any industry.

These sites are a form of User Generated Content (filled with ads) that is regarded highly as “relevant” to the search engines.

What to do?

Control the top 15 listings at least. Make sure your listings have high Google PR (page rank) and can withstand a complaint or two.

Once a complaint reaches the top, two things can save you.
Time and another higher ranked page.

Listings can change daily. How are you tracking your companies name?