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

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.

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?

June 28th Google’s GBuy (Google’s new online payment system) is going to rock the stage.

Starting with a free no transaction beta stage, then moving towards a 1.5-2% fee.

Snap watch out. Pay-Per-Action’s second coming is happening very soon.

In the long term Google will tie Google AdWords with GBuy to serve more relevant ads to web searchers. Reducing click fraud and getting a bigger cut from the ecommerce world.

When working with a lot of clients AdWords accounts, trying to do bulk and quick changes is a tough thing to do. I mean how does one create new ad campaigns while on the plane?

Now I can!

“AdWords Editor is Google’s free, downloadable account management application for your computer. Download your AdWords account to your computer, make your changes, then upload your revised campaigns.”

It has been out for a while but of course invitation only. Now all can enjoy.

This exe application reminds me of the popular Flickr Uploadr tool which quickly allows you to upload pictures from your desktop. (faster then a speedy ff browser)

And you thought everyone is going toward the hosted Software as a Service apps.

What can I say, it’s what users demand..

We have recently integrated an application with Google Maps to graphically display key locations. The process is quite simple. Google made Javascript APIs that can be easily integrated with existing codes. Amazingly, this nifty feature can be implemented with less than 15 lines of code.

The first step is to sign up for the API key. This generates a key string that will be included in your script to serve as your identity. Afterwards, update your page to include the necessary javascripts. This is generally an easy task for intermediate programmers. I’d rather not explain the code as Google made reasonable efforts to document the API. It took me about 15 mins to get the sample code running, a few hours to customize the page and integrate with our database. Viola!

One issue was upon us though, Google maps require latitude and longitude information about the locations. Our database contain only address information. What we need is a geo-coding functionality that can translate a physical address into long/lat. There are some open-source projects for geo-coding, but the best we have tested is Yahoo Maps. How ironic, we’re using Yahoo Maps for geo-coding which will be fed to Google maps for viewing.

The process of using Yahoo Maps API is quite simple too. First step is to sign-up for an application ID. Then construct a REST command to issue the query. The syntax is well documented, too. So, the solution is to provide a lat/long “lookup” button within your data entry screen. For usability, we applied Ajax codes to perform the on-the-fly lookup. Due to some security issues with the browser connecting directly to yahoo maps URL, we ended up calling our server which in turn makes the request to Yahoo URL. Here is the js script that makes the call and here is Java code snippet that process the request.

Now, the solution is complete. We have Google maps to display the graphical maps based on lat/long stored in the database and Yahoo geo-coding to translate a physical address to lat/long. This is what I call Web 2.0 integration.

-Afterthought-

Has this been helpful we would like to know please comment and or link. integrating yahoo maps,

What happens when I enter your name in one of the top search engines or a social network?

Your search – “andie beckman” – did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

• Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
• Try different keywords.
• Try more general keywords.

Does this person exist? They say they graduated from here, and used worked here but yet I see no reference.

No reference on LinkedIn No reference on MySpace

No reference = no Existence

So what are some solutions?

• Write a Blog
• Comment on a blog post that you like
• Create several profiles on social networks
• Create a Personal Website
• Start or participate in a conversation online

You personal brand is directly correlated with a Google search of your name and remember everything online is indexable.

social development

“We’re excited to take the Tom Sawyer view, and see how our users paint the fence.” Marissa Mayer, vice president for search products and user experience, Google

Google wanted to help users generate content, and also organize and search for work created by fellow users.

They are late in the UGC game but understand that if they facilitate the content they will be in a much better position. With Wikipedia, MySpace, and YouTube gaining huge audiences, Google will not be left out.

Big brands are also trying to harness UGC. Chevrolet, Sony, L’Oréal, Converse, and Toyota are just touching the water of letting the users define the brands.

“The trick is that you have to let go…We’re used to dictating our messages and we’re used to being in control.” Mike Fasulo, the chief marketing officer for Sony Electronics.

Let Go and Let the User

Google unveiled four new products at the company’s press event on Wednesday, May 10, stressing that in spite of other gizmos and services it released in the past few months, the search giant is, after all, focused on search. One of the most interesting products is Trends, which tracks the search popularity of various keywords over specific periods.

The tool also tracks keyword popularity based on how many times these are mentioned in news items, or how many news stories were written about the keywords or phrases. Each keyword or keyphrase can be compared with the popularity of up to five other keywords or key phrases.

Tracking global search trends, this new Google facility shows the top cities and regions (listed as countries) where the searches originated and the languages used in searching.

In the example above, Google Trends lists the top regional origins of searches for phone brands Nokia, Motorola and Samsung.

Google Trends tracks the top languages used when searching for particular keywords.

News items about the sample keywords caused a spike in searches.

I personally like the at-a-glance trend reporting of this service, which takes much after Google Finance

The new search offering by Google is still in beta stage, so accuracy of data is still unreliable. The Bivings Report also reports that data do not update in real-time, but once a month. This is possibly problematic for researchers and search engine marketers who rely on constantly updated data. For more accurate search tracking, Yahoo Buzz is still probably the best bet.

The tool is useful for highly-searched or popular keywords but hardly shows data on keywords about local events even its in news report tracking.

The other services that Google launched are Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notes, which will be released next week.

Technorati Tags: Google Trends,

“Google received 8.2% of its traffic partly from its search tools that appear on pages within MySpace, making the social network the No. 1 source of traffic to Google, according to Bill Tancer of online research firm Hitwise” What if MySpace had a search engine?

”...global communities based on shared interests are actually the newest forms of clustering audiences for advertisers. And, where are a lot of these clustered audiences being formed? MySpace.”

But like I have said, wrote, and read before MySpace’s huge real estate has a low value. Google and Yahoo won’t touch it (only for testing) These networks already have a problem with “Low quality traffic” bringing MySpace on board will not help. The community is too broad and low converting.

“The search companies did not want to dilute their networks with so many ads for MySpace users, whom they said were not the best prospects for most marketing because they use MySpace for socializing, not buying.” For MySpace, Making Friends Was Easy. Big Profit Is Tougher. – New York Times

Ah yes the average rate paid for advertising on MySpace is about 10 cents for 1,000 impressions.

Millions of markets of dozens versus a dozen markets of millions.

It’s about relationships not impressions.

Conversations are king not clicks or impressions.

15% of Technorati’s traffic came from MySpace

2% of YouTube’s traffic came from MySpace MySpace influencers and the virtues of linking – MarketWatch

But how many conversations were started?

1. Apple
2. Google
3. 3M
4. Toyota
5. Microsoft
6. General Electric
7. Procter & Gamble
8. Nokia
9. Starbucks
10. IBM

This year’s list says it all. The name of the game is selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. Why? Because nobody has realized the gargantuan size of the invisible market made visible by the internet and technological revolution. Okay, so revolution might be too strong. The rebirth? New age? Or should we say renaissance? Regardless, the winners’ were winners because they observed and listened to what the customers needed and wanted. According to Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business and author of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution, innovation does not have to have anything to do with technology.

In fact, if we are to look at the results and to what these companies did, innovation is coming up with what the users’ desire, their needs and wants. As the Internet and globalization widen the pool of new ideas, empower the users to have a voice, companies and entrepreneurs for that matter, should also learn to listen to the conversations going on in the market. Apple is number one because they listened to these conversations. Jack Truong, vice-president of 3M’s office supply division, also said that (they)...listened carefully to what consumers didn’t say and observed what they did.