Because search behavior on Youtube is different from the Search Network, Youtube offers brand channels the ability to integrate Gadget’s into the brand experience. What does this mean for advertisers? With a well thought out API for your website services you can allow viewers of your brand channel to take the key desired actions on Youtube instead of your site (e.g. complete a lead form, browse next fall’s line up, build your own shoe, etc).

I hope to implement a few campaigns for Chrysler in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for the more details.

I’m in the market for carpet cleaner and decided to give Sears a shot. Being the bad speller that I am, I typed “carpet clearner” instead of “carpet cleaner“. Damn public schools. Anyway, this is what was returned by Sears search engine  …

No matches found and it recommends music. Boys on the Side, Putting on the Ritz, and Kelly Clarkston to be exact??? Ugh. Lost sale. I’m outta here. Next, I head over to Bestbuy.com (maybe I should have tried dictionary.com), and, still being a bad speller, entered the same query and this is what I received …

Well what do you know. Best Buy not only recommends the correct spelling but suggests a few products that may interest me. Thank you Best Buy.

Search continues to evolve as sites such as Freebase (not so sure about the name), Powerset, and Yahoo! SearchMonkey continue to innovate. While each application takes a different approach to its implementation of the “Semantic Web”, this article will focus on SearchMonkey, primarily, because it’s getting the most press.

Unless you’ve been in a cave the last month, you’ve probably heard of SearchMonkey. Yahoo! SearchMonkey is a opt-in platform that gives developers and content owners the ability to enhance Yahoo! search results (not rankings). These “enhancements” take bits and pieces of data from across the web and mash them together to add more value to the standard search listing.

I spent a few minutes developing a simple enhancement (see below) and I have a couple of thoughts/concerns regarding the initiative.

1. PHP, XPath, XSLT, RDF???? - It’s a technical nightmare. To develop a rich enhancement you need to understand PHP, XPath, and XSLT. Excluding PHP, these tools are are not for the faint of heart. Don’t get me wrong, these are all exceptional technologies. I just don’t feel that the majority of UI developers are strong in these skills.
2. Lack of Content API’s - Most sites don’t offer API’s and their markup is crap. So expecting site owners to leverage microformats and eRDF is a bit of a stretch. In an exercise to develop a video game enhancement, I toyed with Dapper with the goal of scrapping content from popular gaming sites. To my surprise others have tried this but many of the Dapp’s were broken due to site changes. Until content owners provide supported API’s or consistent means for accessing content, developing these mashup’s will continue to be a challenge (at least for 3rd party developers).
3. Metrics - Story typically goes … the more relevant the ad copy and/or the SERP snippet the more likely users are to click through to your website. But, will click-through-rate’s decrease if users get the answers they want from the Enhancement content? If so, how will this affect other site outcomes? Things to definitely consider before showing your client the next report.
4. Distribution - Brands and content owners are best positioned to bring awareness to their SearchMonkey Enhancements. Yahoo! could also modify the SERP page to display Enhancements by relevance, installs, etc. Other thoughts are:
   1. Yahoo’s a marginal search player and I don’t see things getting better. According to comScore, Google dominates over 60% of the search market. I’ve seen estimates from sources come in at around 80%. When you factor in the other search engines, Yahoo! is left with around 10 - 20% of the overall U.S. search market. The perceived value provided by SearchMonkey isn’t enough to get user’s to switch to a subpar search engine.
   2. Logging in and adding an Enhancement is a laborious process. Update: The AFP states that Yahoo! has over 266 Million email users. If this is true, many users may already be signed into Yahoo! thus making Enhancement installs a snap. I’ll be paying close attention to the rate of adoption.
   3. It only works on Yahoo! See the bullet #4.1. Having a consistent Enhancement experience across all the major search engines would definitely expedite adoption.

Finally, some are comparing SearchMonkey to Google Co-op. Google Co-op did not provide anywhere near the flexibility of SearchMonkey. But, it was much less complicated to implement. Overall, I’m bullish on SearchMonkey, but I still wish it were Google. As Google moves so does the industry and I believe more content owner’s would move towards adopting standards such as microformats, eRDF, RDFa, and others if it carried weight with the Big Guy. For now, I’ll dust off those RDF and XPath books and hope for the best.

Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included (PNI) and credited for coining the term Social Media Optimization (SMO) will be in the Detroit area for his book signing on July 8th, 2008.

For those that haven’t read the book, PNI is not Yet Another Marketing Book, but a refreshing text on how organizations can look for personality moments to make connections with their customers. You can see a previous post regarding the introduction here.

Stay up-to-date on the latest details by checking out Rohit’s official Facebook event page.

Ken Burbary also has details on the topic.

At one time the U.S. was extremely divided, and during these times it made sense for marketers to play on these divisions to market their goods and services. But news flash, the U.S. isn’t as divided as it used to be. And while these techniques may still work for some demographics, time will continue to blur the line. I’m not saying we live in a utopia, but a black guy or a women will be running for President. Things have changed.

Say it all together now … Psychographics, not demographics should be the primary way we look at segmenting an audience. Wikipedia defines it as: any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. It’s much harder to segment an audience by psychographics but our leading social networks figured out what Black Planet didn’t: regardless of RGARS we all have a little bit in common and leveraging community differences by creating a diverse environment that enables easy pyschographic segmentation can be very lucrative.

Are there similar traits that span age, gender, race, etc? Definitely. Should they solely define your audience? HELL NO! Here are some of the classic statements (or sentence fragments) …

• Republicans are conversative
• Democrats are liberal
• The [Black|Latino|Gay] vote (my favorite)
• The “Boomer” population
• Tweens

Good luck Telemundo

I never need an excuse to talk shop so come on out and meet your fellow Twitter’s. For those that attended the first Detroit Tweetup, this time, I’ll try to stay out past my curfew of 7pm :-)

Leave a comment if you’re coming.

Cheers

Where: 44375 W 12 Mile Rd, Novi, MI 48377 (Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar)
Date: 5/20/2008
Time: 6:00pm

Next-Gen CEO vs. Old School CEO

I’ve worked in any many different environments ranging from the large multinational, ad agency, and the startup. Due to this experience, I’ve been exposed to many different types of leaders and management. Some ideal, others less so. Some team builders others live for conflict. Some highly intelligent, others just plain lucky. But, the beauty of this experience is the ability to pick and choose what works from each of these individuals and decide what to put in your bag of tricks.

This got me thinking about what the executive of tomorrow will look like and how they will manage organizations going forward. I decided to go with the traditional top ten list to define the traits of what I’m coining Executive 2.0.

1. The Next-Gen Executive is a Woman - No, I’m not a woman, but I see the trend occurring more and more within larger and smaller companies. It’s not about correcting the sins of our fathers, but rather giving qualified individuals the opportunity to make it to the top seat. Woman have a much different perspective on life and business than men (it’s not all war and sports analogies).
2. Technologist will Rule the World Business - Having been a techie that’s made the transition to marketing, I have a firm understanding of what it takes to get the job done from both a technical and business perspective. Many of my business counterparts don’t, thus, they have to take the word of their IT brethren. Unless you’ve built systems, you don’t know what it takes. The largest companies in the world are being started, funded, and run by those with strong technical backgrounds and it’s a trend I don’t see changing any time soon.
3. Embraces Creativity - Creativity is missing in 95% (more like 99%) of America’s corporations. Walk into many companies and you’ll see drab cubicles lacking color or style and employees trying not to be themselves in place of their “Corporate” alter-ego. It’s like some exec said “You know what? Sucking the life out of employees will really help the bottom line”. The next (and current) generation of employees will not excel in this type of environment
4. Encourages Personality - How many layers of bureaucracy do you have to get through to voice your opinion about your company, the industry, etc. How many companies hide behind illegible legal mumbo jumbo. Expect this to change as more corporations allow their employees to be the voice of the company instead of the corporate canned PR communications. Check out Rohit Bhargava’s Personality Not Included an in depth analysis of the topic.
5. Will be Flat - EVP, SVP, VP, GSVP, etc. Lot’s of titles that don’t mean crap when it comes to getting the job done. I’m not against the titles, but rather those that use a title as a shield. Shielding them from responsibility and accountability. The best organizations know how to implement a process where the best ideas can come from anywhere in the organization not just from those on top.
6. Is Virtual - Do you ever feel that you can complete more work at Starbucks or in your home office? The traditional office environment is rife with distractions (mostly mindless meetings). They also require dollars that may be better used elsewhere. The new kids on the block will only need a wireless connection, chat, Skype, and a webcam to set up shop. Instant office.

Did I say top 10? I could go on, but what’s a blog without community involvement Add your ideas to the list or provide some feedback on the traits that I’ve listed. I look forward to hearing from ya.

From Ad Age …

CHALLENGE NO. 4: THE MISNOMER OF MOBILE AS AD MEDIUM

Too often people treat mobile as just another medium into which marketers should shoehorn existing ad models. This is being questioned online and should also be questioned in mobile.

THE FIX: Marketers need to realize mobile is not a medium that works best alone; it’s more effective as part of a larger media buy that integrates with TV, online or print. “Mobile marketing should make your other media work harder,” said Eric Bader, partner at Brand in Hand. He said the first thing he asks marketers when he goes in to talk about mobile is how other media channels are performing and suggests tying in mobile to help boost performance. Some marketers, such as airlines, with their improved mobile sites, are making it part of customer relationship management.

Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=125977