Make Money Online

Despite a storm hammering the Northeast affiliates were able to get their voices heard regarding Connecticut HB 5481. According to Affiliate Advocacy the Finance Committee also heard testimony from several business organizations urging them to drop the bill entirely. It was argued that the taxes brought in would not outweigh the human consequences, like the job loss.

Depending on what the results from of the Finance Committee vote on HB 5481 is the bill may go back to the General Assembly for a full vote. This bill is exactly the same as last year’s bill (SB 806) and similar to other so-called Amazon Tax initiatives.

On Monday Amazon threatened to terminate all of their Connecticut affiliates, and is again showing that they have no qualms about using affiliates as pawns. Paul Misener, Amazon’s Vice President for Global Public Policy, said in testimony submitted to the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee:

“If Connecticut were to enact RB 5481, Amazon and presumably dozens of other out-of-state retailers would simply sever affiliate advertising relationships with Connecticut residents.”

Such a stance is a tactic Amazon has used in other states before with mixed success and is not one we, here at ReveNews, endorse.

Keith Phaneuf of Connecticut’s The Mirror writes “Both Rep. Cameron C. Staples, D-New Haven, the House chairman of the finance committee, and Rep. Vincent J. Candelora of North Branford, ranking House Republican on the panel, said state government is trying to walk a fine line. It can’t ignore a major portion of its sales tax stream that has moved online, but officials don’t want to harm businesses amid a slumping economy.”

Connecticut residents are required by law to pay the sales tax on goods purchased tax-free either out-of-state or online. Those obligations, known as the “use tax,” are supposed to be reported on annual state income tax returns.

But officials concede many residents do not pay the use tax. The $13.4 million in use tax paid last year by Connecticut income tax filers represented less than one-half of 1 percent of all sales tax revenue.

At risk of being terminated, by Amazon alone, if the bill is enacted are 70 percent of the 2,800 affiliates in Connecticut. Often other advertisers follow suit. Those are jobs that could be saved in this difficult economy and business taxes Connecticut will lose out on if the affiliate companies go under. Playing chicken with affiliate business does nothing to benefit the state since no tax revenue will be collected as merchants will simply switch to other marketing channels.

If you are a Connecticut affiliate, we urge you to speak out against HB 5481, to prevent more jobs from being lost. Both Affiliate Advocacy and  the Performance Marketing Association have resources that can help.

Read the original post:
Amazon Plays Chicken with Connecticut over Bill HB 5481.

It is commonly known within the search engine optimization community that Google has been working on transcribing audio for some time. The question is just how long from now will audio matter in search engine rankings?

Judging by voicemail transcription compliments of Google Voice, they still have a long way to go before transcriptions become accurate. Anyone who uses Google Voice for voicemail knows that the transcriptions are not very accurate. But the fact that this is something Google is working on lets us know that eventually it will become a search ranking factor.

What should we do? In order to have lasting search results for videos, it is not too early to start optimizing content. Do your keyword research prior to video production and ensure the phrases you are targeting are clearly mentioned in the voice-over of the video. This way, once Google decides to start taking the audio into account for rankings, your videos will be optimized.

Excerpted from:
Optimizing Video Content

CBS has turned one of the premier multi-day sports events into a destination purchase for Internet advertisers.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which tips off later this week, has brought in millions in online ad sales. Ad Age reports that CBS has sold out its online inventory for $37 million, a number 20 percent higher than last year.

The appeal for advertisers is March Madness On Demand, the web service which allows users to watch the NCAA Tournament games of their choice livestreamed on CBSSports.com. Last year, 7.5 million viewers watched online up 7 percent year over year and CBS expects that number to continue to grow. Key to increasing views is the decision to allow the content to be distributed via multiple channels including Yahoo Sports and Facebook.

All 64 games of the tournament can be watched free online, a gamble which has paid off for CBS. Removing the paywalls and other restrictions to online viewing while maximizing distribution has paid off big. CBS has seen online ad revenues grow from $4 million in 2006 to this year’s $37 million total.

CBS is almost synonymous with the Tourney having held exclusive rights since 1982 and is currently in the middle of a 11-year rights deal with the NCAA for the Tourney, with 3 years remaining. According to WPP-owned Kantar Media, CBS’s online March Madness revenue totaled 5 percent of the overall $600 million plus ad revenue pie last year, up from 3.5 percent the year before and expected to edge even higher this year.

“This is extraordinarily similar to selling TV and that’s a good thing,” Rich Calacci, Senior VP-Advertising Sales CBSSports.com told Ad Age.

In collaboration with AT&T, CBS has another revenue stream coming from mobile this year, charging $9.99 for its March Madness iPhone app which will allow viewing on phones. But, according the Apple’s rankings, that isn’t turning off buyers. March Madness is the No. 2 paid iPhone sports app.

The sponsors CBS is picking up are quality sponsorships too, including Coke, Kraft Foods, AT&T and newcomer Capitol One.

According to Ad Age, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves called March Madness On Demand “a great new source of revenue” for his network.

View post:
Dropping March Madness Paywall Pays Off Big for CBS

There are few online to offline success stories. Often they are limited to large brands who are either part of the technology industry or whose consumer base are early adopters to technology trends. Which is why when Media Trust, ranked as the 9^th fastest growing company by Inc Magazine, joined forces with a little known driver outside of NASCAR circles named Joe Nemechek no one expected quick success. The results surprised everyone. I sat down with Peter Bordes, CEO of MediaTrust, to discuss that success.

How did the deal come together with Global Media Minds, Joe Nemechek, and NASCAR?

The whole thing happened very rapidly. In NASCAR there has been a contraction in the amount of sponsorship money available for drivers due to the economy. GMM approached us literally weeks before the racing season started with the idea. We decided to take on the challenge as a case study with the goal of creating a different way of packaging various elements of online marketing within the world of NASCAR racing. GMM had all these parts for Joe in place that weren’t really being leveraged:  a late 90’s style website, a Twitter account that was sort of being used, and a Facebook account that was only partially up to date. Nothing was really integrated together. So we ripped it apart and put it together in the short timeframe we had. What you see now is just version one of our concept, there are two or three more evolutions yet to come.

How has the response been?

I have to say the attention we’ve gotten so far with this project is phenomenal.  We built the Media Trust brand leveraging social media but I don’t think you really understand the concept of engagement until you get behind the wheel of a social campaign with someone that is a celebrity. We first looked at Joe Nemechek’s personal site and his official site NEMCO Motorsports but decided that we should start from scratch with FrontRowJoe.com.

So we started with the fundamentals putting all the pieces together, setting up tracking to measure sign-ups and clicks, integrating Twitter and Facebook, getting Joe to personally buy into using the social platforms more methodically. Joe began posting regularly and the following grew quickly from about a thousand to just under five thousand users in Facebook and took the Twitter from in the hundreds to just under three thousand.

It’s groundbreaking because none of the other NASCAR drivers, to my knowledge, are remotely leveraging social media the way we did. Our efforts actually brought in two sponsors.  One of these is England’s Stove Works, which is not necessarily a typical sponsor. We were able to drive a half a million dollars in sponsorship revenue. For having put everything together in three weeks we’ve been enormously successful.

It’s kind of allowing Joe to be real spokesperson. Instead of the drivers just wearing the logos he can actually talk to the audience and react.

Exactly!  When we began working on the campaign we spoke with other companies who had sponsored NASCAR drivers and they all said, “We love NASCAR but we just could never figure out what our return was from it.” I talked to the CEO of Liberty Medical and he’s like “I love what you guys are doing!” And he even sent me a picture of his car and was like, “We love NASCAR, we’d love to sponsor it, I just couldn’t figure out how to make sense of it.”  Because what is my logo on the car worth?

But if you can have the driver talking about Liberty Medical its like  now he’s off and running. When the driver is talking about the brand you need the mechanisms in place to be able to really connect with the fan base. Not just through some static website but through interactive mediums like Facebook and Twitter. It’s amazing how quickly you’ll see people coming to that brand and transacting.

That’s how it was with England Stove Works. We drove half a million dollars worth of transactions initiated by our efforts with FrontRowJoe! In a way Joe became a super affiliate. That success with this experiment can certainly be replicated.

Quite an experiment; it seems to have out reached its goals. What were Joe’s team and GMM initially hoping for from this?

We really had no idea. This was a complete and total shot in the dark but it was better than nothing. Joe’s agency had been working with us on other projects and knew that we were able to look at the broad online universe and take a holistic new approach to the channel. It was either that or nothing so what have we got to loose in trying something new?  Let’s leverage Joe’s passion for the fans and history  as a driver and see if we can possibly generate revenue online. Let’s experiment and find out, we have nothing to lose, we have a willing driver, we have a great agency and a group of people to work plus if this model works it can be replicated within the NASCAR industry.

I’d say this has gone metric wise way past anything we could possibly imagine.  What’s great is that the season’s not even over yet and we’re definitely going to have a phenomenal case study.

How did you track the affiliate and social media ROI?

Everything was built in a dynamic environment so we could look at the results daily and start tweaking the campaign as we went. First there was the car itself which had no sponsors, so we thought “Let’s make Joe his own sponsor and put FrontRowJoe.com all over the car.” That would drive fans to a website designed purely with marketing in mind. We started to track metrics to optimize: how many people were coming in, from where were they engaging, what were they signing up for, the newsletter, what products were they clicking on.

Using Google Analytics we measured which channel, Twitter or Facebook, was stronger giving us a very clear picture of our efforts right down to the Tweet. We could see which Tweets and posts in Facebook worked, what type of call actions we used  in the posts did not. It’s been a very effective mechanism for allowing us to adjust as we go.

For the affiliate side, to track offers, we used our own proprietary affiliate tracking technology.  It’s really very interesting, prior to working with Joe, I didn’t realize how many affiliates are NASCAR fans. It’s huge!

For the New England Stove sponsorship we set up a tracking mechanism on their website. When a user came from NASCAR  a special discount or offer would trigger so we could see what the effect of the traffic that we were sending out was.

How are the offers on Front Row Joe picked?

At first it was fairly blind. We just looked at the demographics, the geographics, the “demo-geos”,  and where the races were held. We guessed the categories that would be popular, like DirectTV and offers from Force Factor because that was primarily more the “demo-geo” of Middle America. As the clicks came in we started to find out there were more females interacting with Joe and with NASCAR drivers than there were males which was something that none of us would have expected.  So what we are now doing is looking at the data of who is signing up into the database and which offers are getting interacted with.  Currently all the optimization is being done by hand but we’ll start applying technology to it.

So now that you’ve had this success what do you hope to replicate from the lessons you’ve learned?

What we want to do is really turn Front Row Joe into an actual brand. Not only for Joe, himself, but for NASCAR. The website will be completely rebuilt to focus on providing unique content from each race for the fans with content from the pits, from the front row with the drivers and will also provide visitors a much deeper integration with social media sharing features.  There have actually been other drivers that are interested in taking part after having seen this. Everyone is pretty astounded by the success, especially considering Joe has crashed and burned in every race but yet you’re still getting this incredible traction with the sponsors and the fans.

Once someone has gained some affinity with the fans it doesn’t necessarily matter if they’ve placed in the winner’s circle because they’ve built up this relationship over the years.

Exactly!  You know Angel, I’ve got a pretty big following within online marketing industry but I’ve never been able to generate the kind of response with my personal Tweets as I’ve seen Joe generate with NASCAR fans. The speed and responsiveness from those fans is just phenomenal! People are coming up to Joe in the pits and saying, “I saw your Tweet, “it’s faster than a tweeting bullet” that was great!”

My background is in mass media. Mass media and mass marketing is changing forever to “me media” and “me marketing” and I think this is a great demonstration of that.  And relationship is the point because consumers are getting so smart they can tell if someone has an  authentic social presence or not. We have tons of people coming on the site and saying, “Joe, is this really Joe?”

Which is why it’s important to have Joe excited and fully involved for this to work. You have to have the authenticity of the voice of these guys and this is what we’ve done with just one of them. The success certainly can be replicated.

Still, you have to be a little careful not to bastardize this because there is a lot of responsibility that comes along with engaging fans.  Social media is unregulated and if marketing agencies get a hold of a medium for the wrong reasons it can totally ruin this channel  just as quickly as it ruined other channels. I think there’s a big responsibility that comes along with this as we start seeing power of harnessing social media. Done right it can create a lot of value for the fans.

Here is the original:
MediaTrust Sets the Pace with NASCAR Success

While there’s a ton of hype about micropayments and their role in virtual goods, many economic trends don’t really sink in until there’s a high-profile success story that people can dream about. It doesn’t matter that less than 10% make any serious money, since it’s easier to buy the dream of riches than to face the reality of the statistics.

The real money in virtual goods isn’t found in the iPhone App Store, it’s in social network games and virtual worlds. While I’ve personally seen 20,000 limited edition items sell out on Mafia Wars in one day, that’s just a tiny spec in the new digital economy of digital goods.

Want an idea of what that tiny spec was worth?  The math goes like this: 20,000 items at 42 points/credits each. 42 rewards points costs $10 (source in game marketplace), so 20,000 x 10 = $200,000 retail value in one day. While that item may have been special and not everyone pays cash or PayPal directly for the points; it’s a very suggestive revenue statement – virtual goods are serious business.

But before the bandwagon starts cheering that virtual goods gold rush, I respectfully submit that this is the same trend expanding from virtual worlds to games and has been building momentum for a decade.

Let’s consider some virtual goods economies where there are indeed several high profile success stories to dream about. Forbes discusses the topic, but I’ll point out some highlights with my thoughts. The first goes back to 2004 and is all about an ROI of nearly 400% and a cash outlay of $26,500, but keep dreaming as there huge sums of money to be made in virtual goods:

• Do you seek rare virtual animals or cater to those who do? Then Amethera Treasure Island should peak your interest. This business in virtual world Entropia costs $26,500, but returns ~$100,000 per year.
• Do you want the own the latest hotspot asteroid? Then Club Neverdie in Entropia is your type of business. Purchased for $100,000 in real money in 2005, the nightclub, shopping mall, and sport stadium based on an asteroid is estimated to be worth $1 million.
• If asteroids are too low class for you and you’d rather cater to the luxury minded types? Keep your eye on Crystal Palace Space Station in Entropia which Forbes reports was sold for $330,000 in hopes of charging the wealthy crowd fees to visit and experience the latest in space station luxury.

While the previous examples showcase the money made in virtual real estate and experiences, others are putting the sweat and blood into other ways to earn money:

• Skilled artist or just a collector? Consider dropping north of $11,000 on an Anatomically Correct Virtual Skeleton available only in virtual world Second Life. I’ve met virtual clothing designers who reported that they earned smaller, but respectable monthly incomes selling clothes in Second Life as well.
• White collar criminal or just a hacker? A hacker in Second Life stole the real equivalent of $10,000 when he hacked into Second Life’s stock exchange.

Back in 1999 I remember users of The Palace creating and selling props on eBay. These props could be used by in-world avatars to dress up and show your personal style. Many people made and exchanged virtual goods for free, but even then, people bought, sold, and even stole the virtual good props.

Virtual goods not only are hot, they’ve been hot since 1999, been breaking bank accounts since 2004, and are now becoming a significant factor in reshaping the way we think about making money online. More is happening in this space, so stay tuned.

More here:

These days, any discussion of social media usually refers to the “big three” – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. MySpace, the social network that started it all, is conspicuously absent from the list.

The decline of MySpace resembles the first-to-market stumbles of such giants as AOL and Yahoo! Just being first isn’t good enough when technology advances at rates beyond the speed of light.

But apparently, MySpace isn’t ready to throw in the towel. In what is being widely regarded as a re-launch, MySpace announced this week that a new version of the site is in the works and will be implemented in stages over the next several months.

The direction MySpace is taking seems a little like back to the future: the network will re-trench and focus on its core strength of entertainment – music, videos, and celebrities. As MySpace co-president Jason Hirschhorn said, “It goes back to discovery and self-expression. That’s where we came from and where MySpace really made its mark…”

A work in progress, MySpace has already dumped such random things as classifieds, horoscopes, job boards, and weather. Instead, the network will employ information from its users to “recommend movie trailers, recently released songs and video games.”

Ironically, MySpace does lead in at least one area: the company recently announced that MySpace Mobile is the most popular social application for the Android smartphone. MySpace was also the first social network to be included in Microsoft’s new Outlook Social Connector, which adds social networking to the Outlook email application.

These victories notwithstanding, the larger question looms: Can MySpace regain any sort of leadership position in the social media world? Right now, all the statistics say no. MySpace claims to have over 100 million users worldwide, but Facebook has over 400 million active users. In February, about 111 million people in the U.S. visited Facebook, a 95 percent increase from a year ago, while MySpace had about 67 million visitors, a 5 percent decrease, according to ComScore. eMarketer projects over $450 million of ad spending with Facebook this year – a 26 percent increase – while MySpace will likely drop 23 percent to about $360 million. Even worse, the ad deal MySpace has with Google is scheduled to expire in August 2010.

If MySpace is to survive, the more likely scenario is that it becomes a niche player in the entertainment world rather than a major social networking site. But that online market is also crowded. Maybe this re-orientation would make it of interest to online marketers involved in the music and movie business, but still, MySpace risks becoming just another entertainment site.

Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer for News Corp., the owner of MySpace, tells the Los Angeles Times, “We need to be a platform for self-expression that is clearly differentiated from the competition.” But you have to wonder – given the success of Facebook, the growth of Twitter, and the video creativity demonstrated on YouTube – is it even possible for MySpace to get noticed?

Excerpted from:
Last Gasp for MySpace?

Television advertising is often seen as a measure of mainstream acceptance online technology. It is clear that location based mobile applications have arrived after Foursquare’s  20 second commercial run on the Bravo network. Foursquare, an app where users share their location with friends through a “check-in”, is one of a sudden glut of location apps and the first to advertise on a large television network. Others have made use of this technology for a number of reasons, including allowing business such as Starbucks to target consumers with coupons. All the attention has made users are all too eager to provide their whereabouts when asked, leading to privacy concerns.

Typically, users turn to these applications to:

• Conquer boredom: Apps like Foursquare allow people to communicate with others in the same location. Rain delay at a sports event? Connected users can complain about the high cost of snacks and uncomfortable seating. Stranded at an airport? It’s easy to hook up with others in the same predicament.
• Gain recognition: Many of these apps recognize frequent contributors or participants by recognizing their “achievements”. For example, Foursquare users can earn badges for different check-ins.
• Explore: Let’s not forget, location aware apps help users find local businesses, hotels, restaurants, and other places of interest. In addition to the entertainment value, these applications really help people find what they need.

Privacy

As popular and helpful as location aware apps can be, there is a huge risk when they are used. Broadcasting your whereabouts opens the door to a host of privacy related issues that many people don’t even think about when they fire up these applications:

Big Brother

Tracking, of course, is an inherent part of such technology. Use of which could be leveraged for surveillance purposes. As Carnegie Mellon University Professor Lorrie F. Cranor, who conducted several studies about privacy issues and location-sharing technologies, stated in her testimony to Congress:

“Due to the way cellular technology works, for example, the widespread use of cell phones enables round-the-clock surveillance of citizens. It is important that the storage of individual location data be minimized and protections be put in place to limit when it can be disclosed to the government.”

Cyber Stalking

Cyber stalking was made popular when social networking was making its climb. With location aware services, cyber stalking can be taken to a whole new level. Broadcasts can be used not only to follow victims, but gather information about their likes, interests, hobbies, and anything else that can be useful in their pursuits.

Exposed Irresponsibility

Just as GPS devices have been used to track an employee’s movements while on the clock, location aware services can show an employee, or spouse, to be somewhere other than where they should be. An employee who calls in sick can be exposed when a location aware broadcast shows them to be at the ballpark.

Please Rob Me

When a user broadcasts their home address for the world to see, a few of these people will catch on that when the user checks-in somewhere else, they are not at home. Criminals who understand how this works can easily pick targets where they can be assured that the resident is not at home. Making this even easier are sites like pleaserobme.com that lists Foursquare users that have checked-in somewhere other than their home address.

A matter of trust

When it comes to trust, technology works in reverse. While most businesses spend years trying to establish a brand and consumer trust, people genuinely throw all of their trust into a new technology. It isn’t until the dangers are exposed that they begin to question the faith they have put into it. This can be seen in how people have reacted to Internet technologies over the years.

At first, the Internet was considered a reliable resource. “I read it on the Internet,” was a mantra that was soon mocked as people began to realize that not everything that was published online was factual, or safe. When social media came along, people had no qualms about posting the most intimate details of their lives for others to see. That is, until employers started browsing these sites to get a better glimpse into personal lives of their prospective employees. Now, young adults are growing less trustworthy of posting everything to social media sites.

As time goes by, people will grow to become hesitant before allowing their exact location to be broadcast for everyone to see. As that trust factor diminishes, location aware apps will begin to adapt to the culture of their users. It is the hopes of many application developers that the industry self-regulates since there is growing talk of the need to create standards and regulations to govern these applications. However, until that time comes, users need to take responsibility.

Some things to consider when using location aware applications are:

• Know how the apps you use collect and use your information.
• Look for clear opt-in/opt-out procedures. If they don’t exist, don’t use the app.
• Know the app store’s certification policy. Does the store check the integrity of the app and how it handles data or do they just allow any app created in their store?
• Know where data collected by the app migrates to. It is one thing to collect your information, but what the company does with it after they have it is another story.

See the original post:
User Awarness Key to Privacy with Location Apps

A world in which customers walk through the door of a business and get a coupon especially crafted for them is much closer, thanks to Foursquare.

The application, which has become the dominant player in the world of mobile, geo-specific check-ins, has unveiled a set of analytics for businesses which will put a name and a face to loyal customers.

The dashboard, which is still in alpha, is debuting for 30 select customers before a bigger roll-out. The dashboard gives businesses a look at who is checking in, breaks them down by when they come in, gender, and number of visits. Businesses will also be able to see which platform customers are using to share their status.  If your visitors are heavy into Twitter or Facebook, you can follow them there. Other types of information tracked includes: total check-ins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, and top visitors.

Writes Zachary Wilson of Fast Company,

“With priceless data like this, it’s easy to imagine a blow-up in participating venues coming soon. More businesses means more users, more users means more businesses, and suddenly Foursquare is the Facebook of check-ins.”

Foursquare plans to add additional real-time information for business users, including weather updates. Potentially, this dashboard could be used by large chain businesses (like a Wal-Mart or Starbucks) from a central location with a view of all of their outlets in real time.

“We’ve been talking with quite a few [large corporations] who are excited about the potential for this,” said Tristan Walker, Business Development at Foursquare, in an interview with Mashable. “Once we can add purchase information on top of check-ins things can get pretty interesting.”

This valuable information helps Foursquare give itself even more distance ahead of competitors like Gowalla, and the addition of a newly designed iPhone app will give FourSquare an additional bump in users.

As the dashboard and analytics are tweaked, based on the alpha tests, plans are to introduce the service to the 1,000 or so registered businesses currently running specials on Foursquare.

Read the original:
Foursquare Offers Up User Data with Check-in Analytics

The Renaissance, Europe’s period of cultural, political and scientific rebirth, began in Florence around 600 years ago. At Google we’re interested in a (small “r”) renaissance of a different kind — a digital one. Since the launch of Google Books, we’ve been working with libraries and publishers around the globe to bring more of the world’s books to more readers around the globe. Any school child should be able to access the works of Petrarch, Dante or Vico (or, if they’re so inclined, Machiavelli). In the case of these more famous authors, this is already largely possible, but what about the work of Guglielmo il Giuggiola or Coluccio Salutati? We want all of the great literature and writings of Italy to be accessible to the general public.

Today we’re announcing an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage that will push this vision forward. Working with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, we’ll digitize up to a million out-of-copyright works. The libraries will select the works to be digitized from their collections, which include a wealth of rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of Italy’s most famous poets and writers. It marks the first time we’ve ever joined forces with Italian libraries, and the first time we’ve worked with a ministry of culture.

Around Europe and the rest of the world, we are effectively witnessing a digital renaissance, with an increasing number of organizations running ambitious and promising book digitization projects. We’re not the only ones who have seen the need to bring the world’s books into digital form. Digitization of books is a tremendous undertaking, requiring the joint effort of a great number of public and private stakeholders. For this reason, we’re supportive of many other efforts at digitization, such as the European Commission’s Europeana. We want to see these books have the broadest reach possible — the books we scan are available for inclusion in Europeana, of which the Florence Library is a founding member, and other digital libraries. The more of the world’s historical, cultural treasures we can bring online, the more we can unlock our shared heritage.

We believe today’s announcement is an important step, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners. We envision a future in which people will be able to search and access the world’s books anywhere, anytime. After all, Antonio Beccadelli and Anastasius Germonius — like Shakespeare and Cervantes — are part of our human cultural history.

Posted by Gino Mattiuzzo, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Italy

Go here to see the original:
A digital renaissance: partnering with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage

[From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have Allison Schwam, Senior Search Analyst at Backcountry, join us here. -Ed.]

When you don’t have to sacrifice your love of the outdoors for your career or vice versa, it’s something special. In fact, my love of both skiing and marketing has grown dramatically since I took my job at Backcountry. Getting to work with Google, specifically managing our AdWords acount, is an online marketing geek’s dream come true. Combine that with every skier’s dream of Utah powder, and life is good.

Day traders wake up every morning to check their portfolio — I get up and check my AdWords accounts. Backcountry sells gear and equipment for the outdoor enthusiast from ski boots to tents, and we sell all of it online. My job is to drive valuable, qualified traffic 365 days a year to Backcountry using AdWords. The AdWords platform lets me manage hundreds of campaigns and hundreds of thousands of keywords with relative ease. I have access to huge amounts of data that are revealed as daily ebbs and flows in impressions, clicks and bids. If you do a Google search for [telemark ski gear], you’ll see our ad:

Backcountry was founded in 1996 by two self-proclaimed ski bums, John Bresee and Jim Holland. Since then, the company has grown to hundreds of employees. I’ve been working here for over two years. Ultimately, our goal is to “crush it,” as some ski town folk say: work hard, play hard.

A typical powder day for me is like this one last Friday when Park City got 12 inches of new snow overnight. Here’s how AdWords helps me manage both work and fun.

7 – 7:45am
Roll out of bed.
Get the coffee going.
Fry eggs and bacon.
Check snow totals.

If it looks like a good ski morning, I first check my email and glance over our AdWords campaigns. All I need to do is my daily reporting to see that I’m on target for my revenue and cost goals. As long as things are okay, I email my boss to say I’ll be out slaying the white dragon.

Just as I have the ideal tools to maximize our online campaign performance, I have the tools avid skiers covet for deep days: fat, rockered skis, stiff ski boots, Gore-Tex jacket and pants, helmet, goggles, merino wool layers, etc. After I grab my gear, I’m off.

7:45am – 12noon

My commute to The Canyons Ski Resort takes 10 minutes. My friends and I know how to get the most out of our time on the mountain, balancing chair lift time, snow quality and vertical. Does that sound a bit like cost-per-click, conversion rate and top-line revenue? Take this lift to that lift, ski the trees while we wait for that chair to open, get after our favorite steep lines. Next thing you know:

Face shots are invigorating. Hard to explain, best to experience! After a few glances at the time and collecting my thoughts, I make my way off the mountain.

12pm – 5pm

I head a few miles down the road to the office. As the afternoon goes by, co-workers will emerge from their cubicles; sometimes because legs are cramping up but also to share stories about how the morning was. Where did you ski? How was the snow? Smiles all around.

I settle into work knowing what I need to succeed at my job is at my fingertips. AdWords gives me visibility into my programs to prioritize and understand trends. It also makes it easy to add and edit my account without getting bogged down in manual work. I regularly use Keyword Performance Reports to monitor both head terms and tail terms to stay on top of revenue opportunities. I’ll take into account the average order value and also the percentage of clicks that turn into sales (rate of conversion) in order to manage our keyword bids. As I do bid updates, I also check the AdWords Preview Tool to see how our ads are ranked and what is going on with our competition. We don’t really focus on “cost-per-click” but instead on “cost as percentage of revenue,” which means the more people purchase, the more ads we can run. So the higher the return on advertising spend, the more room we have to grow our paid search presence.

5 pm – 8 pm

I like this afternoon time in particular because it’s quiet and I can really focus on data-crunching. Uninterrupted time and a strong cup of coffee are essential for doing long-term analysis.

Campaign Performance Reports are great for identifying long- and short-term trends as seasons shift or for changes in demand by brand. We just wrapped up our winter sale, so this is a great time for me to run an Ad Performance Report to analyze which versions of ad copy had the strongest clickthrough rates for future reference. Finally, Google Insights for Search is a fun tool. It’s a great way to connect with our buyers by discussing big-picture trends with the brands we carry. We can look at AdWords Campaign performance and try to tie it back to general search volume in the marketplace and identify product searches on the rise. In short, given our metrics focus, AdWords gives me the information I need to make decisions about specific keywords, bids, and our overall spend.

There are typically the same few folks hanging out at the office this late. We’ll exchange some pleasantries, and as the lights get turned off I’ll shut down my computer.

When I earned an undergraduate degree in marketing and cultural anthropology, I had only a vague idea how I was going to create a career with behavioral and analytical activities. It turns out online marketing is an exciting mix of real-time data and customer service. AdWords lets me manage campaigns very efficiently, so I have time to dig deeper and do the strategic analysis that makes this job about much more than just meeting revenue goals.

Finally, I picked Park City because it’s more than a ski town. Here fanatical skiers, trail runners, bikers, snowboarders and climbers can live year round and still have a meaningful career. I’ll always be grateful to companies like Backcountry and Google for making this possible: Backcountry for fostering the passions of the outdoor enthusiast, and Google for innovation in creating the forums and tools that really work for us.

Posted by Allison Schwam, Senior Search Analyst at Backcountry

Originally posted here:
Ode to AdWords

Ever get the feeling that marketers don’t really understand social media – or at least don’t effectively utilize it?

That’s the premise of Steve Rubel’s article on Forbes.com, and he makes an important observation worthy of discussion. Rubel is a well-known member of the digerati who is Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, the digital division of the world’s largest independent PR firm.

Rubel says marketers are making a massive shift to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, sometimes to the exclusion of mentioning their own corporate websites. He wonders whether the corporate URL is a dying breed.

But Rubel sees the potential for this strategy to backfire. He says consumers could “perceive corporate real estate on Facebook as a lame attempt to appear cool and hip.” “Many brands are just using their Twitter and Facebook presences to spew out updates, without any thought to how consumers will benefit by essentially opting in,” says Rubel. And most important, he says, “very few businesses treat social networks as personal, conversational spaces. Hardly any feature real employees. And a scant few aim to advance shared interests.”

I think Steve Rubel has given voice to something the big traditional marketers are missing – something savvy online marketers surely understand: social media is not just another channel for ads. As I mentioned in my post about Twitter going commercial, ads on Facebook and Twitter need to be a good fit with those platforms for them to be viewed as authentic.

In fact, authenticity may be the real issue here. Rubel’s observations point to the fact that some big marketers may be viewing social media in an entirely wrong context. Their quick fix answer is to muscle their way into Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – but once they get there, they have no clue what to do. Think of it as a bully on the basketball court who has no shooting skill. He may be able to take the ball away from the other kids, but he’ll have a heck of a time scoring a basket.

I’m reminded of a time when marketers wanted to convert their messages to another medium called direct marketing. It was a sometimes painful transition: The marketers had to speak in a different voice that put the emphasis on “you” instead of “me.” That’s not easy when you have a corporate ego. Marketers had to learn that direct marketing was at its heart a correspondence relationship. The promotional approach had to be engaging. Copy had to be loaded with benefits, not just features. There had to be a compelling offer. And marketers had to have a strong call to action and numerous response paths – they’d get nowhere without asking for the order and providing specific ways to respond.

In the same way, marketers can’t just stumble blindly into social media. They need to learn the same kind of lesson they were forced to learn when they embraced direct marketing.

Social media is a different animal. Marketers have to engage in a two-way dialogue with consumers to make it work, and they have to be willing to expose themselves to possible negative feedback and open criticism. They have to budget and staff for social media. They need people whose responsibility includes engaging, responding to, and following up with consumers.

All of this takes a commitment to using social media on its own terms. If you want to play on someone’s field, you have to use their ball. Sorry, but social media doesn’t fit into that comfortable little box called traditional marketing. When you look at the way some marketers are approaching social media, you have to wonder if they will ever understand its potential.

Go here to read the rest:
Do Marketers Understand Social Media?

Believe it or not there is more to SXSW than the parties. Although from chatter on Twitter it’s often hard to tell. With SXSW kicking off this week I’m sure most of you have planned which parties to attend but maybe haven’t looked at the session schedule quite yet. So before you get lost in the lines to the film screenings, bars, celebrity signings, and hoping food joints like the Magnolia Café or the Iron Works, here are my picks for the Top 10 must see interactive sessions at SXSW 2010:

Smackdown: Consumers Privacy vs. Advertiser Revenue
Time: Friday March 12, 2PM
Hashtag: #smackdownprivacyrevenuet

The panel premise that the FTC could ban all forms of tracking consumer web activity is a nice but alarmist hook. Still, it is true that the FTC is being more aggressive in policing online activity and the assembled panelists should provide advertisers some clear insights into compliance issues.

Panelists include:

• Alan Chapell, President Chapell & Associates
• Alison Pepper, Director of Research of Public Policy at Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)
• Jordan Mitchell, Vice President of Data Intelligence Rubicon Project
• Ingrid Sanders, Director AdAdvisor at TARGUSinfo

Crime Scene: Digital Identity Theft
Time: Friday March 12, 3:30PM
Hashtag: #digitalidtheft

The theft of digital identity is often easier and sometimes more damaging than identity theft offline. As social media mixes more with ecommerce this will become a larger problem. Learning methods to make that ID more secure is valuable information. Hopefully Bill has the sense to not make it too pitchy.

Panelists include:

• Bill Morrow, Chairman and CEO of CSIdentity
• Aaron Strout, CMO of Powered.com

Eight Ways to Deal with Bastards
Time: Friday March 12, 5PM
Hashtag: #8waysdealbastards

As the saying goes, no one ever has a good day in customer service. This is especially true when, let’s face it, some of your customers  are inevitably  bastards. This session offers a few copeing mechanisms.

Panelists include:

• Bryan Mason, Founder Small Batch Inc / Typekit
• Jason Shellen. CEO and Founder of Thing Labs
• Lori McLeese, Chief People Officer at  Room to Read
• Karen Walrond, Founder Chookooloonks Media

Big Brother in Your Brain: Neuroscience & Marketing
Time: Saturday March 13, 11AM
Hashtag: #bigbrotherinyourbrain

I’m a science geek, so when you mention the word “neuroscience” in a panel about marketing I’m ready to jack in. The concept of using MRIs to analyze brain activity when exposed to different marketing stimuli is very interesting. So is the brewing battle of math (analytics) vs. creativity; somehow I don’t see the two concepts as being mutually exclusive. All the makings of a great session!

Panelists include:

• Roger Dooley, Vice President Digital Marketing at Hobsons
• Gary Koepke, Co-Founder Modernista!
• Eric Kogelschatz, Co-Founder shark&minnow
• Dr. A.K. Pradeep, President and Chief Executive Officer NeuroFocus
• Dr. Danielle Stolzenberg, PHD University of Virginia

Sleeping Giants: Digital Awakens TV and Media
Time: Saturday March 13, 5PM
Hashtag: #designemergingmedia

Giants always follow the money. Or the beanstalk. Digital has now proved that  there is money to be made online, that it is sustainable, and can draw large clients; therefore, it should be no surprise that the giants of traditional media are paying attention. Sponsored by Razorfish, who should know a thing or two about the whims of giants, the session will take on fundamental impact digital will have for advertisers and marketers.

Panelists include:

• Domenic Venuto, Managing Director Client Solutions Razorfish
• Andrew Pimentel, Director, Account Planning at Razorfish

Selling Subculture Without Selling Out
Time: Sunday March 14, 12:30PM
Hashtag: #sellingsubculture

Having worked with Jones Soda online marketing efforts for nearly four years I know full well how difficult it is to balance the need to post large sales numbers with the imperative to protect the brand/consumer relationship. This session provides some guidelines on how to hit those numbers without selling out.

Panelists include:

• Richard Nash, Founder Cursor
• Raymond Leon Roker, Founder URB Magazine
• Molly Crabapple, Founder Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School
• Jeff Newelt, Publisher SMITH Magazine
• Gala Darling, Founder iCiNG

Online Advertising: Losing the Race to the Bottom
Time: Sunday March 14, 3:30PM
Hashtag: #racetothebottom

We spend a lot of time in this industry thinking about “how” and “where” to advertise. The concepts of building real relationships with publishers, making sure the advertising is doesn’t take away from the content, and respectfully dealing with the audience are all topics that are usually just paid lip service. Glad to see this session challenging us to change the way we think.

Panelists include:

• Jim Coudal, Principal Coudal Partners
• John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Open Science: Create, Collaborate, Communicate
Time: Monday March 15, 9:30AM
Hashtag: #openscience

Ok, I will admit this made the Top 10 because, well, as I stated earlier I’m a science geek. Ever since I interviewed Scott Maxwell for Gnomedex two years ago I’ve been fascinated about social media’s ability to pry open the doors of previously sequestered industries. It will be nice to see what progress NASA and others have made since then.

Panelists include:

• Ariel Waldman, Founder Spacehack.org
• Dr. Kirsten Sanford, Ph.D Neurophysiology, This Week in Science
• Jessy Cowan-Sharp, Collaborative Web Technology Developer NASA Ames Research Center
• Natalie Villalobos, Community Manager Google
• Tantek Çelik, Computer Scientist Microformats.org

Web Series 2.0: Big Campaigns on Digital Dollars
Time: Monday March 15, 11AM
Hashtag: #bigcampaigndigitaldollars

Big campaigns don’t always require big dollars. In the social space it is about smart engagement. Smart advertisers are turning to producers and content creators to help maximize their budgets. This is the perfect panel to find out how.

Panelists include:

• Melissa Fallon, Vice President of Television and Emerging Media Davie Brown Entertainment
• Chris Hanada, Co-Founder Retrofit Films
• Milo Ventimiglia, Co-Founder DiVide Pictures
• Wilson Cleveland, SVP + Director CJP Digital Media
• Andrew Hampp, Reporter Advertising Age

Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? Donations 2.0
Time: Monday March 16, 11AM
Hashtag: #kivakillnonprofit

New fundraising models are changing the ways donors can interact with nonprofits. Kiva, of course, is one  a leading example of success from  such a model. While I don’t feel that the Kiva model will hurt the majority of nonprofits, I do feel that they will need to adapt to new methods of outreach to successfully maintain their donor base.

Panelists include:

• Skylar Woodward, Designer/Lender Kiva
• Ruth-Anne Renaud, Vice President of Women’s Philanthropy and Interactive Marketing Opportunity International
• Milo Sybrant, Online Fundraising Manager Amnesty International USA
• Michael Cervino, Vice President Beaconfire Consulting
• Katie Bisbee, Executive Director DonorsChoose.org

Hope you get back to your hotel in one piece and you enjoy the sessions at SXSW 2010.

Read more:
Top 10 Must See Interactive Sessions at SXSW 2010

What do tracking flu, helping consumers monitor their home electricity use, slowing deforestation and perhaps most importantly in 2010, helping the people of Haiti have in common?

While they are all part of the wide-ranging work of Google.org over the last year, they also show what our technical teams can accomplish in critical areas that don’t always get the attention they need and deserve.

A year ago we outlined our goals for the next chapter for Google.org. We talked about our vision to use strengths of Google in information and technology to build products and advocate for critical policies that address global challenges. Ideas for projects continue to pour in from Googlers and partners around the globe, and we’re incubating several new projects in the areas of economic development, clean energy and access to technology.

This past year, we:

• Ramped up Google PowerMeter to help consumers reduce their electricity use and save money, secured utility and device partners, and launched the API on code.google.com to help expand partner access globally.
• Introduced Earth Engine, a new computational platform we have begun building for global-scale analysis of satellite imagery to monitor changes in key environmental indicators like forest coverage, at COP15 in December.
• Quickly expanded Google Flu Trends to 20 countries and 38 languages as the H1N1 flu virus spread around the world. We also added city-level flu estimates to 121 U.S. cities and developed the Flu Shot Finder to help people find vaccine locations.
• Responded to earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, with maps, updated earth imagery, and networking projects, and built Person Finder to help people find information about their loved ones after a disaster.
• Advocated for policies to spur innovation of renewable energy technologies that are cheaper than coal (RE<C), and our engineers worked on ways to reduce the cost of solar thermal and other RE<C technologies.

We will continue to greenlight large scale engineering projects that build on Google’s strengths in technology, our computing infrastructure and global teams.

Overall, our philanthropic mission at Google includes our Google.org projects and a range of other initiatives — from grants, scholarships and other charitable giving programs to in-kind product support for non-profits. Our founders have set a goal of devoting approximately 1% of Google’s equity and yearly profits to philanthropy. In 2009, we devoted around $100 million plus in-kind giving to a broad range of philanthropic efforts. Here are some highlights:

• Academic scholarships and awards: We provide scholarships to encourage students of various backgrounds, ethnicities and gender to excel in their studies in hopes that these and other programs will help dismantle barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields.
• Academic grants: We support the next generation of engineers and maintain strong ties with academic institutions worldwide that are pursuing research in core areas relevant to our mission. We fund projects across a variety of subjects, host visiting faculty members at Google, and have launched the Google Fellowship Program to fund graduate students doing innovative research in several fields.
• Holiday charitable gift: We made $22 million in donations in 2009 to a couple of dozen deserving charities around the world to help organizations that have been stretched thin by more requests for help in a year of fewer donations.
• Employee gift matching: Google matches up to $6,000 for each employee’s annual charitable contributions and contributes $50 for every five hours an employee volunteers through our “Dollars for Doers” program to encourage employee participation in charitable causes.
• Charitable Giving Council: We support grants for Googler-led partnerships on causes such as K-12 educational initiatives in science, math and technology.
• Community affairs: We invest in communities where Google has a presence around the world, creating opportunities for Googlers to invest time and expertise, engage in local grant making and build partnerships with local stakeholders.


Excerpt from:
An update on Google.org and philanthropy @ Google

Among the so-called Amazon Taxes Colorado HB 1193 is unique. Signed into law by Governor Bill Ritter on February 25th the legislation went into effect on March 1st and is heralded as a landmark bill, the first of its kind to put teeth behinds its attempt to collect sales tax. It requires all online retailers who do not collect sales tax to put a notice in the Colorado customer’s invoice notifying them they are by law obligated to pay sales tax in the state for their purchase. Beyond that it further requires retailers to submit a yearly list of customers and purchasing data to support Colorado’s enforcement ability.

The law also differs from its Amazon Tax brethren in that it purposefully, and with the support of large affiliates like ShopAtHome, attempted to spare Colorado affiliates from the fate they suffered in other states where similar laws have passed. For the Performance Marketing Association the removal of affiliate focused language was seen as a victory.

Unfortunately the attempt protect affiliates failed.

Amazon, who provided lobbyists during the fight against HB 1193, served termination notices over the weekend to thousands of Colorado affiliates saying:

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

Amazon is not alone in this stance. A handful of other companies including Oriental Trading Company, Hammacher Schlemmer, Terry’s Village and GiftBaskets.com have terminated affiliate relationships in the state. With Amazon’s announcement over the weekend many other are expected to follow suit including Overstock.

Many members of the PMA feel that such actions are due to advertisers who have not taken the time to familiarize themselves with the law’s new language. In Amazon’s case, Amazon does say it will continue to sell to Colorado residents, whether they will comply with providing lists of its customers who are Colorado residents to help with enforcement has yet to be seen. Knowing Amazon’s past behavior it is doubtful and a legal challenge against this legislation won’t be surprising.

Read the original here:
Amazon Terminates Colorado Affiliates, Joins Growing List of Advertisers

Reports are flying around cyberspace that Twitter will soon be introducing ads. Just recently, Twitter’s head of monetization, Anamitra Banerji, said the company would launch at least a beta test of ads, possibly within a month.

The word on the street is that Twitter’s ads will maintain the 140 characters-or-less mandate, and that the ads will be tied to Twitter searches, not unlike Google’s original ads. If this is true, then Twitter users will potentially only see ads if they are searching for something.

Ads on Twitter should be of interest to online marketers. Whether you personally use Twitter or not, you can’t ignore the 27 million users who tweet. And it isn’t just consumers – somewhere around half of the world’s largest companies are officially on Twitter.

That user base may be a far cry from the 400 million active users of Facebook, which also offers ads, but it is still an impressive number. Because of the nature of Twitter, its users are largely a mobile bunch. That means a Twitter advertiser could very effectively target an audience that is likely to be receptive to mobile marketing campaigns.

Apparently, some potential advertisers are already turning up their noses at the idea.

“Advertising on Twitter will feel like your social media strategy has failed,” says Paul Troy, global head of advertising and content for Britain’s Barclaycard.

“It doesn’t feel like something leading brands will do.” Cheryl Calverley, a senior global manager for Unilever’s Axe Skin, questions the value of Twitter ads because, she says, Twitter “doesn’t have the reach of broadcast media.”

Those comments not withstanding, if Twitter does indeed launch its own ads, there will undoubtedly be advertisers who will try them. The larger issue, however, involves the inevitable commercialization of every medium. At one time, there was an admittedly naïve belief that social media platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter should remain ad-free. Let’s be real, though: they have to make money. As soon as a medium gains critical mass, its owners have to be thinking about ways to become profitable. Search and social media sites offer free access, so there aren’t many options for revenue generation other than advertising.

Still, some ads on social media platforms may stretch the limits, leading marketers to question whether such advertising is too intrusive. An article in The New York Times points to the “self-service” ads on Facebook as an example: “Many advertisers who use the self-service system are tempted to go as far as possible in making ads that attract attention and appear relevant, aided by the information that people give to Facebook.”

While very targeted ads may seem like a good idea, they can also turn off some consumers, says The Times:

“From the perspective of many users, the tailored ads can often seem, at best, presumptuous. Women who change their status to “engaged” on Facebook to share the news with their friends, for example, report seeing a flood of advertisements for services and products like wedding photographers, skin treatments and weight-loss regimens.”

If and when Twitter launches its advertising program, it may very well fall prey to advertising that is not always tasteful. But that is unlikely to stop Twitter from moving forward. Like other social media, Twitter must deal with economic reality.

Go here to read the rest:
Twitter Goes Commercial