inhousesem.com

Rumor has it Zagat is for sale and that IAC might buy it. I’m intrigued, as it could mesh with CitySearch, another IAC property, in some really interesting ways. They could become the super site for restaurants. Also, I hate Yelp, so I’d like to see it go down to the old school sites, if they can get it together to provide some serious competition. I like that Zagat’s online site is cleaner looking than CitySearch, but the whole being a member subscription model is convoluted. Are they even making any money off that? Given that other sites are free I doubt it. Take Zagat content online and monetize it with local ads and reservations partnerships, stuff like that, and then you’re cooking. I am sure there’s plenty of synergy between them and CitySearch at any rate.

I Love the Interweb, Industry

Chris Sherman did a great webcast today on big sites and big brands search engine marketing, I recommend checking it out if you manage some big azz SEM. Lots of in-house managers were in attendance, seems like the number of us is growing! As a marketer who’s been in the position of having to manage part or all of a portfolio of sites for a big company, I appreciate a lot of the challenges in competing departments or sites fighting for the same share of searches. Generally I think all the advice was good. The one thing I would have emphasized more is that ROI analysis is really key, in terms of bottom line profits for an e-commerce company, whichever site or department is making the most profit off the search term should be the owner (if multiple owners aren’t possible). This may require testing to determine, but ultimately it benefits the company to route keywords to the most efficient converting content. Likewise if its possible that two paid ads are running in competition, which is the higher bidder should be ROI driven.

In terms of the branding and search content, Chris touched on some of the themes that will be present in my SMX West presentation for the Search 4.0: Search Ads & Behavioral Targeting session. The interaction between other online ads like banners and search program performance will definitely be a part of the discussion for that session as well. It should be an interesting session, so if you are attending SMX West I encourage you to stop in and say hi. In the meantime Chris’ webcast will be available online sometime soon at Search Marketing Now, so check it out.

Industry, Tip of My Hat

In one word: uninspired.

Who doesn’t already have some USB memory? Like maybe, the one Google sent me a year or two ago. And while the DonorsChoose.org gift certificate is sweet, it was the present Yahoo! sent last year. Whoever is working on Google’s holiday gifts seems to have phoned it in. The card was pretty, but I am pretty sure the supposed to look like recycled cardboard packaging wasn’t post consumer.

Anyway all of this is just a reminder that ’tis better to give than to receive, so check out Viator’s Charity page. Yours truly picked the charities, with some input from the Viator staff.

Industry, Wag of My Finger

I am getting really annoyed at all the governments who didn’t say word one about Microsoft acquiring aQuantive who are now persistently giving Google a hard time about their DoubleClick acquisition. Double standards like this make me crazy, but worse I think is how poorly educated all these governments are about technology, in this case specifically online advertising. It is very apparent that they just don’t know what they are talking about, and yet, they are persistent in bumbling along to try to investigate, interview, and generally just make a nuisance of themselves around this acquisition. They should fly in Danny Sullivan, or anyone with basic competency really (me?), to do a one day seminar on what online marketing is and how it works. Clearly they don’t understand the information Google already collects, or their current reach on the internet via all their products and services. They don’t understand the competitive environment for online advertising, or who the major players are in the space. As usual bureaucracy is wasting a lot of time and tax dollars on something that is going to have no positive impact for consumers, as opposed to say, doing something useful. Mark my words the acquisition will go through, so all of this is for naught. Go make me some national health care, or at this point, I’d even settle for an airline passenger bill of rights. Sad.

Unfortunately the ineptness at any government to understand technology is nothing new. Ted Stevens famous pronouncement that the internet was a “series of tubes” (hilarously remixed here) floored me at the level of incompetence being openly flouted. We should be embarrassed. Say what you will about the Clinton administration, but at least they had some basic understanding of the internet and wanted to foster it. The United States should be blanketed in free high speed wifi by now, but of course, the telecommunications industry being what it is, and our government being what they are, that just isn’t happening. Not even San Francisco has free wifi as yet, which is fairly awful given what a tech savvy city we are, and how many offers we’ve gotten from companies like Google and Earthlink who are willing to provide it. Think about how much innovation could come out into the economy if everyone had free internet access.

Shame on us really for electing such fools (not that are choices are all that great), but really our leadership needs to step it up when it comes to understanding online technology and its role in our economy and lives.

Industry, Wag of My Finger

I have been to the massive Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose no less than four times (might be five, they all blend together after awhile). At the risk of sounding like an old coot, I remember when it was just a bit over two days long and everyone could fit in one conference room. The last SES I attended was in 2006, and the multi-tracked 4 day extravaganza was a far cry from where it began. This year, after some consideration, I took a pass.

If you’ve been before, especially many times before, the sessions are repetitive. Yes, there are new sessions every year, but not many. And yes, the content of the perennial favorite sessions update and change, but not much. Also I personally just get tired of seeing some of the same speakers every year saying the same things (ahem, Dana Todd I am looking in your direction). In my experience, a lot of the advanced sessions get hijacked by non-advanced attendees, and their more basic questions and issues skew the content down a level that isn’t useful to an advanced audience.

The Search Engine Strategies conference is a must attend if you are a beginner, or if you’ve only gone to the beginner track before. It’ll blow your mind with how much you can learn in just a few days. If you’ve gone several years in a row and are fairly advanced, the incremental learning you’ll get isn’t much, if anything. So I asked myself this year - what am I going to get out of this if its not going to teach me something new?

Networking?

Having worked in search for nearly 7 years, I know lots of people who also work in search. And we email or chat once or twice a year when something comes up, maybe something I have a question about, or something they think its interesting I should see, or that they want my opinion on, or maybe we just say hi. We keep in touch. So do I need to have face time with all these people? Its nice, but not necessary. I’ll probably see them somewhere else during the year. And I am not a big party fan, I don’t need your crappy schwag or ill fitting t-shirt (Hi, do no women work in search? Get some smalls people). Or free booze (driving back to SF every night means I stay sober).

If I had clients, or wanted clients, I might see it differently, but as an in-house search engine marketer, my client is my company, and I am probably better off staying in to work more for them. Plus, with all the mad SES blogging going on, its like you can be virtually there. I don’t think I missed much, other than seeing Danny Sullivan’s final hurrah (boo!). Maybe I’ll start attending his conferences….SMX!

Industry