Again, Why it is important for Social Media/PR/Search to be Cross functional.

http://searchengineland.com/googles-action-against-link-schemes-continues-overstock-com-and-forbes-com-latest-casualities-conductor-exits-business-65926

Google has again clamped down on two more companies (Forbes.com and Overstock) for violating their search engine terms of agreement. Just recently this had happened to JCPenny and i am sure many companies are wondering "Why are these companies being punished and how do i ensure that this will not happen to my company?".

Google makes it fairly clear that any "paid" links that manipulate PageRank (this is the basic algorithm that returns your search query with "meaningful" results) violate their terms of agreement. This payment for links can come for additional discounts or money directly to the party that you are getting that link from. The types of links you will not get punished for are those involved in editorial content.

This of course makes obvious sense from a SEO perspective. If a trusted site, editor, or blogger is referring a site/content that they find valuable, then the page rank for that trusted site, editor, or blogger will be transferred as well. It's all about bringing people the content that most accurately meets their search query and that they will find the most value in.

All of this reinforces proper SEO best practices being reinforced in Social Media/PR (popular keywords, HTML alt attributes, etc) to make sure that your valuable content is ultra-search friendly. Valuable back links can come from respected online circles of influence. It is up to Social Media/PR and search to cross functionally work together to make sure that this is taken advantage of. What good does great content do if no one can find it?

 While this will not immediately affect search standings like a link farm or paid links will, it is the proper way and most cost efficient way to build search standing.  Initiating best practices will double the value of your content and not dilute the value of your site/brand with penalties from search engines by paying for links.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

What is the difference between Organic and Paid Search results?

Whenever i ask most people this question i just get a big "what?". There seems to be a misconceived notion that the top results on Google are the most relevant (In most cases it goes to the person with the best quality score/budget but we are not here to get into PPC optimization). Generally, the top two links presented are actually paid advertisements and not organic search results.

The organic search results are a bit below the "Sponsored Links" (a nice way of saying paid advertising!). 

A short explanation of what Search Engine Optimization is: The art of letting search engines (Like Google/Bing) know that your website exists and that it is relevant for certain keywords (which relate to the content your site provides). This is a very basic explanation by the way.

I promised this post to a friend of mine so i hope it is satisfactory.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Why Social Media+Search needs to be cross-functional

http://searchengineland.com/google-expands-social-circle-in-search-results-including-page-rankings-65202

It looks like Google has taken a step forward to integrate users social circles of influence into their search results. How does this work? Users can specify if they want blogs, twitter, flickr, etc that they follow to be incorporated into search results. This means that a persons center of influence (Blogs they follow, etc.) can also alter search results by bringing up content from that social media based on keywords from a users search query.

How does this affect Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing? It is more important now than ever to have cross-functionality between your PR/Social Media team and Search Marketing. There needs to be transparency in the current optimal/high volume keywords for different types of content and make sure that they are present in social media efforts. Not only will this make it easier for users to find valuable content from the company because they are being linked to high volume relevant keyword groups, but it will also naturally increase search-ability and search standings for this content and the company. This will also increase the importance of social media followers and the distribution of valuable content that people are searching for.

Any company still siloing out these functions are missing out on multifaceted advantages that could easily and cheaply be capitalized on by a cross functioning group following established best practices.

It is things like this that excite and keep me interested in digital marketing.


Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Amazon - The Enviable Tech Giant?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/21/smallbusiness/amazon_acquisitions/index.htm

Amazon has always been a pioneer in the tech industry with its cloud service offering for business, streaming content distribution and as we all know the default go-to for most online shopping (especially for those with a Prime Membership -LIKE ME!)


This article on CNN really opened my eyes to all of the acquisitions that Amazon has made and how well they are able to integrate other companies into their family. What can easily turn into a waste of money/devastating move for a majority of large companies (Diamler+Chrysler , Danger+Microsoft, Quicken+RockFinancial, etc) Amazon seems to be able to move with ease. (my comparison of Diamler+Chrysler might be a bit unfounded with regards to this but its relating to two companies in the same industry merging as one) This really goes to show you the caliber of company management and culture that is sure the envy of many companies.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Credit or Debit? How about my Cell Phone!

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-20032840-78.html

Mobile is the new place to be, wither it is in apps or online commerce. The real questions is, who will get there first? With Mobile Commerce/Payments in mind, the recent successes in the UK  are finally starting to awaken the United States to a new trend in the ways consumers shop.So far US companies have been late in adopting technologies to easily facilitate this but as shown over the holiday season (EBay) people are willing to make/confirm purchases using mobile devices.

While most phone companies are waiting for phone operating systems and hardware (NFC-Near Frequency Chip) to become available, others have taken the initiative. I love how Visa has taken a step forward by introducing an App/SD card that you can manually place in your smartphone to use with card readers. Effectively this turns your phone into a functional credit card.

How safe is this? Visa and other smartphones coming equipped with NFC are reassuring people that it is a safer means of transaction compared to credit cards. It is only a matter of time until someone finds a back door or introduces some sort of trojan. Surely by then developers will make security features a bit more robust to address these threats. I have not heard of how these applications work but it would seem logical for some sort of pin verification as an additional tactile layer of security. Until then if you are going to use any of these applications i would highly recommend locking your phone with a password if you have not already.

The above article goes into more detail, but being a marketing/advertising major i cannot wait for this tech to be widely adopted. The implications of being able to serve interactive content that is actionable by the consumer opens the door on mobile marketing/commerce. Location based NFC "type: technology is where the industry should capitalize on impulse purchases and extending brand interactions to almost any place a smartphone can be used... All as long as it can be kept somewhat secure.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Nokia+MSFT: Brush off the haters....

Not only has Nokia came under fire from tech pundits (they fear that the partnership with Microsoft will put in jeopardy the high standard and uniformity of WP7 devices) but also from Nokia shareholders (selling stock like crazy and even attempting to force a takeover of the company, to just as quickly back down)  and the CTO of Verizon stating that the company doesn't need a Nokia phone using WP7. 

All in the span of three days have we have had a quick uprising from Nokia shareholders and a shrug off from the CTO of Verizon stating they have no need for any Nokia Windows Phones.

This whole scuffle with Nokia shareholders was pretty ridiculous. I don’t know if any of these people have any business acumen (That is only showed by them backing down from their own threats within two days) but how in the world would an internal power struggle help the company stabilize and increase market share within the smart phone industry? If they were actually successful it would further hurt internal morale and set the technological superiority of the company back even further than it already is. 

Thankfully the shareholders have backed off and seem to have buyed into managements overall strategy (and those that have not are selling their stock like crazy). You can’t expect everyone in the company to be happy about Nokias overall partnership with Microsoft. Internally this means that all of those developers for the Nokia mobile platforms are out of a job. 

Sure you can feel bad about them and hate Nokia for making such a decision and putting so many people out of work but technically isn't it partially their fault? If they had done an adequate job and created a competitive product Nokia would be experiencing better growth and would not have made such a partnership with Microsoft. Call me evil but looking at it from a business perspective a fair amount of blame rests with those developers who are now so peeved off they are attempting to get labor unions to grant them severance in excess of 100,000 euro each.

As for Verizon's CTO, i guess it shows you the stance of the company against Windows (the whole Kin debacle). Still must be a bit of bad blood there. 

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Lets talk about mobile shopping.

http://www.yadvertisingblog.com/blog/2011/02/16/mobile-shopping-study

Yahoo advertising is a great resource for staying on top of trends and getting tasty bites of awesome information.

The above link is about mobile shopping behaviors, which seems to be situating itself as the new hot area in advertising.

From the link it looks like mobile is a great way to help people not just find your business, but interact with coupons, product comparisons, and in some cases pay your bills.Its not surprising that some of the most commons things to do are using search functions or downloading items to use directly onto the phone.

You really should take a look, its an interesting read.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Twitter the savior of Live TV?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/14/technology/twitter_mwc/index.htm

This is actually one slightly outrageous statement made this week among many (Android saving the world and the short lived Nokia shareholders Plan B).

Twitter has came out and stated that they are saving live television. Alright, i will take a bite of this and chew on it for a bit. Lets take the superbowl for example. Never before have i ever experience such a social interaction...away from people. Just by sitting at my computer I was constantly able to talk with my followers and friends about the status of the games, thoughts on advertisements, etc. More importantly it made it fun to watch live tv. The only real way to experience that interaction was by watching live televisions and interacting with people via social media (Twitter, Facebook).

In my case i was sitting at home with the parents, nursing my wisdom teeth. Most people would be at a party or a bar. These people can still interact socially through mobile devices.

Now about saving live tv....yes it does make it more fun, but i know that there are millions of people without a Twitter account. In the short term i don't think it will greatly affect live tv viewership (only if the number of people using Twitter increases exponentially). What it will do, is for those that have embraced technology and social media, it will give a heightened experience that will encourage them to view these programs as they are airing.

Taking this to another level, what if there was a way to tag your social media device (Tablet, Netbook, Phone) to your television and allow you to actively interact socially with other people watching those programs. Now that would make the experience super easy, cool and inviting. (I'm thinking a plus for sports games but we may have to watch out for obscenities and bullying online)

Anyone else have thoughts on if Twitter will be the savior of live tv?

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Want to tow a FedEx Truck? Ford F-250 is apparently the way to go.

Talk about free marketing! Ford just got a nice piece of You Tubeage from Fox news showing a good samaritan with an F-250 helping a downed Fed-Ex semi....Talk about some serious towing power right there.




Enjoy!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

IBM's Watson...Dr.Watson or the future of search?

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/15/will-ibm%E2%80%99s-watson-put-your-job-in-jeopardy/

IBM wants to use this technology to assist doctors but i say why not use this as the new future of search? It's a completely organic interaction where you ask a questions and receive a response. There are a fair amount of times where something like this could come in handy. Watch out Google!

Of course this would more than likely be detrimental to the educational edge of ones society. Instead of retaining information from textbooks, lectures, and lessons people become reliant on a computer to answer all of their questions.

Regardless, i still think that Watson could easily unseat contemporary search engines by using an organic conversation as opposed to search terms/entering keywords. (Price comparisons, map functions, etc would still need a highly visual interface of course)




Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

JCPenny gets their SEO hand caught in the Google cookie jar

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

JCPenny saw explosive online sales over this holiday season and there might be a pretty good explanation as to why.

The NY Times just released an article showing some suspicious search results where JCPenny was consistently being ranked at the top for general terms like "little black dress" "skinny jeans".

After an investigation using site explorers (Have the ability to track where link-backs come from), NY Times discovered a number of phantom websites about any and all types of products linking back to JCPenny. These fake listings were tricking Google in a Blackhat SEO fashion and having JCPenny show up at the top of search results for very general items "blenders" and brand specific items "Samsung Appliance".

Blackhat SEO tactics such as link building with phantom websites or fake articles violates the terms of agreement with Google (and most search engines). In most cases this will result in decreased search standings when caught or even expulsion from search results until everything gets cleared up.

The fact that this wasnt brought up sooner by JCPennys competitors (Macys, Amazon, OldNavy, etc.) shows an extreme lack of search quality control on a corporate level. Webmasters should be conducting site and search audits once a month to ensure that their search/SEO money is being well spent. JCPennys deceitful online practices (wither this was knowingly done with managements permission or just bad practices from their SEO consultants) have possibly cost these companies millions of dollars in lost online sales and resulted in strict search punishment with regards to JCPenny from Google.

This whole debacle just troubles me in that millions of dollars are spent on search and SEO with what seems to be no proper due diligence or over site of online campaigns.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

No Empty Alt Tag Left Behind

For my first SEO Thursday blog post I will start with a topic that is up to a fair amount of debate. It is the use of Alt tags in SEO.

Now for those of you not fluent in geek let me give you a review of what an alt tag is.

Alt Tag

Back in the day when dial-up connections were super-duper slow a user had to wait a much longer time for websites to load. Alt tags were created as placeholders for images, telling the user what the image should be if it:

1) Didn’t load fast enough.

2) There was an error grabbing the image from the server.

3) If the computer lacked the graphics to view the picture.

4) For some other various reason.

Some web developers can be lazy and just not decide to add in the Alt Tag leaving it empty.

Ex: <img src=”imgname.jpg” w=”600” h=”800” alt””>

Take a look at this and ask yourself what it tells you? Looking at that HTML code can you tell me what the image is? 

Search engines cannot see the actual image either, just the code. Leaving that alt tag empty is a waste of perfectly good SEO space! It should be filled with a short and relevant description of the picture. By no means is this a free pass to fill the alt tag with a bunch of keywords “also known as keyword loading”.

In the case of a fence manufacturing company, you would want the HTML code for an image to look like this.

Ex: <img src=”r-10.jpg” w=”600” h=”800” alt=”aluminum fence around a pool”>

Adding a short, concise description of the picture gives search engines something to read. This can help with indexing of images and search term ranking for a specific page.

Do Not Abuse The Alt Tag

Ex:<img src=”imgname.jpg” w=”600” h=”600” alt=”aluminum fence, aluminum fencing, pool fences, privacy fence, best fence, steel fence, vinyl fence”>

This is an example of what not to do. Things like this are considered keyword loading and it is not taken lightly. It can severely hurt your search ranking and can even get you blacklisted from search results.

Matt Cutts has an old posting about proper use of alt tags for those that do not like to read http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NbuDpB_BTc

Hope you enjoyed and until next Thursday!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

How Will Nokia Weather The Storm?

Any business major should read this memo from the Nokia CEO to its employees. It's a step that not many CEO's are willing to take, admitting that their company is on the wrong path and that drastic change is needed.

Message from Nokia CEO to Employees

It has been rumored for some time that Nokia would join forces with the Windows Phone 7 platform. For those of you who have not kept on top of smartphone standings, Nokia was the previous market leader and is now having its turf threatened by high end (Apple), mid-range (Android) and low-end (Chinese) competitors. Nokia has alot to gain by adopting a competitive and unique phone operating system/ecosystem and Windows Phone 7 needs the huge user base and brand name that Nokia can offer.

Such a partnership would have implications to change the smartphone arena and bring both Nokia and Windows Phone 7 up to snuff with Apple and Android. Only time will tell but for the sake of both companies i hope a merger is in the works. After all the current CEO of Nokia is a former Softie!

Nokia/Windows Phone 7 partnership likely to be announced this Friday!

Best Regards,

-Antonio Esposito

Pepsi Thinks It's Cool To Be Sexist??

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/08/news/companies/pepsi_skinny_can/index.htm

No offense to Pepsi Co. but wtf are you thinking? This is a quote directly from the article "Diet Pepsi will soon be available in a "taller, sassier new Skinny Can" that the company says is a "celebration of beautiful, confident women."". 


You have got to be kidding me! So what they are trying to say is that only beautiful and confident women look like this?

I find this reasoning just a tid bit sexist. Did they think of how this will fit in a conventional cup holder for a car?

Let me know your thoughts on this "Sassy,Skinny new can".


Best Regards,

-Antonio Esposito

The Possible Future of Search: Yahoo's Web of Objects?

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144362

I like the direction that Yahoo is taking with regards to the future of search. Focusing on the combination of search algorithms, user intent and content aggregation to create a portal with a "web of objects". Filled with articles, videos and pictures focusing on the intent of a users search instead of just a lists of urls based on a few keywords.

When you look at the current search landscape it is fairly archaic and inefficient. Throw a few words together in the hope that an algorithm can infer intent towards the search results. You are then presented with a list of web pages that in the most general sense has a high reputation and keyword matching for your results.

Kudos to Yahoo for giving us a sneak peak at what it has in store. It also helps in understanding why Yahoo has changed from focusing on search algorithms to content in recent years. With this "web of objects" idea in mind it makes perfect sense for Yahoo to become a content creator and aggregator.

Seems like a theme for fallen web giants (hint hint AOL!).

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Super Cool Touch Mouse!

I really like the multi touch capabilities of the mouse. So cool!

Mans Last Stand to Imported From Detroit

Last Years Superbowl Commercial from Chrysler Group

Imported From Detroit

The past two years i have loved the superbowl ads from the 25% foreign owned Chrysler Group. Instead of buying a bunch of spots put all your eggs in one big memorable basket. I do have to say that most the ad's this year (other than Chevy) were pretty disappointing and that Chrysler clearly stole the show from everyone else.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Google Spam Filters and Blekko Banning Content Farms

http://searchengineland.com/blekko-bans-content-farms-from-their-index-63134

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-aol-way

Update: AOL just made a surprise move and acquired the Huffington Post for $315 Million. This is possibly the best thing that could have happened for the sinking web portal company. Now AOL will have exclusive advertising privileges to the millions of visitors to the Huffington post and the editorial smarts of one of the most popular news content providers online.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/business/media/07aol.html?_r=1

Google Spam Filters and Blekko Banning Content Farms

There has been an uprising in internet user complaints about too much spam showing up in Google search results. People are receiving junk content that does not have any value to them and they are not happy about it. This past week Google has announced a new spam filter to help bring more relevant results to users. Only time will tell if the new algorithm changes will work or how effective it will be.

Blekko, the SlashTag search engine has gone so far as to completely ban some content farms from its search results. What is a content farm? My definition is: A website that creates a lot of web data for the sole purpose of increased search standings with sacrifice of overall quality of content. Websites such as ehow (A major source of revenue for Demand Media) will no longer show up in Blekko.

Will Google make the same change in fear of people switching over to Blekko.com?

They have publicly stated that they are not going to block “content farms” and that overall results from those sites should remain unaffected. Most users of Google have no idea what Blekko is and a larger proportion have no idea how to use slashtags. As long as Google can correctly address recent issues with bad search results in organic search queries with their most recent change they should see little to no defection of users to Blekko.

Taking an overall look at the industry, what does this say to sites like Demand Media and AOL (The AOL Way). Specifically I will focus on AOL.

They have just initiated a new overarching strategic business model. Focusing on volume of content (5-10 articles produced per day, per employee) and the body of the content being focused on search ability/profitability. What is the problem here? This is exactly the type of content that Google is trying to circumvent and Blekko is starting to block. Content created to make money, not give value to users.

If there is a flood of mediocre content (Demand Media and AOL) that does not give sufficient value to Google search users, more and more people could begin to look at other search engines (Blekko) for certain types of search queries (Obviously this would not help in finding movie times or comparing prices for the cheapest blu ray player).

Update: With respect to the acquisition by AOL, it will be interesting to see how they choose to utilize The Huffington Post, its loyal audience, and the human capital gained. 

Who knows, maybe I will start to post search results of Google and Blekko to compare the quality of content. All that I know for sure is that people want more quality results from their search provider.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Facebook Deals

Official Facebook.com - Deals Page

If you are in the service industry this is almost an obvious must for local social media interaction.

No matter if you are worried about buffering your single bottom line or your triple bottom line, Facebook has a great application for your small business needs.

Deals can range from:

Individual Deals
Group Deals
Loyalty Deals
Charity Deals

Go in and take a look at this powerful social location based tool.

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Did Google Just Get Caught Blatantly Copying Bing Search Results?

Bing search results showing up in Google
My previous blog posting on this situation.

Now it seems that Google is being quite the hypocrite.

Except in this situation there is no use of a dedicated downloadable toolbar to track individual user data for personal optimization (as was the case in the 9% success rate of the Bing Sting operation). These results are coming straight from Google itself and happen 100% of the time. Specifically, Google is tracking pages that Bing has indexed. These pages are not gibberish and they are not made up specifically for a sting operation. These pages are for live and relevant search results.


I wonder how Matt Cutts and Google will respond to these new allegations? My first guess is that they are going to try and ignore it and hope it goes away. I will make sure to keep everyone posted on the situation.

The obvious truth about IAd's!

The obvious truth about IAd's

This AdAge article came as no real surprise to me. It basically goes over how Campbell Soup ad's performed twice as well on the IAd platform as opposed to competing medias.

Of course its going to be more effective. The IAd platform is targeting young affluent techies who love to interact with content on their devices. Is it just as effective as driving these individuals out to buy Campbell Soup soup products? That has yet to be determined.

The estimated $1 million barrier to entry for most big brand names on the IAd eco-system is a tough pill to swallow when budgeting media plans. Sure that can guarantee memorability, interaction and eyeballs on mobile devices, but still that is a decent slice of the budget pie.

Now maybe if we add in coupons that can be used via mobile devices and tracked to purchases....


Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Google Admits Defeat To Yahoo In Battle For Real Estate Search Superiority

zillow-and-yahoo-bolster-online-realestate-search
google-will-drop-real-estate-search-listings-from-maps


Google, under the reigns of Larry Page, has cut support for Real Estate Search and Listings from its Maps application. It seemed that very few people used the feature and it could not compete with other advanced options available online.

A few days later, Zillow.com (One of the leading online Real Estate companies that just raised $87 million in funding and got 15.7 million visitors last month) and Yahoo.com finalized a new partnership. Now Zillow can advertise listings/have them appear on Yahoo Real Estate.

It is a shame for Google to step out of this search race for not being able to compete in the industry. Online search is a huge component in the home buying process and it is surprising for a company with such a large brand presence in the search industry (Google) to drop out of the business.

Guess they are reorganizing internal resources to fight other future battles. Maybe they needed the extra people to finish up their much needed response to a failed buyout of Groupon (Google Deals).

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Link Building Tips for Budding SEO's

http://searchengineland.com/a-link-building-blueprint-the-foundation-62784

The above link is a good article on searchengineland.com with some link building tips that are common sense for most search engine optimization pro's. If you don't consider yourself an SEO veteran or are more of a webmaster, then this is def worth a look.

Enjoy!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Hulu Plus adds some more content to justify $7.99 price tag

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=148632

What is it that people want? Content! What do we want to pay for it? Nothing!

In 2008 Hulu (A joint venture between NBC, ABC and Fox) was created to attempt and monetize the world of streaming media. These companies were afraid if they didn't capitalize on this market early they would be left in the dust by pirate sites, Netflix instant view, etc.

In the short-term Hulu was able to get ad-revenue from advertisements placed during shows, refined the website and grow the brand name of Hulu.Recently they have launched their Hulu Plus services which request users to pay a fee of $7.99 a month. 

What is the difference between Hulu and Hulu Plus?

Hulu

• Content can only be viewed for a certain amount of time after it is aired
• Normally only have 5 episodes up at a time
• Filled with pesky advertisements (Where they generate ad revenue from)

Hulu Plus ($7.99 a month)

• Libraries full of content (seasons worth of shows)
• No time restrictions
• Multiple applications for use on your Television, Computer, Game Consoles and Mobile Devices.

One of the biggest problems in trying to sell Hulu Plus onto people that use the free Hulu site is that most people either A) Think the shows they have in the Hulu Plus library are lame or B) Already have a Netflix instant view subscription which has many of the same shows (Lost, The Office, Parks and Recreating, Law and Order SVU etc).

At the end of the day it comes to content. If you are going to ask people to ante up, it has to have value to them. It helps to determine what strategic moves to make and what content to bring by segmenting who is in the Hulu market. What kind of content do these individuals value most?

Well Hulu Plus just made their cable-less solution alot juicer by signing a deal with Viacom. You will now start to see content from shows like The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Tosh.O. This actually might make me pony up some money to cheaply watch these shows legally. Again, valuable content = new customer.

I myself live in Detroit and to get cable here would cost me somewhere around $140.00 a month. Being a broke college student there is no way in heck i am paying that. So i have been living off of normal Hulu and Netflix Instant view, which has left me quite satisfied. The shows i really miss being a college student are The Daily Show, Colbert Report and Tosh.0. Seems like someone is targeting me directly, and i think Hulu Plus may have won me over. 

Being a marketing student, i am glad these companies are segmenting their target market for this service. Young individuals who can not afford the content or are unwilling to pay for it. Giving us a legal, HD quality, reliable, streaming service to view the content we want, when and where we want is a phenomenal idea. 

Giving people like me content that i find value in and am willing to pay for.

What are your thoughts on the direction Hulu is going with Hulu Plus and its additional content aimed at young individuals? Would you be willing to pay for it?

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Impacted teeth begone!

This post was brought to you by the wonderful drug Vicodin! Without which the pain in my teeth would be too severe to use the computer.

Today was the day of my fate full Wisdom Teeth Removalllll! I was supposed to have these bad boys taken out about three years ago but i put that off in lieu of my first internship with Prudential Financial. This is the reason why i will not have an SEO Thursdays posting today. Just to give you a little preview it will be about effectively using the Alt tag (If you have no idea what that is no worries. I will give you a nice web dev overview before diving in)

Back to my teeth!

I kept ignoring it because they never cause any tooth aches. About 6 months ago i noticed my pristine teeth started to look a bit crammed. Fearing the Ron Burgundy smile i made my appointment in a jiffy. Now i have tea bag shoved in my mouth and am feasting on snack packs. The pain is quite severe but i can still get online to work on a few things and blog.

Until another day!

Best Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Dead Space 2, your moms going to hate it!

“Your mom’s going to hate it”! Now what adolescent does not respond positively to this statement?

It’s a nice position that is being used in the latest ad campaign for EA’s Deadspace 2. I give DraftFCB huge kudos for this as I personally love it.

My feelings for this may be biased as I was a huge fan of the first game. Just take a look at the link below and enjoy the videos. They are quite entertaining.

http://yourmomhatesthis.com/

Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Facebook Deals Lands In Europe!

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Facebook_deals_launches_in_Europe.php

This is more of a supercharged prong aimed at Foursquare! Sign into Facebook and register using Facebook Places and shaazzzaaaammmm! Supa Deals!

The deals honestly are pretty legitimate and should be fairly successful. 20% off a Mazda MX5! This could go up against some group deal sites (Groupon watch out!). Looks like the recent Foursquare business promotion revamps were badly needed. Will it be enough to compete against the social media powerhouse Facebook.

I will be keeping my eye on this closely.

Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja

Google blames Bing for copying....jibberish?

http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-search-results-62914

It seems like there is a pretty big debacle between Google and Bing. Apparently Google noticed that Bing search results were getting better and better. In some cases they were nearly mimicking Google’s search results. Sooo Google decided to leave out a “honeypot”, They took random assemblages of letters (pretty much garble) and assigned websites to them directly. In most cases these random letters came up with no search results or very ineffective results. After two weeks they tested their hypothesis and hazzah! Bing had taken the bait! Bing was now showing the same search results for these weird, non-existant search queries that Google had intentional laid out.

Now people (especially Googlers) are calling Bing a copier and a cheater. Is this foul play? I think not! Imagine yourself as a managing director of Bing. You are the underdog in a competitive search/ad driven marketplace and you have to allocate your resources effectively. Are you going to focus those resources on creating an algorithm set to determine the meaning of unrecognizable assemblages of letters…ooorrr to create an awesomeTravel algorithm , Online Games,  Social, Recipe, Local and increase the usefulness/utility of Visual Search.

In actuality Bing is quite clever in this regard. As a quick competitive fix, just mimic search results that you have no answer for! How did Bing figure out about these search results. Now here is a place of some contention. Bing has a tool bar feature for people to download that actively tracks your search queries and web searches so Bing can bring you more personal and accurate search results. Taking this into consideration the whole concept of the Google “honeypot” is ultimately rigged. Google knew that using this toolbar would have Bing track the users search results and shore up any weaknesses in Bing results for that same user.

Seems like a lame attempt to knock Bing down a peg before its big announcement today. Any sane person would notice that this does not impact the value of using Bing for its more legitimate features. Its video search, Travel, and Map packages are superior in the industry and at the end of the day those advanced features is what will drive people to use Bing over Google.

Bing: Ignore the smoke screen and stay the course. Stick to differentiation and reap the rewards.

Google: You’re the leader so it will be unlikely for Bing to knock you off your throne. Keep innovating your ad, search and mobile platforms (which you have been doing, KUDOS!) and leave the cheap shots for less respectable competitors.

Now, I leave you with a quote from the beloved Steve Jobs about tech companies. “Good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas”. The tech industry is almost akin to a Zoolander esque standoff. The first to market shows its stuff and the competitors copy and elaborate. It’s just the nature of the business.

Regards,

-The Marketing Ninja