The Adsonomy technology serves advertisements to users by analyzing the search results, not keywords. The tag clouds, says the company, offer an opportunity for more targeted ads while reducing the “randomness” of keyword search advertising.

“When companies advertise on Google, MSN, and Yahoo they try to capture every keyword relevant to their product. On Dumbfind, they can let Adsonomy use tagvertising technology do the work for them,” said Chris Seline, CEO and founder of Dumbfind.

“We are offering Adsonomy free to companies because we understand that it is a new concept and that people will need to try it out to understand how it works.

Adsonomy lets a company control up to 10 topics relevant to their product. Their ad is displayed when someone does a search relevant to their tags.

Dumbfind has technology to automatically assign tags to urls in its index. After a search, these tags are automatically pulled up with the results and displayed on the left hand side. In addition to helping people refine their queries, Dumbfind sends the tags to their adservers to be analyzed and determine the most relevant ads to serve.

“On Yahoo, Google, and MSN, advertisers run ads based on keywords which can be completely arbitrary. It is a pain for companies to maintain large lists of keywords.”

Tag: |

Drag this to your Bookmarks.

Add to DiggThis Yahoo My Web

Seline said that Google serves up ads on about 50% of search results, leaving the other half uncovered. He plans to open up that unaddressed market offering contextual advertising where companies can bid on sets of tags.

A marketer wouldn’t have to bid on the keyword “Google” or “Yahoo,” for example, but could include the “search engine” in a set of tags and have an ad served up alongside related queries. Still in beta, Seline said advertisers could sign up for a set number of tabs at no charge, primarily because Dumbfind’s founder and CEO is looking for feedback from searchers and from marketers.

Sponsored results are already running at the top of SERPs, served up by SearchFeed.com’s ad network. Dumfind will continue their relationship with SearchFeed for their tagvertising concept.

Seline has a goal for Dumbfind.com in mind that involves more user input, a Web 2.0 direction that involves human hands. Soon the search engine will incorporate “folksonomy and tagsonomy,” part of an overall theme of “a more intuitive way to search.”

“Search Engine algorithms tend to be different than what users are thinking,” he said, alluding to a future that incorporates natural language processing and common sense.

Initially, the two-box query system, where users enter a general search query in one box and a second category query into a second box, brought Dumbfind.com some nice attention for the way it allows users to zero in on specific results. Adding tags with an additional related vocabulary (that a searcher may have not thought of) is a nice addition for increasing relevancy.

“With Dumbfind, if searchers want to find answers about musical opera, they could enter the word opera’ in the first keyword search box and plug in music’ for the second category box and obtain results quickly that are more relevant to what they’re looking for than by just searching by keyword. Dumbfind provides more options and flexibility. If searchers are inclined to put more intuition into their search, we also give them that opportunity.”

The function can be very useful for seeking specific (and often obscure) information. For example, an Ancient History student looking for information about the Oracle of Delphi, may run into a problem. Most of the information about the ancient seer focuses on worship of Apollo, dating back 3,000 years. However, there is information that the priestesses associated with Delphi originally worshipped an ancient fertility goddess. That prehistoric information is harder to find and thus a sub-query as well as tag clouds can be very useful to weed out Apollo sources.

Dumbfind has gotten some nice reviews on Amazon.com as well.

“For those of us who are very often frustrated by the fact that we just can’t find exactly what we are looking for on Yahoo, MSN or Google, Dumbfind’s innovative combination of a keyword and topic search can very often lead to exactly what you’re looking for,” writes Paul Murtagh.

Both, I am sorry to say, are indicative of the bit of froth that is filling the Web 2.0 space. They won’t fly because they don’t have the fervent user community that marketers covet. Yahoo, however, does and I think we’re going to see them make tagvertising an entirely new revenue line.

Those of you who have been around here for awhile know that I am bullish over the potential of advertising on tags – or what I call Tagvertising. I believe this year it’s going to become a killer marketing vehicle. As Yahoo and others take tag sites more mainstream, advertisers will flock to sponsor certain tags because it is a highly targeted buy. It’s very similar in certain ways to Google Adwords.

The media players that stand to gain are Yahoo and Technorati. In the near future I bet we will see Yahoo start to slowly and carefully integrate their contextual search marketing ads right into their newly purchased fraternal tag twins – i.e. Flickr and del.icio.us. Don’t be surprised to see them stick contextual ads in these sites’ RSS feeds as well. And if the rumors are true that Technorati is selling out to Yahoo, then I think we’re looking at something extraordinary indeed with perhaps a revenue share for bloggers. Keep an eye on what Yahoo does with its latest buys and on Tagvertising overall.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

This is just the beginning. Google will eventually layer on a tagging capability to enable individuals to categorize/share searches. After that – it’s Tagvertising time. Google will serve Adwords ads on these pages.

Marissa Mayer even hinted that ads are in their crystal ball.

Links …
Google Blog: From lost to found
My Search History

Excerpt of article referenced above (added by WPN Editor):

Google Launches Personal History Feature

Google is hoping the service becomes so valuable that people will use its search engine even more frequently than they already do, giving the company more opportunities to display text-based ads that boost its profits.

…Mountain View-based Google believes the service has adequately addressed privacy concerns, although Mayer conceded people who share a computer might not want to use the service. “This isn’t for someone who is particularly sloppy about signing in and signing off,” she said. “You have to have very good computer hygiene to use this.”

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

OK, fair enough. But it might be too late. Flickr is already showing Google Adsense ads to non-members who access tag pages. See image at left. My bet is that these will become Yahoo sponsored search ads once Flickr has been fully integrated into Yahoo.

Additional excerpt added by WPN Editor:

From Kevin’s article … SearchTHIS: Daddy, What’s a Tagvert?:

Smart companies like palmOne and Microsoft have created or recommend moderated discussion boards for consumers to exchange information about their products and services, but these discussions have quality controls in place. Some complain this type of moderated discussion limits posting freedom. I think it frees consumers from having to wade through tons of adult content, nonsense sales scams and other miscellaneous garbage before finding what they need.

Bottom line? People, that is to say the tagging public, are not going to be controlling a “new” ad platform any time soon. As to tagging being the next generation of search advertising? Let’s get content targeting right before we tackle tagvertising.

Additional resources:

Tagvertising = Blogging 2.0… Already?

Search This! Content Works?

In the New Game of Tag, All of Us Are It (MSNBC)

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

Virally Promote Your Product Using Tagvertising

Steve believes the tagging method can be used to create successful viral marketing campaigns. What do you think? Can tagging be used to promote products or events? Discuss at WebProWorld.

The consumer phenomenon is called “tagging” or “folksonomies” (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but more importantly also share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Here’s how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us – a bookmark sharing site – and Flickr – a photo sharing site – consumers are collaboratively categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags. For example, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the broader community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. As of this writing, Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled “iPod.”

Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, et cetera. But using del.icio.us you can bookmark this page or subscribe to its RSS feed. Then, everyday you will find the latest interesting links consumers are finding and sharing about blog marketing. Now imagine you run a blog marketing consultancy and you want to advertise to users who follow these tags. This is what’s we’ll see this year as tagvertising takes hold.

Already, large and small sites alike are getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that’s relevant to them. For example, The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, last week added tags to its news blog. Metafilter, a popular community weblog that anyone can contribute to, also recently incorporated free-form keywords that writers can use to categorize their posts. The larger news sites, particularly CNET, may not be far behind.

Of course the big search engines have tagging on their radar as well. Yahoo recently purchased Flickr. Furl, another bookmark sharing site, was absorbed by LookSmart. Ask Jeeves now has tagging. And Amazon invested in a site called 43 Things that lets people tag-based build wish lists. They might even be the silver bullet search engines need to deliver truly personalized search results. When this happens folksonomies and tagvertising will usher in the next great advancement in contextual advertising.

Here are a few ways in which tagging will create new opportunities for marketers. Some are applicable today while others are on the horizon in the near future:

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

Link: iMedia Connection

In the process — perhaps without even realizing it — they are laying the groundwork for a new contextual online advertising paradigm called “Tagvertising.”

The consumer phenomenon is called “tagging” or “folksonomies” (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but more importantly also share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Here’s how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us – a bookmark sharing site – and Flickr – a photo sharing site – consumers are collaboratively categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags. For example, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the broader community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. As of this writing, Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled “iPod.”

Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, et cetera. But using del.icio.us you can bookmark this page or subscribe to its RSS feed. Then, everyday you will find the latest interesting links consumers are finding and sharing about blog marketing. Now imagine you run a blog marketing consultancy and you want to advertise to users who follow these tags. This is what’s we’ll see this year as tagvertising takes hold.

Already, large and small sites alike are getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that’s relevant to them. For example, The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, last week added tags to its news blog. Metafilter, a popular community weblog that anyone can contribute to, also recently incorporated free-form keywords that writers can use to categorize their posts. The larger news sites, particularly CNET, may not be far behind.

Of course the big search engines have tagging on their radar as well. Yahoo recently purchased Flickr. Furl, another bookmark sharing site, was absorbed by LookSmart. Ask Jeeves now has tagging. And Amazon invested in a site called 43 Things that lets people tag-based build wish lists. They might even be the silver bullet search engines need to deliver truly personalized search results. When this happens folksonomies and tagvertising will usher in the next great advancement in contextual advertising.

Here are a few ways in which tagging will create new opportunities for marketers. Some are applicable today while others are on the horizon in the near future:

* Although tags are far from perfect (they generate a lot of false/positives), marketers should nevertheless be using them to keep your finger on the pulse of the American public. Start subscribing to RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are available for free, 24/7.
* Folksonomy sites can be also be carefully used to unleash viral marketing campaigns – with a caveat. Marketers should be transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid spamming the services
* As tagging grows and the search engines begin adding this feature to their sites, Google and Overture will allow advertisers to buy keywords across certain tags. Watch for this later this year.
* Last but not least, one or more entrepreneurs will launch a tagvertising network that facilitates a keyword buy across all sites that use folksonomies.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.