Recent Articles
May 12, 2008
Despite the hassles associated with air travel, I must admit that there is one part I do relish: disconnecting from all things digital while in flight. Where I once wore my 24/7 accessibility like a Girl Scout badge, I now long for the few hours where I am both unreachable and unable to reach out.
May 05, 2008
It is hard to visit a Web site today without being asked to register, comment, social bookmark, upload content or forward to a friend. These feature sets are all examples of what O'Reilly infamously dubbed Web 2.0, where the Web is a platform for services that encourage participation and sharing among the masses.
April 28, 2008
Since my childhood in rural Wisconsin, when I once convinced my younger brother to try to dig to China, a lot has changed. China's population is estimated at 1.3 billion, and while the economy's growth is expected to slow by 1% this year, it still sits at an enviable 10.7%. This growth helps swell the middle class, disposable income and, ultimately, Internet usage. Just last week, China's Xinhua News Agency reported that the nation has 221 million Internet users.
April 21, 2008
This Thursday, hundreds of marketing communications professionals will gather in person for "Authentic Communications 2008: Beyond Web 2.0, What's Next?" The day-long conference will feature technologists, PR professionals and online marketing gurus, each with a different take on how best to deliver authentic communications in today's world of consumer-generated media, employee blogs and Facebook pages. In a prep call for my panel, I realized how fruitful the conversation could be when extended beyond the search and social media clique.
April 21, 2008
Over the past year, some Internet marketers have noticed that the Web, once a global network to connect people around the world, is now subject to the regional decisions of ISPs, governments and search engines, which engage in "filtering" or censorship of content. For the online marketer, this means that dollars spent on international SEO, social media, display and e-mail campaigns and so on may be futile if a government or corporation chooses to stand in the way.
April 14, 2008
For many marketers, it is hard to remember what life was like before Google Analytics. So profoundly useful, few will recall that it was just two and a half years ago that the service arrived on the scene, providing free tracking to anyone who knew how to copy and paste code. Last year, a major update added multiple bells and whistles, including an easy-on-the-eyes interface and scheduled reporting. And most recently, Google Analytics launched a data sharing and benchmarking service.
April 07, 2008
I'm not quite sure what the record for the longest client/SEM relationship is, but my money is that the average is around two years. This is to be expected for such a young and rapidly changing industry; when a client's spend increases tenfold, or an agency doubles in size, growing pains are bound to occur. What is unexpected is that few firms have completely digested what it takes to get through these pains to build solid relationships.
March 31, 2008
Perhaps the worst thing the Internet has brought to our society is a warped sense of time. CNN.com brings us minute-by-minute updates on Britney Spears' life, search engines give us millions of results for any given query in the blink of an eye and RSS delivers us the latest news from our favorite sources without having to lift a finger. Suddenly, all information is old within a few hours, and we have become increasingly impatient with any process that takes more than a few minutes.
March 24, 2008
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting, alongside Dana Todd, the preliminary findings from the SEMPO State of the Market Survey at Search Engine Strategies New York. Despite being the last day of the show, a respectable number of people showed up to see where the market is heading in a very uncertain economy. The survey of 867 advertisers and agencies was conducted by Radar Research and administrated by Intellisurvey Inc. In the interests of full disclosure, I sit on the board of SEMPO.
March 17, 2008
The news on this second day of Search Engine Strategies New York is that 360i has picked up award-winning digital design, development and marketing firm i33. The acquisition brings expertise in designing and developing social media applications, widgets, websites and other rich media experiences, as well as clients Marvel Entertainment, PBS, New Era Cap, Target and Borders.