PC4Media

Sweet Gig for SEM Ninja

Max is looking to hire a Director of Customer Acquisition for the hott startup, Clickable. Person must be an SEM Guru. Contact Max. Met Mad via Noah.

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

I've been in the swing again, making outbound calls. In the last few days I've talked to two people that think they know everything I know and do everything I do. Many people, in my shoes, might ignore that and just tell you how they do something different or better than you. But, if you aren't going to admit that you don't know something or you are unwilling to admit you have a problem that I *might* be able to fix, I am not going to tell you anything. There are other people that want my help. Why should I spend my time convincing you that you need it, when they are asking me for it? 

How much are you pretending to know? How much is that preventing you from actually learning new things? 

Connecting Real Relationships Online

We just launched the killer local social app and I am about to bring my "network" of businesses online in a really meaningful "grow their business" way - as I move my blog over to Hubspot.

With this new app, we've served more than 15k page views in two weeks. It's bringing lots of local connections online. (I'm not linking to it until we've had 100k page views.)

Joshua Porter puts it eloquently when he says that online social networks are removing latency from our real world social networks by enabling the intrinsic benefit of reconnecting or making that connection visible to others.

What the big social network sites are doing is similar: they’re creating a place where social standing, not economic standing, is the primary motivation. Or, more to the point, they’re modeling that part of our lives in which we yearn for social standing. As Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison rightfully articulate in Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship:

“What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between “latent ties” (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily “networking” or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network.”

In other words, you’re mostly dealing with people you already know in some way. The motivation is almost always intrinsic.

It's a simple benefit to the individual participants. But, it has the potential for both participant and platform creator - to reap huge rewards. The question Josh is asking, (later in his post) as Facebook begins to share this data with ecommerce companies, is "Who benefits more, is the benefit implicit and is that right?"

Our app is designed to benefit our participants more than us. Ultimately, I believe, that's where the value resides and the rewards belong.

 

1,000 Visits in One Week

That's all I'm saying.

Ruminations on Adsense Arbitrage: You're Trying Too Hard...

... to get traffic to your website.

I was clicking around today and clicked on adsense ad that went to this website about event planning. And this one about kitchen remodeling.

People said that adsense arbitrage was dead.

But, it most certainly is not.

All these guys do is bid low for a specific term to get a visitor. Then, they design their site so that you can only click on ad, most likely earning them more than they paid to get you there.

If you're doing anything else - other than this - to make money online, you're probably trying too hard.

Although I am sure there is no rocket science to managing this process, I have little interest in learning. However, I'd love to speak to someone who does this for a living. 

I'd imagine the people that figure this out don't work for other people? Why would you unless you just want the company? I'm asking.

Small Businesses Should Generate Their Own Leads Online

Here's the case for it:

Here is one example: Take a look at one of the highest lead generation sources available today: Google. Type in “real estate” or your local area such as “Seattle Real Estate”

As of the moment I write this (Wednesday, Sept 12, 2007), roughly 70% of the pay-per-click advertisements for “Seattle Real Estate” are going to lead generation companies.

What does this mean?

According to Google the average cost of having an ad under “Seattle Real Estate” is $3.74 to $4.95 per interested lead. There are 107 to 134 users per day clicking on that ad, which therefore has a daily cost of $410 to $670 to capture every person looking for “local real estate” in a decently sized metropolitan area.

Now we use basic business math to come to the conclusion of how the market becomes “destabilized” in this scenario.

With 70% of the leads potential of Google’s pay-per-click system going to lead generation companies, realize they have to sell the $410 to $670 of daily leads back to the real estate professional at a higher rate.

Depending on the lead generation company- the rate may be anywhere from 2% to as high as 200% over the cost they paid for a lead. For a real world example, this is just like the ticket scalper who stands in front of a stadium and buys the hottest seats and resells them on the street for twice what they paid.

Using the Seattle example: realize the monthly ad potential of Google alone for the term “Seattle Real Estate” is $76,930 to $129,830. Unlike a street scalper selling tickets however, the online marketplace becomes even more problematic because the scalper in this case doesn’t really tell you exactly what type of lead you are buying. It could be hot… or it could be cold. It could have come from Google pay-per-click, a professional partner, a blind mailing list or anywhere.

So that brings us to the real question: Why isn’t every agent or broker a lead generator online?

I don’t actually know. There are tools and services that require minimal effort to become your own lead generator. This effectively cuts out the middleman who is charging you more for what you already had access to. Every time you look at a magazine, a newspaper, a website, or a search engine and see a lead generator company advertising you should be asking yourself, “Why am I not buying that ad directly from the publisher?” or “Why isn’t my information there?”

I think this is my new mission: Helping small businesses cut out the middle man for local online lead generation.

This space needs a craigslist.

New Blog Buddy Wanted

I miss the Weblog Invasion Tour.

I miss my little tifs with Mark Cuban and Seth Godin.

I miss having blogversations with Rick.

I don't blog because I have something special to say. I blog because it helps me connect with people. In great, good and bad ways. But, they are all fun.

Who wants to be my new blog buddy?

PS. I have a feeling I'll have a bunch of new blog buddies soon. I'm self-embargoed for now. But, am eager  to share the big news. :)

Retraction: Social Advertising Will Be A Big Business

I am officially retracting this post. I should know better than to understimate Seth.

Plus, I just started playing around with Facebook's new ad flyer system.  Take a look at this:

You are targeting about 40 people between 20 and 31 years old who are single in the United States who are seniors at WPI majoring in Computer Science.

You are targeting about 60 people between 21 and 65 years old who are married in Worcester, MA, Boston, MA, Springfield, MA, and Providence, RI who like Home Improvement.

You are targeting about 340 people between 18 and 35 years old who are married in Worcester, MA, Boston, MA, Springfield, MA, and Providence, RI who like Snowboarding.

You are targeting fewer than 20 people between 18 and 65 years old in Worcester, MA who  like Italian Food.

Now imagine that Facebook and Microsoft could collect information about people from across the web and also serve ads to them and their friends and neigbbors across the web. If you couldn't generate leads for your small business using this kind of targeting, you don't deserve to have an internet connection.

The Algorithmic Editorial Wall Will Fall

Ethan Stock, Zvents founder, riffed on my google paid links post:

That [Google's] free cash flow creates an irresistible force -- the market, in all its insane brilliance, attempting to reverse engineer Google's map of the Web and modify the link domain to suit the commercial desires of thousands, millions, of individual participants.

That's the crux of the problem. Google has this secret algorithm that directs the attention of billions of people looking to find and buy things. On the other end, there are 100s of millions of people trying to sell things who are trying to figure out how to get more traffic from google. Google would love to direct all of these sellers to pay per click via adwords. But, the reality for businesses is that it's much more profitable to be listed in the natural search results.

It's a battle. And neither party will ever win.

But, if I was a betting man, I'd bet on the 100s of millions of sellers winning. Ultimately, they'll be  engaged in a process to create a better search experience for the millions of buyers who are seeking them. Google currently relegates these buyers to second hand status who are only allowed a few {ad]words to differentiate themselves from their competition.

The commercial web will not be constrained to adsense. The commercial web will create its own web. Commercial content will be published. Links will be paid for (and earned and given).  Just like memberships are paid for and endorsements are paid for and sales people are paid for and distributors are paid for. Ads are content. And they won't be constrained to standard formats.

The pendulum is starting to shift. Commercial users will have much more control over search engine result pages (SERPs) in the future. Maybe not Google's. But, Google is fighting the inevitable. Certain verticals (eg event listings, business listings, job postings) have growing/thriving vertical search  websites that are successful because the seller (and buyers) are actively engaged in the creation of the SERP and because that content is delivered to people who are looking to "buy" things. But it won't stop with those categories.  What makes buying a mortgage different than hiring an employee? Nothing: Search. Connect with People. Find the right fit. Do the deal.

Professionals, amateurs and people with their own self interests have created the interlinking web. Tools will rise that help them organize it too. (It has started already.) Organizing the web won't be the domain of algorithms forever.

The algorithmic editorial wall will fall.  The question is whether Google will embrace it or fight it.

Hulu is Evil - To Kill Family Values and Work Productivity

Hulu will most likely make watching TV on TV at home after work with the family - a thing of the past. Soon, people will just watch their favorite shows at work.  Thanks Hulu - for destroying the American Family units' last great bonding activity. And for destroying productivity at work. Thanks in advance.

Good review here. First blog post here. Yes, I just watched the Office. My wife and I love that show.