2010: It was a new day yesterday

Now that 2010 is here, and everyone has their 2010 predictions out of the way, here's another 10 cents' worth of road ahead. Unlike predictions, which derive from gambler's instincts, forecasts are supposed to be based on probabilities. Probabilities are more formal versions of 'probably's', which in turn are closely related to the gambler's instinct.

Generally in scenario development, I try to assess the impacts of the probably's in four very human dimensions: technology, society, culture and government. And while big time, ongoing trends like privacy, dumb networks, cheap processors, and the singularity are covered ad nauseum elsewhere, here's a list of a few practical probablys from these dimensions.

Listed in no particular order then, with no particular certainty, I present a few of the probably's that, finally or surprisingly, will impact marketers for the next 359 sunrises...all in the form of questions I hope you will feel free to answer for yourself.

For a look at 2009 themes (and an assessment of their come-to-passedness), see here.

Location, location, location!
It still matters in real estate. Will it matter even more to marketers precisely because it matters less to customers and prospects, though? With the explosion in smart phone deployments, GPS-enabled and everything, people will expect--and have access to--rich information on product, pricing, promotion, and customer experiences wherever they are...including right there...in your store. Combined with realtime search, that low price guarantee may mean competitors can outbid you one customer at a time. Customer service and sales staff will need to be empowered as many customers may know more about what's right or wrong with a product right now than the company does.

Have you or have you not?
And what is it that you have, exactly? Two decades of conspicuous consumption are ingrained in many levels of US society. In 2010, will debt destruction, unemployment and a general trend to be more austere impact the perception of brands that appeal to 'staying ahead of the joneses'...especially if the joneses are recipients of taxpayer money? Will anyone have sympathy for the homeless housewives of Orange County? How closely will marketers tie their brand's personality to flawed (but wealthy!) celebs in the hope consumers will want to 'be like Mike...or Tiger...or Charlie...or Khloe Kardashian?'

Social media as plumbing?
Will the features + functions that tools like The Twitter and The YouTubes enable disappear into the background as utilities? Will feeds + streams continue to migrate behind the scenes of aggregator interfaces like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn? "Follow us on Twitter' might be replaced with facebook.com/OurCompany...which will end up in a Google search right below a customer discussion of your company. The plethora of icons attached to every item of content to digg this or favorite that will be flushed out...or built in. Plumbing isn't sexy...unless you are a plumber.

Timeliness is next to godliness
As Google (and Bing) incorporate realtime data into search results (and give added prominence to timely content), will SEO consultants and corporate communications departments be forced to engage the feed? Whither goes the investment in the staid, static corporate brochure website? Does analysis of the news have more value than timely delivery of headlines? And if it does, is it news? And if it doesn't will anyone pay to wait for it?

Deep diving in a sea of ambient intimacy
With nearly 17 million people not working in the US, there is a lot of time on alot of people's hands. For many, this time will present an opportunity to play Mafia Wars or Farmville. For others, it may present an opportunity to redefine the meaning of what constitutes a relationship. Marketers and PR professionals may need to define influence in more nuanced ways. How meaningful and influential is a relationship with 20,000 people you've never met? How much revenue potential is there in a single person without an income that exceeds their debt?

Mac vs. PC
Who cares? We're all Googlers now. This year, it's Google versus everyone...Apple, Microsoft, AT+T, NewsCorp, the FTC. Curiously, it's also Google with everyone...especially the user base.

Making an impression
Will impression-based marketing continue its deflationary spiral? Experiments in paywalls and increased licensing fees will continue to demonstrate that the value of an action is worth more than the promise of one. Marketers may decide once and for all that the pricing of a CPM is commensurate only with the value of awareness. Content providers may find that their content is a priceless commodity...with revenues to match.

Welcome to the Jungle

Will tribalism continue its rise? We all certainly belong to multiple tribes that defy simplistic black and white, red-blue comparisons. "If you aren't with me, you're against me" might be replaced by "hey, I know you" as a basis for trust.  Long tails aren't just for animal interests. In 2010, they may become THE market segments of first resort.

FAB: What's in it for me?
In a noisy sea of brand sameness surrounding green, smart, innovative, inspired, aspirational notions of consumption, will real features and benefits become the only differentiators anyone pays attention to?

What do you think?
Will "what do you think?" replace "Let me tell you something". Can an entire industry of communications, advertising, marketing and PR professionals built around telling evolve to a viable business built on listening in 2010? Should it?

Searching for meaning: What's a browser, anyway?

Some Google employees did a bit of person-on-the-street interviewing to answer the question: Do people know what a browser is?

The video on YouTube (below) is quite instructive. When asked 'What is a browser?', the answers ranged from the expected to the sublime:

1. A website

2. A search engine

3. Google

4. Yahoo

5. The internet, where you can find anything

The creepiest respondent is at 2m20s in the video.

So What?

The browser wars being of great importance among the geek class, these admittedly anecdotal evidences indicate the widespread ignorance about basic questions of technology. They also call into question the very relevance of efforts to brand a browser...or to regulate it (see here ).

Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer...what they have in common is that they enable users to do something quite similar: access information by pushing the underlying technology behind a simple user interface.

In some ways, they have been so successful at hiding the technology--and supporting a useful, usable, and desirable experience--that they have made their 'product' brand invisible--or at least unmemorable. The fact that many people confuse browsers with search engines only supports the notion of distinctions without a difference when it comes to the primacy of utility in the digital space.

Beyond digital, the idea of branding technology is a challenge. For instance, I suspect that many of us would also fail to recognize the brand of brake pads used in our automobiles...and yet many of us rely on them daily for a very specific and important action without thinking about them. For most, it is the auto brand--via its brake engineering, sourcing and assembly decisions--that stands behind the overall braking (i.e., handling) experience...not the manufacturer of the pad itself.

A case might be made that a Branded House (standing behind the overall experience) beats a House of Brands when the user experience involves a great many complex components aggregated in support of a user's actions.

What's a PC afterall?

Interest-based advertising: Go define yourself

Google is entering the ad targetting business...calling it 'interest-based' advertising. Yes, ad targetting has been around forever (in online ad terms)...but Google's doing it the way they do most things: differently.

Here's the complete information explaining how it all works (here). In essence, you get to see how you are being targetted against a list of interest categories that advertisers use. Ads are served to you based on these interest categories.

Most importantly, Google makes the process of ad targetting transparent to the targetted user. In Google's world, users get to see what interests are being used to target them for advertising, but they also can define for themselves their interests.  

So What?

Consistent with one of our 2009 marketing themes (see Theme 1), Google's approach reflects the reality of the online ecosystem.  Google acknowledges + exploits this reality: That users define themselves...so why not let them decide what advertising is most relevant + useful to them?

As we've posted on several occassions, when individuals are in control, they seldom conform to the neat + tidy stereotypes of prizm clusters or the gender/race/age identities used to target so much of traditional advertising. Online, users place a premium on utility and usability...which are inherently individual. 

So rather than trying to be more intrusive (see theme 4), with ever-more interruptive formats (prior post here) using only behavioral-based click pattern assumptions, Google prefers to pursue an online advertising experience that adds utility + relevance to the end user.  In the process, advertisers should find themselves connecting their advertisements with people who actually care. 

Define yourself here. 

  

Time and motion: online video

While Federal Reserve Governors continued to list inflation as their 2009 new year's resolution, at least one aspect of our lives into the new year is already rapidly inflating: the amount of time spent watching videos online.

Comscore released its numbers and the rise looks like this: a 40% jump in one year in the number of videos viewed online. In addition, the average length of a video viewed was a whopping 3.1 minutes. (See chart below or press release).

So what?

Google (which is YouTube) dominates...more than 5 Billion served in one month...followed by MySpace (which is the Fox Interactive Media number). But what the numbers also may be saying is this:

1. Broadband is enabling the rapid growth of video online.

2. Cheap digital video capture devices are continuing the growth of user-generated video online (prior post on mobile video here)

3. There is a role for professionally produced video online (via traditional network sites like Hulu, Disney, Turner) it just doesn't look like double-digit share online.

We've said it before, but if you are a network, you want all the content you can get your hands on. If you are a content producer, you want to be on the network with the broadest exposure...YouTube fits the bill. As does MySpace and certain others who let anyone be a content creator...

And in another irony of the online marketplace of ideas, some are even taking YouTube video to the big screen (see here)

Now, if the Fed, er, Google could just figure out how their YouTube debt can be monetized...

Search engine secrets: 101

How do I get my website at the top of the organic (non paid) search results on Google?

Google has compiled and released a best practices starter guide sheet. Mostly it aggregates information already available and provides some detail beyond previous releases of information.

The organic results question has spawned an entire industry of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals who, to varying degrees, implement practices that they claim will optimize your site for top organic results. As we've previously posted, some of these SEO specialists are selling snake oil...most are legitimately trying to set the stage for success.

Google's techniques are pretty redundant for anyone whose explored this area in detail, but the techniques are a good overview for anyone new to search/web development and include narrative on:

1. Page titles, tags and meta tags (make 'em accurate descriptions of the content)
2. URL structure (simplifying URL's and directories to reflect words and content when possible)
   
3. Navigation (employing naturally flowing hierarchies and breadcrumb navigation)
4. Content (using language relevant to the topic and informative anchor text)

Most importantly, Google's guide reminds one of the importance of promoting sites in a manner that generates relevance: Simply building a site and expecting traffic will lead to less than optimal results...from both an organic positioning and traffic volume perspective.

SEO success according to Google it seems is in doing the the things that clearly identify your site as relevant to someone seeking something it supports. In that way, the big secret--and challenge--of SEO is simply getting the thing done.

Google's In-Flu-ence: The illness of crowds

In yet another fascinating example of Google's power (both the power of the data they have access to and their power to crunch it), they've announced the availability of Flu Trends.

The premise is simple: track where people are searching on terms associated with influenza (especially symptoms and treatments) to see if there are trends that can forecast influenza outbreaks.

Given the realtime nature of the data, combined with Google as a nearly ubiquitous starting point for information seekers online, one wonders what other wisdom might be mined from Google's data on what the crowd wants to know.

Fire ant sightings? Kudzu migration? Lindsay Lohan sightings? Of course Google trends has been on the scene for years...But predictive epidemiology data? That's where you have to have a baseline to compare the hypothesis against the experiment...and CDC data is the baseline.  Alas, Google searches do appear to be accurate predictors of flu outbreak (see chart).  

The global network becomes the hivemind...I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords' influence.

Mail Goggles: Protecting users from themselves

Google's corporate missions is to 'Do No Evil' And so here they come with tools to help you adopt their mission in your own email life: Mail Goggles.

If you activate Mail Goggles on your gmail account, then you'll have to answer a series of simple questions to send email late at night...that's right, if you are up late tapping away that impassioned missive to the boss, or that reminiscence of the past good times with the ex, Google's Mail Goggles intends to help you avoid embarassment or a lawsuit.

It works by asking you to solve a few simple problems within a time limit before it will send your email...the premise being that if you and Jack Daniels have gotten a little too cozy, then a failure to send might prevent an Epic Fail of poor form communications when you wake up the next morning muttering to yourself about how it seemed so much better when you wrote it.

See for yourself here at the GMail Blog  

Who needs a Neilsen? Television ads + measurement

Seemingly everyday Google announces some "ah, that's the next step in their master plan" innovation. That continuous innovation--borne of continuous experimentation--is one reason Google has a market cap north of $132 billion.

And so Google's announcement of an advertising partnership with NBC Universal should come as little surprise to anyone watching as Google brings the discipline of innovation, experimentation and analytics to the domains of traditional advertising.

In this partnership, Google will be able to sell ad space on selected NBC cable properties, such as MSNBC and Oxygen. Already, Google has agreements with DISH Network that allow it to measure the second-by-second behavior of subscribers using data that flows through the set top box. 

So What: Just another ad network?

One thing Google has done with search advertising is deliver realtime measurement and testing of ad performance (at the level of the individual) where the metric is the click. What this move--and the agreement with Dish enable--is the same realtime measurement and testing of ads based on the click--where the click in this case is with the remote control.

And while clicks are not necessarily sales, it does take television ad effectiveness discussions down a path of precision...where what works and what doesn't for traditional metrics like attention are no longer academic discussions. If an ad starts playing and someone clicks to another channel, well, that says something powerful about the impact of the ad on that individual.

The granularity and realtime availability of such data--as opposed to the abstractions of research panels, Neilsen Households or focus groups--combined with the massive analytical capabilities and tools that Google already has in place will drive costs out of advertiser's measurement efforts. And that enables access.  

Being able to test ad versions for effectiveness may exert downward pressure on ad production costs as advertisers expect multiple ads for in-situ testing rather than relying on focus groups to adequately reflect the market's tastes and sensibilities.

As it has already begun in online, radio, and local print, this step into National Cable TV should help advertisers better understand what their prospects do--and do not--appreciate. 

In an age where an audience cannot be held captive, keeping them appreciative is the only road to success.  Google appears bound and determined to ensure that advertisers have the tools to know with certainty whether they are successful in that regard, regardless of the media vehicle employed. 

Google Chrome: User review day 1

Two words: Get it .

Good: Install was quick with a small file and no restart required.. Fast launch...really fast on launch. Pages load ok, though some seem to take longer (my.yahoo for instance). Tabs work well (of course Firefox users already love tabs), especially the ability to drag them around. Incognito window is swell and certainly doesn;t remember my logins and passwords. Autosuggest is sweet too. I like the removal of the separate address bar...it's now both a search and an address bar...whatever you want it to do. Interface is sleek and, ahem, This...Is...Sparta!

Not so good: I want my Home button. I will get used to life without it, but 15 year's of surfing with it will be a hard habit to break. Imported bookmarks from IE are a mess with duplicates and out of order items...a bit like my phone book being ported from one phone to the other. And when I tried to download the new IE8 in Chrome, well let's just say it didn't...repeatedly. I also don;t like the idea of having to re-install plug-ins, like Flash. Also, and in comparison to the new IE8, Chrome uses more CPU resource than IE8...even when doing nothing. A YouTube video fro instance consumes 15-30% of available CPU resource...and even when Chrome is doing nothing, it pops the CPU for 4-10% for each session.

TBD: Simple Google docs work swell and office docs download easily from within the browser...however, I have yet to experience a process hang, so will reserve judgement on error recovery or use of anything more sophisticated than a spreadsheet or document.

Overall Rating so far: Works as promised. 

Got Chrome?: A comic tale on the browser wars

It's shaping up to be the second battle of the browser wars this week. Last Friday, I posted word of Firefox's new Ubiquity utility (which let's you operate the browser by telling it what you want to do...see here).

Now, two pieces of news from Microsoft and Google.

First, last week had Microsoft releasing Internet Explorer 8 (now in beta 2). Microsoft, in a challenge to Google's dominance in the online ad space, creates a new version of the most ubiquitous web browser and allows people to say 'no thank you' to those who would know more about who you are (e.g., Google).

Key features include Privacy and Security. Popup blocking and ad blocking in and of themselves is no big news. But IE8 will allow users to surf, for all intents and purposes, anonymously. The two components are called InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate blocking.

• InPrivate Browsing allows one browse with no record is kept of visits. The History and Temporary Internet Files are not written/accessed and cookies are stored in memory only. No record is kept of form data or login credentials. When you exit the browser, all traces of your travels disappear.
• InPrivate Blocking is eliminates any information transfer between sites one visits and third-party sites that provide content to those pages (such as ad netowrks that build profiles based on your visits to other sites...including GOOGLE!).

All this could exert more downward pressure on CPMs as many of the ads can no longer be guaranteed for delivery...or perhaps there will be price support as actual ads served become less (i.e., a reduction in the deliverable inventory).

See more about the IE8 features and benefits here.

Not to be outdone, Google has now come clean on one of their latest, long rumored projects: A web browser. In a challenge to the browser dominance of IE, Google's 'Chrome' web browser has released a comic book style description of why they thought a new browser was necessary--and what it will do.

Because it is not yet available (due sometime on 9/2, but for now the www.google.com/chrome URL gives only a pnf error), the comic book is the most interesting part of the Google side of the war. It does a thorough job of explaining how browsers work, why they are in need of a do-over, and how Chrome will enable users to access applications and activities that traditional browsers never anticipated.

The comic book is available to everyone at Google Books, here. It's worth a glance for no other reason than as an example of simplicity in effectively communicating complex information.

It remains to be seen whether Google's actual browser can be said to be incorporate the same ease and effectiveness.

What's in your search campaign?

I know, I know, yet another post about some innovation at Google. Sorry, they just keep me coming back for more. This time it's with Insights for Search, which is an enhancement to the ideas of Google Trends.

In this case, marketers can look at search volume against terms over time. Nothing new there.

But wait, there's more!

Added to volume-time series data, users can now see where that search volume comes from based on geographic region. And if you act now, you can see momentum. Which searches are on the rise? Which terms are losing popularity?

Yes, you say, but I already have more data than I can deal with...where's the wisdom?

Like many things online, the wisdom comes with experience. In this case, Google's Insights for Search should help us understand and test some of our assumptions about our prospects.

Assumptions like:

• where is our online search audience? Are they where are marketing plan says they are? Does they conform to our traditional demographic notions?

• what seasonality is associated with our audience's interests? Do our assumptions about when people consider or research purchases conform to what search volume tells us?

• what trends in terminology might reflect the leading or lagging edge of our prospect's perception? Is the terminology we use in our search campaign increasingly--or decreasingly--in the lexicon of our prospects?

As is typical of Google's toolsets, there is much more here than meets the eye... or that we'll try to cover in this post. One enhancement I'd like to see is tighter integration with the Analytics toolset...so many distinct tools of value, so little time to keep logging into different interfaces!

Here's a screen cap of a quick look at the search term 'graduate degrees' that shows some of the high level data available. Who knew those North Carolinians were so interested in graduate degrees?

(click to enlarge)

Search engine optimization: snake oil?

Search rulz! Yes, we all know that making sense of the online morass usually starts with search. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (in that order) control the majority of search. So what's a marketer to do about ensuring they are where their customer's action is?

Some pursue Search Engine Marketing (the Sponsored Links one sees in a search result).

Some pursue Search Engine Optimization (the 'organic' result).

In theory, search engine optimization is more credible or relevant...because it presumably reflects the truth of what your site contains. In reality, an entire industry has cropped up purporting to deliver superior organic results.

Two thoughts:

1. There are things you can do--and legitimate companies to help you do them--to garner effective organic results. These are not secrets. The search engines even tell you how to accomplish them (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) on their sites about search.

2. There are promises that can be made--by companies who purport to know secret forumlas--that won't necessarily be fulfilled.

The major search engines don't want to tell you the specific algorithms they use (which are always changing)...what value would they have if everyone knew how to game them? They do want your site to be appropriately indexed...and they tell you how that works.

Here's Google's advice (from their webmaster guide [PDF]):

"Many site owners fixate on how well their respective web pages rank. But ranking is determined by over 200 criteria in addition to PageRank. It’s much better to spend your time focusing on the quality of your content and its accessibility than trying to find ways to ‘game’ a search engine’s algorithm. If a site doesn’t meet our quality guidelines, it may be blocked from the index."

So when pursuing an optimization strategy, here's 5 simple questions to ask a potential SEO partner...if they suggest a simple "yes" answer to any of these questions, you might consider a second opinion:

1. Can a number 1 page rank be guaranteed?
2. Are techniques used that are able to fool the search engine algorithm?
3. Does every website need a search engine optimization effort?
4. Are large lists of keywords necessary to be programmed into each page?
5. Will pages be created that only the search engines will see?

Search Engine Optimization isn't a miracle cure for ailing site traffic. And it's not a supernatural mystery to solve with chants and witch doctors...it won't lend itself to simplistic answers...it will yield to best practices and logical actions...tied to site objectives, user needs, and the competitive space a site operates within. A trusted SEO partner knows this and shares it.

Discover the search engine that pays you back!

Credit card cash back models are coming to search engine marketing...well, at least to Microsift's Livesearch. Microsoft is going to compete with Google by offering to pay people cold hard cash (or at least the kind you get with PayPal) for the purchases they make when using LiveSearch.

Read all about it

So if I use a Discovercard and Livesearch for my purchase, I might be getting 10% off?

As advertisers and marketers, we end up paying Microsoft for the sale instead of the click...that's pay-for-results at it's most clear...pay per click remains one step removed from the ultimate point of sponsored search. But what do MS get to keep regarding the behavior, demographics and preferences when they control the lead up to transaction?

Credit card companies (notably Discover) have tried this type of 'preferred retailer' approach for years with online shopping applications and agents. One wonders how they might view Microsoft's attempt...as frenemy perhaps?

Obviously, the pay per purchase model doesn't work for all categories of commerce search. At minimum, it does indicate that the competition for search would seem to have entered a new phase.

UPDATE 5/22: For a more detailed review, some interesting stats and commentary, see the TechCrunch posting from 5/22...here.

Searching for meaning

comScore has posted search engine market share data for the five major engines.

Google leads with 59%+ of all searches. Importantly, too, is that the total volume of searches continues to increase. So, even though % of searches shows MS and Yahoo declining, their total searches remain flat to slightly up overall (in the last 12 months).

Nifty trend chart:

Interestingly, looking at several sites that we provide analytics reporting on shows a somewhat more nuanced (i.e., relevant) set of results:

1. Search represents slightly less than 50% of traffic sourcing

2. Google represents about 40% of all traffic with Yahoo and MSN at 5% and 1% respectively.

3. Direct traffic represents ~35% of traffic and referrals from other sites ~20%

Depending on your site's objectives, search may be the first stage in engaging your audience, but referrals (from other sites) may represent an important source of relevant traffic. Bottom line, online the data enables us to know where the audience comes from, what they do and how to build on success.

Google Analytics: Benchmarking beta

Benchmarking a business' performance is a time-tested approach for understanding where one's business stands in relation to peers, partners and clients.

Google launched a set of benchmarking tools (free and in perpetual beta, of course!) for its web analytics offering in Mid March. By agreeing to share your site data (anonymously), you can compare your website performance against the industry category of your choice.

Here's a screen shot from our site for one month:




We've been testing out the becnhmarking feature on the R+K site for a couple of weeks and the results look very promising. We're able to compare our site metrics in several commonly used analytics areas including:

1. Visits
2. Pageviews
3. TIme on site
4. Pages per visit
5. New visits
6. Bounce rate

Users can drill down in each of these areas for more detail including conversion rates, traffic sources and visitor loyalty. We can see how our site stacks up against PR, Marketing and even client industry vertical category sites.

All of the usual Google Analytics dashboard features (such as easy to read graphs, flexible report configuration and point and click interaction) are available in the benchmarking toolset.

One downside appears to be in the way that Google categorizes peer sites in each category...it does so by site size, using the uber-technical categories of small, medium and large. Unfortunately, you cannot benchmark your site against industry vertical sites that are smaller or larger than yours. I understand the value of the categorization by size, but I don;t understand the restrictions on viewing your site data against sites from different size categories.

So if you aspire to create small, efficient sites, you may find that your peers who have bloated inefficient (but large) sites are not part of the benchmark group to which you belong.

For the complete FAQs on Google Benchmarking, see this