John Battelle's Searchblog

This latest post is some sketching for a longer riff I'm eager to dig into. I love the fact that I can do sketch out loud thanks to American Express. Here's the first few grafs:

Over the past several posts I’ve been talking about the role of search, conversation, and media in your business. While not explicit, each of these posts was about one thing: Marketing.

Marketing is one of the most misunderstood practices in business today. For most of us, marketing is about convincing potential customers that our product or service is worth their money. And while that’s certainly party true, it never struck me as the whole narrative.

Where does marketing really begin? As management guru Peter Drucker stated it, “Marketing is the whole business seen from the customer’s point of view.” Put another way, every single interaction the customer has with your business can and should be seen as marketing.

I’ve argued elsewhere than a truly successful business is one that is an ongoing conversation. Those conversations are marketing – if you add value and connect to your customer, you’re succeeding. If you don’t, you fail.

It’s easy to know if you’re succeeding while having those conversations – we’re all pretty good at sensing when customers are happy as we directly interact with them. But we often forget a crucial ongoing conversation that usually occurs beyond our personal presence: The conversation between the customer and our products.

Brady reprises the Google Alphabet (the first word auto-populated by the newly integrated Google Suggest for each letter in the alphabet).

Friday linkday:

Via Churbuck, a nice walkthrough of how to use Google search tools to understand site acquisition and traffic patterns.

As long as we're in a learning mode, here's a post on using FriendFeed as a business tool.

The IE8 beta is out. I need to grok this. It's got some stuff in it that effects the advertising ecosystem in serious ways that I have yet to grok, and am not seeing much coverage of. More at Forbes and Ed Bott.

Mashable reports on a bucket of money for JumpTap, a competitor in the mobile search arena, an area I am increasingly finding interesting.

Like reggae? Me too. Given it's Friday, check out Steel Pulse via BBtv.

I am.

Perks defined Google for years, and defined most Silicon Valley culture as well. Microsoft has been famous for its perks since the early 90s, in fact. So when a number of posts, sparked by a NYT article (now nearly two months old) claim that the era of perks is over at Google, it prompts musings such as this one in ComputerWorld, claiming Google has lost its mojo.

I'm not sure that's true, at least not yet. Perhaps amongst IT managers, that's true (ComputerWorld being an IT publication, after all), but I am not sure IT managers ever had more than a passing interest in Google's "mojo" to begin with.

The piece is entirely anecdotal, so the conclusion must be as well. For now, the jury is out.

I hear you all. What is Battelle on about, all this music stuff, all this non search stuff? I am sorry, but you have to trust me, it's going somewhere. I'm following a hunch, of a sorts.

Today some bankers from Piper Jaffrey came by, and they asked me the same question I was asked by two or three reporters who were writing pieces on Google's 10th anniversary. (When is it, anyway? I am sure it's this year, depending on how you count...).

Anyway, the question is this: So what's next? What might unseat Google?

I find the question interesting, mainly for its lack of historical perspective. The answer, I think, is pretty damn easy.

No company will unseat Google (though ultimately, one company will get credit).

Culture will. Unquestionably, inevitably, Google will be surpassed by a cultural shift it will be incapable of exploiting. And that will be OK.

Why am I so certain of this? Well, history, for one. And my own experience, for the other.

Allow me to explain.

It's my theory that world-changing companies occur when one and only one thing happens: Our culture shifts its relationship to technology. It's a complex set of parameters that allow for such a shift, but it's happened three times in my professional life:

1. IBM and DOS. This is when computers became accessible to determined early adopters, and a democratized culture of digital information storage and retrieval began.

2. Microsoft and Windows. As much as I'd like to give this to Steve and the Mac OS, the winner was Gates and Windows. This is when we went from speaking the arcane language of computerese (.exe? .bat?) to the language of "hunt and poke" via a visual interface. A major step forward in how culture relates to information, and therefore, to itself.

3. Google and search. As I have argued many times, search is our latest interface to information, and it's one based on natural language, albeit typed words, rather than spoken.

So, what might be #4?

Isn't that the hundred billion dollar question?

I have (my own) pretty clear answer to that. Happy to tell you. But I have to write the post I promised here first. Damn. I really miss having the time to write....

(photo Jeff Kravitz)
I have to ask. After seeing them live, I have to wonder. They did rip my head off, as did Metallica at Bonnaroo. They have this way of being both ridiculously tight, as well as totally psychedelic. Not easy to pull off. What do you all think? Are you Radiohead fans? Why?

Google launches Ad Manager to the public and Google Suggest. Meanwhile, Street View keeps pushing the big question in our society: Where do we end and the public begins?

Here's the streaming output of CrowdFire:

You can grab your own here.

AFP coverage here.

CrowdFire was consuming. It will take me some time to get back in the groove. I have to say, I'm really, really floored by what our teams did on site at Outside Lands, and what CrowdFire has the potential to be. Check it out, here. And here's my shooting, I'm not even close to finished uploading stuff....

I will be at the festival today, helping to light the CrowdFire. So stoked.

I am a fan of PhotoSynth. I hope Microsoft gets some traction with this. Brady's take here. My earlier coverage.

I find this tidbit, gleaned from coverage of SES, fascinating. Apparently Bill Gates is still engaged at Microsoft, at least on one issue: Search. From a piece covering the integration of Powerset into Microsoft's search index:

However the news isn’t all bleak, as Microsoft believes strongly in the potential advantages provided by Powerset. And they’ve got another ally, too: Bill Gate[s]. Scott Prevost, Powerset’s general manager, was quoted as saying that "Bill has definitely not retired for us". Gates, who has stepped down from day to day operations, has said that he planned to continue to work on search.

I wonder why this is so. Is it simply that Gates hates losing to the Google duo? Is it a legacy thing?

Lisa Gold (via Cory and BB) has a blog about book research. I love this post about an oft repeated Samuel Johnson quote.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.” — Samuel Johnson

I thought this famous Samuel Johnson quote would be an appropriate way to begin my blog. The problem is that Johnson never actually said this.....The actual Johnson quote is: “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” I confirmed this by searching the text of Boswell’s Life of Johnson online.

A Forbes piece on Google's latest investment in alternative energy. We'll have Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org, at Web 2 this year...

... on Tuesday, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of search giant Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), announced it would try to help spur companies to reach underground to produce clean electricity. It is investing a total of $10 million in a geothermal energy company called AltaRock Energy and a drilling company called Potter Drilling, and it is funding research and mapping efforts and a policy agenda.

It is part of Google.org's effort to help bring about renewable energy that is cheaper than coal by investing in companies, research and policy development. The organization is focusing on three main technologies: solar thermal power, which uses the sun's heat to generate electricity; advanced wind technology; and, now, a way of tapping geothermal energy called enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS.

Tim brings up a very good point here. In short, he's worried about the second click issue, write large (yep, I just linked to myself).

I'd like to put out two guidelines for anyone adopting this "link to myself" strategy:

1. Ensure that no more than 50% of the links on any page are to yourself. (Even this number may be too high.)

2. Ensure that the pages you create at those destinations are truly more valuable to your readers than any other external link you might provide.

The web is a great example of a system that works because most sites create more value than they capture. Maybe the tragedy of the commons in its future can be averted. Maybe not. It's up to each of us.

Working on CrowdFire (sorry, I know, but it's a big deal to me), as well as Web 2 and tons of other FM stuff, and trying to not ruin my family's time on Island. So I'm going to be dark on the blog for the most part...

Love this. It says it all. Thanks to Philipp.

When Google Ad Planner came out back in June, I immediately thought of Comscore - and I was not alone. Many in the marketing industry thought that Google's product would be a "Comscore killer," and when I noted as much in my coverage, Gian Fulgoni, Comscore's chair, shot back in a comment to my post:

Hi John: Before celebrating the availability of these products from Google, I think it would be prudent for web site operators to compare their site traffic numbers as obtained from their server logs (or Google Analytics for that matter) with the unique visitor numbers that Google is now publishing through Google Trends and Ad Planner. I think they will be astonished at how much lower Google now says their traffic is.

I asked Gian to elaborate, and published the resulting interview here.

But until now, we've not had the data to back Gian's claim. I asked him if he could provide it, and to his credit, he did. The story it tells is certainly not what one might expect. (Of course, the data is from Comscore, so it must be taken as such, but remember, Comscore is a public company that stakes its reputation and its market value on data, so my gut tells me that Gian is not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.)

A bit of background: Anyone paying attention has noticed that publishers, by and large, believe Comscore's panel-based measurement system grossly underestimates traffic and unique visitors. As a publisher myself (FM represents more than 160 middle to large sized sites, including this one), I've been one of the most visible such complainants. And that list is not short. In fact, Comscore and Nielsen are both working with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (I am a board member) on an audit of their practices to verify their methodologies. (Comscore notes that it believes the issue of cookie deletion can cause significant inflation in unique visitors, for more see this release.)

Given this, the world expected that Google, with its unparalleled access to web-wide data, would validate publishers' concerns and show that Comscore's numbers were significantly under-reporting reality.

Turns out, the reverse is true. Gian provided me data comparing Google Ad Planner and ComScore data in two cases. First, for a large sample of 20,163 sites, his shop compared reporting on monthly uniques between the two services. Secondly, Gian pulled out 5,398 sites that are part of the Google Adsense ad network, and ran the same comparison.

The results are pasted in these two charts (provided to me by Comscore):

What to make of the numbers? First off, it's quite interesting to see that Comscore measures, on average, a significantly higher number of uniques across all types of sites. Comscore's numbers are three to three and a half times higher, according to Comscore.

Secondly, for sites that are using Google's Adsense network, the undercounting is not as dramatic (that's the second chart.). As Comscore's charts note, there seems to be a "significant bias in Google Ad Planner data" toward "sites that carry more ad impressions from Google."

In short: If you were a media planner using Google Ad Planner, and you were looking for larger sites, you would be led to sites that are running Google AdSense, on average, over sites that do not. Net net: This data indicates that Google Ad Planner pushes ad dollars to Google sites over non-Google sites. This makes sense - Google has data on Google users, after all. So that data might naturally bias toward Google-related sites.

But as I said in my coverage: "Such a tool must be neutral and not bias advertisers toward buying on Google properties or those that have Google ads, which of course is going to be a perceived bias in any case. Such is the price of being Very Big."

So far, not so good on this measure. As Gian and Comscore have long pointed out to me, it takes more than raw data to make for good measurement. Ideally, you weight your data with a lot more knowledge of its context - what kind of machine is creating it (work or home? Man or woman? etc.). While Google once blended Comscore demographic data into its ad network, Comscore confirmed to me that this is no longer the case. And while it is subject to endless criticism, Comscore does have a lot more practice at this game than does Google. At least for now.

This data once again raises the question, long asked, of how Google is measuring in the first place. Most believe Google must be leaning heavily on its Toolbar data (see TC for more here and Danny here), and this data does nothing to counter that argument. The strong bias toward Google network sites is suspicious - one can imagine that folks who might install the Google toolbar are clearly already biased toward visiting Google-related sites, for example.

But Google will not acknowledge any use of the Toolbar. Instead it said in its announcement: "Google Ad Planner combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research."

As I pointed out earlier, I don't think such coyness can stand. I've pinged folks at Google to get a response on this, and as soon as I do, I'll update this post.

UPDATE: Google has provided a statement to me:

We take the objectivity of Google Ad Planner very seriously in providing advertisers and publishers with a better understanding into online audiences. While we don't comment specifically on our data collection methods, Google Ad Planner in no way treats AdSense sites differently than non-AdSense sites.

Outside Lands is next week, and folks have been busy uploading photos, videos, and memories of great music over at the CrowdFire site. We're almost at 1000 total media objects, which is amazing. Anyone can feed the fire, which gets lit next week...help us cross into four figures!

Andrew Chen (via Tim) has some really fun charts on "Web 2" apps here. Below, the graph for Twitter, one of the most interesting ones. Shows how strong it is in "early adopter" states but basically "dead" elsewhere.

Update: Turns out, this data is not exactly accurate - for more, see TC here.

Check it out here. And don't forget to feed the Crowdfire here. You can see shots from my Blackberry of the Wailers last night here!

This article strikes me as another slow drumbeat on an issue that has to be both frustrating and impossible to own for Google. The headline: "Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent" implies ulterior motives and wrongdoing. In fact, it's standard operating procedure for companies who run ad networks, and has been for a very long time. However, now that the guv'mint is involved, SOP is no longer AOK. The lede:

Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The kicker:

And Google, the leading online advertiser, stated that it has begun using Internet tracking technology that enables it to more precisely follow Web-surfing behavior across affiliated sites.

Or, put another way, Google bought DoubleClick, and DoubleClick uses tracking cookies. Yawn, right? Except....the rest of the world is catching on to the Database of Intentions, and the dialog as to what it means is just getting under way. The heat is being turned up, slowly but surely, and Google has to be careful to not be seen as the water in a boiling frog syndrome.

Here are the documents from the House Committee investigating online data practices.

Because Google Maps is not very good. At the real world. And while Google is trying to fix that by allowing map editing, I don't sense Google will be very good at fostering and nurturing the kind of communities that will allow Maps to self correct.

Put another way, because Google is not very good at communities that self-correct into reasonable quality, and if it's going to realize the vision it might (of turning the entire world into, well usable data) it's going to have to get a lot better, a lot faster.

(I know, you thought I was going to say because Knol ain't so great, or because Wikipedia is still one of biggest recipients of Google's second click....that's also true)....

Allow me to explain. In the next post. I promise...

Old news, but I am still behind: A post from Yahoo on early apps from their BOSS platform. These four examples are not particularly amazing, but point to what might be done with some more time and development...

The New York Times mines a very old vein.

Potential regulation and new industry attempts at providing privacy controls. For background, read my "Data Bill of Rights."

Watch out, it might yet surprise us...

One of the news items I missed while I was away was the launch of Google's VC business. Not sure if anyone made the connection, but Google has already been in the VC biz, though in what might be called "very late stage": They invested $1 billion in AOL back in 2005, mainly to protect the distribution that AOL provided Google (and keep it from going to Microsoft or Yahoo).

At the time, I suggested that Time Warner spin AOL out and let it go public on its own. Since then, Time Warner has managed to, well, pretty much bleed AOL out.

Yesterday, however, Google acknowledged that the investment, on its own merits, was not quite working out.

Way back when, Larry Page thought it would be a cool idea to know what sites were linking back to any particular page you might be on while browsing the Internet.

In order to scratch that itch, he had to build a graph of the web. That graph became BackRub. But the product never became anything. Instead, he and Sergey realized that the index they had created was an excellent search engine.

That engine became Google.

But....I still want BackRub.

Really, wouldn't it be cool to know who was linking to any particular page you were on? Why isn't anyone making this available as widget? Anyone know of anybody doing it?

Those of you following my posts around the theme of this year's Web 2 Summit already know that we're expanding the scope of the conference this year, and asking a core question: How can we apply the lessons of the Web to the world at large? From my post outlining the theme:

As we convene the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, our world is fraught with problems that engineers might charitably classify as NP hard—from roiling financial markets to global warming, failing healthcare systems to intractable religious wars. In short, it seems as if many of our most complex systems are reaching their limits.

It strikes us that the Web might teach us new ways to address these limits. From harnessing collective intelligence to a bias toward open systems, the Web's greatest inventions are, at their core, social movements. To that end, we're expanding our program this year to include leaders in the fields of healthcare, genetics, finance, global business, and yes, even politics.

Increasingly, the leaders of the Internet economy are turning their attention to the world outside our industry. And conversely, the best minds of our generation are turning to the Web for solutions. At the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, we'll endeavor to bring these groups together.

To my mind, no person better exemplifies the merging of these two worlds than former Vice President (and Nobel laureate) Al Gore, the Chairman of Current TV. Gore and CEO Joel Hyatt started Current as "a new breed of media company that works with its young adult audience to create media that informs, enriches and inspires," by integrating online and offline media, a very Web Meets World endeavor indeed. Readers may recall that Gore recently joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner focused on green issues, as well. And we are very pleased to announce that VP Gore will be joining us at the Web 2 Summit this year.

Others joining VP Gore include Elon Musk, of PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX, Larry Brilliant, the head of the Google.org foundation, and Michael Pollan, author of many wonderful books on our relationship to food, including my favorite: The Botany of Desire. The full lineup is truly wonderful, and we're still adding speakers.

Requests for invitations can be found here, this is going to be one special event.

Slowly, too slowly, but surely, Google is letting the world see what it already knows.

I've missed a lot since my time away over the past ten days or so, here are the pieces in my reader I found worthy of noting:

Venturebeat on StumbleUpon's "method behind the madness."

Google's assault on Baidu (Chinese market) through legal music search via ars

BBtv debuts "BBtv World." Important journalism is not dead, it's just evolving.

Mike on Ads: Is Google Taking Behavioral Data to Display? Well, if it is, then we have a lot to think about. And if it is not, its shareholders should sue.

The Yahoo shareholder meeting happened. Seems the board is intact. But this "tabulation error" is rather odd. First it looked like a strong vote of support for Jerry and Co. (85%). Then....not so much.

More when I get back from the gym....

This is not a surprise (Google told us this would happen in April). Google could not really own a SEO/SEM biz.

Publicis Groupe (EURONEXT Paris: FR0000130577) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire the Performics search marketing business (Performics) from Google. Chicago-based Performics, one of the leading search marketing services providers, helps to improve the performance of advertisers’ investments and maximize client campaign effectiveness. Its profit-driving suite of marketing solutions includes Performics’ reporting platform, local platform, advanced market expertise and active account management.

Wonder what happens with the anemic affiliate network they "launched" in June?

If you liked these, you'll also like this:

Here's the release. Again, feed the fire at CrowdFire here.

Tim posts here about the auction we're be having as part of the Web 2 Summit this Fall. Given the theme (Web Meets World), we're giving profits to charity, and we're looking for suggestions on what we might auction off. The bigger the idea, the better, of course. For example, Lance Armstrong will be signing a bike and we'll be auctioning that!

Here is the release, and here's the link to the auction page. But I need your help: What should we auction off? When we did this back in the late 90s, we auctioned off John Doerr's tie for like ten grand, as I recall. I think someone paid a lot more than that to throw Meg Whitman, me, Mary Meeker, and Bill Gurley into the pool.

Now those were the days...

Please go to the auction's Facebook page to suggest some great ideas or just comment here! Thanks.

Twitter is again overloaded (Fail Whale, which always reminded me of that scene with James and the Giant Peach where the birds lift the peach out of shark infested waters, anyway...). Follow me here if you can.

So, since I can't entertain you with Tweets and Crowdfire is ripping it up, here's a photo from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens that I took today (I took alot more). This fellow, a philosopher, seems quite bent. I liked him.