Inside AdWords: The Conversion Optimizer: Increase profits and save time

Inside AdWords: The Conversion Optimizer: Increase profits and save time

TV Is Dead, Long Live Distributed Video

Almost since its mainstream introduction in the 1940s and 1950s, television has been the dominant mass medium. Today, television ad revenues in the US are estimated to be between $60 and $70 billion. But the internet, like cable TV and DVRs before it, is shaking up the industry and fundamentally changing consumer behavior. There are what might be called "structural shifts" happening in viewing habits. The TV itself isn't going away but TV as we have known it may be.

From Website Optimization

What's the truth behind green marketing?

When consumers buy carbon offset credits to balance out their use of emissions, where does that money go? The Federal Trade Commission is looking into the truth behind the advertising of all things "green," focusing on carbon offsets.

The New York Times has this report today, noting that consumers are bombarded with green-sounding offers at every turn, from Volkswagen, Bank of America, Dell, Continental Airlines and others. Even events like the Super Bowl and Academy Awards have claimed carbon neutrality.

From Internet Marketing

Microsoft Offers $1.2 Billion For Norwegian Search Company [SearchEngineWatch]

Microsoft Offers $1.2 Billion For Norwegian Search Company

They may not have Google's market share but Microsoft does not seem to be stopping its acquisition of more properties in the search space, having offered $1.2 billion for Norwegian company, Fast Search and Transfer, according to the New York Times.

The Olso-based company "is a specialist in search technology used inside companies and government agencies to cull for information in documents, databases and software applications. Its software helps teams of workers quickly search the corporate storehouse of information for answers about procurement, marketing, manufacturing and product design," the NYTimes.com reported.

From Online Annonsering and Internet Marketing

Search Wikia: Not Even A Remote Threat To Google

Search Wikia, the open source search engine from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales' Wikia, Inc. organization, launched today in an alpha version. Widely hyped, typically portrayed as a heroic David vs. Goliath struggle, it's really just yet another crappy search service that may, potentially, if all goes well, eventually turn into something useful.

For now, though, Search Wikia is essentially useless as a search engine. What makes it interesting are some of the ideas and approaches that the service is exploring. I'll not bother bashing the search results that even Search Wikia itself admits are poor. Instead, I'll take a look at some of the problems and issues with the current state of web search today that Search Wikia is attempting to address.

From Internet Marketing and Online Annonsering

What Does 2008 Have In Store For Local?

Many people ask the familiar question, "Is this going to be the breakout year for local?" while expressing frustration or disappointment that "local hasn't yet lived up to expectations." But local is a marathon, not a sprint. It's also more complex than the general search market, which features an ecosystem built around a small number of large and highly visible companies. Even though many of those same companies are focused on local, one could almost flip that equation when discussing the local internet: it's about a very large number of mostly small companies.

From Internet Marketing and Online Annonsering

Googler's Bet Goobles On Predictive Markets During Their Free Lunch

A predictive markets is an exchange that predicts events based on the amount of money wagered on a specific outcome. Google uses Goobles, fake money, to let employees bet on certain outcomes. Why does Google encourage such activity from their employees? Google believes it generated creative ideas from their employees. It also helps stimulate an "optimism bias," which in turn encourages Google employees to work harder to achieve a certain outcome they have predicted in the predictive market. Finally, this game helps the company executives gage ideas that may come from a lower person on the Google food channel.

From Website Optimization and Søkemotor Optimalisering

Web Worker Daily » Archive So Much To Read So Little Time «

So Much To Read So Little Time

In a syndication world we are often overwhelmed with information. It is incredible that information once far away has been brought near, but we need to find some order for the chaos. There are a few ways that I’ve learned to manage my reading material to be digested in an organized manner.

From Internet Marketing

Enterprise RSS: Open Social Developers Journal - Show Me the Money

It’s nice to be able to remember mistakes so that we can hopefully avoid repeating them. Back in the “Web 1.0” days, there was a period of euphoria where everything related to the internet was certain to be incredibly profitable. And now we are in the era of “Web 2.0”…
So how does anyone make money in the OpenSocial world? We’ll be chatting more about the business perspective for this in an upcoming webinar, but let’s just focus on the developer’s side for a moment here. Advertisements stand out as the clearest path to dollars in most scenarios. What does it take to include advertisements in an OpenSocial Gadget?

From Internet Marketing and Online Annonsering

Enterprise RSS

Whatever is in store for us in the year ahead, RSS as an infrastructure technology is achieving critical mass. In the blogosphere we take for granted the omnipresence of RSS but the vast majority of the market is still untapped and ripe for disruption.

From RSS How To