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Readers weigh in on the iPhone, search and Google Chrome OS

Written on
Jul 10, 2009 
Author
Edward Barrera  |
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Readers weigh in on the iPhone, search and Google Chrome OS

readers_small.jpgADOTAS — The early voting on our poll, “Would you switch to Google Chrome operating system from Windows?,” has “Absolutely. If Google makes it better, I’m gone” in the lead. Reader comments ranged from iPhone envy to one reader who recalls a  conversation with a clueless live Google body who told him “that the Robot was all knowing and perfect.”

Online advertising will grow as overall declines

Sue:

The growth is staggering and it continues. It’s logical that online advertising is growing so quickly since it is much more effective as you can target much more effectively. Whats more, not only can you target but you can provide accountability and measurable ROI. When you utilize Cost Per Action (CPA) programs like the one at Hydra, you literally get what you pay for. You only pay for your desired consumer action such as a sale, a lead, a form filled out, etc… Newspapers can not do that!”

AOL media future = TMZ

Roy Moskowitz:
“Tim Armstrong must improve AOL’s ad serving platform before charging more for the privilege of reaching its frustrated subscribers.

AOL bombards subscribers with lame rich media ads, such as dancing credit scores, that freeze even computers with 4 gigs of ram such as my own. Frozen computers have a negatively affect click through rates.

Tech support doesn’t understand the problem and senor management refuses to acknowledge it. They must be using a special non buggy AOL employees version of the software.”

Google Chrome operating system gambit

Roy Moskowitz:
“Google must provide customer service to ordinary users if it wants to market operating systems. It currently administers what I like to call customer non-service.

It’s not that Google has a bad customer service culture. The problem is that it has no customer service culture. Microsoft has a bad customer culture. But it at least exists.

Google will have to offer phone and email support, some it for free before people think about flocking to it for desk top use.

Google offers direct customer contact only in very rare situations (When you are spending at least 5 figures in advertising).

I’ve been setting Google to retrieve 100 results per page since it’s inception. Lately its randomly been reverting to the 10 result per page default, no matter how many time I reset my preferences. With Google there is no one I can call or email with my problem.

Recently, Google’s newspaper site search product refused to recognize quotes limiting searches to exact phrases. The newspaper in question’s interactive division was less than helpful and as a consumer I had no one to complain to at Google, which finally fixed the problem last week, after two months. I left several messages for the head of the group responsible for their site search product without any response before they finally solved the problem.

When I was buying key word advertising for a Democratic Congressional candidate in 06, the Google robot would jack up the bid price for terms like “DCCC” or Democratic fundraising organization “Emily’s List”, despite no one else bidding on them, citing relevancy. I was actually spending money, so I was able to get a live body, albeit a clueless live body. She told me that the Robot was all knowing and perfect and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was not a relevant term for a Democratic House candidate. The customer service person told me that there was no one to appeal the Robot’s nonsensical decisions to. I tried leaving messages with then Google marketing head Tim Armstrong, who is now the current AOL CEO. I never received a response. AOL’s customer service was often useless before Armstrong joined and I’m sure will only get worse under his regime.”

Can trust turn into online advertising dollars?

Emily Long:
“To be honest, I’m surprised that trust in customer opinions posted online is still so high. With all the fake blog and review sites out there, it would seem like consumers would finally realize that many advertisers are essentially making things up and posing as actual customers. Perhaps it is the negative opinions posted online that have a greater influence than the positive – those are much harder to ignore and more likely to be presumed as genuine.”

Search marketers will rule online advertising

Jeffrey DeArmond:
“In these adverse economic times keen Marketers are realizing that the Internet is the only place to get a clear / transparent Return on Investment. Search Engine Optimization is the best investment any business can make at this point. Consumers demand the robust tools and content only the Internet can provide for buying goods & services. It is safe to say that PPC is a tricky game because of click fraud and higher bid rates on keywords. I believe SEO will prevail over PPC as a marketing vehicle.
Jeffrey DeArmond
SEM Expert”

Jason Bradfield:
“I agree SEO is invaluable. Over time it’s value may weaken as search engines crack down on it more vigorously and as consumers become more suspicious. however, for great companies it will still be useful – these companies may appear on the second or third page w/o SEO, but with it they will appear first and because they are reasonably results consumers and engine won’t mind.

For companies not ideally suited for SEO it will be important to shift away from pure PPC models and toward paying for leads or actions or some combo of the two.”

FTC and behavioral targeting practices

Shane Lundy:
“I also believe that the industry must do a better job with self regulation regarding behavioral targeting. We believe that asking a user to select who gets to advertise to them is the tip of the behavioral targeting spear. My company, SponsorSelect, is a premium ad network that is reinventing behavioral targeting. Built atop a robust ad server that has already been deployed with numerous publishers, including Fandango, Demand Media and WeatherBug, SponsorSelect allows Internet users to choose the advertising they wish to see. We present SponsorSelect where consumers are already seeing natural breaks such as a pre roll in front of video or game content. We simply tell the user “This game is brought to you by BrandX or the sponsor you choose”. The user is not required to select and if they don’t, BrandX would be their sponsor in this example. The list of sponsors to choose from are sold by my company based on the site demographics and location of the user. We would like to eventually leverage contextual data sets when the privacy concerns around behavioral targeting subsides and best practices are implemented.

We have presented our solution to over 30mm unique users and have found two really important findings. 1) Consumers like having choice and control over the advertising they see as long as the right value exchange exist. 2) When consumers choose a sponsor they are more likely to buy. We call it On-Demand advertising and our goal is to eliminate media waste, reduce the amount of advertising consumers see and increase the availability of professional produced content for consumers.”

Amazon nixes Twitter, Facebook affiliate commission

Joshua Odmark:
“Edward,

You make a great about about the focus of Amazon.

It blows my mind that they haven’t openly addressed the social media issues.

It is a difficult problem, but they stand to make a lot of money if they find a solution. Not only do they, but so do affiliates.”

Affiliates can win in the media buy game

david sporn:
“Very informative article Erin! Media Buying is something I am trying to get into more and more, so I’m always looking for great resources and this is definitely one of them. Thanks for sharing!

Privacy, Shmivacy – Market to me, please

TD:
“Do you really think they’d mind …”

Well, Mr. Av-Ron, why don’t you ask them? You seem weak on the notion that privacy is about consent. When you guess at the motives and tolerance of your customers instead of asking them, you’re getting ahead of yourself — and them.

It further seems incredibly backward-minded to tell customers how they should behave in the face of your business, rather than you actually finding out what they want, and making that effort based around open communication and disclosure vs. a “do you think they’d mind?” mentality. Don’t guess. Do the work.

Privacy is not a monolithic concept, and the principles are not difficult to grasp. The least people in PR and business could do is learn a little more about how these things work, rather than deciding by decree that it’s time for lowly customers to simply abide by what they want.”

Shane Lundy:
“Uriah,
Glad to see that self targeting is now top of mind with you. I also believe that asking a user to select who gets to advertise to them is the tip of the behavioral targeting spear. My company, SponsorSelect, is a premium ad network that is reinventing behavioral targeting. Built atop a robust ad server that has already been deployed with numerous publishers, including Fandango, Demand Media and WeatherBug, SponsorSelect allows Internet users to choose the advertising they wish to see. It’s not a widget, we present SponsorSelect where consumers are already seeing natural breaks such as a pre roll in front of video or game content. We simply tell the user “This game is brought to you by Chevy (for example) or the sponsor you choose”. The user is not required to select and if they don’t, Chevy would be their sponsor in this example. The list of sponsors to choose from are sold by my company based on the site demographics and will eventually leverage contextual data sets when the privacy concerns around behavioral targeting subsides.
We have presented our solution to over 30mm unique users and have found two really important findings. 1) Consumers like having choice and control over the advertising they see as long as the right value exchange exist. 2) When consumers choose a sponsor they are more likely to buy. We call it On-Demand advertising and our goal is to eliminate media waste, reduce the amount of advertising consumers see and increase the availability of professional produced content for consumers.”

Uriah:
“TD — Thanks for taking the time to comment.

The premise I’m talking about in the ‘ThisIsWhatIWant’ widget is for people to volunteer what they want in order to receive better targeted advertising (for those products). Those who do not volunteer what the want will simply not be targeted in the manner.

Shane — Thanks for your comments, too!”

IPhone ties to AT&T could be rent asunder

Paul:
“Why not have the government involved? If I were AT&T I would do whatever it took to hold on to the iPhone, and control the terms of the agreement. The invisible hand doesn’t always help the consumer.”

IPhone Wannabe:
“I tjink that verizon is going to get the iPhone at the end of 2009. I have Verizon and in my area AT&T stinks and will always, apple could be making a lot of cash if they switch!!!!”





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