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Sergey Brin Might Do Google Buzz

Written on February 11, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Want to follow Google cofounder Sergey Brin on Google’s new microblogging service, Google Buzz? Brin says he might join in the future.
During the Google Buzz launch event, Brin spoke of being a big fan, even using it to gather opinions internally at Google about a New York Times opinion piece he was writing about Google [...]



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Sergey Brin Might Do Google Buzz

AOL’s Mutiny on the Bounty?

Written on January 26, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

So you are the new unencumbered AOL that has pushed its ship away from the Time Warner dock back in January. You are underway on a new journey that is supposed to reposition the company and put new life in the once iconic running man’s engine. In order for that to happen one would suspect that having the right people on the ship who plan to stick around would be the goal. Well, if that was the goal someone needs to make some new ones.

Yesterday it was announced that AOL’s CTO (chief technology officer) was getting off the boat. Considering that this journey isn’t even two months old yet this is not the kind of sign investors and others would like to see. All Things Digital tells us more

While AOL denied a report last week suggesting that CTO Ted Cahall is leaving, he actually is, um, leaving.

Oops!

Sources at AOL said the company thought Cahall was staying when it issued a statement saying he was not leaving. Cahall apparently had other plans.

Part of my job here at Marketing Pilgrim is to interpret news events. I do this from the point of view of the “everyman”. In other words, I am a regular guy like many who are readers here. So here I go with my opinion on this kind of a move at this point in time of the development of AOL as it moves into the future: OUCH! That’s gonna leave a mark.

Either something is seriously wrong there or, I don’t know…… you tell me. This is not a good thing to have happen and one has to suspect that we are not going to know just why this happened. The official word to employees from the main C-level guy at AOL, Tim Armstrong, reads like this.

Ted Cahall took on the role of CTO after I had asked him to move into that position from a broader business role at the company. Ted is the person who drove the complete replacement of our publishing systems and took AOL deeper into open-source technology, among many other accomplishments. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for the work he has done. Ted has decided to move back into the business side of technology and feels it’s the right time to move on from AOL. Ted has been a strong leader at AOL and agreed to transition the company to a new CTO. We are aggressively searching for a new CTO and we believe AOL is a very attractive opportunity for the right candidate.

Armstrong has been the CEO for less than a year and one of the guys he asked to move into this position has jumped ship. To make it even more odd is that AOL was denying this was even happening right before Cahall made his move.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to read between the lines here. So for all of you CTO types looking for your next gig, Tim says that AOL believes that it is a very attractive opportunity for the right candidate. I guess Cahall wasn’t the right one and one has to suspect that anyone who steps into that role in the future has a soft spot for Kool-Aid.

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AOL’s Mutiny on the Bounty?

Can Snail Mail Be Part of Social Media?

Written on January 12, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, book, marketing

The online space is certainly trying hard to cut the apron strings associated with traditional media techniques and practices. It can be hard though, to completely separate from something that may still have value. Think about how nice it was (or still is) to go back “home” and get that meal that you just can’t make on your own. While you never want to be back there 24 / 7 again there are certain things that are part of our past that will always have great value and we get to take the best of those things with us.

The same concept may apply to the Internet marketing world as well. As much as we try to break away and create our own identity separate from the traditional world of content generation, advertising, PR and every other piece of the overall marketing mosaic, there may be some things that will always have a place. One of them might even be snail mail.

An article in the Wall Street Journal talks about how there may be certain aspects of snail mail that carry importance even in the rush to digitize everything in our business lives. While not right for every business, part of the relationship building that we talk of as the most important aspect of the social web can be cemented with a good old fashioned handwritten note. For instance:

Looking to cut costs amid the recession, Alicia Settle initially thought it would be a good idea to eliminate her company’s annual direct mailing.

Spending about $20,000 on the personally signed letters, which offered customers a discount on early orders, seemed indulgent for Per Annum Inc., which sells city diaries, albums, and planners in the struggling corporate gift market. But after swapping snail mail for email last year, Ms. Settle saw a 25% drop in early orders compared with the same period the previous year.

“We realized we had made a huge mistake,” says Ms. Settle, president of the New York firm.

This is one of the dangers of taking established businesses and preaching that since online is the wave of the future that you need to go there. Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead into the future! Sure businesses do need to evolve but to what extent is completely dependent on what kind of business it is, what their existing customers are used to and how new customers can be attracted to the offerings.

As a result, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater so there may be room to get rid of some traditional marketing that is certainly unproductive in the new world order while keeping others. These “old school” activities like handwritten thank you notes and other techniques now are part of the whole social marketing fabric that can serve to benefit the new and the old customers. They are actually part of social media.

The idea is to send something that’s more appealing than “junk” mail and potentially more noticeable than an email message, says Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. That allows business owners “to offer a personal touch the larger firms may not be able to have,” he says.

Prof. Anderson says other business owners are trying to figure out how to integrate Web marketing—such as email campaigns, banner ads and social-networking sites—with direct mail. “The introduction of new media has forced [business owners] to go back and revisit the whole playbook on what’s the best way to communicate with customers,” Mr. Anderson says.

Ms. Settle, for instance, plans to use e-marketing to complement the hand-signed direct-mail piece, not replace it.

So how do you incorporate the best of the old and the new in your business? Have you made a “pendulum swing” adjustment and taken away too much of what was once effective? Did you then find that part of the old way of doing things could still serve you well? Where is the happy medium and what might it look like moving forward?

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Can Snail Mail Be Part of Social Media?

Is Facebook A Global Threat To Google?

Written on January 12, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, Object, book

Does Facebook pose a threat today or in the future to Google by swallowing advertising dollars - and will the inclusion of web search speed that process? Google and Facebook actually many historical similarities - including the shape of their global roll outs.



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Is Facebook A Global Threat To Google?

CES: Microsoft Expands Scope Of HP Search Relationship To 42 Countries

Written on January 7, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave the opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night. It was a review of Microsoft accomplishments and product launches during 2009 (e.g., Windows 7, Bing) as well as a preview of some products coming to market (e.g., Project Natal for Xbox) in the future.
Ballmer spent some [...]



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CES: Microsoft Expands Scope Of HP Search Relationship To 42 Countries

Google Maps Blunder: Sends Local Listing Reports To Wrong Business Owners

Written on January 7, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google [...]



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Google Maps Blunder: Sends Local Listing Reports To Wrong Business Owners

Google AdWords Testing Lead Capture Forms: Contact Form Extensions

Written on January 6, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

PPC Hero has details about a new Google AdWords beta named contact form extensions. Contact form extensions provides a contact form directly in the search ad, which a searcher can fill out and the advertiser can then use in the future to contact that lead. It is very similar to a lead acquisition [...]



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Google AdWords Testing Lead Capture Forms: Contact Form Extensions

AOL Returns As Independent Company, Search Decision Looms

Written on December 10, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Yesterday was the first day of trading for the “new” AOL, an independent company with a market cap of $2.5 billion dollars. When AOL “bought” TimeWarner a decade ago in an all-stock transaction worth $182 billion there was a near consensus that the combined company represented the future of media and publishing. It made a [...]



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AOL Returns As Independent Company, Search Decision Looms

Google Mobile “Evolution”: Voice, Languages, “What’s Nearby,” Goggles

Written on December 7, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

The Google Search Evolution event today featured a fair amount of discussion of the impact of mobile on the future direction of search and the user experience. There was a flurry of announcements about mobile products and feature upgrades, summarized on the Google Mobile Blog. Danny live-blogged the event.
Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, discussed [...]



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Google Mobile “Evolution”: Voice, Languages, “What’s Nearby,” Goggles

The Unexpected Re-Evolution Of The Phone Call

Written on November 23, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object, marketing

Quick: Are you a digital marketing pro? If so, complete this sentence:
In the future, advertisers will combine online media with mobile ads to drive:____________.
What did you put in the blank? Let me guess.

Branding, combining rich online experiences with mobile mini-experiences?
E-commerce, as more people surf the Web using both devices?
Coupons and promotions, taking advantage [...]



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The Unexpected Re-Evolution Of The Phone Call