Upcoming Search Engine Investor Conference Presentations

I thought you’d like to be aware of these, it’s interesting that they announed these almost simultaneously.

Yahoo! to present at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference and
Thomas Weisel Partners Internet Digital Media Conference

Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO, and Susan Decker, Executive Vice
President, Head of Advertiser and Publisher Group and acting Chief Financial
Officer, will present at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference. The
presentation will take place on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 12:30pm
Eastern Time / 9:30am Pacific Time.

Jerry Yang, Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo!, will present at the Thomas
Weisel Partners Internet & Digital Media Conference. The presentation
will take place on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 6:15pm Eastern Time /
3:15pm Pacific Time.

A live webcast of both presentations will be available on the Investor
Relations website at
This link on Yahoo! Investor Relations website

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
announced today that Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer, will
present at the following investor events:

Morgan Stanley Technology Conference
Monday, March 5, 2007
3:15 p.m. ET / 12:15 p.m. PT

Bear Stearns 20th Annual Media Conference
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
8:45 a.m. ET / 5:45 a.m. PT

To access the audio webcasts of the presentations, please visit
This link on the Google Investor Relations website

Questions Regarding Recent SEMPO Survey

At SES Chicago 2006, Tim Daly from SENTEC stated that it would be nice if “SEMPO became more than just a cocktail party” during a session on Search Arbitrage issues. It’s an interesting statement, but based on the recent election results for the board of directors it appears that Mr. Daly will not be influencing that opinion directly during 2007.

Well apparently SEMPO actually is more than a cocktail party as they released a research report the other day. They did not send me the report referenced here, but I find the following to be interesting:

Marketers are even more reluctant to pay for mobile search as almost half of the respondents said they would not pay a premium for that technology.
Almost 25 percent of respondents said they prefer to pay less for mobile search than for traditional search. About two-thirds said they were interested in contextually targeted advertising delivered to mobile search users.

Commentary: I recently used Linkedin Answers to ask the question, ”In your opinion, who are the emerging start up leaders in providing mobile search marketing and related services?” The result? Nobody answered the question publicly and I got a ton of private answers saying “that is a good question”, “I don’t know yet”, etc. How can one make a judgment about the pricing of a medium if they do not have the complete value proposition and in many cases do not even know who the alternatives to traditional search engines are and how they are unique yet?

“The reluctance to hike budgets for video and mobile search reflects the industry’s trend toward an overall pricing plateau,” the survey said. Twenty-five percent of the respondents reported they had reached their pricing ceiling for paid placement. Of the remaining 75 percent, half said the most they could afford in a price increase was 30 percent.

Commentary: Frequently new mediums take revenue streams from other existing mediums. Business history has some dramatic examples of how organizations did not adapt to change because they were afraid of cannibalizing existing revenue streams and it ultimately led to obsolescence. It is just one of a long list of reasons that this period of time is extremely exciting to me.

I didn’t see the survey during the answer gathering. I’m curious to know if ”I don’t have enough information to answer that yet” was an option for the mobile search questions? Thanks.

Mobile Search Marketing Web Property Traffic

Of course this data source is only a proxy at best, but it’s interesting to look at trends, correlate news events and ponder possible meanings. Enjoy.

mobile search marketing traffic -chicago gsb

Anchor Text

Less is always more

Land of Link’in Association (LOLA) - Chicago Internet Leaders to Gather

Last week, I met with Jon Morris and some of his crew at the Internet Marketing Initiative about the return of an event called LOLA, with the goal of making it a premier event that will create a collaboration of resources that will enable Chicago Internet future success stories! We shared some potentially exciting ideas in this regard and I look forward to becoming an active participant in organizing and creating additional functions of value and deepening realtionships with all of you. I hope to see you at this event and many future events! Right now I guess I fit in the thought leader category, where will I fit in the month of March?

Here are the details:

Chicago Internet Leaders to Meet at LOLA

New Networking Event Brings Together

150 Chicago Powerhouse Execs
When:            February 22nd, 2007 (6-8 PM)
Who:              Land of Link’in Association (LOLA) will be attended by 150 of Chicago’s high-level professionals (Directors or above) in the interactive community. Attendees will represent dot-coms, investors, Chicago-based Brick & Mortars with a large internet presence, as well as thought leaders and service providers (i.e. web development companies, interactive agencies, etc.).
What:             LOLA will hold its inaugural meeting to assemble the movers and shakers in Chicago’s interactive community. LOLA is the brainchild of Jon Morris of Internet Marketing Initiative (IMI), whose goal is to create a meaningful interactive focused networking event that brings together people from different sectors, all related to the interactive industry.
LOLA will meet on the last Thursday of every month between 6 & 8 PM. Guests will be treated to free drinks and appetizers. .
Where:          Fulton’s on the River

315 N. LaSalle

Chicago, IL

(312) 822-0100 for directions
For more information regarding LOLA, please visit lolareturns.org

A Suggestion for Google Webmaster Central

During the past week, I had a server move internally and a moved to a server in new data center that required new nameservers. Both of these events caused several hours of downtime.

I found myself thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I could log into my Google WebMaster Tools and inform the Googlebot of these outages so that it a) wouldn’t send a Googlebot during this time period and b) would not draw conclusions based on the downtime. It’s an interesting idea, so I’ll invite Amanda Camp, Adam Lasnik, Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox to consider this idea for a future release.

Future Dining at Esca

Greg Boser put up a thoughtful post on this subject after entering his Dave Pasternack post. Apparently he had a nice conversation with Todd Friesen on this issue. Of course you can find the real chef Dave Pasternack right here.

See you in New York!

Comcasted - Issues Almost Closed Out Now

The serious problems that my Mom and I had recently experienced with Comcast, explained in a post that was promoted to the Digg front page in this guest blog post from my Mom, are on the way to being resolved. We have received refund checks and are awaiting letters confirming that we do not owe Comcast any modems - at that point the case will be closed.

Ben over at the Consumerist saw the story and contacted the proper Comcast people on our behalf. Without that, it never would have gotten resolved, even with being on the Digg front page, this is most unfortunate. Comcast should compensate Ben for the services he provided to resolve an issue affecting their reputation management. Thanks again Ben, I appreciate your help and assistance.

Server Move

Hello there. It’s been quiet here as I attempt to upgrade everything to be Wordpress 2.1 friendly. To top it all off, I will be moving servers this evening. Pure craziness. So if this site in unreachable for a bit, that is why.

As always I appreciate your patience, friendship and assistance. Thanks.

Joshua Schachter = Awesomely Helpful Guy

I was having a small problem with del.icio.us, after stumbling around the site, I found a Yahoo! yellow smiley face with his name on it. Not only did he address my issue, we chatted for about 30 minutes. Tremendously nice fellow. It’s nice to see a founder still accessible and working away on his project a year after an acquisition.

It would be nice to get an interview about current and upcoming del.icio.us issues in the form of an interview or something on this blog. Please consider this an open invitation.

Yahoo Suggestions - Suggestion Deleted

In my post earlier today on Yahoo! Suggestions, I stated the following (in bold no less):

“If Yahoo! builds the appropriate mechanisms to utilize and respond to this feedback, it could easily be the most important thing they do all year.”

I made a post on Yahoo! Suggestions - “Yahoo! E-mail - please improve the spam filters - too much spam gets through” in the hopes that it would get voted on by other people caring about the issue and that Yahoo! would respond by putting resources on correcting the issue. At mid-afternoon, the entry had 9 votes. Then I got the message below stating it was deleted. As I write this I’m absolutely stunned, how can Yahoo! state that the “Suggestion is not actionable by owners of this Suggestion Board, therefore we are removing it.” If this is going to be the normal procedure of Yahoo! Suggestions, I now have serious concerns about the success of the Yahoo! Suggestions initiative. Hopefully, they will review the procedures and improve this.

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:48:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Your suggestion on the my suggestion board was deleted
From: “Do not reply”
A board administrator has deleted the suggestion you placed on the my
Suggestion Board.
Reason provided: Suggestion is not actionable by owners of this
Suggestion Board, therefore we are removing it.
Suggestion topic: Yahoo! E-mail - please improve the spam filters
Yahoo! E-mail - please improve the spam filters - too much spam gets
through

My Yahoo! Suggestion Board Launched

Techcrunch reported today that Yahoo! launched a suggestions site.

If Yahoo! builds the appropriate mechanisms to utilize and respond to this feedback, it could easily be the most important thing they do all year. If Yahoo! does this, Peter Drucker would have been proud of it. I hope they do as this is would be a good way to build a customer focused organization. I like that the interface allows an anonymous entry, it could allow for people who are shy or don’t like making their name public to participate. I made my first wish regarding Yahoo Mail! in this manner just to test it, better email spam filtering! Please support the cause by giving it your vote!

As you know, I have made several suggestions in the past for improving e-mail.

Good luck with the Suggestion Board, Yahoo! This should be your moment to drive innovation and shine.

Adam Soroca of Jumptap Interviewed

Interesting discussion that starts to talk about behaviorial targeting.

10 habits of happy couples

Keith sent out this good advice today….enjoy….

————————————————-

Today Dr. Mark Goulston shares with us his new article “10 Habits of Happy Couples.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Keith Ferrazzi

—————————-
10 Habits of Happy Couples
by Dr. Mark Goulston
—————————-

Happy couples know that the real relationship begins when the honeymoon is over. Unless you maintain a garden of love, it will grow weeds and its beauty will wither and die. So let’s explore 10 habits of highly happy couples:

1. Go to bed at the same time. Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps.

2. Cultivate common interests. After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

3. Walk hand in hand or side by side. Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.

4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode. If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong. If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.

6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work. Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused), and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.

7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning. This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.

8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel. This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.

9. Do a “weather” check during the day. Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.

10. Be proud to be seen with your partner. Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.

Even if these actions don’t come naturally, happy couples stick with them until they do become a part of their relationship. They know that it takes 30 days for a change in behavior to become a habit, and a minimum of six months for a habit to become a way of life and love.
Subscribe to Dr. Mark Goulston’s Usable Insights at
markgoulston.com/list
Subscribe to Keith Ferrazzi’s Tip of the Week at
keithferrazzi.com/subscribe

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Technorati Oddity

I got a new link from a “new blog” this morning. The only problem is that it’s one blog post that part of another blog that links to me already, SEO by the Sea. Here’s a screen shot in case it vaporizes:

Here’s the Technorati profile of this “blog”. This is kind of strange. What is going on here?

Another Reason SEO Matters (Dave Pasternack of Did-it) + Blogroll Submissions

To run a successful SEM campaign on Google and now Yahoo! the quality of the landing page matters, which implies strongly that it is SEO optimized and friendly. So even Google says that you need to have SEO skills to run an SEM campaign!!! Though the sloppy way some folks linked to his bio page makes one wonder if he is losing a war but winning a battle?

In the spirit of SEO, I’m currently adding to my blogroll for a limited time. Please add my blog to your blogroll with just my first and last name and e-mail your link and short anchor text preference. I’ll get right back to you with your new Google PR5 link.

Relevant links:

Dave Pasternack

If I missed a relevant site, please let me know.

3GSM World Congress Barcelona - Starts Now

3GSM World Congress starts Monday in Barcelona. It bills itself as “the world’s leading mobile communications conference and exhibition” (in lower case letters just like that too). There is rumored to be some serious negotiations going on in terms of white label mobiel search providers and the cell phone carriers (if you hear anything interesting drop me a note). If you’re going or are there, please drop me a line. You are someone I should know.

I want to praise something - I *love* the way this press contact list is set up for the exhibitors. It should become a standard practice.

It appears there is another white label search player emerging - MCN.
Among bloggers, these folks have caught my eye with posts so far: Dan Appelquist, Alessandro Pace and others!

tag: 3GSMworldcongress2007

Maybe Major Media Should Actually Research How Digg Works

Probably like you most of you, I’m getting tired of the major media writing stories about social media that are completely inaccurate and not fully researched. They spread inaccurate information that is often the first impression for many people. In recent “The Wizards of Buzz” WSJ article, Jamin Warren and John Jurgensen wrote the following:

“On the other side of this battle are companies like User/Submitter.com. The site promises to pay users “easy money” for “digging,” or voting on, links on Digg.com. Its offer is simple: Pay User/Submitter $1 for every “digg,” or vote, you request and in turn it’ll pay a user. Users can earn 50 cents for every three “diggs,” and User/Submitter pockets the difference. At any given time, a top submission on Digg has anywhere from 800 to 3,000 votes, meaning a successful campaign could cost thousands of dollars.”

While I don’t know anything about User/Submitter.com (nor do I want to for obvious reasons) - I do know this statement from the article shows a clear lack of understanding of how Digg actually works. I got a bright idea, why don’t reporters like Jamin and John actually sign up, log in and use the system for a while before writing stories like this? It’s a good question.

If they had, they would understand that for a story to make the front page, it usually takes between 25-60 Diggs depending on various factors (time of day, amount of activity that day, etc). Once a story is on the front page, the now Dugg content organically gets tons of Diggs as it migrates from the top of the home page. So, even if someone did manage to page $1 per Digg, it would not cost thousands of dollars.

You might want to e-mail the reporters that wrote this story in the link above and ask them to do actual research by using social media before writing their next story. The gap between major media and social media might become smaller if they did.