Wolff Howls, The Facebook Is Failing
May 24, 2012
I read “The Facebook Fallacy.” The point of the write up is that online advertising is doomed. Upbeat. Clever. And it certainly seems to be spot on in the wake of the slow sinking of Facebook shares.
Mr. Wolff asserts:
I don’t know anyone in the ad-Web business who isn’t engaged in a relentless, demoralizing, no-exit operation to realign costs with falling per-user revenues, or who isn’t manically inflating traffic to compensate for ever-lower per-user value.
I quite like the word “humper”. It adds some interesting connotations to the person engaged in selling advertising. What does “humper” call to your mind? Keep your thoughts to yourself; otherwise, an online advertiser may insert an advertisement into your once-private life.
The killer sentence in the write up, in my opinion, was this one:
The growth of its user base and its ever-expanding page views means an almost infinite inventory to sell. But the expanding supply, together with an equivocal demand, means ever-lowering costs. The math is sickeningly inevitable. Absent an earth-shaking idea, Facebook will look forward to slowing or declining growth in a tapped-out market, and ever-falling ad rates, both on the Web and (especially) in mobile. Facebook isn’t Google; it’s Yahoo or AOL.
I put the juicy bit in bold. I enjoyed the poignant reference to the value of a New York Times online subscriber, but let’s think a moment about the reality of Facebook.
First, the social trend does not have much impact on me. But for some, Facebook is a must-have application or service. However, Facebook is oozing forward. The company is likely to undergo changes. My view is that the changes will be slow, so the demise of the Facebook blob will take some time.
Second, the problem online advertising faces is in some ways similar to the problem traditional advertising faces. Audiences phase change without warning. The truisms which allowed my account representative from Ketchum McLeod & Grove don’t work too well in today’s wonky business climate. In the absence of proven methods for making sales, there is a desperation marketing phenomenon which I find interesting. Nothing much works, and I don’t think Facebook will crack the code. However, there are enough PT Barnum opportunities to keep the business afloat for a while.
Third, the present financial climate jeopardizes Facebook and a number of other businesses. I am far more concerned about the social consequences of cutting the financial lifelines to those who depend on government largesse to survive. One can advertise and market like the Dickens. If potential customers don’t buy, there is a larger problem.
I don’t have a horse in this race. I don’t care what happens to Facebook or any of the Web outfits. I am reluctant to cry “wolff”.
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
GigaOM Discovers the Power of Beyond Search
May 18, 2012
Short honk. We’re thrilled. In addition to Microsoft, numerous azure chip consultants, and various SEO experts, the phrase “beyond search” has been discovered by a “real” news outfit. Navigate to “Beyond Search: Twitter Joins the Discovery Wave.” The point is that one cannot read Twitter. Great insight. We look forward to more semantic appropriations. Perhaps a “beyond search” column, a mysteries of GigaOM, or – our favorite – the calculating predator 2012.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog, where “real” journalists don’t both to seek inspiration.
Funnelback Demo Video
May 17, 2012
The Cloud Harvester is hosting a new demo video for Funnelback‘s flagship product. The video is short but sweet—in less than a minute and a half, it clearly conveys how to create a new faceted navigation filter in Funnelback Enterprise Search.
Funnelback was grew from technology developed by CSIRO, Australia’s premier scientific research agency. The company was established in 2005, and was bought by UK content management outfit Squiz in 2009. They offer Enterprise and Website Search, both of which include customizable features. Both local and SaaS deployment options are available.
Regarding their Enterprise Search product, Funnelback’s Web site promises a comprehensive product:
“Funnelback Enterprise makes information available via a single web interface in a timely, consistent and convenient manner, leading to faster, more informed decision-making. Funnelback Enterprise can search across a myriad of corporate content repositories including websites, intranets, shared drives, document management systems, email systems, SharePoint and databases.”
Curious about the name? Their About page shares this:
“The name Funnelback is a play on the name of two spiders; the funnel-web and the redback, both native to Australia. The name was also chosen because of Funnelback’s ability to rapidly ‘funnel’ relevant information ‘back’ to the user.” [links added]
Quirky, clever, and memorable. And quintessentially Austrailian, just like Funnelback.
Cynthia Murrell, May 17, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Gartner, A Former Gartner Person, and Ego
May 14, 2012
Computerworld is supposed to be about computers. Now I don’t think too much about Computerworld era computers any more. I think that the owner of Computerworld was gung ho on Verity search once. That told me a great deal about Computerworld’s parent company.
The story “Can a New Analyst Firm Take Down Gartner?” Wow. Quite an amazing write up. Sprawled across three pages, the story is written by a person about whom I know quite a lot after reading the “real” news in Computerworld; for example:
- The author of the story is Rob Enderle who is a big wheel and apparently the brains behind the Enderle Group.
- Mr. Enderle worked at Forrester (an azure chip outfit explaining what’s what in all things related to anything that compute), Giga Information Group (ditto the Forrester services), and a profession who has “worked for” IBM. He worked on audits, competitive analysis, marketing, finance, and security.
- Mr. Enderle is a TV talent type for CNBC, Fox (a Murdoch “real” journalism outfit), Bloomberg, and NPR.
- Mr. Enderle “knows” Gideon Gartner, the brains behind the Gartner we know and love today as a publicly traded azure chip consulting firm.
- Mr. Enderle “helped found” the Giga Information Group.
- Mr. Enderle knows that “line management…doesn’t listen to Gartner and, for that matter, often doesn’t listen to IT either.”
There are other biographical nuggets in the write up too. Mr. Enderle “knows” Gideon Gartner. Be still my heart!
The main point is that an outfit involved in social CRM could—hypothetically and mostly without factual basis—just might be able to “take down Gartner.”
Yowza.
What does the kitty see when it looks in the mirror? A house pet or a wild lion?
The super hero in this story is a company called Ombud, which I assume is shorthand for ombudsman, a full time equivalent who is supposed to be a pair of ears with moist eyes and a warm nature able to solve a customer’s problem. I don’t know any ombudsmen, however. Those characteristics often match up with social workers in my experience.
There were several overt main points in the story about Ombud which I found more like search engine optimization and ego marketing. For instance:
I learned:
Gartner Group was conceived well before social networking, at a time when there not only was no Internet but no PCs. It seemed that it wouldn’t be long before someone would figure out how to blend experts, practitioners and vendors into a service that would be cheaper, more current and more focused on the unique needs of an individual company, thus providing more real value (regardless of price) than the older model.
Er, so what? Ombud is a Web site for a company which offers the same pay to play information which comes from most azure chip and blue chip consulting firms. Check ‘em out yourself at www.ombud.com.
Second, unlike Gartner and I assume any other consulting outfit, Ombud sells “access to RFPs which users create and vendors bid on.” I think the idea is that one can eliminate intermediaries, post a request for work, get bids, and pick a vendor. The organization just goes direct. I know how poorly the traditional procurement process works, but I am sure that a Fortune 50 company will experiment with Ombud. Anything that cuts the burdensome fees imposed by azure chip consultants is a good thing for most chief financial officers.
Buying YouTube Love: Is This a Step Too Far?
May 10, 2012
It seems YouTube comments are for sale.
The SEO crowd has a new angle. EzineMark announces that you can now “Buy YouTube Comments to Contribute in the Growth of Your Online Venture.” The write up starts by mentioning how useful YouTube videos can be in a marketing campaign. Naturally, the more comments a company’s video gets, the more exposure the company ultimately receives. So far so good, but such a setup begs for someone to game the system.
Now, apparently, companies are doing just that. We are advised:
“There is a revelation that social media marketing service providers design various packages of ‘buy YouTube comments’ in a different price brackets. The price of the package varies with the number of comments demanded by the owner of an online venture. You can come across packages with numbers ranging from 100 to 500 comments to choose from. You can avail the package of buying YouTube comments in tune with your requirement and budget.”
This particular, um, article is not really worth combing through, unless you get a chuckle from poorly written English. The very idea of buying YouTube comments, though, is an interesting tactic. How long before it is utterly impossible to differentiate between marketing campaigns and organic content? Are we already there?
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Hired Gun Stacey Wechsler Shoots Blanks, Frightens Goose
May 3, 2012
More desperation marketing.
I admit it. After the little health event, I have been slow on the trigger. But I kept firing real ammo. Even though I spent more time in the hospital than a Medicaid Integrity Contractor, we pushed closer to 8,000 posts in this blog since January 2008. I even submitted my January, February, March and April 2012 columns on schedule much to the annoyance of the medical wizards in rural Kentucky. I am not sure what I wrote, but, hey, at age 67 and stuffed with medical goodies, I had a tough time remembering what day it was.
Now that I am back at my desktop command center, I am wading through email. I have to say, “I get a great deal of spam.” Those with whom I work either buzz my mobile or send me a text message. The high value content in email forms a smaller and smaller percentage of the total bitage each day.
Imagine my surprise when I get email from public relations “experts” who address me by my first name, enjoin me to attend a Kentucky Derby event, and inform me of ever-so-cute Twitter handles. Right, I am going to follow a person who uses this type of desperation marketing method.
So what did I receive?
Style Icon Luxury Gifting Suite Presented by New Era…Featuring Luxury & Lifestyle Brands: New Era, Wonderful Pistachios, Connor Custom, Jewelers, The Teaologist, Infiniti , Koma Unwind, Amanda Burns Jewelry, Street Moda, Ceela Naturals Skincare, Marena Scientific Shapewear, Sharp Images Salon & Spa, Pureology Luxury Hair Care & Cardaroos. Beverages by Woodford Reserve & Given Liqueur with Signature “POM Juleps” by POM Wonderful **Benefitting: March of Dimes, Dress for Success Louisville, Cure Duchenne, & Blessings in a Backpack*
What does this message mean? And the asterisks. How is this irresponsible verbal barrage relevant to search and content processing?
Who sent this misdirected, “blank”? An outfit called Hired Gun, located in New York City. Yep, that explains it. New York ethos. I am just a hick in Kentucky. A spam magnet.
So I wrote Stacey Wechsler, owner of Hired Gun. I asked her to remove me from her spam list. I said, “Stop writing me.”
What happened?
She fired back more quickly than the Googler on Top Shot:.
Get over it. You were on a damn media list. Shoddy? Ok. Stacey Wechsler, Hired Gun Publicity
Yep, and and I thought the expletive was a deft touch. I really appreciate advice and a curse word. Just what a person recuperating from a life threatening illness needs to face the fine health care service in Harrod’s Creek.
Ms. Wechsler’s LinkedIn profile suggests she organized the Sundance Film Festival. Ah, nice gig. What did Robert Redford do? Chop liver? Ms. Wechsler asserts on Twitvid that she is:
A girl who loves sports, music, work & the people in my life.
I was disappointed that she provided so little information about her work for Playboy and her pledge mistress activities at St. John’s University.
Thin content, but I love the ampersand. A useful short cut. I am quite tired of the spam news releases young people send me.
Hey, “real” journalists, I don’t do news. I capture information which interests me. The blog is for me and free. I don’t write “real” journalists and I keep my PR experts at arm’s length.
Do the desperation marketers and PR mavens avoid me? “The Publicist Behind Snooki’s Success” has spammed sickly me right here in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. Obviously to the hired gun shooting wildly is more important than hitting a target. Ms. Wechsler has been guided in the “Fire, Aim, Ready” school of public relations. Dangerous?
Does Ms. Wechsler and her ilk expect me to process the baloney generated by unemployed middle school teachers, self appointed experts, failed webmasters, and “real” journalists who have lost their “real” jobs and are looking for some type of approbation. Don’t I point out that “real” journalists manage to Murdoch themselves?
My goodness, I made fun of AtomicPR’s clumsy efforts to explain that MarkLogic had morphed into an enterprise search vendor at an Autonomy or Endeca type level. Oh, please, PR mavens. Doesn’t MarkLogic offer an XML centric data management system?
The hired gun metaphor is less powerful than the AtomicPR metaphor. But I have to admit, having blanks shot near my one good ear has given me a headache. Pop. Pop. Pop. I find the gun metaphor threatening. Worth monitoring with Overflight.
Stephen E Arnold, May 3, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
An Expensive Recipe for Search Traffic
May 1, 2012
Remember the good old days of 1993. A person could browse a list of new sites. Most Web sites then got some traffic. Today, getting traffic is not like 1993. (Is there an artist formerly known as Prince to write a tune about the shift?)
I read a recipe for traffic which appears in “Google’s Perfect Quality Score Sauce.” Among the tips are buying more keywords. Positive keywords and negative keywords are in the list of ingredients. But the operative words are “add more keywords.” Yep, spend more, get more.
The write up’s content comes from a Googler named Tanmay, but the important point is that key to traffic is a blend of cordon bleu methods which involve buying AdWords.
Will spending money produce clicks? The answer is, “Yes.” The reason is that without some type of exogenous lift, traffic to Web sites both desktop anchor and mobile on-the-wing are a bit like the income distribution in the US. One percent of the sites get the traffic. The other 99 percent do not.
The fact is creating a crisis of sorts among marketers who are pumping six figures into Web sites which yield a meager 2,000, 10,000, or 20,000 uniques.
Now the proper response to a CFO who questions the inefficiency of a traditional Web site is, “If we make one sale, the Web site pays for itself. And we get leads.”
One hopes the CFO says, “Okay, give me one sheet of paper with the sales the Web site has made in the last 30 days and a list of top 10 leads which have come from your Web efforts.”
Bad news, of course. Metrics are easy to talk about, but they are tough to map to hard dollars.
The good news about the sad state of traffic for most Web sites is that those who sell clicks, eyeballs, traffic, or other clever “evidence” of success is that Google will benefit. This is different from the good old days when a Web site was an event. Today a Web site is a distraction, an expensive distraction.
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow, which delivers analytics that answer questions
Yes, Marketing! 2011 Marked by Record Breaking Ad Sales
April 30, 2012
Taume.com recently reported on stunning internet ad revenues that could be one explantation for the increased tension between Facebook and Google in the article “Internet Ad Revenues Hit $31 Billion in 2011, Historic High Up 22% Over 2010 Record-Breaking Numbers.”
According to the 2011 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, (IAB) revenues have reached record highs of $31 billion. The article highlights several other growth categories from this year in the categories of mobile (up 149 percent), digital video (up 29 percent), and search revenues (up 27 percent).
Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB stated:
“This historic moment, with an especially impressive achievement in mobile, is indicative of an increased awareness from advertisers that they need to reach consumers where they are spending their time–in digital media. Pushing past the $30 billion barrier, the interactive advertising industry confirms its central place in media. Across search, display, digital video, digital provides a wealth of opportunity for brands and consumers. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it is likely that the tremendous growth in mobile will continue as these screens become even more crucial to the marketing mix.”
Do these numbers reflect a change in priorities for search giants like Google and Facebook? and if so, is it a positive one?
Jasmine Ashton, April 30, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Brin Plays Defense: Competitors Relieved or Subject to Revisionism??
April 30, 2012
The Inquirer recently posted an interesting item about Google’s Sergey Brin explaining comments he previously made about certain competitors in the article “Sergey Brin Explains ‘Internet Enemies Comments”
According to the article, Brin thought that his comments were taken out of context. Also since the previous article was a short summary of a long discussion, his opinions were distorted. In reality, he holds competitors like Apple and Facebook in high regard.
In hopes of clarifying his previous statement that Google has a number of Internet enemies, Brin said:
“Today, the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent. This has been far more effective than I ever imagined possible across a number of nations. In addition, other countries such as the US have come close to adopting very similar techniques in order to combat piracy and other vices. I believe these efforts have been misguided and dangerous.”
It’s funny how the free flow of information can sometimes work to our disadvantage by blowing statements out of proportion.
Jasmine Ashton, April 30, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Foursquare Helps Businesses Stay Connected with Their Customers
April 28, 2012
Review sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon become incredibly important when determining the success or failure of a local business. But how can you make reviewing your business fun and easy? Search Engine Journal recently reported on the location based social networking site Foursquare in the article “How to Use Foursquare to Get Reviews for Your Local Business.”
According to the article, 76% of consumers use online reviews to determine which local business they will patronize. Unlike other review sites, Foursquare has a free check in feature that gives your business instant promotion. It also has two added benefits that further distinguish your business:
“First, because it’s integrated with Twitter, it gives you direct access to your customers. Second, by nature of who’s most likely to actually check in, it more specifically gives you access to your most loyal brand advocates. After all, if a customer goes as far as to publicly announce that he or she’s visiting your storefront, it’s pretty safe to assume that they had a positive experience. These are the people you want to leave reviews!”
Foursquare also makes it easy to set up notifications that allow you to see what your customers are saying about your business. Having direct access with your customers allows you to create a dialogue with them that will make them feel appreciated and want to return.
Jasmine Ashton, April 29, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
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