Healthy Blog Reviews

Amidst the very arid and nearly barren news landscape for the Internet marketing industry (unless you consider pure speculation and duct taping your iPhone news) is Google’s announcement of a new website. It seems very innocuous but when you think about what Google is facing these days maybe there is more to this. The site, Google Fiber for Communities , is not about better digestive tract health but rather it’s about higher quality, less expensive Internet access for all brought to by, you guessed it, Google. The Official Google Blog reports In February we announced our plans to build experimental, ultra-high speed broadband networks. Over the past several months, our team’s been hard at work reviewing the nearly 1,100 community responses to our request for information—not to mention the nearly 200,000 responses from individuals across the U.S. Throughout this process, one message has come through loud and clear: people are hungry for better and faster Internet access. With that in mind, today we’re launching a new site called Google Fiber for Communities, where you can learn more about fiber networks and keep up-to-date on our project. You’ll also be able to advocate for common-sense federal and local policies that would help fiber deployments nationwide. This all functions as a very nice piece of PR if nothing else. Washington is breathing down Google’s neck about everything from privacy to you name it. Thus, it makes sense for Google to push the “Do No Evil” and “Google for the betterment of society” part of their agenda to show their commitment to the greater good. The whole idea of doing things to make profits, benefit shareholders and generally make life better for a lot of folks through free market principles seems to just get them in trouble more often than not (by the way, I am reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” so I am hyper sensitive to this whole scenario right now). Here is Google’s ‘Thank You’ video which is pretty cool and is adept at giving Google that “We have the world’s best interest at heart” feel. I think that Google knows that in order to get the future big projects in place with less resistance from Washington and to be able to make the purchases they desire without federal interference they have to paint a very rosy public picture. The more than can do that the easier it is for them to make the government look like the bad guy when it tries to stop everything Google does for fear of it becoming too powerful. Sounds all very conspiracy ‘theory-ish’ I know but really think about it. Google has been gearing up its Washington DC machine for a while now and has even landed some higher up in some hot water as of late. Do you think they are doing it because they expect smooth sailing with regulators and lawmakers? Doubt it. They are in for a fight at every turn as the climate runs more anti-business with each passing day. If they don’t play the game the consequences could be severe for more than just Google.

Tags: adept-at-giving, amidst-the-very, atlas-shrugged, climate, communities, consequences, game, google-fiber, government, Internet Marketing, iphone, official-google, plans, project
Posted July 14, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

While the headline may not entirely tell the story it does tell most of it. In a world that wants everything right now it sure is interesting how some people like to slap the hands of those that provide that kind of service and do it better than anyone else. The French competition authority is claiming that Google is being discriminatory in how they allow or disallow Adwords customers to use the syatem. The Wall Street Journal reports France’s competition authority Wednesday said that Google Inc.’s online ad service discriminated against a client, a decision that comes amid the country’s growing concern over Google’s dominance of the lucrative French search market. In a preliminary ruling, the Authorité de la Concurrence said that Google’s Adwords system, which prompts ads to appear alongside search results, lacked transparency and “resulted in discriminatory treatment.” The ruling followed a complaint by Navx, a French company that provides data on the location of road traffic speed cameras and petrol prices, as well as other services and content for GPS devices. Navx said its ads were removed without warning from AdWords in 2009, and accused Google of anti-competitive practices. Google’s take is that they had put a policy in place in 2009 to disallow ads that identify the location of speed cameras and thus avoid fines. That does sound awful sporting of them, I suppose, but the French government doesn’t see it that way. The gist of this entire situation can be summed up by a quote from Navx’s lawyer “The competition authority is saying that Google has a dominant position,” said Ron Soffer, Navx’s lawyer. “When you have that position you can’t just do what you want.” This kind of ‘reasoning’ is just mind boggling to me. Just because Google is better at search and the vast majority of people in France have CHOSEN to use the service (it’s not the only game in town) then it can’t do business as it sees fit. That’s rich. Google and France are developing a rather acrimonious relationship with the French authorities going after Google on their book scanning efforts and their street view screw-ups. Those seem to have some merit as compared to this case that primarily is saying that when you become too successful you are then going to be a ‘ward of the state’ and behave as the government dictates. That’s ridiculous. No doubt, it’s important to keep tabs on powerful companies so they don’t abuse their earned privilege. This duty, however, has to be carried out with considerable tact so as not to restrict how business is done. It’s a fine line, tight-rope like balancing act for sure. However, to pander to the whim of every company who has been convinced by an Internet ambulance chasing lawyer that there is a case against Google is just plain stupid. Of course, lawyers are going to bring more and more of these cases to the courts because they are looking to hit the lottery. These types of rulings will only encourage this kind of practice. So here’s the lesson for business if you are working in France. Don’t do what you do too well so that many of the French people use your service to their benefit. If you are too good and too successful the French competition authority will have to reign in your success because, well, you are too good and successful! Sounds like the French World Cup team isn’t the only thing that has lost its mind these days. What’s your take here? Is this something that should be expected and accepted or is this truly a sign of government getting too much in the way of the free market? I know what Google would say but they are too big for me to listen . What’s on your mind?

Tags: authorit, book, country, France, french, government, internet, kind, legal, location, mind, Search, street, street-journal
Posted July 1, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

If you were Google and you were faced with the possibility of losing your license to operate in the largest market on the planet AND you had to stay true to your commitment to not censor your results, what would you do? OK, that’s not a fair question since you aren’t Google but the NY Times tells us what they have done to preserve their ability to provide search services to their nemesis buddy China. In an effort to appease Beijing as it seeks to renew its license to operate in mainland China, Google plans to stop automatically redirecting Chinese users to its Hong Kong site. For the last three months, Google has found a clever way to overcome its ethical objections to self-censoring search results on its Web site for mainland China, google.cn. It has automatically redirected Chinese users to an uncensored search site, google.com.hk, maintained on the company’s servers in Hong Kong. (David) Drummond (Google’s chief legal officer) wrote that in an effort to continue to serve Google’s Chinese users while placating the government, the company is proposing a compromise. In the next few days, it will stop automatically redirecting users to its Hong Kong site. Instead, Chinese users will see a page at google.cn, which offers a single link to the Hong Kong site, where they can conduct searches or use other Google services, like translation and music, that require no filtering. That sounds pretty clever if you think that the Chinese are asleep at the wheel and may be kind of stupid. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan was quoted in the article saying “If the Chinese government isn’t happy with them running uncensored search results out of the Hong Kong site — I don’t see why they’ll be any happier just because it becomes one click away,” Danny Sullivan, who runs the search-analysis Web site Search Engine Land, told Bloomberg News. I suppose that stranger things have happened but it seems like this attempt by Google is, well, pretty lame. Their proposed compromise is just an ‘end around’ to keep the company breathing in this huge market that could represent considerable cash in the future despite China’s Baidu search engine having a sizable market share lead. Of course, just moving market share up a point or two in a market that size could mean significant dollars. In all of these years, have we known Google to turn away from a chance to make a buck or a billion or whatever? While on principle this course of action seems a little disappointing you really can’t fault Google for trying. It’s just that when what you offer is as transparently gimpy as this choice that you have to wonder if the Chinese will take the bait. If they do then maybe we have overestimated their abilities. What’s your take? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Tags: article, baidu, chinese, Danny Sullivan, government, hong, possibility, runs-the-search, search-engine
Posted June 29, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Elevation Partners is most known for one of its investors, U2’s Bono, and it’s big time play with Palm. Now, the first one is good for the headlines but the second one, not so much. It appears as if Elevation is getting beyond its recent history as it invests $120 million in Facebook in the secondary market. This signals a change in the company and also could be a sign of the much vaunted Facebook IPO being a thing of the more distant future than many would like. TechCrunch reports Elevation’s premature obituary is a popular story these days. Things haven’t worked out as planned for the firm—at all— but that’s not unique in the venture market these days, and the tide is turning for Elevation. The Palm-albatross is gone, and the firm didn’t lose money on the deal—not a trivial milestone considering it was 20% of the fund. This turning tide is helping Facebook for sure. It’s interesting to see how these how these high dollar ‘investments’ take place because it appears as if you may need to know some people in some high places. Facebook controls who buys its shares on the secondary market, and Elevation has tight ties with the company. Elevation founders Roger McNamee and Bono were personal investors in Facebook, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s brother-in-law is Mark Bodnick, another Elevation partner. This isn’t an accidental tie-up. So even while Ms. Sandberg is proclaiming the end of e-mail she can at least give some reasonable advice to family members. So what does this mean for the rest of us? Not much really unless you are thinking you have an inside track to any IPO upside for Facebook. If the company can keep generating revenue that has been rumored to be anywhere from $800 million to $1.3 billion recently and get chunks of investment like this there is not going to be a great rush to go IPO and lose much of the autonomy it currently has. Heck, if you did that you may have to put together policies that actually make sense! It looks like for the foreseeable future Facebook is going to be sticking with things it can control like who gets to ‘buy-in’ on the secondary market. While this may be a discouraging thing to all of those Facebook employees looking for the IPO mother lode it’s very encouraging to those at the top of the Facebook food chain. Now they only have to worry about the government dictating how they do business. Why introduce the rest of the world to the same possibility?

Tags: cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, elevation, facebook, government, headlines, palm-albatross, rest, secondary, Sheryl Sandberg, Social, some-reasonable, the-secondary
Posted June 28, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Many people in the social media world are familiar with Ted Rubin. He is one of the most enthusiastic and energetic users of social media in the business. What makes Ted quite unique is that he is an executive level social media user. It’s unfortunate that we call him unique in his efforts. We have to though because most executive level marketers barely know what social media is let alone actually use it. I first talked to Ted when he was CMO for e.l.f. Cosmetics . It was the first time I realized that in an ‘interview’ with Ted I would just have to try to keep up because he’s got a ridiculous amount of energy. His energy is commensurate to his level of excitement about his projects. Considering the pace he kept with me, it is safe to say that Ted is completely ‘jacked up’ about The OpenSky Project , which is where he puts his efforts currently. The OpenSky Project was started by John Caplan who has a resume that includes being president and CMO of About.com and CEO of Ford Models. Ted’s role with the group is as Chief Social Marketing Officer or Chief Relationship Officer or whatever you would call a position that is pretty new to the corporate hierarchies of today. The OpenSky Project is described in a blog post by Caplan from September of 2009 The idea for OpenSky is simple: we are a community center, a gathering place for people to learn and connect with one another and share great expertise and the best products. With success, OpenSky means real people connecting consumers to the products they love and use. What Ted is promoting is a service that helps two groups: bloggers and their fans. He doesn’t talk about readers, per se, because what Rubin and OpenSky looks to do is tap into the passion that exists in many bloggers and their followers. This passion is obvious but what is not obvious to most is how that passion can turn into making some money. Rubin has extensive influence himself with the “mommy blogger” set and has found that the question he has had to try to answer most from this group (and other affinity groups like them with whom he interacts with daily) is “How do I make money doing this?”. It’s not an easy answer really since there is much debate in blogger circles about just what should and should not be allowed with regard to commerce related activities and, of course, the government has thrown their hat in the ring about how product endorsements are handled. Enter OpenSky. Blogging is about relationships. These relationships, which are born of trust from readers, create influencers. Bloggers who are influencers can mold opinions about many things. One of the most powerful ways is in their “rubber stamping” of products and services they trust, enjoy and use themselves. OpenSky provides a great way for bloggers to turn that passion into revenue. Rubin describes the service as follows: OpenSky is a platform that enables bloggers/influencers to make money by selling products they are already interested in and passionate about. As with all things that Ted is involved in, the secret sauce of this offering which is in beta but preparing to relaunch with their new scaleable platform in less than 60 days, is relationships. In fact, he calls this type of ‘selling’ relationship commerce. This concept is very new in many ways but investors have taken notice with OpenSky receiving $11 million to this point. While there are only about 200 current bloggers/influencers using the platform the big picture is to democratize the opportunity for bloggers and product producers to make money. There are over 800 more signed up and ready to go as soon as the relaunch takes effect. These are not the usual department stores or big box store products we are talking about either. Most of the bloggers have found neat niche products that not many people would know about and thus share with their trusted readers. They can then use the OpenSky platform which puts the shopping cart on their blog, sources the item, ships it,provides customer service on the purchase, and guarantees all sales for 365 days for a 50/50 split of the margin on the sale. As Rubin describes it, there is only upside because it allows bloggers to make money, it gives their readers access to products that they would have never known about otherwise and it allows product producers to have channels for their products to get to market. In essence, the OpenSky environment is really a complete commerce ecosystem that empowers content providers, their readers and great niche product innovators to work together and do something better than just ‘buy and sell’. So why have I written about this for you, the Marketing Pilgrim readers? So you can see that there are people out there trying to connect passionate people with other people that results in business. It’s also a testament to the power of a high energy social media user like Ted Rubin who proves that social media is effective when you work it. Oh and does Ted work at social media? Yes he does. Just follow him on Twitter ( @tedrubin ) and ask him any questions you have about OpenSky. He’ll answer. Why? Because he gets it and wants others to ‘get it’ too, whether it’s about OpenSky or social media in general. Stay tuned for more news about this new platform that is about helping people be successful. It should be fun to watch this new way of doing online commerce take hold. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Tags: Business, government, marketing, OpenSky, people, power, products, shopping, Social Media
Posted June 19, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media