According to the Experian Hitwise article “Facebook Was the Top Search Term for Third Straight Year,” social media continues to dominate the public’s interest. “Experian Hitwise, a part of Experian Marketing Services analyzed the top 1,000 search terms for 2011, and Facebook was the top-searched term overall in the US. Analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking-related terms dominated the results, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 searches.”

Furthermore, social media terms have topped the list for the past six years. It seems that social media outlets such as Facebook show no obvious sign of slowing down but in a world where it’s out with the old and in with the new it will be interesting to seethe data for 2012.

April Holmes, February 10, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Social networking accounts for one of every five minutes spent online, making it the most popular online activity worldwide. Media Post recently reported on the financial impact that social media is having on ad spending in the article “Social Networking Lags in Capturing Ad Spend.”

According to the article, a new report from comScore found that social networking sites lead all content categories in the number of display ads delivered, accounting for more than 1 in 4 U.S. display ad impressions. Despite this fact, it is not attracting ad dollars.

The article states:

The 17% of time spent online using social media is roughly comparable to the 15% share of display ad dollars. Furthermore, much of the marketing on Facebook comes in the form of earned or owned media via brand pages and apps, rather than through paid advertising. Much of the paid advertising on Facebook is small, low-cost ads from long-tail marketers rather than high-cost campaigns from big brands.

Facebook and Twitter are the leading social networking sites and they are becoming internationally popular and a phenomenon that is enjoyed by all age groups. If this report is correct, then the ad industry should strike while the iron is still hot. If social ad revenue does not hit the lofty targets required to keep billion dollar babies in diapers, trouble may arrive quickly.

Jasmine Ashton, February 9, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Even though I am one of those unfortunate Diet Coke addicts, the recent inverted color Coca-Cola can problem was not lost on me. The white can was a collaborative project with the World Wildlife Fund to raise awareness and donations for the polar bear. The white can was taken off the market in just five weeks for various reasons: customers confused it with Diet Coke, asserted it tasted different, or were utterly offended at the change of the iconic red can.

Guess who saved the day? A search and content processing vendor, that’s who. After customers reacted on social media, Attensity analyzed the feedback. We learn more in the article, “Social Analysis: Coca-Cola’s White Can Turnaround”:

On one hand, the data clearly indicates that Coke’s white can was well liked by most, indicating clever marketing by Coke to create Buzz around an extremely familiar product. On the other hand, there was just enough real negative sentiment towards the white can to justify a swift reaction to avoid the issue escalating any further, especially in light of the social media feedback on announcements from companies like Bank of America and Netflix.

Never mind that the overall purpose of the campaign was lost in the hoopla surrounding the can color, we wonder about the marketing intelligence behind this move. Our question: Why wasn’t appropriate research done prior to the misstep? A Coca Cola tradition, perhaps?

Search vendors rank right up there with Coca Cola. Who can forget the Google and the Muppets? Google Plus to the rescue?

Andrea Hayden, February 5, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Edwards has noted a pattern in Google earnings, wherein the company tends to grow little during the first quarter, but makes up for it at Christmas time. Last year, the December surge never occurred. This could be worrisome for Google stakeholders.

There are several possible reasons for the tepid performance. For one thing, the per-click ad rate has been sliding downward. Also, search for the mobile arena, which is still growing and bound to take over the world sooner or later, has provided a lower ad revenue than regular search. Finally, shoppers are now more likely to go directly to a shopping site like Amazon than to Google their potential purchases.

In summary, Edwards observes,

All of the foregoing explains Google’s sudden interest in newspaper advertising, PR stunts such as the Google+ event with David Beckham, and its continued enthusiasm for Google Wallet. . . . Google needs to get Christmas back on track in 2012 — and that means reminding consumers to use its products for shopping.

Hmm. Reminding and enticing are two different things. Can Google do either?

Cynthia Murrell, February 3, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

If you could without any effort produce unique articles at the velocity of ‘thought’, just how many would you produce? If you could change all those Private Label Rights articles sitting in your disk drive into high quality hard cash producing site articles, e-zine articles, blog posts, or ebooks quicker than you ever thought possible, just how much more do you believe you could profit?

Ugh. Is this is what passes for quality content with the iPad crowd? The results cannot possibly hold a candle to professionally produced articles.

These tools are not illegal, but, in this writer’s opinion, certainly immoral. Why should some Web site looking to make a buck make it from mangling my, or any other professional’s, thoughtful words?

Humph.

Cynthia Murrell, February 2, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

[ZyLAB] was founded in 1983 in Chicago, now with offices worldwide with 120 employees and was the first company to develop full-text search on the PC platform.   It is a leader in information access, e-discovery and records management.  It’s international presence is enormous with more than 9,000 installations and 1.7 million users world-wide, with offices in the U.S., Europe and the Asia Pacific.

Other featured descriptions prove enlightening, demonstrating ZyLAB’s focus and point of view. For example, “The 5 Myths of E-Disclosure” details how to approach that complex subject wisely. Also, the session on IT functionality shows the company is cognizant of the nuts and bolts behind what they do. See the article for more insights. As vendors jump into conferences, we wonder if this is a core competency, a way to send a message without competitors in the room, or just a way to sidestep the costs of the flagship international events?

Cynthia Murrell, February 1, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

According to the article, IBM is planning on using Watson as a reference tool to assist human physicians in the treatment of breast, lung and colon cancer.

The write up provides readers with the text from an interview between All Things D and Manoj Saxena, general manager of the Watson program at IBM, to talk about what Watson will — and won’t — be doing in helping doctors treat humans with cancer, and what that might mean for the future of medicine.

In response to the question, will Watson be directly involved in treatment? Saxena replied:

Watson doesn’t make the decisions. It’s a physician’s assistant. But before it becomes that, it has a lot to learn. Out of the box, Watson has the knowledge of a first-year medical resident. That is where it’s at today. With Cedars-Sinai and Wellpoint, we’re going to teach it all about cancer during the next six months.

Watson still has a lot to learn to be able to be utilized to solve the problem of cancer. After utilizing the super computer in the medical field, IBM plans to apply Watson to financial services. We look forward to more public relations about Watson, the smart search system. It would be interesting to have an online demonstration using the IBM patent corpus or Wikipedia content. Talk is one thing. Test queries are quite another.

Jasmine Ashton, January 31, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

I was invited to Info360? The name did not resonate, so I browsed the spam message, a portion of which is included in this blog post.

So what’s an Info360? On the surface, it seems to be mostly about an azure chip (maybe a very pale azure?) consulting firm and a gaggle of jargon. Here’s an example of what’s on tap in June, which the spam assures me is amazing:

• Big data and analytics
• Cloud infrastructure.
• Content management basics, records management, and Web content management (presumably different from “basic” content management and not a subset of content management)
• Data capture
• Enterprise collaboration
• Mobile business
• SharePoint
• Social business

In short, this is an umbrella conferences covering a multitude of topics. The Info360 program is, I believe, the Association of Image and Information Management’s event.

These “one size fit all” conferences contrast with more focused start up showcase events or focused technical events such as the Lucid Imagination Lucene Revolution program.

More and more umbrella conferences are “pay to play” talks. Programs are often little more than product and marketing pitches.

What should a person do who is seeking information about a specific topic in the laundry list in the spam message sent to me? My suggestion is to look for a specialty conference close to home.

Email marketing, at least for me, spam is a turn off. When the spam uses words like “amazing” and “real”, I tune out. I may be taking steps toward a certain blindness by ignoring spam about conferences, so your mileage may differ. Search is not on the program. That’s probably a plus because search is certainly no buzzword like “big data” or “mobile business”, whatever that means.

Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

If you are following this alleged trend, you will enjoy the data which suggests that some companies have decided that blogging is a waste of money. Now the academic researchers don’t use phrases like “waste of money”, but the message seems to be blogs don’t deliver.

What do companies expect from Web logs? That question is not part of the study, but I think that like search engine optimization, Web logs (blogs) are expected to make revenues soar, create a flood of in-bound calls from prospects, and generally fill in the void left when direct mail lost efficacy for many organizations.

What are companies doing to make sales and build their brand? Social media is the new “silver bullet.” What companies will discover is that social media is not the answer to generating leads and closing sales. Neither blogs nor social media work the way the good old fashioned go-go days of the pre-crash era tools functioned.

Knee jerk reactions are typical in many businesses. Social media is as or more expensive than creating content for blogging. Even more interesting are issues of ownership of social media identities. A misstep in a blog can create a problem. A misstep in a social media channel can be a problem as well.

Companies looking for a way to make sales will have to do more than chase the next big thing. In our work, we think that high value information, consistent communication across multiple channels, and a findability strategy create points of engagement.

Doing one thing, like running a query on one free Web search engine, seems to work. The reality is you need to work to get value.

Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

In December, the school filed an amended complaint that added new allegations, including that Oracle had conducted a “rigged” demonstration of the software package at issue. Oracle’s motion this week responds to that filing, asking that its allegations of fraudulent inducement, gross negligent misrepresentation, grossly negligent performance of contractual obligations and willful anticipatory repudiation of contract be dismissed.

Oh, oh. Consultants could not make the system work because the client alleges that Oracle showed a demo. How often has this happened? Cool demo. Failed reality.

I don’t know how this legal matter will turn out, but consultants who try to implement demos may be over their heads and billing for time to convert dreams into functional software can come back and bite, hard. Clueless licensees have teeth and can be a noisy bicycle card in a software consultant’s wheel.

Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com