“Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.”

As with all things Google related, people are pretty quick to jump in with their opinions. Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch is not a fan,

“Google search wasn’t broken. It’s one of the few things on the Internet that isn’t. I love it, as does 62% of everyone on the Internet. This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page.”

While someone (sorry, I couldn’t find a name on the blog) over at I’ve Said Too Much, has responded to that with a post simply titled ‘Arrington is Wrong’,

“Google seeks to build a massive distributed curated search into which we are all adding intelligence without ever being aware of it. It is, I would contend, the Big Thing At Google For 2009.”

Meanwhile, over at eWeek, they’re a lot more enthusiastic, seeing it as a boon for users, advertisers and, of course, Google,

“That’s Google’s genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google gets to keep putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we’re looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.”

I’m personally not sure right now.

I think it will be clearly used for Google to start collecting yet more information about what people think of the search results - with the positives and negatives that suggests. People will try and game the system, promoting themselves and so on. If, however, enough people use it, then hopefully the ‘wisdom of crowds’ will help to improve things by adding that human element which is often missing from Google.

That said, I can’t help but agree with Arrington that it looks a mess. Remember how clean Google used to be?

When they first launched it was one of the major things that set them apart. All that lovely white space. The sponsored links were completely separate from the natural SERPs. No nasty banner ads. Just good search results.

But now, between the maps, local search, images, addresses and so on - these additional buttons just seem like yet more clutter.

Will it work? I don’t know. If I search for something, I’m used to Google telling me what I need to know. Using their example from above, I would not use Google to revisit a trail map site time after time, I would bookmark it instead, either on my PC or with Delicious.

I can see times when it would be useful to remove particularly bad results, but how often am I going to suggest a site be added?

And the notes I suspect, will be more trolling than useful unfortunately. I’ve tried a few so far, and there’s nothing that enhances my searching at all. A search for Liverpool FC, for instance, just has 3 right now:

Comment by: Searcher, 9:05am - searching: lfc
“great”

Comment by: Mike, 6:41am - searching: liverpool
“Liverpool FC”

Comment by: 360spin, 8:39am - searching: liverpool
“Wow!”

How do they help me at all?

Perhaps Google is threatened by the growth of social networks and feels that is one area search can be improved. I’m not so sure.

What do you think?

And, well, it’s not good!

Not only does Yahoo not allow you to see the stats from the search partner network, they don’t even allow you to opt-out of the partner network! Instead you can block up to 250 domains.  Unfortunately the search partners are SO numerous, and SO spammy that it’s like playing whack-a-mole trying to keep up with them.

As we have better and better website analytics reporting all the time, from Google, Webtrends, Omniture and so on,  it becomes easier to judge where best to spend your advertising money.

I’ve been using that PPC engine from GoTo, through Overture, up to the present YSM brand, and while things at Google, and even Microsoft AdCenter, have improved, the quality from Yahoo has dropped significantly.

For example, this is from one of our client’s reports from last month:

As you can see, the top referring domain on one day was Shopica.com, which sent over 4 times as much traffic as Google. What do you mean you’ve never heard of them? They’re 4 times as popular as Google.

Unfortunately, as we couldn’t see a single lead, booking, inquiry or anything as a result of that traffic, we put Shopica on the blocked list. However, it takes Yahoo a while to update, so the next day, we got even more visitors from them. And, even more impressively, all the visitors from them came in a one hour period:

Wow!

No doubt you’ll be surprised to learn that Shopica get a cut of all the ad money that I pay to Yahoo for that traffic.  As does Nexplore, who were the next day’s bonus traffic:

Not as impressive, but considering we’re paying around $1.75/click for some of these terms, not to be sniffed at either.

I spoke to my Yahoo Account Manager, who was very polite and understanding, and agreed it was “junk” but said that there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Oh, and no refund either.

What I don’t understand it why doesn’t Yahoo just let us opt out?

Yes, the reach is far greater with all of these sites in the network, but if the end result is a waste of money, people will just stop advertising.

As we learn more and more about the quality of traffic from different sites, it’s hard to justify spending $10,000+ a month (as this client does) on “junk”.

It’s not that we don’t want to use Yahoo, it’s we don’t want to use Yahoo’s partners. Cut them out and we’ll still spend the same amount - only we’ll get more qualified visitors and Yahoo will get to keep more of the money.

Everybody wins, right?

“Previously, these pages divided statistics into two categories: search, which included Google and search partners, and the content network.
Now, we show one set of statistics for Google and another set aggregating search partner performance. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web. ”

This is a major change, comparable to when Google started showing where exactly your ads where coming from in the Content network.

That was a huge step forward, and one that made sense for Google. Previously advertisers were skeptical about throwing money down a black hole which included some very, um, shady Made For AdSense sites alongside the high quality sites they may have wanted to target.

However, these latest changes don’t go far enough. Yet.

We can now see how Google stacks up against the other search partners, but not how the individual partners (Ask, AOL, etc) are performing individually. Rich, over at Destilled is asking the question, “Have Google Shot Themselves in the Foot?”, and it’s a valid point.

Here’s the data for one of the accounts we manage:

(I removed the campaign names for anonymity for my client)

As you can see, in each case the cost per click for the search partners is higher, up to 25% higher, than it is on Google, but even more importantly, the number of conversions (final column) are way down. So I’m paying more, and getting less. That is why all the Search partner ads are now set to ‘Off’. I’d rather spend where it is working.

So, what happens now?

Well I suspect that that many others will follow suit and shut off the complete search network, for example, see this thread at Webmaster World:

“At first glance it looks like 90% of my conversions are from google search only not the network.”

“Wow, just split stats on an account. Bye bye Search Network!”

“We totally disabled Partners in a few campaigns after seeing 100 to 200% higher conversion costs.
No wonder they didn’t show this data for so long.”

And if that happens, I’d have to assume that Google will be forced to show the search network in greater details, if only due to pressure from their partners. If AOL is performing well, for instance, they’re unlikely to be happy about being cut out due to the deficiencies of other sites.

However, for now we have to deal with what we have, and I’m at least glad that I’ve been able to learn this much.

How about you? How do your stats measure up across the different sites?

If you haven’t seen it yet, the video (below) was created in Cyprus by some techies on vacation.  Those involved work for some of the biggest names in the industry - Google, Facebook, Blip.tv, etc - and that’s the problem that Techcrunch has with it,

“The video was released just as Silicon Valley really began falling apart and the UnParty began in earnest - eBay’s 10% layoffs, Google’s stock nosedive, Yahoo’s self destruction, VC’s bunkering down, etc. And more than a few people thought the ostentatious partying was a little, ahem, tasteless in light of the meltdown back home.”

Ok, so here’s the video:

I’m not quite sure why Michael Arrington thinks it’s so ‘tasteless’ (he may have said, “more than a few people thought it was tasteless”, but let’s be honest, he’s projecting his own feeling here) - All I’m seeing is a bunch of young people having a good time on vacation. In fact I wish I had been there myself. They’re not bathing in champagne or lighting cigars with $100 bills. Just singing, drinking beer and having fun.

Sure the markets are in meltdown, but are we all supposed to be donning the hairshirts and sitting around watching the talking heads on CNBC tell us how the world is going to end any minute? I’ve already posted this week about optimism, but I think this article goes even beyond that. This isn’t simply being pessimistic, it’s an attack on fun, and includes this ridiculous hyperbole:

“fair or not the video video will always be associated with the end of Web 2.0″

What does that even mean?! If Web 2.0 means the social web, how does a funny Youtube video which has spread virally through blogs prove the end of that?

I’m not sticking my head in the sand over the current financial crisis - I got my daughter’s Future Scholar statement this morning, I know how things are - but can’t we allow a little room for having a good time?

I think if you have to say something about this video, it should be to praise the production values - I mean, really, it’s a single cam tracking shot right up there with the club scene in Goodfellas, the pool party in Boogie Nights or this from Soy Cuba:

Who’d have thought that, from a bunch of tech geeks?

Ah, the power of love!

Congratulations to both Sean and Tara - hope you’ll both have a wonderful life together.

A great idea, you’ll no doubt agree.

We gave some thought to 5 more features our Internet Overlords should take a look at, in order to save us from ourselves:

Facebook Heartbreak Timecapsule - When your Relationship Status changes from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Single’, Facebook stores all your wall posts, messages, pokes, etc for a period of 9 months, and then allows you to decide whether or not you really want to tell her that she’ll regret it and you’ll never stop loving her.

Ebay ELIZA - turned on automatically after you look at two or more kitsch items costing over $5. The software will nag you with AI intelligence , “Do you really need that? Where will you put it? Shouldn’t we fix the ____ first?” until you finally give up and go to bed.

iTunes Rock Snob - Interrupts your playlists with sarcastic comments about your music choices, “More Air Supply?! Great”, and suggests obscure German bands of the 70s from the iTunes store instead.

MySpace for Dads - let’s you design and play with your page as much as you like, but blocks your kid’s friends from seeing it so they don’t have to live a life of shame at school.

Yahoo Happy News - filters out any news items with mentions of the economy, mortgages, Iraq, or Paris Hilton. Currently a blank page.

Can you think of any more you’d like to see?

Which is why I was pretty surprised by the apparent anger and ‘doom+gloom-ery’ in this post.

Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone is pretty angry at having to bail out private companies, and then see them blow $400,000 on a spa retreat. I doubt many felt a great deal of sympathy for the Lehman Bros CEO after he was punched by an employee on Sunday (not that we condone violence, obviously!). Right now anger is perfectly understandable.

But anger, as John Lydon used to sing, is an energy, and that is where I think I differ from Jacob on this one.

His blog was a response to this post on O’Reilly.com, suggesting that the recession will be good for innovation. So to some degree it looks like they are talking at cross-purposes. Saying that a recession is good for tech+innovation isn’t the same as saying that a recession is a good thing.

For example, I think I can safely assume that most people think the Second World War was a ‘Bad Thing’ - the Holocaust, 100s of millions of lives lost, the beginning of the Cold War, etc, etc. The closet we have seen to Hell on Earth.

And yet it is also undeniable that those tragic circumstances were good for technology and innovation - the birth of the modern computer, jets, nuclear technology, medical advances in skin grafts, antibiotics, the birth of the Space Age and so on. People can debate whether or not those things would have happened anyway, but it is true that the war speeded up the process due to necessity, and the same can be true of a recession.

The last recession wiped out jobs too, but (just in the Internet industry) some of those talented people working behind the scenes at Pets.com, Flooz.com and other sites which seem like jokes now, have gone on to create much greater value at Google, Yahoo, Ebay and other success stories. Who knows what great things will be invented by a programmer who gets laid off by AOL, for example?

Nobody wants a recession. I feel enormous sympathy for anyone who is suffering at this time because of things that are beyond their control. But I am (naively?) an optimist. I like to believe that when people are pushed to find new ways of doing things they will. I think that history has shown that this country is better equipped than most to allow new ideas to become great. Yes, many will be hurt be the coming financial problems, but some of those people will use that as a springboard to achieve something wonderful, and that will help to lift us all out of the recession.

After all, this is a country where even bank robbers are finding innovative uses for Internet services. I’ll continue to have faith in the power of people to overcome adversity through technology.

(tip of the hat to Donor Power Blog, where I came across this):

Unlike the ‘edgy’ Truth stunts and videos, which appear to be trying way too hard, this campaign actually worked, not only in raising awareness of the issue, but (more importantly?) dollars too. Well, Euros.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Twitter. It’s currently both my favorite waste of time and my most productive outlet. For fun, making contacts, publicity, research and much more, Twitter is simply the best right now.

But…

While it’s easy to make contact with those in your field, or with similar interests, it can be kind of tricky to find those geographically close to you. You can try TwitterLocal, or search for mentions of you city, but it’s still a bit hit or miss.

So, inspired by the Official Nashville Twitter List, we decided to start the Official Lowcountry Twitter List. If you’re looking to make local contacts, we’re here. If you want to make yourself known, please send us your info via the form or contact @simonashton on Twitter . Feel free to copy or share the page, the more the merrier, and any suggestions or comments are more than welcome.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Plot Synopsis

In the 28th funniest movie of all time (official!), 3 disgraced parapsychologist professors leave academia and form a private firm providing paranormal investigations - calling themselves Ghostbusters. After some initial set backs the business takes off, they defeat the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and save the world. Obviously.

Business Analysis

When people think about Ghostbusters they think of the big climactic ending, “He slimed me” or Signorney Weaver writhing around on the bed (incidentally, this is very uncomfortable to watch with your six year old), but they tend to forget the first half of the movie is the gang sitting around with no clients, no income and lots of expenses.

After all, nuclear accelerator proton packs don’t come cheap.

But, with the success of their first ‘busting, all of a sudden there are more and more calls for their services, as the Sumerian deity Gozer tries to open an inter-dimensional doorway which will destroy the world.

And this is why businesses should be embracing social media today.

Lessons Learned

We meet a lot of clients who are definitely interested in podcasting/a blog/Facebook page/etc. Just not right now. Not with the economy the way it is. Once things pick up. And so on, and so on.

Did Venkman, Spengler and Co think like that?

No way!

They were prepared. So when Zuul threatened, Ghostbusters were already primed and ready to go. In fact more people were hired to help with the workload. They had their infrastructure in place, TV ads were already promoting their slogan - “We’re Ready to Believe You” - and, most importantly, they had a huge head start over any potential competition.

So, in this increasingly tortuous analogy, their Ghost Containment Grid is your social media involvement and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is a booming economy. If you’re prepared, and your competition isn’t, you can be a Ghostbuster.

We all know the financial situation is, um, less than perfect right now, and advertising/marketing dollars are tight - but things will pick up sooner or later. The beauty of social media marketing is that it is free-to-cheap. You can find someone to do some of the work for you (ahem), or spend a little time and do it yourself.

Start building your Facebook Group now and by the time Happy Days Are Here Again, you’ll probably find you have a good following of people ready to work with you. Jump into monitoring Twitter before your competition even knows what it is and pinch some business from right underneath them. Just remember that there is no time like the present.

In the truly timeless words or Dr Peter Venkman, “I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! Let’s do it!”