You may have noticed that some Grok contributors have been less present on our blog lately. Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg have left FutureNow to capitalize on opportunities in professional speaking, blogging, writing, and online marketing advisory.  Bryan’s new website can be found at www.bryaneisenberg.com. Please join us in wishing them continued success in their new ventures.

The only small change that will effect readers is that the senior analysts that have been sharing their insights and expertise in the past, will now be contributing more on The Grok.  You’ll be reading more from the analysts that are working with clients every day, helping them achieve higher conversion rates and improve their online marketing efforts.  Grok contributors will increase their focus on sharing more case studies on what is and isn’t working in actual client optimization efforts.

And, here’s what’s not changing:

• The focus of GrokDotCom:  Grokking human reactions to marketing, sales, PR & evolving media.
• Our efforts to bring you interesting industry developments, cool new tools to make your lives easier, and actionable insights for optimizing your conversion rates.

For those interested in more details, here are some thoughts from FutureNow’s CEO, excerpted from a letter that went out to clients and partners:

Bryan, Jeffrey and the rest of the team have made this Company the leading authority in the conversion optimization space.  Combine that with an unmatched proprietary database that has website recommendations that work and a software tool that manages and measure those results, we continue leading the industry.  We owe Jeffrey and Bryan, our experienced team, our customers, and our affiliate service partners a lot of gratitude for getting us to this point.

We plan to build on this success and even find ways to improve it.  Our methodology will not change, and clients will still get the same analysis they have come to expect.  Our highly skilled business analyst team, account management personnel, and software development and support group will continue to look for ways to exceed our clients’ expectations.

Having been involved in some capacity since the Company’s inception, I am excited as ever for where our Company is and for our future plans.

I welcome any questions you may have and can be reached at 718-560-3325 or by email at bills@futurenowinc.com.

Sincerely,

William Schloth

Chief Executive Officer

First, there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the Usability camp about redesigns and how radical they should be.

Mr. Nielson’s thoughts resonated with me given that our OnTarget product is generally focused on incremental improvement of clients’ existing websites. He urges readers to avoid redesigns that involve massive change to a site’s user interface.  Why?  Because users (read: customers and prospects) hate change and love the familiar, even if we as marketers are sick of how our own sites look.  It’s always good advice to “evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design.”  He also recommends “getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live several years with minor updates.”  I think that’s a key point: a good (re)design is one that can stay fresh and current for several years, and accommodate a process of continuous improvement and incremental change.

I’ve seen many gorgeous site redesigns that didn’t stand up to that criteria–they weren’t well-coded, well-documented, or maintainable.  And when it came time to start optimizing, the marketing team found many unexpected constraints that made incremental changes more expensive than they bargained for.

Another point I’d like to drive home is that redesigns should be done with ROI in mind, not because internal stakeholders are sick of the look and feel.  There should be documented goals that can be measured, for example, increasing pages per visit by 20%, and increasing conversion rate by 5%.  And flexibility should be built in, so that you can always have a “to do list” of small improvements you can implement each month to incrementally build on your successes.

Finally, if you are considering a moderate to major redesign, keep in mind that usability testing can be done on very simple prototypes before you make major investments.  And, we love giving feedback on mockups, wireframes, prototypes, etc. because it allows our clients to launch with the best possible product, after which we start the process of continuous improvement.

I came across this bit o’ trivia while writing my post on Ogilvy’s preferred ad layout.  I found it written up by Robert Rosenthal at Freaking Marketing, who had done the detective work to find and scan in this Pierce-Arrow ad that ran about 25 years before Ogilvy’s Rolls Royce campaign.

If you consider yourself a student of advertising, you’ll want to read Robert’s entire post to get all the historical details, but any copywriter should find it worthwhile to compare the two headlines and analyze the improvements Ogilvy made to his version.

First, let’s look at the two headlines

So here are the two headlines for comparison:

The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrows is the ticking of the electric clock

vs.

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the ticking of its electric clock.”

Why the Ogilvy Headline was far more powerful

1) Specificity: The Ogilvy ad gives an actual speed.  Not only are specifics  always more believable than generalities, but in this case, the specific speed makes the reader think that an actual test was conducted to determine this fact.  By comparison, the Pierce-Arrows ad reads like hype.

2) Quote marks:  The quotation marks around the Rolls Royce headline indicate to the casual reader, scanning the page, that this was a remark made by someone, perhaps by a tester or engineer.   And indeed, the subdeck and first bullet point confirm that this is the case.  Again, the Pierce-Arrow headline has none of this credibility-building substantiation.

3) Believability of the claim itself: Notice the change from “only sound” to “loudest noise.”  For the reader, conjuring up a mental image of driving in a car in which the electric clock is actually louder than the engine is relatively easy, whereas the mind rejects the idea of a moving car making absolutely no noise except for that of the clock.  Consequently, the Pierce-Arrow ad practically provokes skepticism and dismissal from the reader.

4) Words fat with emotional associations: the difference between sound and noise may seem subtle, but the emotional connotations are miles apart.  Sound could be anything, and all else being equal, the word alone usually has positive associations.  Noise, on the other hand, is a nuisance.  Tell me I won’t hear a sound in a car, and I’ll think you’re exaggerating or  speaking figuratively – would anybody even want to drive in the kind of sensory deprivation chamber that that would require?  But tell me that the loudest noise in the car comes from a ticking lock, and I’ll want to experience the serenity of such an exquisitely engineered car/cabin that is capable of nullifying the unpleasant noises and nuisances of the road.

Why the Ogilvy Ad was far more modern

In some ways, my comparison is simply not fair since the Pierce-Arrow ad hails from a far less cynical age than the Rolls Royce Ad.  One could suppose that back in the days of the Pierce-Arrow ad, “yeah, sure” and “prove it” probably weren’t the automatic responses to any advertising claim that they are today.

But the transition in audience attitudes wasn’t instantaneous.  In fact, you can already see the need for proof and substantiation by the time Ogilvy’s ad rolls around.  That’s why the Rolls Royce ad:

• Includes engineering and expert testimonials or quotes.
• Provides no less than 12 bullet points of factual copy – facts proving the extreme quality, engineering, and attention to detail that goes into making a Rolls Royce
• Openly states the price of the car without dancing around the subject.

How to apply this to the Web

If you are an online copywriter here’s what you need to ask yourself:

1) Are you doing the research that Ogilvy did in order to come up with powerful headlines?  And once you have that angle of approach, are you anywhere near as careful with your wordsmithing?

2) More importantly, do you think the public has grown any less cynical since the time of that Rolls Royce ad?

3) Most importantly, are you providing more substantiated copy, proof, and pricing information than Ogilvy’s Rolls Royce ad does?  Or are you providing less?

Tip 1: Subiminal Suggestion

Basically, make sure your design elements – and most especially your pictures – enhance your credibility and put visitors in the right emotional frame of mind to convert.

Sound advice, to be sure, but the example Website the author (Dmitry Fadeyev) provides seemed kind of lame to me.  Here’s a more-thorough 5-minute video on this principle by Dave Young:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tip 2: Prevent Choice Paralysis

Too many choices results in buyers avoiding a decision and failing to convert.  You need to make it easy for a buyer to say yes without getting too bogged down in the details.  One way to do this is to provide a recommended or “best value” option.

But here’s where I’d go a bit beyond that by looking at this through the lens of temperament:

• Spontaneous temperaments like recommended and “most popular” options.  They also ver much want to shorten the time spent shopping and setting up so they can maximize time spent actually DOING THE THING.  If your recommended option helps customers get out on the playing field quicker, then be sure to tell visitors that.
• Methodical temperaments will want to know WHY you believe this is the best value and how you can prove it.  Show your reasoning/methodology in coming to your conclusions and offer up proof of value.  This may involve linking to a mouse-over or additional page from the recommendation box.  Maybe a little link on “Why we recommend this package.”
• Competitive temperaments don’t necessarily need a recommendation, but a quick way to narrow down their choices by advanced filtering.  Or a quick way of knowing why the choice you’ve labeled as premium will give them an edge.  Keep them in control and convinced they’re getting an advantage through their purchase and they’ll convert.
• Humanistic temperaments usually want to know how easy it is to upgrade or downgrade a recommended service or swap-out a product if your recommendation ends up not quite suiting them.  They also want a sense of your motivations in recommending one product over another and possibly if they can Chat or call someone about the recommendation.

Tip 3: Show The Product

This is very similar to my post on “Show me the pics.”  People want to see what they are buying.  Not only do the pictures answer questions, but people want to imagine using the product.

What I’d add to this is that one picture often isn’t enough and that action photos are gold.  For software and services that means not only offering product tours with lots of screenshots, but also in using scenario-based product tours rather than functionality-based tours.  Walk me through doing something rather than randomly showing this or that functionality.

Tip 4: Let People Try It

Great (and self-explanatory) advice, but I was glad that Show the Product came before this.  I’ve seen a fair amount of software companies believe that visitors would just leap at a free trial in order to experience a product first hand, and that just aint how it works.

Visitors invariably want to sniff a product out BEFORE downloading it and investing time with it.  Realize that “Free” doesn’t really equate to risk free.  Dmitry writes about the positive benefits users’ emotional “sunk costs” that come with using a free piece of software – the kind of thing that leads to a paid updgrade vs. a search for a whole new product.  What he doesn’t mention is that visitors are well aware of that sunk cost and will avoid downloading software unless and until they have a decent sense that it will work well for them.

So, yes, by all means, let people try the product for free.  Just make sure you show them enough of the product and what it can do that their willing to invest the time trying it out.

Tip 5 & 7: AIDA and Next Steps

I combined these because they are intimately related and are both areas Future Now has quite thoroughly covered.  We, of course, add the “S” of Satisfaction onto the end of Attention-Interest-Desire-Action.

Also, planning persuasive momentum/next action steps should be more involved than simply ensuring visitors can find a buy button when they’re ready to buy or that you have some additional link made available to them.

Finally, you gotta love this money quote from the article:

“…you shouldn’t design a nice website first and then fill up the space with words. Instead,think about the message you want to send out, write the copy and then construct a design that delivers that.”

Amen, brother.  Amen.

Tip 6: Guide Attention

Having just finished writing about the impact of design on visitor eye tracking, I naturally found this to be the best part of the article.  Lost of great stuff on intelligent use of design to guide the eyes/attention of the visitor.

As for additional resources on the Web, check out

The Elements of Design Applied to the Web

Good Call to Action Buttons

Making Tabs Work for You

Looks can Kill Design Effectiveness

Color, Contrast, and Dimension

and Rowland Wilson on Composition

Tip 8:  The Gutenberg Rule

I really don’t have too much to say about this one, other than it’s another rule of thumb for good composition/page layout and that you should go and take a look at it for yourself.

And that’s it.  I’d love to hear your comments, suggestions, and additional resources as well.  Let me know what ya think…

• Don’t waste hyperlink words on non-descriptive or generic words.  Make links keyword rich and ensure that customers can predict where the link will take them.  Plan and link for maximum “scent”
• Use plain language.  In other words, talk to the dog in the language of the dog (about what matters to the dog).
• Front load user- and action-oriented terms.  For calls to action, we’ve always recommended an imperative verb + (implied) user benefit

But one of the article’s baseline assumptions seemed off to me: do website visitors really follow the F pattern regardless of a page’s graphic design and layout?  What if you’re selling lingerie?  Wouldn’t you expect a different eye-plot than the standard F-pattern; something closer to this:

The whole point of a properly designed page is to direct and guide the visitor’s attention/eyes where you want them to go.  That’s why visual prominence is so important to page layout and why people (rightly) spend money testing it with sophisticated eye tracking equipment in order to get these kind of results:

And for more text-heavy sites and pages, wouldn’t skim- and scan-friendly formatting that makes use of bullets, bolding, and embedded links similarly affect or change the F-pattern described by Nielsen? We know the direction of your model’s eyes can affect how people look at your page.

I’d also imagine that just as buying a new car suddenly helps its automotive twins to “magically” appear all over the road, a strongly scented link can allow the reader to notice and pick it out amidst the rest of the text on the page, despite the fact that it may or may not have been entirely front-loaded to maximize the impact of its first 11 characters.

What do you think?  Do page layout and scent trump (or at least alter) F-pattern scanning?

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the question: what do you want to bet that Apple has been just waiting – even itching – for Microsoft to release that kind of response to their “I’m a Mac” campaign?

Why do I ask that?  Because I’d bet anything that Mac’s marketing was smart enough to engage in what Mike Smock has termed The Three Move Set.  You see, when you try to take market share from a competitor, it’s usually a fair bet that they’ll react with some kind of countermeasure.  And that means smart marketers think at least far enough in advance to consider their response to the competition’s countermeasures.  Ideally, one wants to make sure this response is decisive, or at least hurts the competition as much as the initial challenge.  Here’s how Mike breaks it down:

Move 1: Challenger attacks Leader

Move 2: Leader reacts to Challenger.

Move 3: Challenger reacts to Leader.

And here’s how to view the current Mac/PC ad campaigns in light of that:

• Move 1: Mac challenges PC by personifying Macs as hip, cool, and reliably workable and PCs as nerdy, problematic (especially with the release of Vista), and behind the curve in user experience.

• Move 2: Microsoft responds by creating an ad that actively evokes Apple’s framing of the issue and that essentially says, hey, PCs are cool, too.

• Move 3: Mac slams Microsoft for covering up real problems with Vista by creating fancy advertising campaigns.

Do you see?  Most strategists could have – and should have – seen this one coming.  Apple goads you into advertising to respond to their ads and then they slam you for being more concerned with creating ad campaigns than fixing your software, as in the case with the ad I posted yesterday or Apple’s PC Bake Sale ad:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what should have (or could have) Microsoft done?

Well, leaving aside the obvious bit about getting Vista right before releasing it to the public, they probably should have:

1. Responded to Mac in a matter of weeks, or at least months, rather than years.  This one is sort of a no-brainer.
2. Come up with a response that re-framed the issue rather than responding to Mac’s frame.  Saying, “I’m not a dweeb” is a bit like saying “I’m not a crook” – it just forces people to think of you within the frame of dweeb/not dweeb (or Crook/Not Crook).  This is actually a well known phenomenon that is actively used by modern politicians.  Just as asking people not to think of white bears is actually counterproductive, so too is Microsoft’s denial of Mac’s characterization of PCs.
3. Possibly take a page out of Trout and Ries’ playbook and attack the weakness inherent in Mac’s strength.  In this case, it’s Apple’s closed system and (lower but still there) price premium.  William Thomas alluded to the limitations of a closed system in a comment to my previous post when he compared Linux to catching and gutting your own fish and Apple to ordering fish at the restaurant.  And I’m guessing here, but it’s also what Microsoft might be getting at with the “Life without walls” slogan.  Of course, Microsoft will have to be as creative and sharp witted in pressing this point as Mac has been with their campaigns, and, well, their ad above hardly qualifies.  The slogan is nothing but an afterthought.

So what do you think Microsoft should do?

Truth be told, what stopped me in my tracks when digitally thumbing through the Globe was not the headline, but the leading image of CC Chapman, all-around Podcaster-extraordinaire. Seems CC’s tv was on the fritz during a little thing called the 17th championship in Boston Celtics history, and he twitter blasted Comcast to make himself feel better (he should’ve realized in title-town, it takes a lot more than OD [original def] to keep a team down .) Here’s the amazing part – Comcast responded, via Twitter, within minutes. They also had a technician out to solve the problem…before the tip off of the next game!

We get asked a lot from clients about how to build communities online, or how to shape the conversations that exist online to be more favorable towards their company or product. I can understand and empathize with their perspective, but more often than not, the companies asking these questions haven’t done the basic fundamentals yet. Don’t worry so much about figuring out the 1-3-1 full court trap; rather focus on perfecting a well executed free throw. Not sure where to begin? How about:

1) Setting up Google alerts for your company and/or product name, and commit to spending an hour per day reading and responding honestly and in a human voice to the comments you read. Remember in the age in which we currently live, our heroes are more flawed like Jason Bourne, than the Rockwellian images of yesteryear. It’s ok to not be perfect, but you’ll get torched for not being honest. If you don’t believe me, see Pettitte, Andy and Clemens, Roger.

2) If Google alerts doesn’t give you enough fodder, try Technorati, or Twitter or Niche sites in your space, like Techmeme. Despite what the old commercial said, it’s tough to reach the end of the internet. There are plenty of services out there to help you comb through what’s out on the ‘net, but you may be surprised to see how much you can learn through sweat equity alone.

3) Go to sites that sell your product and have reviews. Mine through the treasure trove of data that your audience gives you about what works and what doesn’t about your product or service. What’s the vocabulary they use? In addition to learning why they hate your product or service at times, I’ll bet you a quarter you find new benefits you never considered that your audience is realizing as a result of your efforts. Bonus points if you use those benefits to rewrite some product copy.

4) If you don’t have reviews on your site (why not?- Is there something you are afraid of hearing?), read your competitors’ reviews, and instead of trashing them, learn from them. Reach out to the consumer base, and offer a few free products in exchange for free flow of feedback. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Those are just some top of mind ways you can get started. I’m positive the GrokDotCom audience base has far more, and even better, ideas for how they overcome these challenges, and learn from their current and past customers. Perhaps if we ask them politely, they’ll even share. Anyone care to share their stories & ideas in the comments below?

On paper this deal might look right, but how about the cultures?

What do you think; is it a good deal?

Oh, how quickly things change. Blogs have taken over, creating a feedback loop between journalists and readers, businesses and customers, you name it — conversation has officially changed the game.

While this may not represent all of the year’s best marketing bloggery, it’s a start. Are there posts by other bloggers you’d like to see on here? Let us know with a brief comment and (so long as it fits) we’ll add your suggestion to the list. Enjoy!

December

“Best of 2007: Top 7 Tech News Stories” — Mashable (The top tech posts from the Mashable.com team.)

“2007 Brand Autopsy Marketing Book Awards” by John Moore, Brand Autopsy (Find out which books John thought were made to stick, so to say, in ‘07.)

“The Cosmo Headline Technique for Blogging Inspiration” by Brian Clark, Copyblogger (Shows how to spin brilliantly trashy headlines into useful attention-grabbers, e.g., “Headline Help: Crucial Tips That Brian Clark Forgot to Mention” [Hint: It's not just for bloggers.])

November

“The Blogger’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization” by Aaron & Giovanna Wall, SEO Book (It’s quickly becoming the go-to resource for blog SEO.)

“Close Encounter with Facebook Beacon“ by Charlene Li, Groundswell (See what happens when you back peddle into a revenue stream by snooping on your users.)

“Who Owns Your Data on Google, Facebook, Netflix?” by Don Dodge, The Next Big Thing (One of the year’s top debates, nicely distilled in a simple response to Jason Calacanis, Doc Searls, and Dave Winer.)

“Amazon Sets eBook World Alight with Kindle” by Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web (Review of a clunky internet-connected e-book reader. Will it catch fire or burn up?)

“Google’s Android Arrives . . . An Open Source Mobile Phone Platform” by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s not a Google Phone, but a mobile operating system.)

October

“Sorry PR people: you’re blocked” by Chris Anderson, The Long Tail (If you’re in PR or have ever considered emailing Wired Magazine’s editor-in-chief, or any other blogger/author/journalist, don’t do a thing until you read this appropriately scathing post.)

“Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet” — GrokDotCom (Resources for anyone who wants to communicate on the Web.)

“Radiohead’s In Rainbows: A Look at Anti-Marketing in the Music Industry” by Maki, DoshDosh (One band schools an entire industry on “the ROI of free,” but stumbles a bit in the process. Read our follow-up case study for more.)

September

“Dear Steve Jobs” by Robert Scoble, Scobleizer (Apple announces iPhone. Zealots and Geeks wait in lines for days. Sales are a bit slow for Jobs, so he drops the price. The blogosphere speaks up. Jobs listens.)

“Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog” by Darren Rowse, ProBlogger (A terrific video post on why it’s important to put content first, then let search engines do their job. Optimization matters, but what you’re optimizing matters more.)

August

“Damn, I am so busted, yo” by Fake Steve, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (One of our favorite satirist bloggers, Daniel “if-that-is-his-name” Lyons, gets outed by a New York Times writer whose name happens to be BRAD STONE.)

“Moving Day” by Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics (In a freak move, NYTimes.com picks up Dubner & Levitt’s popular blog, breathing new life into old media.)

“See Who’s Editing Wikipedia” by John Borland, Wired (A Cal Tech graduate student makes a program that allows us to see who’s editing wiki entries. You might be surprised. Read our follow-up post for more.)

“Answer These 10 Questions Before You Charge for SEO Services” by Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz (A must-read for all SEO firms and the people who hire them.)

July

“Will The Last Corporation Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off The Light” by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch (The L.A. Times talks about the pink elephant: Are businesses making money or even wooing fans in Second Life?)

“Sphinn: Our Social Site For Search & Internet Marketing Professionals” by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Danny and crew launch a cool, 2.0-ish social news service for SEO’s.)

“FreeBurner for Everyone” by Traci, Burning Questions (Google acquires yet another important company. David Dalka gives six reasons why the deal was a mistake.)

June

“Why I disagree with Privacy International” by Matt Cutts, Gadgets, Google, and SEO (Google gets poor grades on their privacy practices. Matt speaks out.)

“Ask Launches Ask3D” by Eric Enge, Search Engine Watch (The “first” major launch of universal search.)

“Building 43” by Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog (You can’t out-SEO the team behind Google’s algorithm.)

“If Clicks Were Votes” by Andrew Meagher, Compete blog (A fun double-header analysis that tries to infer what could happen to Democrats and Republicans in the ‘08 U.S. presidential election if Web traffic on its own actually mattered.)

May

“Google Maps is spying on my cat…” by Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing (Google Street Views takes some very revealing photos, backlash ensues.)

“New Version of Google Analytics!” by Jeff Gills, The Official Google Analytics Blog (Sparks go off as Google unveils its updated analytics solution. Impressive, but is it an enterprise solution?)

“Thank You for Helping Me Write The New Rules of Marketing & PR!” by David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now (With one of the year’s best executed and most earnest linkbait posts, David proves why everyone should read his book. Thank YOU, sir!)

“The Movie is Finally Here,” by Geert, Bring Back the Love (Have advertisers lost that lovin’ feelin’? This short film shows why it’s time to bring it on back, now.)

April

“Google beats Microsoft in DoubleClick bidding battle” by David Hunter, Microsoft News Tracker, (GoogleClick? They win another acquisition battle.)

“Google Website Optimizer Launches” by Robert Gorell, GrokDotCom (Now everyone can do A/B and Multivariate testing at zero cost. Want some free resources with that?)

“Video: RSS in Plain English” by Lee Lefever, Common Craft (Finally, someone shows how RSS really is simple.)

March

“Viacom Sues YouTube for $1 Billion…The End of the Tube?” by Pete Cashmore, Mashable (If you can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em? The great debate rages on.)

“Why Online Advertising Economics Are So Messed Up” by Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0 (Now that “page views” are dead, it’s time to take a look at the real problem. Just beware of those zombie metrics.)

“Taking the Week Off” by Robert Scoble, Scobleizer (After receiving horrible anonymous threats, Kathy Sierra, one of the world’s top bloggers, quits blogging. A regrettable chapter, indeed — but there was a silver lining. Ultimately, greater minds prevailed and the incident fueled a much-needed conversation about balancing professionalism with free speech in blogland.)

“10 Reasons Commenting is Good for Bloggers” by Chris Garrett, ChrisG.com (’Tis better to give than to receive. Here’s why.)

February

“Why People Hate SEO…” by Jason Calicanis, Calicanis.com (SEO is Bull? Although there are likely reasons why Jason would say such a thing, at least he got savvy search marketers to link to him and even challenge him back. Mahalo!)

“National Pork Board Goes After Breastfeeding Search Marketer” by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (The Pork Board shouldn’t whine about spilt milk, especially when it’s not their own.)

“7 Big Questions for Online Marketers” by Jeffrey Eisenberg, GrokDotCom (Everyone loves answers, but are you asking the right questions?)

January

“Steve’s Devices” by Nicholas Carr, Rough Type (The post that put the year of the iPhone in perspective, explaining its limitations and predicting, without saying as much, that 2008 will be the year of the open mobile platform. Oh, and Nick does this six months before the iPhone even launched.)

Did we miss something?

Probably. There were so many eye-opening blog posts this year that we need your help updating this list so that it is definitive — or close to it.

What were your favorite posts this year? Leave a comment and/or link to let us know.

According to their ‘about us’ page, “College Tonight focuses on nightlife events and social opportunities both directly on a student’s campus and within their broader communities.” They even claim to be a social network “that promotes actual social interactivity rather than the sedentary lifestyle nearly all “social networks” relegate its users to behind a physical computer screen.”

But how is that really different than what college students already do on Facebook or MySpace? One thing College Tonight seems to ignore is that the internet is the playground for the introverted. Social communities have virtually replaced the pickup line. And, by the way, introverted students already use those other sites to do extroverted things in real life; to go to concerts, promote campus activities, you name it. In fact, doing anything online is an introverted activity.

If College Tonight really wants to peel attention away from Facebook, they shouldn’t define themselves as being “different” than other social networks in terms of how people will use their site. (People who already use other networks will read that message as self-hype.) Instead, College Tonight should try filling the void left by Facebook a year ago, when it decided to let mom, dad and anyone else who wants to, join. They should sell themselves as a network for college students only. “Want to know what’s happening on your campus tonight? Here’s the place to be.” Not only is that what College Tonight was set up to do, it’s the smartest way to get local and big-name advertising revenue. If they tell that story, it’ll be easier for Pete’s Pub (or whatever the local bar may be) to place an ad, and they’ll have cleaner data to help bigger brands target specific campuses and groups.

Although they’re big and getting bigger, there are a lot of concerns about Facebook right now. If College Tonight is smart, they’ll stay small and leverage that by using a Unique Value Proposition that fits.

Otherwise, it’s like David versus Goliath, but without the slingshot.

“Whiteboard Friday — Controlling the Flow of PageRank & Link Juice” by Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
“‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Button Costs Google $110 Million per Year” by Nicholas Carlson, Vallywag

“Millions in Sales from 3 Simple Words” by Glen Rifkin, The New York Times

“Psychological (’personality’) Types” — Socionics

“Caring for Your Introvert” by Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic

“The Anatomy of Sarchasm: Researchers Reveal How the Brain Handles this Complex Communication” by S.G. Shamay-Tsoory, PhD, et al., APA Online

“The Lasting Digg Effect” by Ben Cook, Blogging Experiment — Interesting analysis. Doesn’t say much about how to capitalize on Digg traffic, but it looks like Cook’s making a fresh start with this post. We’d like to see a follow-up in six months.

“Stanford Class Facebook Apps Blowing Up All Over (translation: holy cow this stuff really works!)” by Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats

“The Social Graph & Beyond: Tim Berners-Lee’s Graph is the Next Level” by Richard MacManus, Read/WriteWeb

“Web 2.0 Fat-Off: The 2007 Edition — More Options to Lose the Fat!” by Allen Stern, CenterNetworks

“Google: This isn’t about Android” by Marek Pawlowski, MEX: Mobile Experience blog — For those interested in Google’s mobile ambitions.

“PayPerPost Bloggers Get Slammed by Google” by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch

“Amazon’s Kindle device out of stock” by Michelle Meyers, News.com

“Rumor: News Corp in buyout talks with LinkedIn” by Michelle Meyers, News.com

“Connections” — Internet Archive — An hour-long interview/retrospective on James Burke’s landmark program.

“Visual Illusion Videos” — Mixing Memory — A little optical brain candy.

“James Howard Kunstler: The Tragedy of Suburbia” — TED Talks — 2004 lecture on a thankless part of U.S. culture.

“Thanksgiving Link Karma” by Brian Clark, Copyblogger

…Facebook is now partnering with 3rd party sites and selling your information to them for money. How does this work?

Here’s a scenario: you go to Blockbuster.com and rent a movie. A little interface element pops up and tells you that Blockbuster is sending information to your Facebook account. It gives you ten seconds to say no…and then it sends it anyway. This is called “opt-out”. You only have the option to say no. It sends your personal information by default. “Opt-in” would be where no action is taken by default.

You then log into your Facebook account, and it says that “Blockbuster is sending a story to your account”. You have the option to say no to this, but it is not apparent at all. In fact, Facebook gives you the option “Don’t show me this again”, which seems to suggest that they agree this message is annoying. They have designed this screen for you to focus on the pain of having to read a silly message and dismiss it. But what isn’t very clear is that when you do so you’re also giving implicit instruction that all services can send information to your news feed in the future. This is a HUGE deal to Facebook…this is how they’re going to make money. [Continue reading "Facebook's Brilliant but Evil Design"... ]

It’s an important read for anyone who uses, or advertises with, the popular social networking site.

Barack Obama added another “first” to his already notable list yesterday: he became the first U.S. presidential candidate — and, I’m guessing, the first high-level elected official in any country — to have a ready answer to a standard Google engineering interview question. Asked by Eric Schmidt about “the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers,” Sen. Obama replied that “the bubble sort would be the wrong way to go.” Though some might view this as shameless pandering to the bucket-sorting community, others will see a bold pragmatism.

Obama then reaffirmed his stance on Net Neutrality, and offered the following vision for transparency between the United States government and its electorate:

I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. I’ll let citizens track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts. I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions in real time, offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made, and let you comment on legislation before it is signed. And to ensure that every government agency is meeting 21st century standards, I’ll appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.

Is this just another campaign promise? We’d love to hear your thoughts. You can see video of Schmidt’s “fireside chat”-style job interview with Obama in its entirety at Google Public Policy Blog.

No word yet on whether Senator Obama consumed his weight in free sushi at the company’s all-you-can-eat gourmet cafeteria. But rest assured that the issue has a good chance of coming up during tonight’s televised debate among Democratic Party candidates (yes, there’s another one).

Fast forward to yesterday, when Read/Write Web’s Richard MacManus caught up with the entrepreneur, who’d just hired his first employee. Apparently, the site may now be worth a billion dollars — billions, maybe. (And hey, if Microsoft thinks Facebook’s worth $15 bills, why not?) Says MacManus:

Markus told me that per page view, Plentyoffish has 5-10 times the click through rate of Facebook. So by his calculations, POF’s 1.2 Billion page views per month is the same as 5-10 Billion Facebook page views per month. Facebook “only” generates 40 billion page views a month and yet it has a $15 Billion valuation. But the crux of Markus’ argument is that despite having about 33 times the monthly traffic of POF, Facebook’s poor click-through ads should bring the valuation models closer. Markus said that “over 40% of Facebook’s pageviews are image related, ads in bad positions and users just generally looking to waste time.” He said that “there are only a handful of sections on the site [Facebook] that will generate good click thru rates for advertisers.”

So getting down to nitty gritty metrics, Markus concluded that “Facebook is only able to generate 10 to 15 times as many clicks on ads as my site and it’s valued at 15 billion. Needless to say I’m watching ad supported business model valuations very closely.” What’s more, some of his direct competitors – e.g. Eharmony and match.com – are apparently valued in the billions.

Kind of amazing how a cheap-looking site with virtually no overhead, aside from server costs, can be worth billions.

Whether or not you believe in these fishy valuation schemes, it’s still pretty cool, isn’t it?  Here’s a guy who’s only invested in the things his business requires.  Oh, and he’s clearly more focused on ROI than his competitors.

But all that’s changed. Today, they have a brand-spanking-new fleet of mid-sized jets staffed with would-be friendly people who, bound and gagged with corporate red tape, can’t do much to help the customer even when they want to. Sure, the fares are lower than ever, but even with off-peak flights for as low as $1 (yes, really), it’s still not worth it. Why? Because, according to their current CEO, Ben Baldanza, the customer is always a cheapskate — and wrong.

Maybe it’s time to put a dimmer on those red light specials. They say that “a fish stinks from the head,” and if there’s ever been any proof, its this email Mr. Baldanza sent to a customer by accidentally hitting “reply to all” on his BlackBerry:

“Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”

But, wait! There’s more!! Here’s their Director of Communications, Alison Russell, on a separate incident where blogger Alex Rudloff told readers, “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines“:

“We wouldn’t respond to a blog post. This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great.”

Oh, really?? More on my horror story with Spirit 2.0 in a moment. But first, let’s see what Google has to say about the company:

Here’s what Rudloff had to say in his blog post:

“So, instead of losing $5 on a customer who has every right to be angry, I’ll write this blog post and tell all my traveling buddies to add Spirit Airlines to their growing list of airlines to avoid,” Rudloff wrote on Aug. 4. “If Google works their magic like they usually do, at least one of the 4,931 daily searches for “Spirit Airlines” will turn up this result and save someone the headache (and hopefully end up costing Spirit Airlines $6 or more).”

Rudloff later told the Orlando Sentinel that:

“I think ultimately that customers have to speak out and they have to engage in word of mouth . . . That’s what the market responds to.”

Cool! What a great segue…

All Spirit, No Soul

Last May, I was flying from New York (LGA) to Detroit (DTW), as I often do for Memorial Day weekend — my favorite time to vacation in Detroit. I was running late. The car service was half an hour late, and traffic wasn’t moving, thanks to jackknifed truck on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. After paying top dollar to sit in a car for two hours, it was clear that I’d miss the 30-minutes-before-departure check-in deadline. So, I called Spirit Air’s 1-800 number, only to find there was no “customer service” option. So I waited on hold for, say, 20 minutes until I eventually hung up and called back, pressing a random — and incorrect — selection in hopes of reaching a human who could tell me what to do about the situation. When I finally reached a customer service rep, she told me to go to the airport and speak to the agents at the check-in counter — where I waited for (you guessed it) another 30 minutes.

After all of that, I got to the airport just before the 30-minute mark, but there was a line — a long one — and not enough agents to serve it. When I got to the front of the line, the agent told me that nothing could be done. If I wanted to book another flight, there was one leaving in an hour, but it would cost as much as my entire round trip. I kindly informed this person that I’d be willing to pay a charge — as is typical with other cheapskate airlines — to switch the ticket, but that buying a whole new one, just for a one-way leg of a round-trip flight was absurd. Then, when I asked for a number for customer service because I wanted to complain about the event — after all, I’d been a customer for 10 years — the guy hands me a card with the same freaking number I’d used earlier to get someone who couldn’t help me! When I brought that to the agent’s attention, he said, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do about it” — a common refrain at today’s Spirit Air.

So, Northwest Airlines to rescue (for once), and I was on my way to Detroit with a pounding headache and the world’s dumbest $200 missing from my bank account.

On the way back to New York, I was actually looking forward to flying Spirit. “If this isn’t a good trip after that nonsense,” I thought, “I’m so going to blog this.” Checking in with a smile, I handed the agent my ticket. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gorell, but we don’t have a seat with that name on it for this flight,” he said. I told him that was impossible and that I wasn’t imagining the ticket in my hand. Then it hit me: They’d canceled my entire round-trip ticket because they couldn’t serve me in time!

Turning beet-red, I calmly told the agent of my snag in New York. As I retold the story, one-by-one, all four agents at the desk came up to me, visibly upset by what I had to say. I let them know I was a blogger for a company that specializes in planning and optimizing the customer experience, and that I couldn’t believe the airline had tied their hands from doing anything of value for its “passengers.” Then a crazy thing happened. They actually encouraged me to blog about it! As it turned out, everyone at the counter seemed upset with the company’s new policies, too. I could tell they were biting their tongues, until…

“We used to be #1 in customer service,” said one agent. “Now we can’t help people.”

Her co-workers looked me in the eye and nodded. It was such an honest moment that I actually bought a one-way ticket from them… for the flight I’d already, supposedly, booked. (Oh, and since this was a last-minute one-way flight to NYC, you can be sure I got red flagged for security screening.)

For months, I let it slide. After speaking with the good people at Spirit in Detroit, I worried that blogging about the experience might put their jobs at risk. That is, until I saw Mack Collier’s post, which hipped me to the fact that a lot of other bloggers out there are also convinced that Spirit’s CEO — and not its employees — is what’s putting their jobs at risk by causing this fish to stink:

Alex Rudloff

BL Ochman’s WhatsNextBlog

Bold Interactive

CEO Smack

Darwin PR

Gadling

Jaunted

Josh Hallett

Lawrence Salberg

Perpetually Befuddled

Propeller

Reality Bites Back

Sarah and the Goon Squad

Search Engine Guide

Stuck on the Palmetto

The BOOT

Transmission

Upgrade: Travel Better

Sorry, Mr. Baldanza, but you can’t fly faster than word of mouth (or blog).

Something felt a bit off-key the first time they said it. (Come again? The “social“? Isn’t that a bit antiquated for Gen Y? What’s next, “Exchange the finest popular musical compositions with your haberdasher”?). But now that they’ve announced a new version, and — despite rumors of a massive investment deal with Facebook — it seems Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sees the social media landscape through Zune-colored glasses.

Playing hard-to-get…

Consider Ballmer’s recent comments to the (London) Times Online:

“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people,” Mr Ballmer told Times Online yesterday.[...] “There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,” he said.

Mr Ballmer also noted that sites such as Geocities, an online community that was bought for $3 billion by Yahoo! in 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom, “had most of what Facebook has.”

Meanwhile, on his Scobleizer blog, former Microsoft tech evangelist (and admitted Facebook cheerleader) Robert Scoble hits back:

I’m 42. Hardly young. And Facebook is appealing a lot to people in my social network and age group lately … I guess Ballmer missed that. This is what happens when Microsoft executives don’t get outside of their ivory towers very often. Steve, you really need to go to any tech industry conference and hang out in the hallways. Don’t come to San Francisco, you won’t believe anything you hear here anyway. But go to, say, LeWeb3 in Paris and hear what they say about social networks. You’ll probably hear Bebo. Facebook. And a few others. From even the old folks. Last night I was at a National Geographic event and lots of people were talking about Facebook.

Scoble goes on to insist that Facebook is not only in a different league than Geocities, but that it easily trumps modern competitors like MySpace, Bebo, and… Basically, he’s saying Facebook is the only relevant name in social networking. That’s debatable, but clearly, when it comes to Facebook, Microsoft’s playing hard-to-get with its pocketbook.

…or playing it cool?

Meanwhile, the new Zunes have been well-received. The folks at Engadget are excited, pointing out all the features that could make the Zune a viable threat to the iPod.

But just how social is it, really? According to The New York Times, the wireless sharing feature — one of the Zune’s main selling points — remains limited.

. . . one of the most striking changes had to do with Microsoft’s effort to enhance what had been perhaps the most talked-about feature on the original device: the ability to share music files and other media wirelessly with other Zune owners. Far too few people, however, purchased the player for such sharing to become commonplace, and the function held little appeal because it was crippled by usage rules negotiated with the music industry. Shared songs expired within a few days, even if the recipient did not play them. And a file acquired from one Zune user could not be shared with a third user.Under the new rules, Microsoft said, shared songs would have no expiration date and it would be possible repeatedly to pass along songs sent from one device to another. But a shared file can be played only three times on each Zune.

Still, there are more deals going on which may offer a work-around to the DRM technology that limits Microsoft’s player. The iPod may be safe for now, but Apple’s iTunes Store could get a run for its money.

One of the best things to happen this year is the term “jumping the shark” sinking its teeth into the pop lexicon. Eventually, though, even this perfect phrase must itself jump the shark. But, hey, that’s evolution. So goes ABC’s “Cavemen” — a sitcom based on the popular Geico ads — which debuted last night amid the dorsal fins of critics, bloggers, and critical bloggers.

New York Magazine captured the pre-shark-jump jitters:

. . .when this show was pitched to America as “the Geico Cavemen show” that it became laughable (and not in the good way). Yes, we are pretty sure this is gonna suck. But isn’t there even the slightest chance it won’t? After all, it’s not the worst idea for a commercial turned sitcom anyone could have come up with. What if it’s good?

Now let’s take a look at some of the initial reaction. Here’s Jay Black from the TV Squad blog:

There’s been a considerable amount of morbid curiosity surrounding Cavemen. Would it transcend its bad buzz and go on to be a seven-season television institution? Or would it wind up on the flop-heap of history? The answer after the jump…The short answer, for those of you only interested in that sort of thing:

It’s a flop. A major flop. The kind of flop that makes Steven Bochco feel okay about Cop Rock again.

Ouch! Cop Rock? Anyone who recalls that awful show can feel that zinger. But if it’s truly that bad, maybe I do want to see it.[Hollers off-stage] “Roll the clip… ”

(If you’re reading this via RSS, click here for video.)

Hmm… Looks like it might be funny, so long as they don’t overreach — which is exactly why Time Magazine wasn’t too impressed:

The mistake the show’s creators made in the first place was taking the sophisticated, low-key humor of the Geico commercials and making it sitcommy. What makes the Geico ads memorable is that their humor comes from playing the cavemen absolutely straight: they’re successful, business-trip-taking, therapy-going, bourgie members of society who happen to run up against reminders of discrimination.

The Cavemen sitcom turned them into another variation of three guys sitting on a couch, and that made the satire play broader, dumber and thus, at least to some people, more offensive [...]

[...] Don’t get me wrong; the original Cavemen pilot was uneven, but it had a point of view and potential. If ABC had had the conviction to stand behind the concept it bought, recognizing that of course people were going to make fun of them for it, they would at least have had the chance of proving the skeptics wrong. As it is, it looks like they’re just praying for the series’ quick extinction.

Thanks to National Geographic (and Google), I’ve found that, yes, prehistoric sharks still exist. Maybe there’s hope for Cavemen after all.

Regardless, there’s not much hope for the show’s website, CavemansCrib.com. It’s Flash-heavy, slow-loading, and does an awkward — albeit admirable — job of re-branding the (GEICO) Cavemen around Apple’s (APPL) iPhone. Doesn’t the show’s mere existence do enough to dilute Geico’s brand? Their commercials are fun, but Geico’s marketing slips when it stops jumping sharks and starts crossing channels.

Is multi-channel marketing so easy a caveman could do it? Take our Cro-Magnon Neanderthal Challenge and find out.

Their latest soon-to-be-overshadowed endeavor, Yahoo! Search Assist, includes an advanced version of the predictive keyword results the major search engines are using, and improved video and Flickr photo search integration.

Here’s what Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog had to say:

With this launch, we took some liberties with the search box itself, turning it into an interactive experience that senses when you need a hand. In a dropdown window on our home page and on our results page, Yahoo! Search Assist provides both query suggestions as you type as well as related concepts you can explore to get you to your answer by just pointing and clicking. Try it with searches like “energy savings” to see what we mean. In testing Search Assist, we found that users were 61% more successful in completing their task with this new search feature at their disposal.

For instance, notice the relevant “concepts” that display when I search for our pal, Bryan:

Pretty cool, right? And I’m sure Bryan’s wife and kids will be proud to know Yahoo wuvs him (see third result down, on the left).

But is it a “Google killer”? Really? Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker thinks so. Or does he? In a post called (*achem*) “Yahoo Search Launches Google Killer,” Baker implies that it is, then gives the most comprehensive analysis we’ve seen of it so far, then says, oh, by the way, it’s not.

Is the new Yahoo Search a Google killer? More than likely not. The new Yahoo Search may win some converts over from Google or help with a bit of marketshare, but ideally the new Yahoo Search Assist will result in assisting the happiness factor of Yahoo users and searchers who are not used to finding what they are looking for via conventional searching methods.

OK, so maybe I’m nitpicking because, honestly, enough already with the tech blogging world’s insistence on calling everything the next “something-or-other killer.” Besides, at this point, Yahoo should be thankful that Yahoo’s not a Yahoo killer.

How ’bout this zinger from the first person to comment on the Yodel Anecdotal announcement:

“Great! Welcome back to the search industry… “

I tell ya… No respect.

The New York Times has some bubble-bursting hindsight on the broader effect of eBay’s soured Skype acquisition.

Skype earned $90 million during the second quarter of 2007, far below eBay’s projections. EBay said in a regulatory filing that the charge was “the result of the updated long-term financial outlook for Skype.”

The Skype deal helped to initiate a renewed acquisition frenzy in the online world, and a return to what some call a bubble mentality. After the spectacular dot-com flameout seven years ago, Internet executives pledged to begin judging technology companies by revenue rather than by something as ephemeral as “eyeballs,” or traffic on a Web site.

But somewhere along the line, the high-tech industry reverted to its old form.

“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, a senior Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability. That’s what eBay did for Skype. They saw a great asset with tons of users but no clear monetization path.”

How bad’s the bleeding? Ebay says it’s $1 billion-bad. Silicon Ally Insider’s Henry Blodget says it’s probably $1.4 billion-bad. And, on The Next Big Thing blog, Don Dodge even adds Skype to his list of “Worst Billion Dollar Acquisitions of All Time”. Says Dodge:

I wrote a post “The 10 Worst Billion Dollar Internet Acquisitions of All Time” Skype didn’t make the list at the time because it was too early to tell. Not anymore. It takes a spot very high up on the list. AOL, Lycos, and Excite are still the clear leaders in this dubious category.

If you’re reading this, eBay, we may not be able to provide much comfort — but here are some tips for selling “it” on eBay.*

[*Please Note: The term "it" may not apply to "IT".]

Rank is something we bloggers take very seriously. The problem is, nobody seems to be that good at measuring it — not yet, anyway.

For the past couple years, bloggers have loosely relied on Technorati to do the job, with blogs ranked according to their number of incoming links from unique blogs. For some bloggers, though, that may change now that Techmeme has announced a new feature, Techmeme Leaderboard, that ranks blogs according to how often they appear on, well, Techmeme.

Over at TechCrunch (no relation), Michael Arrington has the scoop:

To be exact, top blogs will be ranked on presence – “the percentage of headline space a source occupies over the 30-day period.” Discussion links are not taken into consideration – only full headlines are counted.

I think this is a much better way of ranking the very top blogs than the Technorati approach. Technorati has deep flaws, for reasons stated above. Techmeme, by contrast, has zero spam and tends to mirror what the tech blogosphere is writing about perfectly.

That may be true, but keep in mind that a Techmeme rank will have limited value outside of the tech world. And how about a few other pros and cons for the two sites…

Technorati

Pros: All blogs treated equally, regardless of focus; rank determined by incoming links; current go-to source for comparing blog popularity (i.e., let’s you know where you stand vis-a-vis other blogs).

Cons: All blogs treated equally, regardless of focus; links from spam blogs and pay-to-link services can distort a blog’s true rank; buggy, and often slow to update.

Techmeme

Pros: Niche focus; real-time indicator of tech/business news stories; threads popular stories, linking to blogs that discuss the primary news source.

Cons: Bias toward tech news; encourages copycat/echo chamber-style blogging (e.g., right now I’m blogging about something a lot of other bloggers have covered); tends to reward popularity over analysis.

Back in August, when a glitch caused Technorati to bestow upon us the coveted #1 spot, I suggested to fellow bloggers that, if rank meant everything…

. . . every blogger who’s had even one link documented by Technorati could rejoice more than they already are after being accidentally ranked #1 today — thanks to a glitch.

If rank meant everything, you wouldn’t have to create fresh, original content.

If rank meant everything, blogs wouldn’t be worth reading.

Everyone would be baiting links (like I am).

Like money, when rank means everything, it means nothing.

Do blog readers really care about rank?

Would content by any other number smell as sweet?

Why does a blog’s rank actually matter? Well, there are a few answers. Rank matters to anyone selling ad space on their blog. It’s also directionally interesting since it helps bloggers get a sense of growth. Oh, and there’s that whole “human nature” thing: We’ve been grunting over who’s the biggest and baddest since our days as lesser, knuckle-dragging hominids — which, as geological time goes, wasn’t too long ago.

Any bloggers, tech or otherwise, like to share their thoughts?

Any Techmeme fans ever use Today.GrokDotCom to scoop stories? We do.

[UPDATE: Technorati names Richard Jalichandra as new CEO; Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera explains his new Leaderboard.]

You wouldn’t pick on a 9 year-old, would ya? How ’bout a 9 year-old with glasses??

Microsoft, reeling from Halo 3’s $170 million launch — the biggest release in entertainment history — got serious today with an assault on Google, its 9 year-old nemesis. While battle raged in anti-trust hearings before the U.S. Senate, the search giant came off looking battered, but feeling lucky, as they replaced the second ‘g’ on the Google.com homepage with a cartoon piñata in the shape of a ‘9′ to commemorate its ninth year as a company. Aww… Cute, ain’t it?

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Microsoft, 32, doesn’t think so. In case you missed the live coverage, News.com quotes a prepared statement from Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, who claims Google’s deal with DoubleClick is bad for advertisers, bad for consumers, bad for publishers, and — ultimately — bad for America. Says Smith:

I will be the first to admit that Microsoft is not disinterested in this issue; competitors never are. But I do think we’re in a good position of identifying important questions. We know this market very well. And it is absolutely clear to us that this merger raises serious questions that deserve serious answers.

[...] Already Google is the dominant company for one of the two main types of online advertising–namely online search ads. Roughly 70 percent of global spending on search-based advertising today flows through Google’s AdWords.

If Google is allowed to proceed with this merger, it will also obtain a dominant gateway position over the other main type of online advertising: non-search ads. Today Google and DoubleClick are the two largest competitors in this area. Combined, Google will account for nearly 80 percent of all spending on non-search ads.

If Google and DoubleClick are allowed to merge, Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising.

This merger will almost certainly result in higher profits for the operator of the dominant advertising pipeline, but it will be bad for everyone else. It will be bad for publishers, bad for advertisers, and most importantly, bad for consumers.

Bravo, sir… Brah-voh… [Gives steely-eyed, slow hand-clap.]

Mr. Schmidt Goes to Washington, Too

OK, so maybe Google CEO Eric Schmidt wasn’t testifying, but it’s more fun to say “Smith vs. Schmidt” than “Smith vs. Drummond”. David Drummond, that is — Google’s Senior VP for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer. The Google Public Policy Blog features Drummond’s testimony, including this excerpt:

“The online advertising business is complex, but my message to you today is simple: Online advertising benefits consumers, promotes free speech, and helps small businesses succeed. Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick will help advance these goals while protecting consumer privacy and enabling greater innovation, competition, and growth.”

“In our experience, our users value the advertisements that we deliver along with search results and other web content because the ads help connect them to the information, products, and services they seek. Simply put, advertising is information, and relevant advertising is information that is useful to consumers. The advertising we deliver to our users complements the natural search results that we provide, because our users are often searching for products and services that our advertisers offer. Making this connection is critical. In fact, we strive to deliver the ads that are the most relevant to our users, not just the ones that generate the most revenue for us.”

[...] “Google’s bottom line is this: We believe deeply in protecting online users’ privacy, and we have a strong track record of doing so. We are constantly working to innovate in our privacy practices and policies. Some have asked questions about privacy protections in connection with the DoubleClick acquisition, but for us privacy does not begin or end with our purchase of DoubleClick. Privacy is a user interest that we’ve been protecting since our inception.”

“We make privacy a priority because our business depends on it. If our users are uncomfortable with how we manage the information they provide to us, they are only one click away from switching to a competitor’s services. If you don’t believe me, recall that before Google, users clicked on an earlier generation of search engines like Excite, Altavista, Lycos, and Infoseek – each extremely popular in its time. User interests effectively regulate our behavior, and user trust is a critical component of our business model.”

Although it’s too late to call this case “Smith vs. Schmidt,” perhaps we can at least nickname it “Pot vs. Kettle”? A Frank Capra movie, it ain’t…

Whether the Senate will side with Microsoft or Google remains unclear, but Google Maps satellite images of a U.S. Navy building that, well, happens to look like a swastika won’t likely do much to ease tensions with the U.S. Government.

NaturalSearchBlog’s Chris Silver Smith first spotted this oddity:

Quite some time back, I came across this Swastika-shaped building via Google Maps, and posted the screengrab in my Flickr account. Since then, it became one of my most popular Flickr pictures, since strange stuff like this can become quickly viral. Loads of people (16,000+) have viewed the photo’s page, and then various journalists contacted me and posted the photo on news stories in Europe and elsewhere.

[...] Today, CNN reported on the swastika building, and they added one really interesting new detail: the Navy has received so much flack about having a swastika-shaped building that they’re now planning to change the shape of the building when it’s viewed from the sky to obliterate the swastika shape. They’ll be adding landscaping and structures at a cost of something like $600,000 to just make the shape less offensive to people viewing from airplanes and satellite pics!

You really can’t make this stuff up, folks.

[Tired of reading other blogs? Catch Blog Buzz weekdays on WebmasterRadio.fm — or subscribe via iTunes. Bryan Eisenberg & Robert Gorell host the podcast, featuring a rundown of the day's top stories from The Grok's Buzz Bin.]

They claim to be, “QVC for the MySpace generation.”

Now, before you gag, consider that they might be onto something. This isn’t just another startup. Firebrand is backed by Microsoft, NBC Universal, GE’s Peacock Equity fund, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, and the ION television network.

Pardon me while I quote the press release at length:

“Firebrand enters the media landscape as the era of the commercial interruption is coming to an end,” says John A. Lack, CEO/Co-Founder. “We curate the best TV commercials and promotions from around the world – connecting consumers directly with their favorite brands in an integrated environment.”

“On Firebrand, you’ll see more car chases, explosions, gags, drama, heroes, Oscar-winning actors, directors and producers in an hour than in a month of HBO,” says [Chief Creative Officer/Co-Founder Román] Viñoly. “To be true to our consumers, you can’t pay us to air a bad spot. ”

Meanwhile, Steve Hall from Adrants sounds off:

We tried really hard not to laugh when . . . Roman Vinoly said, “We program TV spots like a DJ spins music in a club. There is a rhythm and flow to it.” In an attempt to spin Firebrand as something other than a massive database of commercials, Vinoly adds, “On Firebrand, you’ll see more car chases, explosions, gags, drama, heroes, Oscar-winning actors, directors and producers in an hour than in a month of HBO.” Right, dude. They’re still [f@%!^g] commercials. Not The Sopranos.

Hyperbole aside, it sounds like the ad industry’s collective Wet 2.0 dream, does it not?

Experience Curve’s Karl Long reminds us that the first step is a doozy:

If they create original, edgy, hysterical, and brilliant commercials for it then they have a shot. I think it’s more likely they are going to recycle their 30 second spots that less people are watching every year in which case they will go the same way as BudTV. They have some great investors behind them . . . and advertisers like BMW, Coke, Ebay etc. yet the internet is famous for burning through enormous amounts of money on “big bang” efforts like this. If they don’t get it right out of the gate it will be a losing battle.

But that’s where the “so-crazy-it-just-might-work” factor comes into play. Think about it: They’ll suddenly need tons of content. Where will it all come from? With Firebrand claiming editorial integrity, it could be a chance for smaller brands to shine. Big-budget brands will dump money on it regardless, but creativity could be a currency of its own.

Consider Ice.com executive VP of marketing Pinny Gniwisch, who was recently asked about his YouTube campaign:

Gniwisch is measuring the success of his efforts in the number of views Ice.com’s videos have received on YouTube.com – about 50,000 altogether — in the 6,000 YouTubers who signed up for an Ice.com sweepstakes promoted with one video series release, and the 16,000 who have signed up for “Pinny’s World,” asking to be notified whenever Ice.com puts up new video on YouTube.

“If I can get enough people to watch my channel, I can eventually throw a product video that is both entertaining and ROI-driven into the mix,” figures Gniwisch. “As more people register to your channel, your ability to succeed as an ROI-based investment is more likely.”

If a company like Ice.com can submit content to Firebrand, it could be something bigger than the next go-to spot for Super Bowl ads.

Firebrand has offered us a sneak preview in the coming weeks, so we’ll let you know what we think soon enough.

[GrokDotCom interviewed Pinny about his adventures on YouTube. To hear how how he did it, listen to the podcast.]

When Halo 2 was released for Microsoft (MSFT) XBox in 2004, it broke the record for the highest-grossing launch of any type of media product (yes, really), generating $125 million in revenue — 2.4 million copies — in 24 hours.

And you thought Titanic was big? Ha!

“Mr. Softy” Strikes Back

Lest another pundit call them a “sleeping giant”, Read/WriteWeb points to a Last100 piece that sheds some light on how Microsoft is leveraging Halo 3:

Another product that has benefited from the buzz surrounding Halo 3 is Silverlight, Microsoft’s platform for building rich Internet applications. Like Flash, Java, and many other platforms, Silverlight requires users to install a browser plug-in before they can use it. This presents a common problem — you need users to have the plug-in before developers jump on board, and you need developers on board building great apps for the platform before users want to install the plug-in. Microsoft decided to leverage Halo 3 to help solve this problem. Over the last few weeks, lots of Halo 3 related content has been made available such as trailers, promos, and an online manual. The catch? You’ve got to have Silverlight installed before you can view any of the content. It’s a very smart move. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the early installs of Silverlight can be attributed to fans eager for Halo 3 content.Microsoft’s partners have gotten in on the action too. Mountain Dew launched “Mountain Dew Game Fuel” on August 13th, the first beverage co-branded with a video game. 7-Eleven has been offering three Halo 3-branded Slurpee cups, and has been part of the promotional campaign being run with Mountain Dew and Doritos. Burger King started offering Halo 3-themed packaging yesterday, and will continue to do so right through October 22nd. Other companies that are participating in the Halo 3 campaign include Pontiac and Comcast.

(micro)Soft Money for Facebook?

Meanwhile, Microsoft may be showing its “Mr. Softy” side a bit, now that it’s finally getting serious with Facebook. Let’s hope they cut a deal soon. The constant, boring speculation over exactly how rich Mark Zuckerberg will be is beyond tiresome. Thankfully, BoomTown’s Kara Swisher agrees. Get a load of this critique:

…I believe Silicon Valley can now be considered to be at Delusional Level Red. Or green, given all the cash that is being shoved in Facebook’s direction now.

Facebook is not Google: Although many in the tech sector make the comparison to the search giant, it is simply incorrect.Is Facebook like Yahoo a bit? Certainly. A newfangled version of AOL? Absolutely! A very well done media play with all sorts of interactive bells and whistles hanging off of it? Yes, ma’am.

Indeed, it is growing its media business nicely, with $30 million in profits on $150 million in revenue.

But in comparative terms to the search giant, Facebook is a lemonade stand. Google brought in $3.9 billion in revenue in just the second quarter alone and, um, is increasing its dominance over the search sector in a mighty scary way.

Facebook, on the other hand, gets half its annual revenue right now from a sweetheart guaranteed revenue deal with, drum roll, Microsoft. No matter what either Facebook or Microsoft says, it is a money-losing deal for Microsoft so far.

How do I know this? According to many sources, Google is struggling to make ends meet in its own sweetheart guaranteed ad deal with Facebook rival MySpace, which is much larger, and Google has the best monetization engine out there.

Ouch! Swisher goes on to mention other problems, insisting Facebook’s potential is not actual, that most techies weren’t popular in high school and, therefore, overestimate the importance of stuff that seems important to them, and even breaks out the calculator to show that the company’s pre-money valuation is actually $525 million — a far cry from the $15 billion for which they’re rumored to be holding out.

Reiterating her stance from an earlier post, Swisher advises Zuckerberg to “…take the dumb money and run as fast as your flip-flops will carry you.”

Facebook Subpoenaed

In other Facebook news, CenterNetworks’ Allen Stern reports that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed Facebook, claiming they’re not doing enough to protect kids from sexual predators:

“My office is concerned that Facebook’s promise of a safe website is not consistent with its performance in policing its site and responding to complaints,” Cuomo said. “Parents have a right to know what their children will encounter on a website that is aggressively marketed as safe.”

The office setup several “underage” profiles on Facebook and within days began receiving chat requests of a graphic nature. In subpoenaing the company, Cuomo has asked for complaints received by Facebook regarding inappropriate solicitation of underage users and inappropriate content on the site, as well as any responses by the website. The subpoena also calls for all Facebook policies on user safety and all representations made to consumers about the safety of the site.

What makes Facebook less safe than, say, MySpace — which deleted 29,000 registered sex offenders in July — remains unclear.

[Tired of reading other blogs? Catch Blog Buzz weekdays on WebmasterRadio.fmiTunes. Bryan Eisenberg & Robert Gorell host the podcast, featuring a rundown of the day's top stories from The Grok's Buzz Bin.]

Information World Review reports that the German Wikipedia will have “trusted editors” by year’s end. The move from community editing and after-the-fact fact-checking “…could be applied to the English language version of Wikipedia if feedback from users is positive.”

Resource Shelf’s Gary Price reminds us that this move has been in the works for some time:

Three years ago next month, Jimmy Wales was quoted in Red Herring saying that editors to review content were coming.

Wikipedia’s [Founder] Mr. [Jimmy] Wales has said that next year he will begin using editors to review the web site’s content for accuracy and allow users to rate contributions to the encyclopedia for their quality. ‘It’s complex because it’s a social community, and feelings can be hurt,’ said Mr. Wales, but he added that the change will be critical when Wikipedia content is put on more permanent media, such as CD-ROM disks.”

As those who follow this blog may know, we have mixed feelings about Wikipedia, especially after all of the dirty edits uncovered by Wikiscanner, the edit-tracking software developed by Cal Tech grad student Virgil Griffith. Maybe they’re an easy target, but Wikipedia’s hugely important. History, as well as obscure definitions, can now be written by winners and losers alike — for better and for worse.

But the transition to “trusted editors” dredges up a new batch of questions: Who will these editors be? Where will they come from? Why should we trust them? Who edits the editors?

Perhaps a more interesting question is why Wikipedia has captured so much global mindshare in the first place. For one thing, they do a lot of simple things right. While linking to Wikipedia helps to assure they consistently rank well in search results, Search Engine Journal’s Jon Kelly argues that liking to Wikipedia can be good for you, too:

Short URLs. Yes, it’s as simple as that. The shorter the link, the easier it is to deal with when referencing. I know others have some fancy way of getting links into their posts, but I still do a lot of copy and paste and it’s easier with a shorter URL.

No Parameters / No Numbers. In a recent post, I wanted to link to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, mostly to help make it clear that my story was a shaggy dog (ah, that was an easy link!)

He then shows the URL’s for Amazon and Google Books, both of which are hilariously long. Some other reasons…

Momentum. I need a link to make a point. I Google. I check the top 3-4 listings. Guess who’s always one of the choices? Thus the additional links build on the present ranking.

Laziness. Honestly, I think most bloggers just can’t be bothered to find the perfect reference on a subject. Good enough really is good enough if the link is just serving as a bit of background on something you think might be too esoteric to be familiar to all readers.

How do you feel about linking to Wikipedia? Does the idea of having “trusted editors” turn you off, or is it a good thing?

[Hat tip to Search Engine Land for linking us to the Resource Shelf post, which linked us to Information World Review.]

The Google Operating System blog reports that Google Earth is considering new features, including stuff that evokes a sort of “reality TV”-style version of Second Life. According to the blog:

Arizona State University’s students have the opportunity to test a new product “that will be publicly launched later this year”. The invitation page mentions that the product is developed by “a major Internet company” and there are hints that the application is related to social networking, 3D modeling and video games. To complete the questionnaire and get the opportunity to test the product, you need to be a student at ASU.

So where’s Google in this picture? One of the questions from the form asks you if you have a Gmail account and if you are willing to get one. The product’s name is “My World” and the logo shows a globe – this could be related to Google Earth. Google also owns a 3D modeling software that could be used to create avatars.

Quoting a Business 2.o feature from 2006, Google Operating System reminds us that “speculation about a Google Earth Second Life started last year.” From the article:

“The notion that you can create objects and buildings and place them in a virtual world makes Google Earth sounds less like a mapping tool and more like a metaverse. What’s a metaverse? Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson introduced the term in his seminal 1992 novel, Snow Crash. (…) In Stephenson’s novel, millions of users uploaded customized “avatars,” or virtual personalities, and strolled the street, entering shops and exclusive nightclubs, conversing and trading with the metaverse’s other denizens.”

The blog then reminds us that “…Snow Crash inspired the development of Google Earth.” But didn’t inspire Second Life as well?

Regardless, Mashable’s Kristen Nicole thinks the open source community will handle this one:

It wouldn’t take much to create an open Second Life from Google Earth, and one company, Unype, has already started just a project. Which also makes me think that a direct involvement from Google is highly unlikely.

Facebook Worth Gazillions (in virtual money)

Speaking of companies borrowing ideas from Second Life, Facebook is making news (again) now that The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft may invest $10 Billion.

Linking to a Reuters piece, suggesting that Facebook is holding out for a cool $15 Bills, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington says, “What the hell. Why not?”

In related news, unofficial Facebook blog AllFacebook.com reports that virtual currency provider Acebucks has just “…raised $1.5 million from a powerhouse team of investors.”

[...] Aryeh Goldsmith, the developer of Acebucks, was acquired by Michael Lazerow to form Buddy Media. Buddy Media investors include Howard Lindzon, Peter Thiel, Mark Pincus and James Altucher.

The focus of Buddy Media is to expand the AceBucks application and make it the primary virtual currency on Facebook. Acebucks will soon launch an API which enables developers to integrate the virtual currency into their own applications. For example if you are winning points on a poker application, you can convert those points into Acebucks.

Acebucks can be used to purchase both virtual and physical assets through the new Facebucks store which is about to be launched. Acebucks is being modeled after the AMEX rewards system. Buddy Media plans on launching some creative marketing campaigns via the Acebucks application.

Remember the days when anything that resembled this was written-off as “Monopoly money”? Looks like some companies think that phrase has a nice ring to it…

Obama Wins Yahoo! Debate

Even if he doesn’t get his party’s nomination, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has won Yahoo’s “mashup” debate. On Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog, Neeraj Khemlani had this to say:

A little more than a week since we launched the first online Presidential debate (or mashup, as we like to call it), it’s time to announce the winner and share some additional “results.”

In our poll, which asked people who they’d vote for after watching the mashup, Barack Obama was the winner with 35% of the votes. Senator Obama squeaked by Hillary Clinton, who received 31% of the votes. To hear what Obama had to say about winning, check out our “People of the Web” story on the results, which includes an interview we conducted this morning.

Hmm… He’s already got VP experience as head of Programming & Development for Yahoo. Might Mr. Khemlani be trying to woo the candidates for a different type of VP position?

Meanwhile, over at Search Engine Journal, Loren Baker discusses the stats:

• As of this weekend, 1.1 million people had clicked on the debates.
• Of those, 429,000 were between the ages of 18 and 34
• Organizers of the online debate say its audience is more engaged and that the format puts the content in the viewers’ hands.
• On average, each mashup viewer watched 4.4 video streams for a total of seven minutes
• Clips on the YouTube video-sharing site typically run two minutes or less.

Sure, online Presidential debates are in their pre-infancy, but the 1 million number is a bit lower than I had originally imagined. For example, I’m a bit surprised that Yahoo Search has not implemented a Yahoo Shortcut with links to the online debates for searches such as Barack Obama or Bill Richardson.

[Can't keep up with all the blogs? Catch Blog Buzz weekdays on WebmasterRadio.fm — or subscribe via iTunes. Bryan Eisenberg & Robert Gorell host the podcast, featuring a rundown of the day's top stories from The Grok's Interactive Marketing Buzz.]