tone-sensitive facebook sharing

facebook 'recommend' button

I was reading an article on news.com.au on the state of the asylum seekers when the boat crashed onto Christmas Island. it was a piece of horrible news, and i saw that the familiar facebook 'like' button had been replaced with a 'recommend' button. this is of course much more appropriate given the nature of the news article.
i think more news sites should use the 'recommend' button instead of the 'like' button.
how many times have we read horrible news and wanted to share it on facebook, but it seems so inappropriate to 'like' an article of such nature? for instance recently a gang murder was carried out in the heartlands of Singapore. the last I read, 3000 people 'liked' the article.

Interestingly, this only affects Facebook, because it doesn't shy away from using emotive language.
Twitter for example, favours a more objective 'retweet' button.
But here you can see the power of Facebook compared to other social networks -  and that i think captures the essence of facebook and endears it to us all - a way to be human, online.

Search is not dead.... Enter YouTube Topics Beta!

a post ago i said that Google was 'holding the fort' in search.
Well, looks like the giant is not a big elephant. it certainly has not lost it's edge, backed by smart engineers who are given time to explore their own side projects, the latest one is not mind-blowing, but is a natural progression towards the more social aspect of search that has been the trend nowadays.
first we had bing integrate its results into facebook. we had msn and facebook link up. we have yahoo social ads. we have twitter search, of course.
and now, we have Youtube Topics.

An introduction to YouTube Topics
Youtube Topics is something like organic search for video.
when you enter a keyword search, popular topics are displayed just below.
These topics are based on frequently used descriptors that youtube users 'tag' their video with when they upload.

Youtube statement:

Q: How are topics generated?
We use many different sources including frequently used uploader keywords, common search queries, playlist names, and even sources outside of YouTube such as Wikipedia articles.

Q: Will I see topics on all searches?
You might not see topics on some searches. Our goal is to show topics when they are useful and we will continue working on finding useful topics for more of your searches.

Q: How do I leave the experiment? 

From the search page, click on the "Turn off" link next to “YouTube Topics experiment”.


This can give you quite interesting data, on what topics are the most popularly associated with a certain keyword.
A sample search for 'ibanez', for example, yields an interesting find -- that the artists steve vai, paul gilbert, joe satrani, john petrucci are most associated with ibanez.

Then, I searched for 'les paul'. this time, artists zakk wylde, slash, chet atkins are popularly linked with 'les paul'.

This can give valuable data mining insights on who have the top of mind share for a product category.

try it yourself!

the new search leaders

this is a short post, as a reminder to self to expand on this topic later.
it used to be that Yahoo and Google were the dominant players in search industry. not anymore. while Google is still holding the fort, trying to reinvent itself, Yahoo is now at the bottom, from what began as a slow slide to a current and realistic 'i'm in the junk pile' market position, really.
Reason i say this is, search technology for Yahoo is so far down in the dumps that it is a pain to use. Bing used to be the number one leader in horrible search technology (those days it was still called MSN SearchCenter), but now, Yahoo beats it by a mile. Bing, on the other hand, is making good for lost time and is continuously improving its technology with a whole office full of geeks at the ready, as can be proved by smarter integration with Facebook, social search, Bing maps...
Yahoo, on the other hand, continues to emphasize the 'human touch' (read: pen and paper, abacus, calligraphy, typewriter) and as a result, fails to recapture lost market share, year upon year. I'd say, if Yahoo and MSN Search could be listed on the stock exchange, put your stocks in MSN, and sell away all those Yahoo stocks you may have! :s

Do you know how to Analyze Competition in Google Adwords?

everyone should know this...but it's a good reminder. and the graphics are cute!!

Bing and Facebook integrate Socially for a win-win deal

Bing increasingly eyeing the Social space by integrating its results with Facebook. Increased connected-ness allows you to sync status updates you share on MSN messenger with Facebook, and vis versa. You can also now see all your facebook friends in Messenger as well, which gives you the convenience of chatting with your contacts in one window only. Of course, what this means for MSN is only good news -- by showing facebook's millions of users on Messenger, it essentially broaden's their reach and impressions, meaning more ad inventory to sell, meaning more big bucks...which is good news for the Ad Sales team. It is also a win-win for Facebook -- as this allows Facebook to grow its advertising platform, which has long been a headache for the management -- as anti-privacy cries ring loud in the facebook community and users do not want to see their favourite social network plastered full of ads. Essentially, this is an advertising breakthrough for Facebook, and you can expect to see much more ads on the platform in the future. 

What's the Hoohah on Binghoo

Yahoo Panama is transitioning out and searches are going to be powered by Bing.
This roll out starts as early as 15Oct for US advertisers. For the rest of the world, it is not announced yet when the transition will take place and we are waiting for timelines.

Impact on your campaigns
I'll spread this out in a later more detailed post but for now, it's important to note that the transition means come 15Oct, ALL search advertisers RE-ENTER the auction and your history will not be maintained. The impact will not be as great compared to if Google and Bing were to merge, for example. This is because Google uses a more robust quality score factor and historical data to determine Ad rank, while Yahoo's algo is not that dependent on history. Am awaiting news from Yahoo on my questions. Till then, fingers crossed..

Did you know? Google Maps photos are synced with Panaromio, a photo sharing site. So now you can truly couch travel as and when...just not during your meeting!

Google Map Photos synced with Panaromio

Building an Effective SEM Keyword List: Avoid the folly of first time marketers

When building out a keyword list, resist the urge to put in everything and the kitchen sink.
I Want Everything AND The Kitchen Sink – The folly of first-time marketers
As its name implies, the strategy here is to cover all grounds possible by having a leave-no-stone-unturned mentality. In this method, the marketer chooses to instruct the agency to include all kinds of keywords in the initial list. This includes keywords that are even very remotely related. Let’s take for instance, an imaginary auto insurance campaign.

Marketer: the term "wedding" should be included in the list

Agency: I would advise against this, since the product and the term are not closely related.

Marketer: “What’s the problem with this? In our research, couples who are getting married soon will also be buying a car, and would hence need auto insurance…”

Agency: “Yes…there is a percentage that would, but it is going to appear irrelevant to majority of people who are getting married and not thinking of buying a car at all. Also, Adwords is essentially an auction system – our ad would be competing against advertisers who are promoting wedding services for couples about to tie the knot – wedding planners for example.”

Marketer: “Ok. But this is pay-per-click right. So if they don’t click, I don’t need to pay. Simple. So what’s the problem?”

Agency: “Well, the Adwords system ‘rewards’ the more relevant ad by showing it more often, and the less relevant ad less often. After some time, our ad will stop showing for the “wedding” terms and will develop a low quality score.”

Marketer thinks: What was all that geek speak! Anyhow, I’M the Boss. So he should listen to me.
“Whatever. We’ll deal with that. (Cooks up some excuse to justify)…Just add it in.”

Agency: Erm...ok boss…


Imagine the two ads below.

Keyword search:
“Wedding”

Ads:
Planning your Wedding?
Buying a family car soon: Motor
Insurance Plan from $1 Per Day!
www.motomotorinsurance.com
Latest Wedding Dresses
Latest Designer Wedding Dresses of
2010 Just From $60,Shop Now!
www.weddingdresses.com

Perhaps one in a thousand people who are getting married are thinking of buying a car. But a definite higher percentage, say, one in a hundred, will be looking for wedding gowns.
Click through rate of Auto Insurance ad = 1/1000 = 0.1%
Click through rate of Wedding Dresses ad = 1/100 = 1%

The term “Wedding” in the Auto insurance marketer’s campaign will thus have a lower quality score and stop showing. It will also lower the overall account level quality score, impacting the performance of the whole campaign.

I’ve chosen to make this a rather far-fetched example, but truth be told, this creeps up ever so often in campaign setups, especially for first time marketers using the medium.

The good thing about the paid search model is that it is pay-per-click. Inherently, if there are no clicks, you do not get charged. But exercise caution when building out keyword lists, and when in doubt, keep it tight.

In my opinion, the way to go about building a robust paid search keyword list is to have:

- product terms

- category terms

- complementary terms

But that’s for another post.

UEX: usability

"you're in a hurry. we know. so here's a shortcut to 6 pages that you might be looking for"

excellent! good thinking on the part of the web team on this one, to understand the needs of the surfer who is impatient to find what he's looking for.