Category: Reputation

Reputation Management

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7 Reasons Crazy Egg Will Be Successful

The eagerly anticipated launch of Crazy Egg (or do you say Crazyegg?) is here!

Crazy Egg allows you to “Visualize Your Visitors” and gives you a clear picture of where your visitors are clicking and allows you to enhance your site’s results. By inserting a simple few lines of code, Crazy Egg allows you to see where people are clicking on your site and generate reports via overlay, list and heatmaps. The product has already been used on sites at leading ecommerce retailers who have given it a big thumbs up. For my blog, Crazy Egg during helped me learn to rearrange and eliminate non-performing categories for a cleaner and more useful look, thanks Crazy Egg!

To see an example of the types of reports available – they have a demo that nicely cross promotes Pronet Advertising.

Crazy Egg will also likely one day make a great Harvard Business Case study on how to launch a web property for the following 7 reasons:

1) They have always been transparent since day 1, public and open about their idea and primary vision – no NDA talk EVER! (I hope everyone learns from this?)

2) They used case studies that focused on client’s needs of early adopters in the blogosphere to tout the products benefits. This made the value proposition more clear to people.

3) The above two items enabled viral marketing to occur organically. I can’t say enough about the importance of this.

4) They sought out critical influencers to try the product and then asked for feedback.

5) Crazy Egg actively used this feedback in a timely manner to innovate and improve the product in numerous ways. This laser sharp focus on customer listening was critical.

6) The product is amazingly simple to install and activate and this reduces the barriers to adoption and usage. Many web products skip this important step.

7) Upon launch, a refined, non-beta product was delivered giving an optimal customer experience. Interesting and all too rare a concept these days.

Congrats to Hiten Shah, Neil Patel and the rest of the Crazy Egg team, they’ve worked tremendously hard to make this product a success and I’m certain this hard work will pay off.

Start improving your web site now!

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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 – 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.

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Introducing nextgoogleceo.com 3.0

Lately, Google has been showing that is it participating in customer listening. This is good! I hope it continues.

Since I’ve started studying search engine marketing these past full months full time, I’ve been applying to Google – even with employee referrals of former co-workers and people I’ve met at Search Engine Strategies, etc. with out the applications executed in a way I consider appropriate – that is the politest way I can say it. I’d like to see that change, I’m presently seeking post-MBA level leadership roles within your Search Services/ Syndication, Advertising Sales, Marketing or other leading areas driving customer satisfaction and impacting revenue as you grow new product lines. Ideally I’d love to work within local, dMarc or mobile. I resubmitted (again) today for numerous post-MBA leadership positions.

So I launched nextgoogleceo.com which is a cute take of HR microsites (and discusses how next Microsoft is obsolete now that google is a common verb in our language), except that I’ve changed the wording a bit to demonstrate my increasingly dynamic understanding of both search and viral marketing and the future thereof. As soon as I hit send, I’m leaving for Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 and look forward to meeting your wonderful business unit leaders speak once again.

I would of course invite aspiring competitors or “next google’s” to come up and talk to me about their ideas as well. I look forward to learning and adding to my large and growing list of amazing people that are making the Internet a special place.

I look forward to seeing all of my fabulous friends at SES San Jose. It’s going to be both great fun and great learning. It’s the 3rd or 4th time I’ll be seeing some of you and I feel like I’m going on a trip to visit family…that is because that is exactly what it is! I look forward to meeting many new folks to and learning many new and great things. Thank you and please travel safely. See you in San Jose!

I leave you with this parting thought: In the book, Creating Customer Evangelists, the chapters on Mark Cuban stand out in regards to the hiring of Matt Fitzgerald as Chief Marketing Maverick: “Instead of selecting a marketing person from the NBA or the sports industry, Mark consciously made a decision to hire someone from outside the industry,” Fitzgerald says. “He believed the NBA marketing community was too in-bred so [Cuban] was looking for a marketing person with a fresh perspective and ideas.”

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Yahoo Concerns About It’s “Corporate Blog”

I have always loved Yahoo! I want them to succeed. I love that Yahoo! launched a corporate blog! There are a few areas of concern from my future vantage point as a Chief Customer Officer of an innovative and creative organization though that I’d like to work to iron out.

Top 10 9 Questions the Yahoo! Corporate Blog Raises (and I’d like to see discussed in the next 30 days there):

1) Of most importance, in the video in the first post there is a purple cow to the right of the door as you enter. It looks a like a cow from the Chicago Cows on Parade a few years ago. However, to my recollection, there were no purple cows in the original herd. Could you please take some still pictures of this cow, post them and research it’s travels, paintings and history? I’d like to know. Thanks for your time. Does Seth Godin play any role? I would l like to know whether people see a piece of Chicago everyday as they walk in!!!

2) I’m sure Nicki Dugan, Senior Director of Corporate Communications, is real cool Yahoo! and all but an official corporate blog in a large corporation should be the brainchild and steward of the C-level suite with numerous other blogs throughout the organization available to micro-audiences. The PR department is just one blog of many in the corporation of the future.

Why? In the coming customer listening revolution, the C-level suite needs to be doing more customer listening and this involves massive amounts of change management to change from primarily strategy driven initiative thinking. Regardless of the business, this requires understanding, responsiveness and executive sponsorship and accountability for change management from C-level leaders. Peter Drucker said many brilliant things in his lifetime, among them was “Businesses are not paid to reform customers. They are paid to satisfy customers.”

3) I need your help as your new blog confuses me a bit in terms of Yahoo’s branding. At the Internet Retailer conference a senior Yahoo! executive told me that the corporate colors were now purple and white only, no longer yellow. Yet the video and your blog have the old yellow on it. Could you please clarify this issue, communicate it publicly and change your blog theme appropriately if necessary? Thanks.

4) Yahoo owns a blog product called Yahoo! 360, a blogging service. The Yahoo! “corporate blog” uses WordPress, the Yahoo Search blog uses Typepad. I find it a bit odd that Yahoo! isn’t using this product or discussing why it isn’t. Could you dig into a discussion of this issue?

5) Nicki, where is your contact info on the blog? You said you read Naked Conversations, putting your contact info on your blog was an important point in the book.

6) From a risk management and business continuity standpoint, it would seem that having Yahoo!’s network operations center in Sunnyvale might not be the best location due to the earthquake risks. A place like Chicago, Cleveland or even North Dakota might make more sense for this function? Will my Yahoo! Mail and experience be disrupted when the next big quake hits? If not, please prove it to me, I’d like to know and understand this better as I’m sure many net citizens would.

7) Speaking of Yahoo! Mail, lately my spam filtering hasn’t been so hot. Many messages that aren’t spam are categorized as such while significant amounts of real spam get through. What is the plan to remedy this and improve that experience? As Mail is one of Yahoo!’s primary retention tools, I would love more transparency and communication than has been provided so far on this important issue.

8) When will del.icio.us results be integrated into the search functionality for relevance? 🙂 I’m excited about this possibility, but will it even be executed?

9) Could you please enable the trackback functionality on your blog?

I forgot what that 10th item was, please forgive me. Several of these topics are ideal for guest bloggers by the way. Thanks for participating and listening, I hope Terry Semel and some other great Yahoo!’s join in the conversation. I look forward to a dialougue on these issues with the rest of the blogosphere.

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Wall Street Journal Says Google “Stumbles” in Video

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an awesome article about Video ads and discusses MSN’s early dominance. The article states:

“MSN’s early success positions the portal to benefit from the explosion in online video advertising now under way. It also raises questions about Google Inc.’s ability to maintain its stranglehold on Internet advertising.”

“Advertisers say there aren’t enough ad spots to go around. A June study by McKinsey & Co. estimates that 80% of video inventory was soaked up in 2005 and that demand is likely to rise five-fold next year, outstripping current supplies. “Whenever we create more inventory, the sales force can sell it instantly,” says Rob Bennett, general manager of MSN Video. “There’s a tremendous demand.””

“Jason Zajac, general manager of social media at Yahoo, says Yahoo currently runs banner ads only on the home page of video.yahoo.com, Yahoo’s page for homemade videos, which are vetted by Yahoo editors. Mr. Zajac says that Yahoo hopes to be able to offer 15- to 30-second ads inside user-created videos soon.”

“At the same time, portals are keeping an eye on Google. The search giant stumbled in an effort to move into video early last year.”

It’s interesting to see people questioning Google’s potential in this area so early in the game. Just like mobile marketing, the premise that Google will dominate is being questioned very early here.