Fri, 2008-Sep-5 by nmw.

How will Google be making out with its users when they fire up an instance of chrome?

Will the hash be open or closed? Will the URLs that Google is tracking remain top secret?

I have asked on Matt Cutts’ blog…

and I received no response — and that means (to me): people who want Google tracking their every move should go ahead and install Google Chrome. People who prefer to remain untracked (and free from Google’s soliciting practices) would do well to “wait and see”.

Especially because there doesn’t seem to be any compelling advantage to download and install Google software on your personal computer (and therefore all of the privacy organization alarm bells are ringing loud and clear).

But suit yourself — just don’t come back and say I didn’t tell you so (because that’s what I just did! ;) ….

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Sun, 2008-Aug-10 by nmw.

Many Web 2.0 “Pillars of Wisdom” Have Pulled Up Their Anchors — and Now the Users of these Sites are Adrift…

If you feel “betrayed” by what you thought was a reliable website, what alternative(s) do you have?

That topic is addressed in this rather lengthy article: Trust Won, Trust Lost :: The End of Web 2.0 (From Vision to Reality)

So what’s your opinion — are you a slave to the websites you use?

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Sat, 2008-Aug-2 by nmw.

In case you didn’t know, the social bookmarking site “del.icio.us” has decided to ditch it’s name (and over 700 million references to it’s name in Google’s index) behind.

Hmmm…

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Wed, 2008-Jul-23 by nmw.

Yesterday

ah, all that business seems so far away! :D — So what do I recommend for “summer reading”? How about Groundswell? I am happy that MWJV has received a personalized copy of this book ( via the very influential Susan Bratton ;) ! OK, before you start calling me a shill, let me explain why I think you should read Charlene Li’s book.

I agree

( First of all: note I haven’t read all of the book yet — and so if you would like to read it for me and then tell me what you think of it, then please: be my guest! ;)

But second of all, I have read and been inspired by Ms. Li’s work over the years, and especially (third of all): Charlene’s interview with Susan was very interesting and insightful ( and maybe even a little revealing ;)…. The crux of Mrs. Li’s research lies at the intersection of people with technology — and this is basically what language is all about (indeed: it is very closely related to issues raised in the Wisdom of the Language article) — language is the technology we use to communicate how we understand the world we live in (and [according to Chomsky] it’s actually deeply intertwined with our nature [as human beings] — in other words: language is the quintessential “hermeneutic tool”).

The reason why I am eager to read Charlene’s book is to learn more about the those aspects of the intersection of people and technology which are apparently independent of language (and many of these, I feel, may very well be addressed in the book). Currently the book is making its rounds through the office, and I have already set it on my “Indian Summer” reading list — and I look forward to poring over all of the nitty-gritty details!

Posted in Games, Video (only), Commerce, Advertising, Experts, Marketing, Audio (only), Audio-Visual, Media Types, Websites & Website Design, Text, Plain Text, HTML, Domains & Domain Names | Print | No Comments »

Mon, 2008-Jul-21 by nmw.

Google Q2 Earnings Call

There were some interesting questions posed on the earnings call — here are a couple “highlights”:

Justin Post (Merril Lynch ) 33:55 - 37:38

“Eric, on the press release you chose to highlight that you are seeing some economic weakness — and I don’t think the company was talking much about that last quarter — are you seeing things kind of deteriorate a little bit further than where we were about a quarter ago (and can you get some color on that)?”

34:50 Eric Schmidt “there’s a flight to quality — and in particular a flight to measurability”

35:55 Hal Varian (parts somewhat inaudible) “as times get a little uncertain, price-sensitive consumers are [going to be shopping more carefully] and trying to make every dollar count — and that means they’re going to be doing research online and they’re going to be doing shopping online… so I think we have a little bit of the wal-mart effect going on, that as times get tough, people are going to watch their dollars — and in may cases that means doing more shopping online.”

45:35 - 48:30 Mark Mahany (Citi) [re: Increase in G&A costs]

[Main increase due to legal, professional & outsourcing services]

48:18 Eric Schmidt “unfortunately the legal stuff is bursty, because — you know: we have suits, we… well, you know: welcome to the information economy — next question!”

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Wed, 2008-Jul-9 by nmw.

News is slow, I’m slow — Acquisition Happens

OK, so this is a week old — who cares?

Since when is Google a Publisher?

Are we going to see an Op/Ed page sometime soon? Like “in our opinion, the web should look like X”?

Google needs to shape up or ship out — but they’re already in China, right?

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Wed, 2008-Jul-2 by nmw.

I just posted a comment at John Battelle’s searchblog

… and the comment was so long that I guess it was held for review. I will link to it if/when it appears on the blog, but I also want to share it with you right away.

Here it is:

Rob,

thank you for the “free” information! :D

In your SEL article, you state: “The committee wanted a full range of witnesses, all with different experiences from using search marketing.” However, if I type in something like “debate video”, then isn’t it true that I am also *demanding* a certain type of information that could be supplied by many information suppliers (so in other words: not only by the google.com media empire — which includes youtube.com — but also by the Commission on Presidential Debates [at Debates.ORG ])? I am a little disappointed that people who use the Internet to search for information were not included in the panel — it seems to me that the panel was rather skewed towards *PROVIDERS* of content/advertising rather to the detriment (or complete absence) of *END USERS* of such content/advertising.

Note that according to *my* view of the process, there are currently several players involved in “information gathering / provision”:

1. the information “seeker” (”end user”)
2. the information “provider” (”advertiser”)
3. the “transaction participant” (”business owner”)

From the videos provided at youtube.com, it appears that you and other members of the panel were either transaction participants or advertising representatives / agents (though not advertisers or similar “information providers” themselves). Regrettably, information seekers were entirely absent from the panel.

I would guess that for every advertiser/information provider there are maybe 100 or 1000 (or more?) information seekers. You yourself stated that you order placement on Google’s network of websites for about 10,000 keywords (I assume you’re including keyword phrases and common typographical errors such as “eaby” in that number) by paying Google some “pay per click” amount to have your result show up as #1 result on Google’s engine (and, as was noted during the hearings, you are apparently indeed showing up at the top of the results on Google.COM). I have now found a term to succinctly describe this phenomenon — I will call it: the “Wisdom of the Wallet”.

If you compare the results provided by wisdom of the wallet with the the results “wisdom of the language” (see http://gaggle.info/miscellaneous/articles/wisdom-of-the-language ), I think you will find that the wisdom of the language is more reliable than the wisdom of the wallet (you yourself noted during the hearing that virtually anyone could appear at the top of results for almost any keyword search phrase on a ppc engine such as Google).

Contrast that with the highly reliable information to be found at debates.org or physician.md (etc.): Indeed — I have found that the younger generation of “digital natives” are in fact very aware of their presence/location on the Internet (however: they are perhaps not as aware of the process of media conglomeration that is occurring if/when Google acquires other companies such as YouTube.COM or Yahoo.COM or forms close partnerships with other large media companies such as AOL/Time Warner or NewsCorp).

I feel that when these digital natives “come of age” and realize that Google is ranking results according to the “wisdom of the wallet”, they will start to think about it — and ultimately will also begin to look elsewhere. I just looked at dogs.com and hunting.com — and I must say that I am impressed with the apparent effectiveness of those search engines, which are apparently more focused on highly targeted audiences of consumers than general “one-size fits-all” ppc engines such as Google or Yahoo.

Presently, all search engine algorithms are strongly influenced by what is commonly referred to as “navigational” results. Therefore, hunting.net appears as the #1 result for a search on “hunting”. The ads on the homepage of hunting.net are delivered by “DoubleClick” (an advertising agency Google recently acquired). Note that the “title” field of the homepage of hunting.net reads “huntingnet.com” — a rather confusing and therefore dubious marketing tactic. In contrast, hunting.com doesn’t even appear in the results provided by Google (not in the first 10 results, and not even among the first 10 pages of results).

Currently, hunting.net is also #1 at Yahoo for the keyword / search term “hunting”) — but at least hunting.com is #2.

Do you think that if Yahoo enters a deal with Google to place Google’s advertising partners at the top of Yahoo’s results pages, that hunting.com may be removed from the top of the results page at Yahoo (like it apparently is being removed at Google)?

Thank you again for sharing your knowledge of this industry.

:) nmw

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Thu, 2008-Jun-26 by nmw.

I managed to grok a little php!

Just very basic stuff — but I am nonethless proud to announce the relaunch of Browse.NAME! It’s only a start — I plan to roll out more features. The “top websites” window will have both a “default” page and also keword / keyphrase related links. And of course the “white hat” approach totally decimates the “big-media” / “traditional”/ “old-fashioned” one-size fits-all search engine “black box” approach.

Gimme some feedback

Since I’m still developing this project, I would love to hear your feeback regarding whether you think it’s good, what could be better, etc.

Thanks for your help!

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Tue, 2008-Jun-24 by nmw.

ICANN apparently intends to sell strings to the highest bidder

Does this mean that apples will no longer refer to fruit, but only to fashionable computers? What is an apple farmer to do, if he/she is outbid by a multinational computer company?

The New Market for …

So there are plenty of 3- or 4-letter words that could become markets for a wide range of goods & services — who will regulate the trades (or will there be no regulation whatsoever)?

This could become very amusing very fast….

(for additional background, please see the BBC news article)

Posted in Marketing, Advertising, Commerce, Domains & Domain Names | Print | 1 Comment »

Wed, 2008-Jun-18 by nmw.

Is That All There Is?

Well, er, um,… — NO! If you go to Advertise-My.COM then you will see links to  Advertise-My.NET and Advertise-My.ORG — each of these properties are for specific target audiences (not demographic — but rather “psychographic” audiences).

Making IT Click

Of course all of this will probably make more sense if you actually click through and try it out….

:) nmw

ps: yes, I realize it’s very bare-bones — I personally like no-nonsense websites that are super-light and quick; however, if you have a suggestion for how it could be improved, I’m quite open to any & all suggestions! ( It’s really just a start and I would love to hear what you suggest :)

Posted in Experts, Projects, Marketing, Advertising, Websites & Website Design, Commerce, Domains & Domain Names | Print | 1 Comment »