John Battelle's Searchblog

The man makes some very good points.

One of my readers noted that I've written a lot of off-blog stuff, and I'm rather proud of it. And I've noted (in my "How did I do 2008" post) that I did not really make the progress I wish I had on my book. But working with partners like Amex, I wrote nearly 20 column-sized pieces - around 15,000 words - and nearly all of them are sketches toward the book I hope to write. Here are some of the pieces I wrote elsewhere this year:

American Express Open Forum Blog

It’s Time to Put This Myth To Rest
In which I argue that marketing works in social media.

Leadership In Troubled Times
When things go wrong, take responsibility.

As The World Turns..Inside Out
My opening post on the economic troubles this past Fall.

Think Local, Act Conversational - It Just Might Save Your Business
How conversant is your small business?

Product Development IS Marketing, And Vice Versa
The title says it all.

Take 48!
A new policy we put in place at FM, picked up on by the WSJ.

Every Great Business Is An Argument
What's your argument?

Three Steps to Becoming A Web Conversationalist
Some tips on getting conversant.

More On Search and Your Business
A few "Search 101" tips.

Linking Search, Conversation, And Your Site
How it all fits together.

The Successful Business Owner Is a Great Conversationalist
How good are you?

You’re In the Media Business Now.
This is my core argument for all businesses, regardless of industry.

Future of Search - Sponsored by Reuters

Is Microsoft Cashback the Future of Search?
Where Microsoft got it right, and wrong.

A Search Is Not Just A Search
Toward a new interface in search.

Thought Leadership Series - Looksmart

Shifting Search from Static to Real-time
My Twitter moment.

Algorithms and Community: Voice Wins
At the end of the day, we're people first.

What We Lose As Search Gets Personal

A case for a common search experience.

Related:

2007 Predictions
2007 How I Did
2006 Predictions
2006 How I Did
2005 Predictions
2005 How I Did
2004 Predictions
2004 How I Did

Reading over my predictions for 2008, I was struck with one thing: It wasn't a list. It was more of a narrative, making decoding how I did that much more difficult. After the narrative, I focused on the biggies - Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, and Newscorp/FIM. I'll have to keep that in mind when I post my predictions for 2009 on Jan 1 next year.

So to the task. I first made a list from the narrative, then went back and noted how I did under each item. I think on average, I did pretty well:

1. (On online advertising) I'm going to buck all my colleagues fears, however, and predict that web-based advertising businesses will in fact enjoy significant gains in 2008. These gains, however, will not be evenly distributed.

I think this proved to be true. At least through Q3 2008, online advertising continued double digit year to year growth. Q3 was slower, to be sure, at 11%, but I think we'll end the year with "significant gains." Next year, well, that's going to be another story, but we'll get to that in my predictions 09 post.

2. It will not be an easy market for major public debuts. But we will see at least one, if not two new IPOs.
I got this partially right. The first part of the sentence was clearly correct. And the second, well, there were a couple new Internet/Tech related IPOs, including RackSpace (price in early August) and ArcSight (enterprise IT, priced in Feb), but they were certainly not in areas I'd call central to what I like to write about, or predicted (see below - I suggested that if the market allowed some big companies might spin assets out (it didn't and they didn't)).

3. 2008 will also be seen as the year that proves Conversational Marketing as a new form of advertising
I think this was absolutely accurate. For more on that, see the FM Blog, Chas's site (FM's Publisher), and the case studies and writings of scores of folks, including David Armano, David Churbuck, Deb Schultz, Shel Israel, Seth Godin, and of course, all the brands on Twitter.

4. 2008 will be the year of integration indigestion for the majors, and as such, it will mean M&A will slow down for those companies. All those advertising-based acquisitions in 2006-7 will have to start to pay off, and the results will be uneven to say the least.
I think this is pretty accurate. Sure, the majors made acquisitions, but nothing like what we saw in 2007. AOL did buy Bebo. But as for ad plays, results have been very uneven for Yahoo (Right Media, Blue Lithium, etc), and Microsoft (aQuantive, etc). Google seems to be doing better with DoubleClick, and it remains to be seen what AOL can do with Bebo and its earlier acquisition of Tacoda. Advertising.com continues to be a bright spot for the company.

5. ...continued erosion of the traditional mobile oligarchy. But despite the best efforts of Android, not much will get done this year
Well, we saw a phone, but it hasn't lit the world on fire. Google is using them as employee gifts instead of cash this year.

6. As for the Web 2 world, we'll see a ton of venture funded companies go by the wayside
Yep.

7. We'll also see an uptick in acquisitions, as the boards of companies that that thought they were worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars decide to settle for decent returns.
Also true, but I sense I was a bit early on this. I think this will happen more next year.

Now for the company specific predictions. First, Google:

1. 2008 will be the year Wall Street gets frustrated with Google.
Sometimes, a picture says it best:

It's clear the bloom came off the Google Wall St. rose in 2008.

2. Google will continue to struggle with its display advertising business, at least as it is traditionally understood, in part due to a culture conflict between its engineering-based roots and the thousands of media-saavy sales and marketing folks the company has hired in the past two years
I think this clearly occurred (note Armstrong's acknowledgement of this issue here, Comscore noted that Google had just 1.5% of the display market by June), but with the appointment of David Rosenblatt as President, Display, I expect the conflict to be resolved, at least temporarily. I do not believe, however, that this issue is anywhere near off the table. To do display right, you have to act like a publisher.

Yahoo:
1. Yahoo, meanwhile, will spend most of 2008 trying to figure out what to do with what it bought in 2007, and attempting to articulate a strategy that is anything but "we have 500 million users, so we must be important." By mid year, it will have succeeded.
Well, I was right about the first part, and very, very wrong about the second. I guess I was just too optimistic that Yahoo would get its shit together by mid year. Both the bear hug that was the lost Microsoft deal, and then the goat rodeo that was the lost Google deal, killed any clarity at Yahoo. But I do believe there is a comeback story to be written there. It just won't be Jerry writing it.

2. By year's end, Yahoo will have combined in a major way with another third party, and it won't be either [Microsoft or Google].
In a funny way, I was right about the key part here - that Yahoo would NOT combine with either Microsoft or Google, though it clearly tried to do both. I was intonnating it might combine with another biggie, and the one I had in mind was AOL. This almost happened by year's end (hey, there are a few more days...) and clearly I think WILL happen early next year - Yahoo needs a CEO first, most insiders agree.

Microsoft:
1. Microsoft will fail to gain much traction in anything that is Web related
I think I nailed this one.

2. In 2008, Microsoft will finally figure out what do to with aQuantive, and by the end of the year, it will be clear what the company must do with it: Let it free.
While I am not sure I nailed this one, the key folks at aQuantive did leave recently, and what I've heard about the integration there lead me to believe this could have happened, but now, I think Microsoft is committed to the platform it is building off the service.

Facebook:
1. First, the company will suffer from a serious identity crisis, as it realizes it must change its core DNA from tech- and founder-focused startup to media-focused Real Company with Lots of Employees
This one is really hard to prove, but I think it's arguably very true. All the anecdotes I've heard about the company in the past year (the employee stock repricings, the rumors of a hiring freeze, early founders leaving, etc.) point to this conclusion.

2. the company will find itself stuck in the hell of pre IPO preparations, again, like Google in 2003-4. This will frustrate company leaders to the point of looking for a CEO whose job is, in essence, to talk to Wall Street. But until Facebook figures out a way to justify its lofty valuation, this hire will be stymied.
I think the markets let Facebook off the hook on this issue, for this year. I asked Mark about his role as CEO at Web 2, and he seemed content to stay in the position. Instead, he brought in Sheryl Sandberg from Google. However, if Facebook wants to go public late next year (assuming a recovery), I think this will remain an issue.

3. the most important short term focus for the company in 2008 will be solving for the Social Ads quandry. (By this I mean how to build the equivalent of a AdWords and AdSense for the "social graph.") Though it will take promising steps, the company will fail to get it just right, at least by the end of the year and all by itself, but it will still find itself profitable and on the path toward an 2009 IPO
I think I got this right. However, I have no idea if the company is profitable anymore. It was a year ago, but it's hard to say now. I do know the company has not significantly grown its employee base (it's at around 7-800), but the service itself is growing very, very quickly, and all those servers are damn expensive. I think Facebook stands on the brink of solving the social ads issue, but it has yet to do so. Facebook Connect is key to this. We'll know a lot more when and if we see a public filing next year.

4. By mid 2008, there will be very serious rumors about an acquisition battle over the company between Google and Microsoft. But Facebook will play the middle, and most likely cut a deal with a third party, which despite the strong relationship with Microsoft, could well be Yahoo or a smaller but growing company that looks a lot like Facebook.
Always the subject of takeover rumors wrt MSFT and GOOG, Facebook worked very hard to make me look like a genius when it tried to acquire Twitter last month. Alas, Evan decided to make this prediction a tantalizing "almost."

AOL:
1. Platform A will go public, if the markets allow. The rest of AOL will be sold or folded into Time Warner in ways that, regrettably, will finally signal the end of the original Case-ian dream.
Markets did NOT allow. And for now, AOL remains a continual cultural thorn in the side of a rapidly deflating Time Warner. We'll see if Yahoo and Time Warner can agree on the right price/structure to put the two companies together.

Newscorp/FIM:
1. Major problems will become apparent by early in the year, and those problems have to do with structure: Who is really in charge of "Fox Interactive", and what does that mean?.... There will be a battle for control over all of Newscorp's interactive assets, one that will limit the company's ability to execute any clear strategy. That said, MySpace will make a comeback of sorts, and look for it to...
I have to admit, I have no idea if this prediction was true, as I was not close to the company's internal issues this past year. Any readers have insight? In any case, the lack of a clear strategy was, well, quite clear until it....

2. ...cut a very important deal in 2008 with regard to its future.
...until MySpace finally cemented its play in the music space, its core driver, in an very strong move to battle iTunes. It took a while to get a CEO, but that was announced last month as well.

And lastly, my personal prediction:

1. I will be back at work on a book, at least a couple days a week, by mid year. This is simply too important for me to ignore, it's literally a physical urge I feel now. 2008 will be the year it becomes real for me.
While I wrote a fair amount on the topic of the new book in the past year, in particular in partnership with FM's clients like American Express, Reuters, and Looksmart, I really did not make any progress here. I am quite unhappy about this, but not defeated. I have plans to figure out how to do this in 09. Really.

Well, that's my scorecard. I think I got more right than wrong.

How do you think I did?

Here are top posts of 08 for Searchblog, judged by comments. As I review them, I realize that despite my endless complaining about not having time to write this year, I did get some riffs in. Not all of them made the top ten, so I added some of my personal faves at the end.

1. Considering Heresy: Buying a PC

I have an update on this coming, yes, I did buy a PC. Two in fact.

2. Google: Making Nick Carr Stupid, But It's Made This Guy Smarter

This was very widely picked up, and I still think I'm right!

3. A Brand New Searchblog

I forgot it was this year that Searchblog got a much needed update. Thanks again, Ivan!

4. I Support Barack Obama

And I'm proud to say it again. Amazing how many comments one gets if you write about politics or booze.

5. Danny's Right: Firefox Is Too Google Biased

This story is not even close to being over.

6. WTF?!

In which I discover I am the first John on Google. Well, WAS the first John.

7. Help Me With a Google-Backed Panel Friday: On CrowdSourcing

In which I crowdsource a panel about crowdsourcing. Yeah, I know.

8. Updated: Exclusive: A Look at Google Ad Planner Data Vs. Comscore

This story had a lot of legs for the middle of August.

9. Chrome: This Is Web OS, Make No Mistake

Another way to get a lot of comments is to claim something is an OS, then watch the OS purists yell at you.

10. Google's Second Click Conflict Dominates SES Panel Today

This continues to be a central axis of conflict for Google - should it act more like a media company?

And a few of my favorites which were well commented, but did not make the top ten:

Predictions 2008
About to do my "How Did I Do" post...

When Doesn't It Pay To Pay Attention To Search Quality?
In which I point out that Google has an, er, media issue, again.

Google Loses Trust - Do YOU Trust Google?
In which I point out that Google has a trust issue.

The Web Is Stealing Searches From Microsoft Office
In which I point out that Microsoft's Office hegemony is falling to search.

The Rise of Independent Media Brands Online
In which I point out that the best stuff on the web is not being created by Big Media Companies.

Privacy: The Frog Boils, Slowly
Searchblog readers, they likey the privacy issue.

Web 2 Conversations: Jerry Yang
Noted: The Battelle curse continues.

Another Call For Search Literacy
I love this topic.

What's This Fascination with Ad Networks? (Or, the Online Media Business Will Be About Brands First, Technology Second)
In which I point out that ad networks are not an end in and of themselves.

From Static to Realtime Search
A current fascination

The Inbox, Part Two: Facebook Has An Ambient Awareness Problem
Ditto.

Thanks for helping me do this Ivan!

Pete Spande, who runs the East for FM and therefore toward whom I am favorably inclined, has written a brief but very true post on the myth that marketing in social media should somehow be free. It's not free, just like throwing a great social event isn't free, but it can be very efficient and it can certainly help get marketers to their goals, if done right.

Social Media Marketing is like entertaining in the physical world. If you want to share an experience with a group of people (either personally or professionally) you need to go to where the people are and get their attention or entice them to come to you. In either case, you have to invest something to get a return.

Pete argues there are various ways to get this done. Many marketers take his first approach (pull out all the stops), usually by attaching themselves to well known celebrities (come hang with LeBron in our Officially Sanctioned NBA social media play! (ooops, this site is no longer active!).

This approach (have the Foo Fighters play! Let folks know Britney will be showing up!) usually fails, and has given social marketing a bad name inside many major brands. "Hey, we tried a deal with (Facebook, MSN, Google, etc) and while a lot of people showed up, no needles really moved, and it all seemed to dissipate as quickly as it started."

That's because this approach is pretty much more of the same old sh*t - create a social media execution that has very little value as an organic community, pay a large site a fair chunk of dough to push traffic at it, and then watch as the traffic bounces off it as if it were a heat shield.

There's another way to do it. A few in fact. I'm particularly a fan of two approaches: First, finding the true leaders of a community you care about, and engaging them in a dialog about how best to join the conversation they lead. What you come up with just might be something like HP's VoicePosts, Intel's embedding code and support of BB's OffWorld, or American Express' Open Forum.

Secondly, I like the approach of determining you have something valuable to add on your own, and you might become a publisher in your own right, as long as what you build is truly valuable. That's how you end up with Microsoft's CrowdFire, or Asus' WePC.com (or come to think of it, American Express' Open Forum again.)

Social media marketing is about brands acting, well, social. Which means they need to show up to the party with a nice bottle of wine, if that's what the party calls for. They need to come ready to have a dialog, and add value to the event. Of course, if they show up with Britney, we won't complain, if she respects the vibe of the community. If she can't, well, she probably shouldn't come in the first place.

Catching up on Mike's FriendSense riff as well. No doubt about it.

Somehow I missed this - came out earlier in the month. Google took a global approach this year, interesting to see top rising results I've never heard of before. Wish they were natively linked by Google, but they were not.

Fastest Rising (Global)

1. sarah palin
2. beijing 2008
3. facebook login
4. tuenti
5. heath ledger
6. obama
7. nasza klasa
8. wer kennt wen
9. euro 2008
10. jonas brothers

Here's the US version:

Google.com - Fastest Rising (U.S.)

1. obama
2. facebook
3. att
4. iphone
5. youtube
6. fox news
7. palin
8. beijing 2008
9. david cook
10. surf the channel

Google News - Fastest Rising (U.S.)

1. sarah palin
2. american idol
3. mccain
4. olympics
5. ike (hurricane)

From the wonderful Kevin Kelly:

While we have not yet made anything as complex as a human mind, we are trying to. The question is, what would be more complex than a human mind? What would we make if we could? What would such a thing do? In the story of technological evolution – or even biological evolution – what comes after minds?

The usual response to “what comes after a human mind” is better, faster, bigger minds. The same thing only more. That is probably true – we might be able to make or evolve bigger faster minds -- but as pictured they are still minds.

A more recent response, one that I have been championing, is that what comes after minds may be a biosphere of minds, an ecological network of many minds and many types of minds – sort of like rainforest of minds – that would have its own meta-level behavior and consequences. Just as a biological rainforest processes nutrients, energy, and diversity, this system of intelligences would process problems, memories, anticipations, data and knowledge. This rainforest of minds would contain all the human minds connected to it, as well as various artificial intelligences, as well as billions of semi-smart things linked up into a sprawling ecosystem of intelligences. Vegetable intelligences, insect intelligences, primate intelligences and human intelligences and maybe superhuman intelligences, all interacting in one seething network. As in any ecosystem, different agents have different capabilities and different roles. Some would cooperate, some would compete. The whole complex would be a dynamic beast, constantly in flux.

Make you think of anything?

From the Yahoo Search blog. Worth a read if you're into this stuff. I think we're going to see some breakthroughs in this area thanks to new services like Twitter and others adding a layer of real time data.

So far, semantic technologies have been used in commercial products for data integration, enterprise semantic search and content management, etc. I expect this area to grow, but prospectively I see more and more potential for business opportunities in the combination of the social web and semantic technologies as well as in the context of mashups. An area that is also still largely unexplored is the area of advertisements in the context of semantic search.

ouroboros

This is huge for Twitter. As search becomes totally incorporated into the Twitter interface, the service will hit a critical inflection point. Search as its interface is the problem and the solution, and it's great to see the progress being made (yes, finally). Twitter people search.

As for why I am so all over search as key to Twitter, I've got a much longer post in me about that, but at the end of the day, it's way too hard to figure out how to make Twitter useful for "normal people" - IE those not in the ourosborosphere. Search will help solve that, and at the same time, create the inventory for TweetSense to emerge.

I'm going to review my predictions for 2008 this coming week. I just re read them. Very interesting. I'd love your thoughts. I am honored to see them as #1 in Google for "predictions 2008."

More here and here.

Given the comments happening down below on whether you all trust Google, Yahoo seems to be pretty nimble with this announcement:

Today, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO - News) announced a new global data retention policy that sets an industry-leading approach to user data privacy. This new policy strengthens Yahoo!’s relationship of trust with its 500 million users world-wide and enhances its longtime leadership on privacy.

Under the new policy, Yahoo! will anonymize user log data within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo! will also expand the policy to apply not only to search log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks.

Yep, that's what it looks like right now. Those of you who have never seen Twitter, ignore this.

I'd like to know: Do YOU trust Google? Let me know in the comments below.

Regardless, it's clear that citizens are realizing that Google has a lot of power. The worm inexorably turns.

Hence, this was predictable.

No, really. Check it out from Weisel (pdf download):

Estimate Changes: Since the end of 3Q the currency picture has added to an already volatile consumer situation. Specifically indexing 3Q at 100, 4Q results would be 92.7 just based on currency shifts alone. That coupled with a more muted consumer outlook causes us to lower our 4Q and 2009 estimates. For 2008, we are decreasing our net revenue estimate from $15.9bn to $15.7bn. We are decreasing our pro forma EBITDA estimate from $9.3bn to $9.2bn. We are also decreasing our pro forma EPS estimate from $19.50 to $19.19. This compares with 2008 consensus for net revenue, pro forma EBITDA and EPS of $15.8bn, $9.3bn and $19.41, respectively. For 2009, we are decreasing our net revenue estimate from $18.4bn to $17.8bn. We are decreasing our pro forma EBITDA estimate from $10.7bn to $10.4bn. We are also decreasing our pro forma EPS estimate from $21.00 to $20.75. This compares with 2009 consensus for net revenue, pro forma EBITDA and EPS of $18.4bn, $10.8bn and $21.72, respectively. We are decreasing our 12-month target for Google from $650 to $600.

Now, do you buy this? Clearly, you do not. Or Google would not be at 310.

Recall my interview with Vint Cerf, the guru who Google hired to champion net neutrality, among other things? Where he said this:

Here’s what (folks like Whitacre) are saying: “Well, we built this network and we can do anything we want with it. And by the way, the FCC has now essentially released us of any common carrier obligations we ever had, thank you very much, and so we can do whatever we want to and why don’t you just buzz off.”

That sort of grates a little bit. Gee, excuse me, but we don’t get a free ride at all. We spend an awful lot of money being connected to the public Internet backbone, in addition to which we pay a lot of money for our own Internet backbone that links all of our computer centers together at substantial capacity, which is necessary to do what we do.

Moreover, the subscriber has been told (by the telcos and cable ISPs) that if you pay for broadband service, you’ll get access to everywhere on the Internet. But then they’re saying, in the same breath or same paragraph anyway, “Well actually, it’s not quite like that because the places you’ll be able to get to in this broadband mode are only the ones that we’ve done business deals with. So well we’re going to shut out Google unless they pay or, you know, shut out eBay, or Amazon.”

And so this means that the subscriber’s choice has suddenly been circumscribed by what business model the people at these broadband service-providers have been able to invent. My view of their invention is that the business model seems very 20th century and very backwards looking.

Now read this from the WSJ, and this from Om. From the Journal piece:

Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.

At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same -- nobody is supposed to jump the line.

Oh. My.

Updated: Om says Google was not going to turn it's back on NN and the Journal was "confused."

I'm seriously considering not buying more Macs this season, as I usually do. Instead, I am thinking about buying PCs. I have a much longer post in my about why, but before I publish that rant, I want to ask a simple question of you all: Do you love or hate your PCs? Why?

PS - What I hear from my pals is that the machines are amazing these days, but the OS is really bad. True? False?

I first posited this back in January. The idea is back. From the Deal:

As the New York Times Co. is negotiating with lenders over its debt, speculation has been floating around the blogosphere, pushing the premise that Google Inc. should acquire the beleaguered Gray Lady. The thesis (or, rumor, as some would put it) has been around since the beginning of the year, with SpliceToday on Thursday reintroducing the idea of the unorthodox union of the stalwart of old media with the scion of new media.

I'm on my way to Boston and New York, very fast turnaround, but for breaking news, follow me on Twitter!

...maybe we can save our publishing butts with Kosmix.

In 1998 Google founder Sergey Brin offered fellow Stanford University PhD students Anand Rajarman and Venky Harinarayan the chance to buy Google for $1m (£675,000). They said no.

A year later, with Amazon's backing, Mr Rajarmand and Mr Harinarayan offered $300m. But Mr Brin, and Google co-founders Larry Page, refused to accept less than $1bn.

Today the Indian internet entrepreneurs have secured $20m of new funding from Time Warner for their own search site - Kosmix.

The meme is growing

Internet search, which has so far served as a dependable source of growth for online advertising, could possibly see its first-ever sequential decline in the first quarter of next year, according to a Wall Street analyst.
That in turn will be a likely drag on Google Inc.'s revenue, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said in a note to clients Monday.
Mahaney said that he's sensing "nervousness" about the first quarter of next year, which could mark "the first negative sequential growth quarter ever for search." .

All Adwords advertisers can now target iPhone and Android and all "full HTML" browers on phones.

Perhaps the best example of a company leveraging new media to turn nasty customer complaints into happy customer evangelists is Comcast. Yes, you read that right, Comcast. This nifty piece of conversational jujitsu has been accomplished in large part by Frank Eliason, better known by his handle @comcastcares on Twitter.

I've been following Frank's work on Twitter for a while, it seemed he was always listening to what folks were saying, and when folks (inevitably) ranted about Comcast service, he jumped in, and almost always seemed to fix the problem. Then it happened to me, in October, my service started acting deeply flaky, and I complained about it.

I quickly got a response, and when I moved to a new place last month, he helped again. Then just this weekend, my new Internet service started acting flaky again, and in ten minutes, Frank had assessed the problem and helped me fix it, calmly, intelligently, and in the grammar natural to social media.

I wanted to learn more about Frank and Comcast's efforts in this area, so I emailed him and asked if he'd do an interview. Below is the result. Thanks Frank!

So question one: How did you end up being Comcast's Twitter agent? Whose idea was it, and how long have you been doing it?

I started at Comcast back in September, 2007 managing a small service team. Starting on my 4th day we reached out to a few bloggers via phone after they made a post. Based on comments on the web, we were seeing success. Starting in December we started posting on a few blogs. This brought a new round of success. In February I was asked to create a team and make this a full time job. My title evolved to Director of Digital Care. Responsibilities included blogs, forums, and moderating our own help forums. At the time we started a daily newsletter. A VP from our Southwest Area, Scott Westerman (@ComcastScott on Twitter) responded one day in February that we should check out Twitter. We started watching it, reaching out via phone on occasion. In April we began to Tweet regularly.

The service we get in Twitter is superior, in my experience, to calling the support number. You quickly access the issue, you get things done - for example, sending a service rep out right away, or finding the right information to solve a problem. These things take forever and don't work very well in traditional channels. Can this scale past Twitter? Are senior execs at Comcast paying attention to what you are doing?

We are working hard to improve the overall experience for all our communication channels. We view social media as simply another communication channel similar to phone, email or chat. I thank you for the compliment regarding my service, but I do know others with in the phone and email channels that are much better than I. One of the ways we are making the improvement is through improved tools. One of the tools is something called Grand Slam. Now I have been using this tool for awhile. It makes everything much easier. We are in the process of rolling this out to everyone. You can think of it has a dashboard of the technical aspects of your service. Everything is in one place. It also provides other diagnostic tools that are a click away. As a good example, here is a blog post from this week on Crunchgear:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/01/truly-comcastic-service-for-real-this-time/

I know from experience this is from this tool. She was able to analyze the signals which were good, but then she ran a ping test and most likely a traceroute to the modem to determine that something was incorrect. Not only is this good for the Customer it is also good for our technicians so we are looking to make the corrections at the right area.

This effort to improve the service for our Customers stems right from the senior leadership of Comcast. They are dedicated to seeing this happen. In terms of the work of my team, they are very supportive and they have cited my team as examples of what we should all be striving to do for our Customers.

The folks on Twitter might be called "influencers" in the world of tech media and the web. How are they different from other folks you've helped? Have you noticed an "amplification" effect of helping them in terms of the Comcast brand?

We monitor the entire web to assist when we can. This is done through searching blogs, help forums, other social media websites and Twitter. In terms of how many we helped, that is a little hard to completely assess because in Twitter we sometimes fully resolve via tweets. In forums and blogs we will provide a response if we can but sometimes we will call or shift to email. Our email address (we_can_help@cable.comcast.com) also sees a lot of activity from people that have located it on the web. We have estimate that since the start of the year we have assisted over 10000 Customers. This is based on the amount of emails we have resolved, the number of tickets we have worked with other areas to resolve, and analysis of some of our tweets. Since actively tweeting I have had 19,895 public tweets and 5,925 private tweets. I also have over 5500 followers.

I really do not help anyone different whether it be a person on the street, someone who randomly sends an email, or those I meet on Twitter. What people see with me is what they get. There are a number of people on Twitter that like to blog and certainly share their life events. We have built relationships and we are a part of their life so we have seen 1 or 2 blog posts about our efforts. But I am a simple service guy, that is not my goal or objective. I just want to help if I can.

But you are a director, right? What did you do before Comcast? How many people do you manage?

I am Director of Digital Care. Today (I manage) 7, but I am in the process of hiring 3 additional.
Prior to joining Comcast I was a manager of Quality Assurance and Customer Satisfaction for a bank. 

Congrats on hiring in this economy! Would you be willing to answer questions in comments here?

Yes.

Thanks Frank!

I've decided to start linking to new stuff in search that gets sent to me again, but be forewarned - I won't be able to give it a full grokking. That said, a lot of new stuff has landed in my inbox, and it always bums me out to have to say "sorry guys I don't have time." So from now on, if something catches my eye, I'm going to link to it and give a (very) brief overview. If anyone out there wants to send me stuff, go right ahead, and know that whatever you mail to me I may borrow from to describe whatever it is you've built.

First up is Modista. It comes from Berkeley (GO BEARS) so perhaps that's what tipped it for me. From the email:

We are two computer science Ph.D. students at UC Berkeley, and we'd like to tell you about our project.
Modista applies visual search to online shopping, but it's very different from Like.com. We use the technology to enable product discovery, so users can browse huge inventories quickly and effectively. It fundamentally changes the user experience: rather than navigating text-based menus and scrolling through lists of results, you can simply rely on your visual intuition.

As we all know, our ability to sort massive amounts of information using our visual cortex far outstrips our ability to sort using textual analysis. I really like this tool, but the real test is whether my wife will!

Enough said.

A price target of 450! Wow, that's like way above where it is now. Wait, where are we, in 2004?! Check this note from UBS (can't link, bc banks are so 1991):

* Google highlights paid click growth and e-commerce activity

A recent post on the official Google Retail blog referenced some encouraging e-Commerce/paid click trends for the Black Friday through Cyber Monday period, both in terms of broader e-Commerce (cited from comScore) but also GOOG’s internally-tracked paid click growth for Cyber Monday in several key retail categories, many of which were up double-digits vs. the year ago period.

* GOOG paid click volumes up double digits y/y across key retail categories

According to the post, GOOG paid click volumes for Cyber Monday were up y/y in retail categories such as Department Stores (up 39%), Books & Magazines (up 28%), Comparison shopping (up 25%), Sports & Fitness (up 24%), Home Furnishings (up 14%), and Apparel (up 9%).

* Positive data (though it represents only one day)

It is not often that GOOG releases such data points, making it difficult to put this data into context. However, seeing key categories up 9-39% y/y is a positive, and indicates that consumers are still searching for retail products, deals and coupons. We remain cautious on the holiday/4Q outlook however (due in part to the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year), but it’s interesting to see GOOG releasing this type of data.

* Valuation: Maintain Buy rating, $450 Price Target

$450 target based on UBS VCAM DCF, and implies 21x our 2009 EPS estimate.

What the post does NOT say is that the post in question, which you can find here, used to have internal Google numbers, but they were redacted when someone at Google realized they were, well, perhaps giving away earnings for Q4. The post, which an astute reader capture before redaction, used to read:

This year’s Monday after Thanksgiving saw 2 million more consumers shopping online than Cyber Monday 2007, a 22% increase according to comScore. Consumers surfed, saw and shopped their way through the many discounts offered across the web representing a whopping 15% increase in spend over last year, the second heaviest online spending day ever! (comScore) Google paid click volume was also up, year over year, in categories like Department Stores (39%), Books & Magazines (28%), Comparison shopping (25%) and Sports & Fitness (24%). Even categories like Apparel (9%) and Home Furnishings (14%) were up. (Google Internal Data, Category Leaders)
If the Retail Pundits are right, the online holiday shop-a-thon will continue well into the Holiday Season.

I bolded the stuff that was redacted. Hmmmmmmmmmm......after some, er, Googling, I see SAI got this too...

Good insight from RWW on Yahoo Search plans:

Next year, Yahoo will introduce new technology to augment their Yahoo Search results: abstracts of key information alongside URLs. Instead of just offering a list of links, Yahoo's search results will include machine-extracted information that is relevant to the URL returned. Sound familiar? The technology is very much like SearchMonkey, except for one thing: this time the technology is being built in-house and not by independent third-party developers.

Reader RupertG writes: I'm not sure that there's a huge great wobbly lump of wondermoney
sitting at the end of the real-time web search rainbow

Continue reading "Reader RupertG Writes..." »

From American Lawyer:

Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. called off their joint advertising agreement just three hours before the Department of Justice planned to file antitrust charges to block the pact, according to the lawyer who would have been lead counsel for the government.

Whoever has ever had a Board as an entrepreneur should understand this: The US Government is now the board for huge swaths of the US economy. I watched the CEOs of the automakers today plead their case before the Senate, and man, it was like board meetings I've been to before...

Because, at the end of the day, Twitter shows the shift to the realtime web (Microsoft calls it "Live Search" and T'Rati called it the live web). And if Google doesn't own it, someone else will. More when, well, the holidays come, and I can write. Meantime, read the piece I referenced in the last post or the last tweet.

My post on the subject, while arguably arguable (yes, I know, I know, but it's better to just say it than let it stick in your craw) is up on the Looksmart Thought Leadership site (part of an FM program I am participating in). From it (this is just a portion):

I think Search is about to undergo an important evolution. It remains to be seen if this is punctuated equilibrium or a slow, constant process (it sort of feels like both), but the end result strikes me as extremely important: Very soon, we will be able to ask Search a very basic and extraordinarily important question that I can best summarize as this: What are people saying about (my query) right now?

When it first hit critical mass, it seemed Google answered this question. For the first time, you could ask a question in your native tongue, and get an answer. It felt immediate, but save for the speed with which the search results were rendered, it was not. Instead, it was archival - Google was the ultimate interface for stuff that had already been said - a while ago. When you queried Google, you got the popular wisdom - but only after it was uttered, edited into HTML format, published on the web, and then crawled and stored by Google's technology. True, that has sped up - Google indexes a lot of sites more than once a day now - but as it nears the event horizon, this approach to search won't scale.

In short, Google represents a remarkable achievement: the ability to query the static web. But it remains to be seen if it can shift into a new phase: querying the realtime web.

It's inarguable that the web is shifting into a new time axis. Blogging was the first real indication of this, but blogging, while much faster than the traditional HTML-driven web, is, in the end, still the HTML-driven web. To its credit, Technorati saw blogging as the vanguard of a shift to real time, and tried to become the first search engine for "the live web". It failed to gain critical mass, but I think the main reason was that the web was not yet "alive".

That is changing, rapidly. Yes, I'm thinking about Twitter, of course, which is quickly gaining critical mass as a conversation hub answering the question "what are you doing?" But I'm also thinking about ambient data more broadly, in particular as described by John Markoff's article (posted here). All of us are creating fountains of ambient data, from our phones, our web surfing, our offline purchasing, our interactions with tollbooths, you name it. Combine that ambient data (the imprint we leave on the digital world from our actions) with declarative data (what we proactively say we are doing right now) and you've got a major, delicious, wonderful, massive search problem, er, opportunity.

And with that search challenge comes an equally exciting monetization opportunity.

News from Microsoft:

Microsoft Appoints Dr. Qi Lu to Run Online Services Group
Yahoo! veteran to oversee Internet offerings for consumers, advertisers and publishers.

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 4, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Dr. Qi Lu will join the company as president of the Online Services Group. Dr. Lu will lead Microsoft’s efforts in search and online advertising and all the company’s online information and communications services. Dr. Lu will report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.
Lu most recently served as executive vice president of Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for development efforts around Yahoo!’s Web search and monetization platforms. Dr. Lu left Yahoo! in August 2008 after 10 years of service.
“I am tremendously excited to welcome Qi to Microsoft,” Ballmer said. “Dr. Lu’s deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities and hard-working mentality are well-known in the technology industry, and Microsoft will benefit from his addition to our executive management team.”

There is something so reassuring about seeing an emerging operating system play, based on Linux, that so blatantly declares its navigational interface to be search, specifically Google. gOS, which debuted early this year on a $199 PC sold at Walmart, announced Cloud earlier this week. I managed to miss it till now. More here and here.

If you can do this.

According to Comscore, the online commerce world did not have a Blue Monday. Spending on "Black Monday" was up 15% year on year.

However, spending is down year over year in November - by 2%.

Update: for Search driven sales stats, check out this detailed post from Rimm Kaufman. From it:

Honestly, before running these numbers, I expected to see far far far worse results.

While the online retail 2008 holiday season isn’t starting out strong, it also isn’t starting out as a total disaster either.

While we shouldn’t extrapolate too much from a single day, I’m viewing CyberMonday 2008 as promising start, a tidbit of positive news about online retail and perhaps in turn about our national economy.

From I Want Media today:

Now that's what I call a bear market.

Analyst Trip Chowdhry claims Google will shrink in annual revenues and profits, slash 10-15% of its workforce, and in the comments on Eric's post (which I link to above), one guy says Google is cutting its holiday Christmas party in the UK!

None of this sounds reasonable to me. The web will keep growing through this recession. So will Google. Not as fast, of course, but...this feels like the same kind of speculation that inflated the first dot com bubble - only inverted.

So finally we hear that we've been in a recession for an entire year. As I recall, this entire past year, we've been told we might be in one, but now, all of a sudden, we've already been in one for the past four quarters.

Last night I read the New Yorker's profile of Ben Bernanke, and while it certainly didn't help me sleep, in some odd way it reassured me. We are still in the shock phase of this crisis. At some point, we're going to learn how to live within it, and at some point past that, we're going to learn how to dig our way out. One thing I am entirely certain of: We will continue to push our use of this medium to communicate and learn and make our way through. And I feel good about being part of that conversation.

Sorry, but I say this every year: The top searches from the engines each year are so damn BORING!

Ask
Yahoo

How I wish these lists told us something we didn't already know!

Update: AOL (thanks Quayle)