The watchdog group Privacy International will write to more than 200 European organizations this week -- urging to fight the adoption, or a portion, of the EU proposed Written Declaration 29 intended to protect children. The directive aims to serve as part of an early warning system that fights against pedophiles and sex offenders, but points to incorporating stored search engine data to serve as an early warning signal. Although the group commends the EU for the creating the Directive, the proposal raises several issues related to search data. Extending existing requirements to hold onto search data would violate EU regulations, for starters. Privacy International asserts that once authorities are able to store and analyze search records of all EU citizens, a window into their interests, associations and activities of tens of millions of people will have been opened. The language used to create the directive somehow got lost in translation, according to a memo addressed to Members of the European Parliament. The memo reads: "There is no intention to extend this Directive to the same search engines for Internet users looking for any other kind of topic." The clarification either suggests that search engines should save raw search data for up to two years, so police have access to search behavior data related to anyone suspected of "children-related pornography and sexual-harassment online" or they don't want search engines to store data for any search queries except for those related to pedophilia. Before last week's adoption, Christian Engstrom, Member of the European Parliament for Piratpartiet, Sweden, in his blog post urges members to withdraw their signatures. "We didn't think it would go anywhere because the clause counters too many things the EU has been doing," says Katherine Albrecht, vice president of marketing at proxy search engine Startpage, an Ixquick company based in Europe. Albrecht -- who holds a doctorate in educating consumers on privacy -- says written declarations are not law, but rather the first step in implementing the law. Albrecht explains that the directive would require EU member countries to add Internet searches to the list of data stored from traffic and local data conducted by people on mobile phones, email, and the Internet. Some industry insiders who asked for anonymity chalk up the Directive as rhetoric and a method to grab at straws to curtail a growing epidemic of child offenders. Ironically, the Members of the European Parliament have asked to lengthen retention times at the same time the Article 29 Working Party, not to be confused with the Written Declaration 29, has asked for search engines to reduce the amount of personal data stored. In a 2009 blog post, Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer and others explain Google's privacy search logs policy. In a nutshell, Google anonymizes IP addresses after nine months and cookies after 18 months, according to a spokesperson. Microsoft recently cut the amount of time Bing stores IP addresses associated with search queries from 18 months to six months. Whatever the outcome, the EU plans to leave the technicalities of capturing, storing and sorting through the data to Google and Microsoft, among others. Ironically, data collection and retention -- which has caused Google much grief not only in Europe, but worldwide during the past year -- now becomes the very tool the EU wants to use to protect children.
Speculation that Facebook will allow all Open Graph-enabled Web pages to serve up in searches when a member clicks on the "like" button surfaced Friday, but a company spokesperson dismissed reports. The All Facebook Blog reported that Facebook will create a semantic index of the Web through the "like" button, enabling stronger search options than Google through "link baiting" rather than "like bating," the technology the social site uses to determine relevance. The blog says a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the feature. Analysts and SEO professionals have been awaiting the arrival of Facebook's search strategy. With the exception of the past several months, the social site experienced higher growth rates in search query volume than traditional search engines, according to comScore. Some attribute the uptick to an increase in members, people creating and launching community pages, and brands expanding social campaigns supported by Fan pages. Search will not become the center of attention for Facebook, according to a Facebook spokesperson. Not now, anyway. Facebook will continue to test search features, but it will not become the product focus for the company. The 1,400 employees, of which there are about 300 engineers, will continue to focus on building a technology platform that allows "cool experiences" such as adding social elements. Social games -- which have become the site's strongest vertical -- should provide that social experience, not only on the site, but also tie into consoles like Microsoft Xbox 360. Built on the concept that sharing experiences among friends creates community, Facebook engineers will continue to create features on the platform that allow marketers to communicate with consumers, and friends to share experiences among friends. And although not intentional, Facebook members should expect surprises related to services, as the social site forges ahead with features not previously offered. Tests are done on all tools before being released, but testing cannot always identify all the bugs and faults in the code. Privacy holes and flaws in the code can sometimes appear as intentional, but Facebook employees do take privacy seriously. The continuous push into uncharted territory to open the social graph may present some unexpected features that engineers will need to fix as they are found. Take, for example, the privacy debacle and issues surrounding controls. Engineers will continue to work on making the privacy controls easier to use. Many of these controls have been buried in layers of clicks and Web pages, making settings nearly impossible for the layperson to figure out. Facebook officials assert that the site's basic privacy settings have been around for years, but the company has forged new ground on uncharted territory when it comes to opening and connecting the Internet's social graph. Now it's a matter of pulling out the settings to make it easier for people to find, as well as educate them. The company will continue to condense the privacy settings in "fewer buckets" to prevent people from feeling "overwhelmed" and realize that Facebook members do have control. In an effort to cope with the privacy backlash, Facebook hired White House official Marne Levine to work with its policy team. Levine joins the social network as vice president of global public policy, spearheading efforts to build and manage teams focused on policy in Asia, Americas and Europe.
Market research firm uSamp on Thursday announced it has agreed to buy an AOL research unit by the name of DMS Insights. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the announcement comes on the heels of uSamp raising $10 million in funding. "This is a merging of two companies with similar visions for serving market research," said Matt Dusig, co-founder and CEO of uSamp. Also known as Digital Marketing Services, DMS Insights is recognized for its "river sampling" methodology, which resulted in the development of Opinion Place -- a portal for random, real-time recruitment of survey respondents online. USamp expects DMS to bolster its research offering with patented screening and routing technology, in addition to online tracking studies, which provide sample sourcing, data delivery and standard project execution. Their combined global panel will reach 2.7 million consumers, according to the companies. The sale is in line with AOL's efforts to streamline its business operations and product offerings under the reign of CEO Tim Armstrong. Most notably, AOL just sold its social network Bebo to a private equity firm Criterion Capital Partners for an estimated $10 million. (AOL has yet to reveal the final sale price.) The self-described content king is also presently trying to unload instant messaging service ICQ to Russian holding firm DST. AOL is expected to remain a strategic partner of DMS Insights, continuing to support both traffic and AOL credit incentives for Opinion Place. AOL will also remain a sampling and research client of DMS. The current DMS leadership and production team will remain unchanged, according to company President Chuck Miller. "This merging of complementary products and services will enhance the quality of service," said Miller. Meanwhile, the companies are promising that the integration process will result in complete continuity of service to all clients. Going forward, DMS and uSamp are identifying areas where combined capabilities will provide better services for clients. The DMS Insights company name is not expected to change. Its brands and properties will likewise remain active for the foreseeable future, including Opinion Place, which has operated since late 1996. USamp's Series C round of financing was led by OpenView Venture Partners of Boston.
Copyright enforcement outfit Righthaven has filed some questionable lawsuits in the past, but really outdid itself in a case against Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor. That lawsuit, one of several filed on Friday, alleges that Curtis infringed copyright by reposting an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Problem is, that article was itself based on an annual survey conducted by Curtis of ticket prices for entertainment shows. Yes, Curtis went to the trouble of fielding a survey and then shared his findings with the newspaper, only to find himself sued for posting portions of the ensuing article on his own blog. Just for added irony, the original Las Vegas Review-Journal piece about the survey described Curtis's annual undertaking as a "thankless task." "Once a year, Curtis delves into the thankless task of trying to pull an average ticket price," the April 22 article stated. Now, Righthaven's overall strategy is problematic for many reasons: The company targets small publishers and bloggers who don't compete with the newspaper, or even monetize their sites with ads. Additionally, in some cases, the allegedly infringing posts hadn't received a single click before the lawsuit was filed. Leaving aside the wisdom of the lawsuits, Righthaven might be able to argue in many cases that it has technically made out a valid claim of copyright infringement. Though some bloggers have said they thought their reposting of the articles was a "fair use," publishing a piece in its entirety can cross the line into infringement. But if there's ever a situation where publishing an entire article (or the bulk of one) is fair use, Curtis's post of an article based on his own research should be it. For his part, Curtis says he expects this "patently absurd" lawsuit will quickly disappear. "Hopefully this will be averted before I even make a call to my attorneys," he tells MediaPost. Curtis shouldn't hold his breath. Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson tells MediaPost he's sticking to his guns. "We believe that the claim is rightfully made," he says.
Business is moving fast and furious -- which is great, but I keep hearing and reading about two general overarching themes that are going to collide and change how we manage our business. We are globally climbing out of a recession and now budgets are returning. This growth is in stark contrast to a lot of other industries, which we should all be thankful for, but this growth creates opportunities and is theme one. According to MAGNAGLOBAL, paid search leads global online advertising, representing "49% of total revenues," a trend that could continue for the next five years. Beyond search, MAGNAGLOBAL claims "online advertising [overall] will rise by 12.4% in constant currency terms during 2010, to $61.0 billion dollars globally." To take advantage of this growth Google has been busy with Google TV (about time someone put search functionality into digital TV), ACE for more efficient iterative testing, algorithm and indexing updates, and even local improvements within the rebranding of Google Places. Yahoo and Bing are together as "the alliance" (not sure if I should queue up Darth Vader or Pee Wee Herman music here) and independently are making a lot of enhancements to consumer-focused and advertiser-related products. Bing even just launched an entertainment-specific search experience. All these efforts are being made to capture more search share, more billings, scale revenue, and add value to these companies' core constituencies. Although somewhat conflicting, the second agent of change is downward pricing pressure. Even though paid search and digital advertising are huge focal points, there is still pressure to offer them for less. This has changed the dynamics of advertiser-agency-publisher relationships. Marc Fleishhacker of MRM says "the agency relationship is broken" because of an excessive focus on procurement. You can read more about that in "When to fire your agency -- and not hire a new one. " I find it interesting to ponder what these two colliding themes of change mean for our business. I think it means that how we add value, up and down the food chain, must evolve. As C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel write in the book "Competing For The Future," "What is needed is a strategic architecture that provides a blueprint for building the competencies needed to dominate future markets." Here's my blueprint: Agencies - the old model of backing into a commission based on charging mark-up on bodies against time to hit a certain cost + revenue target needs to change, too. Buying is commoditizing and there is less bulk buying power based on transparency and liquidity. Many traditional agencies are focused on billings and buying, which is valueless growth and the root of downward pricing pressure. Agencies have to add value in new ways. With change comes opportunity to drive differentiation and value through technology, attribution, cross-channel planning, emerging media and analytics. Publishers - there is an opportunity to form stronger relationships with agencies and advertisers because content owners are in the position to best connect consumers with brands. This connection is a critical to understand and match with the right advertising messages. Publishers can add a lot of value here and put a premium on this level of connection, versus simply arbitraging their own media real estate. Advertisers - clients need to be in the driver's seat. Regardless of the brands represented, changes in consumer behavior and media require them to think about their businesses differently. The most successful brands currently are advertisers that drive cross-functional ownership internally and across their agency/publisher partners. Emerging opportunities like mobile and social touch everyone from IT and creative to media, customer service, and marketing, and no one can coordinate this better than clients themselves. No one can help if you can't (or don't want to) help yourself. I don't necessarily think the agency relationship is broken per se, but it does need to evolve, as it was built and refined over years based on a certain set of dynamics between consumers and media. To be successful in an uncertain future, we must rethink our past, because much of the evolution in our industry largely undermines how we have traditionally made money. If we can drive change and alter what Hamel and Prahalad call the "genetic coding" of our organizations, we will be successful. One starting point is to focus on real business metrics -- not isolated and arbitrary GRP, CPM, CPA, or any sort of random engagement metrics. We may not know exactly what the future model will be or exactly what the landscape of our industry will look like, but we know it is changing. Helping to find tomorrow's opportunities is where an agency can add the most value. Agencies that can facilitate change through consumer knowledge, integrated research and analytics, technology driven scale and efficiency, and cross-channel insights will be profitable and have strong publishing partners and successful clients with industry-leading brands.
"The user interface on Google has changed very little since its inception, and I think it's their core vulnerability." - Irwin Gotlieb, Global CEO, GroupM Gotlieb was quoted in an article for India's The Economic Times (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/brand-equity/The-man-who-saw-tomorrow-Irwin-Gotlieb-Group M/articleshow/6079799.cms) discussing the future competition that would challenge Google's dominance. Gotlieb suggested that the challenge was likely to come from an unknown in a garage somewhere; he doubted the it be on the algorithm front but rather the user-experience side. The timing of this article had a fabulous intersection for what was one of the most memorable sporting days in U.S.-England history. Simultaneously, the USA and England soccer (futbol, if prefer) teams were playing for their lives in the World Cup. England carried through with a 1-0 win over Slovenia only to see their pesky afterthought competitors from the U.S. score a stoppage time goal from Landon Donovan to win the Group over England. As remarkable as the U.S. outcome was, it was not even close to the most amazing U.S.-England sports outcome of the day - and an interesting example of how the commentary about Google's blind spot could eventually be exposed. Just as the U.S. and England matches were winding down, a buzz started among some of the sports-specific Twitter accounts I follow about a first-round tennis match at Wimbledon between American John Isner and Nicolas Mahut of France. The match started Tuesday and was called overnight at two sets apiece. It resumed on Wednesday, and when the buzz picked up, it was, at that time, tied in the fifth set at 30-30. The match was bordering on records for duration and games played at Wimbledon and steaming toward Open Era tennis records. By the time it was over, the fifth and final set qualified as the longest match on its own. The original record for longest match in the open era was just over six-and-a-half hours. This one? It went close to 10 hours! So, where does Google fit into this? The answer today is nowhere. I use Google and Bing frequently every day. Yet even when I was searching for Wimbledon to shortcut to the live results from the Official Site, I would have had no idea this epic tennis match was taking place. The Google score tracker on the result page failed to possess the AI to discern history in the making. Even a portal like Yahoo didn't register the history. Then again, country singer Kellie Pickler (who got engaged) was out-trending Landon Donovan who won the game for the U.S. soccer team, so make of that what you will. My point, as it relates to search evolution, is that we have to examine what we know (expressed intent) and how we see that delivered to the benefit of users. A few weeks back, Google launched background images on the home page. Not a new idea; Bing has used it since launching last year. Yet, the public expectation of what Google should look like led to a swift removal -- the outcry was strong against the change. In the past, Google and others have tried to incorporate the searches and feedbacks of others, but the general public seemed uninterested. My passion for sports is an expressed behavior. When I get behaviorally targeted ads, they usually involve sports or Vegas. If Google is truly, as John Battelle once contended, the keeper of the database of intention, then they have to gain public blessing to do something with it. Right now, the public is withholding -- and their core business is not equipped to capture on it alone. If change is to come, then perhaps it has to come from someplace new. If the contract of agreement between users and Google has long since been written, then re-writing that is a daunting task. Likewise, while Twitter and even Facebook have allowed me to become informed of my friends and topics of interest, they are still woefully ill-equipped to respond with advertising that is tangential to my previously-expressed intentions. Perhaps it's Apple which has changed the user interface through their devices, specifically the mobile and now tablet devices. Or maybe, as Gotlieb suggested, it will be someone else, in a garage, that writes the contract with users that compiles intent data, like Google, and marries it with a unique experience, like Apple or Facebook. The trick is to do it in such a way that brings more brands into the discovery phase, so when consumers express previous intent, it can benefit them at any time. As for the tennis match, for a second straight day, it descended and play was suspended, this time at 59-59 in the fifth set. Much like the user interface of the future, still undecided.
As I write this, I'm at the B2B Search Strategy Summit in San Francisco. Mary O'Brien, the summit organizer, told me that many potential attendees -- and yes, even some panelists -- questioned where B2B search marketing was really all that different from B2C. Shouldn't the same basic practices apply? I answer that question the same way I answer all questions about marketing: Let's look at it through the eyes of the buyer. And when we do that, we find some significant differences as we step from the consumer side to the business side. It's All About Risk When we make decisions in any part of our lives, we have a "brake" and a "gas pedal" that governs the decision-making process. Call it risk and reward, prevention and promotion, loss and gain. Whatever you call it, in most decisions, there are opposing forces, and the ultimate decision depends on the balance between the two. If reward overcomes risk, we buy. If risk rules, we don't. On the consumer side of our lives, there's often a strong emotional investment in the reward part of the equation. For example, I really want a new road bike. I can't rationalize the purchase, seeing as I have a perfectly good used road bike, but that doesn't quell the pangs of jealousy I feel when I see someone wheeling down the road on a new Cervelo or Trek Madone. Someday, I know, reward (the joy of saying "look, me too!") will overcome the risk (parting with a significant chunk of cash) for me. But think about most B2B purchases. If we're looking at buying a new rack of servers, or supply chain management software, where's the fun in that? The only real emotion at play here is the risk of screwing up and being fired. Emotions in B2B purchases are heavily biased towards risk mitigation. And that directly impacts your search strategy. Messaging has to minimize risk in the eyes of the buyer, rather than try to build on the emotional reward side of things. I can't say the same would be true if you were bidding on terms like "convertible roadster," "touring motorcycle" or even "iPad." It's Their Job The second difference is directly related to the first. B2B purchases are part of someone's job. They're not doing it because they simply love buying enterprise software or industrial supplies. No one makes a hobby out of buying O-rings or heavy-duty water pumps. How does this affect a search strategy? It heightens the need for efficient retrieval of information. While a consumer looking at a sports car or booking a cruise might want to get "immersed" in an "experience," typical B2B purchasing agents want to get in and out, allowing them to put one more check mark beside their ever-growing to-do list. They will not be in a forgiving mood if you send them down dead ends or tie them up in confusing navigation. This is all about making their job easier. And that becomes crucial when you think about landing page strategies and the path that leads from them. Next week, I'll cover the other two ways that B2B differs from B2C: the fact that often buyers are in unfamiliar territory, and that B2B purchases are typically group decisions.