Google display ads on image search
Accordign to a Bloomberg interview with Marissa Mayer, Google is considering running display ads on image searches. They tried txt ads with little success but images seems an obvious move.
With Google universal on natural listings, recent tests on video adwords, and hte introduction of display into image search the days of the text link may really be numbered
SEO is Dead again
One of my favourite search people ShoeMoney says SEO has no future and once again the SEO crowd goes wild. The last time this happened was when Jason Calacanis announced the death of Google - with the emergence of social search engines.
When you listen to Shoe’s argument, I think it’s a strong one and for many of us an obvious conclusion if you take the traditional view of SEO. His point is that many of the tactics deployed by traditional SEO can no longer give you the same benefits, and in time the on-page and off-page SEO will have less and less of an affect.
Recently I wrote a paper on the short term mistake of link buying or rather optimising for users not search engines – as I came to the same conclusion some time ago. The point is why does Google need to keep looking at links and keywords to identify a relevant site that provides good user experience, when they can get user data which tells the real story. Good search rankings will be the outcome of getting everything else right and providing a relevant experience for the user.
Hulu comes back to YouTube
The News Corp alternative Hulu has republish their video on YouTube. This was a project set-up as a competitor to YouTube - part of the idea being, pulling their content from YouTube would somehow make youtube less attractive. No big surprise that they just didn’t get the traffic.
The Web 2.0 Social VRM impact on Insurance and Financial Services
Both Jeff Jarvis and Jeremiah Owyang are discussing the merits of social, web 2.0, VRM concepts in the context of financial services. This is something very close to my heart and while the discussion has attracted some heavyweight attention from the likes of Seth Godin, I’m feeling lucky.
I’ve been convinced for some time that all financial services will be transformed to some degree by the network.
I’m not convinced by Jeff’s argument that insurance is somehow immune to the network because of the inherent fraud and mistrust in this industry. Yes it exists when both sides stand to gain so much, but in a co-operative system only one side can gain. And that person is up against a network of highly connected individuals who collectively has something to lose. Getting caught cheating the community is a much worse than losing to a corporation.
Regulations governing financial products are considered another nail in the coffin to a co-operative utopia. But, much of the regulations governing Financial Services have evolved to protect both customer and profits. How will things change in a non profit scenario where regulation are there to protect the one entity?
Even if the insurance industry will not benefit from the network inputs driving MyStarbucks, I can see Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) principals embedding into the insurance industry very easily. OK it’s not going to be ani-insurance or necessarily replace insurance companies as we know em. But enabling the customer to control their data and allowing multiple quotes from a single data feed has obvious advantages. Insurance aggregators currently fill this space, but they take their cut which doesn’t particularly help providers compete on price – one of the biggest drivers in motor insurance.
As I was saying on 2008-04-26
- Oh my head - What happended lnight? Coffee kicking in - Sun is calling - Love Brighton.aaaaaahh #
As I was saying on 2008-04-24
- Yahoo! opens everything including search platform - But I really am too tired to care tonight. #
- Fedup with trying to follow all of you on different platforms - sending invites to join FriendFeed #
- Gutted can’t go to the VRM meeting this evening. Family calls #
- The Economist have their PageRank reduced for selling links. tut tut #
- # #
A new look for Nilhan’s Kocchi Kade
After many months trawling through hundreds of WordPress themes, I settled on this one. I really liked the simplicity of the last one but it was time for a change and I wanted more flexibility have a little play.
A big shout out to all the talented folk at DailyBlogTips for creating this theme. Really love it - easy to use and lots of useful features - and SEO ready
I also wanted integrate Twitter so my tweets were published here and my blog posts are alerted over there. Twitter is deffintely more conversation, something I find difficult to do with the blog, so this seemed perfect. I’m using Alex King’s Twitter Tools for this - there’s the added bonus of a Twitter digest published on my blog for those really lazy blogging days.
It feels more like new house more than just a paint job.
Let’s play!
Twitter Updates for 2008-04-23
- Another wet day in Brighton - must find stronger coffee #
- Complex networks and decentralized search algorithms - now stop right there #
- how about this for a piss-take - type in ‘vrm whitepaper’ into Google and it says ‘ did you mean ‘CRM white paper’ #
- promissed I wouldn’t but here I am slagging off everyone in the Apprentice #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Did the Holiday Inn just get lucky?
On a search for ‘Holiday in Paris’ I got this map box filled entirely with links to various Holiday Inn local listings.
Kevin Bacon and the impact of offline on online - part 2
A few days ago I blogged about a Kevin Bacon YouTube video which was mentioned on the Graham Norton show. The video had 1800 views prior to the TV show, and the following morning it had 8000+ views.
Now five days later it has just under 30,000 views. We can assume that the first jump was mainly just from the TV show. Old school push media to kick-start the viral effect. Usually the impact of TV on online after a few hours is very limited. So the biggest growth must have come from the WOM effect – people recommending the video either in conversation in the pub or online through, IM, email and social networks
None of this is going to surprise any marketers connecting their online and offline strategies – for those that haven’t I think this provides a fairly compelling argument. While TV viewers may have a short attention span, if you use TV to drive an online exploration you can get more bang for your buck.