Month: March 2010

April Fools!

I was going to post… …That Twitter had been sold, for 1.75 billion, to Google (who would pay that, I'd reckon). …That MySpace had been sold, for 250 million, to Viacom (who would pay that, just to rub it into Murdoch's face). …That Google had announced it was only kidding…

I was going to post…

…That Twitter had been sold, for 1.75 billion, to Google (who would pay that, I’d reckon).

…That MySpace had been sold, for 250 million, to Viacom (who would pay that, just to rub it into Murdoch’s face).

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Why I Like Working With Marketers

Cross posted from the FM Blog: …For today’s Signal topic, I’d like to talk about marketing as a portal to understanding your business. Now, before you roll your eyes and click away, stick with me for a minute. If you’re reading this post, chances are you are in business. And…

Cross posted from the FM Blog:

…For today’s Signal topic, I’d like to talk about marketing as a portal to understanding your business.

Now, before you roll your eyes and click away, stick with me for a minute. If you’re reading this post, chances are you are in business. And chances are also pretty good that business is media or marketing, because that’s the focus of Signal, after all.

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Apple Won’t Build a (Web) Search Engine

…but it will build the equivalent of an app search engine. It's crazy not to. In fact, it has to. It already has app discovery via the iTunes store, but it's terrible, with no signal that gives reliable results based on accrued intent. What Apple needs is a search engine…

…but it will build the equivalent of an app search engine. It’s crazy not to. In fact, it has to. It already has app discovery via the iTunes store, but it’s terrible, with no signal that gives reliable results based on accrued intent.

What Apple needs is a search engine that “crawls” apps, app content, and app usage data, then surfaces recommendations as well as content . To do this, mobile apps will need to make their content available for Apple to crawl. And why wouldn’t you if you’re Yelp, for example? Or Facebook, for that matter? An index of apps+social signal+app content would be quite compelling.

What Apple will NOT do is crawl the entire web, which is what’s implied by this headline. Apple has already shown a general disdain for the open Internet, anyway, and I don’t see the company spending hundreds of millions of dollars in capital expense to play a game it can’t win anyway.

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Oh Looky! It’s Video of Bloody Jesus! (Nevermind the Facts)

(Image at left is how ABC News illustrated the story I'm criticizing. Really). Guys, you don't come here to hear me rant, do you? Do you? Especially on topics entirely orthogonal to my stated mission of "the intersection of search, media, and technology…and more." But then again, maybe this falls…

ht_shroud_of_turin_100326_mn.jpg(Image at left is how ABC News illustrated the story I’m criticizing. Really).

Guys, you don’t come here to hear me rant, do you? Do you? Especially on topics entirely orthogonal to my stated mission of “the intersection of search, media, and technology…and more.” But then again, maybe this falls into “and more.”

OK, so if you don’t want to hear me rant on about how simply awful network news, and in this case, ABC News, has gotten, move right along.

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The iPad Needs The Web, but the Web Does Not Need the iPad

Dale and others have made some good points on what would make the iPad a better development environment, in particular, Dale recalls HyperCard, which was Apple's version of a weblike development environment, before the Web existed. I covered HyperCard for MacWeek back in the late 80s and early 90s, and…

Dale and others have made some good points on what would make the iPad a better development environment, in particular, Dale recalls HyperCard, which was Apple’s version of a weblike development environment, before the Web existed. I covered HyperCard for MacWeek back in the late 80s and early 90s, and I also covered the CDROM market (remember that?).

Both are dead now, and the Web is king.

Dale writes:

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Toward a New Understanding of Publishing (Part 1)

This weekend I finished a the first draft of a new series on publishing, not unlike the three part series I wrote more than three years ago on conversational media. I've posted the draft over on the FM blog, as it's been FM that has inspired my thinking on these…

This weekend I finished a the first draft of a new series on publishing, not unlike the three part series I wrote more than three years ago on conversational media. I’ve posted the draft over on the FM blog, as it’s been FM that has inspired my thinking on these topics. From the post:

Ask most media professionals to define “publishing” and they’ll most likely resort to something akin to the standard dictionary entry: “The business of issuing printed matter.”

By that definition, publishing ain’t much of a growth business.

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You Say Debacle, I Say Debatable…

My daily Signal is up over at FM, in which I break down the Nestle dust up. From it:   Musing on the recent Nestle Facebook “debacle” (which I do not believe is, or needs to be proclaimed a debacle), Joshua-Michéle concludes: If Nestle neither wishes to change or defend itself…

nestle logo US.pngMy daily Signal is up over at FM, in which I break down the Nestle dust up. From it:  

Musing on the recent Nestle Facebook “debacle” (which I do not believe is, or needs to be proclaimed a debacle), Joshua-Michéle concludes: If Nestle neither wishes to change or defend itself on the merits – then they shouldn’t be operating in social media.

Well, yes and no. Yes, in that the sheer beauty of social media is that it forces questions to the fore, and thus forces companies to respond to those questions. But no, it’s not OK, as a strategy, to “not be operating in social media.” I sense, perhaps, that Joshua-Michéle was making the same point in a roundabout way.

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Google’s New “Search Funnels” Belies What Google Really Knows…

Google today introduced a "Search Funnels" feature for its AdWords clients, a feature that will help serious advertisers tune their AdWords campaigns for increased conversion and profitability. For a very good overview of the service, head to SEL. It's clear Google put a lot of thought into how this new…

Google today introduced a “Search Funnels” feature for its AdWords clients, a feature that will help serious advertisers tune their AdWords campaigns for increased conversion and profitability. For a very good overview of the service, head to SEL.

It’s clear Google put a lot of thought into how this new feature would be exposed, both in terms of a searcher’s privacy, and how an advertiser might use the new data. It’s clearly limited, and for good reasons.

But what Funnels belies is a more fundamental truth: Google itself has access to all the conversion patterns surfaced by this feature, and more. In the SEL article, Barry Schwartz notes:

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Google v. China? No, It’s Bigger Than That

Yesterday a crew ambled into my FM offices from ABC News, setting up quite an array of lights and equipment to shoot an interview. The topic was Google and China. Now, I'm a veteran of these situations, as is my staff, and fortunately the commotion was limited to my…

Screen shot 2010-03-24 at 9.33.21 AM.png

Yesterday a crew ambled into my FM offices from ABC News, setting up quite an array of lights and equipment to shoot an interview. The topic was Google and China. Now, I’m a veteran of these situations, as is my staff, and fortunately the commotion was limited to my office, and the 45 minutes or so of set up happened while many of us were in a meeting.  

When they were ready, I sat down for the conversation and enjoyed my talk with the producer, who was piped in via mobile phone. We talked about many of the nuanced issues involved in this particular story. The crew in the room with me also seemed keen to have an informed dialog. I sensed the piece would be pretty intelligent.

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My Location Is A Box of Cereal

My latest Signal is up over at the FM blog. I had a fun day. From it:   …As readers know, I’ve declared the “check-in” as the latest field in the Database of Intentions. “Where I am” is a powerful signal, in particular if where you are is a local business…

sbits.pngMy latest Signal is up over at the FM blog. I had a fun day. From it:  

…As readers know, I’ve declared the “check-in” as the latest field in the Database of Intentions. “Where I am” is a powerful signal, in particular if where you are is a local business that might answer that signal with an offer that engenders loyalty, purchase, or both.

But I’m starting to think that we need to expand the concept of location to more than physical spaces. Why can’t I check-in to a website? An article? A state of mind? An emotion? Or…an object?

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