Marketing is an ongoing process of planning and executing the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion often referred to as the 4 Ps) for the mutually advantageous exchange of products or services.
Marketing tends to be seen as a creative industry, with marketing professionals often specialize in one or many of the following areas:
๏ advertising
๏ branding
๏ communications
๏ database marketing
๏ professional selling
๏ direct mail marketing
๏ event organization
๏ field marketing
๏ global marketing
๏ international marketing
๏ internet marketing
๏ public relations
๏ search engine marketing
๏ marketing strategy
๏ social media marketing
๏ strategic management
๏ marketing plan development
๏ market research
Google Launches SearchWiki for Customized Search Results
Posted by: Rob Hof on November 20
After almost a year of testing and some recent earlysightings, Google today is planning to launch SearchWiki, a way for searchers to edit their own search results. When you log into your Google account—and you need to have one for this—you can move a search result up using an up arrow button, get rid of a result with an X button, or suggest another listing with an “Add a result” link at the bottom of the search results page. You can also comment on any result, and others can see those comments. Here’s Google’s video demo:
You’re the only one who will see your re-ranked results, though you’ll be able to click on a “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link at the bottom of the page to see what search results others in aggregate have changed. What’s the deal here? Pretty straightforward, says Google product manager Cedric Dupont: “It gives users more control over their search results.”
Interestingly, in some of the tests of SearchWiki, the comments ended up generating something of a conversation. For instance, a search on California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, people offered their trenchant opinions on the measure. Dupont also figures people will use SearchWiki to get rid of spammy results or to serve as a bookmarking feature for searches they expect to do again.
For now, user re-ranking of results won’t have any impact on future or related searches, but Dupont doesn’t rule out user behavior influencing search results if it proves to produce better ones.
This isn’t an entirely new concept. Microsoft Research’s URank looks similar, and there are other more remotely related human-powered search results at Wikia Search and Mahalo. I’m not sure how many people will actually take the time to do this. But if you’re inclined, it looks like a way to make search results even more useful.
So the Google-Yahoo search deal finally fell apart. It’s not terribly surprising. From the beginning, I said that this deal was very problematic, probably anti-competitive, and would raise the ire of government regulators.
Yahoo! is clearly the big loser here. They don’t get hundreds of millions in additional revenue that the deal would have generated. Once again they do not have a strategy for turning around the company. And with the economy getting worse, the online display ad market is likely to deteriorate for at least a few quarters, and it may even see negative growth.
So why is Yahoo’s stock up 6% when the stock market is down 3% today?
Clearly, the market thinks that the failure of the Google deal means that Yahoo is takeover bait again. Problem is, they are running out of dance partners. “It’s a game of musical chairs and the music is stopping and there are not many chairs left,” says Morgan, who left AOL in March.
Google can’t acquire them. Microsoft is probably leery of re-engaging with Yahoo as long as Jerry Yang is running the show. That leaves AOL. It wouldn’t be a merger of strength but it may be Yahoo’s only option at this point—unless the board boots Jerry and invites Microsoft back to the table.
And who wins? Microsoft is the big winner here. Either it gets to buy Yahoo on the cheap, or it can steal market share from Yahoo while the company continues to flail and dither.
“All of this stuff creates an extraordinary distraction for people who buy and sell advertising,” says Morgan. “Who wants to cut a big deal with Yahoo if they have to unwind it a few months from now?
Based on an analysis of the most popular blogs and communities we’ve identified four driving factors to their success. Success being defined by the growing attraction of the content/author, the number of consistent viewers , ratio of post to comments and the viral distribution and referencing of the blogs content throughout the social web. The four driving factors are:
Attention: Businesses and individuals are using the tools of the social web to garner attention from specific consumer markets of interest to the audience and the business. Attention does not come from advertising rather relevant content and commentary by a credible audience.
Attraction: To keep people’s attention a focus on design, content and utility are the elements which create stickiness which indicates attractiveness. The art of combining design, content and utility is not something available in a playbook rather much is learned by trial and error. Media, in the form of text, images, video and audio are the tools used to create attraction combined with unique content.
Affinity: Content, design and community are the attributes of creating affinity to the proposition and the users of the online community. Unless the conversations related to the user’s needs or interest the attraction is lost because the users find little affinity to the conversations.
Audience: Once 1, 2 & 3 are accomplished then you have an audience to provide continuous value propositions in order to reinforce 1, 2 & 3. The cycle is demanding and the art and science is ever evolving. Unless your actively involved, experimenting and engaging with the audience you cannot learn what gets their attention, creates the attraction, develops the affinity and thus creating your audience.
