Alliance Blog Reviews

It looks like Deutschland has a bee in its bonnet about Google. Apparently it is using the dreaded M word “monopol” which, according to Google’s own translation tool is the German form of the English word monopoly. The Germans are concerned that Google is looking like Microsoft and they are not happy. Somebody needs to get in their Mercedes and take a ride on the Autobahn to cool off, maybe? We learned of the Reuters report from Search Engine Land . Apparently the German justice minister is upset that Google isn’t transparent enough. I thought monopolies are about cornering markets and not transparency but maybe I am missing something in the translation. Here’s her thoughts from Reuters In an interview with weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she was concerned the firm was accruing too much power and information about citizens via programmes like Google Earth and Google Books. “All in all, what’s taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly, similar to Microsoft,” the minister said. “My initial response is not to ban something or stop something. But I do want to create more transparency and ensure that users know what is going on with their data,” she added. “I think the companies have an obligation here, and a lot of things ought to be improved. If that doesn’t happen soon we may have to take action as legislators.” Once again I have to ask the question does Google actually monopolize anything? According to Dictionary.com monopoly is: a board game in which a player attempts to gain a monopoly of real estate by advancing around the board and purchasing property, acquiring capital by collecting rent from other players whose pieces land on that property. Oooops. Wrong one. Here’s the one that works for our purposes here: 1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. 2. the market condition that exists when there is only one seller. I think this is where people are getting confused. Microsoft and the desktop smelled of monopoly because no one else could play. Google, on the other hand, is not the only player in nearly everything it has its tentacles in. It just does things bigger and, most times, better than the rest. That’s called cleaning the competition’s clock, not a monopoly. I am sure there will be plenty of arguments that Google is a monopoly and I welcome all of them here. Just be sure that when you are using Google and monopoly in the same sentence you are not just complaining that Google does more things and they do them better. They have to prevent competition from taking place to be a real monopoly and I don’t see that like others might. Did you hear Google cry that Lycos, AltaVista and Yahoo were “monopolies” when it was in its infancy and seen as the new kid on the block with the goofy name? Nope. They went out and did things the old fashioned way: they innovated and gave the public what they wanted and in the process laid waste to things that didn’t work as well as they did. If that’s a monopoly then I’m all for it.

Visit link:
Germany Cries Monopoly and Doesn’t Even Collect $200

In what may be a mini ‘bell weather moment’ in advertising, Pepsi has decided to keep its usual Super Bowl advertising money in its bank account. While they are not exactly saving it they are certainly redirecting it to online opportunities. I say this is a potential ‘bell weather’ moment because it ends a streak of 23 consecutive years where Pepsi has advertised during the event that attracts some of the largest viewing audiences in the history of television. So what is Pepsi saying with this move? It’s more like a question they are asking the NFL and the advertising world that has made such a big fuss over Super Bowl ads for years: Where’s the value? Not to worry about the NFL though because they are still getting Pepsi-bucks……just not in a big chunk for the big game. Compete tells a little more Pepsi is already a large sponsor of the NFL, having paid millions back in 2002 to replace Coke for the title of the official soft drink of the NFL. The company also sponsors Rookie of the Week section on NFL.com. So the big moment is more about the how Pepsi is deciding to spend its money rather than with whom. The NFL is a marketing juggernaut (I had to use that word before the close of 2009) and will remain so. Even the NFL though is going to have to adjust to the dollars that are moving online that once fueled the just as important Super Bowl activity of watching and rating the advertisements. If last year was any indication that ‘pastime’ may be on the decline as well as many companies didn’t even create specific ads for the big game but simply rehashed old ones. Kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it? So why is Pepsi seeing the online space as the way to go? Compete shows a little data below that may become the new version of the old ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge”. Even more interesting are the differences in competitive share of visitors to Pepsi and Coke sites between control and exposed consumers. Among the control group, Pepsi captures only 16% of visitors versus a lion’s share of 84% for Coke. However, the numbers are completely reversed among the exposed group. So what is your thought about the days of the big Super Bowl advertising buys and the excitement around the creativity of the ads? Are the days of Super Bowl ads being a huge deal going the same way as my NY Giants (meaning directly south and in the toilet)? Your thoughts?

Read more:
Pepsi Decides to Use the NFL a Different Way

Advertising is morphing and evolving at a rapid pace. That pace still hasn’t moved the online space too far down its own evolutionary road yet. That is at least according to Nikesh Arora, president of Google’s sales operations. In an interview with the Financial Times he gave some insight into how the online advertising world is shaping up and the role that Google intends to play in it. Oh, the reference to Barbie? Here is how Mr. Arora sees the current state of online advertising when he compares it to the history of advertising as a whole. He has been watching – on Google’s YouTube video site – a 1959 television ad for Barbie dolls. “There’s still a guy moving the Barbie doll in the ad and a radio jingle playing. We all say: ‘How could they think that was a good TV ad?’ – but that’s sort of where we are. We’re still moving the Barbie doll with our hands.” I get that. Sometimes I even wish we might go back to that every once in a while. Essentially, Arora and others at Google are convinced, and probably rightly so, that right now the online space is simply repeating what TV has done but that this attempt at ‘advertising’ is selling the Internet medium short. In other words, there is so much more that can be done. As you might expect Google intends to be there at the forefront. Some more of Arora’s thoughts Mr Arora is keen to recast the online advertising debate in a way that could increase the share of advertising budgets available to the search engine operator. “The whole idea of online advertising is going to go away in the next few years,” he says. “We’ll stop talking about online advertising and talk about advertising. Radio, print, TV are all getting distributed over [internet protocol], so those distinctions will vanish at some point in time.” That will be a brave new world for marketers, advertisers and consumers alike. With purchases like DoubleClick and more including mobile play Admob ( which has its own issues apparently ) Google is positioned to be a leader in the movement. And, as will likely be the modus operandi of all Google interactions with the press, Mr. Arora talked about relationships with publishers improving and that Google is the ultimate partner. “We give $5bn-$6bn away to partners of the $20bn we make,” Mr Arora notes, adding that it has stepped up its “research online purchase offline” studies, which analyse how search behaviour affects buying. How thoughtful! And to wrap up that thought so that no one will get too suspicious about Google’s plans for world domination Mr. Arora goes all “Aw shucks!” on us with this one. “Fundamentally, we’re a tech company . . . You show up with a huge technological problem, we’re going to get totally turned on by it.” I am no code cracker but I think “technological problem” is Googlespeak for “huge pile of money”. Your thoughts?

Original post:
As Advertising Evolves Google Talks About Barbie

It is often pointed out that the disconnect from those in the social media trenches to those in the C-level corner offices is significant and often damaging to the marketing efforts of many companies. While it can be fun to generalize and then make those at the top of the marketing food chain the culprits in the “Great Social Media Under-utilization Caper” it is starting to become much less accurate. One way to see that CMO’s are taking a real interest in social media and user generated media as part of their overall marketing efforts is to see the results of a recent study done by the CMO Club. That’s right. CMO’s hang out in a club while you slave away at your community building efforts. It’s all cigars and mahogany furniture around the fireplace for the CMO set. Just kidding. In fact, The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice surveyed 133 active CMO’s to get their real world take on social media. Here’s how the respondents were broken out Of these, 42% focus on business-to-consumer marketing, 41% focus on business-to-business marketing, and 17% market to both consumers and businesses. Leading participating industries include software/hardware (17%), finance/insurance (9%), travel/hospitality (9%), media/publishing (9%), consumer goods (8%), and retail (7.5%), among others. Annual revenues ranged from $6 to $50 million (25%), $51 to $999 million (42%), and over $1 billion (23%). So what did they find? This chart is pretty telling as they attack the three letters that keep most CMO’s up at night: ROI. ROI is certainly the Holy Grail of the C-suite with regard to every facet of marketing. What makes it difficult for social media is that there are not real clearly defined measurements or metrics that create a line to what is termed social commerce. Whether you are a C-level marketer or a day-to-day social media practitioner what are your thoughts on measurement in the social media space? What do you use for tools where are you having success and where are you having trouble? Feel free to download a white paper synopsis of some of the findings of the survey. Maybe the more that C-level marketers and the ‘rank and file’ of marketing work together there can be more advancement in this emerging field. Is that a reality at your work or is that just a fantasy?

More here:
The CMO Club Lets You In On Their Social Media Thinking

While it’s easy for us to predict the decline, and ultimate death of mainstream media, I wonder if we know what we’re letting ourselves in for. Take, for example, the recent incident that involved a Washington D.C. detective and a “tweetup” snowball fight. Mashable alerted me to the story . With a couple of pics and a video, it’s easy to believe that the cop overreacted and should lose his job: Now, I’m certainly not bashing Mashable here–they took the social media angle that appealed to their readers–but let’s look at the “citizen journalism” side of this. Viewing the photographs and cell phone video, you might confidently predict that there’s not much the police officer can say to defend his actions. He pulled a gun on a bunch of kids having a snowball fight! But, if you take the time to read the Washington Post’s lengthy account of the incident, and you learn that this was, at worse, a misunderstanding and, at best, the correct reaction for a cop being pummeled with snowballs. Personally, I still believe the cop overreacted–and should face some kind of discipline–but that’s part of my point. I’m a citizen journalist–aka blogger–and I make my living by imparting my subjective views on you, our readers. The Washington Post however, while not able to shake completely the latent bias of its journalists, does a much better job of presenting the facts–and leaving the reader to form their own opinion. In Radically Transparent , we talk about “professional detractors”–those that are paid to report on your misfortune, yet without any apparent modus operandi –such as journalists. While we may not like what they write about us, we know that we can somewhat trust their structured gathering of information and procedures for correcting any erroneous reporting. As citizen journalism continues to take the place of professional journalism, I wonder how this will affect reputation management. Are we ready for a world of biased reporting? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Go here to see the original:
Cop Draws Gun at Tweetup Snowball Fight; Is It So Clear-Cut?

Back in July, Facebook was challenged by the Canadian government about some privacy concerns around third party apps and information shared that was taken about users. Many wondered how the social media giant would handle the situation. Would they thumb their nose at the information police? Would they stand up to the Canucks? Well, that was answered in August when they folded like a cheap card table and rewrote their policies to meet Canadian concerns . Well, if that was a precedent then the folks who run the Facebook Legal team fan page (Is there really one of these? I just made that up) are about to get real busy. You see there are several privacy groups who are up in arms about the latest privacy policies handed down by Zuck and the boys. According to the WSJ’s MarketWatch Ten privacy and consumer groups announced Thursday they’ve filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging that Facebook Inc.’s privacy-policy changes violate federal law. The Electronic Privacy Information Center said in a statement that it and nine other groups are urging the FTC “to open an investigation into the recent changes made by Facebook … and to require Facebook to restore privacy safeguards.” These kinds of things usually sound a lot worse when they are first brought to light. Ok, so let’s stand in Facebook’s shoes and let this one sit for a second and let the scariness of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) being called on to investigate your company’s privacy policies go away. Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to be working this time. Why? Well, because this could be a real serious deal for Facebook. They went from cruising along and just gathering more and more steam in their quest to become a money making machine to now being a social media whipping boy……again. While what they have been accused of lately (breaking a valued trust with their users by making their information, all of it, public unless opted-out) isn’t sleazy on a Tiger Woods like level, it is a serious issue. That’s not good. Now add on the possibility of the US government (you know the one that thinks it can do everything for everyone so no one needs to think for themselves anymore) being asked by not one but 10 privacy advocates to take a look at your policies. There probably were happier endings envisioned by the Facebook folks on this one, like huge profits from data being available to mine and sell. EPIC said in its statement that the service “should not be allowed to turn down the privacy dial on so many American consumers,” adding that the changes “violate federal consumer-protection law.” As they say in some parts of the world “Them thar is fightin’ words!” Of course Facebook has something to say about all of this. In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said: “We’ve had productive discussions with dozens of organizations around the world about the recent changes, and we’re disappointed that EPIC has chosen to share their concerns with the FTC while refusing to talk to us about them.” The spokesman, Andrew Noyes, also said that Facebook discussed its privacy program with regulators “including the FTC” prior to its launch. Well, shame on EPIC for telling on Facebook after the company worked so hard to grease the skids to prevent this very thing from happening. By the way, how productive a meeting is can be pretty subjective. In other words, there is no mention of groups endorsing what Facebook did, just a statement that they met and talked. Look this may turn out to be a non-issue. The FTC may decide to not act on the request of these groups but it might be hard for them to do so. Of course, with Facebook letting the world know that they spoke to the FTC before this move was made may make some wonder just what kind of ‘agreements and understandings’ may have been reached. Whatever they were, they may now be null and void if there is enough of a stink raised. So what looked like a pretty strong year for Facebook may end on a sour note. They’ll get over though just like they did with Beacon. Apparently that gaffe was either forgotten or it’s the policy of the company to see just what it can get away with until someone slaps their hands or slaps them with an investigation. Your thoughts? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Excerpt from:
Facebook’s Privacy Policy Produces Plea to FTC

While Google’s CEO is experimenting with the wonders of Twitter (which by the way has been switched to @ericschmidt and has over 10k followers so adjust accordingly) the mothership, Google, is announcing some new search additions that are, well, timely. Today Google made the announcements from the Computer History Museum in Mountain view. The official Google blog tells us Be sure to check out the video there as well. First, we’re introducing new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page. Wow, this has been a rough day for SEO’s for sure. First, personalization is made the norm by Google for all users and now more front page real estate is threatened by the real time search offer. Of course, this type of offering will be more useful in some areas since searches like “injection die mold” won’t have much current activity around it (or will it?). There is a lot to digest with this new offering and it looks pretty comprehensive. I think it’s better for Google to tell you so here you are. Click on “Latest results” or select “Latest” from the search options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other web content scrolling right on Google. You can also filter your results to see only “Updates” from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others. Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices when you need them on the go, be it a quick glance at changing information like ski conditions or opening night chatter about a new movie — right when you’re in line to buy tickets. And, as part of our launch of real-time on Google search, we’ve added “hot topics” to Google Trends to show the most common topics people are publishing to the web in real-time. With this improvement and a series of other interface enhancements, Google Trends is graduating from Labs. Our real-time search features are based on more than a dozen new search technologies that enable us to monitor more than a billion documents and process hundreds of millions of real-time changes each day. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our new partners that we’re announcing today: Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca — along with Twitter, which we announced a few weeks ago. You can go to Google Trends and click on a hot topic to test out these new features which will be available in English over the next few days. This addition to Trends also marks its graduation from Google Labs. Sniff, sniff, our little application is growing up so fast sob, sob. So as to try to out do themselves, Google also announced mobile search changes as well. We have also made some new strides with mobile search. Today’s sensor-rich smartphones are redefining what “query” means. Beyond text, you can now search by a number of new modes including voice, location and sight — all from a mobile device. So we’ve been working to improve technology that takes advantage of these capabilities. Well, today could prove to be a watershed day in search as Google is now changing the game in a way that only Google can. What does this mean to the way you do business? How to you see these changes impacting your SEO practice? Is this a true game-changer or just another step along the way? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Follow this link:
Google Announces New Offerings in Real-Time, Mobile and Social Search