Web 2.0 Promotions

Since its unveiling last month, the iPad has been labeled a Kindle killer. The parallels are obvious—the largest (and newest) Kindle has the same size screen, both have Internet connectivity, and both can be used to read books. But that just about sums up the Kindle’s selling points, and the iPad’s features list continues on out the door. So could a full-color touchscreen tablet computer and a B&W eReader really be considered the competitors the media continue to make them out to be?

Heck yes, if Amazon has anything to say about it. Last week, Amazon acquired touchscreen maker TouchCo. The small startup had developed a new way to add touch screen technology. (Kindle direct competitor the Sony eReader already has a touchscreen version, which outsells its cheaper alternative.)

Meanwhile, the technology for adding color to the E Ink device has long been in the works. The exactly-like-paper interface has long been the biggest selling point of eReaders, but despite the development of a color version by E Ink four years ago, nearly all E Ink displays are in black and white. The acquisition of creator E Ink by PVI last year seemed to pave the way for a color Kindle by the end of this year.

But does Kindle really care? They’ve released an app for the iPhone, enabling the Kindle’s parent company, Amazon, to continue to benefit from other devices. If users are willing to put up with the eyestrain from reading hundreds of thousands of words on an LCD screen, Amazon is willing to take their money on ebooks. (We can debate over how much Amazon makes or loses per ebook right now—their ultimate goal could just be to make us all dependent on them for all our ebook needs.)

Then again, maybe they do. The New York Times takes a look at job listings for Amazon’s Lab 126, developer of the Kindle:

One job opening in particular, for a Hardware Display Manager, tells the applicant that “you will know the LCD business and key players in the market.” The key point here is the word “LCD,” which means the Kindle is possibly exploring color (unless they are hiring an LCD manager to simply gain an understanding of the color-display market).

Other job openings include Wi-Fi specialists (the current Kindle has only a 3G wireless connection), and openings for someone to “lead the software development teams that develop and maintain the applications.” The applications division could signal a move to create more apps for the Kindle, or someone who will manage the latest app store developments after Amazon announced a new software development kit was released last month to independent programmers.

What do you think? Is Amazon gearing up to pit the Kindle against the iPad—and will it be enough?

Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer survey shows that traditional media is trending downward among “informed publics aged 25-64 in 20 countries”—and so is their trust in “a person like yourself” (although much less dramatically).

The executive summary shows traditional media trust is diving, with TV news down 20%, radio news down 17% and print news down 12%. However, digital media isn’t exactly making up the gap—radio and TV news coverage still slightly beat out online search engines (38%, 36% and 35%, respectively), and newspaper articles close behind (34%). Corporate communications (press releases, I guess) were also in the same tier—significantly ahead of social networking sites (19%), which only barely edged out product advertising (17%).

I have to wonder if it’s the signal to noise ratio or the sources of search engines’ information. After all, it seems like search engines will mostly send users to corporate websites—or blogs ranting about how terrible (or great) said company is. And neither of those seem totally credible.

Most trusted for information about a company were stock or industry analyst reports (49%) and articles in business magazines (44%). Conversations with employees also ranked high (41%).

Meanwhile, expert sources are gaining trust year over year, while “average Joes” have slipped slightly. Academics or experts were rated as the most credible again, gaining 2 percentage points to 64%. Financial and industry analysts gained 3 percentage points to 52%.

The rankings changed up from 2009 with the third and fourth most trusted sources: NGO reps gained 4 percentage points to 45%, edging out a “person like yourself,” which lost 3 percentage points and fell to 44%.

Oddly enough, apparently we haven’t learned anything over the last two years. Trust for CEOs gained 9 percentage points and trust for government officials gained six percentage points. (At 40% and 35%, respectively, they’re still not very widely trusted.)

Also strange: while 41% believed conversations with employees were “extremely” or “very” credible, only 32% rated regular employees as “extremely” or “very” credible sources of information about a company.

What do you think? What’s the most credible source for information about a company? What, if anything, can we do to ameliorate digital media’s credibility?

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Holy language gap, Batman! Google looks to be creating some pretty cool futuristic gadgets for its utility belt. Now, when Eric Schmidt puts out the Goog signal he can feel confident that ex-Google employees in all parts of the world will understand the signal without have to spend time changing out the filter on his light signal. (I had to use this picture again after all the trouble Andy went through to make it). This will all be made possible by Google’s translation tools that are moving toward translating voice on the fly.

Now, this technology is a few years away but The Times of London is bringing the project to our attention.

By building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years. If it works, it could eventually transform communication among speakers of the world’s 6,000-plus languages.

The folks at Google seem to feel that this is very doable. There are many naysayers, however, which are quoted in the article but also let themselves be heard in the comment string. First the confident Google version

“We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time,” said Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services.

Now from the other camp.

However, some experts believe the hurdles to live translation remain high. David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, said: “The problem with speech recognition is the variability in accents. No system at the moment can handle that properly.

“Maybe Google will be able to get there faster than everyone else, but I think it’s unlikely we’ll have a speech device in the next few years that could handle high-speed Glaswegian slang.

Whether this capability is ready in a few years or in 10 years it could be something that would be very interesting but in the same breath could be disturbing like it apparently was in the movie “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. In the movie, the Babel Fish device that could translate any language for users ended up creating some serious issues (a war) because everyone knew what everyone else was saying!

I’m not saying that life would imitate art but maybe what we don’t know won’t hurt us after all.

Well, since Google’s Super Bowl ad has signaled that it is in trouble by sending some kind of message that there is fear in the air (c’mon people relax it’s not the big deal you may think it is), what does a company that is obviously reeling on its heels look to do? Find other ways to make money of course.

Now I do not believe that Google is reeling at all. I don’t think that their Super Bowl ad is evidence of anything other than the fact that they could use an already created and packaged message to reach a large audience when their competition wasn’t. Nothing more and nothing less. Do you really think that the cost of that ad is of any consequence to Google’s bottom line? I suspect they figured they could smoke the crappy ads for chips and beer with a simple message and create buzz worth more than $ 3 mil. Mission accomplished.

Google does, however, need to figure out other ways to generate cash and display seems to be the next big thing. Business Week reports

Google CEO Eric Schmidt hinted in July that display advertising would probably be the next of his company’s businesses to generate $1 billion in sales. Analysts say 2010 is the year he’ll deliver on that prediction.

Display ads are likely to contribute a little more than $1 billion, or about 4% of Google’s (GOOG) total sales this year—an increase of as much 40% over last year—say analysts, including Doug Anmuth at Barclays Capital. That marks an important threshold for Mountain View (Calif.)-based Google, which makes most of its sales from ads placed alongside search results and which has been criticized for not getting more revenue from other businesses. Demand for display ads, which include marketing messages in videos and banner ads adorning Web pages, may rise faster this year than for search-related ads, according to eMarketer.

About $700 million of that number should come from YouTube while the remaining will come out of the DoubleClick operations that are gaining momentum. There seems to be a new surge in display ad money that is coming over to the web from TV advertisers. I guess they hadn’t heard about the effectiveness concerns regarding the ads but hey if you have blown a lot on TV ads already it shows you don’t pay real close attention to things . Google has rolled out its Google Insight offering, though, to help understand everything

Google is trying to help advertisers better measure the effectiveness of display ads. “One of the challenges we put to ourselves was: ‘What are the ways a brand advertiser would look to measure [ad impact]?’,” Neal Mohan, the executive in charge of Google’s display business says. The result: Campaign Insights, a tool developed over a year by dozens of Google engineering teams around the world before it was released in December.

Hair-care company Regis was one of the first to test Campaign Insights. It ran banner ads for Hair Club For Men across hundreds of Google’s partner sites while Campaign Insights tracked the number of people who had seen the ads and then performed related Web searches. “Display [advertising] drives searches and Web site visits,” says Luke Hubbard, vice-president of Beverly Hills (Calif.)-based Integrated Media Solutions, the ad agency that coordinated the campaign for Regis. “We knew that effect was there before, but now we are able to quantify it.” Impressed by the results, Regis increased spending on display ads for the brand in 2010, and Integrated Media Solutions has signed up seven other clients eager to tap the analytics.

Ahh, analytics. You mean the ability to actually track whether what you are doing is truly working or not? Those crazy kids over in Mountain View think they should provide something that measures the effectiveness of display ads and now they are going to try to sell more because of their innovation. Wow.

Is Google serious about this? Apparently serious enough to actually have real Google employees venture out and talk to live human beings. In other words they are recognizing that this type of sale requires service and not automation. I had to chuckle a little at this last quote regarding the idea of Google employees venturing out and soiling their good name with the general population.

To succeed in display, Google has also had to hone its ability to market products through a people-friendly sales force. In search, Google has tended to rely more on the technical effectiveness of its products, analysts say. “Advertising is a lot of hand-holding and schmoozing,” says analyst Greg Sterling. “Historically, Google has not been good on managing the people side.”

That’s changing, says Amy Curtis-McIntyre, senior vice-president of brand communications for hotel chain Hyatt. She says Google has begun regularly sending sales reps to her Chicago offices. “When they develop new search tools or new advertising tools, they bring them to us and present them in a usable way,” says Curtis-McIntyre.

Now, when Google understands that people also like to be visited when there isn’t something to sell then we can say that they get it. You know…..the R word. No, not Revenue! They get that one real good! It’s the other R word……Relationship. When they understand relationships then they will have something.

When Google announced that it would no longer play nicely with China, some suggested that this was a just a ploy to pull out of a country that it was struggling to dominate.

Of course, Google’s official stance was that it was just too much of a compromise to operate any business in China:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Except maybe, for one that’s already successful…

A consortium led by Walt Disney Co is in advanced talks to buy into China’s largest in-bus digital media and advertising company…Google was expected to take only a small stake in the Bus Online deal, while Disney aimed to take the greater part, said the sources, adding that no agreement had been signed yet.

Wow, Google! That stance against China lasted all of four weeks!

Here we were thinking that you were putting your foot down so that other US companies might be able to get behind your efforts to stop censorship in China, when all along you were looking for a back door into the country.

Buying a stake in a successful Chinese company kind of gives credibility to the suggestion that you only backed out of China, because you weren’t able to compete. After all, if you were on such moral high-ground, you wouldn’t be buying into a company that already plays nicely with the Chinese government.

Would you?

There were lots of entertaining Super Bowl ads this year, but as an internet marketer, two interested me the most: Google’s first ever TV ad, and the new upstart, KGB.

Forget the fact that Google–the ambassador for new, measurable ads–ran an old-school TV ad, which do you think was the best of the two?

We finally have a Marketing Pilgrim fan page on Facebook!

I know, I know, it’s about time! But hear me out.

You see, I always figured that having a fan page on Facebook wouldn’t be of interest to Marketing Pilgrims. I thought a fan page was just an ugly expression of vanity–did I really feel like people loved this site enough to become a "fan" of it?

Then it struck me.

It’s not about being a fan, it’s about providing you with another way to enjoy Marketing Pilgrim’s posts. Maybe you’re not a big user of RSS, but would prefer to nom on our delicious posts, while throwing sheep or growing carrots.

So, for those of you that wish to connect with us via Facebook, now you can.

Oh, and I might just run a Facebook only contest at some point in the near future–just in case you need an extra incentive to join our community.

So, a few days ago I was on Twitter and a friend of mine asked her followers how much she should pay a designer for a new logo. My response was, “well, pay them what ever they invoice you for.” She then explained that this designer didn’t know how to price his logos and needed help. I remember when I first started my business I had no idea how to price products. I used to spend days analyzing the market, comparing other products and thinking of different marketing options. And then one day I realized how simple pricing really is.

I was talking to a potential client over the phone and they asked me if I could give them a ball bark figure on how much their project would cost. At the time I already had several clients and didn’t see myself getting to their project for awhile. So I figured I would try something different with them. I ended up sending them a quote for about 3 times what I had ever charged a client, thinking that they would look at the quote and I would never hear from them again and that would be history. In a few hours they emailed me back and said that they thought the quote looked reasonable and they wanted to move forward! I thought to myself, wow! All I have to do is ask for it!

Now I realize that the correct price for a product is the highest amount that your market is willing to pay. And, the only way that you can find out what that amount is, is by asking for it. This type of pricing method is called Value Based pricing. With Value Base your price reflects the value that your market places on the product.

Now sure I know what you are thinking. Isn’t it dangerous to price yourself to high? Aren’t you afraid of pricing yourself out of the market? To answer these questions let’s take a look at Wally World. Here is a corporation that’s motto is “Always Low Prices”. When Sam Walton coined that phrase in 1962 he wasn’t just launching a insightful marketing campaign, he was in fact laying the groundwork for their future pricing structure. Walmart’s dominance is dependent on selling at low prices at high volume. As a result their stores across the world are always packed.

But do you really want to be like Walmart? I mean, sure they do a lot of business, but it’s all at very low profit margins. Now, let’s take a look at the other side of town and the shops on main street. These are the locally owned mom and pop joints that maybe your neighbor runs. These shops can’t compete with Walmart’s prices and as a result they do less business. Can you guess which business model I would rather have? Well, if you guessed the local mom and pop shop, you win! Running a business that caters to the market’s lowest price point will guarantee a steady flow of consumers. But you really need to ask yourself, do I really want to do business with the cheapest folks in my market? Trust me, you don’t, they are annoying and will eat up all your time and money.

So how can you start getting paid more for your products and services. Just start asking for more. Sure you run the risk of losing potential customers, but in the end the ones that agree to pay premium prices will leave your business truly valuing their time with you, which in turn, turns into referrals and other opportunities down the road! So start asking for more and quite trying to be the “Wally World” of your industry!

Last week, Facebook posted instructions on how to make FB your “personalized news channel” and minimize nonnewsworthy clutter on their blog. Inspired, Hitwise looked at the numbers, and it looks like Facebook is already well on its way as a news starting point.

Hitwise’s stats show that Facebook is well ahead of some other news aggregators in terms of sending downstream traffic to news websites:

After Google (17.32%), Yahoo (7.89%) and msn (4.43%), Facebook was the fourth most popular referrer for news websites. Says Hitwise:

News and Media is the #11 downstream industry after Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the social networking site’s traffic. To offer a comparison, 6% of downstream traffic from Facebook went to Shopping and Classifieds last week [check out their downstream retail traffic] and 6% to Business and Finance and 15% went to Entertainment websites (YouTube in particular).

Clearly, news isn’t the most popular post-Facebook activity, but the chart shows that it’s been growing steadily over the last several months. (Any ideas what the spike in April was about? Conficker?)

What do you think? Will Facebook be the next big destination for news?

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Two years ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M—and with the agreement that Bing would be providing web search on the world’s most popular social network. That deal is now expanding, according to the Bing blog—to not only take in an expanded, enhanced search but also more countries around the world. Most importantly, however, Bing is giving up its claim on selling Facebook advertising.

Their enhanced search is a joint effort between FB and Bing “to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users.” Right now, Bing provides the basic ten blue links through Facebook’s web search option, but that will expand to include “richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions,” in keeping with Bing’s “decision engine” branding. This partnership is also growing beyond the US to a worldwide agreement.

Before the last deal, Microsoft was selling advertising for Facebook in the US. The original deal expanded that relationship for Microsoft to sell display advertising on Facebook around the world. However, that’s all going away now:

[W]e made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site. We have been working together on advertising for a long time, creating the best experience for Facebook users and advertisers. Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy. MS will continue to provide search advertisements to Facebook.

At the time of the original deal, Facebook had more than 49M active users. Now, they’re up to well over 300M. While Bing is losing that display advertising market, they may be on their way out of selling advertising anyway with the pending Yahoo/MSFT deal.

What do you think? Is this a move up or down for Facebook and Bing individually?