blending the mix

Steve picks out a great piece of work from Microsoft Live Search (MS are on a roll at the moment what with 5Gb SkyDrive and Surface!) which I feel compelled to share. Not because it is Steve or Microsoft, but because I think it looks at promoting search (and browser plugins which is something close to our heart at the moment!) in an entirely new way - and how timely.

(the introduction to the game)

Big Snap Search encourages you to install the Windows Live Search as your default browser search engine:

(adding Live Search to the browser toolbar enhances your chance of winning)

Quite simply, you stand a better chance of winning (i.e. matching a pair of cards) if you install Windows Live Search in your browser.

As we saw a couple of weeks ago, Firefox 3 will be focused on search - so if you aren’t part of a browser already, you stand little chance of being used. We already have dozens of search plugins for FF, Flock can detect a search engine on any page and asks you to add it, so how can MS claw back some of the lost ground if it can’t match Google on quality of search results? Be on more machines.

I can’t help thinking that I am being manipulated here, but have to give Microsoft 10 out of 10 for innovation. From all accounts, their ad team are developing some truly exciting ideas.

With Google’s recent venture into “micro” searches, you would have thought that they would now have search well and truly licked but Steve Rubel reports that Google’s biggest threat is now wikipedia!

With increasing scrutiny over the accuracy of the content, wikipedia is an increasingly trustworthy source of information.

Properly monetised (with even wikipedia adwords??) they may even be able to launch further afield…wikipedia films, wikipedia sport (like mark Cuban’s wiki).

In the same way adwords rewards good keyword selection, wikipedia subject-specific ads would surely trump Google for ROI.

Technorati Tags: wikipedia, Google

Steve Rubel reports on a ZDnet article which elaborates on a personalised ad delivery system for commercial radio!

By monitoring conditions at the outlets of the source (temperature and demographics are the two quoted conditions), the ads can be changed in accordance with the changes on the shop floor. They cite the example of Mcdonalds being able to change the type of ad they run, if for example, the temperature exceeds a certain point. Rather than run a burger ad, they might roll with a drinks one.

Cool (in every sense of the word!).

This seems to tie in with the advances they are making on audio search I posted a few weeks back where Google will/should/can (!!) be able to place targeted and relevant browser ads based on the background noise it can pick up.

With RF tags being put into store cards and on food packaging, maybe the Minority Report ad world is not too far away.

Is that a good thing?

Ask yourself this question. Even if an ad was relevant and targeted in a way you like, would you still welcome the interruption?

Maybe advertising is a joke. It’s all about………timing!

Tags: mcdonalds, dmarc, google

My Sony laptop is on the verge of packing in, after years and years of (ab)use it is at death’s door.

The CD drive does not allow me to burn back-up discs anymore and it is pot luck as to whether or not it will work from one day to the next.

So, I am offering a unique opportunity to sponsor ME.

Apple, Microsoft, Dell, or indeed any company willing to provide me with a half-decent laptop will have their name mentioned as part of my email signature.

In ALL communications in which I participate and which requires me to use the laptop (pretty much all the time!), I will apply the following signature text for a full 12 months (and I WILL provide weekly evidence of this):

Paul Fabretti

Director

Written on an Apple Macbook Pro by Company X.

Or

"Written using the latest Dell Precision M90"

or whatever suits the company providing it! You get the picture!

I may even think about something that sounds good too!

I am a minimum 3-times a day, 3-blog blogger with a (growing) average 800 unique visitors per month (ok, not a lot but growing all the time!). I am an active member of linked-in, openbc, ecademy as well as the pinkomarketing wiki and google group.

I am also an eBay (UK) Gold Power seller. A link to the company providing my laptop will also be included in ALL my eBay auctions.

Some will no doubt snigger at the visitor numbers (and advertisers may balk at the numbers!) but I am an extremely active member of the communities in which I mix, and present you with an opportunity to touch business professionals deeper than any banner ad would.

If this is of interest to you and you would be able to provide me with a laptop, I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Tags: ebay, Dell, Apple, Macbook Pro, laptop, pinko marketing

If the way you can ask ask.com a question and find what you need appeals to you, then Yahoo Answers takes this one step further!

Ask a question and you get a human answer! Click ALL thumbnails to enlarge.
Step 1: Ask the question and select a category (select from Internet, Sports, Politics etc.).

Step 2: Check your question and Submit

Job done!

You then receive an email confirming you have asked a question and are instructed to click on the Q&A page link to see what responses you have had.

Alternatively, you can activate email notification of responses.

The link takes you to the Q&A page of your question where the responses have been posted. Whichever of the posts answers your question, simply indicate by pressing the Best Answer button.

Your question is open for 7 days so you can wait until then to get the answer which most helps.

Points are awarded for your usefulness to the community. You start off with 100 points and gain or lose as follows:

-5 points for asking a question

+2 points for answering a question

+10 points if your answer is selected as the Best Answer

+1 for daily login

All questions are answered by the community members, earning points for simply logging-in ensuring that the community grows by incentivising participation.

as fun as this is, what purpose does it serve? What can people hope to learn from Yahho Answers that they wouldn’t already be able to get from a Yahoo or Google search?

How popular is Google Answers? Does the fact that Yahoo is free open it up to more answers or more abuse?

I LOVE the idea of the open community prioviding answers, almost like wikipedia but the large youth base of Yahoo makes me think it will be open to the type of abuse that wikipedia avoids.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo Answers, Google Answers, Yahoo, wikipedia

This story presents an interesting turn of events for Google. Perfect 10 magazine us suing Google for breach of copyright for allowing pirated material (i.e republished images of previously subscriber-only material) to be indexed and displayed in image searches.

Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel in their insightful podcast, Across the Sound recounted a story that in Europe, the publisher’s association was considering a class action against Google for almost the same thing.

Their argument is that Google is earning revenue from Ad Sense and Adwords campaign from the PA’s members’ internet-published material.

My take on their gripe is that by acting as the medium to this copyrighted material, the PA claim that Google is unfairly earning money by directing people to material that would normally otherwise have to be paid for.

Part of me though wonders whether or not this is just a case of a traditional business model resenting the fact that a new one has come along and beaten it at its own game!

Despite Google contradicting its do no evil policy by agreeing to censor certain web content from Chinese searchers and then going against Bush & Co. today it seems that there are still an awful lot of non-regulated opinions circulating China’s blogosphere.
Steve Rubel reports from Interfax China that 52% of all Chinese white-collar workers are using blogs 28% of whom often leave aggressive and critical comments. A braver 60% even criticise their boss!

It just goes to show how keen the likes of MSN, Yahoo and Google et al. will do whatever the Chinese government wants regarding content limits in order to get access to the huge Chinese market, yet on the other hand provide those same people with a tool to crticise the same government!

Power to the people!

Does anyone else not think that Google are committing the worst possible case of double-standards?

The commit no evil ethic is all well and good, except when it means that market share is likely to be impacted upon.

The BBC reports today that Google has filed court documents rejecting the call from Bush & Co. to request a weeks’ worth of user searches, citing an engineer’s time, constant algorithm changes and failure of a good reason for disclosure as the main reasons not to disclose the searches…but why are they standing up to the US Government when they have bent over and dropped their pants to the Chinese?

I presume that it is nothing to do with losing out on the 2nd largest internet market in the world is it?