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

Google Chief Exec Eric Schmidt and his fellow media moguls talked to the Wall Street Journal last week about their plans to get creative with online advertising. After fifteen years as a part of the Internet landscape, the banner ad simply isn’t as effective as it used to be and though online ad spending is up again, it’s not where it should be given the amount of time the average person spends online. Last week, Schmidt and colleagues, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner, Walt Disney’s Bob Iger and Groupon’s Andrew Mason, headed out to Sun Valley for this year’s Allen & Co. mogul retreat.  In between the bike rides and the barbeques, the heavy hitters discussed “interactive video ads” and targeted advertising attached to content. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Schmidt championed “interactive video ads,” which he said are on the way. That means they could allow Web users to watch a video, leave a comment and see real-time updates within the ads that are more customized to their interests.” “Groupon’s strategy is to let businesses design an offer, such as half-price theater tickets, and email it to consumers together with commentary, such as a review of the play.” So it looks like the big guys have finally realized that content trumps a dancing hamster when it comes to attracting click-throughs. And for those who complain about the rampant spread of Google ads all over the net, Google says they’re working on that, too. In other words, they’re working on new ways to hide advertising in what looks like content. Are banner ads a thing of the past? Is it time to eliminate the standard Adsense ad unit in favor of targeted, advertising embedded in content? Or would you prefer to give up your sidebars in order to enjoy your content without commercials? Let us know in the comments below.

Tags: cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, dancing hamster, Display, facebook, google-chief, internet, more-customized, Online Advertising, plans, street, street-journal, video, words, working-on-new
Posted July 13, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

In a move that went somewhat under the radar a month ago, Ning’s co-founder and CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal. This signaled the end of the of a few things: at the time, Bianchini’s long time influence on the platform. Then yesterday, the end of Ning’s free offering and the end of many jobs at Ning. TechCrunch reports One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal , the company is making some major changes: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people — over 40% of its staff. I have started my own Ning network on the free side so this news is not the best. I was getting ready to pay to have the ads removed from the network but not quite yet. I already pay to have my own domain used for the community. My concern is what will the fees be moving forward? Also, no one ever likes to get used to a certain way of doing things then have the rug yanked out from underneath them in one fell swoop. So until the fees are made known and a decision needs to be made there isn’t much to do. The company has said through its Creators network that the changes will be known in the next two weeks. To get the full scope of what Ning is doing here is the e-mail that was sent to the staff. On a side note, I wonder if these e-mails are written as more of a press release than an actual sentiment since it seems that they will not stay inside the corporate fence for very long. Here’s Ning’s version of the “Things Are Gonna Change But It’s Gonna Be Good” e-mail from CEO Jason Rosenthal. Team, When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success. My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business. Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us. So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale. And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy. As a consequence of this change, I have also made the very tough decision to reduce the size of our team from 167 people to 98 people. As hard as this is to do, I am confident that this is the right decision for our company, our business, and our customers. Marc and I will work diligently with everyone affected by this to help them find great opportunities at other companies. I’ve never seen a more talented and devoted team, and it has been my privilege to get to know and work with each and every one of you over the last 18 months. We’ll use today to say goodbye to our friends and teammates who will be leaving the company. Tomorrow, I will take you through, in detail, our plans for the next three months and our new focus. Thanks, Jason Rosenthal So it’s probably not a good day to be one of the Ning little guys that is not really driving much traffic is it? It’s a bad day to have a good idea that can bring specific groups together and enjoy many of the functions that small groups couldn’t have in the past. The days of free are looking like the days of the past for many things in the online space. Your take on this move?

Tags: companies, network, networks, news, online, plans, premium, premium-ning
Posted April 16, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

A little over a month ago, Facebook revealed a planned conversion tracker tool to help marketers track the value of Facebook Pages and fans. Today, analytics firm Omniture announces “A new solution . . . to buy media on Facebook and measure its influence across digital marketing channels .” Any relation? Facebook isn’t the only thing Omniture’s newest efforts will be tracking. They’re also adding: Display ad targeting, using Omniture customer segment data and testing through partnerships with ad networks New mobile analytics, including app measurement for the iPad Regular analytics improvements, using Experian (HitWise) demographic data A new “Idea Exchange” (forum?) for users to communicate directly with engineers and product managers on new feature ideas However, the Facebook deal may be most key. MediaPost reports the plans to expand the agreement: Initially, the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement. The partnership builds on Facebook analytic features the companies announced last year to help marketers join the conversation, rather than interrupt the experience. This alliance is intended to help companies integrate Facebook as a marketing channel ["complete with technology tools, audience segments and best practices," MediaPost says earlier], connecting to relevant conversations with the site’s more than 400 million active users. Omniture is clearly trying to keep up with Internet marketing, especially social and mobile web, with it ongoing improvements over the last year: Dashboard integration with Twitter App measurement for Facebook, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm Viral video measurement comScore data integration What do you think? What would you most want to see from Facebook marketing analytics?

Tags: agreement, companies, conversation, experience, facebook, facebook-pages, help-marketers, internet, Internet Marketing, media, over-the-last, plans, Social, testing-through
Posted March 3, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

It sounds like a cross between Tomorrowland and a college dorm: Google wants on- (or near-) campus housing for their employees . Yes, the free on-campus laundry, free on-campus eateries, on-campus childcare (I’m just assuming that’s not free, but you never know) and free on-campus exercise facilities (making them 75% more free than where I went to college, but anyway) are just not enough to keep their employees at the Googleplex enough hours of the day. I don’t think the housing will be free, but you never know. This doesn’t necessarily mean Google has any plans to get into real estate development . Remember their wireless spectrum bluff ? Google may be appealing to make the change, hoping if you “rezone it, they will come.” It’s not a terrible theory—potential builders would have a built-in set of potential renters/buyers for the residential properties, which would make office retail space desirable there, too. So Google probably isn’t trying to take over every aspect of their employees’ lives (despite what it seems like with the on-campus oil changes, doctors, masseuses and dry cleaning drop off—which are not free, I assume). In fact, it started as the exact opposite—housing and services convenient to the Googleplex are virtually nonexistent. No, they’re not just coddling their employees so they can attract those recent college grads who’ve had Mom do their laundry for the last 20+ years . In fact, Google may be trying to save money with this move: some employees live so far away (and the Googleplex doesn’t have a lot of public transit access) that Google provides luxury buses with Wi-Fi for employees commuting from San Francisco. So what’s a multi-billion dollar corporation to do? Well, first, they start off with the proper legal channels. Last week, they wrote a letter to Mountain View, preparing to ask for zoning changes to allow housing in the nearby area. Naturally, they’re also being careful to plan sustainable development: Our goals for Google’s HQ are to provide a future redevelopment that is nurturing and regenerative to the environment provide a vibrant community and worklife balance [I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry there] for all and efficiently manage transportation and pedestrian access needs. This must include mixed uses office retail and residential along with the kind of land use development described in the Final Report by the Mountain View Environmental Sustainability Task Force. So their plans aren’t just to build apartment buildings—they want strip malls, too. Ah, yes, then life will be complete . The current zoning is for commercial use only. The city is preparing to discuss zoning changes, but don’t expect to move into your Google-themed housing too soon. TechCrunch also has the full memo from the Mountain View City Planner to the City Council, preparing to discuss the zoning changes: What do you think? Will Google get its real estate dreams? Will they be building, or will they step back and let others do the heavy lifting? Photo by Joe Penniston Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Tags: city, council, employees, environment, googleplex, make-the-change, marketing, mountain, mountain-view, plans, real-estate, residential, Search, zoning-changes
Posted February 19, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media