In an attempt to end their tenure as the red headed stepchild of Google and return to the status they once had, Yahoo! has updated its search engine to end what it calls “Web search fatigue”. That name alludes to a Harris Interactive poll for Yahoo, explaining that only 15% of users found what they were looking for on the first search.
The biggest upgrade for the search engine is the Search Assist, which acts much like T9 on a phone, trying to predict the topic the user is seeking based on the spelling, as well as other relevant subject matter. Upon typing the letters “hou”, the terms “house”, “Houston chronicle” and “24 hour fitness” all appear. The Yahoo! Search VP Vish Makhijani explains, “In testing Search Assist, we found that users were 61% more successful in completing their task with this new search feature at their disposal.” There is also an option for users to turn this feature off, as to some (specifically myself) it can come off as a little bossy.
Another notable update, with specific implications in the advertising world, is that now pictures, videos, audio and text are all compiled in the response to a search. Although Google has this capability, it was astutely brought to my attention that when a search for a news topic on Yahoo is done, videos come up in the results, whereas they do not on Google. What does this mean for advertisers? To begin, there may be more opportunities for interactive multimedia ads throughout the results page. Also, these new image and video rich search results may nicely compliment the similar qualities of brand advertisers’ content, marking a point where the search engine domain may not belong to only direct response advertisers.
By upgrading their search engine, Yahoo has made a clear statement that they are not going to lie down and succumb to the powers of Google. With the changes not even 48 hours old, it is difficult to see what role this will all have in their future success; it seems that not a day goes by when there is not talk about Google swallowing up another company of technology. Those things taken into consideration, Yahoo still has a long road ahead of them.
DTC (direct to customer) advertising has the potential to make millions of lives easier by relaying information about breakthrough drugs that can help to better the quality of life for so many around the world. Unfortunately however, as of late, many of these campaigns have come under fire for misleading consumers when it comes to side effects and the effectiveness of some of these medications. For example, in a poll of 737 hip and knee surgeons, 77% of those polled believe that DTC ads mislead patients by exaggerating the benefits and downplaying the costs of treatment. Although many of these DTC ads should be doing a positive thing by keeping the public informed of updated practices, they often times are used to undermine or second guess a doctors’ opinion, yet the patient is not aware of how tried and true these methods are. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives made an effort to change all of that.
On Wednesday September 19, the House took a number of steps to improve the safety of the public by increasing the amount of funding for the Food and Drug Administration. The bill, passed by the House in a 405-7 vote, is being called the most significant drug safety legislation in 40 years. The Senate is expected to pass the bill as early as today and it is anticipated that President Bush will then sign it. The bill renews two programs for five years and provides the additional funding to be used for more thorough testing of drugs after they have hit the market, and also to update labels on medication with additional warnings. The fees paid by drug makers to the FDA were $305.5 million last year and as a result of this, will increase to $417.8 million this year.
This additional funding will allow the FDA to work with advertisers and the medication manufacturers to create a safer environment for all. This will be especially emphasized within the advertising world, as the bill also gives the FDA authority to fine advertisers up to $250,000 a day for continuing to run ads that have been deemed misleading, and then $500,000 a day for the second time it occurs within three years. The bill did leave out any mention of ad curbs, which would prevent marketing new drugs for the first two to three years once they are on the market. This in itself was a victory for the industry as it could have tremendously impacted the $4.5 billion dollars spent on these DTC ads each year.
Despite the fact that ad curbs did not make it into the bill, the bill itself is still a huge victory for everyone, not just the advertising industry. The FDA now has the power to more carefully regulate medication dispersed throughout the world and if they are more careful with performing after market testing of drugs, they can then change the labels and fewer ads will be deemed misleading. The problem of these misleading ads do not rest on the industry, nor should they solely rest on the manufacturers, the FDA needs to make a stand to protect the public and on Wednesday they did just that.
Odds are when most people go to their computer to search for information on any given topic, they will use Google. The site itself has garnered so much support, that the term “google” has become a verb. According to numbers put forth by Nielsen//NetRatings, Google consistently has over a 50% share of total online searches, something that should come as no surprise to the internet savvy. To begin, it seemed that Google was going to expand their empire by developing their technology in house, but a clear statement was made after the acquirement of internet video giant, YouTube. The only question that could be asked is where they would expand next.
Last week, CNNMoney.com brought forth rumblings of something that may be on Google’s radar; medical information. According to a Harris Poll in July, “The number of U.S. adults who have ever gone online to look for health or medical information has increased to approximately 160 million up from about 136 million last year.” With this increase in the number of “cyberchondriacs” online, it would not come as a surprise that Google might set their sights on internet health giant, WebMD.
Although it has been said that WebMD is not currently looking to sell, some changes in the administration of Google Health seem to indicate that a change may be coming.
Searchengineland.com ran a story explaining that the Google Vice President of Product Management, Adam Bosworth, who was crucial in the development of Google Health, “is now on vacation and has decided to pursue other opportunities after that.” Under Bosworth, Google Health has operated as more of a tool to help organize medical information for users, as opposed to offering their own. With the separation of the site from its architect, one might think that Google could be looking to purchase a health care site. Acknowledging that fact, WebMD would be the logical choice. Considering everything Google seems to touch turns to gold, the cyberchondriacs of the world should keep a watchful eye on the horizon and see what happens.
So it seems like it is finally time for Google to start monetizing on its’ youTube investment. Google will begin displaying overlay advertisements through its very popular & extensive youTube content network. Ok, I can hear you groaning, “No, don’t pollute my videos with junky ads!”, but hopefully Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto will hold true. Apparently the ads will be relatively nonintrusive, as they will be targeted towards the video’s content, and users will be able to quickly close the ads if they please. With an attractive CPM and some creative flexibility, I am very curious to see where this will go.
“Advertisers will pay a flat rate of $20 per thousand consumer viewings. In addition to the overlay and click-to-play ad, they get an ad unit beside the video player.”
-CNNMoney.com (Article)
I’m currently traveling back from the Affiliate Summit conference but I thought I would post a quick link to some photos from the event.
Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0, RSS 2.0, Business 2.0 – what in the world is 2.0 anyway? Some speculate that it’s nothing more than marketing hype and a new buzz word that professionals can throw around to make themselves look knowledgeable and important. Others swear it’s the beginning of a new age of media. Well, believe it or not, there is a rhyme and a reason behind the 2.0 phenomena.
Remember the good old days of the Web? The days when all you needed was an idea and a domain name and you could rake in millions? (Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly that easy – but you get the drift.)
Well, that Web was the first Web. That Web was Web 1.0. Web 1.0 was the Web that crashed and died in 2001. Web 2.0 is today’s Web and Web 2.0, my friends, is alive and well.
The term “Web 2.0″ was coined by O’Reilly Media during a brainstorming conference. The people attending this conference theorized that today’s Web is no less valuable than the Web of yesteryear. In fact, today’s Web has even more to offer. It’s not a new Web, just a different Web, a web of user generated content, mashups, shared information sources, lightweight programming models, web base applications, social bookmarking, and maybe something more apparent to novice web surfers, design elements consisting of large fonts, white space, shiny buttons and images with reflections.
Wikipedia has multiple explanation that define “Web 2.0”, a couple of which are..
“the transition of web sites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users;”
“a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”;”
In an article written by Tim O’Reilly , he tried to illustrate exactly what he meant by Web 2.0. In the article, he compared the old Internet (Web 1.0) with the new Internet (Web 2.0) by referencing websites and trends such as Ofoto vs. Flickr, Britannica Online vs. Wikipedia, personal websites vs. blogging. The comparisons do help in creating somewhat of an understanding of exactly what was meant by Web 2.0.
Of course, the phrase caught on and everyone started using it (and adapting it). So now we have Mobile 2.0, RSS 2.0, heck – I might as well just call myself “Jake 2.0”. It seems that the bigger and better version of everything is now being coined as “2.0″ and while some are confused as to the exact definition of 2.0, it’s clear that it means things are changing.
To be continued…
Apparently Google is beginning an aggressive network-wide campaign to shut down AdWords arbitrage sites. According to www.jensense.com, Google has started to contact AdSense publishers to let them know that, “their use of their AdSense account is an unsuitable business model and that accounts would be disabled as of June 1st.”
From the people I have spoken with, I’ve either heard “What is Adwords Arbitrage?” or “Finally, I was so sick of that junk.” No matter who you are, I’m sure you have come across these sites before. They drive traffic from either the organic or the paid results on Google and send users to pages that contain almost no content except for Google AdSense links. While these sites contain tons of links to seemingly relevant information, they are actually just an unnecessary spam stop on the way to the real information you are looking for.
It is purely a numbers game. Publisher purchase Google keywords at a low rate and then pump their sites full of AdSense links that will allow them to make a little margin by clotting up the arteries of the AdWords, AdSense and effectively the overall Google results.
I’d gladly give anyone who’s been able to exploit this flaw in the Google megamodel a pat on the back (nice hustle buddy, now it’s time for a real job) but I’d definitely like to thank Google for finally closing this hole. There was nothing worse than getting stuck in 5 page AdSense loop when trying to quickly get to some real information. Granted, there is plenty of bad content out there, but when it is being supported by one of Google’s main business models, that is a step in the wrong direction.
Interactive Advertising, Marketing and Multimedia Specialist
