Category: Site Related

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I know I've been a bit quiet here on Searchblog of late, and I've promised that will change shortly, as I ramp up on the new book. But one faction of Searchblog has not been quiet: the comment spammers. So I am turning comments off for a while, in the…

I know I’ve been a bit quiet here on Searchblog of late, and I’ve promised that will change shortly, as I ramp up on the new book. But one faction of Searchblog has not been quiet: the comment spammers. So I am turning comments off for a while, in the hopes it will make the spammers go elsewhere for a bit. I’ll be redesigning the site over the summer, moving it from this antiquated (and pretty much abandoned) Moveable Type codebase to WordPress, and doing a number of other key upgrades. I’ll turn comments on again soon, but for a while, things will be quiet here. Sorry about that, but that’s the Internet, it takes advantage of weaknesses. And right now, Moveable Type’s spam blocking is terrible.

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Wanted: Write Hand

I'm looking for someone with whom to work on my next book project, What We Hath Wrought. The person I'm looking for is probably impossible to find, but I'm going to try anyway. Why impossible? Because I haven't met someone like the person I'm imagining, at least not in the…

GeorgeHarding.jpegI’m looking for someone with whom to work on my next book project, What We Hath Wrought. The person I’m looking for is probably impossible to find, but I’m going to try anyway. Why impossible? Because I haven’t met someone like the person I’m imagining, at least not in the right context.

Back when I needed a partner to help me get FM off the ground, I wrote a post looking for an office manager/person friday. I spoke of how I needed someone just like Stacey, who now runs conferences for FM. Out of the blue nowhere I found Jennifer, who is now our Chief of Staff. I never thought I’d find someone like her, but the web found a way. It’s my hope lightening might strike twice.

The person I’m looking for loves the practice of writing. He or she loves complicated but fascinating topics, loves to figure out how to understand them, and loves explaining those topics with words. This is a core skill, and whoever I work with has to have it. Not because I intend to co-write the book with this person (I don’t), but because having this skill means you’ve cleared a hurdle to working with me on this project. In other words, non writers need not apply.

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What We Hath Wrought: The Book

(Image: Samuel Morse, source Wikipedia) Sometime today the following blurb was sent to the book publishing trade press: Author of The Search, co-founder of Wired, founder of Federated Media, Inc., and Executive Producer of the Web 2.0 Summit, John Battelle’s WHAT WE HATH WROUGHT will give us a forecast of…

(Image: Samuel Morse, source Wikipedia) File:SamuelMorse.jpeg

Sometime today the following blurb was sent to the book publishing trade press:

Author of The Search, co-founder of Wired, founder of Federated Media, Inc., and Executive Producer of the Web 2.0 Summit, John Battelle’s WHAT WE HATH WROUGHT will give us a forecast of the interconnected world in 2040, then work backwards to explain how the personal, economic, political, and technological strands of this human narrative have evolved from the pivotal moment in which we find ourselves now. Based on thorough analysis and hundreds of interviews with political, technological, and cultural leaders, as well as a deep understanding of this story’s colorful history, Battelle will work with Dominick Anfuso and Hilary Redmon at Free Press (World) and Esther Newberg at ICM to bring this visionary tale to life. The book is scheduled to arrive in early 2013.

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Facebook’s Carolyn Everson: “We’re one percent done on our ad products.”

When Facebook announced it had convinced Carolyn Everson to leave Microsoft to head sales at the pre-IPO social networking giant, a few eyebrows lifted: Everson had only been at Microsoft for nine months, and was recruited there by CEO Steve Ballmer after he watched her work to integrate an…

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When Facebook announced it had convinced Carolyn Everson to leave Microsoft to head sales at the pre-IPO social networking giant, a few eyebrows lifted: Everson had only been at Microsoft for nine months, and was recruited there by CEO Steve Ballmer after he watched her work to integrate an important deal between Microsoft and MTV, where she previously worked.

While Microsoft could not have been pleased it lost a key sales executive, at least Everson was going to a friend of sorts: Microsoft owns a chunk of Facebook stock, and has been busy leveraging Facebook data into its upstart search engine Bing.

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Visa CMO Antonio Lucio: Our Business Is Digital, Period

If you Google "Antonio Lucio CMO Visa", as I did in preparation for my conversation with him next week at CM Summit, the first several links which show up are headlined : "Google Hater – Visa CMO Antonio Lucio Slams Giant." The headline isn't really reflective of Lucio's views…

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If you Google “Antonio Lucio CMO Visa”, as I did in preparation for my conversation with him next week at CM Summit, the first several links which show up are headlined : “Google Hater – Visa CMO Antonio Lucio Slams Giant.”

The headline isn’t really reflective of Lucio’s views on Google, but there you have it. For most casual observers, Lucio is a firebrand calling out the largest force in digital marketing today.

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The in.imit.able will.i.am: Embracing Brand As An Artist

Next week will mark the third time in one year that I've interviewed Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am on stage, and each time it's gotten better. If you're coming to CM Summit, you're in for a treat. Will is in New York for a benefit concert in Central Park,…

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Next week will mark the third time in one year that I’ve interviewed Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am on stage, and each time it’s gotten better. If you’re coming to CM Summit, you’re in for a treat. Will is in New York for a benefit concert in Central Park, and he’s stopping by to chat with us along the way.

I’ve found will.i.am to be a rare bird – a massively successful commercial artist who embraces brands and marketing as part of his work, instead of a distraction from his work. He reminds me of another William – William Gibson, an author who natively embraces marketing as part of a narrative, finding signal in the work of branding, rather than noise. And no one can argue with Will’s street cred, his philanthropic work is a model for all celebrities. Not to mention, the dude is director of innovation at Intel. Intel!

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Google’s Neal Mohan: A $200 Billion Opportunity

Several years ago, Google's top executives clearly realized they needed to create growth engines beyond search. As they looked for new opportunities, two stood out: first, the shift from the PC web to mobile, and second, the rise of "intelligent display" – advertising that works at the brand level, and…

neal-mohan.jpgSeveral years ago, Google’s top executives clearly realized they needed to create growth engines beyond search. As they looked for new opportunities, two stood out: first, the shift from the PC web to mobile, and second, the rise of “intelligent display” – advertising that works at the brand level, and not just lead-generation and demand fulfillment, which is where search has always ruled.

The moves the company subsequently made have both paid off. First, Google acquired Android and then AdMob. And second, it acquired Doubleclick, and began in earnest to build out (and buy) a display network that moved AdSense from a secondary remnant network to a first-order premium display platform. The two are clearly connected.

At the IAB conference earlier this year, then Google CEO (now Executive Chairman) Eric Schmidt declared that the Internet display market would reach $200 billion. Yep, that’s two hundred billion dollars. Eric didn’t give a ton of details about how that number might be achieved, but he did mention the core obstacles to reaching it: making digital as efficient and as easy to buy as television. Right now, it’s not.

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Reimagining Yahoo!: Chief Product Officer Blake Irving

Yahoo! It's our industry's favorite puzzle. On the one hand, it's one of the largest sites on the web, on the same size and scale as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. On the other hand, it's not growing very quickly, revenues are flat, and investors have been calling for CEO…

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Yahoo! It’s our industry’s favorite puzzle. On the one hand, it’s one of the largest sites on the web, on the same size and scale as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. On the other hand, it’s not growing very quickly, revenues are flat, and investors have been calling for CEO Carol Bartz’s head with increasing regularity. The company has failed to find a “hit” that redefines its value proposition in a world driven by hits like Twitter, Foursquare, and Flipboard. What’s a nearly two-decade old industry legend to do?

Well, bring in fresh blood, for one. The company recently hired Ross Levinsohn, formerly of Fox, to lead North America. Prior to that, it hired Blake Irving, formerly of Microsoft, to lead product. I’ve spent time with both in the past month, and one thing is for sure: They’re singing from the same song sheet. Both men are energized by the chance to leverage the Yahoo platform, and both are realistic as well – it won’t be easy, and it won’t come fast.

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Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain Declares Interdependence: The Internet Is Changing How We Think

One of the curveball sessions I'm most looking forward to at next week's CM Summit is with filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, whose recent documentary features "Connected" was selected for inclusion at Sundance (and many other prestigious festivals.) Today I jumped on the phone with Shlain, who has been a fellow traveler…

tiffany.jpgOne of the curveball sessions I’m most looking forward to at next week’s CM Summit is with filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, whose recent documentary features “Connected” was selected for inclusion at Sundance (and many other prestigious festivals.) Today I jumped on the phone with Shlain, who has been a fellow traveler since the days when I started The Industry Standard and she founded The Webbys. We’ve both moved on from those heady days, but find our work is once again interconnecting – “Connected” is an essentially optimistic but cautious story of Tiffany’s own life, work, and passions, in particular as it relates to her relationship with her father, a renown physician and author who spent much of his life searching for patterns in human behavior which transcended traditional boundaries of academic pursuit.

In short, the film is a call for all of us to move past our current frame of thinking, and to leverage the moment we are in to embrace a new philosophy – that of interdependence. The axis of this movement is the Internet, Shlain argues, and we have it within our grasp to leverage digital networks to solve the extraordinary problems we’ve collectively created through, well, collective creation.

Shlain was in a good mood as we began our conversation – she had recently learned her film had been picked up for national theatrical distribution in the Fall. That’s a big deal for a committed independent filmmaker, to be certain, but it’s also something of a quandry – theatrical distribution is “how films are normally done” and Shlain has plenty of unique ideas about how to get her work out into the world.

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The Colorful Bill Nguyen: The Market Will Come

In preparation for our short onstage discussion at CM Summit next week, I recently hopped on the phone with Color founder and CEO Bill Nguyen. Color, ostensibly a social-photo app, is backed by big money and saddled with huge expectations. It launched with great fanfare in March. I wrote glowingly…

Bill_Nguyen_headshot_png_100x100_sharpen_q100.jpgIn preparation for our short onstage discussion at CM Summit next week, I recently hopped on the phone with Color founder and CEO Bill Nguyen. Color, ostensibly a social-photo app, is backed by big money and saddled with huge expectations. It launched with great fanfare in March. I wrote glowingly of its potential here. I got a fair amount of sh*t for being too rosy in my estimation of the service’s potential. By April, Color had been written off as a failed effort by much of the blogosphere, and folks moved on to the next shiny object.

None of this seems to bother Nguyen, who’s been around the block a few times more than your average startup bear. He sees a wave rising in the distance, and he’s building Color to ride it. Whether or not others see the wave is not particularly interesting to him. As far as he’s concerned, it’s coming. Folks will get on board when the time is right.

So what is the wave? It’s a pivot in the fundamental organizing principle of how social networks work. He wants to move social past the friend network. Nguyen is certain that Facebook, for all its power, is stuck in a limited model – a poorly instrumented friend graph that you set up once, then run forever. I’ve called this the “instrumentation problem” of Facebook – it simply does not allow the nuance of true social interaction.

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