EveryZing will also be deploying its universal search and publishing solutions across a number of NBCU’s Internet properties. The goal is to improve the video search experience for some major media sites.

CNBC would be one such site. "EveryZing’s core technology advantage and robust product offerings will assist us in taking full advantage of the content across many NBCU brands, ultimately enhancing the audience experience,” said Scott Drake, VP of CNBC Digital. "For example, CNBC’s users and viewers will be able to jump to the exact mention of their favorite guest, company or topic within the video and quickly consume the content most relevant to them."

It would not be surprising to start seeing more partnerships like the one NBCU has created with EveryZing as online video continues to take off in popularity and becomes a more important element to the web in general.

"The consumption and demand for online video continues to explode," explains EveryZing CEO Tom Wilde. "As such, media companies must continue to fully leverage their unique content assets in order to extend and enhance their business models. We are thrilled with this opportunity to have NBCU as a customer and Peacock as an investor."

The deal also brings to mind the importance for any business offering online video content to make their libraries easily navigable so usable. Ease of use and finding what they are looking for quickly are two elements that will keep users coming back. It’s something that should not go overlooked if you don’t want to get lost in an ever-growing sea of online video content.

Here’s the situation as explained on Google’s Let’s Take it Offline blog: "we’re thrilled to announce the addition of national inventory on CNBC to the Google TV Ads platform."  The arrangement "enables Google TV Ads advertisers to reach over 95 million households who watch CNBC."

 

Impressive, right?  Plus, skip down a bit and the post continues, "we are looking forward to launching MSNBC, Oxygen and SciFi in the coming months."

To be fair, all of these partnerships were announced in November 2008.  Announcing something and achieving it don’t always go hand in hand, though, and this still represents a breakthrough.  Google TV Ads presumably performed well with Sleuth and Chiller TV – the first networks NBC Universal offered access to – and is moving up in the television advertising world as a result.

Google’s investors may appreciate this fact, as its stock is down significantly less (3.20 percent) than the Dow (4.26 percent) and Nasdaq (3.99 percent) today.

“It’s true I’m banned,” Lyons said via email.

CNBC denied banning Lyons, and laid blame on an assistant producer, who, reflecting the anger of other CNBC producers, said Lyons would never be on CNBC again.

When told about CNBC’s denial, Lyons responded, “If they say I’m not banned, great.”

The rest is a lot more he-said, she-said, but the bigger issue is similar to the one that plagued the Bush Administration as Congress grandstanded about faulty intelligence: Who knew what and when?

Dan Lyons
realdanlyons.com

Other questions: If it weren’t for bloggers and the Apple faithful continually expressing their skepticism about Jobs’ health, would the news have ever come out? Could this have happened in the blogless world of 20 years ago? 

Lyons, earliest and chief among the skeptics, credits the blogosphere. “Blogs kept this story alive and wouldn’t let it die. Mainstream media for the most part were acting as Apple’s lapdogs (eg, Goldman at CNBC) and not only refusing to report the story but actually covering up when bloggers did report the story and get nuggets of truth.

“In other words, CNBC and its ilk were acting as extension of Apple’s PR operation, helping Apple kill a story that Apple didn’t want out. I’d lump in that category the guys at New York Times who got played by Apple PR too—[John] Markoff who wrote about Jobs having surgery earlier this year, based on ‘sources’ (read: [Apple Communications VP] Katie Cotton) and positioned the story that Jobs was fine, he’d just had some surgery, but he wasn’t seriously ill. Ditto for Joe Nocera of the Times who did his ‘off record’ convo with Jobs and then reported that Jobs was fine. They got played. They helped Apple kill a story instead of actually reporting the story.”

That’s a bit more specific than Lyons got back in July on his blog, but he made it clear then he felt Apple was bluffing. That gives him at least six months worth of I-told-you-so’s to dole out to his counterparts in the media, which he has been unleashing with significant (public) fervor.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

Goldman denied covering up anything on Apple’s behalf and said he reported only what he had solid evidence for. The root of the scuffle between Lyons and Goldman is Goldman’s proclamation that Jobs was in good health and his subsequent mocking of Gizmodo, a popular gadget blog, just two weeks ago. While live-blogging at Macworld week later, Goldman again went after speculation and cautioned investors to “tread lightly when considering speculation from a doctor not directly connected Jobs’ treatment.” Said doctor was quoted in the Wall Street Journal.

Yesterday, Goldman blogged that he stood by his reporting because he relied on a source he’d “known for years” who assured him Jobs was fine. “All this company had to do was be upfront with everyone from the beginning,” he wrote. “Not telling us what we all wanted to know. But what we needed to know. Apple could have broken new ground on this front, ignited a new realm of transparency. Instead, it chose a different path. And shareholders, fans, and the Apple community are paying the price."

On the air, Lyons told Goldman he should apologize to his viewers “for having gotten it so wrong.”

Apple, Cotton, and Markoff did not return requests for comment. Nocera and Goldman could not be reached.
 

Yet LinkedIn has still had a strong subscriber-base. In fact, it is often cited as the network of choice for business professionals. Perhaps the lack of the aforementioned features played to LinkedIn’s advantage in that respect, alienating a potential reputation for being a haven for teenagers and adolescent goofery. The fact is that LinkedIn users make money. Last week, Mike Sachoff reported on a study looking at the correlation between LinkedIn use and personal wealth. He wrote:

The study found a direct relationship between the number of connections and high personal income. Those members with personal incomes between $200K-$350K were seven times more likely than others to have over 150 connections.

The survey found that senior executives, who make up about 8.4 million members, have the highest average personal income with $104,000. Savvy networkers, also described as consultants have the second highest averaged income with $93,500 and consist of 9 million LinkedIn members.

Business Owners Prefer LinkedIn

Another study I reported on a couple weeks ago from FaceTime Communications showed that 62% of business owners consider LinkedIn to be their preferred network. "Over 30 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities," reads the tagline on LinkedIn’s home page, and such data appears to confirm LinkedIn’s reputation as the "professional" social network.

A Potential Outlet for Business News Coverage

Social media content has been working its way more and more into mainstream news coverage, and LinkedIn is no exception. Business news establishments see LinkedIn as a potentially relevant information source. A couple months back, LinkedIn struck a deal with CNBC that sees LinkedIn content on CNBC’s site. Janet Meiners notes that it makes for a good source of quotes from business professionals to use in feature stories as is often done on news television, radio, or (of course) the web.

 "CNBC.com could run a feature article on how the recession is affecting workers and quote from some of the best answers," says Meiners. "If you were featured in the article, it should show up somewhere on your LinkedIn profile with a link and recognition that you were quoted in a story. In could help build the reputation of members of LinkedIn, which could in turn help their job searches and careers."

Benefiting From the Network

To benefit from LinkedIn, you’re going to have to "develop a network that lasts," and LinkedIn VP of Marketing and Advertising, Patrick Crane has shared some tips on how to do just that:

1. Upload your address book.

2. Focus on nurturing your network by seeing what questions their asking and helping them when you can.

3. Check your network updates frequently.

4. When you find someone you want to work with, pick the strongest connection you have to introduce you. (try advanced search).

5. Write recommendations for the people you trust and respect.

"The great thing about only connecting to people you know, trust, and have experience working with, is that when you need to find that expert, get that answer, reference check a potentially great hire, get that introduction, then the trusted network of people you’ve proactively created on LinkedIn can help you out," writes Crane. "I find that a simple but useful analogy is a tapestry.  The stronger and tighter the individual threads, the stronger the overall piece of cloth becomes."

This is likely the strategy that all of these wealthy LinkedIn users are applying. When it comes down to it, it’s just good old-fashioned networking. LinkedIn is just a convenient tool that eases the process. The fact that LinkedIn is geared toward business professionals, makes it an attractive network for those looking to enhance their professional relationships.

Sidenote: Dave Taylor has a potentially helpful article about adding LinkedIn search to your company site.

Currently on LinkedIn you can email other professionals, ask them questions, and give or get recommendations from people in your network. Now you’ll also be able to share information with them – something that is happening informally anyway.

One way to build up your network is to send relevant news stories, blog posts, or videos that you think they’ll benefit from. With this partnership, that could be easier if the content is on CNBC. On CNBC’s site there is a section devoted to LinkedIn – though right now it’s at the very bottom of the page and it’s a poll. To answer the poll, you must be a member of LinkedIn.

Perhaps the most exiting part of this agreement is that CNBC will broadcast information gathered from LinkedIn on their programs. So the results of surveys will be covered on the news (on tv).

In a blog post about the deal, LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye asked for any ideas, so here’s one. I would use LinkedIn Answers as the basis for new stories or feature articles to cover what’s going on in business.

For example, Jason Alba, CEO of Jibberjobber.com, a site that focuses on building your career through networking, asked his LinkedIn network and community, how they are being personally affected by the economy.

CNBC.com could run a feature article on how the recession is affecting workers and quote from some of the best answers. If you were featured in the article, it should show up somewhere on your LinkedIn profile with a link and recognition that you were quoted in a story. In could help build the reputation of members of LinkedIn, which could in turn help their job searches and careers.

There is a link to today’s poll on CNBC that asks how the economy is affecting job security. It asks: Is your job impacted by current economic conditions? and then it said you must be a registered LinkedIn member to participate.

The poll also shows up on my LinkedIn profile. After voting I can see the results like that men and women answered simliarly that they are either worried or there is no change. However, it clearly shows that professionals over 55 are the most nervous about losing their jobs right now.

Jason says the relationship is especially good for LinkedIn: “This is a great relationship for LinkedIn, as it really helps differentiate the offerings from Facebook and other social networks. LinkedIn has a special userbase, and the CNBC relationship could add valueable content to LinkedIn users as well as get more members from CNBC’s audience. This is a huge win for LinkedIn.” Alba is the author of I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???

I’m sure the relationship will continue to evolve. And if this relationship proves valuable for the LinkedIn community, Jason may need to add another chapter to his book.

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LinkedIn will benefit by being exposed to any CNBC watchers who haven’t heard about it yet.  An official statement declares, "[C]ommunity-generated content from LinkedIn will be broadcast on CNBC including survey results and on-air Q&As with CNBC guests and reporters."  LinkedIn functionality will be integrated into CNBC.com, too.

 Mark Hoffman

As for what CNBC will get from the deal, access to information from those 27 million LinkedIn members isn’t such a bad thing.  In addition, its articles, financial data, and video content should get promoted on LinkedIn.  More clicks and advertising revenue are bound to result.

Mark Hoffman, CNBC’s president, observed of the arrangement, "This is the perfect collaboration between CNBC’s viewer base of well-educated and affluent professionals and LinkedIn’s powerful professional network.  For quite a while, CNBC has been asked when will it enter professional networking.  This question has been clearly answered today with the announcement of this alliance between two companies that provide news, information and products to the highest end audience available on TV and the Internet."

The only flaw in the grand announcement is the fact that Hoffman’s LinkedIn account has just four connections.

In an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, Schmidt said," If we show fewer ads that are more targeted, those ads are worth more. So we’re in this strange situation where we show a smaller number of ads and we make more money because we show better ads. And that’s the secret of Google."

When questioned about display ads Schmidt said," Well, it’s fair to say that that Google is not the leader in display ads, but our customers want to be able to purchase text ads and display ads and other advertising in one purchasing bundle." He also said that he believes Google’s technology is better.

Schmidt complimented Yahoo for its new forms of advertising saying its "much more participative, much more creative, much more–much more interesting in and of themselves."

As for Google, Schmidt said the ads are valuable not only to advertisers but consumers as well. He emphasized the importance of targeted ads, "When they’re targeted. When they’re the right ad for what you’re doing or what you care about," people will want to look at them.

The Fast Money segment has been torn apart on the Internet but Roger Ehrenberg of the Information Arbitrage blog had the most intelligent analysis of it.

Here’s the key piece of the Donny Deutsch show, where we had a bunch of bloggers on the Microsoft Blogger Bus asking questions of Bug Labs’ CEO Peter Semmelhack. Bug Labs went onto win CNET’s “Best of CES” award for the emerging tech category.

Some things that are worth underlying about the difference between my video show and CNBC.

1. Expense. CNBC had dozens of people involved in the show, a huge booth, really expensive cameras, satellite time, etc. My show? Get a Nokia phone and go for it.

2. Makeup. Yeah, I wore it. There’s a video out there on the Internet somewhere. I’m not sure why Valleywag hasn’t found it yet.

3. You don’t get to say whatever you want. Donny’s show was tape delayed. If you try doing something wacky, they’ll just cut you out. But even if they keep you on, they have a director who is telling you what they want. She preps you for each segment, giving you “talking points.” If you don’t agree with those talking points you have to negotiate to have them changed. But if they don’t like your talking points they just won’t go with you. Second, she has a big sign and if she thinks you should make a point she makes it clear.

4. These shows are NOT about getting deep, or really getting a good understanding of CES. They were ALL about being entertaining! Hey, who knew? (I tried to pull a bunch of gadgets out and they said “we don’t care about the gadgets.”)

5. They filmed Bug Labs’ CEO for 10 hours for a two-minute segment. Now do you understand why so many CEOs let me come over and film them? I never take more than an hour with an executive, so it’s always easy to get onto someone’s schedule.

6. My show has very little editing, so it’s pretty rare that the context gets lost on an answer. On TV, though, things get cut up, sliced and diced, all for entertainment effect, not necessarily to tell the best story.

That said, the CNBC folks were awesome to deal with, helped make me better than I would have been otherwise, and weren’t there to hurt us, just amp us up to make us more interesting to watch.

Did my hits go nuts after being on these two shows? No. Barely even a blip up, if any at all. So, why do TV then? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, people who have influence in the industry appreciate that you got onto CNBC. That seems to brand you in a way that saying “I have a million visits a month” will never do. Plus, it’ll get you sales calls that blogging never will. Second, I’ve been getting nice notes all week from people I haven’t heard from for a long time saying “nice job on CNBC.”

One other thing: doing TV took me off the show floor for a LOT of the show. So, I saw a lot less of the show than I’d otherwise like to have seen — doing real TV is a BIG investment in time, so if you get a chance to do something like this next year at CES or another big show you’ve gotta measure that against the opportunity cost of being on the floor — how many more interviews could I have gotten for my own show? I don’t know, but I’m sure I missed some to be on TV.

Luckily I was working with the Retrevo Gang, so I got to know what was cool on the floor. We’ll have those shows up tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who came on the bus. Francine Hardaway. Andru Edwards of Gear Live. Sarah Meyers of PopSnap (she live streamed the bus). Loic Le Meur of Seesmic. Steve Broback of Blog Business Summit. Andrew Eisner of Retrevo and my producer Rocky was on there too.

Back to TV, though. Now I know why my “long and boring” format has found a sizeable audience. There’s an audience that wants depth with more than 30-second answers. It’s not a large one, but big enough for me to build a decent business on, which we’ll talk more about on Wednesday as I start a new part of my career.

Advice to CEOs? Definitely go on the big shows on the cable networks, but note how Bug Labs got there: they worked from the bottom of the stack up. I remember being invited to a dinner with Bug Labs where Engadget, Dave Winer, and a bunch of other bloggers were there: they showed us only a prototype set of wood blocks and talked us through the product and took our feedback. That got them valuable feedback and made the bloggers feel involved. That was really smart PR — far smarter than many of the companies who simply sent me a press release or who asked me in the last week to come to their press events at CES.

Oh, and thanks to Tim Ferriss. He’s the one who told the producers at CNBC that I’d be good to have on the show. That’s a reminder to always be nice to everyone. When he walked into the BlogHaus last year no one knew he’d become a top-selling book author.

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On the Internet, Yahoo Finance has been tops among financial websites. The site will provide a boost to cable channel CNBC, last seen chastising Yahoo over its Cyber Monday outage.

Doug McIntyre said at BloggingStocks the addition of videos is a win-win situation for both Yahoo and CNBC:

CNBC will produce the content that Yahoo! uses for its TV audience anyway, so there is no additional production cost. Whatever money each party makes from the deal is gravy.

That gravy comes in the form of lucrative video advertising, with rates charged at a premium. Yahoo could use the boost, as the company has cited weakness in financial advertising in the past year as a hindrance to its financial performance.

CNBC could use the additional exposure too. Although its cable channel draws the eye of the business crowd, the New York Times said web traffic to CNBC.com has been anemic, with 538,000 visitors in November by comScore’s figures.

The deal reinforces the point Jeff Jarvis made in commenting on the Reuters-IHT arrangement, where Reuters will provide the business content to the International Herald Tribune.

Jarvis suggested this model for adding specialist content would free up news publishers to focus on local news. Yahoo gains the niche videos produced by CNBC, improves its Finance site, and both parties profit from the partnership by doing what they already do well.

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Yahoo Merchants Toasted By Monday Outage

Heavy holiday traffic crushed Yahoo’s Merchant Solutions service on the mythical Cyber Monday, leaving merchants angry and customers frustrated. Many merchants expecting to see transactions merrily rolling through the system found themselves watching an error message from Yahoo.

"Some merchants are reporting that shoppers are receiving an error message indicating ‘system unavailable’ during the checkout process. We are aware of this issue and are currently investigating," Yahoo advised merchants, according to MarketWatch.

One merchant cited in the report had to post a telephone number for customers to call to place orders. Others waited fruitlessly for the situation to be corrected.

Even worse, sites impacted by the lengthy service outage will likely suffer the brunt of consumer anger, rather than Yahoo. CNBC said the error messages encountered by visitors did not make it clear Yahoo, not the merchant, was responsible for the problem.

Despite the lousy performance by Yahoo, merchants should take heart. Cyber Monday is a marketing creation dreamed up by Shop.org two years ago. The heaviest shopping tends to take place much closer to the middle of December than the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Perhaps a prudent merchant can turn the outage to an advantage. Acknowledging and apologizing for the irritation consumers endured, and offering some sort of mild incentive to return, may help bring those visitors back for another go at making a purchase.

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