PC4Media

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.

Fighting Paid Links is Like Fighting Terrorism

Google supposedly *punished* certain websites by reducing certain websites' pagerank this week. (Pagerank's correlation to search rank is not completely understood outside of Google.) Matt Cutts, Google's Scoble, supposedly emailed Search Engine Journal, to tell them that the reason was because these websites charged people to link to their websites. The industry term is that they hosted "paid links" on their site. It's been assumed that Google didn't like this practice as they use "links" from site A to site B to rank site B in their search results. If Site B can pay site A, C, D, E.... and Z to put a link on them, then it isn't necessarily the "best" search result - editorially speaking atleast.

So, I understand why Google doesn't like paid links.

But, I don't see how they are ever going to figure out what's a paid link and what isn't a paid link. For example, I frequently link to my client's websites as I am telling stories about them. People pay people to host relevant valuable content on other websites. Business partners pay to belong to organizations that have links to their members' sites. 

The web isn't completely editorially driven. It shouldn't be.

Moreover, how they heck are they going to police paid links effectively? It'll be a PR nightmare if they start penalizing webmasters en masse. And how would they even effectively determine who is selling links and who isn't?

Will they hire several hundred Winston Smith's?... "Anyone who talks or writes about selling links will be removed from our index, as if you never existed."

Will they target people that use text link ads?  (Can anyone say anti-competitive?)

This is a tough issue for Google. I don't think they can win.

Fighting paid links will be about as effective as fighting terrorism. Futile.

I think they have two options: 1) Tell the world that they are deprecating pagerank and then do it and release no information about how their algorithm works ever again or 2) be completely transparent about how their algorithm works, so that they encourage good link building/content creation behavior. 

The Killer Local App

There's a lot of blogversations going on about how "Local is Hard" since the news broke that Judy's Book is shutting down. Here, here and here are good reads. Read the comments. <Update 10/30/07 8AM>There's also a lot of conversation about how big the opportunity of "local" is:

Once of the themes often discussed in local is its fragmentation. That's partly a function of all the competitors and would-be competitors, the numerous local markets, and all the small businesses that represent the bulk of local advertisers. Unlike national search, no dominant local player has yet emerged – or perhaps it's more accurate to say no fully "trusted" local site has emerged.</End Update>

Here's my short list of qualities that the killer local app will have.

• It'll be bootstrapped. There's too many "Ideas" for local that every company that raises money tries too many things. As a result, every site out there is a really cluttered and complicated "what the hell is this site for" site. Bootstrapping will force the founders to focus on what's important. Helping people find the best local stuff and helping people share what the best is.
• It'll have a traffic acquisition strategy that involves buying traffic cheap and recovering the spend based on contextually targeted advertising (adsense) served on the site. Not just launching the site and hoping people will use it.
• It will provide immediate personal impact. Using the application will deliver immediate value to the user. Joshua Porter calls this the Delicious Lesson.
• The application will be as simple as craigslist is to use. Information can be discovered quickly. Information can be contributed quickly. It's be as unstylish as sites like Craigslist and PlentyOfFish too.
• It will be designed for online viral growth like hotmail, evite, facebook, Kazaa, myspace, icq, aim and skype. In other words, the simple act of using the application will inform other people of its existence and it's compelling value.
• The network effect will kick in quickly and geographically dense pockets of users will radius outward. This means the app actually has to have a network effect. And the network effect must be obvious for non technical users. In other words, there has to be a very selfish reason to tell your closest friends about it. Very selfish. (And a very selfish reason for them to start using it. See the Del.icio.us lesson above.) But, at some critical inflection point, a critical mass of "people who know each other will use it" that the reason for a new person to start using it will be so obvious.
  
• It will move from predominant use by internet marketing experts to small business owners/sales professionals within several months. It'll reach a critical mass of small business owners very quickly. Think what Constant Contact achieved but with no cost for use and no barrier to trial.
• It'll then catch the long tail of search traffic for local searches. As the aforementioned groups use it, they will create a huge long tail of local content that will be indexed by the major search engines. For example, when you want to find a biopharmaceutical automation controls engineer in Boston MA,  you'll search at google and be sent to a page on this 'KIller Local App' that will answer your question. Like the YellowPages is now for searches for common professions, this will cover everything else. There's actually a Vietnamese Pizza Place around the corner from me.
• At this point, it'll jump the chasm and regular "consumers" will begin to use it to both find local services and products, as well as contribute back suggestions to the community. It'll become a defacto standard for finding out what your real live 'people that live close to you' friends suggest: People will actually go there instead of google.  An even bigger accomplishment, it'll replace email for getting recommendations from friends for that next restaurant, doctor, mechanic, payroll provider, accountant, new hire, new job, etc, etc. When you want to know the best a new town has to offer, you'll visit the "best of worcester" page instead of being relegated to a newspaper's once a year poll.
  
• Within a few short months, it will have more user generated information about local businesses than any other website, kind of like wikipedia has for encyclopedia entries. Google will reward it with lots of traffic, like it does wikipedia. One of the large local media companies (YP, Newspaper) or major search engine/internet companies will buy a piece of the business.
  

That's my prediction.

I think it's right around the corner, btw.

Networking Isn't About Favors

Here's an excerpt from a short article I was asked to contribute to - about how I create demand for my services:

"When I am talking to small business owners, I focus on figuring out what their biggest business challenges are. I try to then connect them with people who can help solve whatever challenges they have. As a result of this process, I gain people's trust and respect and they usually ask me how they can help me in return. I simply position myself as someone who can help small businesses generate leads cost effectively [or event planners increase attendance] and that I am willing to speak with anyone who is struggling to grow their business [or events] as fast as they'd like.

As a result of this behavior, I can avoid "selling" or "pitching". Most of my prospects ask me "how they can hire me". Meaning: they are already sold. It's just a matter of fitting the right solution to solve their lead generation problems. In order to do this, I interview them about their business, discover their goals and budget, and then make a budget and goal appropriate recommendation. Then they say "yes" or "no". Most of the ones that get that far, say "yes". I usually rule most of the "no's" out before we get to a recommendation. As a result, I don't waste my time or my prospect's time if there isn't a good fit. And I help a lot of people along the way, creating a lot of good will - that always results in more opportunities for me and my clients."

Rick Roberge introduced me to Michael Kreppein at the Expo. They blogged about each other already. And that's how I found a post about referrals on Mike's blog. Mike is launching a new networking website which sounds interesting. In person I asked him how it was different from Jigsaw and Linkedin. He said it was about making "meetings" happen. Here's a little more explanation from his blog:

Inquisix is all about sales reps getting a referral to a prospective customer in return for giving a referral to their customer. It’s really a win-win-win-win scenario as each customer has agreed they’re interested in learning about a new solution and each rep gets a warm referral to a new prospect.

But are sales reps willing to do favors? Do they make an introduction to one of their customers on behalf of another sales rep? Of course they do - it may be a “you owe me one for next time” type of favor but that’s how it works - just make sure you give as many favors as you get!

See the difference about the way I network and the way Mike's system may work? I would never "tit for tat" referrals. It's not about reciprocity. Getting and giving referrals isn't like trading baseball cards. It's about connecting a seller with a buyer who needs their help and has expressed interest in getting help from someone. There's no scorecard or leaderboard. No points. It's a lot closer to the Golden Rule: Treat others as you'd like to be treated.

Of course, if the success of jigsaw is any indication, there are  many salespeople who are willing to do what's in their immediate short term self interest. Hopefully, they have the best interest of their clients as a priority. And if the fact that LinkedIn hasn't really taken off [as a useful tool on a daily basis] among small business owners is any indication, there's room for a more direct approach like Inquisix's. But, I'd favor a system that focusses on letting "good networkers" connect people with a need with the people with the best solution. Looking forward to the launch of Inquisix, Mike. Hopeful it helps move networking further online.

Freelance Designer

I recently hired Marcus Ohanesian to start doing graphic design work for our clients' projects. He is quick, responsive and affordable. And he does solid work. He launched a website to help himself find more freelance work or a job. If you do hire him, he's promised to still do my freelance work. Right Marcus?

Help Find Katie Corcoran - Lincoln, RI

It is amazing what women endure during birth and afterwards.  Having a 1 month old (as of yesterday), I am now witnessing the physical stress a woman handles. I can only imagine how that can manifest into emotional pain.

I received this by way of a friend. I don't know Katie or Rob, although their names sound familiar.

If you've seen her, please contact Rob.

Here's a website they've constructed to Help Find Katie where you can find his information.

Here's her photo:

I know Nothing About Harsha Raghavan. These Are Just My Opinions

I found this in my feedreader today.

I think Harsha has a bug in my office or something. Some of the stuff he's saying are certainly things we talk about internally.

He's actually the first person ever to really back up the fact that our ability to promote an event is more important than all the bells and whistles we've built into the service. I've made this point all along. Of course, some of our PR ability ties back to our technology. But, it's interesting to see an observer pick up on it. Pretty astute, Harsha.

He asks some very good good questions and makes semy very accurate, albeit a bit harsh, statements:

What is the value-innovation being offered? None. Obviously some people have signed up for the service but is it sustainable and will it grow large enough, in stable yet quick way? These are some Qs I'm trying to answer myself and am drawing a blank. Of course, if a sell-out is the exit strategy then I'm just babbling here.

Harsh is good though, Harsha. (Pun intended.)

Harsha concludes that we should offer to help event producers in the execution of events:

2. Catering (food and drink) and venue decoration services
3. Venue set up and management
4. Cleanup services (assuming the venue does not offer this service)
5. During-event attendee management

I disagree wholeheartedly. Those are messy cost intensive businesses. I certainly see value in trying to connect event producers with venues, caterers, etc like TheMenu does. We do this manually and locally. And a lot of technology could be applied to onsite event attendee management like nTag does. We've helped with on site stuff manually. But, providing real world services just slows down the growth of the company. (Yes. I've catered an event before. And I line up venues all the time. But, I do it to help. Not as a strategic move or to help sell our services.)

Actually, Harsha had it correct in the beginning. The differentiating factor to our business is not the technology. It's the ability to put more butts in seats doing online PR, marketing, promotion and advertising.

But, we're still asking the question:

Obviously some people have signed up for the service but is it sustainable and will it grow large enough, in stable yet quick way?

Thanks for the discussion, Harsha.