Monday, October 31, 2005

Are You Scary Smart? Happy Halloween!

Top of your class? An innovator in your field? Wicked good at what you do?

If so, maybe we should talk. Right now Google is looking for the brightest minds in sales management. One of our corporate goals is to create an almost spookily entrepreneurial environment, and if you'd like to be a part of that, we'd love to hear from you...Read more here

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Free Basing With Google?

Google Base To Rival Craigslist and Ebay? It may seem like that looking at these images pulled from base.google.com before they were taken down. Could Google be allowing free web hosting for consumers looking to upload content via their site? What sort of implications will this have on search?


Well, Google gains more of the search market share...yet again! I"m seeing sites already with 60-65% of their traffic referred from Google. The industry data is reporting 45%. Just when you thought the only new update would be MSN's ad center launch, Google surprises us yet again. Maybe not though, maybe it was inevitable.


Keyword Pricing Increases in 2005

Keyword prices have escalated on the past years as reported by Fathom Online's Gregg Stewart, senior VP-channel management and marketing. The most inherent increases came in the hospitality, retail and travel verticals.
So this may seem very obvious to you of course, yes more marketerd are using search as branding tactic so the demand is going to increase, hence so is the cost. They mention "conversion optimization" though in the article in regards to creating specific landing pages where someone clicks through and finds exactly what they are looking for...make sense? Of course it does, you don't want to search for tours to Italy and end up in Budapest do you? You definitely do not want to be searching for good restaurants to eat at in downtown San Diego and then end up at some hole in the wall, health hazard.
If you are going to dabble in the world of keyword purchasing make sure you are showing your potential customers what they want to see. Make sure you are measuring everything as well. If the demand keeps going up so will the cost and you need your budget to be flexible.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Google And Myspace: Telling Us What We Need

If you're 18-35 and you want to travel the world, you book with Contiki Tours and if you are looking to meet new people online, well, you go to Myspace.



The evergrowing sector of online networking and dating has shifted from sites like Match.com, Yahoo Personals and Meetup to Myspace. It's free, you can post pictures, bios, comments and even hook up with new people. Yes it's a stage 2 to Hot or Not with the ability to "browse." That's right, no more going to bars and staring across the room because now you can do it from the privacy of your own home. And now the authority on search, Google is being used as a tool for entertainment. Just see for yourself below. This is taken right from the source.

Myspace and Google, aw, what a couple!

Subject: what I need according to google
Here is what you do: Go to google.com and type "(your name) needs" Then pick the 5 funniest ones there.

If your name is James, you would put this in to the search engine with quotation marks as: "James needs"

you got the idea

Then copy and paste this into a new bulletin with your answers filled in

****************************************************
1. Melanie needs to become more tolerant, especially of emotions
2. Melanie needs to become somewhat flexible and leave some of the pig headedness.
3. Melanie needs to be restrained.
4. Melanie needs a hospital.
5. Melanie needs a mother care
(these were the 1st 5 I found. they aren’t very nice)

****************************************************

Of course I couldn't resist!!! So here are my own:

1. BJ needs to get real stoned Petition.
2. BJ needs to step up and fight top talent to even remotely be considered the #1.
3. BJ needs to feed Scooter.
4. BJ needs money to put a downpayment on property in Stinson Beach, CA.
5. BJ needs to start begging mom to let him drive to the show.