AbleBrains

Google Instant makes SEO Irrelevant? Who cares?

Steve Rubel makes an the argument that Google Instant will kill SEO because:

Here's what this [Google Instant] means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick - and everyone saw the same results. That's what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors.

Searches will be more unique -- Agree

When you get feedback, you change your behavior -- Agree

Once a single search would do the trick - and everyone saw the same results - Big deal

Search has always been a very personalized engagement with the Web. Just because people will be tweaking their searches does not mean that that search isn't part of a common cluster of search terms that folks use.  How many different ways can one search for a restaurant in Aspen Colorado?  There are just so many terms that one can use.  So I don't believe that search will kill SEO. Pulling from Bob Warfield's blog...Even the Google Smarter Predictions folks say, “Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, we will push you in the direction of what the masses are looking for.  We will perturb search in the direction of sameness.”  Again, there are masses of same search types out there which one could optimize around.

The more fundamental question is... should you have even been bothering with SEO to begin with?  After all, as Bob Warfield points out, its content that's king.

For marketing, content trumps SEO and links back to your site.  That’s not to say there is no value in SEO or links, just that if you have to choose or prioritize, content is at the top of the heap.  If you’re a big company, you can probably choose to invest in all with far more resources than perhaps are even needed.  But the smaller your budget, the more likely you had better choose and make the right choice.  Pssst: the right choice is Content!

Regarding SEO being marginalized, Bob argues:

If, instead of feedback changing behaviors to be less predictable as Rubel implies, it actually makes the behaviors more predictable because we are guided to sameness, SEO is still dead, but for a much less interesting reason.  This sameness makes it much harder to game.  You can no longer count on the Long Tail queries to help you out when you can’t secure the top spots on the common queries.  It is a repressive tax on the Long Tail, in other words.

Agree that you can't game the SEO system easily with Google Instant, although search providers have been making it harder to game the system for years now.  So.. forget about Google Instant making SEO irrelevant.  You can still optimize around those "sameness  clusters" and focus on driving traffic with your compelling content. 

AbleAdvisory: You Are NOT a Gadget: A Manifesto

Check out Jaron Lanier's new book: You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto... another one of my heroes, is one of the fathers of Virtual Reality. He actually coined the term.  His new book discusses the impact of Web 2.0 and Growing up Digital on our culture. some excerpts via AlwaysON:

“Something started to go wrong with the digital revolution around the turn of the twenty-first century.  The World Wide Web was flooded by a torrent of petty designs sometimes called web 2.0.  This ideology promotes radical freedom on the surface of the web, but that freedom, ironically, is more for machines than people. Nevertheless, it is sometimes referred to as the 'open culture.'

“Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks, and lightweight mashups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned interpersonal interaction. Communication is now often experienced as a superhuman phenomenon that towers above individuals. A new generation has come of age with reduced expectation of what a person can be, and who each person might become.”

If you're in tech (heck, even if you're not!) and you don't know Jaron, get to know him. He's a pioneer and his mind continues to create new and unexplored territory... fertile plains of thought.

Can Your Product Drive Word of Mouth Marketing?

In a word, "yes", but you have to ask yourself "will mine?"  Why do certain products have buzz and why are some just plain DOA?

1. Products that get used a lot get talked about a lot (OK Steve, brain dead obvious), what's the interesting part?). The interesting part is that when a product is referenced thru multiple channels, multiple avenues in a consumers' environment?  That drives conversation!!!! -- whether online ads, a tweetstream, a billboard, AN INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN -- it doesn't matter.  If it leaves an impression in a consumer's mind, and increases the likelihood of a consumer mentioning it. Still not interesting enough?  Read on.

2. Your product doesn't have to be "interesting" to be talked about. Interesting products may be talked about more right after a person has an experience with that product but "interesting" products don't receive more WOM coverage overall.   Its what you say that's important!!!! Its the problem they solve that's important. Ok, so you're not working for Apple marketing the iPad.. GET OVER IT!!! And have some fun with your product. At the end of the day, its YOU who have to be the evangelical spark for your WOM efforts. You who have to go out there and become a conversationalist.  Don't sit behind your desk, craft your plans and let em rip! You have to actively take part in any WOM effort via the social media channels that make sense for your offer.

3. Do promotions help drive conversation?  Well, giving away product is associated with driving conversation. In studies we've seen and conducted ourselves we've determined that giving away products to consumers can boost WOM. In fact conversation can be boosted significantly but don't pile it on! If you send a consumer multiple free products you won't see a concomitant increase in buzz. Clearly WOM fatigue sets in and the excitement wears off.   Coupons and rebates won't do much either. (SAP are you listening?)

The Takeaway?  Take a "flanking" approach to your WOM marketing efforts.  When you are developing your product level marketing for a Word of Mouth campaign, don't deploy the campaign in a vacuum -- you will need to take a 360 degree approach and integrate that WOM campaign into your existing Demand Generation efforts.  And don't be discouraged that you're not marketing a cool app or device!  If you have a valuable solution that solves a real pain and you couple the avenues through which people can learn about your solution, there will be talk!!!

Oh.. and stay away from the hard offers.  They're not going to drive word of mouth.   They may drive conversion but that's a whole 'nuther story.

AbleAdvisory: Sick of Checkins and Useless Mayorships? Check out TopGuest

ReadWriteWeb writes on a new geo-location service that thinks it has the other services licked.  Instead of useless rewards like mayorships the service links to your travel reward programs! "Instead of following Foursquare's footsteps and partnering with pop culture sensations like Bravo and MTV, for example, or WSJ for news and tips from around the city, Topguest wants to link your existing travel rewards programs to your mobile check-ins." Frequent travelers are sure to dig this because you can still use your favorite geo-location service. Topguest becomes the middleman between it and your loyalty program. [Hat tip to Boaz Fletcher for this]

AbleAdvisory

The iPad, the Kindle, and the future of books [The New Yorker] –  Will the iPad, Kindle and Nook kill or save teh publishing business. The old system of publishers selling to stores, with the wholesale price of about  fifty per cent of the hardcover price and authors being paid royalties of about 15% of the cover  has been turned on its head. Without a physical book, what determines the price?  What about an  “agency model” for e-books. In this model the publisher would be considered the seller, and an online vender like Amazon would act as an “agent,” in exchange for a thirty-per-cent fee. Talk about a business model in flux... this is a great case study of new "product" challenging/cannibalizing the old.. if you don't do it right you got a godawful mess on your hands.

For Every Thing Turn, Turn, Turn

My old friend @cedwardbrice DM'd me this evening and said, "Will you please add a new post to AbleBrains..."

Ok Ed, you got my attention. 

I haven't written a word in over 2 months so either there is a lot of stuff to talk about or I got nuthin!  And, I've been bitchin' and moanin' that my blogmuse left me.  But the fact of the matter is, some of my discipline has left me -- the creativity is there, the craziness is there, the design orientation is there but my discipline to get it down in words that are shareable???  Uh uh.  Which is not like me because I'm a reasonably disciplined person. But I have a theory. (of course you do Steve, what else is new?)

My theory is (and this theory may only be applicable to me, therefore, its irrefutably correct) that just like attention, just like authority, we gather it up to us and then apply it, but we don't have an unlimited reservoir of discipline. At least I don't.  Its finite and it needs to be parceled out to those things that are priorities in life. For me, that means the triplets, my family and my work.  After that, any discipline I have left over has to be spread to hundreds of tasks.

But isn't discipline a mind over matter thing?  Isn't it just a matter of applying yourself?  YeaaaaaNooo!
Yes, its a matter of applying yourself when needed but ever hear of burn out?  You know that feeling, you can't raise a paper to pen, can't bear another conference call... you may be disciplined but you can't bring yourself to do it?

hmmm is there a red thread here somewhere?  Something that ties the notions of attention, discipline, & the parceling of authority together? Well yeah, they all require the mental acuity to utilize them in a focused way. But that's just cognitive skills 101. 

Attention, Discipline and Authority Parceling are all subject to fragmentation.

So....

1. Interruption based marketing doesn't work because you're fighting for the already fragmented attention of consumers
2. We're overloaded with tasks and things to do! The constant struggle between family and work, heck the struggle to maintain a job these days, pulls at our discipline -- fragmenting it and preventing focus.  What a bad time to NOT be disciplined.
3. Just how many things can you be an authority on? Authority is the most fragile of the three.  The most subject to fragmentation because of the ego stroking effects of Authority. "Hey this feels good. I'll try to be authoritative on more subjects..." With few exceptions the more things one tries to be authoritative at, the less of an authority one actually is.

Which brings me to the title of this post.  What does a line from a Byrds tune have to do with Attention, Discipline and Authority?

Absolutely NOTHING. Except that I am writing this with 24.5 hours till 2009 - another cycle has been completed and another one about to commence.  So to you and yours may you have a wonderful New Year. And if 2008 has been rough for you or your hoping for some uplifts in the coming year... for everything, Turn! Turn! Turn!

AlwaysOn OnMedia: CEO Showcase: Sharethis

By now you probably all know the icon icon. You know, the one that enables you to bookmark and share content that you think is interesting. I has the opportunity to speak with Tim Schigel, the CEO of Share This and he shared some of his thinking on growing his company.   Share This was basically launched 2 months ago and already has garnered 120mm Page Views.  Their goal is to build an influence-based, trusted referral marketing network.  And you know, they have a shot at this.  Precisely for the same reason that I think Facebook will eventually get this right as well.  We're moving quickly to a marketing model that strongly leverages word of mouth.   Influence and Trusted Referrals (read: shared items from friends, colleagues and families), provide tremendous power in a referral marketing model.  From Tim's perspective, every time some person shares something with another person, he has the opportunity to serve up contextual ads as part of that share.  The biggest problem that I see?  There are an awful lot of competing ad networks, vying for eyeballs and real estate.  Can they scale enough to make their network worth something is the big question.

BTW, I am sitting here in the hallway at the conference on the floor because THERE IS NO POWER AT THIS CONFERENCE. I found an outlet behind a sign. Note to Tony Perkins... if you are going to have bloggers at an event, a few strategically placed power strips would be nice!

Jeff Nolan to Lead NewsGator SaaS Business

Jeff Nolan,a very good friend, has been promoted to run NewsGator's SaaS business. I'm so proud of his trajectory and wish him nothing but the best!  We worked together @ SAP and its wonderful to see him  rock this way! Good luckJeff!

Social Media Demographics in the Conversation Economy

Bruce Nussbaum writes an interesting post on the demographics of social media based on some BW research.  What jumped out at me was the following:

INdata shows that there are 6 types of social media participatants--Creators who publish web pages, blog and upload videos; Critics who comment on blogs and post reviews and comments; Collectors who use RSS to tag and gather information; Joiners who use social networking sites; Spectators who watch, read and listen; and Inactives, folks who are online but don't participate in social media yet. The demographics are very interesting.

Each slice of the population participates differently in social media. Some 34% of online users aged 12-17 still do not participate in social media. 42% of people 27-49 online do not. Some 5% of seniors--62 plus--are social media creators (compared to 34% for young teens 12 to 17. That strikes me as surprisingly high. Only 7% of boomers are creators

The question I have is what is the overlap? For example, I'd be classified as a Creator, and a Critic, and Collector, Joiner, Spectator and Inactive, depending on the circumstance and conversation.  Bruce actually poses the question, "Who Controls the Conversation?"  Its situationally dependent isn't it?  I mean when I'm at a party, talking to friends, some folks are conversation starters (creators), some are joiners who occasionally, chime in (Critics) and some are just wall flowers (Inactives).  I for one am all of these depending on the situation. 

Maybe, I'm thinking too literally here but can conversations be controlled? They can certainly be dominated but then that's not much of a conversation is it? One tends to actively participate in the conversations they are interested in... what about this post though?  Is it an act of a Creator or a  Critic?  I'm not exactly delivering an original post but am "commenting" on Bruce's post... which we see a lot of in the blogosphere so to get an truly accurate picture of conversation dynamics would require a more granular view - one that looks at the actual content components in the conversations and the dynamics among separate posts in different web geographies.

Join the Conversation

Ok... so I've been catching up on my reading since last week's major events so follow this train of thought (or links).  I was reading a post by Dennis on SAP's acquisition of OutlookSoft.  Toward the end of the post Dennis says:

SAP is a class act by any measure. Its ‘german-ness’ allows it to differentiate itself as a player that delivers quality. Not always (actually rarely) on time but quality nonetheless. It also has another quality Oracle doesn’t possess. Integrity. (Oracle people - feel free to flame…or join the conversation.)

I appreciate Dennis' comments about SAP and his call to Oracle to join the conversation.  Its what's best for our customers and the market.  So I followed the Oracle people link above to see if indeed the conversation had been joined.  What I found was a post on how to break this wall down.  Its good to see that Oracle admits they have a problem - its the first step to recovery :) but I think its being over-engineered. What wall are we talking about here? If its to create greater transparency between a company (any company) and a given market then I don't think the following does it.  I mean they are nice rules of engagement but, well take a look for yourself:

• For every 3 blog posts you write about your own stuff, write one that links and discusses another blogger's post.
• For every blog post you write, post two comments in the comments section of another blogger's post.
• Maintain a blogroll linking to external parties with your favorite blogs.

I guess one could apply guidelines.  They help.  But is there really anything formulaic about having a conversation with the market?  Dennis invited Oracle into the conversation... time keeps on tickin...