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Ballmer, Sitelinks & Other Favorites from SMX West Day 1

Written on March 3, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, seo

Posted by jennita

SMX West 2010 kicked off with quite a bang (or was that a yell?). Since Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer was the keynote, people arrived early to ensure good seats. The music playing before it started was amazing, it helped to create an excitement in the room that I really had never felt before a keynote before. I had attempted to save a seat for someone up front, but there was just too much demand and had to give it up. That’s the sort of thing that happens at a great concert, not a conference keynote.

There were quite a few live blogs of the event, but I had a few favorites from the interview that I wanted to call out.

1. He made it very clear that Microsoft is focused on the big picture and not just immediate goals. He spoke about continuing to move forward with a positive momentum and a differentiated point of view.
2. When the question came up of “Can you be #1 in the U.S.?” he essentially said “YES!” [and yes he said it with that exclamation] However he made it clear that it was a tricky question. If you say yes, you sound arrogant but if you say no you sound unsure of yourself. You don’t do things to come in second!
3. Danny asked “Is Yahoo! going to survive as a search player? You want to beat them aren’t you just going to kill them?” Ballmer could really only answer one way “No.” He stated that they wanted Yahoo! to do a good job, that there was lots of flexibility written into their contract and there was advantage to having the power of 2 as opposed to the power of 1.
4. When asked whether he was going to get on Twitter he said “I’m more of a webpage than a bunch of short tweets.” But then acknowledged that he did have a stealth Twitter account however only the people in his neighborhood followed him.
5. His favorite thing on Bing are the Bing maps. [completely agree here... the maps are amazing!]
6. What he thinks is the biggest opportunity in search: to “Help people get done what they’re trying to get done.”
7. Oh! And he gave us all his personal email account. You’ll have to watch the video to get that though.

All in all it was quite enjoyable to watch, although I was a bit unprepared (although perhaps I shouldn’t have been) for the yelling. Ok, I don’t think in his mind he was yelling, he was just talking VERY LOUDLY. But sitting right up front, I think we all sat back in our chairs a bit when he got excited and started to get louder. You can see the full video of the keynote below.

Google’s Personalized Search Revolution

Now that personalization has become an opt-out rather than an opt-in, I was really interested in what this session had to offer. The only speaker, Brian Horling who works in Personalized Search at Google, first gave a very informative presentation, then fielded quite a few questions from the audience. I really enjoyed having just one speaker who was focused on the topic at hand. The top takeaways that I got were some of the differences between a logged out user who gets personalized search versus a logged in user. Let me break it down a bit.

First of all, both types of users are thought of as two different identities to Google. Let’s say you’re logged in, and then log out, they don’t view you as the same logged in person. At that point they do look at the cookies set on your computer which tell gives them information on what you’ve searched for previously, which results you’ve clicked on, etc. For signed in accounts, your web history is saved indefinitely, but your non-logged in identity is only saved for 180 days.

Every user using search has the potential of seeing personalized search in some way whether it’s geo-location, web history, social search, etc. Personalization occurs about 1 in 5 queries for a user and the changes tend to be restricted to only a few results.

How can you control the personalization of your searches?

• Use search details
• Disable it by appending &pws=0 on searchs (you can find the bookmarklet to do that here)
• Edit or disable your web history

If you haven’t looked at the “view customizations” link I highlight above before, you should definitely check it out. Pretty interesting what’s going on there.

One thing that came up in this session was how do you explain to a client that the results they’re seeing aren’t the same as what everyone else sees. Although in some cases that would probably be a good thing since they’re seeing better rankings since they search and click on their sites more often than the average user.

How do you feel about personalized search? After this presentation I found that I was much more open to the idea than I was previously. I think because I felt like I finally understood a bit better where the data was coming from and how to turn it off. But what about you?

And so on…

The other session I really loved was “Supercharging Your Descriptions With Sitelinks” but as I was putting this post together I realized that should really a be a post in and of itself. It was great to hear from a Google rep about how certain sitelinks show up and ways you can enhance your site to ensure proper sitelinks. I have tons of screenshots and examples, so I’ll put them into a full post. Plus I’d really like to get Jerry Dischler (the Google guy) to answer a few of my questions. So watch for that one!

The best swag of the conference goes to Yahoo! for not only giving away these awesome coffee mugs, but for setting up a full-on coffee shop with baristas to make us our much needed lattes!

I really wanted to show the videos from the SMX Ignite as that was one of my favorite parts of the day. But unfortunately the videos aren’t live yet. Here’s a link to where they should be. Maile Ohye’s “DateRank: PageRank for singles” was my personal favorite, although all the speakers were exceptional.

Dana Lookadoo and I interviewed a number of people in sort of a Jay Leno “man on the street” sort of way. We hope to have the interviews up tomorrow.

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Ballmer, Sitelinks & Other Favorites from SMX West Day 1

Where Can Google Be Beaten?

Written on November 2, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, seo

Ad Age today summarize the state of the search engine marketing industry—and it’s largely good, including the fact that we’ve weathered the recession well so far, we’ve seen tremendous growth over our lifespan and most marketers are convinced of, interested in or doing SEM in some form.

Naturally, the report focuses on the elephant in the room—the biggest search engine in the world. Google dominates the search market in almost every country of the world—but there are a few places where competitors might be able to find a chink in Google’s armor.

Bingahoo is cited as one possible challenger, although by the measure Ad Age is using, a combined Yahoo/Bing share would be 26% to Google’s 65% of the market. However, Bing has shown notable success, including a report from Nielsen in July:

According to Nielsen data from July for the U.S., 27% of Google searchers also used Bing at least once that month, and 39% used Yahoo. Of course, the same holds true for Bing and Yahoo searchers — a majority of them also use Google.

We saw similar reports on low search-engine loyalty back in February as well, even before Bing and its marketing blitz. But the fact that people are at least trying Bing bodes well for Microsoft—since CEO Steve Ballmer pledged to spend up to 10% of MSFT’s operating income a year to pushing Bing to the top of the heap (up to $2b/yr).

The other major area is mobile search. While lots of people do turn to Google for their mobile search, just like they do with . . . “immobile” search—and Android is helping with that—Ad Age reports that the number of mobile Internet devices outweighs the number of computers—which means that lots of mobile Internet users don’t have a desktop habit of Googling. Instead, they may use whatever default their service provider or phone includes (again with the Android).

What do you think? Does it really matter if Google is so dominant in the search industry, or is fine and dandy (as long as they don’t penalize your site)? Can they be beaten?

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Where Can Google Be Beaten?

Google Wins Over the City of Angels

Written on October 28, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Google went a long way toward answering the naysayers of their Google Apps offering. How you ask? By winning a contract to provide e-mail and other Internet services to the City of Los Angeles. Nice get.

While winning a contract is just the first step in proving that Google is a serious threat to the stronghold of Microsoft’s software business, it’s a pretty big step. This kind of deal will be felt up and down the left coast (that’s what we East Coast folks refer to the West Coast as). Starting in the great Northwest there will be some serious Steve Ballmer hand-wringing and maybe another Bobby Knight-like chair throwing moment or two. In NoCal (the Google Plex in Mountain View in particular) there may be some Tiger Woods-like fist pumps of victory. While in SoCal it’s likely that no one outside the people who made the decision will know or care because it’s not directly about them. Different strokes for different folks, right?

Yahoo Finance tells us that while this is a victory for sure there are the typical concerns that still need to be overcome and there’s nothing like a financial penalty to overcome those issues.

The Council voted unanimously for the $7.2 million deal with contractor Computer Sciences Corp. to replace many city computer systems with the so-called Google Apps services.

An amendment added shortly before the vote makes the contract contingent on Computer Science agreeing to pay a preset penalty if a security breach occurs. The contractor’s project manager David Barber said he believed such an agreement would be reached.

The city’s police officers’ union and privacy advocates had raised security concerns over the Google contract because it places data online rather than on individual computers under the city’s direct control.

I bet dollars to donuts (there was a police officer reference after all) that Microsoft is assigning the task to someone to watch this thing like a hawk and to know just when and to what degree a security breach occurs if at all.

This particular battle could be looked back on as a game changing moment as there is an ‘out with the old and in with the new’ theme. The big loser? Novell.

The move will also end the city’s 7-year contract to use Novell Inc.’s GroupWise e-mail and record-keeping software, which city workers have complained is slow and crash-prone.

Novell senior vice president said during the Council hearing that many city departments were not using the most recent version of GroupWise and reiterated an offer to provide additional services for free.

That kind of ‘excuse based selling’ is not recommended and does not fly in today’s business world does it? My question is why weren’t they upgraded by Novell so they could at least have a shot at keeping the business? Silly me for asking such an obvious question, right?

Meanwhile back at the Plex all is good with the world.

“In our view, this can be a watershed agreement,” said Dave Girouard, president of the Google division that provides business services. “There’s a lot of cities and counties around the state and around the nation who were watching this.”

Translation? If you are a Google rep and you are talking to any of the big government agencies you better set an appointment now to make it happen in a local government near you.

So Google continues to expand far beyond the world of search. I’m not surprised are you?

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Google Wins Over the City of Angels

Top Microsoft Execs Get A Pay Cut

Written on September 30, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Appropriately top Microsoft executives, coming off  the “worst year ever” for the company, are sharing some of the pain. As PaidContent reports, the top executives at the company took a compensation hit based on the sales and revenue declines. Here are some of the numbers:

CEO Steve Ballmer $1.265 million vs. $1.34 million a year ago
CFO [...]



….

Excerpt from:
Top Microsoft Execs Get A Pay Cut

Is Bing 2.0 in the Chute?

Written on September 11, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Apparently, Twitter is making waves with Microsoft in ways that you may not consider. Yesterday Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet reported about some of the tweets coming from the annual Microsoft product demo event (and pep rally – her terminology) held at Safeco Field in Seattle. About 20,000 folks attended and were leaking some info (not much but some) about the possibility of Bing 2.0 as early as this fall. Oh boy, I can’t wait!

Foley says

Based on a handful of Tweets I’ve seen so far, meeting attendees (including those who are watching remotely) have seen a demo of Bing 2.0. At least one Tweeter claimed the new update of Bing is going to be rolled out the week of September 14.

Foley’s attempts to elicit some official response from Microsoft came back with nothing to support the Twitter rumor mill. The MS spokesperson said

“We’re very excited about some of the new Bing features set to roll out over the next few months, but have nothing to announce today.”

Yawn! Honestly, if I were Microsoft and I had some new features for bing that were even introduced using the old Google trick of slapping “beta” on everything, I would be throwing the kitchen sink at the marketplace. Microsoft actually created a wave in the search industry that has not been seen in quite some time unless it was Google as the source. In order to continue the momentum that was created, Microhoo, or whatever you want to call them, should be just throwing it all out there. If they don’t do something soon they stand to lose the momentum created by bing’s roll out and their big splash could easily slip into the category of a footnote in the timeline of search.

Let’s use this opportunity to check in with you Pilgrims to see where you are on bing now that we are three months removed form the launch. Do you use it? Do you care? Is it competitive with Google. I’ll get it started by saying that I have not even given it a real “look see” yet because Google is my search choice by habit. There is too much to do in a day to sit around and wonder if bing is any good or not. I hear arguments on both sides of the coin but nothing has been compelling enough for me to make a switch or even consider it. Your thoughts? Maybe you can tweet Steve Ballmer from your iPhone to see if his head explodes.

Originally posted here:
Is Bing 2.0 in the Chute?

It’s a Deal: Q&A from Microsoft Yahoo! Call

Written on July 29, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Amid all the speculation this week, it’s official that Microsoft and Yahoo! have made a deal:  ”Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”

The Search Marketing Industry news sites have covered this completely and a joint web site has been setup my Microsoft Yahoo. I also took a little time to listen in on the investor relations conference call with Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Carol Bartz of Yahoo! and live tweeted some of the Q and A:

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: Why no display ad component to the deal? Bartz: To keep the deal straightforward as possible

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: Why no up-front fee to Yahoo? Bartz: Big cash payment up front doesn’t help Yahoo ongoing operating costs

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: What impact on jobs? Bartz: Many Yahoos w/be asked to work @ Microsoft, work elsewhere @ Yahoo, some redundancy

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: How much does deal affect areas where MSFT & YHOO compete? Ballmer: Innovate & need privacy disclosures

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: What does it mean for MSFT to license Yahoo search? Why not all Bing? Ballmer: We can benefit from Yahoo search tech

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: Examples of innovation from deal? Ballmer: UI, algos for search relevance, scale provides feedback loop to innovate

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: Why is this deal better than last year’s? Bartz: Current deal is longer term, more of a partnership, skin in game

MSFT YAHOO conf call Q: Why is this deal better than last year’s? Ballmer: This deal is not better, it’s different.

Last MSFT YAHOO conf call Q from @dannysullivan: What happens to Yahoo news, directory, paid inclusion, Delicious? Bartz: Decide on paid inclusion later. Ballmer: Yahoo has full flexibility & how that pans out is up to Yahoo

Danny Sullivan live blogged the call with a lot more detail.

Other coverage of the Microsoft Yahoo deal:

• Search Engine Watch - It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal
• Search Engine Land - It’s Finally Official, Microsoft & Yahoo Make A Deal, Yahoo Gives Up On Search

Tags: google ,microsoft ,microsoft-yahoo ,msft ,paid-inclusion ,search ,steve-ballmer

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Microsoft: And Now a Word from Our Founder

Written on July 15, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

The OS wars are running pretty hot and heavy these days. Whether it’s Microsoft trying to fend off the European Commission as to the rights to package their products as they see fit or it’s Microsoft responding to the early buzz around Google’s entry into the desktop OS space, it’s a busy time. Since Microsoft is still by far the dominant OS provider in the world with Windows you would expect that they are going to be at the center of most of these musings. Well, it appears that the rumblings were enough to awaken the Poppa Bear of Microsoft, Bill Gates, as he puts his 2 cents into the talk. He doesn’t appear to be too worried. cnet brings us the word

“There’s many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways,” Gates said in an interview with CNET News this week. “In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there’s something new. I mean, you’ve got Android running on Netbooks. It’s got a browser in it.”

Gates said it was hard to really say much about Chrome OS, since Google has said so little about how it will actually work.

“The more vague they are, the more interesting it is,” he said.

Gates is obviously a very busy man these days as he works with his Gates Foundation on some very lofty projects. While not as important as ridding the world of disease and educating the masses, he still has some views about the industry that made him the wealthiest man on the planet. He talked about how the browser has become less definable. This is in response to the claims that the browser should act more like an OS.

“It just shows the word browser has become a truly meaningless word,” Gates said. “What’s a browser? What’s not a browser? If you’re playing a movie, is that a browser or not a browser? If you’re doing annotations, is that a browser? If you’re editing text, is that a browser or not a browser? In large part, it’s more an abuse of terminology than a real change.”

Meanwhile back at Microsoft, the day to day guy Steve Ballmer told the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference that there is no need for a new OS (no surprise there) mainly because half of desktop computing is done outside the browser so there needs to be more concentration on applications etc. Of course, that line of reasoning reveals that the other half is happening in the browser and that percentage is likely to increase in the near future but let’s not quibble.

So it looks more and more like Microsoft is intent on not sounding defensive in the new OS conversations. One of the ways they are doing that is to come off as almost dismissive.

Ballmer and Gates also echoed the note Business Division President Stephen Elop sounded in an interview with CNET News last week–that Microsoft really doesn’t know what Chrome OS will look like.

“Who knows what this thing is?” Ballmer said.

My guess is that in the halls of the Microsoft campus there is more than a little hand wringing over even the thought of Google trying to mess with their lifeblood. Then again, maybe not.

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Microsoft: And Now a Word from Our Founder

Tags: a-good-start ,a-search-engine ,android ,book ,browser ,browser-or-not ,desktop ,echoed-the-note ,linux ,microsoft ,share-the-doc ,steve-ballmer ,suggestions ,word ,worried-about

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Google Loses Yet More Top Line Talent

Written on July 14, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Just within the last month there have been reports of the number of defections from Google and the steps that Google has been taking to stop the activity. They may need to ratchet up their efforts however. Hot on the heels of the news that one of their biggest legal eagles has nested elsewhere we learn that there is another mutiny on the good ship Google-pop. TechCrunch reports that

After nearly 5 years with the company, Engineering Director Mark Lucovsky is leaving Google for a role with VMware we’ve learned.
Lucovsky has been an integral part of Google’s APIs, including the all-important Search APIs.

Mr. Lucovsky’s pedigree is quite significant. He spent 16 years with Microsoft and was given the title of Microsoft Distinguished Engineer. His accomplishments at Microsoft were so significant that when he went to tell Steve Ballmer that he was leaving Microsoft for Google ….. well, let’s just say Mr.Ballmer didn’t react well. I have altered the quote for a PG-13 rating but if you want the real deal go to TechCrunch. I suspect you will get the gist here.

“Just tell me it’s not Google,” Ballmer reportedly said according to court documents (for a case surrounding another Google ex-Microsoft hire). When Lucovsky said it was Google, Ballmer allegedly picked up a chair and threw it across the room.

What he apparently said next, will live on forever in Internet history.

“$#@%ing Eric Schmidt is a %@#^ing *&#%$. I’m going to %$@#ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going %$@#ing kill Google.”

Schmidt, is of course, Google’s CEO. When Lucovsky still wasn’t convinced, Ballmer alledgedly went on to say, “Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

Looks like Mr. Ballmer missed the mark on that one for sure. Today, though, Google gets to experience some of the pain of losing this type of talent. It’s been said quite a bit in the past that there are inherent risks with creating the culture that Google has. When there are as many Phd / alpha dogs / egos running around in one company someone has to take orders from someone else and that could eventually wear on those that are used to being in control.

So should Google be worried about this kind of activity? It is going on despite their best efforts to keep people on the boat. What are your theories on why Google is becoming a springboard for other opportunities rather than the place where folks will drop anchor and stay a while?

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Google Loses Yet More Top Line Talent

Tags: a-role-with ,ballmer ,director-mark ,done-it-before ,given-the-title ,lucovsky ,microsoft ,mind ,opportunities ,social ,songs ,steve-ballmer ,threw-it-across

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