ResourceShelf has compiled sources of historical complaints Google has issued to those who have registered Google-like domain names. To do so, ResourceShelf searched through the “World Intellectual Property Organization’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) database and the National Arbitration Forum Domain Name Dispute Proceedings and Decisions database for the information. The most recent domains to be transferred to Google’s ownership include; googlecheckout.com, googlematching.com, googleoutdoors.com. More details on how to find more of these names at ResourceShelf.
Social Networks gaining on Top Portals
August 18, 2006See cool charts and the entire article here.
Membership at social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace is exploding. Everyone is doing it. Well… a lot of people are. In June, 2 out of every 3 people online visited a social networking site.
Since January 2004, the number of people visiting or taking part in one of the top online social networks has grown by over 109% (primarily driven by MySpace). Most of this growth has come about in the past 12 months alone! Social networking sites are now close to eclipsing traffic to the giants – Google and Yahoo.
It’s Official: Web Users Like Search Ads! by did-it.com
August 18, 2006According to an article in Brandweek Magazine, a new study soon to be released by Interpublic Group’s Universal McCann contains some interesting clues as to why search ads are so effective: basically, they’re the form of advertising deemed least offensive by Web users. According to the study, sponsored-search links, along with site sponsorships, banners, and buttons, got the thumbs up from 80 percent of Web users participating in the poll. When delivered by e-mail, however, thier approval rating dropped to just above 50 percent.
On the plus side, several kinds of ads were deemed “acceptable” by a majority of the respondents. Site sponsorships, banners, buttons and Google-sponsored search links were viewed favorably by more than 80% of those polled. But put those same banners, buttons and links in an e-mail and push them to consumers and the level of acceptance drops sharply, with just 48% of those polled in the survey viewing that form of marketing in a favorable light. Not surprisingly, pop-up ads were disliked by all but 12 percent of the respondents.
Pharma to Spend More on Online Advertising by marketingvox.com
August 18, 2006See the original article- here
There is a “shift in focus from ‘direct-to-consumer’ to ‘direct-to-patient,’ from mass marketing to relationship marketing,” says Lisa E. Phillips, senior analyst and author of the new report “Pharmaceuticals Online: Direct-to-Patient Becomes a Reality.” The shift is the result of changes in consumer behavior and attitudes toward healthcare, coupled with government and self-regulatory pressures, she says.
eMarketer projects that pharmaceutical and healthcare internet spending will increase from $625 million in 2005 to $835 million this year, as marketers shift to more targeted opportunities that the web offers. Within two years, online advertising spend is expected to reach $1.41 billion, or some six percent of the estimated $23.5 billion in total internet advertising spend in 2008.
Health-focused portals are poised to become the next big vertical market online, according to eMarketer. Moreover, pharmaceutical companies are moving beyond branded drug sites to building online communities centered on various health conditions.
Amazon releases Search suggestion tool-by resourceshelf.com
August 18, 2006Interesting idea that we want to learn much more about. Will people participate beyond tech geeks. Do we call it “controlled tagging” or “end user metadata creation assistance?” (-:
Worthy of much more exploration and monitoring but it’s easy to think how this system (the one we need to know more about) could work in a library setting.
1) User Submits Tags (Keywords) that Explain Relationship between tag and Amazon.com item
2) Editors? (we don’t know precisely how this works) approve or deny
3) If approved, tags help explain relationships, example below.
From the news release:
Search Suggestions are user-submitted recommendations for connecting a product to specific keywords, as well as an explanation of why the connection is relevant. Once a Search Suggestion is approved, the product along with its relevancy explanation appears in search results the next time a customer searches using those keywords. Anyone can submit a Search Suggestion directly from the detail page for a product and there is no charge.
For example, thanks to a recent Search Suggestion from an Amazon.com customer, the Shakespeare play “Macbeth” now appears when customers search for “The Scottish Play.” The customer’s explanation is shown next to a link to the book: “theater superstition dictates that ‘Macbeth’ is referred to as ‘the Scottish play.’”
Come to think of it, Amazon.com’s IMDB has allowed members to submit keywords about movies. They are also reviewed by editors.
Google Analytics Opens to Everyone – No Invitation Required by Elisabeth Osmeloski @ Search Engine Watch
August 18, 2006Google announced today that the popular Google Analytics is now instantly available to the public. No more waiting for invitation codes. Anyone with a website can now install the website tracking tool by directly signing up at the Google Analytics homepage, or by clicking through the “Analytics” tab in any Google AdWords account. It is not required to have a Google Adwords account to run Google Analytics.
Yahoo Releases Yahoo Answers API by Barry Schwartz @ Search Engine Watch
August 18, 2006The Yahoo Search Blog announced the release of the Yahoo Answers API. The API will allow developers to pull questions from the Yahoo Answers database by search, category, and user. You can even get the answers for those questions. More details at http://developer.yahoo.com/answers/.
Danny Sullivan the Godfather of SEM/SEO and Jean-Pierre Khoueiri
August 18, 2006
Danny Sullivan the Godfather of SEM/SEO and Jean-Pierre Khoueiri
Originally uploaded by jpkhoueiri.
Danny Sullivan was kind enough to invite me to SES Miami. I had a blast and learned more in 2 days than I ever could have imagined. Great going Danny, keep em coming.
101 ways to build link popularity in 2006
August 17, 2006Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall write a great to do list for the link biz. You can read it here.
Monitoring Meeting Costs by J. chang
August 16, 2006Please send feedback and comments to jchang@salesandmarketing.com
When planning a meeting, it’s usually the biggest costs—the venue, the speaker’s fee, or housing—at the top of managers’ minds. But if you put your budget under the microscope, you’ll often find that the devil’s often in the details.
Here are some tips for controlling the little costs that can add up:
1. Negotiate Fees
While vendors have to watch their own backs to make sure they aren’t losing out if your meetings go bust, those kill fees can add up—especially if your organization hosts many sales meetings a year. “One of our pharmaceutical [clients] were paying almost a million dollars a year for cancelled space,” says Cindy D’Aoust, senior vice president for consolidation business solutions at Maritz McGettigan, a Philadelphia-based meeting-planning firm. Though that figure may seem hard to miss, D’Aoust’s clients, who are primarily large pharmaceutical firms, easily spend $100 million on meetings over the course of a year, she says. To avoid swallowing those cancellation costs entirely, D’Aoust negotiated with her preferred hotel partners to use the fees as credit toward future meetings with them.
2. Scoping Out Vendors
Almost anyone can be a vendor, as Gerri Ayers, who heads up Houston-based Ayers Meetings and Events, discovered when she was trying to plan a sales-incentive kickoff meeting for an appliances company. The incentive was a trip to Hawaii, so Ayers had to turn the company’s showroom into a luau. To take care of the tropical-plant decorations, she approached some vendors who sold plants off their trucks on the side of the road, and asked if she could “rent” their wares for a night. “I told them I’d pay them a few hundred bucks, and that I’d feed them dinner,” she says. “I got an entire showroom of tropical plants”—with little cleanup afterward. The men simply hauled the plants in, and took them back at the end of the night.
3. Using Technology
While there are some meetings that simply require face-to-face interaction, Internet technology can help take eliminate some of the work, and make the costlier onsite meetings more productive, D’Aoust says. “Many companies are doing prework ahead of time via Web conferencing, or putting information on their Web site,” she says, to make important data available to attendees.
4. Be Flexible
Ayers says being flexible with your dates, even by a day or two, can also make all the difference when you are negotiating hotel rates. The hotel could have a busy time that ends at a certain date, and starting your conference a day after could mean much lower rates. “Sometimes it could be that one whole big group is leaving, and yours could come in right after,” she says. Or, “Ask the hotel when they need your business. I’ve saved groups fifty percent on their rooms” just by being flexible with dates, Ayers says.
Cow Electric 