Interesting Websites
Google Reveals What People Are Buying Online
Wouldn’t it be great if we could get insights as to which products people preferred. We could get research into which products we should merchandise more prominently. Google just released a new trending tool for those of us curious what people are buying and selling online. From the official Google Checkout Blog:
Many of you are aware of Google Trends, the handy tool that enables you to track and compare what Google users are searching for. Now imagine a similar tool that can give you some insight into what people are buying and selling online. That’s exactly what we’ve built: Google Checkout Trends aggregates the sales data of Google Checkout merchants and charts it in a matter of seconds. (Of course, all the data is anonymized first.) So if you’re interested in how sales of Batman or Spider Man paraphernalia compare, or are wondering just how popular Ugg boots are these days, visit Checkout Trends for a glimpse into online shopping. Go ahead and try it out — and get creative with the searches. You may be surprised at what you find.
I was having problems this morning getting any results from my searches, even from their six suggested searches. Every time I searched, I received a message that said:
Your terms - ipod, zune do not have enough search volume to show graphs.
If you want to see what the graph of results looks like you can find people discussing it here, here, and here.
Regardless, I think once these issues are resolved, like Google Trends this will provide some interesting data. One thing to keep in mind though is that in our analysis for our 2007 Customer Experience Retail study we found only 10% of the 300+ top retailers offered Google Checkout as an option.
How meaningful will the results really be?
Have you had better luck with Google Checkout Trends? Your impressions?
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
This Year in Blogs: The Definitive Marketing Posts of 2007
2007 was the year “blog” became an everyday word. Only twelve months ago, blogs was seen as a fad that maybe, in a few more years, might be seen as credible by the masses.
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.)
“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.)
[If video doesn’t load, click here.]
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.)
[If video doesn’t load, click here.]
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.
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Written by:The Grok
Which Interface Do You Prefer?
I stumbled across this interesting bit of interface research. The quiz guides you through a series of different interfaces and you choose whichever you prefer. At the end, it runs you through each individual result. Check it out and see how you do compared to the 10,000+ people who’ve already run through it.
How do you think Uncle Jakob would vote?
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Confessions of a Screenshot Addict
If you’ve ever seen any of my screencasts, or seen one of my presentation, you may have noticed I collect screenshots of just about anything I consider relevant.
Where does this obsession come from?
The other day, one of our newer staff members asked me why I’m such a screenshot addict. What’s the benefit to collecting all these images, many of which I may never use?
It was only when I opened my Yahoo! page yesterday that it hit me. The banner was right there, where it’s been for awhile. Even though I never clicked, there is a value in those impressions. What triggered my memory was that little stick drawing guy in the SnagIt banner.
I can remember, as early as 1996, taking screenshots for marketing purposes. Back then, I was working with a telecom company that was selling voice-over-Internet products, and I was helping to manage the banners we bought on Yahoo!, Excite, Altavista, landing pages, and so on. The top-performing banner — no matter what we offered or how creative we were — was this little stick figure smiley-face guy with a simple offer. (By the way, I’m still shocked today at how good this company was at measuring stuff back then. It probably helped fuel my passion for web analytics. I could tell you by the keyword on any of the engines, for any date range, for a particular version of a banner we ran, how many minutes people used our product to call Argentina.)
But I digress. What did I do with the screenshots?
I used to take screenshots of every page where I could find our banners. Then I would save them to compare with the following week’s/month’s metrics. I’d analyze them to see if any other elements on the page were enhancing or detracting from the ability of the banner to get the click-though. Sometimes it was a search result that influenced the conversion. I’ve been collecting screenshots ever since.
For as long as I can recall, I’ve been a fan of TechSmith’s SnagIt (and later, Camtasia for video) for Windows. Now that we’ve switched the company to Mac, we’re using SnapZ Pro X, as well as TechSmith’s newly released Jing Project. (Thanks, guys. Please keep those Mac products coming!)
What can you do with screenshots?
1. Chronicle all of your online advertising efforts and use the screenshots to analyze any interactions with your success metrics.
2. Keep a running history of changes to your content, or a competitor’s (i.e., see what changes/tests have been performed).
3. Use them in presentations when reporting on web analytics for a particular ad creative or page.
4. Use them to figure out what to test next in your landing page optimization efforts
5. Impress your friends with your collection that contains an original Amazon screenshot.
Are you a fellow screenshot addict? Want to be? If so, come join my FaceBook group.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Is there a Dating Profile Doctor in the House?
Let’s see, um, well. . . I’m thirty. . . Make that twenty-nine. . . I enjoy sushi. Except octopus; the suction cups freak me out. I love long walks on the beach, especially with my dogs — which is fun since Natasha loves to terrorize Yorkies and Boris likes to roll in seagull poop.
My idea of a good time is curling up with a soy protein shake and reading about neurology, quantum physics, or Harry Potter. I think I’m funny. Really. I’ll write something and just crack myself up. Still, I look a little silly, sitting alone at my computer writing and laughing. Some people find that strange.
I’m in shape. Well, I was in shape. Ok, maybe “in-shape” is too strong a phrase, but I was once called “athletic” (not that long ago) . I’m a non-smoker and healthy except for slight Swedish Fish problem. A big Sweedish Fish problem. Fine, it’s an addiction, but I’m seeking help.
Question: Would you date me? Heck, I wouldn’t date me. That’s where the Profile Doctor comes in.
Having trouble creating your online dating profile?
Creating the dreaded profile could very well be the number one problem online daters must face. But now Lavalife has created the Profile Doctor to come in and do a profile analysis on member profiles.
I’m really curious about this. I love the idea of getting outside feedback on your profile. But I wonder: would I rather have a man or a woman do the analysis? Maybe a man since he’d know what guys like. But a woman might be better at helping me polish the finer points to help me shine.
I’d like to know what criteria the Profile Doctor uses to analyze these profiles? I mean, yeah, some stuff is just creepy, but can he really help you get more dates? I’d love to know.
I still think the best way to do a profile is to get your best friend to write up a profile for you. Best friends can talk about your good points so you don’t have to feel like you’re bragging. I’d really like to see this feature on the dating websites.
Don’t Date Him Girl is a laugh-out-loud funny site designed for women to be able to share their past dating experiences. Wouldn’t it be fun to have something like this on the dating sites? I think it would be fun.
Hmm. . . the guys reading this over my shoulder aren’t laughing. One would have to be careful about psychotic ex’s posting less than flattering comments. Hey, one or two angry ex-girlfriends isn’t a big deal, but if there are, like, 17 . . . that could be a sign of a guy to avoid.
No matter what, it’s just plain hard to write about yourself. I’d give the Profile Doctor a try. Or I’d get my best friend to write something for me. Either way, I think getting feedback on your profile could help improve them. Better profiles would lead to more dates. Isn’t that what online dating is all about?
P.S. — You know. . . I’m a writer, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. Maybe I could be a profile doctor? How cool would that be? In the meantime, I’ll create a profile and follow-up to let you know the prognosis. Hey, if an athletic math nerd seeking someone who to hum the Seinfeld theme with can do it, so can I. 
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
Links I Forgot To Share
This thing of ours–you know, this “online” thing–is fun. Where else could I find a bunch of cool friends who are up to such interesting stuff?
Dylan Lewis launched the Web Analytics Wiki. His goal with your help is to have 300 articles in 3 months. Will you help?
Jason Ciment, Future Now’s first client, has launched a new site based on his success with search engines. Check out SEO Timetable, a 120-day plan to get great rankings.
Mike Moran, co-author of Search Engine Marketing Inc., just launched a new site and contest site called Do it Wrong Quickly. Mike’s looking for you to tell us stories of your boss or colleagues.
Mike Drew, a book marketing and publishing expert who helped us become best selling authors, launched two new blogs: Beneath the Covers and Push the Key.
Holly Buchanan & Jeff Sexton will be in New York, September 17, to teach Persuasive Online Copywriting. Will you be there? By the way, it amazes me that people get $150 for our first book, Persuasive Online Copywriting on Amaxon. I’ve seen it sell for over $1000, just because it is out of print. Please be aware that we sell an updated version as a PDF.)
My buddies Joseph Jaffe, CC Chapman and crew are hosting a panel discussion on Virtual Worlds in the Amphitheater on Crayonville Island.
Last but not least, this is not a friend’s business, but a friend told me about it. If you travel a lot and like to make sure you get the best deal, even when the price of your fare drops. Check out Yapta.
Friends, please let me know if I missed something new that you’re up to.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Have Lots of Domains You Monitor?
A convenient service courtesy of XBlog: Domain Log Book is a place for you to track all of your domains. All you do is add them to your log book and it shows you their Google page rank and Alexa traffic rank all on one page, as well as a link to WhoIs information. Supposedly there are more stats coming in the next few weeks.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
