Ann Arbor is abuzz with talk of A2 Fiber. I first heard about A2 Fiber when Facebook suggested I become a fan of the A2 Fiber Facebook page. I wondered what this was and why all my friends were “fanning” it. Google Fiber is a plan to create an ultra-high speed broadband network in a number of carefully selected communities across the United States. This broadband network promises to deliver data at 1 gigabit per second; almost 100 times faster than the average American’s current cable or DSL provider connection. While at work I am extremely connected through Pure Visibility but away from the office I rely on coffee shops, the library and other hotspots for my internet because I find the monthly rates to be too high – Google Fiber might be able to change all this . . .
Ann Arbor is extremely enthusiastic about being included in this Google Fiber experiment. The University of Michigan and the City of Ann Arbor have partnered to fill out Google’s request for information. Ann Arbor would be the perfect place for Google to run one of their Fiber networks. Google plans to “offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people” which will make a huge impact to these individuals but the greater long-term impacts are huge.
By offering “affordable” internet they’ll break up the current monopoly large providers have over certain geographic areas. It’s not a good thing if there is only one broadband provider. The network of fiber could be opened to other providers giving small local companies the option of offering their own services at affordable rates. Google’s “competitive” pricing for their Fiber network would be significantly lower than what most Ann Arborites are paying and the quality of the connection would be far faster.
It is getting more difficult to control ad display in Google AdWords because they’re giving the system more liberties. There are a few variations of this – I’m calling them “Ultra Broad Match” because it’s funny:
Automatic geo-targeting parsing of queries.
If a visitor searches a general term and Google pinpoints him/her to a location that is in the target-area of one of your campaigns, the query is sometimes treated just as if it had geographic modifiers attached to it. Likewise, if you are bidding on a term that has geographic modifiers, Google might decide to broad match it to a more general query that does not have modifiers attached. For example, if someone is searching for “plumbers” from an IP address that is located in Detroit by Google’s system, then it might be treated just as if he/she searched “plumbers in detroit.” Likewise, if a person searches for “plumbers in detroit,” he/she might be treated just as if he/she searched for “plumbers” from an IP address located in Detroit. In your account, you can be explicitly bidding on the term “plumbers in detroit” in a nationally targeted campaign, but Google may decide instead to show an ad for the term “plumbers” that is in a campaign targeted to the Detroit area. For an advertiser, this means it is very difficult (if not practically impossible) to keep terms that have geographic modifiers separate from terms that do not have geographic modifiers when setting bids. This is a problem because you might expect a broad matched keyword phrase like “plumbers in detroit” to have better conversion rates than a broad matched keyword like “plumbers” – even if the more general term is in a locally targeted campaign. I can think of at least four reasons why the geo-modified term should deserve a higher bid for a local business:
It’s generally safe to assume by now that in a small group of people, someone has a smart phone.
My personal favorite use of these is by the Detroit Red Wings. I’m bias, yes, but you find me a better use. On the big screen, the Wings gave instructions on which free apps to have downloaded, and which page in the program to turn to. What the fans got is a hilarious YouTube video named ‘Kronwalled”, linked below. The best Kronwalling happens 22 seconds in. Anyone that makes that face is really asking for a good Kronwalling. According to the Red Wings, people watching the video through a mobile device watched the video from beginning to end 22% of the time, far exceeding their expectations. They also plan to experiment with and integrate more multimedia placements with their traditional ad mediums.
[ insert brochure image with QR code ]
[ insert KRONWALLED youtube video ]
Another experimental use of QR codes came from the Weather Channel, who surprisingly always seems to be at the forefront of new technology (widgets, phone apps, desktop alerts, and now QR codes). They took this a step further than the Red Wings, putting a large QR code on screen during a broadcast. Scan it with your phone, and it takes you to the Android marketplace, where you can download the weather channel app for your mobile phone. Genius!
Other interesting uses I’ve seen or heard of lately include several restaurants with these codes in their windows. You scan the code, and it takes you to a Google Reviews page where you can read what other people thought, see the menu and hours of operation, and get the link to their website if you want more information. There was a billboard that was just a large QR code. This approach will work while the idea is new and still clever, but will probably fade as they become more common place.
[picture of QR billboard ]
Also, Campbell-Ewald, the winner of the Time Magazine ‘Selling Detroit’ contest, used a QR code in their ad, which will now appear for free in Time Magazine. Although I’m not sold on their ad being the best of the contestants, I really do appreciate their forward thinking, and it likely played a huge role in their winning of this contest.
The growing popularity of smart phones is leading to a very fundamental change in the way advertisers reach out to users. It’s generally safe to assume by now that in a small group of people, someone has a smart phone with them. The better question would be is it already in their hands, or still in their pocket or purse. The evolution of this mobile marketing landscape presents some new and interesting ways that advertising touches us on a daily basis, but it is also boosting the use of a much older technology; the QR (quick response) Code, AKA, the barcode. Apps on new cell phones are now able to read these codes, allowing virtually any traditional form of marketing to easily become a launch pad for a multimedia experience.
My personal favorite use of QR codes is by the Detroit Red Wings. I’m bias, yes, but you find me a better use. I bet you the Colorado Avalanche aren’t doing anything nearly as cool yet. On the big screen, the Wings gave instructions on which free apps to have downloaded, and which page in the program to turn to. What the fans got is a hilarious YouTube video named ‘Kronwalled”, linked below. The best Kronwalling happens 22 seconds in. Anyone that makes that face is really asking for a good Kronwalling. According to the Red Wings, people watching the video through a mobile device watched the video from beginning to end 22% of the time, far exceeding their expectations. They also plan to experiment with and integrate more multimedia placements with their traditional ad mediums.
Red Wings QR Program
Another experimental use of QR codes came from the Weather Channel, who surprisingly always seems to be at the forefront of new technology (widgets, phone apps, desktop alerts, and now QR codes). They took this a step further than the Red Wings, putting a large QR code on screen during a broadcast. Scan it with your phone, and it takes you to the Android marketplace, where you can download the weather channel app for your mobile phone. Genius!
Other interesting uses I’ve seen or heard of lately include several restaurants with these codes in their windows. You scan the code, and it takes you to a Google Reviews page where you can read what other people thought, see the menu and hours of operation, and get the link to their website if you want more information. There’s been a few instances of entire billboard displays being a QR code. This approach will work while the idea is new and still clever, but will probably fade as they become more common place.
QR Code Billboard (London)
Also, Campbell-Ewald, the winning agency of the Time Magazine ‘Selling Detroit’ contest, used a QR code in their ad, which will now appear for free in Time Magazine. Their forward thinking likely played a huge role in their winning of the contest and $1,000,000 in free advertising space.
Campbell-Ewald: Selling Detroit
Where else would I like to see this done? How about in news papers? AnnArbor.com is changing the way we see and react to the news, so where could they go next? How could a newspaper use QR codes?
Google is doing some cool things with how we view news. One of my favorite things they’re currently working on is called Living Stories (livingstories.googlelabs.com ). If AnnArbor.com had the QR code on the hard copy of all stories that are still in progress (Iraq/Afghanistan Wars, Local Elections,Healthcare Reform, Haiti Earthquake, Flu Season Information, Frequent Bloggers, etc..), it would allow you to read the article, and if you wanted, you could catch up on the entire backstory.
More than this, lets say you’re reading a hard copy of the newspaper and find an interesting article a friend of yours might enjoy. Scanning the article code could take you directly to the online copy of the article, which you could then forward to a friend. This would also make it much easier to share via Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc. These are the kinds of things that will change the way people interact with newspapers, and what may actually save these dinosaurs from extinction.
Where else could these be used? How about in lines at amusement parks? Building a christmas list or wedding registry? Viewing movie previews after seeing a poster or article about it. There seems to be an endless list of how and where these can be used.
Have you seen a clever use of these lately? How do you think they will be leveraged in the near future?
UXmatters is a great resource for (unsurprisingly) UX-related articles, such as information architecture, usability, and user research. An article from February 22nd, “Review of Information Architecture Evaluation Tools: Chalkmark and Treejack,” provides a great overview of two user research tools from Optimal Workshop.
The first, Chalkmark, allows unmoderated testing of static mockups. You can put up a mocked up page, ask people where they would click to find information about something specific, and then Chalkmark tells you where users clicked.
The other tool that this article discusses is Treejack, which lets you test an organizational scheme, abstracted away from the actual interface. In Treejack, you build a tree that reflects how information on your site is organized into categories and sub-categories (or how you want to organize this information in the future). Again, you ask people to tell you where they think they would find a specific piece of information, but with this tool, they can click around in the tree and think about it before giving you their final answer.
The article on UXmatters goes into further detail about the analysis capabilities that both of these tools provide, and they sound pretty exciting.
Ever wonder if your Facebook Fan Page could appear in a search result on Google? Your dreams have come true…if you use Google’s Real Time Search you will now also see Facebook Fan Page posts included.
Real Time Search Results for Facebook Fan Pages
According to Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, Real Time Search also includes:
* Twitter tweets
* Google News links
* Google Blog Search links
* Newly created web pages
* Freshly updated web pages
* FriendFeed updates
* Jaiku updates
* Identi.ca updates
* TwitArmy updates
* Google Buzz posts
* MySpace updates
* Facebook fan page updates
So what does this mean for your company? Because you have to know about selecting the “show options” link on your Google search results page. I would like to see the statistics on how many people are selecting it, and actually using the Real Time Search Results. I have a feeling it is under utilized because it is so new, however time will tell!
The 2010 Winter Olympics are underway and my own home television glows each night with these fantastic displays of human strength and achievement. Tonight, I find my mind unable to avoid a cross over of thoughts between the day to day (specifically, my job as a relationship manager for an internet marketing company) and the Olympian marvels that I am viewing. This particular evening I find myself comparing the sport of curling to SEO. I mean, think about it. It shouldn’t be that far of a stretch to equate SEO to a sport.
Let’s look at this in the most simplistic way. Let’s say you are the head of marketing (maybe a CMO or a director). That makes you the thrower in the game of curling. As the head of marketing, you have the obvious goal of achieving more conversions. In the sport of curling, this would be like getting the most points. In general, with SEO, the idea is that you can increase your conversions by being higher on the search results; being on the first page and being higher in the list. With curling, you receive more points by first getting stones in the ‘house’ (the target) and then these points can be higher if you are closer to the ‘button’ (the center of the target) than your opponent. Now what really struck me as being much like an SEO effort is the well thought out strategy and active play of the stone on route to the target. The thrower is a part of a team and the team consists of two other people who are actively engaged with the stone, listening to the thrower and responding accordingly. They adjust the ice as needed and thus the path of the stone as it works it’s way toward its resting spot. This struck me as being much like our SEO engagements. Each day, we are actively maneuvering a client’s site toward the desired position within the search results. We listen to our client for feedback as we roll out a strategy. We determine the best approaches to navigate obstacles or knock the components out of the way. Basically, we are continuously engaged with our customers and their sites and we are continuously correcting as necessary to achieve optimal results; to get more conversions – to win! So if SEO is like Olympic Curling, I can’t wait for our gold medals!
We love the Google Analytics e-commerce system, in no small part because it is so “simple”: what you see is what you get, and it can basically be used to reflect your shopping cart system’s understanding of any given transaction.
The most essential double-check comes from the fact that any given sale is made up of two independent measures: The Transaction report and the Product report.
I found writing my first blog entry an angst-filled experience. Blogging for me is like eating green vegetables. It’s not that I don’t understand the benefits of green vegetables to my health or haven’t heard the positive impacts of blogging. But simply being informed of the benefits does not make the activity any easier or motivate me to do it more.
As a child, I often had to sit at the dinner table until long after dinner was over. My wise mother made it her mission to get me to eat green vegetables, like peas. I had to sit at the table until my plate was clean. Being blessed (or cursed) with a sensitive palate and a strong will, I sat in defiance at the table, night after night, keeping the peas at bay.
I learned two things from my childhood green vegetable encounters that helped me to overcome the challenge of writing my first blog entry.
Focus on something you enjoy. Faced with a plate full of peas, I found if I took a drink of lemonade, something I enjoy tasting, along with a spoonful of the dreaded peas, I could chase the peas down faster and easier than just eating peas alone. So to make that first blog writing experience easier, I chose my vacation to Paris as the subject. I’ve always enjoyed traveling and as someone who used to work in the travel industry, find travel easy to talk about.
Don’t wait, just do it. Spending more time thinking about how awful the peas will taste, won’t make them taste any better when you finally get around to eating them. In fact, waiting will likely make your anxiety worse! Have you ever eaten cold peas?
So, get writing that first blog entry. If you need some inspiration, take a vacation!
When Google Buzz showed up in my inbox, I was intrigued yet unsure. After all of the hoopla about Google Wave, I have to admit I never became a convert. Maybe because the invitations were scarce and so no one I wanted to Wave with was available to Wave with me, maybe because among my friends and family I’m an early adopter, so even if invitations weren’t scarce, no one in my inner circle would have Waved with me anyway. Beyond that, the lack of integration with my Gmail inbox was a killer. Another inbox for me to check….it never made it into my routine. I checked it this week, after weeks of inactivity, to find a message from a friend from…weeks ago.#Fail
Google Buzz, on the other hand, is integrated with my Gmail inbox, and in the last two days I’ve already used it more than I’ve ever used Google Wave. So far, I’ve enjoyed photos of a friend’s kid in Chicago, caught some local news – President Barack Obama to deliver the University Michigan commencement address, laughed at some goofy blogs and goofy statements from friends, and I encountered a book that I’ve added to my list of reserved items at the local library (Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto).
My buzz stream on my Google profile
Looking at my Buzz stream on my Google profile, you will notice that it looks an awful lot like Facebook. Same mixture of photos and comments on photos and status updates and comments on status updates. And, since (as yet) there are no Mafia Wars, no Farmville, and no applications to help me figure out what kind of cheese am or what kind of cheese you think I am, it’s actually much more pleasant to dip into.
Yet, until close friends and family are complete Gmail-geeks like I am, I’ll still need Facebook to connect with close friends and family. And, while I am very excited about these tools for connecting with people I already know, I remain convinced that the most open social networking tools, like Twitter, remain the best for businesses to find new customers. Facebook is a walled garden, though becoming less so with its recent changes to its privacy settings making more content public. Google Buzz seems at least semi-walled. Right now I’ve got my Buzz kind of locked down until I decide how it all works.
I’m still exploring Buzz, but so far it seems exceptionally personal and less business-y. Hubspot has provided these recommendations on getting started with Google Buzz for your business. Take a look, let me know what you see, and together we’ll see how it develops.
I was recently working on an SEO engagement that began with an extensive phase of keyword research and analysis. As we worked to categorize, organize, and generally make sense of the terms that populated the language of our client’s industry, we began to notice clusters of search terms for which no corresponding content could be found on their website.
Did our keyword research efforts somehow run amok, inadvertently pulling in keyphrases unrelated to our client’s business? That was certainly a possibility, and can happen quite easy if you’re not careful. Another, more exciting possibility is that we uncovered niches within our client’s market (perhaps even potential products or services) that they weren’t even aware were worth considering.
The beauty of well-executed keyword research (using some of our favorite tools like Google’s Keyword Tool), is that the keywords you come across often paint an interesting picture of the subject you’re investigating. Looking at the language used by searchers can give you insight into their needs or motivations (consider, for instance, the different needs associated with the search terms ‘buy dog leash’ vs. ‘dog leash training’). And better still, Google’s Keyword Tool doesn’t just give you keyphrases related to your subject, but the traffic volumes associated with them, as well. With this information, you begin to understand the degree of interest associated with the terms your keyword research uncovers.
Of course, this is a very simplified demonstration of the potential for using keyword research to aid in market research, but it’s a beginning. With the right tools and know-how, there’s a strong case to be made for using keyword research to kick-off your quest for new market niches and opportunities for new products or services.
