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May 04, 2008

What's next for Microsoft and Yahoo!

Charlene_li_2008_low_res by Charlene Li

There was an audible collective sigh of relief that the Microsoft-Yahoo! acquisition soap opera was finally at an end. For three months, the tech world has been paralyzed by the prospect of “Microhoo”, believing that the deal was inevitable. Sanity prevailed on Saturday, as the two giants couldn’t come to an agreement on price and Microsoft declined to pursue a hostile bid that could have proven ruinous to both companies. (Full text of the Microsoft announcement and the Yahoo! response are available.)

A year ago, I wrote about why such a deal wouldn't work, and also how Google would act as Yahoo!'s savior. An acquisiition may still come to pass in the future, but at a significantly lower price. But the world continues to turn and both companies will have to explain themselves to investors, employees, advertisers, and consumers.

Microsoft must define and deliver on a strategy that shows how they can “win” now without Yahoo! as a search jump start. (Frankly, we were skeptical that Microsoft could have integrated Yahoo quickly and effectively to realize the full value and vision of the acquisition). Rather than continue to chase Google’s dominant search position, Microsoft should redefine the “battle” to one where search is an integrated part of the marketing mix. Microsoft has assets and relationships that GOOG doesn’t have: 400 million users relationships through communication tools like Hotmail and Messenger, the aQuantive acquisition, strong display advertising business, and investments/relationships like Facebook. Moreover, AdCenter is well positioned to service advertisers on both the display and search sides, although actual offeringDeal is offs that tie the two together are still in the works. But the thing they don't have today is a strong search user experience, the root of the problem.

With the Microsoft acquisition threat fading, Yahoo! has been given a reprieve but it must explain and execute on a strategy that supports their belief that the company is worth $37 a share – or face another round of acquisition attempts and shareholder revolt. Yahoo!’s three-pronged strategy of being the starting point, advertising platform for the Web, and openness is sound but it has been muddled due to poor communication and tactical steps. At the core, Yahoo! has to convince advertisers that it still believes in its advertising platform, especially in light of the tests it was conducting with Google’s search marketing platform. If Yahoo! ends up trading in its Panama search platform for higher search revenues from Google, it will be giving up any potential for a workable integrated ad platform.  Yahoo!'s advantages especially in behavioral marketing could strongly tie together display and search marketing and the foundation for new marketing solutions and revenues. And it's new Yahoo! Open strategy could position it well regain the engagement of users.

And let's take a quick look at Google. From any perspective, Google was going to come out strong from this three-month soap opera. A dispirited Microsoft and floundering Yahoo mean Google can point to itself as the safe haven for both marketers and consumers.

What do you think about each company's positioning and strategy -- does each company have the right game plan and assets in place? And if not, what should they be doing?

My previous posts:

May 4, 2007: Why Microsoft + Yahoo! makes sense -- and why it won't work

Feb 1, 2008: Microsoft's bid for Yahoo!: What it means

My pick of the best analysis thus far:

Paul Kedrosky: Analysis of the Microsoft Decision, Plus Yahoo's Hari-Kari

Michael Arrington: Yahoo's Tough Week Ahead

Om Malik: Microsoft to Yahoo: Take A Hike

Kara Swisher: Yahoo's Nightmare Scenario: I'm from Google And I'm Here To Help!

Joe Wilcox: The Microsoft-Yahoo Blame Game

Posted by Charlene Li at 10:33 AM in Advertising, Charlene's posts, Online advertising, Portals, Search | | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

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January 11, 2008

Facebook (and me) on 60 Minutes

 by Charlene Li

60min_2 In December, I received a call from the producers of 60 Minutes, the longest running news program on broadcast TV. They were doing a segment on Facebook and wanted to know if I could provide background for the story.

Wow. I couldn't believe that they were doing an entire segment on Facebook. Note that 60 Minutes' audience isn't exactly that familiar with social technologies -- after all, the average age of its viewer is  around 50-60 years old (note: I couldn't find the exact age in time for this post, and this could be part of Les Moonves effort to move CBS News to a younger demo.) All the more reason why I jumped at the opportunity to try to explain the significance of  Facebook and social technologies to this audience. (Besides, who wouldn't jump at the chance to be on 60 Minutes! THE 60 Minutes!)

I was also intrigued about how 60 Minutes would approach the story. Coming from newspapers), I've always had a great deal of respect for 60 Minutes and the quality of reporting (Rathergate not withstanding). Would they try to "dumb" it down? Or would they dig into the intricacies of Facebook, its users, and the hyper-competitive, dynamic environment?

So off I flew to NYC for the shoot. I sat in the chair while they adjusted lights (for the curious, here are two photos of me on the set. And for the even more curious, I did my own make-up). In a little while, Leslie Stahl came in with a stack of papers with questions on them.  I have to admit, I do tons of media interviews, and I was really, really nervous. After all, this was 60 Minutes!

The tape started to roll, Leslie asked her first question, and then ensued the best media interview experience of my life. Leslie was completely prepared, totally on top of the subject, and followed up with poignant questions. It flew by in a blur and I had a blast.

The feature will air this Sunday, Jan. 13th at 7pm ET/PT on CBS is available online. I haven't seen the segment yet, but do know that I'm in it (my 15 seconds of fame). From my interview, I believe that 60 Minutes will do an admirable job boiling down a complex, dynamic subject into 15 minutes. I hope that some of you will watch it (or TiVo it) and come back to comment on this post. I'd like to know if you thought that 60 Minutes -- the epitome of "mainstream media" -- got it right. If not, what did they miss, and how can we as an industry tell our story better?

Posted by Charlene Li at 01:47 AM in Charlene's posts, Media, Online advertising, Social networking | | Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)

November 30, 2007

Facebook Beacon to become opt-in

by Charlene Li

I just received word from Facebook that they will be making significant changes to Beacon. I've included the full text of their statement below.

As you may know, I had a situation with Beacon where information from Overstock was sent to Facebook without my knowledge. Because I took no action, the information appeared on my profile.

This is a definitely a step in the right direction -- I argued for greater transparency along with many other people, and it appears Facebook has heard the protest. But given the concerns out there, I think Facebook has to do a lot more to regain the trust of not only its members but also of its partners. Here's a quick summary of the major changes and what it means:

- Facebook members will be given clearer notifications of information sent by partners to Facebook, on both the partner site and on Facebook. Beacon also won't send information to Facebook if it believes that members didn't see a pop-up on the partner site. This was a major problem in my situation -- if a Beacon notification did appear on Overstock, I never got a chance to see it.
- Adding Beacon-generated stories will require an explicit opt-in by the member. Before, if the member did nothing, the story would appear. The changes mean that the user HAS to approve the addition of the story -- so no more inadvertent discoveries of purchases by your friends. (In my the comments of my original post, "Will" bought an engagement ring on Overstock -- and his friends, fiance, fiance's friends, etc. all found out about it)

- If you take not action, stories will be archived and still available for you to take action on later.

- There will be no opt-out option of Beacon, either at the partner level or universally from Facebook. That means that if you really, really can't stand the idea of your information traveling between sites, you have to either never use sites that deploy Beacon or stop using Facebook.

It's this last point that I think is most interesting. Facebook obviously wants to keep Beacon going, and it has taken the first step to give members greater control over when information is posted. I, for one, am comfortable with this, as I find it a pretty convenient way to publish information (like when I bought Beowulf tickets on  went to see Beowulf).

So MoveOn and many of us pushing for change got what we wanted -- the ability to opt-in to stories that appear on our profile. But I believe some privacy advocates will continue to loudly agitate for the full dismantling of the Beacon program. I don't think this will have that big of an impact on members -- after all, MoveOn had 54,000 members of its group as of today, which is significant, but nothing like the hundreds of thousands who petitioned for change after News Feed was introduced last year.

The greater impact will be on nervous partners, some of whom -- like Overstock -- have withdrawn their Beacon participation. Most have taken a wait-and-see approach, weighing the benefits of exposure to their customers' friends network against possible push-back from privacy advocates. My concern is that this mistrust of Beacon spills over and dampens the already nascent beginnings of social media marketing.

It's imperative and in Facebook's best interest -- and the interest of the social networking marketing industry as a whole -- that Beacon be a program that is clear in its intent and execution,and wins over the trust of members and partners.

I'd love to know your thoughts -- has Facebook gone far enough with these changes, or do they need to do more?

Here's the release:

Facebook Update on Changes to Beacon
No stories will be published without users proactively consenting


We appreciate feedback from all Facebook users and made some changes to Beacon in the past day. Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends’ News Feeds.

Here’s how the Beacon changes work:

- Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook.  These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

-  Users must click on “OK” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

- If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.

- Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

- Clicking the “Help” link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

These changes are in addition to those made earlier to improve the notifications on partner sites as follows:

- Users were sometimes moving away from a page before a notification could be fully displayed. We changed the process so that we confirm the full display of the notification before any information can be sent back to a user’s Facebook account.

- The notification appears more rapidly and is more clearly displayed.

There has been misinformation in the market about some key aspects of how Beacon works:

- Participation in Beacon is free for all partner sites.

- Beacon only allows for the sharing of specific actions on the specific sites participating in Beacon.

- Beacon only has the potential to display actions to a selection of a user’s friends through News Feed and on a user’s Mini-Feed.

- Facebook is not sharing user information with participating sites and never sells user information.

As with all its products, Facebook will continue to iterate quickly and listen to feedback from its users.

Posted by Charlene Li at 09:34 AM in Advertising, Charlene's posts, Online advertising, Social networking | | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1)

November 06, 2007

MySpace and Facebook launch new Advertising products, why Hyper Targeting, Social Ads and rise of the “Fan-Sumer” matter to brands

Jeremiah By Jeremiah Owyang, insight from Charlene Li and Shar VanBoskirk.  This is also being cross-posted on the Jeremiah's Web Strategist Blog and the  Forrester Marketing Blog. 

Executive Summary
Both Facebook and MySpace have launched profile and network targeted advertising and marketing products. As they both use member interests and the communities which they are part of, trust continues to become key in adoption as information is passed along the network. The sheer size of MySpace’s member base, as well as the thriving local business membership will lead to success. Facebook, which brings a unique solution evolves advertisements to endorsements and encourages members to subscribe to a brand in what we are calling “Fan-Sumers” (an evolution of the consumer). As consumers share their affinities, brands can advertise using trusted social relationships.

Data: Highest trust comes from friends or acquaintances

(Left Graph: Consumers trust their friends and acquaintances far more than any other sources –Report: Leveraging User-Generated Content, 2007)

Trust is and will continue to be one of the most important attributes in the decision making process. 

Communities form online, trust develops
How we get information continues to evolve as communities form online organized by individuals with similar interests. Just like in real life, we identify our interests, and are often influenced by opinions and experiences of trusted peers in our communities. For many, social networking sites embody these relationships and influence how trusted decisions are made.

MySpace: Brands have a home and can hyper-target ads
The already active MySpace platform is leveraging their already active member profile pages, encouraging the many small and medium businesses to setup a online storefront and providing tools to make it easy to self-serve advertisements to their customers. It’s easy to make the case that demand and inventory are present.

[Brands can now self-serve a targeted marketing and advertising campaign within the already thriving MySpace community]

Webmaster not needed: MySpace profile for businesses
Small businesses can continue to build their online profile on MySpace (many of them already have), but now, because of their familiarity with self-marketing (restaurant, nightclub, and other local businesses and their customers) on Myspace.

Self-service ads remove middle man
When friction is removed, efficiency is created. With MySpace’s “Self-Service” ad network small businesese can target ads across a variety of affinities (over 300) and deploy ads on users’ profile pages. These ads, which should (by theory) be relevant and contextual to a user who has self-populated their profile page will have these ads displayed.

Advertising balance required in already busy MySpace
With marketers already with a strong presence in MySpace this could continue to erode away at early adopter “cool kids” from embracing MySpace. But as cycles have shown, where communities form, marketers follow.

User experience continues to be free-form
These ads, which will conform to IAB advertising standards (sizes) will give advertisers the freedom to create the ads in the style accustomed to the network. Yes, expect more blinking text.

To watch: OpenSocial
As OpenSocial starts to be deployed across MySpace and other partners, expect profile ads to be tied to widgets and vice versa; a fabric of links. I’ve already outlined How to explain OpenSocial to your executives.

Inaccurate user profiles could result in mis-targeting of ads
We know that many members do not make their profiles accurate which could yield inconsistencies in how and where ads are displayed. While MySpace has assured they’re accounting for rogue outliers, expect some inefficiencies in advertisements.

Our Call: Sheer mass will yield success
We think this to be a win for MySpace, given their great reach, there are millions of users with active profiles, and there’s also plenty of inventory as many small and local businesses that are present will be comfortable deploying ads where their community already exists.

Facebook: Rise of the Fan-Sumer
Going beyond just profile matching of advertisements, Facebook allows consumers to self-identify with brands and becoming fans. In turn, brands can use these “Fan-Sumers” as endorsers to their own trusted networks, resulting in trusted word-of-mouth. Brands can also self-manage their own campaigns, and there’s some unique opportunities for eCommerce widgets or applications to be part of this formula.

[Using Facebook, consumers will publicly endorse brands, resulting in the birth of the “Fan-Sumer”, causing efficient word-of-mouth marketing in their trusted network]

There are three major components to today’s announcement, they include the following:

1) Facebook Pages: Brands get their own profile
For the first time, businesses will legitimately be able to setup profile pages, much like MySpace’s business profiles feature. Next, Facebook members will add these brands as ‘fans’ (much like friends) and this will produce a connection between the parties. Members will self-identify with brands in what we are calling “Fan-Sumers”. Furthermore, this service, called “Beacon” gives third parties the ability to share information on the newsfeed and provides lots of unique opportunities. Sponsored groups will start to evolve into this new form brand profile as this system gets adopted.

2) SocialAds: Endorsements at the friend level lead to eCommerce
Once a member has indicated they are a fan of a brand, that brand can choose to purchase SocialAds (from Facebook Sales or via a self-service platform). A unique endorsement of a product or brand will now appear on that individuals news feed or banner or skyscraper ads. Advertisers can purchase social ads target by profile demographics and profiles, as well as by activities done in Facebook. Payment is an auction-based system available to marketers via both CPM and CPC pricing.

3) Use “Insight” for control and flexibility
This self-service dashboard called Insight gives the marketer detailed knowledge how their advertising campaign is working on Facebook. It’s expected that advertisers will have flexibility, control over the type of ads they deploy, in what quantity, and the demographics they want to target.

A likely scenario:
Shauna, who enjoys Revlon products, indicates she’s a fan of the brand and becomes a Fan-Sumer. Marketers at Revlon can then purchase SocialAds, which will then display on Shauna’s newsfeed or on ads on her profile. If Shauna purchases Revlon makeup from Amazon, her newsfeed could indicate an eCommerce links recommending it to her 100 trusted friends, resulting in further sales.

[The traditional marketing funnel as we know it is distorted; endorsements are now passed from trusted customers to prospects, not direct from the brands themselves]

Implications for Facebook:

Members have more control over ads
Facebook users can opt to turn off social ads, and friends of that user can ‘dial down’ endorsements they see using preferences. We believe that Facebook is attempting to respect the rights of users by giving control to members to ‘opt-in’ to become a Fan-Sumer.

Quest for Fans will cause brands to beg
Since social ads only work if a member has indicated they are a fan, brands will be working to earn and buy fans to accept them as members. Expect a lot of noise to be generated from this activity as brands run campaigns to encourage members to add them as fans through discussion boards, banner ads, and special offers.

Hard to qualify a “business”
Facebook is limiting these features to ‘real’ businesses and organizations. Expect an entire team to be crawling and dealing with this qualifying the issue. As recent member accounts have been disabled from Facebook, expect businesses and organizations to encounter same issues.

Limited ad supply to raise prices
Because Facebook members will see only two social ads per day, we expect the supply of ads to be in scarce supply and thus raising prices and not matching the value. This could shift ad buying to large brands who have experience buying and managing search and direct response ads.

Our Call: Brand affinity leads to community endorsements and more trusted marketing.
We see this as a win for Facebook, this highly targeted system isn’t just about web advertising but about brand affinity and hooks into what’s really important, trusted endorsements from people in a network. This truly is the next generation of advertising. Facebook tells us that the worst case it will be 2 times click through rate over the performance of (existing is 4-26%)

Next Steps For Brands

Experiment: Because of the control and flexibility, we recommend to brands that are currently on either of these social networks to experiment and test.

Learn how to efficiently manage your campaigns. There’s clearly a trend towards self-service, which provides efficiencies for both businesses and the platforms.

To know: Marketing has changed, advertising is no longer a sole-solution. Marketers must also learn how to be part of communities, engage with them, and be part of the conversation.

To know: Marketing is now distributed, brands must embrace communities where they currently exist, rather than solely driving them to their corporate website.

[While traditional search advertisers like Google and Yahoo match by keyword, My Space and Facebook match on something far more powerful: people and their relationships]

This digest not only explains what is happening, but why it matters to you. If this was helpful, please pass it on. Love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment, even if you don’t agree.

Posted by Charlene Li at 02:55 PM in Advertising, Groundswell, Online advertising, Social media, Social networking, Strategy, Word-of-mouth marketing | | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

October 04, 2007

Correction to Forrester report on social networking site marketing

By Charlene Li

 

In early July, I published a report entitled “Marketing On Social Networking Sites” which provided details on what types of marketing and advertising work on social networking sites (SNSs) like MySpace and Facebook.

 

One of the main points I was trying to make was that marketers needed to go beyond simply running ads on SNS and actively engage users. One of the resources I used was a study that MySpace conducted called “Never Ending Friending” (NEF), one of the first studies to look at advertising impact on SNSs.

 

However, in an effort to simplify a complex study, I inadvertently incorrectly cited the report, creating the possible impression that traditional advertising on SNS doesn’t work. That’s not what I meant, and it’s not what NEF said. I’ve corrected the report, and to clarify, here’s what I should have said.

 

The study, available here in its entirety, looked at the brand impact of campaigns by adidas and Electronic Arts. When metrics such as intent to purchase and intent to recommend are used, 30% of the value created came from SNS members being reached by traditional display ads and profile views. These SNS ads outperformed results from traditional online ads and were on par with television ads.

 

One of the key points of the MySpace study – and a thesis for Forrester’s report – is that it’s not enough to look only at the impact of traditional online display advertising, or even simply to look at the number of people reached by a social networking site profile. Instead, there’s the “momentum effect” where SNS members pass along the brand to each other through widgets that they place on their own profiles. According to the MySpace study, that consumer-to-consumer involvement accounts for 70% of the value creation.

 

I think this is where some of the confusion and my mis-representation of the results came from – that traditional advertising does work but doesn’t create as much value as the “momentum effect” of consumer-to-consumer pass along.

 

In the end, it’s the combination of the C2C pass along with display advertising that drives the value of marketing on social networking sites. It’s not enough just to look at how many people you reach with a campaign – it’s important to look at the actual brand impact from that initial reach along with the impact of viral pass along. In fact, display advertising helps drive users to company profiles in the first place, helping to kick-start the momentum effect.

 

As MySpace freely admits, they are still at the beginning of trying to understand, along with the rest of us, the value of SNS marketing – which is why they and other players like Facebook continue to invest in studies that are trying to tease out where value is created. I’ll be following up shortly with new data and research that will hopefully shed more light on this issue.

 

So I stand by the top line conclusions of the report – that marketers need to get more actively engaged in social networking sites because C2C pass along creates most of the value in SNS marketing. But that doesn’t mean that traditional display advertising doesn’t work – according to the NEF study, it increases key brand metrics and also plays a significant role in driving awareness of company profiles in the SNS.

Tags: MySpace, social networking, online advertising, charleneli, ,

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Posted by Charlene Li at 01:47 PM in Charlene's posts, Online advertising, Social networking | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

April 30, 2007

Yahoo! buys Right Media, a smart move to defend its online ad leadership

by Charlene Li

I just posted on the acquisition of Right Media by Yahoo! on Forrester's Marketing Blog, primarily to keep the discussion/comments there for that audience. But I know that some of you follow the advertising/portal space closely so thought you'd like to know about the detailed post.

From a social technologies perspective, there are two things to point out.

First, Right Media could be an interesting alternative to AdSense, specifically for graphical display ads. The distinguishing characteristic is that CPM rates are visible to both the publisher and advertiser. This gives site and blog owners the ability to optimize each and every impression.

Second, Yahoo! has a strong audience of social computing-adept users via acquisitions like Flickr and del.icio.us, but doesn't aggressively monetize them on those sites. One of the opportunities Right Media  could offer is the ability to serve ads to users when they are off the Yahoo! site.

For example, someone who views content about hybrid cars on Yahoo! can be served ads from Toyota for the Prius. That user may then leave Yahoo! and go over to Treehugger.com to read more about environmental news and products. If treehugger.com is a member of the Right Media exchange (this is a hypothetical example), it could potentially serve ads to that hybrid-interested buyer from Yahoo! advertisers (like Toyota) on treehugger.com. The ad exchange would serve as the trusted intermediary to identify the users and serve the ads -- without actually exchange data about that user. As with other behavioral ad networks like Tacoda, such a system would need to have multiple privacy and content safeguards in place.

For blogs that draw a unique audience, this could be highly lucrative. Treehugger.com already draws an audience that is pre-disposed to buying a Prius, but doesn't know who is a potential car buyer unless that user lands on Treehugger's car/transportation section. By passing along that interest, Yahoo! makes it possible for Treehugger to realize a higher CPM for that run-of-site impression, while Yahoo! gets an additional ad impression to sell it Toyota.

Tags: Yahoo, Right Media, charleneli, Forrester Research, Groundswell

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Posted by Charlene Li at 07:21 AM in Advertising, Charlene's posts, Online advertising, Portals | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 19, 2007

DuPont's viral video pitch

by Josh Bernoff

Dan Buczaczer of Denuo (a Publicis unit) and his client, DuPont had a problem. How do you take a corporate brand with a 200-year history and remind consumers what it stands for?

DuPont is responsible for brands like Teflon, Kevlar, Tyvek and, as you can see in this clip, Nomex, which helps prevent firefighters from overcooking. These are ingredient brands -- you don't buy them, you buy stuff that incorporates them. And these brands already have decent name recognition, but DuPont has a lot less. You could do a bunch of TV ads like GE and BASF do, but that's expensive. And if you remember DuPont at all -- if you're over 45 like I am -- you may remember "Better Things For Better Living Through Chemistry," a tagline that has developed some unfortunate resonances in the last half-decade.

DuPont's solution, which I like, was to hire Amanda Congdon (ex of RocketBoom) and a bunch of indie film types and make some mini-documentaries they call "DuPoint Science Stories." I don't even know what to call these things -- they're not quite ads, not infomercials, hell, you can shoot me but maybe brandumentaries? (Ick.) Anyway, they're entertaining enough to watch for a few minutes, especially with the bits of retro footage they unearthed from the lab.

The key from here is, they were smart enough not to take the astroturf route and pretend this stuff was homegrown. Instead, they're actually paying for ad space on blogs like Boing-Boing. But these fun little bits will doubtless get picked up by other blogs (like this one), cross-posted on YouTube, and develop a second little life beyond the site where they live, stories.dupont.com. This only works if they get spread around.

Now like the Chevy Tahoe folks, DuPont is going to be in for some spoofs -- there's plenty of parody potential here. But the next step is when Ad Age or the Wall St. Journal starts writing about the strategy behind the idea. Which will get people looking at and spreading the videos. Which will boost DuPont's association with these "miracles of science." Which is what they were looking for in the first place . . . without spending $10 million for ad avails on CBS or Fox. Nice work.

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Posted by Josh Bernoff at 12:01 AM in Advertising, Blogs, Josh's posts, Marketing, Online advertising | | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

February 27, 2007

Why I love the new Gmail ads

by Josh Bernoff

While reading the Wall St. Journal online I was irresistably attracted to something unusual on the side of the screen -- an ad for Gmail in the form of a YouTube widget. This had to get clicked on for several reasons:

  • I've hardly ever seen a YouTube widget as an ad on a regular media site.
  • It looked like it would be really silly.

And clicking paid off -- it was really silly. But in its own Google fashion, it told the story -- some nice features that Gmail has. And it also told another story, since it appears to have been made by a bunch of engineers with a video camera and leftover office supplies -- that there are real people working at Gmail and they're trying to make a good product.

In his book "All Marketers Are Liars" Seth Godin talks about how marketers need to tell an authentic story that stands out. Bingo. Google marshalled all its assets -- YouTube, authenticity, actual product features -- to tell a compelling story. Microsoft couldn't tell this story -- it wouldn't seem authentic. Apple would never let its engineers look this amateurish. Way to go, Google, on embracing your own image to sell your product.

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Posted by Josh Bernoff at 08:52 AM in Advertising, Online advertising, Portals | | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

October 25, 2005

Google Base – it’s more than just classifieds and listings

By Charlene Li

The news is out (thanks to the WSJ – subscription required) that Google Base, the long-anticipated Google classifieds and listings service, made a fleeting debut. The site (base.google.com) is now down, but there are a few screenshots floating around (see below for links). Here’s what the original page had in terms of text before it was taken down:

“Post your items on Google.

Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.”

The WSJ’s take is that this is Google’s assault on eBay. Others will be sure to look at it as a way to link classifieds and the anticipated Google Wallet. But I think it’s actually much, much bigger. Google’s main search index relies on spiders to crawl the Web and the much bally-hooed Page Rank system to understand relevancy. Neither work well in a database environment where pages are generated dynamically and linked pages don’t exist. I believe this is Google’s way to not only build a lucrative listings business but also to flesh out other areas like Froogle and Local with deep content that’s otherwise inaccessible or just plain doesn’t exist.

But what’s interesting to me is that rather than scrape existing databases, Google is going to encourage people, businesses, and organizations to submit their listings directly to Google. This avoids any potential “cease and desist” orders like the one that Oodle.com recently received from Craigslist.org for scrapping its listings. By actually owning a structured database that’s clean from the start (no need for de-duping scripts like those employed by Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com), Google can focus on what it does best – getting loads of consumers and businesses to use its services. Just a point of comparison – Craigslist.org had 4.8 million visitors in the US in September, a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of traffic that Google can drive.

What are the implications? First, it will be a while before Google Base becomes a category killer, but it will exert pressure in much the same way that online job boards like Monster.com have been squeezing print recruitment classifieds for the past 11 years. The likes of Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs didn’t have to worry much about start-ups like Indeed.com and SimplyHired, but when Google comes along and integrates database listings into general search results, then job boards should start worrying. This is because job-related search terms are a growing part of search revenues, with savvy company recruiters already advertising on those keywords (do a search on “technology jobs” and see who’s advertising).

Second, I would expect at some point for Google to tie self-publishing (e.g. Blogger), Google Groups, and Google Base together. For example, I could publish to my blog in a structured format (yes, this is akin to structured blogging), add some tags and have it appear on both my blog and also in Google Base where it can be populated throughout Google. So if I’m selling my car, I can choose a Google Base template and voila, I’m published throughout the Google Network.

Posted by Forrester Admin at 05:15 PM in Classifieds, Local, Online advertising, Portals, Search | | Comments (20) | TrackBack (4)

Free Forrester videos on Social Computing -- and much more

I spoke a few weeks ago at Forrester's Consumer Forum event in NYC about how companies can tap into social computing. I've included the links below to the MP3 and video files (they are FREE!!!), along with several other relevant speeches and Q&A that I thought you'd be interested in. I've included a few summaries as well as the lengths. [Note: the videos aren't quite "videos" (at least, not on my connection), but you'll get the slides that accompany the speeches -- and also a view of me "walking" around the stage!]. Also included are interviews with Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner of the NFL, Greg Joswiak, VP of Worldwide Product Marketing for iPod, Apple Computer Digital Home, and Vyomesh Joshi, EVP of the Imaging and Personal Systems Group at HP.

Charlene Li: "Social Computing -- Bubble or Big Deal?" (29 min. 38 sec.)
Find out how companies can tap into new technologies such as blogs, RSS, viral marketing, and podcasting to develop deeper relationships with consumers — including five rules that companies should follow to successfully grow these new relationships.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=88

Chris Charron: "Innovating In A Consumer Driven World" (8 min. 43 sec.)
Companies must tap into the power of consumer-to-consumer communication by adopting a "consumer-focused innovation" approach in which consumers play an active role in products, services, experience design, and marketing.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=86

Christine Overby: "The Essentials Of Consumer-Driven Innovation" (20 min. 11 sec.)
To turn consumer insights into profits, companies must master "consumer-focused innovation" — in which consumers play an active role in products, services, experience design, and marketing.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=87

Paul Tagliabue (NFL): Q&A with George Colony Part 1 of 2 (5 min. 12 sec.)
Tagliabue provides his perspective on emerging content distribution channels like video on-demand, streaming and downloading, and wireless video. He emphasizes the need to experiment broadly, create new product for every channel, and target the offering . . .
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=89

Paul Tagliabue (NFL) : Q&A with George Colony Part 2 of 2 (4 min 7 sec)
Commenting on the marketing lessons he has learned at the NFL, Tagliabue discusses the need to monitor consumers carefully and regularly — to uncover invisible changes beneath the surface of macro consumer trends — as well as the need to form multiple . . .
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=90

Greg Joswiak (Apple): Q&A with Josh Bernoff (22 min. 0 sec.)
Joswiak explains how Apple changes the rules of the game. He includes a special emphasis on how Apple taps into customer feedback online and in its stores and then combines those insights with its own technology vision.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=91

Vyomesh Joshi, Exec. VP, Imaging and Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard (3 min. 10 sec.)
Hewlett-Packard's Vyomesh Joshi dismisses "convergence" as an unhelpful word and describes HP's four-pronged strategy for what consumers want in their digital home: content, search, personalization, and community.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=96

Posted by Charlene Li at 12:48 AM in Advertising, Blogs, Media, Online advertising, Podcasting, Portals, RSS, Search, Shameless plug, Social media, Social networking | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (6)

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