Category Archives: Online Trends

Google as the Connector, not the Creator

The TV biz is the latest to get nervous about Google. Marissa Mayer is currently in the UK, assuaging skittish TV execs who are worried about Google’s muscling in on their turf. Mayer’s message is that Google is a technology company, not a media company.

If you look at the nature of Google’s position, you would realize why it doesn’t make sense for Google to try to churn out content. Google’s point of strength, and the one they should be focusing exclusively on, is to retain it’s position as the preferred connection between users and content. It’s a connector, and as long as it continues to function as such, it’s holding all the cards. Google is the pipeline that the lion’s share of web traffic will pass through, even momentarily. And that’s the beauty of Google’s plan. It doesn’t have to worry about producing content, it can focus on facilitating the connection, and then monetizing that connection.

If you’re a connector, there’s no overhead. There’s none of the costs or headaches involved with producing the content. You just have to point the right way to it, and collect your toll for each head that passes through. It’s clean, it’s simple and it’s tremendously profitable. That’s why Google can afford to cut some pretty sweet revenue sharing splits with current content producers. If they can corner the “connection” market, they can effectively cut out the competition.

If I were the TV execs, it wouldn’t be Google I would be worrying about. It would be the millions of bored teenagers that have a camcorder and nothing better to do in an afternoon than make a stupid video. These are the clips that dominate the all time most viewed videos on YouTube. It may be easy for the established production houses to dismiss this content as amateurish and inconsequential, but these clips are precursors of the democratization of video production, as consumer generated content becomes better and more readily available. Again, it goes back to my view of the deconstruction of tradition distribution control points. Video used to have only a handful of distribution points, so tight partnerships with content creators were possible. The internet is moving the distribution point online and away from the traditional control points, and Google is very wisely trying to grab a big piece of that pie. They can remain agnostic to the source of the content, as long as they can control the access.

The thing that worries me a little is that the execs in charge of the traditional control points don’t seem to realize the magnitude of the change that’s coming. They’re focusing their attention on an easily identifiable but false threat coming from Google, without realizing that the rules of the game are being completely rewritten and the real threat is coming from their own audience.

Life after SEW for Danny Sullivan

First published August 30, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

This Tuesday, a bomb dropped on the search marketing community. It started, as so many stories do now online, with a simple blog post. After 10 years, Danny Sullivan was leaving Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. Jaws could be heard dropping around the world. Danny is synonymous with both the shows and the site. And ten years is an eternity in this biz. We just always assumed that Danny’s involvement with the two franchises was like bedrock, so permanent you take it for granted. There were others involved–many others–all integral to the success, but make no mistake, this was Danny’s gig. The thought of SEW and SES without Danny just didn’t jive. Within hours, there was a litany of tributes to Danny Sullivan on his blog. It was almost as if a head of state had passed on. We collectively caught our breath and wondered what was next.

By the time you read this, this will no doubt be old news, so I won’t go into the details or reasons of the departure. I’m not really privy to them anyway. What I would like to do instead is look at some of the back history of how Search Engine Watch began, because I think it’s a great Internet story.

A Webmaster’s Guide To Search

One of the things that is wonderful about the Web is how it evens the playing field and creates opportunity. If you’re smart, if you’re a good communicator, and if you’re passionate about something, you can pick your niche and carve out your own slice of celebrity. Danny was all three. In 1996, Danny Sullivan’s notoriety probably didn’t extend much beyond his family and friends, but that was soon to change.

In 1995, Danny left journalism behind to go into Web development. Ironically, that was about the same time I left traditional advertising behind to focus on the Web. Soon, for both of us, we encountered the inevitability of search engines. As sites were developed, Danny recognized the importance of search engines as a traffic source and began experimenting to achieve higher rankings. For four months in 1996, he tweaked and tested codes, achieving some success, and published his findings online, collectively called “A Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines”. In the next year, it was rebranded Search Engine Watch and started to take up more and more of Danny’s time. It soon became the reference site for a number of nascent search engine optimizers (myself included) and became Danny’s full-time gig, supported by a handful of subscribers. At the end of 1997, it was purchased by Mecklermedia and Danny continued as editor.

The launch of SES

Search Engine Strategies launched from the base of support built by the site. The first show was in November, 1999 in San Francisco. The promo page is still live, if you’re interested. Since then, the show has grown from a few hundred attendees and a handful of exhibitors to attendance in the thousands and a jammed exhibit hall. As I wrote just a few weeks ago, it is the must-see search event.

In the intervening years, Danny has chronicled the birth and growth of an industry. Through the past 10 years, search engines have come and gone, but Danny Sullivan was always there, making sense of an occasionally nonsensical business. He has been the constant. Like I said, he’s bedrock. He’s also a search celebrity, one of the best known names and faces in a region of the online world that has since become a focal point of global interest. You want to know about search? Ask Danny. Major newspapers, magazines and TV networks beat a path to his door. When John Battelle decided to chronicle the history of search for his book, The Search, a long visit with Danny was a no-brainer, and John makes his debt to Danny very clear in the foreword.

The creation of a community

But Danny had no special education, or credentials to become the pre-eminent expert on search marketing. He has a degree, but there’s no Ph.D. of Search. He simply had a passion, a curiosity and a knack for communicating what he found. The Web gave him a voice, and he found his audience. Through the past 10 years, he has never failed that audience. Almost single-handedly, he opened the communication lines between the search engines and Webmasters and helped to create the community that now exists. From his beginning efforts, people like Brett Tabke and Matt Cutts have taken up the torch and continued to keep the communication flowing. Danny Sullivan has taken on the stewardship of what he began, continuing to nurture the SEM community, and there are many who are in his debt.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t know the details of the split between Danny and Incisive Media, and it’s not appropriate that I comment on them. I don’t know what will happen with Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. But I know that Danny’s passion for search will continue, and it will resurface soon. In a very interesting way, Danny Sullivan and the Internet grew up together, and each has helped in the development of the other. It is a true symbiotic relationship, but in this case, we’ve all benefited, and I hope we all will continue to do so.

SES-SEW without Danny: What the Hell is Going On?

My jaw dropping news of the day is that Danny Sullivan is leaving SES and SEW. He posts his reasons on his blog. In the 7 hours since he made the post, there are already dozens of testimonial comments from the who’s who of the search world.

I won’t really comment further, but it’s somewhat ironic that I just wrote a column about the SES franchise and Danny’s involvement in it.

Danny Sullivan is as much a part of the industry as anyone. The SES/SEW franchise has helped shape the industry. It’s one of the Internet’s great stories, and one that I’m happy I got to see first hand.

Godspeed Danny.  You’ll be missed in one part of our virtual world, but I know you’ll be helping create another.

Gore Impatient about the Speed of Change with Internet Video

Here’s an interesting op-ed piece from MediaPost’s Tobi Elkin on the blurring of the lines between the power of television and the power of the Internet, this time from Al Gore (hey..didn’t he “invent” the Internet in the first place?). It’s not that long, so to save you the hassle of logging in, etc, I’ll just quote the whole article:

So former Vice President Al Gore addressed a group of British TV execs yesterday in Edinburgh, Scotland and told them that while the Internet is a great democratizing force, TV remains the most influential form of media and people should have more control over its programming.

Gore, whose Current TV venture hinges upon participatory/citizen journalism and user-generated video, told the assembled execs that so far, the Web can’t replicate “television’s power,” according to a Reuters report. “Most of what’s happening in the encounter between television and the Internet has been the Internet cannibalizing television,” Gore told the execs.

Gore recommended finding ways to use the Internet to give consumers access to TV and the way it’s programmed. He suggested that citizens can participate in the democratic process by challenging inaccurate comments made by politicians, particularly in TV ads.

Gore noted that while user-generated Web communities and sites are powerful , they don’t reach mass audiences. “You can stream that, forward it, store it, time-shift it, you can do lots of things, but you cannot broadcast in real time to millions of people over the Internet,” Gore told the execs, according to the Reuters report. “The Internet is now creeping into the television domain, but it’s still not creating the change that many anticipate will come.”

Still, YouTube is streaming about 100 million video clips a day, and Current TV reaches nearly 20 million homes; nearly 30 percent of its programming is user-generated.

Is Gore underestimating the power of Web communities and the power of the Web to attract mass audiences? Or is he merely issuing a clarion call to denizens of the Web–all of us–to wake up and make our comments and opinions count? Either way, it’s clear that regular people have the power to create and distribute media and make it matter. I think Gore is looking to put a fire under us to challenge the status quo and en masse, call out politicians–and anyone else, for that matter, who veers from the truth. It’s a good fire to light, and we’re up for the challenge.

Do not, I repeat, underestimate the power of the Web and its denizens. Internet users are capable of calling politicians, and anyone else for that matter, on the carpet–and biting them in the ass.

Tobi Elkin is Executive Editor, MediaPost.

I agree with Tobi. Trying to assess the Internet’s future role in shaping interaction with, and the creation of, television programming is like trying to forecast the effects of a tsunami before it’s begin. We simply have no idea of the forces that are being unleashed here. What Gore is referring to are the first few ripples in what’s to be a full force tidal wave in the next two decades. The whole notion of programming, who controls it, and who calls bullshit on who are all about to be twisted, torn up and reformed in a way we won’t recognize.

The other issue is the Web’s ability to attract an audience. Again, the nature of engagement with video is just being defined. I for one think there are some fundamental issues with how we engage with essentially linear media in a multi-tasking environment, the infrastructure required to deliver high quality video to us, and some pretty basic human-computer interface challenges that have to be addressed. Again, we’re seeing ripple effects, but just below the surface, an earthquake is ready to erupt. Given the nascent stages of this communication channel and how our society is adopting it, the fact that YouTube is streaming 100 million clips a day should be scaring the hell out of someone, rather than prompting Gore to complain about the “creeping” pace of the Internet. This is all about tipping points, and we’re getting very close to one.

If Gore is telling us to wake up to this possibility, then go for it. But it’s way too early to be laying bets here. Still, that said, I do like how Gore is reinventing himself. Between the crusade behind “An Inconvenient Truth” and his awareness of the democratic potential of the Net, he seems to be grasping at the notion of the fundamental reweaving of society’s fabric that’s happening, and the potential to address some apocalyptic issues before it’s too late. He’s going for the big ideas, a refreshing change from the insular navel gazing that seems to characterize much of what’s happening in Washington.

Psst – Want a Hot Spot Paisano?

First published August 24, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Surgeon General’s Warning: Prolonged exposure to the Internet can lead to physical dependency and addiction. Use of the Internet can increase levels of anxiety and reduce attention spans.Hello, my name is Gord, and I’m addicted to the Internet. I didn’t realize I was addicted until I recently spent three weeks in Europe and had to go through withdrawal. But after hanging around hotel lobbies trying to get a hit from a local hot spot, I’ve had to face up to the fact that I can’t kick the habit. I need my broadband, baby!

Fear and Loathing in l’Italia

I didn’t go totally cold turkey. I had my PDA to keep up on e-mails, but it just didn’t give me the rush I was looking for. Here I was, surrounded by the culmination of centuries of artistic achievement, and all I could think about was where my Google hook-up was coming from.

I speak somewhat facetiously, but there’s a lot of truth here. Here’s an online definition of addiction:

    1. Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.
    2. The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

It seems to me that going online qualifies on both counts. There’s no doubt that being online is habit forming. But it goes further than that. I realized in the last 20-plus days that it’s hard-wired into my physiology. Not having instant access was as foreign as not having my right hand.

I use online a lot, mainly to access and assimilate information. I enhance what I see in the real world by researching it online, letting me place it in context for myself. And for the past three weeks, every sense I have has been bombarded to the point of overload by input. Art, history, locations, music, literature, architecture, it was all right in front of me. Paris, Florence, Rome: cradles of civilization that I was standing in the center of, and it was if I couldn’t fully assimilate them, because I didn’t have access to an essential part of my cerebral hardware: the right brain, left brain and “wired” brain.

What’s it worth to you, amico?

The analogy carries even further. Accessing the Internet while traveling in Europe is rather like hunting for illicit substances, in that it can be difficult to find and notoriously expensive. Five euros (a little over six dollars U.S.) for fifteen minutes, thirteen euros for an hour, thirty euros for a day… I have a price list for hot spots around the continent imprinted in my memory.

I wasn’t the only one that went through withdrawal. My wife and two daughters showed similar symptoms, but for different reasons. For me, it was losing a logical and information-gathering extension of myself. For them, it was losing a communication channel. They have adopted e-mail as a primary way of keeping in touch (and instant messaging, in the case of my oldest daughter), and they felt somewhat cut off. This was somewhat demonstrative of the way men and women tend to use the Internet, something I talked about in a previous column.

This is your brain on high-speed

But addictions aren’t always harmful. One could argue that we’re addicted to oxygen. Breathing is certainly habit-forming. So is there anything wrong with developing a strong dependence on the Internet?

One theory that I have is that our brains tend to gear up a notch when we go online. There is so much we do through computers that we have difficulty  maintaining linear thinking when we’re online. Even if we’re focused on one task, there’s the knowledge that there’s e-mail to check, things to look up, a hundred other things that we could be doing. Being online seems to increase our level of both anxiety and distraction, just because it’s so damn useful in so many different ways. Focus is a tough thing to maintain.

We have seen manifestation of this trend in the way people act when online. It’s nothing short of frenetic, skipping all over the page, multi-tasking, grasping information in a hundred little forays around the screen. It’s a different interaction from much of what we do day to day. Is it harmful? I’m not sure, but it does seem to be making permanent changes in the way we learn and communicate.

Anyway, I’m back in the office tomorrow, and will once again have my cerebral cortex plugged back into the Matrix. I’ll be wired again. I guess that’s a good thing, but I’m sure going to miss the espressos, Chiantis and Calabrese salsiccia.

Oh, well, everything in life is a trade-off.

Finding Fame Online – and Fame Finding You

First published August 17, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Gassime would never consider himself famous. He’s a very gentle, very kind man who happens to run a small hotel in Florence, Italy called Hotel Europa. He quietly goes about his business, welcoming guests, making sure rooms are clean and ready, and ushering people to tables in the small breakfast room.

There’s really nothing unique about the Hotel Europa, either. It’s probably similar to many small hotels in Florence and throughout Italy. It boasts just two stars out of five, is in a converted convent that’s hundreds of years old, and has a handful of modest but clean rooms.

But if there is anything unique about the Hotel Europa, it’s Gassime himself. In our brief stay in Florence, he charmed our socks off. First, he made a potentially frustrating experience–a miscommunication about our reservation that left us roomless on the first night–into a minor road bump and a memorable moment in our trip. He found two empty rooms, had them made up immediately while we waited, and constantly checked in to let us know the hotel’s staffers “were working for us.”

Over the next three days, we watched him say a cheerful good morning in at least four different languages to the various guests. Gassime personified graciousness. By the time we checked out, we felt like we were leaving family behind. We left him with a small gift, a thank-you card and the promise that if he ever comes to Canada, we’d love to return the hospitality. He thanked us, but said he’s too busy catering to tourists to do any touring himself.

Apparently, our experience at the Hotel Europa is not unique. We picked it because of similar testimonials on sites like TripAdvisor. In fact, if you search for Hotel Europa online, you’ll find a litany of kudos for Gassime. As we were checking in, a lady from the States asked me if we’d picked the hotel because of TripAdvisor. When I said yes, she said she had as well. She was traveling with a fairly large group. Although Gassime has never sought fame, by quietly doing his job and providing exceptional service, fame has found him.

And there you have an essential quality of the Internet. As we define community around topics of common interest, in this case trips to Florence, we join together to create our own celebrities. We make the Gassimes of the world heroes, and lay a trail so that others can follow in our footsteps. Through travel sites like TripAdvisor and others, we create our own recommendations.

Search acts as the connector to these nuggets of information. We gain the benefit of others that have been there and done that. The good is separated from the bad in a way that defies gaming the system and keeps everyone honest. I picked every place we stayed through the recommendations of others online, and we didn’t hit one dud. But better than just finding clean rooms, we found new friends, like Gassime.

Across Europe and around the world, diligent travelers are now finding these hidden heroes. They’re the people that run the kind of places you used to have to know a local to find–and even then, you could never be sure if you were getting a bum steer to a cousin or friend.

Another hidden hero was the family that runs the Donna Rosa Ristorante in Montepertuso, high up the mountain above Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. This little gem of a restaurant is run by the energetic and talented Raffaella family, a wife and husband who drew their two grown-up children back from successful careers in various parts of Italy so they could do something together. How do I know this? I found it online. Donna Rosa has also found a measure of fame online, including being one of the favorite haunts of Diane Lane when she was filming “Under the Tuscan Sun.”

I like to think that I’m somewhat unique in the amount of online research I do prior to a trip. But the number is growing, and I’m sure that people like Gassime are starting to notice their small but increasing online fame. I hope that Gassime’s hotel continues to thrive, and that Donna Rosa’s reservation book stays full. These are rewards that come from a job well done, and I for one think it’s a very good thing that the Internet can make down-to-earth, gracious people like Gassime and the Raffaella family heroes. All too often we make our heroes from less worthy stuff.

Yahoo Has the Answers, Google Still Searching

First published June 22, 2006 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Google may be the king of search, but in one area at least, Yahoo is kicking Google’s can around the block. The upstart Yahoo Answers has blown by the venerable Google Answers (venerable at least by Internet time, having been around since May 2002), and seems to be drawing rave reviews from analysts and users alike. The service launched in December of 2005, and had its 10 millionth question posted in May. When it comes to share of the online answer market, it has amassed about 10 times the traffic that Google Answers has in the past 6 months, according to Hitwise.

Everything Old is New Again

Posting questions online is nothing new. Ask Jeeves’ AnswerPoint was around long before either Google or Yahoo, starting in early 2000. But it never took off, and was wrapped up in May of 2002 (ironically, the same week Google Answers launched). According to Ask head Jim Lanzone, “AnswerPoint wasn’t a failure, nor a smashing success.” At the time, Ask Jeeves had to focus on things like the continuing integration of Teoma and the launch of Smart Answers (Ask’s version of vertical shortcuts, a la Google’s Onebox or Yahoo’s Shortcuts), and decided to pull the plug on AnswerPoint. Lanzone remembers that “the user base was actually pretty upset about it; they were a very small, but very loyal group.” LookSmart also went down this path with LookSmart Live, born in 1999 but long since faded away.

When it comes to Yahoo Answers, success seems to lie at the convergence of a number of tried and true online concepts. First of all, the answer service depends on community. Unlike Google, there’s no cost to the service. It relies on its community to answer posted questions, giving it a viral vitality somewhat like a wiki or forum. Coming from Yahoo, it’s of course categorized and searchable, giving users the opportunity to tap into the existing answer base to see if their question has already been answered. And it provides the wisdom of the masses, giving its community the ability to rate posted answers, thereby vouching for the reliability of the information.

The Good Samaritan Syndrome

As is so often the case, Yahoo’s strength is also its point of vulnerability. It lives through its community, so it can also die through lack of interest from that community. It was this challenge that was a major factor leading to the demise of AnswerPoint. Ask’s Jim Lanzone again provides some perspective from their experience: “As a free service, there was little incentive for people to answer other people’s questions.” Other community-based forums, such as Amazon or TripAdvisor, are giving people the chance to play critic, and we all love the sense of power that comes with swaying other people’s opinions. But with something like Yahoo Answers, the only real incentive is the act of being a Good Samaritan and sharing some knowledge. In effect, you have a business model that depends on a community of high school know-it-alls, consumer mavens, and good-hearted people. It’s great if it can reach the critical mass to survive, but that’s a big if.

Yahoo’s Model vs Google’s

What is perhaps most interesting about this is to see why Yahoo’s model has taken off, while Google’s continues to limp along. With the Google model, you pay “carefully screened researchers” to answer your questions. The cost can range from a few dollars to hundreds, depending on the complexity of the question. It’s perhaps not surprising that Google went with a model that eliminated community–going for a much more controllable approach, given the challenges faced previously by Ask Jeeves and LookSmart. Like Yahoo, Google allows you to search through already answered questions, but the number isn’t anywhere near what you’ll find on Yahoo–usually resulting in decidedly non-relevant results for more specific questions.

I find the two approaches somewhat telling of the strategic thought coming from the different organizations. Google’s is a “we know best” approach, the somewhat antiseptic model that eliminates the messiness of real people from the equation, whereas Yahoo dives into the organic nature of community, embraces it, and enables it. Yahoo Answers has cast its fate into the hands of its users, deciding to live or die by the enthusiasm of its community. Its success depends completely on critical mass–and so far, it seems to be rolling in the right direction. A little over a year ago, I wrote that perhaps search can be the tool to ensure that real people like you and me are heard. It seems that Yahoo Answers could be heading in that direction.

Obviously, I Don’t Have all the Answers (but Yahoo might)

I hate to admit it, but I may have completely missed the next big thing in search.

Yahoo Answers is getting some rave reviews. At first look, I thought Yahoo Answers was nothing more than an interesting experiment, but it seems to be taking off with both analysts and users!

Yahoo! Answers is the convergence of some fairly long toothed online concepts. It combines the community involvement of a wiki or forum with the searchability of an engine, and the organized hierarchy of a directory. None of these things are new, which is maybe why I didn’t think anything of it at first. But let’s face it, sometimes you don’t need to be new to take off virally on the net, you just have to put a new spin on old functionality, and it seems that Yahoo! just may have done it. We like real one-on-one interactions online. We like other people’s opinions. Hundreds of years of social interaction have hardwired that into us. And Yahoo capitalizes on it. Post a question, and get other users to answer it. Or search through the existing questions to see if yours has already been posted. It connects people with people in a most efficient way. And of course, it gives Yahoo! another opportunity to monetize traffic that is growing significantly.

There’s something simple but compelling about the virtual communities that immediately form around topics on something like Yahoo! Answers. The challenge with communities is that there needs to be critical mass, and the reassurance of a number of people having the same opinion. If you post an question and get one answer, you wonder about its reliability. If you get the same answer from 10 people (or, in the case of Answers, one answer that 10 people vote for) you have more faith in it. Yahoo! can bring critical mass and the safety of numbers (the wisdom of crowds) to its online community.

One thing that should be noted. Yahoo! Answers has taken off and announced the posting of their 10 millionth question in May. The service has blown by Google Answers, as shown by this chart courtesy of Hitwise and posted on Searchenginewatch (thanks Danny).

hitwisechart

So..what did Yahoo! tap into, that Google didn’t? The interesting thing about this is that it speaks to the difference in culture between the two organizations. Yahoo created a community and enabled the wisdom of the masses. Google, typically, came out with an approach that said “we know best” and asked you to post your questions to be answered by Google researchers. One resonated with the public, and one didn’t.

Google Trying to Broaden Revenue Stream

More evidence that Google is very aware of it’s single stream revenue vulnerability, and is looking for ways to broaden it. VP of global online sales, Sheryl Sandberg was cornered by Piper Jaffray’s Safa Rashtchy about their ongoing experimentation for new ad formats, including video, and indicated that while it’s still in testing phase Google will continue to play in this particular sandbox. “I think it’s fair to say we have basically just started,” said Sandberg.

Based on my understanding, the testing will be far more aggressive in the AdSense network than it will be on the actual SERP’s, and that’s a good thing. One has to approach further commercialization of a search results page with tremendous trepidation. In fact, my advice would be, don’t even go there.

MySpace Working to Monetize Traffic

Just last week I took a CNN analyst to task for not seeing the importance of MySpace. How quickly things come to pass on the online world. Yesterday came the announcement that News Corp is looking for a search partner to help them monetize the incredible traffic that MySpace is generating. See, create an online community and there will be ways to monetize it. Analysts, look up just a little from the quarterly returns and try to look a little further down the road.