• Edison Also Asked: 'When Will People Get It?'
    Over the past few weeks, my general theme has been "why don't more people get it?" Why don't agencies get search. Why don't CEOs get search? Why don't more search portals get that it's the user that determines your success? Why don't more people get that the world is changing, quickly? What's with us, anyway? Well, this week, I gained a little insight; thanks to a paper by Paul David called "The Dynamo and the Computer." Maybe we just need some time. It's not the first time this happened. Let me tell you the story of the light bulb.
  • Is Do-Not-Track The Answer?
    Typically, I pose a question in the title of my column and then take 800 to 1,000 words to answer it. Today, I'll use just one (well, technically I'm up to 31 now) -- NO. The Do-Not-Track concept is fashioned after the Do-Not-Call initiative that was started to help consumers opt-out of telemarketing. However, outside of the name itself, I don't see the parallels here. Do-Not-Call was created in response to consumer complaints about getting too many annoying calls from telemarketers. People aren't complaining about getting too many annoying cookies from marketers and publishers. They're complaining about getting too many …
  • Facebook Ad Targeting: From 2007 To 1984
    Is Facebook's advertising platform in 2007 tinted with shades of "1984"? Two weeks ago, we explored how Facebook serves as a search engine for marketers. While I think many of the comparisons between Facebook and Google in the press are overblown, Facebook's ad platform draws inspiration from Google AdWords and AdSense. Facebook advertising is auction-based and keyword-targeted, and marketers can bid for impressions or clicks. What remains unanswered is how effective Facebook ads are compared to other channels.
  • Social Ads Or Social Networking Nightmare?
    The rich user data in Facebook makes it, at least in theory, the greatest online ad platform yet devised. But the advertising platform it launched last week -- which its management termed "a completely new way of advertising online" -- raises enough warning flags to warrant real caution on the part of marketers.
  • Everything We Know About Search Is Wrong
    Everything we know about search is wrong. That's what Brian McAndrews is telling us. And Brian McAndrews isn't just anybody. He's the former CEO of aQuantive and is now a Microsoft senior vice president in charge of competing with other engines for ad dollars. So we should pay attention. McAndrews says search is given too much credit because of the way the effectiveness of ads is measured. When an online transaction takes place, the sale is attributed to the last ad viewed, which is most often a search ad.
  • Caution Will Kill You In The Search Game
    A strange thing started happening to me in the last two years or so. As I became more vocal about my opinion, people started seeking it out more often. The more I shared it, the more people nodded their heads. And the more obnoxious I got about it, the more people jumped on my own little opinion bandwagon.
  • 17 Search Engine Reputation Management Optimization Tips
    As it is becoming more commonly accepted that Google, Yahoo and MSN are reputation management engines just as much as they are search engines, more folks are seeking information on how to increase positive visibility for a personal or corporate name. Here is a quick list of 17 different ways to optimize for positive visibility for your personal or brand name....
  • Striking And Searching
    The Writers Guild of America launched its long-awaited strike. How will this event affect marketers, search engines, and consumers' online media behavior? SEMCO, the union for search engine marketing columnists, hasn't quite caught on, so I'm remaining on the job to answer these questions and more.
  • Big Bubble? Maybe. Big Trouble? Definitely.
    I've been jousting (in a friendly way) with Aaron Goldberg for the past couple of weeks in the pages of MediaPost over the question of whether the online ad economy is in a bubble. While I don't expect our exchange to produce any agreement, this debate is important because there's a lot about search, the main driver of this economy, that's broken and urgently needs fixing.
  • The Road To Heaven
    Microsoft is the latest to take a stab at deciphering intent, outlining updates to Live Search in a pair of well-titled blog posts: "Do What I Mean, Not What I Say!" part I and part II. The posts describe new semantic features that Microsoft hopes will take it further along the road to disambiguating user intent.
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