adtech Chicago: Tactical Search Strategies: Local and Mobile Search

August 1, 2007 session…

MODERATOR:
Chris Bowler, VP, Media Director, Agency.com

PANELISTS:
Warren Kay, Director of Emerging Products, Yahoo! Search Marketing (not present)

Dominic Preuss, Product Manager, Local Advertising, Google

Janice Rohn, VP of Consumer Experience, Yellowpages.com

John du Pre Gauntt, Senior Analyst, eMarketer

The most important thing about this session is that half of the people from the previous session left – it shows that people don’t understand search and understand its’ importance in the eventual mobile domination. This session was presentations and much less dynamic.

Dominic –
Local and mobile are very much the same. Google Maps changes the way that people uses maps. Google Earth has some great partnerships. Google search on the wap browser. Gmail is an important part of our strategy. It is in a single repository. Discussed local business center. Make sure your information is up to date. Coupons for Maps. Regional targeting, country, state, city and radius. Google Local Business Ads. Google Mobile Ads – shorter messaging, link to mobile website, click to call enabled, carrier targeting, markup language targeting.

Janice Rohn – unfortunately had to leave the room for almost all of her talk…

John – Technical scale is not an issue. It’s about answers not links. It’s about all the collateral as well. The pain is very high. The carriers are not supporting a cookie like feature. Cross-carrier targeting it hard. Talked about a number of challenges facing the space and the fragmentation issues. For every $1 you spend on mobile spend $2 on training your staff. If you have the most wonderful mobile experience and a lousy customer experience, it does not matter! I couldn’t agree more.

Google Apparently Offering Mobile Adwords Vouchers

I just got an email from an SEM shop saying that Google offering “is now offering vouchers worth up to $150 to be used in targeted Google Mobile AdWords campaigns”

Is anyone using this so far? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Potential Chicago Cab Strike July 31 - How to Get to adtech(ad:tech) via CTA

With today’s possible cab strike in Chicago, I thought it would be a good idea to post CTA bus options to arrive at the west end of Navy Pier. Please note that even with these bus options, it is a10 minute walk to the east end of Navy Pier where the Festival Hall is located. I highly suggest taking the bus instead of walking the entire distance and wish the actually CTA stopped at Navy Pier East Entrance #2. Please check out my current question on Yahoo! Answers regarding Navy Pier.

Here are some tips on how to navigate via CTA to Navy Pier. Cash fare on the CTA is currently $2. This is a pdf map of the areas described below.

From the Sheraton: the #29, #65 and #124 buses stop in front of the Sheraton on Illinois and terminate and 600 East Grand Avenue, this will save you three blocks of walking.

The number#124 bus starts in the West Loop at Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center and terminates at 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from Midway Airport, take the Orange line to Roosevelt, walk down the stairs and travel one block west to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from O’hare Airport, take the blue line to Monroe, walk up the stairs, then walk one block east to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those staying at a hotel a bit further north, the #66 bus travels east on Chicago Avenue, then south on Fairbanks to Grand to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those of you attending ad:tech, I have the following high level networking objectives and look forward to speaking with you (please drop me an email contained on my Bio page):

1) I’m seeking anyone with senior contacts at major search engines

2) Anyone with ideas or connections to publishers, advertisers or investors regarding mobile search and mobile advertising.

Have a great show!

Medio Systems Names Robert P Lilleness Chief Operating Officer

As per this press release, Medio Systems named Robert P. Lilleness Chief Operating Officer this month.

It’s notable to me in that he has no previous direct search or advertising experience.

His ownership of Smarthome is certainly an interesting wrinkle. Perhaps Medio sees a potential revenue model in providing services to control devices in your home from the mobile phone someday?

adtech Chicago 2007 is July 31-August 1

Search, Social Media, Video, Gaming and Mobile Advertising leaders will gather in Chicago at a new location on Navy Pier on July 31 and August 1. Many new speakers and a few surprising speakers this year on the agenda. I look forward to seeing you there!

Chetan Sharma Releases Unified Mobile Data Platform White Paper

It was a pleasure meeting Chetan at CTIA in March. Chetan just released a white paper you can get here.

I wish I would have gotten to talk with him more, hopefully we can do this during his Chicago visit later this month.

He also chaired a mobile panel discussion in April in Seattle which you can read about here.

Mobile Search and Content Needs Flexible Revenue Models

“There has to be all sorts of models, both subscription and ad-supported,” Fox Interactive senior vice president and general manager John Smelzer said, speaking at the iHollywood Forum’s Mobile Entertainment Summit. While the revenue mix may be different, he added that the key to driving user adoption of all types of content is “to make the entry point easy.” Source Article

I couldn’t agree with this more. There are too many subscription only mobile models emerging, this will slow adoption in an already fragmented market. The mobile medium is not a failure, many of the business models are. It’s a fascinating paradox. There are too many 20th Century business cases that are being built that work on paper but not in reality.

Happy First Blog Birthday

One year ago today, I started and made my first post on this blog! More importantly, I started an international and quite unpredictable journey of connectedness, friendship acquisition, learning, assumption questioning and personal growth that still amazes me on a daily basis by it’s power to transform my life and the people around me in positive and forceful ways. I’ve had people that I’ve never met provide introductions to people that have changed my life in ways I could not have imagined and have had acts of kindness and generosity that are simply too numerous to list.

In this first year, I’ve teethed, bruised myself and made some mistakes! In the next year, I hope to start walking as I progress from my crawling phase.

Sometimes people ask me what my goals are for this blog. In the short-term, they are career oriented as I am seeking a leadership position in a transformative, growth company, in the long term they about doing everything I can to make the world a better experience for everyone.

So my primary goals are:

1) Using my financial services, Internet and high growth company experiences and competencies to become one of the world’s leaders in mobile search and monetization. It is my belief that over time the lines between financial services, search and social networks will blur in ways that will amaze the world.

2) Use the Peter Drucker principles and quotes I live to help craft and execute elite experiences for those who interact with the companies I’ve serve in the future.

3) Build a transformative relationships in everyday life, as a speaker at conferences and within the blogosphere.

I thank you for your love and support during this first year and I look forward to the year to come being even better. Give yourself a round of well deserved applause and tell your friends and neighbors what a good job you’ve done supporting me! See you soon. Thanks again!

Microsoft Strategic Account Summit 2007

The main parts of the Microsoft Strategic Account Summit are today and Wednesday, here is the schedule. My initial thoughts:

1) I wish it were broadcast online, even the Chris Cornell concert, this is a lost opportunity for exposure to those who can’t be at the summit and build positive PR.

2) We’re going to hear another round of Yahoo! and Microsoft merger talk. Much like Charlene Li, I do not think this is the best path. They would be better off hiring teams of people with experience innovating products and services in different industries. This get past the limiting beliefs of continually hiring passive candidates who demonstrate no loyalty or passion for their present companies.

3) Why is John Battelle the only person at the summit blogging his thoughts? His post is the only one I could find about the opening night’s festivities.

4) I’m interested in information about the people shaping mobile search at the summit, please contact me.

Hugh Griffiths Joins Microsoft as Director of Mobile

Mobile Entertainment reports that “Griffiths will be responsible for the overall strategy and direction of the mobile division within the Online Services Group division.”

It’s interesting to see Microsoft bringing in outside talent for this type of role, we’ll see how this develops. Hugh sounds like someone I’d like to get to know.

Nokia N800 Convergence Product Manger Interview Victor Brilon

While at the recent CTIA conference, I met Victor Brilon and his immensely helpful Nokia publicist. We shared a dynamic conversation that was amazingly informative regarding Nokia and it’s unique ideas regarding the various types of emerging Internet convergence. The Nokia N800 is a device that is clearly “on the other side of the chasm” as Victor proudly describes it. In the time that has followed my visit to CTIA two themes have emerged regarding Nokia 1) They understand the blogosphere and see a significant event in convergence coming and are preparing for these possibilities and 2) The frame I saw when at their booth was one of company who views themselves as “more than just a device maker”. I like that point of view.

Please enjoy my attempt to recreate the magic of my first unplanned meeting with Victor via this podcast. I welcome your feedback on the discussion from yourself and others, especially in regards to your thoughts on the vision for convergence. Thanks!

Nokia N800 Victor Brilon Interview [9:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

CTIA Mobile Search Panel

I will not have a blog entry on this panel. With 6 participants of various backgrounds - it wasn’t focused. The sound was also terrible. There was little flow to the conversation. The session was obviously frustrating to the audience as half of them left before it was over.

There was a minimum of three panels merged into one here - white label mobile search, LBS in conjunction mobile search and voice with mobile search. My view is that CTIA doesn’t fully appreciate the importance of mobile search yet and that the mobile search discussions during the Billboard event on Monday were of superior quality.

The Great Debate: Content Versus Distribution - CTIA MEL 2007

Moderator: Tom Wheeler, Managing Director, Core Capital Partners (extremely well prepared moderator - great job Tom)

Speaker #1: Jim Ryan, VP, Consumer Data Products, ATT (Cingular)

Speaker #2: Larry Shapiro, EVP Business Development, Operations, Walt Disney Internet Group

This is an amazing panel - the session is way too fast paced to blog well enough to be worthy of it’s immense quality. I think I have good audio (thank you to the kind and fine people at Roland for providing me a review copy of the Edirol R-09 last week for usage at this conference) Speaking of audio has anyone found a Youtube type service for audio serving other than yousendit or putting it on a peer to peer network? I’ll try to contact you with it if you leave me comment with a valid email address. An audience poll of this session showed 70% of the people thought there was a role for an aggregator in the process (note - an earlier poll showed the audience to be about 30% carrier folks).

ctiawireless2007 Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live 2007

CTIA Wireless 2007 - Billboard Event

I’m sitting three tables from the front left, please stop by and say hello.

Leaving for CTIA Wireless 2007

I’m interested in meeting anyone and everyone in the mobile search industry to learn about what you are up to!!! Drop me a line if you are going.

I’m still seeking a pass +1 for the LG Foo Fighters party on Tuesday.

Lastly, I’m interested in speaking with anyone who can provide me a cell phone that will actually work reliably with my Tmobile cell phone service in my current residence. You are a very special person I’ve been seeking to meet for quite some time!

nonofficial tag (why isn’t there and official tag?): citawireless2007 Orlando

Mobile Advertising Network

Mobile Ad Network, it’s interesting to see the hyper competitiveness of this keyword term as it implies a push marketing channel instead of a pull channel such as mobile search. We’ve trained consumers to search for a decade now, why would they want to regress to push models instead of using true mobile search? They have been trained to pull and will eventually demand the same mobile search experience on mobile devices. Hence, while Mobile Ad Network may be a popular term today, it likely will be replaced in the future with keyword terms based on derivatives of mobile search.

Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO of mInfo Interviewed at 3GSM

Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO of mInfo, Inc., a Chinese mobile search firm, was interviewed at 3GSM 2007:

Bena Roberts podcast

Jan Kuczynski podcast

mInfo also released a 2006 mobile search results survey. The podcasts provide some insight into the China mobile search marketplace.

Infospace Cancels JPMorgan Global Internet Conference Appearance

Infospace (INSP) was scheduled to appear at the JPMorgan Global Internet Conference today. It appears that they have canceled the appearance as the timeslot has passed and they are no longer on the schedule.

Tom Sandell, the CEO and Senior Portfolio Manager of Sandell Asset Management Corp., holder of 8.8% of Infospace, stated in a press release today that “We believe that InfoSpace shares are materially undervalued and the board and management should take immediate steps to improve that value. If the company and the board are unable or unwilling to take these steps, we think the company should be sold. As the company’s largest shareholder, our interests are directly aligned with the rest of the shareholder base in seeing value maximized and we may seek representation on the board to protect those interests.”

For more detail on Sandell’s valuation assessment, visit page 23 and 24 of this SEC pdf filing.

In your opinion, who would make good acquirers of Infospace and why do you think that?

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.

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