23 Musings

Could this functionality support Google's travel ambitions?

2008-05-30T17:48:00.002+01:00

Troogle? TravGoogle? GooTravel? Whatever you want to imagine the name may be the thought of Google jumping into the travel arena has operators and agents either salivating with the thought of the traffic and sales it could drive or quaking with fear at the thought of them owning the customer experience. Rumours keep appearing of the intentions of Google, but up till now there hasn't been any obvious functionality leaking out of Googleplex which could support a serious move into travel. That is, until now (at least I've only just found it)...

There's a new(ish) beta on Google for a Merchant search (only appears when you're in the right place searching the right thing). This is basically a price comparison engine, currently only serving the loan market. My question is, could this power a travel price comparison engine and so switch users to this type of interface and functionality if they search for the right travel related keywords? Could Google then become an affiliate to travel companies? I'd imagine TravelSupermarket would hope not!!

Step into a virtual world

2008-04-12T09:23:00.002+01:00

Wow! Good progress is being made towards allowing humans to immerse themselves in virtual worlds. This video shows a new camera which allows you to translate body movements into Second Life.

It may look a little basic at the moment but once the worlds get more 'real' there is real potential for many industries (including travel) to really go to town on providing the next best thing to their 'real' products online.

Online advertising - all sewn up by the big guys?

2008-04-12T09:18:00.003+01:00

This image from eMarketer shows just how sewn up the online ad world is by the big four...

When Google drops the branded terms rules on 5th May I reckon their revenue and share will leap as the cost of those terms in PPC rises!

Opera passes the Acid3 test!

2008-03-27T17:46:00.002Z

Good news in the browser standards war. Thins are really hotting up now as Opera has announced that their latest beta (or maybe even alpha) has passed the Acid3 test.

Let's see the responses from Mozilla and Microsoft as they try to get IE and Firefox up to speed...

Guerilla marketing tactics

2008-03-21T08:44:00.002Z

Advertising can be so boring sometimes. It's far more engaging to create an advert that makes your prospective customers stop and stare while they try to figure out what it is you're trying to market to them. Then the moment of realisation kicks in when they figure out what your product or service is and that's when it gets stuck in their minds and advertising recall pays off.

Here's some great examples on these two pages (link 1 and link 2).

My favourite I think has to be this one advertising a casino in an airport:

Google Japan redesigns its homepage

2008-03-19T17:48:00.004Z

The Google homepage rarely changes in anyway except for their tradition of adding themed logo's to go with the season, holiday or event. Japan though has had a treat and the homepage of www.google.co.jp.

The new design is not available in every location (I can't see it) but it looks much better with the addition of tabs (see below).

It really would be nice to see a redesign of the main Google homepage, I'm sure with all the services they offer it is about time they offered a better way for them to be accessed from Google.com. The tabbed design would allow them to make their services more prominent while keeping them easy to access.

Google sees mobile search increase

2008-03-19T08:33:00.002Z

It seems the mobile web is beginning to come of age at last. Could it be down to the iPhone? The greater occurrence of phones with wireless built in? Better mobile web apps? Increasing addiction to the internet so you just have to get at it everywhere you are? Well, personally I think it's down to our increasing need for data, connections with our networks and need to access email on the go. Definitely the iPhone has made a big difference but I believe it's social networks which will really kick start the mobile phenomenon. Just look at Japan and the iMode surge a few years ago, the majority of apps used were related to social uses and email.

Anyway, ZDNet are reporting that Google have seen a 20% increase in mobile search usage.

Awareness test

2008-03-19T08:28:00.002Z

Excellent bit of viral video which is guaranteed to get eyeballs to help get the message across!

From www.dothetest.com.

Does economic uncertaintly push online ad spend into SEM?

2008-03-19T08:15:00.003Z

According to SEMPO (the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) it does.

Apparently money is shifting into search and away from print and classified at an increasing rate. The reason for this I'd surmise is that search is being seen as a way to follow consumers rather than just trying to put an ad in front of them. It's now widely accepted that most markets have a need to be active in search so it's natural for spend to shift towards it.

Key findings from the SEMPO study are:

The North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007.
North American SEM spending is now projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, up significantly from the $18.6 billion forecast a year ago.
Marketers are finding more search dollars by poaching budget from print magazine spending, website development, direct mail and other marketing programs
Paid placement captures 87.4 percent of 2007 spending; organic SEO, 10.5 percent; paid inclusion, 0.07 percent, and technology investment, 1.4 percent.
Google AdWords remains the most popular search advertising program, but both Google and Yahoo sponsored search spending has decreased from a year ago

Here's how the spend is shifting:

Shifting to search is great for all the SEO agencies out there but is also going to make their jobs a lot harder as they have to work for their money to get clients to the top of the listings. As competition grows, so it becomes more difficult to get dramatic improvements in position, some SEO agencies have had an easy ride in recent years and that's going to get harder.

Other developments will also affect SEO such as the introduction of semantic search technology (as announced by Yahoo recently). Developments such as this could change the rankings entirely and again will mean the agencies have to stay ahead of the game and work hard (not a bad thing).

Widget spend to grow

2008-03-19T07:25:00.000Z

Widgets are gaining some serious traction! U.S. companies have spent approx $15m on widget based campaigns in 2007 and that is projected to grow to $40m in 2008.

That spend reflects only 2.5% of the total amount that is projected to be spent on social network advertising in the next year. Now that's quite low, I believe this is because so many widget campaigns have been so poorly executed in the past year and corporates are having difficulty seeing the potential ROI in comparison to traditional banner advertising and more brand led efforts (such as sponsored pages and profiles).

I stick by my earlier prediction that 2008 will be the year of the widget; if portability, engagement and usefulness are all kept in mind then a widget campaign can serve both branding and conversion. For more on my thoughts on widgets see this post.

For more on widget spend visit eMarketer.

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

2008-03-19T07:10:00.000Z

Such a shame when someone who has influenced you passes on. Arthur C. Clarke has died early this morning at his home in Sri Lanka. I'm a huge fan of his books and his thinking in general. I recommend you all go and find out more about him.

Google could be superseded?

2008-03-18T07:27:00.000Z

So says Tim Berners-Lee in this article on the future of the web, search and semantic technologies over on the Times website.

I tend to agree with him unless Google move into the semantic search space pretty quickly. With Yahoo announcing support for semantic mark-up within their search index Google will surely not want to be left behind.

I'd like to think the future of Google will embrace semantic technologies and make it a real 'discovery engine', surfacing links of high relevance to searchers through much stronger understanding of the content within.

As an aside; one thing I've been thinking would be a nice app would be a semantic web robot which you could set off to scour the web for content and with the added semantic features (rather than the more usual boolean profile based robot) it could learn as it went by allowing you to score results for relevance to you. The first really intelligent agent?

Firefox 3 to cure memory leak issues?

2008-03-17T18:23:00.000Z

Could it be true? Please say it is!

Ars Technica is reporting that intensive browsing in Firefox 3 beta generally consumes less than half the memory that Firefox 2 does. They've also looked against the competitors and found that it uses less memory than IE7 and Opera as well.

Now I'm really excited about the coming release of Firefox 3! The memory leak issues have always been my only issue with the browser, if they fix it Firefox will be as near to perfect as I require for my browsing needs.

I'm still adamant it's Flash that causes the leak though as I never get it unless there is Flash on a page and I leave it in a tab for a while...

Phorm; good or bad form?

2008-03-17T17:55:00.002Z

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has come out as against the planned Phorm advert and tracking network today (more here from the BBC).

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that leading ISP's were planning to use Phorm as a platform to serve up targeted adverts to ISP registrants. It's been touted as a great way to provide more relevant ads to users and all the initial talk seemed like PR spin designed to mask any potential privacy issues.

Now at last the privacy issues are getting a good airing!

Personally I'm against my ISP using the data of my surfing habits for advertising purposes. I use my ISP for access to the internet, I do not expect them to share my data on surfing habits with anyone (unless asked to by the authorities...).

Other blogs are asking what the fuss is about this and comparing Phorm to behavioral targeting technologies in use on retail websites. I disagree with this completely as this is going to collect data at the ISP level and share it with any websites which serve adverts through Phorm, this makes it far more pervasive.

An interesting question has to be asked though; how does this differ to Google / Doubleclick? If Google starts to share behavioral search data with Doubleclicks ad serving platform isn't that going to be similarly invasive to users privacy? Potentially; although at least we expect that from Google as an ad revenue based business...

Interestingly, the BBC has just published a story that states that the Foundation for Information Policy Research has claimed that Phorm could well be illegal. They believe Phorm contravenes the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), which protects users from unlawful interception of information.

This has the potential to get very interesting and could open up other networks and ad serving technologies to scrutiny.

How does it work?

2008-03-17T17:40:00.002Z

Fascinated by the latest moves in technology? I know I am and always find myself asking how things work. Popsci.com has a great article looking at some up and coming cutting edge technologies and answers just that question for you. Most amazing for me is the pill that contains a camera and so works as an endoscope, truly Bladerunner'esque technology...

Semantic search engine? Has Yahoo got a card up its sleeve in the search engine war?

2008-03-16T21:11:00.003Z

So Yahoo recently announced their Open Search platform. Now more details are emerging and Yahoo have announced they will be supporting semantic mark-up and making use of the structured, meaningful data that can be applied to web pages to help them index better and serve up more relevant results.

This is a big step forwards and if released into the main Yahoo Search will surely help them in their fight for users with Google and Microsoft.

Relevance is king in the search engine world, being able to interpret results by more than just standard search algorithms of content density and link equity has the potential to deliver a much more relevant results set to every search. As semantic mark-up and web standards increase in usage this could give Yahoo and edge they badly need.

There hasn't been a major move to optimise relevance in search results for years, this could give SEO's something to keep them busy. Rather than following the usual tactics of copy optimisation and ensuring pages are well formed, developers will now need to ensure they use the relevant semantic tags to add meaning to their pages.

The one thing that will bring the users flooding in is if an engine finds a way to deliver highly relevant results. Returning three truly relevant links is far more useful than delivering one thousand arbitrarily ordered links. I for one would immediately switch to using an engine who gets semantic search right.

I hope to see this implemented asap if Yahoo have any chance of capitalising on this move. Google will be hot on their heels otherwise...

Microsoft Offices' backwards compatibility issue

2008-03-07T08:34:00.002Z

Microsoft launched Office 12 some time ago with a new file standard and extension. The XML powered standard, which results in files ending .docx, .pptx etc was touted as the cure to incompatibility woes and promising portability and better standardisation.

I'm finding none of that to be true as a user of Office 2003!

During the average day I get sent many documents and presentations to review or collaborate on and I'm finding real issues with this move by Microsoft. I can't open any documents saved in the new format in my version of Office. It's now got to the stage where many partners have upgraded to Office 12 and I'm having to request new versions of documents on a regular basis.

This has got me to thinking. The issue is only going to get worse as more people upgrade and aren't aware of the backwards compatibility issues. I believe Microsoft have made a massive mistake with this and really harmed the cause of data portability. What's even worse is that sometimes when documents are saved as a compatible version they lose some formatting and bloat in file size hugely.

Surely I can't be the only one encountering this problem and finding the frequency of occurrence rising?

How the current browsers fare with the Acid3 test

2008-03-06T18:25:00.002Z

Daily Tech has a good article detailing how the current most popular browsers fare with the newly released Acid3 test.

As expected it's way out of their reach. How close the final releases of Firefox 3 and IE8 will come is anyones guess. I reckon they won't pass either as IE8 only passed Acid2 when in private beta.

EU to clear Google - DoubleClick

2008-03-06T08:00:00.002Z

Looks like Google may get it's way and finally secure the acquisition of DoubleClick.

Will be interesting to see how this is handled and exactly what Google does to integrate tools and workforce when (if) if goes through!

Hooray! At last I can take my calendar with me!

2008-03-06T07:56:00.002Z

I've used Google Calendar for ages, mainly for it's ease of use and access from anywhere features. However, I still use Microsoft Outlook for work and have an install of it at home too.

So I am ecstatic about this new launch from Google! Google Calendar Sync (catchy) allows you to sync your Google calendar to Outlook and vice versa. Fantastic! All my calendar views can now be up to date, no excuses for missing an appointment anymore...

Whoops! IE8 has problems with Acid2 test (let alone Acid3)

2008-03-06T07:52:00.003Z

Hmm, not the most promising start for the newly released Beta of Internet Explorer 8!

The next challenge for Firefox and Internet Explorer...

2008-03-05T22:38:00.004Z

Yes it's here. The final release of the Acid3 test happened today. Browser manufacturers should be quaking in their boots as it attempts to test their ability to render web standards compliant code. And it's not just CSS being tested, the new Acid3 test puts emphasis on a browsers' DOM scripting abilities as well as continuing to assess it's ability to render CSS, SVG and webfonts.

More in the press release. Can't wait to see how Firefox 3 and IE 8 fare...

The idea is to go here and hope that you see something like the image below (if you're truly standards compliant).

Google Docs vs Microsoft Office Live Workspace

2008-03-04T21:30:00.003Z

Great comparison of the two online office suites here from ReadWriteWeb.

Certainly going to be an interesting battle as this arena hots up. I still side with Google for ease of use and true collaboration features, just want to see better integration with GMail and the arrival of a 'real GDrive' now!

Although having said that; some semantic understanding of my documents wouldn't go amiss...

Semantic web on the horizon

2008-03-04T08:44:00.004Z

Fantastic article from Richard Waters of the Financial Times here talking about the coming semantic web!

Quote: Imagine, for instance, being able to ask a computer, “Where should I go on holiday?” and receiving an answer that is as suitable as anything you could have come up with yourself. That level of computer-generated reasoning is on the horizon, says Nova Spivack, one of the entrepreneurs involved. It may still take 15 years or more to be fully realised, but between now and then lies a series of breakthroughs that will revolutionise the way we draw information from the web, he adds.

Perhaps this is where the efforts of the online travel industry should be placed, the benefits of being first to market with an intelligent holiday finder (a kind of online concierge/travel agent experience) will be huge...

On the subject of semantic web, here's some more great reading from Ian Davis over at Nodalities.