Category: Google (GOOG)

Google (GOOG)

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Yahoo!, Ebay, Google = Strangeness

Am I the only one who is confused by the action to sign an agreement with Google by Ebay less than three months after being acknowledged on stage at the Yahoo! annual shareholders meeting? Is this a result of the recent Yahoo! platform delay? What is really going on here?

To refresh your memory, you will recall that Yahoo! announced a partnership with Ebay in May…

Yahoo!, eBay Enter Partnership To Expand Searches, Advertising
(Extracted from the Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2006) Yahoo! and eBay have announced a strategic partnership for Internet searches, advertising, online payments and a co-branded toolbar. “This partnership with eBay provides us with a great opportunity to further extend our sponsored search and graphical advertising reach to one of the largest and most active communities on the Web,” Yahoo! Chief Executive Terry Semel said in a statement. The two companies said Yahoo! will become the exclusive third-party provider of all graphical advertisements throughout the eBay site as well as so-called sponsored-search ads — a potential blow to Google, which is Yahoo!’s fiercest rival in that category of business. The companies will also develop “click to call” advertising technologies, in which consumers can use a link included inside an advertisement to directly call that advertiser.

Then yesterday Ebay announces an agreement with Google…

MOUNTAIN VIEW and SAN JOSE, Calif., August 28, 2006 – Google Inc.
(Nasdaq: GOOG) and eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced a
multi-year agreement to benefit both companies’ collective communities
of users, merchants, and advertisers around the globe. The agreement
consists of two primary components involving text-based advertising and
“click-to-call” advertising functionality.

Specifically, Google will become the exclusive text-based advertising
provider for eBay outside the United States. In addition, eBay and
Google plan to integrate and launch “click-to-call” advertising
functionality that leverage both Skype and Google Talk globally in each
company’s respective shopping and search platforms. The companies said
the financial terms for certain components of the deal involve revenue
sharing, but did not disclose specific details.

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Catch Up – Interesting Posts Recently

Google Blogoscoped linked to posted video of Danny Sullivan’s interview of Eric Schmidt at SES and Danny also posted (link removed) full press conference transcript that Google posted – wish I would have known that this was out there – it would have been helpful to me and I’ve bookmarked the page – props to David Krane and his PR team Google for posting that including the retracted comment portion – in other words if you read this please read the whole thing! I would urge him to change the segmentation of this information however as this transcript was not sent out via the normal Google product promotion press release channels like email.

RustyBrick points out an article suggesting that Google has hit the “topping point“.

This includes Andy Hagan’s and Aaron Wall‘s recent 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006.

Steve Rubel is challenging marketers to think like Venture Capitalists.

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SES San Jose Day 4 – Search Engine Q&A On Links

MSN – Ramez Naam

Links – What do they mean?

Discovery – How do you find it?

Reputation – How important is this page?

Annotation – What is this page about?

Key Principal of Links
Short and Readable
Descriptive
Useful and Navigating
In a Useful Location, Font, Color, etc.

Build good content and they will come!

Ask – Kaushal Kurapati

A link is a vote of authorization of the page being linked too.

Ask Approach –
Search the index to collect & calculate global information
Break the index into communities
Collect & calculate local subject-specific information
Apply all pertinent links

– Be cautious of reciprocal links
– Become an authority on a subject

Google – Adam Lasnik

We want links that are useful for humans?

Do your links make sense?

Yahoo! Rajat Mukherjee

Let’s try  to think beyond links.

Keywords, meta tags, links, new things are emerging

Ysearchblog.com

Answers.yahoo.com – social search is subjective opinions
Builder.search.yahoo.com – new search experiences

Myweb.yahoo.com

Siteexplorer.yahoo.com – look at your in links, meta data.

Help.yahoo.com/search

Search.yahoo.com – different signals will involve links

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SES San Jose Day 4 – API (new session)

Rustybrick wrote an amazing post on the new SES API session – my PC was in dead battery mode and no plug available mode during this session. Please enjoy his post. He did mis Erynn B. Petersen’s of Microsoft because they accidently went to questions before she gave her speech, which was an awkward moment that she handled amazingly well. I had a nice chat with her afterwards, she is one of the people who really gets what this is all about and for that I appreciate her.

This is a great session that reminds me of how much search is like financial services, where there are a number of vendors that provide mission critical API’s – the fact that API’s are just starting to become transparent to the masses is a sign of how early in all of this we truly are.

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SES San Jose Day 3 – Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, Press Conference

After Eric Schmidt was interviewed by Danny Sullivan, he held a press conference.

But first Eric stopped in the restroom and shook my hand shortly thereafter without washing his hands per reports of an SES attendee (it’s weird learning things like that 2 days later).

Learnings from this experience: Bring your business card, ask a specific and short question or risk having the tough parts missed.

The most surprising thing to me is that he only really holds press conferences about once a quarter. Think about that one of the busiest, hectic and arguably most controversial companies of our time that generates more news in a week than many companies used to generate in a year only has a press conference once a quarter. I wonder what Don Tapscott would think? Hmm, I just checked and actually Eric was quoted on the sleeve of Don’s 2003 book, the Naked Corporation! Think of how much the world has changed in those three years. Wow!

Below is my summary of the finer points of this rapid fire interaction (wish I could type faster) – minus the one area where he retracted a statement after continued pushback. It was very odd because in one way I felt sorry for him for being pounded on in a harsh way and in another way I felt he wasn’t being fully forthright and maybe even somewhat evil… I guess I’m trying to get across that the scene was very tense, terse and emotional.

Reporter: Can you say more on partnerships, Google as the affiliated partner, etc.

Eric: Dmarc is going to go well. Viacom/MTV suggested that taking content and putting video advertising at the beginning. Finding a way to monetize them is the hard part. We are doing well in search and content. Radio is coming out soon. The other two are starting now.

Reporter: Can you discuss the economics…

Eric: The forward commitments are much, much larger.

Reporter: Regarding the Kinderstart lawsuit.

Eric: It’s probably is best that I not comment on that.

Reporter: The AOL thing, how can it be impossible to happen at Google?

Eric: We have very specific plans about it. I’d rather not divulge them.  (awkward silence in the room)

Reporter: Many people, do not know the difference between paid and natural search. Could you do more?

Eric: Yes certainly we could although I think most people know. (I’d like to hear more elaboration on this issue as would the reporter that asked it) 

Reporter: Can you update us on Adsense policy?

Eric: Sites sometimes don’t follow the guidelines due to third parties. We have been tightening our guidelines.

Reporter: Update on Microsoft…

Eric: General Counsel made some claims. We’ll see where it happens. Google is more efficient, more scientific, etc. We will get more – $12 Billion of a $500 Million industry.

Reporter: Can you discuss video pricing model and cultural trends.

Eric: We will use an Adwords model. Development of social networks as lifetime models eventually. Myspace, it’s of the scale of instant messaging.