John Battelle's Search Blog 2006

Good Point: Google’s Not so Good at “Selling.” Yet.

Gaynelle Grover, whose blog I've just begun to read, has a good point about Google Video Store and why folks are not so happy with it. In short, it's because it's called a store, but it doesn't act like a store. I agree. Stores have merchandising, special offers, architecture…

Gaynelle Grover, whose blog I’ve just begun to read, has a good point about Google Video Store and why folks are not so happy with it. In short, it’s because it’s called a store, but it doesn’t act like a store.

I agree. Stores have merchandising, special offers, architecture based on consumer flow. Stores are not driven by the principles of organic search. Stores are driven by the dollar, and so is search within stores. Consumers expect this, and put on a different lens when they know they are in a “store.” This is new to Google. But give the company time. I’d willing to bet it will figure this out, and quick.

UPDATE: This has also gotten me thinking about brand and product marketing, which is again, something Google does not really do (save B2B AdWords and a little B2B print). But if Google wants to play in music, books, video – all areas it is already playing in – it will have to market, and market well, the way that so far is has not had to.

10 Comments

Help Us With a Web 2 Tagline

This year will mark the third annual Web 2.0 conference. It's not till November (the 7th-9th in SF, for anyone marking their calendars), but it's never too early to start thinking about it, at least, if you're the program chair like I am. One thing we have to do…

This year will mark the third annual Web 2.0 conference. It’s not till November (the 7th-9th in SF, for anyone marking their calendars), but it’s never too early to start thinking about it, at least, if you’re the program chair like I am.

One thing we have to do is give the conference a tagline, sort of like a theme in four words or less. The first year, we declared “The Web Is a Platform.” That felt spot on, because the idea of the web as a place you could build on the work of others was a pretty new idea. Last year we tagged it “Revving the Web,” because it was all about the services and businesses and opportunities that arose from the Web – all of which taken together made the web more robust and more exciting.

This year Tim and I have been bouncing around some ideas, and I’d love your take on what you think is an overarching theme to the Internet business for the year to come.

62 Comments

On FAST

I've spent a bit of time in the past few weeks getting to know FAST Search and Transfer, the company that, prior to my recent conversations, I best knew as "that Norwegian company that sold alltheweb.com to Overture." As I wrote in my book and elsewhere on this site,…

I’ve spent a bit of time in the past few weeks getting to know FAST Search and Transfer, the company that, prior to my recent conversations, I best knew as “that Norwegian company that sold alltheweb.com to Overture.”

As I wrote in my book and elsewhere on this site, I’ve not exactly been a huge fan of enterprise search. Save my long diversion into WebFountain, I’ve pretty much focused on the consumer space. SEW’s Gary Price, on the other hand, has been declaring the importance of enterprise search, and in particular FAST, for a long time.

So when the folks at FAST called me and asked if I’d speak to them about their new products, and perhaps even come to their conference next month and give a talk, I thought it was high time I listened. I accepted their invitation and I spent some time on the phone with them recently. The result: I got smarter about FAST, and we also agreed to a partnership: FAST is marketing its event through my publishing company FM. I’m pleased that FAST is offering a discount to its conference for Searchblog readers – of nearly 30%, no less – because of that partnership. (I mention this because it’s my policy to disclose any dealings I might have with companies in Searchblog’s space. They are few and far between, and if they do happen, they happen because I personally believe in the quality of the company I’m working with, and on the condition that I disclose them here.)

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Links.

St. Lawrence of Google. In which the Economist catches up on what we've been talking about for some time. Keyword prices dip. Via SEW, more mainstream coverage of China and the Great Firewall. Congrats, Toni – leaving Yahoo for startup land… Kottke: Digg v. Slashdot New Zeitgeist page, now…

St. Lawrence of Google. In which the Economist catches up on what we’ve been talking about for some time.

Keyword prices dip.

Via SEW, more mainstream coverage of China and the Great Firewall.

MSFT Is Also In Local Ad Game

Thanks to a partnership with Superpages. (Also: MSFT looking to change the ad game with its new "adLab")….

Thanks to a partnership with Superpages.

(Also: MSFT looking to change the ad game with its new “adLab”).

3 Comments

The Politics Of A Search War

Great SEO Roundtable post, chronicling the apparent tit for tat between Google and MSFT with regard to Vista, IE 7, and search engine default settings. (Thanks Nacho!)…

Great SEO Roundtable post, chronicling the apparent tit for tat between Google and MSFT with regard to Vista, IE 7, and search engine default settings. (Thanks Nacho!)

1 Comment

And More Goog: Mobile Personal Homepage

Now here's something I just might start using right away, because, honestly, I hate my Treo, it promises so much, and delivers so little. Why? Because I am a mobile moron – it's too much work to make it work right. Might Google help me with this? We'll find…

Now here’s something I just might start using right away, because, honestly, I hate my Treo, it promises so much, and delivers so little. Why? Because I am a mobile moron – it’s too much work to make it work right. Might Google help me with this? We’ll find out. Google today announced the Google Personalized Home for mobile devices. Carlo has more here.

4 Comments

Two Goog Notes

Two Google notes: One, Google is testing local ads on Maps, Beal has the story. Second, have you all checked out how Google is doing music lately? Not bad, though you can't buy anything yet. I searched for "Orbital" and got this (a highly stylized, non web search interface)…

Two Google notes: One, Google is testing local ads on Maps, Beal has the story. Second, have you all checked out how Google is doing music lately? Not bad, though you can’t buy anything yet. I searched for “Orbital” and got this (a highly stylized, non web search interface) as my only result yesterday, though now it’s back to this (a standard one box interface). I rather like the interface.

3 Comments

Are You Seeing This?

Searchblog reader Brad Twohig, based in the midwest, is seeing a promotion for Google Video Store and Pack on the home page. He queries: "It would be one thing if they were using the NBA and CSI as a promo to get people to just use Google Video, but…

Searchblog reader Brad Twohig, based in the midwest, is seeing a promotion for Google Video Store and Pack on the home page. He queries: “It would be one thing if they were using the NBA and CSI as a promo to get people to just use Google Video, but it is paid content they are promoting and thus I view it as their first Homepage advertisement. It has no images like Yahoo’s but it is still a promotion for a VOD product.”

I don’t see this promotion here in California. Do others see it around the country and the world?

Update: One reader posits that this is a Mac thing. I bet that’s right.

20 Comments

Year: 2006

Good Point: Google’s Not so Good at “Selling.” Yet.

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Help Us With a Web 2 Tagline

Links.

MSFT Is Also In Local Ad Game

The Politics Of A Search War

And More Goog: Mobile Personal Homepage

Two Goog Notes

Are You Seeing This?

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