Google has just add a nifty new feature to there 1-800-GOOG-411. For those of you who don’t know what this number is it’s a free directory line hosted by Google that’s completely voice automated. In addition to the great feature of it being absolutely FREE Google gives users the ability to receive a text message with details and a link to a map of the results just by saying the magic words “Map it.” Amazing! Check out the full scoop at the Official Google Blog.
The fine folks at Google have just announced the ability to find dictionary translations for words depending on the context. Now I can finally fulfill my dreams of cussing someone out in another language thanks Google. I wonder how you say domination in Italian. Check out the full details here at the official Google blog.
The scheduled update which will allow negative keywords to be added at campaign levels has been postponed, according to the latest adcenter Blog. You can read their full apology here. Maybe this is why they are third in the Tier 1 search engine ranks. Oh well I just hope they extend the length of an inactive session past 10 seconds or this upgrade means nothing to me.
Looks like a bit of a re-org going on here after the ouster of the current CEO.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Yahoo Inc. said Sunday the Internet media company was merging the two main parts of its U.S. advertising business under one sales executive, David Karnstedt, and that veteran advertising sales executive Wenda Harris-Millard has left the company.
Recently elevated Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500) President Susan Decker said in a phone interview that the consolidation of Yahoo’s two advertising arms — display and Web search advertising — reflects growing demand by customers for campaigns that combine both types of ads, with newer types of video advertisements.
Wisecamel.com offers us this delicious article about what marketing strategies he learned from strippers.
Like you, I like strippers.
However, I generally find myself leaving the strip club with an empty wallet. Any business that can get you to spend all of your money is a good one to be in.
But while walking out of a club one evening, I realized that a big reason they have such a good business is because strippers are such great salespeople. It is not simply due to the fact that they are selling to stupid, horny men like myself, but because they use a lot of highly effective sales and marketing techniques
[Read: 10 Sales and marketing Tips I learned from strippers]
Google’s at it again. Add one more fish to the belly of the beast known as Google. According to the Official Google Blog Google has acquired yet another company and its intellectual properties: Zenter an online slide presentations software company.
You’ve heard us talk a lot about using the web to improve group collaboration and information sharing. These days, when you create a document — whether it’s a text document, a spreadsheet, or a presentation — you usually want to share it, collect feedback, or communicate about it in some way. We on the Google Docs & Spreadsheets team focus on making this experience easier and more powerful for you. In particular, we’re working to add presentation-sharing capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and we’re excited about the addition of Zenter’s technology and team to that effort.
ATWICK Passengers landing at Gatwick airport are being greeted by a giant naked pole dancer. The 9,000 sq m (100,000 sq ft) image is painted on grassland under the incoming flight path.
Planning officers are investigating whether permission was granted for the advertisement, which promotes a website. The Council to Protect Rural England said that the display was “a tacky advert which set a nasty precedent”
[Source: Giant Gatwick advert lands in trouble-News-UK-TimesOnline]
Youtube crosses the cultural boundaries and will soon come in nine different flavors. With increasing demand for multilingual and multicultural videos Google has announced that Youtube will now have nine new domains in Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ireland and the UK. You can read the entire story at the Official Google Blog.
In response to many requests, each new site is fully translated and localized for each country including content (Featured Videos, Director Videos, Promotions), as well as the interfaces, search, user support, and such community features as video ratings, sharing, and content flagging. And these new localized versions are built using Google
search technology, so you can quickly find more of what you want to see. Perhaps best of all, you can continue to use youtube.com, or move to one of these localized sites — and switch seamlessly between the two. Happy creating, viewing and sharing!
Oh I’m so excited now I can watch people from around the world act stupid… and think of the foreign girls. Thank you Google for being so damn good.
Seth Godin, offers us an opinion piece about responsibility in marketing.
His argument is that:
If you get asked to market something, you’re responsible. You’re responsible for the impacts, the costs, the side effects and the damage. You killed that kid. You poisoned that river. You led to that fight. If you can’t put your name on it, I hope you’ll walk away. If only 10% of us did that, imagine the changes. Imagine how proud you’d be of your work.
Certainly, people disagree, including Rick Toone:
Knowing that, you probably don’t want me to judge what would be considered responsible marketing. The world would look very different if I did. But, I respect the rights of others who choose to live by alternate values.
So, by whose values would we judge responsibility?
I’m inclined to throw responsibility back on the consumer.
I’m personally inclined to agree with Rick. Seth’s ideals can only have one net conclusion: a formulation of a big brother government, or a perfectly homogenized society in which everyone believes the same. Where is free will then?
There are plenty of things that kill. Snowboarding, hiking, swimming, as well as smoking, or eating too much. It’s these choices that lead to a free society that makes advertising and marketing possible, period. Otherwise, we might as well all dress in beige jumpsuits, get up exactly at 9, take a 20 minute walk (not run, because we might trip and fall) on the grass, eat oatmeal, go to work, come back, exercise, have sex twice a week, then go to sleep at 10– or whatever is the most optimal for our physical well being, regardless of personal choices. The fact of the matter is, eating too much or smoking makes some people very happy– more happier than other choices. Economics is about choices with scarcity. Marketing is about influencing these decisions. Doesn’t mean we don’t have free choice, just because the statistical trend is towards what markets want me to do.
Perhaps marketers think too highly of themselves. Maybe the simple awareness of a product can influence choices, and the whole field is the art of making people aware of the choices they have. There is a reason why smoking and eating too much are problems. They are fun to do sometimes. Desserts, cheeseburgers, and fries taste great, and people smoke for a lot of reasons other than their nicotine addiction.
Say goodbye to your old SEO tricks and make way for the new more rounded SEO tactics. With the advent of Google’s Universal Search and the recent launch of Ask3D text heavy SEO tactics may take backseat to digital asset optimization. SEO may have to broaden its perspective to encompass the new larger horizons brought about by multichannel search results. Lee Odden of toprankblog.com offers his full take on the SEO overhaul.
Both Google’s Universal Search and the new Ask3D interface that show users more information from more sources (news, images, products, video, etc) in the first page of results illustrates the need to consider more media types than standard text documents. There are already quite a few opinions on what effect such a combination of data sources presented within first page search results will have on the future of SEO. Google offers some advice here.
