Category: Yahoo! (YHOO)

Yahoo! (YHOO)

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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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SES Day 2 – Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues Session

Basic legal update was presented – you can read this elsewhere.

Edelman – new suit against Yahoo! Alleges spyware in publishing network causing clicks.

Special claims process. Claims process being overseen by a federal judge. What deos click fraud mean. Plaintiff’s lawyer said we are giving up positive praise. Yahoo will have customer panels. John Slade is pleased that these things are settling as it allows the freedom to start talking.

Shuman made a very short statement that shared John’s sentiment.

Paul Vallez (Ask) – they have been trying to learn from Yahoo! and Google.

How big is click fraud? Tom Cuthbert says 14.1% is the figure he sees overall. He did not discuss variability.

Shuman published study that shows fictitious clicks. 17 pages – Shuman says page loads are causing these.

Reports submitted to Google there are Yahoo ads included. Shuman claims some people have reported over 100% percent.

Lori Weiman reprimanded Shuman for not sharing the report with the panel in advance because it made it impossible to respond to Shuman’s points.
 
Tom Cuthbert – reasonableisnotenough.com

Media rating council. IAB is a publisher network and is not the right panel.

Jessie commented on John’s positive contributions. Then pointed to Shuman for issues with

Shuman stated a number of invalid click efforts ongoing from Google.

Jessie then challenged for Shuman to agree that data both sides was necessary. Shuman agreed.

There was a lively and choppy question and answer session (as always).

Analysis: Yahoo! is clearly collaborating with customers to work to solve the issues. Google is clearly trying to move from defense to offense – but I’m uncertain what this accomplishes in the long term. Can’t wait for next time.

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SES Day 2- New Yahoo Search Marketing PPC Platform…

Marketing Focused

Managing Objectives

Multiple Segment Focused

Quality Thorough Technology & Rewards

Multiple pathing

Keywords are now “Targets”

Georegions ability – California (the example shown) has many regions

Automatic keyword/target suggestion tool

Alert ability for campaigns (got applause)

New term – Assists – giving credit to contributing keywords

John Slade then spoke…

Consumers will ignore advertising that is irrelevant

John is an architecture buff – people need to see what is relevant to them.

Advertiser with a high quality ad will perform better.

You will be rewarded for having a well targeted ad.

What will migration look like, and how can I get in? Measured upgrade – same ads will be served – then you can adjust.

What features will I have and when do they take effect?

The new features will begin at your upgrade time.

When will the new ranking model begin?

2007 Q1 (planned)

Can I still use my agency/tool provider.?

Yes.

Audience Questions:

Is day parting available?

You can customize your day time. Still being worked on. This is a 1.0 platform. That will be in a future release.

PPC, relevance, sounds like EPC?

Variables will be changing.

Will there be changes to the minimum bid?

No, not at this time.

Ad groups and structure?

Keyword bid can override an ad group.

Search in being used for other means other than shopping, we need to assist that.

Platform is global, multiple platforms. 

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SES Day 1 – Social Search – Up Close With Yahoo!

Tim Mayer opens the session – reviews items from previous session.

Yumio – Yahoo Answers!
Quantifying human knowledge. Yahoo! Answers is a collective site. Better knowledge through people. Y! answers compliments web search, giving results that a user may not think about. Provide content and material that. Culture of sharing. People like to share. Remote connectivity. Impressive growth 12x UU & 25x page views. Audience is segmented by topics/categories. Brand-Specific Channel and Expert Sponsor panel.  Showed examples of how Answers functions as a traffic driver from other search engines as pages are indexed.

Del.icio.us – Joshua Schachter – Director
Remember, Share, Discover
Brief overview – nothing new

Flickr – Yumio – her speech was great – but I had to leave the room for a minute.
Talks mainly about social phenomenon of Flikr.
New partnership with Nokia

Trip Planner – Ashish Baldua
Monetization – sponsorship – commoditization – etc

Time – 2.6 words average length, this is lengthening over time

How do you prevent a product from being spammed in Yahoo! Answers?
There are community guidelines. Inappropriate posts are deleted. 24/7 moderation.

Myweb – 3 results from the community. Overlay, this result was saved by Joe Smith – number of saves. Integrating Answers recently into the organic results. People are finding the tests to be additive to their search experience. Chris Sherman followed onto my question by asking about the one box experience versus the additive content. Time indicated this will come with time, but it is something where they need to proceed slowly with caution.

Tim Mayer and his team clearly outdid his peer on this day in terms of communicating a clear vision for social search.

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SES Day 1 – Social Search Overview

Chris Sherman made introduction speech I cant stress enough that he did a really *amazing* job of planning the session and laying out the issues. Major props.

Social Search goes back to the first days of the Internet.

W3.org – first directory.

Directories were the first forms of social media. Spammers destroyed the first directories with spam.

Future – people will be getting these things right

Talent pool is volunteer and free. The scaling is happening due to people participating.

Types – Shared bookmarks (del.icio.us), tag engines (blogs and RSS) and collaborative directories (Wikipedia).

Types of social search – Personalized verticals and collaborative harvesters.

Popurls.com – combines all news sites like dig, reddit, etc in one place.

Scale and scope will be major, tagging, ambiguity of language, human laziness, lack of controlled vocabulary, and of course…idiots!!!

Spammers – new systems create new opportunities.

Chris Sherman is optimistic about social search but is concerned about some issues. Trust networks, increased personalization, etc are great opportunities

Grant Ryan , Eurester speaks:
Flew in from New Zealand and is tired!

Anyone can create their own search engine with Eurester.

Power to the people – socialization of the search technology. Spidering, Directories, Link Analysis, Swickis

Search engines have done everything to avoid

We are a printing press not a publisher. We can decide how it looks and how to make money. We have created 20,000 search engines.

Monetize the printing press the way you want to – chose what is best for your community.

Swikinomics – How can you create vertical search engines. You can own your own Swicki. Property rights are key to motivate people in any economic system.

Anyone can create a valuable asset based on their knowledge

Existing communities and brands can extend into web search to create valuable services

Anyone can organize information on the Internet and get paid for it.

Tim Mayer, Yahoo!

Launching a search builder today – builder.yahoosearch.com

Search breakthroughs come from untapped authorities and rich new sources of metadata.

Yahoo’s mission – “Enrich peoples’ lives by enabling them to find, use, share and expand all human knowledge.”

Obtain a critical mass or high-quality user generated experience.

Nils Pohlmann, Lead Program Manager, Windows Live Search

Live spaces – new release

Ideas.live.com beta release Windows Live Q&A

Windows Live Local – Maps with tags

Windows Live QnA – sign up as qna.live.com

Questions:
Are the demographics different than in a bookmarking versus answers?

Tim – Del.icio.us is tech influencers. Tails of the tags are more mainstream. Myweb are early adopters. The demographic is younger overall.

Subscribers for a tag, Answers, is about contribute valuable knowledge.

There was a question about paying for bookmarking actions and the panel was in agreement that they are leery of going this route.

Regarding Yahoo! – Tim – Builder.search.yahoo.com – create customized web search. Create customized search experience. Reputation and trust are important!

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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.”