Category: Microsoft (MSFT)

Microsoft (MSFT)

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 2 – Images & Search Engines

I was going to attend this session but I arrived late because I was having a great conversation about his new project.

After yesterday’s speech by Greg Jarboe during the Universal Search session I knew this session would be popular. I had no idea that I could not even get a seat in a really hot room!!! Wow!

Shari Thurow, who just wrote a new book on this subject, and Chris Smith from Netconcepts gave great talks before I escaped for fresh air in the exhibit hall.

Fortunately, other folks that got seats did some great write ups of the session.

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Seattle – New Search Marketing Executive Mecca?

The land grab described in the Seattle Times seems to indicate this might be the truth. Seattle and the surrounding region is a wonderful place, I’d love to live there one day either in downtown Seattle or Bellevue. It’s interesting that they are moving locations to where the available talent is. They should explore Chicago once they’ve exploited Seattle’s talent markets fully.

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University of Michigan Consumer Satisfaction Index Report 2007

The report is out. Greg Sterling has a great write up at Search Engine Land. Congrats to Yahoo! and Ask on their improvements!

However, the numbers are extremely fine and as Greg asked the authors, “Why the disconnect between the satisfaction data and market share?” The other thing that should be pointed out is that these numbers are not that granular in nature. My advice is to take these numbers with a grain of salt as they may of may not result in the market share changes they suggest over the next 12-24 months. Essentially the question is will this report cause people to talk about switching over dinner with family and friends tonight?

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Search Engine Strategies San Jose – Silicon Valley August 19-23

I look forward to seeing all of my wonderful search engine, mobile search and mobile advertising friends next week at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose!  While I’ll definitely be in Mountain View for the Google Dance (hopefully they won’t run out of XL t-shirts in 2 minutes like last year), I’m unsure whether I’ll make it to Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Oakland, Monterrey or Santa Cruz to visit and see some other awesome things. I do hope to make it to Barcamp Block.

Who else will be there and what spontaneous events, product launches and parties are you looking most forward to? I’m getting very close to some of my goals! I look forward to seeing you.

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adtech Chicago: Redefining Search to Realize Its Full Potential

August 1, 2007

MODERATOR:
Jeffrey Pruitt, President, SEMPO, and Executive VP, Search, iCrossing

PANELISTS:
Kelly Graziadei, Senior Director, Agency Development, Yahoo! Search Marketing

James Colborn, Group Marketing Manager, adCenter Communications Group, Microsoft

Kevin Willer, Central Region Development Manager, Google

James Colbourn, Microsoft

Kelly Graziadei, Yahoo!

Think about the many different faces of search.

– The Researcher – look at Yahoo! Buzz to create an audience pyramid. Look at other content. Miller Beer Run. Showed a campaign with getting the beer – Yahoo! created the game and got excellent results

– The Reputation Manager – geo-targeting, ad testing, etc. Jet Blue built a campaign to respond to negative news.

– The Brand Manager – 79% introduced to new brands in search and 61% expect brand leaders to be consistently in the top of search results.

– The Great Integrator – TV, web, games, mobile all at the same time.

– The Advocate – Searchers are advocates that build brands through social media – significant in the pre and post purchase mode.

Kevin Willer, Google
– Information silos in the past. You almost needed a search engine for the search engines. Now all the silos are in one universal search.

Google Promotion – search for Bourne – showed how the site with Youtube

Search for PR. – You need to be ready to answer those searches

Search the New Performance Link – showed Motorola example and Presidential campaign data for Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney (He said the

We want to start thinking about search in different ways.

James Colbourn, Microsoft
Search Today: A Performance Tool
– To increase brand awareness
– To Sell Products
– To Generate Leads
– To Drive Traffic To Company Website

How do advertisers measure success?
– Traffic
– Conversions
– Impressions
– ROI

Brand, Awareness, Acquisition Tool and Lead Generator

Search as a research tool is a leading indicator for:
– A Business
– An Industry

Beyond Search
– Media Buying
– Budget Allocation
– PR Activity

The potential for search is higher than current usage…

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Skype Follow Up

I was contacted this morning by Chaim Haas, VP of PR at Kaplow, the PR firm that represents Skype regarding my previous post on Skype and Microsoft Outlook interaction.

After sifting through what occurred, we figured this to be the current state:

1) Skype appears to now install as the default setting integration of your Microsoft Outlook.

2) This only displays and you only have the option to change this when you have Microsoft Outlook open.

We discussed my preference for this to be an opt-in with a large text encouraging the opt-in. Chaim said he would pass this onto the Product Management team and get back to me at some point in the future. He also said that Skype has had over 5 million downloads on Windows Mobile platform! That’s alot. We also talked about the N800, if you haven’t checked out my interview with the Nokia N800 product manager Victor Brilon please do so.

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Google Accused of Conducting Smear Campaign Against Privacy International

Privacy International is using strong words like “Google has embarked on a smear campaign within the media to discredit both PI and the report”. It says more to follow. We’ll see if there is any substance to this. One thing is for sure, there is plenty of discussion out there. Thought provoking posts by Danny Sullivan and Donna Bogatin with considerable dirt.

One thing is certain, Privacy International doesn’t think it’s important enough to put out a full reply on a weekend, that means it loses some credibility in my eyes.

The conversation runs 24/7 out there not M-F 9-5.

UPDATE: I take that back, Privacy International just published the new letter which is addressed to Eric Schmidt.

So who is this Microsoft employee? And why wasn’t this person removed from the process before the report was created?

UPDATE #2: Matt Cutts has weighed in on the issues in a thoughtful way.