Jul
31st

Television & Search – Contextualizing Out of Context

Posted by Luke on July 31, 2008 at 10:51 am

With the promise of greater interactivity and content capacity, a few television networks have begun to pull from the online marketing playbook.

Comcast recently acquired social networking site Plaxo, with the intent of allowing family and friends to share programming in a viral way and through various media devices.

kevin from the office Meanwhile, Turner Entertainment Networks has announced it will be indexing content within television shows in order to serve contextually relevant ads during commercial breaks. If you’re familiar with Google AdWords, then you understand this is exactly how contextual targeting works when serving text ads within Google’s content network.

While it depends on the client, it can be quite difficult to achieve the same metrics and success in Google’s content network when compared to Google Search and the search network. Clearly, users within the content network may be in the earliest stage of the consumer purchasing decision process; however, serving ads on relevant content pages is the primary concern.

While I commend Turner Entertainment on attempting to apply search relevancy to television advertising, all I can think of is the potential for inappropriate contextual matches based on such an automated system. Michael Boland, Senior Analyst with The Kelsey Group provides a great example:

Seeing an ad for United Airlines after the crash scene(s) in “Lost” probably isn’t what you want.

Furthermore, Boland points out that:

Albeit, low volume/high margin television advertising makes this easier to police than the billions of long tail contextual ads served online. But for the same reason, when a mistake is made, a whole lot more people get to see it.

Probing even deeper, the use of a Staples paper shredder by the character Kevin in an episode of The Office is not enough justification for serving a 30 second Staples spot. Watching The Office does not say anything about my interest in Staples office supplies or office supplies in general. If anything, watching The Office says something about my interest in comedy or Steve Carell.

While it may be a step in the right direction, television networks need to start thinking outside of the 30 second commercial spot before they get contextual targeting right.

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Jul
30th

And the Winner is…….

Posted by admin on July 30, 2008 at 9:14 am

An interesting piece of info slid across my workspace this foggily sunny morning that just may be of interest to everyone out there in the digital inter-web. Apparently our chief here at Oneupweb, Lisa Wehr, has been inundated with awards as of late.

Recently she was named one of BtoB Magazine’s Who’s Who of 2008, making it five consecutive years. I reiterate for emphasis: five consecutive years. This makes her the first and only individual in the search marketing category to be recognized five times in a row, and also probably the only former sled dog racer in the category as well.

And if that’s not rad enough, Lisa also garnered another honor, being recognized by Corp! Magazine’s Entrepreneurs of Distinction. Corp! Magazine, Michigan’s Largest Business Magazine, chose their honorees by their impressive business activities, major accomplishments, special skills and innovative approaches.

Instead of basking in the glow of her accomplishments, Lisa diverts the credit to us background singers, we Merry Men to her Robin Hood, her hard-working employees, “It takes a great team that contributes ideas and executes decisions. I’m really fortunate because I get to work everyday with a fantastic group of smart, innovative people. I feel a huge sense of responsibility towards them and our continued success.“

And really, this is all pretty neat when one puts it into perspective: in just over 12 years Oneupweb has gone from a 4-person crew operating out of her basement to a collection of talented employees working in a 23,000 square foot building resting on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. And even before all that Lisa has worked in Alaska in competitive dog sled racing, displaying the same determination and strategy that would help her receive several awards in the field of digital marketing and search optimization.

So from all of us at Oneupweb, we’d like to belt out a big “Congratulations, Lisa!”

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Jul
29th

Can Anyone Compete with Google?

Posted by Chip on July 29, 2008 at 3:13 pm

You don’t have to be an industry insider to know that Google is the dominant player in the world of search. Over the years the search engine has gone from a new player with a lot of promise, to one of the major engines, to being almost synonymous with search itself.

In fact it wasn’t long ago that the word “google” was added to both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as a verb. Fearing the dilution of its brand and the potential loss of its trademark, Google resisted the use of the name as a verb, but to no avail.

While Google may have lost the name game, it’s definitely winning the search war. With its market share fast approaching 80% and paid search revenues that are truly mind boggling, I don’t believe there are too many people out there feeling sorry for Google. To the contrary, some would say that Google is in need of some real competition.

So where is this competition going to come from? What is it going to take for a competitor to make a stand against the search giant that is Google?

Cuil Hand Luke?

If you follow the search industry at all you’ve undoubtedly heard a lot about Cuil (pronounced “cool”) this past week. Entering the space with more fanfare than any new search engine deserves, Cuil is being billed by many as an engine that might eventually have the ability to compete with Google for market share.

While I do like Cuil’s interface, and I always try to cut new engines plenty of slack when they first roll out, I’ve not seen or read anything that convinces me of its ability to compete with Google in any meaningful way. Stay tuned to find out if I’m wrong but I think that we’ve gotten to a point where it’s going to take a lot more than a massive index and some big names to un-seed Google as the engine of choice for the masses.

The Merging of Microsoft & Yahoo

While I really don’t feel like rehashing this topic today, I’d be remiss not to at least mention Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Yahoo while posting about this topic. After all, isn’t it just as likely that Google’s competition will come from some well established players rather than a brand new engine? And isn’t the desire to compete with Google the main motivator for Microsoft to originally pursue this deal?

But even if you combine MSN, Live and Yahoo’s market share you only end up with around 17%. That’s quite a bit better than anyone else has been doing in quite some time but I doubt it’s the height of Microsoft’s aspirations.

Microsoft’s BrowseRank

Thinking beyond merger possibilities, Microsoft has developed a new method of evaluating web pages called BrowseRank. Separating itself from Google’s PageRank, the idea behind BrowseRank is that analyzing a page according to traffic and time spent on a page is a much better indicator of quality than a mathematical evaluation of links to a page.

I’m not going to hash out the process of computing page importance here as that would be an entire post in itself, but I do have to admit that the idea is intriguing to me. You can learn more about BrowseRank here (PDF).

Improving on Relevancy

So will Microsoft be able to provide meaningful competition to Google? Will Cuil be able to live up to the promise that it holds? Perhaps a better question is whether anyone can compete with Google at this point?

After all, Google didn’t get to where it is today by acquiring smart start ups or by raking in paid search revenue like nobody’s business. Google got to where it is today by providing a level of relevancy to search that had not been seen before.

As we instinctively align ourselves against the established power, we often times forget what brought Google to power in the first place. We did. And we did it in the name of relevancy.

Is there room today to improve upon the level of relevancy that Google has established?

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Jul
28th

Jumping on the Olympic Adwagon

Posted by Lawrence on July 28, 2008 at 11:16 am

It seems that everyone, including the media, advertisers and athletes, are jumping on the Olympic adwagon for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The internet has become a vital information channel for audiences watching the Olympic Games, and the ad world is utilizing the latest high-speed video streaming and social media technologies to capture the attention of the Olympics’ global audience.

With a population of 1.3 billion people, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest internet population. According to an article in China Daily, it is estimated that Chinese internet users are spending about 570 million hours online per day. Within the next decade, China’s online advertising market is expected to increase to 85 billion yuan (approximately 12.4 billion U.S. dollars) from its current 9.34 billion yuan (approximately 1.3 billion dollars).

To reach this growing number of Chinese internet users, as well as the rest of the online world, many companies are using the Olympic Games in Beijing as a springboard.

Image:striatic

Coca-Cola is pushing the social media aspect with new software that allows people to pass “virtual Olympic torches” through instant messaging. So far, 58 million people have received the virtual torches. Coca-Cola also started a “Design the World a Coke” campaign, which allows users to create a custom Coke bottle design and then tallies the number of bottles created by country. Overall, Coca-Cola is spending an estimated $75 – $90 million in multimedia advertising to further build its brand in China, which is already Coke’s fourth largest market. China is expected to surpass the United States as the beverage company’s top market.

Another company that is getting involved with the online social aspect of the Olympics is Lenovo. The technology company has created blogs for 100 athletes and has given these athletes laptops and video cameras to chronicle their preparation for the games. Lenovo isn’t hosting the blogs on its own site, but is showcasing the blogs. In return, Lenovo only asks that the participating athletes display a “Lenovo Olympic Games Blogger” badge on their blogs.

McDonald’s has also expanded on its traditional Olympics advertising with a social strategy. The fast food company is offering an alternate-reality game called The Lost Ring, which is currently boasting more than 2 million players from 100 countries. The Lost Ring game challenges players to solve mysteries surrounding the Olympics.

Sohu.com Inc. is the internet content services sponsor of the Beijing Games and has reportedly paid $20 million for rights to host the Official Website of the Beijing Olympic Games, in addition to use of its logo. As the only website sponsor of the Olympics, Sohu.com plans to send a reporting team of more than 700 journalists to the Olympics.

Meanwhile stateside, NBC Universal has plans to sell $1 billion in commercial air time during the Beijing Olympics. According to Reuters, NBC has already sold more than $900 million in ad time for the upcoming Olympic Games by booking nearly 90% of its inventory three weeks ahead of the opening ceremony.

NBC Universal plans to air a record 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage between August 8 and August 24 across its broadcast, cable TV and online outlets. 2,200 of those hours are expected to be streamed live over the internet via NBCOlympics.com.

To track its Olympics audience across a variety of platforms, NBC is utilizing TAMI (Total Audience Measurement Index), which combines data from Nielsen Media Research, Omniture and Rentrak. With more precise audience measurements, NBC can prove the worth of its cross-platform reach and likely influence commercial sales for the 2012 games.

Whether you plan to watch the live feeds of the Olympic events, tune in for highlights and statistics, or just check out the latest advertisements, the online technologies in place for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are truly a union of people and ideas on a global scale.

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Jul
25th

Google's Project Knol – An Update

Posted by Mike on July 25, 2008 at 3:53 pm

It has been seven months since my original story on Project Knol, Google’s attempt to compete with Wikipedia. Earlier this week Knol finally went live to the masses.

I have had a chance to explore the service and found that, while it may have been under development for months, there are still some issues that need to be ironed out.

Lack of browsable categories

There seems to be a complete lack of browsable content categories at this point in time. The main page of the site offers a random assortment of knols under the heading “Plain old bag o’ knols”. Google might be trying to hide the fact that there isn’t much content available at this time since, despite there being a working search box at the top of the page, they say, “Who needs a search engine? CTRL+F” under the “Plain old bag” heading. I find this hilarious coming from the largest search engine company in the world.

Buried at the bottom of the page in a tiny font you’ll find a “browse” link that will take you to an unsorted list of fifty knols. At the time of this writing there were seven pages worth of knols available. 350 articles is a far cry from Wikipedia’s nearly 2.5 million but then again it is only the third day.

Complete breakdown

While writing this blog post it seems that the Knol site is suffering some server problems. The error displayed when attempting to visit the site is “knol pageview limit exceeded”.

This will most likely be resolved quickly but it just goes to show that Google might have pulled the trigger to release the project a bit too soon.

Despite these issues there are some pretty interesting features that set Knol apart from competitor Wikipedia.

Name verification

Knol authors are be able to verify their identity to help lend credibility to the content they post. You can verify your name by providing your phone number, entering a pin code when an automated system calls your number. Another option is to enter your credit card information so Google can check it against credit bureau databases. Name verification is currently only available to people living in the US.

AdSense ads

One of the most talked about features of Knol is the ability for authors to monetize the content they publish by allowing the display of AdSense ads within articles they publish. This can be seen as an incentive to write quality content that could potentially been seen by millions of visitors. So if you have an AdSense account just enter the details and start creating content for fun and profit.

Conclusion

It will be interesting to see if Knol becomes a true competitor to Wikipedia or if it will carve out its own niche on the web. Once the rough edges are smoothed over and more content is added it could become a force to reckon with in the future.

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