For years many of us in the advertiser camp have yelled about the fact that vendors like Google AdWords lump domain traffic in with "search" traffic without giving you much control over the situation. A lot of this was justifiable yelling - but as with much about the content networks (and stuff that should be in the content network but was in the past classified as search), today's reality seems to have improved.
In the search marketing industry, face-to-face events seem to abound. If you're a bit lost, here's the beginnings of a rough working guide to the next 4-5 months in the field and what to expect.The Big:
The New York Times recently reported a story about Kijiji's attempt to take on Craigslist. Though Kijiji has some decent traction globally, it had been an unknown in the US. Is that about to change?
Whether it's because of consolidation and pressure from above (Google, Yahoo, etc.), or too much competition from one another, including newer upstarts, traffic to key local search sites appears to have peaked about two years ago.(Disclaimer: I know Alexa isn't 100% accurate, but above the 5,000 rank it's probably roughly accurate.)
SEO techniques typically linger long after their "good til" dates. 2008 should be no exception, but if you're paying attention it's time to move onto the stuff that works.This useful review of techniques that Google clamped down on this year included:
Hat tip SEL: The Google-DoubleClick merger has been approved by the FTC.
So Facebook has revamped the workings of their Beacon. To all you bloggerati and digital doomsayers (like me) who raised a stink about this, looks like your sense of smell wasn't wrong.
Some things need to be opt-in, not opt-out. Looks like "Charlene Li just bought a table" showing up in a newsfeed is in the former category.
Barry Schwartz reports that Yahoo plans to roll out a "structured search" functionality in the near future.
Recently I re-read a business book (written by some PhD's who counsel people to improve their careers), and each chapter struck me as salesy -- as if it were primarily crafted to speak to the 1% of readers who might be likely to follow up as consulting prospects.
Here's something we haven't seen since the last bubble: TheStreet.com with a stock price over $12. A sign of steady growth and progress, rising subscription and ad revenues, and a dogged desire to mine one's Hedgehog Concept?
