Kram

My virtual pad with Dandy Warhols

2008-10-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

What are challenges in designing for social media/software/networks?

2007-09-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

A former colleague of mine sent me and her LinkedIn colleagues a note asking us what we thought were the greatest challenges in designing for social media/software/networks. Definitely a timely question. I was about to post my answer on LinkedIn, when I chickened out because I didn't want to throw another critical post out there on Yahoo -- there are far too many these days.

But based upon her reaction, and because my blog has been totally dead, I thought maybe I'd repost my answer here. After all, my blog audience isn't quite as large as LinkedIn's member base, so no harm no foul. :)

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What are the greatest challenges in designing for social media/software/networks?
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Answer varies based upon media vs software vs networks, but my general answer wouldn't be much different than if the question were centered around building compelling online services vs social products.

The challenge? Balancing a) providing unique value/purpose with b) providing features/services that drive viral growth and deep engagement.

No brainer?

Case in point. During the design of Yahoo 360, Yahoo listened very carefully to customers through research. (btw, disclosure, I was part of that team and built the requirements for the product) Customers told Yahoo they didn't want another Friendster because they didn't trust the concept of adding a random friend for a random purpose. They liked the promise of social networks (toward building/managing meaningful relationships). So Yahoo decided to focus hardcore on building privacy and trust-fostering controls and abilities. As a result, Yahoo 360 became very good at building/managing trusted relationships. But by default, those relationships involve smaller segments of your network (how evenly strong are your relationships with all 5,000 of your MySpace buddies vs your 3 best friends?). As a result of the smaller segments, you had smaller social hubs. As a result of the smaller social hubs, you lost much of the viral growth capabilities that drove other networks -- once you're connected, no reason to invite a large group of other folks. And without some really compelling or unique value, why bother telling other folks about it?

It's not that you didn't have tools to invite people -- you just didn't have something worth spreading the word about to a massive network of people -- only instead your closest of friends.

Focused in purpose, but not viral.

Don't need to get into the massive value dilution that occurred by forcefeeding platform integration into the product when customers didn't want that -- that's another story.

It's easy to go the other way -- focusing on viral growth, but not really serving an overt purpose or providing unique value. I'm not sure that this is the case for MySpace or Facebook, but you could argue that long-term, they may face a similar fate as Friendster if they don't provide that unique, lasting value. They're great in driving viral behavior, but they certainly haven't fostered unabashed customer loyalty (witness the latest migration from MySpace to Friendster that will only grow in velocity; also witness the growing level of disinterest in app-adding mania on Facebook by the social influencers and early adopters).

Again, these challenges aren't unique to social products and services. If you build anything, and it doesn't provide a unique need, and doesn't provide mechanisms to drive deep engagement, and allow you to leverage that through word-of-mouth to grow, I think you may find lasting success challenging.

Now, if you're building to flip really fast, throw out everything I just said. :)

Team-building, the return of fat and happy

2007-04-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I posted here. Awfully tardy. I also have a library book from 1986 about how Coca Cola got its start. I’m holding out for the world record on library fines. I have no intentions of doing the same with this blog.

What have I been up to? Many things:
1) Building a center of excellence
2) Getting the right tools in-place
3) Keeping the bus moving along

Some observations:

One of my favorite things to do is (re)build a team. Sure it’s always tough when you decide that not everyone’s going to come along for the ride, but the exciting part for it is getting people refocused on their new charter, and even moreso finding new rockstar talent.

I love hiring bright, motivated, hungry, aggressive, creative folks to come in and energize a team. I’ve hired three people in the last six weeks who fit this build, and have another three in the hopper. It’s becoming an exciting time (and I’m looking forward to getting a little out of the weeds).

Been hiring people through variety of sources. Have found a couple recruiters who have a knack for getting some good talent. Continue to find that Craigslist is terrible, as are most other job sites. Creative Hotlist has good talent, but not enough web folks. My best source of qualified leads continues to be LinkedIn. Not sure if that’s because I have a big network, and likely better visibility, or what.

The one bad thing about LinkedIn though is that inevitably after each job posting, I get about 20 resumes from Eastern Europe or India from folks currently in hard-core IT hardware jobs desperately seeking a way out. Wish I could help them all, but there are a lot of extremely talented local folks right now.

Media-buying

One other thing that I’ll rap on in an upcoming post. I’ve been managing a media campaign for the last few weeks as I conduct some tests ahead of the arrival of our full-time media buyer. There’s a pretty stark contrast from the fat-and-happy networks (e.g., MySpace) and the scrappier, performance-based networks (e.g., Zango, Vibrant).

For example, with one, you actually get service, such as returned emails and phone calls. I’ll let you guess which one is doing the good job.

Somewhat astonishing as you’d think there’d be some learning from the previous advertising fallout, but the sales teams are so young that few of them have any of that experience or knowledge. Well, as you might expect, the fat and happy networks perform pretty terribly with direct response, and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see certain ad dollars dry up unless they shore up that side of the house, or perhaps just focus on branded campaigns (a likely emphasis).

More on this to come.

Daily Strength

2006-11-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Would be remiss without giving a shoutout to one of my friends, on his birthday no less, on the start of his new venture, Daily Strength.

Doug Hirsch hired me at Yahoo back in 1998, and we've stayed in touch through the trials and tribulations during and post-Yahoo. Doug's an entrepreneur at heart, and has started about a million businesses since leaving. Daily Strength is my favorite by far.

Daily Strength, also cofounded by some other great ex-Yahoos, Josh DeFord and Lars Nilsen, is focused on providing support communities focused on health and behavioral issues. Part social network, part Questions and Answers, part profiles, Daily Strength is a great place for people to vent and support each other through any personal challenge.

In my work in Yahoo Communities, health support was always a big area. I'm glad to see Doug and Co. focus on really building the tools and services to help people in these communities learn and soothe each other through all things good and bad.

They've just gotten started, and already they're doing some very profound things. These kinds of services, where you've really made an impact on people's lives, and in some cases, help them get through another day, are the kinds of services I'll always be proud to see. That's what I think online communities are all about.

Congrats to the team on their launch, and on recent financing. Best wishes, and Happy Birthday, Stinkypants.

Next Stop...

2006-11-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a great few weeks!

Recently saw an expansion of Kram, LLC, which has been successful, although not necessarily great for sleep. Additionally, have spent time catching up with friends and a slew of new ventures out there.

I recently left BetZip in search of greener pastures and found a ton of great ideas, businesses and savvy people out there relentlessly pursuing whatever it is they pursue. I talked with more than a dozen companies, and saw things from all over the gambit. Some interesting takeaways:

1. Google has a pretty interesting interview process. Very deliberate and good at determining analytical prowess, although perhaps not as thorough as evaluating other success factors.

2. The high number of "Web 2.0" companies out there with nothing more than AJAX and a copycat application seem to be slowing down. At least, they're not attracting a lot more money.

3. Old companies with old ideas still manage to attract some pretty smart people...however, a lot of them seem destined to repeat their mistakes ... it's easier to purge a company's team and interpersonal issues, but it's harder to purge bad assumptions and legacy beliefs.

4. Fast often doesn't mean focused.

5. There are many good ideas out there waiting to get a seed round, but are hung up on inhibitions or a lack of contacts, which limits their chance for success.

6. There is a new breed of companies that are sucessfully emerging from their chrysalis of seed rounds, and are looking to grow from $10M to $100M. Those folks are seeking experienced senior leaders to complement the core team.

I'll write more in the coming weeks about the experience, but I've decided to join a great company that fits the last bulletpoint.

I'm joining iWin, a leading casual game publisher/developer, as its VP of Marketing and Product Management. I've know the iWin guys for a while, when I was at Yahoo, working in partnership. They're great folks, with some great content, and an excellent strategy to pull away from the rest of the pack and really take off.

These guys are filled with a lot of smart, passionate, and creative people. I'm really looking forward to joining their ranks and helping the team get to the next level.

More to come!

Google Thoughts

2006-10-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I recently had lunch at the Googleplex with some friends and former colleagues of mine. With the YouTube and Facebook buzz in the news lately, there's been a ton of different comparisons between Google and Yahoo resurfacing. Thought I'd throw my rambling two cents into the mix.

Google 2006 sorta feels like Yahoo 2000 (maybe because so many former Yahoos are there :) ). Yahoo 2006 feels like Excite 2000. I'd love to know what feels like Google 1999, but whether it's Facebook, YouTube, or someone, I don't know.

On visiting the Plex, it's hard not to feel like you're in something dynamic and charged. Something fueled with a higher purpose even. Sure, there's the requisite ultimate frisbee match, a landmine field of candy and snacks every 100 feet, and whiteboards charting world domination, but you just feel like these guys are brimming with ideas filtered through a relentless customer focus. They don't seem to be bogged down by inordinate processes, just a desire to build things that serve customers and grow the business.

I'm not sure I'm ready to chalk it all up to market-leader arrogance, because I don't sense from talking with folks that Google thinks it's got it all figured out. Instead, I think it realizes that it has a long way to improve and wants to do whatever it can to get there. It may not be brash arrogance (although any company is going to have some of that), but instead just the confidence that they will eventually figure it out because they don't feel they're encumbered by the braces that have crippled so many other big companies trying to solve similar customer/business problems.

That seems simple enough, right? Yahoo was exactly the same way in the beginning, too (minus the on-campus infinity pools). It was the big dog on campus, and was just focused on building the best and fastest thing possible for customers (I remember Yahoo's Ash Patel pushing us like crazy to do whatever we can to make the first product to host customer images on Yahoo (Clubs) as fast as possible, and to model out the impact of every additional KB on storage, bandwidth and customer download speed, probably moreso to remind us not to forget the user impact).

The press says Google is, like Yahoo was, fat-and-happy arrogant, especially in the sales force. I don't know if that's true, but hopefully it's not. There are so many small customers out there taking advantage of AdWords and AdSense, that I think it'd be easier to turn those guys off by that attitude, than it would be a big customer like NetFlix, Ebay or others. In fact, I'm sure Google can do a lot better here for those small customers. Google also feels like Yahoo 2000 because it's recognizing that it's become a big company, and it struggles with the challenges that big companies face from an execution standpoint (and the employee discontent that comes along with that).

The Yahoo connection today? Just seems to be a series of missteps. Well, that's what the press portrays. The media loves David and Goliath stories, and now Yahoo is the David, although they make it sound like Yahoo can't quite get the stones in the sling. Yahoo's trying to do everything by the book. It says it's user-focused. It has tons of usability. It does all the research groups. But the process now seems to bog down innovation. Innovation committees don't quite hit the mark. Excite felt the same way to me back in the day. They had tons of smart people, but just couldn't quite get the wheels in motion. Down on its luck, and sometimes without good reason why.

Yahoo has some very powerful advantages:

A core base of users in a broad range of products (Gmail, Gtalk, etc, just don't have the user base yet)
Rich personalization capabilities
Deep community platforms that are extending across all the Yahoo verticals

Google in some ways has more delight.

Google Earth is absolutely stunning. Blogger and YouTube are both great ways to engage with user-generated content. Docs and Spreadsheets are perfect for the entry-level office user. Google Analytics is excellent for the small business. AdWords is very powerful, and creating your first campaign is a joy, although the experience can certainly get better. Delight alone doesn't make a business, but it certainly changes the attitudes and perceptions of customers (as anyone in Yahoo who has seen the 2003 customer/brand study knows first-hand).

Google isn't perfect either, though. I still have a hard time organizing my Gmail account. Why aren't user profiles richer throughout Google? Can't you make it easier for me to set up a smart ad campaign if I'm not a professional brand marketer?

That said, I know Google is starting to focus in community and personalization, ramping up its investment, and bringing people in to build out these areas. The new and improved Google Groups I think is a good start here, and I know other Google verticals are examining how to use community and personalization to better meet user needs. Blogger + YouTube represents a strong position into user-generated content. Great for customers and clients. Smart. It recognizes these things provide important value to customers.

For Yahoo, I'm not sure if it's as simple as stripping things down to core user- and business-focus. I don't know how you turn the corner here and regain momentum. It'll take special people, for sure. It'll require empowering them to take risks to do smart things, and breaking out of conventional thought and processes. But the spirit is broken among many of my friends who remain there, and that's just sad to see. There's so much opportunity for Yahoo. I hope it can get up and fight, because that's the only way customers will win in this space. We need strong competition. Yahoo must evolve.

Btw, I wrote this with the new Google Docs (formerly Writely) product. It let me publish to my blog. For a company that doesn't seem to do a lot of network integration, this is a nice step.

2006-08-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

KidFromBrooklyn YellowPages

Ben sent me this video from the Kid From Brooklyn. I've never heard of this guy before, but he's frickin insane. Pretty funny video. Interesting concept. Shill out your personality to market a product. Make it funny enough to get viral. And then build a brand for yourself so others will want to do it. Would love to see how viral this really gets...

AOL's search-results privacy debacle and resulting sociology experiment

2006-08-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Haven’t blogged in a while because, frankly, there hasn’t been a lot to blog about. That was, until now. Thanks, AOL!

You might have seen this headline about AOL's massive privacy blunder, but until you understand the implications, you’re probably not getting the full story. In the interests of working with search researchers and academics, AOL gave out the search keywords and search results for something like 20 million searches. They also gave out a random unique numerical identifier for each user. Sure, on the surface, it sounds benign. Who would know who user # 19384112 is?

Well, the problem is that we’re all a little vain, and when you look at what that unique user is searching for, sometimes it’s not too hard to piece together.

For example, in my search records you’d probably find the following searches:

- pizza san jose "my zipcode"
- "my name" linkedin
- "my name" yahoo (I like seeing if I have better search results than the UCSB basketball player of the same name.)
- chuck norris rules websites
- how to tie a Windsor knot

Probably not all that unusual, right? And certainly, you could probably pretty easily figure out who I was, and where I lived by looking at this. So Number One: The privacy issue is pretty frickin huge. AOL even admitted the error was a huge mistake.

Now, combine this with the dirty little fact that a lot of people search for some pretty whacked out stuff, and you’ve got a disturbing sociology experiment to tinker with here. All the private thoughts people have can come out.

You can do a quick search yourself, and see what people search for. Someone uploaded the data and made it easily searchable here: http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/ (btw, I think the site’s getting hammered because the results are now hit or miss)

I can’t tell you the number of reports of people who were searching for pretty terrible things, such as instructions on how to kill people, combined with some pretty sick picture requests.

I’m an advisor at MerchantCircle, where they’ve done some pretty smart things to get MerchantCircle local business listings to come up high in the search results on Google and Yahoo. Naturally, I’m interested in seeing where http://www.merchantcircle.com pops up in this little AOL search experiment.

Not surprisingly, people got the MerchantCircle pages when they did searches for things like “Nantucket restaurant coupons” or “Topeka Kawasaki dealers.” Although, perhaps funny enough, the same guy who searched for Kawasaki dealers in Topeka then searched for “crystal meth online” and some other non-describables.

What evil lurks in the hearts of men, and those seeking Kawasaki dealers.

Whatever happened to keeping it simple?

2006-06-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Whatever happened to keeping it simple?

I downloaded the new Yahoo Messenger beta today, and I’m still drowning in the overload of features, toolbars and other additions that are clogging this thing to the max. There are more features stuffed into this thing than a fistful of organic grain forced down the throat of a duck bound for the pate tin.

Ok a stretch of a metaphor, but I can’t help but feeling bloated with a bunch of junk that I don’t need around my core messaging program, and no simple ways for reducing the clutter.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the innovation behind all of the new features. Heck, if I were European, I’d probably even use the voice calling thing. But I’m not, so I don’t. The same with everything else that loads it down.

I was thinking back to the days of Yahoo Pager for a moment. Eventhough that thing was pretty generic, it was clean and clear and simple to figure out what you needed and should do with it.

You added people. You messaged them. You were done.

Not bad, and it didn’t take up a lot of space, nor make it difficult to figure out what to do. Sure it lacked things like IMVironments and Audibles, but 99% of the time, I don’t use those things anyway.

I dug up an old Yahoo Pager screenshot. Now, take a look at GTalk (which I hate, btw). Although I hate GTalk, it’s simplicity and clarity are quite appealing. I don’t yearn for Yahoo Pager, but I do wish my Yahoo Messenger wasn’t such a mess.

Thankfully for Yahoo, I’ve built such high switching costs with my Yahoo buddy list, I’m not inclined to switch yet.

It won’t be the features that keep me. It’ll be my friends. Help me have a more meaningful communication and relationship with them.

I don’t want a relationship with the Yahoo Answers plug-in. I don’t care that VOIP is very strategic and therefore it’s going to be at the top. I want to talk with my friends and co-workers.

Can you help me clean it up?

Btw, fix the Messenger spam problem while you're at it.

Cool poker campaign

2006-05-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

I just come across this marketing campaign by PokerStars. It's pretty smart, and leverages the blogosphere and general viral marketing tactics, which I always love to see. Just the fact that I'm putting this in my blog is a sign of where this can go.

Basically, if you have a blog...any kind of blog...you can sign up for the promotion here. Register your blog, and post a button like the one below, and PokerStars will enter you into their WSOP Freeroll.

Smart. Get your influencers to do your marketing for you. For an offshore casino like Pokerstars, the cost is nothing, and they'll likely get a decent amount of sign-ups as well. But the most valuable thing will be a series of well targeted ads that are being indexed by the search engines, and appearing throughout the blogosphere.

Probably a lot cheaper than a banner buy...

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

The code above will look like th

Lala music trading

2006-05-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Lala? It’s one of a growing breed of exchange/barter services out there. Lala focuses on letting people exchange CDs. Post a list of the CDs you want, and the CDs you have, and Lala matches people together, providing mailers and postage-paid envelopes to facilitate the trade.

Each trade costs $1, which is a lot cheaper than what you’d pay (or earn) from a used CD shop. The site has a nice design, and it seems to be growing quickly. It’s still a closed beta, and the covers are supposed to come off July 4.

I’ve gotten some good CDs from it, but it makes me wonder, what kind of CDs are people really going to get? It seems to fall in one of two camps: 1) really popular CDs of which there are massive quantities (e.g. Britney Spears), 2) older popular CDs that no one really wants anymore (The Cars Greatest Hits).

But will Lala help you get those hot titles that are not en masse? Can you get the hotly touted Arctic Monkeys disc? Based on my experience thus far…not very easily.

I do like the CEO’s commitment to the artist, where he asks traders to delete the MP3s of the music they trade. Additionally, he’s committed to giving artists a share of revenue. Commendable moves, although perhaps idealistic.

Either way, I continue to be a user, and will be interested to see how things evolve. Apply for access into the beta. I’m not sure how quickly it’ll open up, but a few friends have gotten access that way.

Dead Blog Foul: 10-yard penalty

2006-05-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delay in writing in the blog. A lot of big changes have come through in the last month that have taken me away from this. I know, typical excuses. 

Some good news to report. I’ve actually taken on a new role at a company called BetZip.com as their VP of Product Marketing. Those of you who know my passion for online consumer subscription services, casual gaming, community and poker know this is probably a pretty darn good fit.

BetZip in a nutshell: Online gaming destination that is currently focused on poker. It’s NOT a gambling website, although we do provide the ability for customers to win real cash prizes (how does winning $20,000 sound?). Pay $20 to become a member, and get many chances to win cash prizes ranging from $250 - $20,000 – just like in any other real poker tournament, except there’s no real downside risk.

We’ve managed to attract thousands of customers in just the short period of time we’ve been online. There’s still growing demand in this space, especially from folks who are 1) nervous about illegal offshore gambling websites, 2) nervous about gambling high stakes, 3) interested in a competitive, yet very social poker atmosphere. Turns out there are quite a few folks who are into that. Go figure.

“What about MerchantCircle,” you might ask.

Leaving MerchantCircle was a very difficult decision, but I’m continuing to help out as an advisor. These guys continue to do some great work here, and lots of merchants are signing up. The value proposition is even more apparent, and word is getting out, just judging by the number of sign-ups. It’s crazy.

By the way, MerchantCircle just completed a major redesign. The site looks incredible, and virtually all of the improvements and changes have been based on customer feedback. MerchantCircle now has enough information to put forward a clearer position to customers, which is now readily apparent. Hats off to the team there for doing some great work.

Social networking: It's more popular than broccoli

2006-03-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Hilarious clip from the Daily Show. For all those folks who are fans and critics of social networking at the same time, this is for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJqKQonmwdY

Spot Runner brings television advertising to the masses

2006-03-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

I've always thought of television as a very inaccessible and expensive advertising channel. The cost of creating an advertisement, building the creative in a sophisticated way, and getting your brand across, were all very challenging tasks best left to the professionals. Then there's the whole media-buying component. How the heck do I buy airtime on specific networks without a huge budget? (>$50,000)

Maybe some of my concerns are unfounded, and that locally targeted broadcast advertising isn't that tough to run. I'm sure however there are plenty of other marketers who feel the same way that I do.

Enter Spot Runner.

This is perhaps one of the most compelling new online applications I've seen in a long time, whether consumer- or business-oriented.

SpotRunner has a bunch of pre-canned ads that you can purchase. At the end, or during the ad, Spot Runner will show your logo, and your contact information or call to action. The ads are all pre-canned, but Spot Runner will use voice talent to professionally have your company name placed in the ad. In terms of television creative, they've really lowered the barrier to entry, making it amazingly simple to create great-looking ads.

Their ads are targeted for smaller busineses. Ads for real estate agents, dentists, restaurants and travel agents fill their library. Makes a lot of sense since these guys would likely love to advertise locally, but will never hire a television crew to do it.

Then the second piece of beauty comes into play: The ad buying.

They've actually made media buying FUN. I tell them my budget, industry and region, and they auto-build a campaign for me. They suggest ads on all of the cable networks primarily (I don't see any local networks, which makes sense). Then you can tweak it as well.

Add Comedy Central if you want. Pick that primetimem 6a-9a slot on CNBC. It's amazingly affordable, too. You can get showings for as cheap as $4 (granted, it's during the graveyard shift), but even primetime CNBC in a local market can be bought for $75. That seems pretty good to me.

And that's exactly what Spot Runner wants me to feel. The markup on these slots must be pretty big for them, but given the fact they manage EVERYTHING associated with running my ad (e.g., rights management, creative delivery, media securing), I'm happy to pay them that markup.

Pretty smart stuff. We're going to offer a free television spot to one of our customers, and see how they respond...I'm thinking of creating an ad for my podcast...just because I can.

MSN adCenter: Looks cool. Hope it works.

2006-02-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

I got to take out the MSN adCenter for a spin today. Pretty interesting service. If I didn't have to worry about things like market share, I wouldn't mind being in these folks' position, where they can learn from the lessons that Google and Yahoo have made when creating their own ad network.

Overall, it feels much more like a Yahoo SEM experience, but taking lessons from some of the efficiencies of Google. Granted, there are only a handful of MSN adCenter users yet (btw, why can't marketers spell? Ad Center would be great. This mixed caps BS is so 1998. Yeah yeah, i know, my company name doesn't have a space inbetween it, too, but I plead the 5th on that one). There are some broken links, and confusing things here and there, but generally pretty minor given their beta status. $5 signup cost, $0.05 minimum bid, no big deals.

MSN is FAST. Pages load quickly, which is one of the things I don't like about Yahoo. It's too damn slow to go from one place to another. MSN uses a nice, appropriate mix of DHTML in a way that's not too intrusive.

Creating a campaign is pretty easy and fast. There are nice targeting options, including the ability to target by day and time of week -- a nice feature that some keyword software tools have hung their hats on. The geographic targeting isn't as good as Google's, but the time options are good.

Understanding that their customers are likely to have created a campaign elsewhere before, MSN makes it easy for people to import their keywords and previous ads using Excel or XLS. There's some sort of clipboard option, too, which is seemingly, only half-baked right now.

One dumb thing is that you can't simply cut and paste keywords in there. This goes straight at efficiency, but I guess if they have the Excel import, it's halfway there. I haven't seen what their import limits are, but I uploaded 100 keywords without a problem (that's what Yahoo's import limit is. Google doesn't appear to have one since I can cut and paste 3,000 keywords into the form field with no problem).

One potentially weird thing on keyword importing. It imported it with Exact, Phrase and Broad matching turned on. I think that might have been something with the Excel template they give, but we'll see what happens once the ads get reviewed. (Yes, they pre-screen ads before publishing).

Some weird things with ad creation: You can't used mixed case in display URLs. Lots of room for the body of the ad, but not much for the headline. Ads look exactly like Google in color palette.

Looks like they have good charts and analysis, but the data isn't completely plugged in. I entered "local marketing" and it said it had no traffic estimate for this keyword. However, it has budget forecasting nicely integrated.

Reporting tools look fairly sophisticated, but cannot determine yet whether it's realtime.

The biggest unknown for me at the end of the day however is where are these ads going to run? I have no idea. I did a search on MSN and it's still all Overture ads. Are they going to start turning those off in key areas? I'd imagine. But until then I have absolutely no clue what my payoff is. That's actually something I hate about all of the ad networks. I never feel like I have an immediate payoff. If I go through all this campaign creation work, I'd love to see the fruits of my labor. Show me some examples of my ad in action. I guess only Google can do this since they publish first, ask questions later. But the other guys have to think of some equivalent. Where's the real-time nature.

Right now, I'm getting decent MSN SEM results (better than Yahoo since MSN actually likes to index pages on the web for inclusion into its search engine -- see my earlier posts for details). Will be interesting to see how adCenter performs as more inventory comes available.

Creating Evangelists

2006-02-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

One of the experiments we've been working with at MerchantCircle is helping take the complexity, inefficiency and cost out of search-engine marketing for local businesses. As part of this, we're reselling Google keywords at a pretty darn good price: Free.

I don't always like the "free" word, especially in businesses services, because customers often associate free with cheapness, or perceived inferior quality. It's why ads that say "Free" on them on Yahoo Search Marketing tend to click worse than the alternative.

However, saying "free" and "Google advertising" in the same breath at leasts piques the interests of our potential customers. In a recent newsletter, we promoted this service, and we've seen some pretty significant interest.

Good start, but could we deliver on the results?

Consider "Sherri's Hair Studio" in Littleton, Colorado. They took us up on our offer, and requested a Google ad for a special they were offering on highlights. We put up their advertisement on their behalf, and within 24 hours, had more than 3,000 visitors to the ad, and quite a few clicks on people interested in the offer.

Free lead generation? Not bad.

We did the same for a scrapbooking company in Michigan, called "A Bit of Bella." Same result.

How did they react?

Here's a letter from the owner of "A Bit of Bella":

-----Original Message-----
From: [address redacted]
Sent: Sat Feb 18 12:18:36 2006
Subject: Re: MerchantCircle Google Campaign: Thanks for your order!

Mark,

I want to thank you for such great service. I have endorsed the use of Merchant Circle with every business I have encountered so far. I have also mentioned in my direct marketing mail outs to look up my company profile on merchant circle. I believe your business is doing a great job and again, thank you very much for your support.

Thank you,

[name redacted]

As a marketer and product guy, ultimate success isn't measured in registrations. Nor pageviews or time spent. Not even paid conversions. For me, the ultimate metric is one of evangelism. Customers who are so satisfied with your service they wouldn't consider another service, and they're going to tell other people to join your service, also.

The ultimate definition of viral.

If you want long-term evangelism, it'll take something special. A good place to start is by exceeding customer expectations. Now, to chip away at my current pride, I don't know how many folks like A Bit of Bella I have right now, but we're doing everything we can to make that number take off...

Signs that your Winter Olympics opening ceremony is not very good

2006-02-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

1. The highlight is the first 2 minutes where a dude comes out and smacks a fake anvil and fire comes out. It's all downhill from there.
2. The contingent from Lebanon walks out to Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough"
3. There are more disco tunes and bad pop songs during the opening cemermony than at 80s night at a cheap college bar.
4. You decide the annoying truck commercial where the horns play the Olympic theme song actually isn't that bad.
5. You reconsider and decide the truck commercial is awful when you recognize that the commercial will play another 3,000 times during the 400 hours of Olympic programming.
6. You've seen and heard about Bode Miller an average of 15 times per hour.
7. The coolest part of the cermony? When the dudes push around the ceramic cows while the Swiss dudes play the big horns like in the Ricola commercial.
8. You decide to Tivo fast-forward through the ceremony to get to the commercials.
9. Bob Costas interesting political commentary about the historic Mongolian team is overshadowed by the blaring Buggles' song in the background "Video Killed the Radio Star."
10. Reruns of Fran Drescher's "The Nanny" actually sound pretty good.

Random notes, zillow, family routes

2006-02-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

Have you seen zillow? Pretty cool site for getting house value information, in addition to a bunch of other stuff you can't get from agents for free.

Have you heard of Nexidia? My buddy Drew is SVP Media there, and man, do they have a cool story to tell. They're going to change the face of how/what gets indexed and searched. Very neat thing. Battelle liked it! +1

Have you heard of FamilyRoutes started by the 3exy ladies? If not, stay tuned. You will.. Marc Canter is already blogging about it.

Getting the hang of SEM

2006-02-08T17:58:00.000-08:00

Spent the day yesterday at a keyword advertising how-to seminar, run by Mary O'Brien, a former Yahoo/Overture/GoTo marketing maven. Out of all the set-up costs offered by Yahoo, I'd say this one is the most worthwhile.

The audience was pretty diverse. People from all different size companies and agencies in attendance. First part of the class was pretty basic, but covered some important stuff. Also taught the basics of ROI and CPA, which while amusing, is probably not something that enough marketers use to evaluate their programs.

I also got a pretty good understanding of why Yahoo's guidelines are more restrictive: history. It was what GoTo put in place to respond to all of the criticism that emerged when they first introduced the PPC model so many years ago. They believe it increases quality. Maybe.

Here are some learnings and generalizations from the seminar:

Most audience members said they got a better CTR and conversion rate from YSM, but simply saw more volume in conversions and results from Google AdWords.
Lots of audience members interested in taking advantage of local search marketing (not Yahoo Local per se, but how to use keyword marketing for local searches.
Copy and tactics on YSM are often very different than on Google. Subtle, editorial review-esque copy works better on Yahoo. Sensationalist marketing works better on Google. The two don't mix well (I copied my effective YSM campaign onto Google. Still waiting for that first conversion...)
Landing pages are supremely important, and there are many tactics that can be deployed here. (Take the class for pete's sake. I'm not marketing sherpa)
The first two keyword positions are important. However, the position at the bottom of the list is pretty darn good, too. Don't get stuck in the middle. No man's land.
Save some money, and buy a bunch of 4-word and 5-word keystrings. 1- and 2-word keystrings are often a waste of money. Traffic will be lower, but it's not unusual to see conversions rates near 7% for longer strings.
Bidjamming is really cool. Are you the Sun Tzu of online marketing? Check out bidjamming. On YSM, you only pay $0.01 more than the next guy. So you can find your competitors, who may be bidding a max of $100 to ensure they get top position, leaving a huge gap for the 2nd place position, which may be a bid of only $0.25. By bidding $99.99, you ensure that the top position costs $100/click, while you only pay $0.26, until someone bids you up.

(An interesting side note, after the class, I went to go apply my learnings to my keywords. I was surprised to see that someone had bid really high amounts in some of my keyword areas. $3 to $4 gaps between its max bid, and the second place position. So I thought I'd try bidjamming. I bid $2.99 and $3.99. That competitor? Yahoo Search Marketing! Those punks buying my own keywords!)
The reason why Yahoo may not be as aggressive about indexing your site? Money. I can help ensure Yahoo indexes me, if I pay per click and per page indexed via Site Submit Pro. I'm not sure this is exactly the reason why, but I'm kinda annoyed that this seems like the only option for me to get our 14MM+ page site indexed on Yahoo (don't even ask how many millions of pages Google has indexed. Not even close).
If you're spending $3 million each year on SEM, get a frickin account manager already. Some dude tried to impress the audience by announcing his budget and that he was doing it himself. He asked which tools he should buy to manage this. Dude, get an account manager already. No sense playing games when you're talking about $3 million.

That's enough. I can tell you're getting bored already.

Btw, a new update in my keywords on / keywords off saga with YSM. They've turned them all back on! Huzzah! Three cheers for Stacey, my Inside Sales dude at YSM. He rules. Still waiting for the Google JumpStart people to call me...I mailed my Goog buddies and asked what gives?

(postscript: those of you who saw the VW bit. no, that was not me, but still amusing nevertheless!)

Yahoo SEM: "You are not alone"

2006-02-03T16:29:00.001-08:00

Isn't that a song by R. Kelly, or someone like that? Michael Jackson? Who knows.

Well, the inevitable happened. Yahoo Search Marketing Customer Support came in and again deactivated all of the keywords from my campaign that they had reactivated on Monday.

The kicker is, however, that they also deactivated the 500 keywords that Yahoo Search Marketing created FOR ME, as part of deactivating my entire account. WTF? I didn't ask for my account to be deactivated. A week ago, when my campaigns were being canceled, I did ask what the process was for a refund. Now, they deactivated the account, and asked me if I would like a refund.

Unfortunately, one hand isn't talking to the other. The Inside Sales guy did a great job of getting me set up, only to essentially get the smackdown from Yahoo Customer Support who threw away all his work. It must be tough to be a sales guy when these kinds of things happen. I hope he still gets his commission. :)

I'm sure it'll work out, although I've left messages and haven't gotten any response to my request last night to please reactivate (they asked me if I wanted to reactivate my account).

I heard today from two different people though that I am not alone. (now the Michael Jackson referral makes sense).

Okay, third-hand rumor warning, but I heard today that a very big VC and original founder of a formerly very big online company had bought a basic keyword on Yahoo Search Marketing (in an approach similar to mine) with a very legit ad. It also was deactivated by Customer Support. The VC then contacted his buddy at Yahoo about it (who happens to be one of the top folks there) who promised him it would be remedied. Although the last word was that it still wasn't fixed.

So if a brilliant marketer with billions in his pocket can't get things done, I'm somewhat comforted by that. :)

Secondly, I spoke with a friend of mine who's deeply involved with the advertising side of things, and he also spoke of some of the major changes underway to try and straighten things out. Everything I've mentioned as part of my experience and others is not news. It's well known, and they're trying to fix it. Timeline for this? End of 2006 at earliest.

I'm optimistic that there are basic things that will be fixed before then. Surely, the folks there who already clearly know the issues, and are trying some short-term fixes ahead of the major changes. I hope.

Finally, a colleague corrected me that Google also has an initial set up program called JumpStart. I had said in a previous post that I really loved Yahoo's introductory program where they set up a keyword campaign for me (even if they did deactivate it). Btw, the Yahoo program converted pretty well, and at 1/3 the CPA than my campaigns on AdWords. Of course, there isn't as much traffic, but not bad, not bad.

I sent an email to Google JumpStart with a request for a sales person to contact me, given the size of my ad budget. It's been three days and I haven't heard back.

So score one for Yahoo on InsideSales. Score 1/2 for Yahoo for campaign efficiency. Subtract 3 for operational ineffectiveness.

Stay tuned.

Yahoo Search Marketing Redeemed?

2006-01-31T16:32:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to report that Yahoo reactivated all of the keywords from my previous campaign, and now they're running again. At least, it looks like they are. I'm a little nervous to report on this, because who knows what will happen next. But regardless, I'm going to remain optimistic on how this progresses, and will keep you posted.

That aside, I have to POSITIVELY report on Yahoo's Customer Support and Inside Sales team for new customers. Yahoo seems to be targeting the newer and less experienced advertiser through one of their options, where you pay $200, and get a customized campaign built, with keywords, etc., and hand-holding on managing the whole thing. Additionally, a sales rep calls you, walks you through it, and gives you his phone number to contact him back.

Now, that's pretty frickin' cool. Totally makes sense for Yahoo to appear to new customers this way, and to warm them up to the Yahoo SEM experience. I've uploaded the campaign, and told the sales guy about my previous campaign dilemma, so perhaps he helped smooth things over (he made no promises, which was fine).

Ultimately, will Yahoo's SEM drive more customers my way? Remains to be seen. That said, in the middle of all this, I've tinkered with my AdWords campaign, and increased my budget. As a result of my changes, MerchantCircle site registrations have increased more than 100% in the past week.

That's really all that matters at the end of the day.

Yahoo Overture Guidelines: I still don't get it

2006-01-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

Last post for a while. Instead of just whining about it, I'm going to try and change the campaign and see if it fits. However, I'm really annoyed about some of the hypocrisy in the guidelines application. Take a look at this. Am I being unreasonable?

Case 1: Search "MerchantCircle" on Yahoo

The sponsored search links that I get relate to a "Circle Unbroken" book and Indianapolis Colts magnets. OK, so maybe the search is a little generous, but the link descrptions have nothing to do with my search. Granted, maybe this isn't totally fair and they're just putting in filler inventory, but it doesn't seem to fit the policy I'm being held to.

Case 2: Search "chamber of commerce" on Yahoo

Here's a merchant organization. The first link has nothing to do with the chamber, the location or merchants. It's a link to a probate attorney. Nevermind that, when you click on the link it goes to a parked domain spam page. The second link does a great job of pretending to be related to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, but when you click on it goes to another completely unrelated site about foreclosures. Do the link and see for yourself!

I don't get it. In our advertising, we're being honest and straightforward. We tell the audience what's on our site, and what they're clicking over to. When they click on it, they're taken to a page that is exactly what we said it would be. Why is there such an enforcement discrepency?

Google AdWords vs Yahoo Overture SEM Part 2

2006-01-27T15:17:00.000-08:00

Well, good signs and bad. Good news is that YSM Customer Support quickly followed up to my original appeal (I've often found Google customer support sluggish). They did a secondary review. (The entire response follows my post).

Ultimately, they said they cannot accept my keywords (all relating to a merchant organization) because the content on my site has to be directly related to the merchant organization. In other words, you cannot pick keywords to help you target your ads. Specifically, they say "Additionally, your keywords and phrases must be clearly and obviously relevant to the web site itself, not the person or people who would use the product, service or information. A site selling briefcases may bid on the term "briefcase" but not on "lawyer".

This doesn't make a lot of sense because in my ads, I told them of the services I offered, and linked them to my site which offered them.

That's immediately pretty darn limiting if their interpretation is really that strict. The beauty of keyword advertising is the ability it provides to reach very targeted customers. People who are looking for these specific services. My ad was targeted to the merchant organization, and told them what services we provided.

I've asked what the process is for a refund of setup charges, etc. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up, but I want to understand my options.

Jan 27 2006 15:06 PT

Hello Mark,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Search Marketing.

As you requested, our Content Specialists have conducted a Secondary Review of the following listings:

[list of keywords redacted]

After a careful review, however, we must stand by our original decision to decline your listings due to our Content guideline.

We are unable to accept this listing because the content on your site does not sufficiently reflect the keyword. Yahoo! Search Marketing requires that Web sites possess substantial content that is clearly and obviously reflective of the keyword. We would consider the following as sufficient content:

? Detailed (comprehensive) product or service information or reviews

? Detailed reference information about the subject implied by the keyword

? Comparative information spanning multiple dimensions, such as pricing, features and availability

Additionally, your keywords and phrases must be clearly and obviously relevant to the web site itself, not the person or people who would use the product, service or information.

For example: A site selling briefcases may bid on the term "briefcase" but not on "lawyer."

As you know, Yahoo! Search Marketing is committed to providing search users with highly relevant search results. Applying our Listing Guidelines consistently across all listings helps us maintain the level of quality our affiliate partners and search users expect. By meeting these expectations, Yahoo! Search Marketing is able to secure and renew distribution agreements and ultimately deliver more targeted leads to you.

If you would like to review our Listing Guidelines, please click on the link below:

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/relevancy.php

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Timothy Jay
Executive Services
Yahoo! Search Marketing

Some reasons why Google is winning the advertising game

2006-01-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

OK, it PAINS me to write this. I love Yahoo, and always have been and will be a loyal user. However, I've never been a paid advertiser. Until now. And my experience with this has been painful. I now see why the big G on the other side of Moffett is kicking ass by building long-term loyalty (and long-term advertising budgets) with long-tail advertisers like me.

First off, the background. I now run marketing and product for a small online startup called MerchantCircle . Our goal is to help small local businesses drive leads through the internet. Yes, we're trying to tackle the very difficult challenge of low-cost merchant acquisition. We've created web listings (a la yellow pages) for +14 million businesses, given them blogs and rss feeds, ad creation capabilities, and even the ability to advertise for FREE. That means, by being an active user of MerchantCircle they can advertise on us and other places like Google for free. (and perhaps on Yahoo or other places, depending on level of interest).

For months now, in addition to SEO efforts to increase MC indexing in the search engines, we've been running keyword campaigns targeted at merchants and merchant organizations, to make them aware of our services and solutions we've provided. (btw, on that indexing thing: Google indexes tens of thousands of our pages every day. Yahoo indexes less than 100. Even MSN indexes us more. What gives?)

Without giving away everything to my competitors who read this, we've run a very effective campaign on Google targeting a specific merchant organization with information on our benefits. It's converting well, and I've just increased the budget of the campaign significantly.

Knowing that Google drives the majority, but not all of search traffic, I was now excited to go to my buddies at Yahoo to try out the SEM stuff. I spent about $1,000 in set up costs, and the things needed to get MerchantCircle listed in the Y directory, too. I know some of the controversy behind setup costs, but I'm OK paying this because I believe in Yahoo's commitment to quality... and that it will ultimately pay off.

As a trial, I load up the SAME campaign that I'm running at Google, to see how effective it'll be, before committing a larger amount of my time. OK, the Yahoo interface seems like it might have more bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, it's more confusing and complicated than Google. (Google is no bastion of UED excellence, mind you. Anyone ever try linking AdWords and Goog Analytics accounts? Good luck.).

Regardless, I've paid my minimums, and I start my campaign yesterday afternoon. I come in this morning, and all my keywords are deactivated. Not only that, but my entire account was taken offline. Did I use a copyrighted word? Did I do something wrong? I click to find out, and it says "Insufficient Content". Essentially, that my site doesn't deliver what I promise in my ad.

Here's my ad:

Attention (merchant organization) Members: Get your free directory listing and get more customer leads. Free ads, coupons and search engine ads for new customers. Join now! (Link goes to MerchantCircle landing page detailing benefits, and encouraging registration so they get to their new web site)

Here's why it was declined:

We are unable to accept this listing because the content on your site does not sufficiently reflect the keyword. Yahoo! Search Marketing requires that Web sites possess substantial content that is clearly and obviously reflective of the keyword. We would consider the following as sufficient content: * Detailed (comprehensive) product or service information or reviews * Detailed reference information about the subject implied by the keyword * Comparative information spanning multiple dimensions, such as pricing, features and availability For more information on our trademark policy, visit our Trademark Information Page at: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/legal/trademarks.php The mere presence of the following elements on a Web site is not enough to justify keywords: * A link, banner, or picture * A brief description of a link * Lists of text without additional content * Contact information (address, phone number, stock symbol, etc.)

I've appealed my case to Customer Support. Btw, these painfully restrictive guidelines would probably eliminate a ton of the branded or even direct campaigns that Yahoo runs today with big advertisers. Those folks put in landing pages (like us) with bullet points on the benefits, and encouraging them to sign up to get the full experience.

We'll see how it goes. But I have to say the whole initial experience is really disappointing. I feel like Customer Support didn't spend time evaluating what my business was providing, but maybe it did, and they just want to be much tighter on things with small advertisers than their bigger advertisers.

I'm going to go back and revise the landing page for Yahoo to see if it works better for them (although the more content and links I throw on there, it's likely my landing page will convert worse).

I wonder if I should bother? I can just send more of my money to Google, where I know it works, where I know I'll get customers, and I know they understand my needs as an advertiser, and have a great process in place to make things happen. You may think, well, screw him, he only potentially brings a few hundred thousand dollars in advertising to the table. Two things: 1) Google's abundance of loyal long tail advertisers like me is helping them win, especially as they increase their marketing budgets. 2) The startup world is a really small community. Marketers share what works and what doesn't.

I really hope things improve with the SEM stuff at Yahoo. I already have money loaded into my account. I hope I have the opportunity to use it, and to come back here and post about how awesome YSM is, and why you should spend your dollars here, and not Google.

Click for charity! AKA Yahoo Publisher Network is the coolest thing ever

2006-01-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Read all the way through to find out how you can help make a donation to charity just for clicking on my ads.

I'm really psyched I got into the beta, as I'm just getting the hang of Google AdWords and AdSense, and I haven't been 100% satisfied with either. I tried out Google AdSense on Krambox Radio, and made $0.46 in a day on my site. That kinda sucked, and I figured it had something to do with the fact Google put ads for VEAL on my radio site. WTF?

I understand why they probably did it. They had high demand for that kind of inventory, and since I had the word "gelato" on my website, they thought it was a good enough mix.

So the same day I put up my AdSense ads, my application to YPN got approved. Booyakasha. The best thing about YPN was the fact I could target my ads as I thought appropriate. In 18 hours, I made $5.96 on my site. OK, so I did have a link in my status message, and I hope I don't get penalized later, but I thought it was cool that I got an effective return, and I had relevant ads on my site.

Today, I've fine-tuned the ads to ones I thought would yield a higher return. Additionally, I started buying keywords on Google to go to my high-yield ads on Yahoo. I wish I could buy keywords on Yahoo for less than a $5/min buy. I don't know why Y does that, although I can make some guesses. But for now, Google will have to take advantage of my long-tail keyword buys.

So as long as I can keep my AdSense buy below my YPN revenue, Krambox Radio will be cash-flow positive.

AND for the next 30 days, any profits I make on Krambox Radio will be donated to Heifer.orgbone of my favorite charities. To make this win-win, even if I lose money, I'll donate the same amount as I lost to Heifer.org, too. That'll teach me to be a better marketer. :) FWIW, my losses per day on Google AdSense are capped, so to get the most money for the charity, we've gotta be cash flow positive!

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Please, click my ads, but don't click my Google keywords. :)

http://radio.hullapalooza.com

(Reposted earlier on Yahoo 360)