Category: Yahoo! (YHOO)

Yahoo! (YHOO)

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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.  

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Making Search Even More Efficient! Increasing Your Search Ranking Via PR and Search as a Branding Mechanism

Frederick Marckini, iProspect

You tube is a search engine you can search using keywords.

Estimates Youtube is getting more reach than Myspace, estimated to be worth $600 Million

How we search where we click. There is no paid or natural.

Tabs are pre-empting search. You need to be in all of the tabs. 4x the reach with number one ranking. What is the number one ranking now though?

72% organic and 28% ads Google

Yahoo 40% organic 60%

All search is meta search. Invisible tabs – content pre-empts search results.

4x improvement from 2-9 to #1 in Google.

Tactics: pay-per-call, 92% of people conversion activity occurs offline -survey customers offline to find ideas.

Offline affects conversion rates and lowers CPA.

Yahoo! And Google News tabs are important. They can show up either in the news tab or in search results forever. 

Keyword research – different audiences use different vocabulary ”Swirl marks” – paint “Lending” –  GPS vs global conversation

“Prior learning” – educational learning – “get into the language of your customer” longer the query – the higher the conversion rate. – but 88% comes with 1 or 2 words.

Search Funnel is a myth. There is no funnel. Broad search, then destination retailer.

Header term, General Term, Specific (branded), Destination/Retailer Search

How to spot an SEO savvy web site. Web site must have text and links to be found. Keyword prominence, frequency, placement, link quantity, link quality, link context, title tag is now your meta tag, domain name, use text, don’t use pictures for text.

Allison Kane, Atlas Search –
Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution, to the complex symbol leading to changes in brand image.

Brand Location – Are you easy to find? 40% of brand keyword and URL search clicks are first time visitors. 60% are repeat purchasers. Make sure you are first in natural search results.  Measure your brand terms separately.

Brand Building – When they are between brands, building the brand. Lexus and performance. Search is not full of branders, there are more people with a direct marketing background. Where is search leading your clients to?

Brand Experience – Do you use search to deliver positive brand experience. What about existing customers, should I be thinking about them? Example – “Nordstrom returns” search. Very few brands are utilizing customer experience keywords.

“Branding online comes from experience not the exposure” – Jakob Nielsen

Greg Jarboe – SEO-PR
(crowd gets extremely attentive for Greg’s speech)
75% of journalists search the Internet for previous stories on their subject.

Yahoo News is number two in online news. New York Times is number nine.

A “Consumer” magazine “reports” Press releases can often outrank the news stories.

Knowledge workers are increasingly turning to press releases due to lack of others.

Superpages.com – Replaced sex for gender.  Save your client for being found for the wrong term.

Romantic dining got ranked number 2 in Yahoo News and number 5 in Google News.

Morningstar.com is running press releases.

Tivo for search. Tracking links.

3,229 visits generated 2,715 clickthroughs – a 84% conversion rate!!!

It’s not just the press release. Track the publicity.

Can a press release increase your branding? Yes! 

Where to submit – used to use PR Web – has become your own link farm. All Wire Services are not equal. Conduct tests.

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Steve Ballmer Speaks – Should Steve Spin Off MSN?

There is an interview in the Wall Street Journal today with Steve Ballmer.

First I’d like to say that I wish they would have hired me to do the interview as it was mostly a rehash of many things Steve has already said save the Bill Gates is leaving and how does this affect you.

For example the article says: “Google Inc., meanwhile, has outpaced Microsoft online, poached key Microsoft employees and will likely become an even greater Microsoft rival in years to come. The Internet search company’s rising share price has raised debate over what more Microsoft can do to retain and attract employees.”

An intelligent question about whether MSN needs to spin off a portion of MSN to create a high growth currency would have been nice on this issue.

Asking about Yahoo! when Microsoft just hired the CEO of Ask is just plain silly – especially since this issue has been talked to death. A question about what exactly Steve Berkowitz’s mandate is and whether Ask might be acquired makes a million times more sense than to rehash the Yahoo speculation.

If anyone at Waggoner Edstrom is listening, I would to have one of the first public MSN interviews of Steve Berkowitz, a groundbreaking and unique conversation, you may find my contact information in my about section.

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Cellular Startups and Carriers the Next Google(s)?

The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article today about how celluar carriers are shying away from partnering with Yahoo! and Google and instead forming partnerships with smaller entities that they can control. It’s interesting and exciting to me because it’s a modified pay per call play – not just search. This is truly exciting and potentially extremely lucrative.

I would like to invite Brian Lent, CEO of Medio and Dan Olschwang, CEO of JumpTap to have an interview or podcast on this blog shortly. Learning more about the specific people involved at the major carriers would be most interesting to me and I might make the same offer if they were to contact me. Seeing this article gives me significant context to the comments in the recent Google earnings conference call. I look forward to networking more with people in the mobile marketing space.

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Three Cheers for Yahoo!

Yes, Terry Semel reported disappointing earnings yesterday, but I want to applaud one of his actions from yesterday. Mediapost reported that “Yahoo previously said it planned to roll out Panama in the third quarter, but Semel said during Tuesday’s quarterly earnings call that the company was delaying the rollout to prevent disruption in ad purchasing and management during the holiday ad season. “We think this is the right decision for ensuring the most successful commercial launch possible,” he said, adding that advertisers should prepare to start using it in 2007.”

What I’m cheering in found in this quote from Josh Stylman from Reprise: At the same time, the delay also doesn’t hurt search engine marketers, said Josh Stylman, managing partner at Reprise Media. “It’s a pretty intense platform change,” he said. “Frankly, we’d rather make sure that it gets released properly and in a stable environment, rather than rushing it out before it’s ready.”

Congratulations to Yahoo! for putting customers need for a stable advertising experience ahead of short term earnings potential using beta software that could be disruptive to customers.